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GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXI.      November, 1842      No. 5.

Contents

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

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXI.    PHILADELPHIA: NOVEMBER, 1842.    No. 5.

———

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

———

(Concluded from page 180.)

ACT THE THIRD.

Scene II.—The public square of El Pardillo. The Ave Maria still tolling. A crowd of villagers, with their hats in their hands, as if in prayer. In front a group of Gipsies. The bell rings a merrier peel. A Gipsy dance. Enter Pancho, followed by Pedro Crespo.

Chis. Halloo! the post-house! Let us have horses! and quickly. Alas, poor Chispa! what a dog’s life dost thou lead! I thought when I left my old master Victorian, the student, to serve my new master Don Carlos, the gentleman, that I too should lead the life of a gentleman; should go to bed early, and get up late. But in running away from the thunder I have run into the lightning. Here I am in hot chase after my old master and his gipsy girl. And a good beginning of the week it is, as he said who was hanged on Monday morning.

(Enter Don Carlos.)

Don C. Are not the horses ready yet?

Chis. I should think not, for the hostler seems to be asleep. Ho! within there! Horses! horses! horses!

(He knocks at the gate with his whip, and enter Mosquito, putting on his jacket.)

Mos. Pray have a little patience. I’m not a musket.

Chis. I’m glad to see you come on dancing, padre! Pray, what’s the news?

Mos. You cannot have fresh horses; because there are none.

Chis. Cachiporra! Throw that bone to another dog. Do I look like your aunt?

Mos. No; she has a beard.

Chis. Go to! go to!

Mos. Are you from Madrid?

Chis. Yes; and going to Estramadura. Get us horses.

Mos. What’s the news at court?

Chis. Why, the latest news is that I am going to set up a coach, and, as you see, I have already bought the whip. (Strikes him round the legs.)

Mos. Oh! oh! you hurt me!

Don C. Enough of this folly. Let us have horses. (Gives money to Mosquito.) It is almost dark; and we are in haste. But tell me, has a band of gipsies passed this way of late?

Mos. Yes; and they are still in the neighborhood.

Don C. And where?

Mos. Across the fields yonder, in the woods near El Pardillo.      [Exit.

Don C. Now this is lucky. We’ll turn aside and visit the gipsy camp.

Chis. Are you not afraid of the evil eye? Have you a stag’s horn with you?

Don C. Fear not. We will pass the night at the village.

Chis. And sleep like the squires of Hernan Daza, nine under one blanket.

Don C. I hope we may find the Preciosa among them.

Chis. Among the squires?

Don C. No; among the gipsies, blockhead!

Chis. I hope we may; for we are giving ourselves trouble enough on her account. Don’t you think so? However, there is no catching trout without wetting one’s trowsers. Yonder come the horses.      [Exeunt.

First Gip. (playing.) Down with your John-Dorados, my pigeon. Down with your John-Dorados, and let us make an end.

Gipsies at the forge sing.

First Gip. (playing.) There you are in your morocco!

Second Gip. One more game. The alcalde’s doves against the Padre Cura’s new moon.

First Gip. Have at you, Chirelin.

Gipsies at the forge sing.

(Enter Beltran Cruzado.)

Cruz. Come hither, Murcigalleros and Rostilleros; leave work, leave play; listen to your orders for the night. (Speaking to the right.) You will get you to the village, mark you, by the Cross of Espalmado.

Gip. Aye!

Cruz. (to the left.) And you, by the pole with the hermit’s head upon it.

Gip. Aye!

Cruz. As soon as you see the planets are out, in with you, and be busy with the ten commandments, under the sly, and Saint Martin asleep. D’ye hear?

Gip. Aye!

Cruz. Keep your lanterns open, and if you see a goblin or a papagage, take to your trampers. Vineyards and Dancing John is the word. Am I comprehended?

Gip. Aye! aye!

Cruz. Away, then!

(Exeunt severally. Cruzado walks up the stage, and disappears among the trees. Enter Preciosa.)

NOTES.

Act II. Scene I.—Busné, or gentiles, is the name given by the gipsies to all who are not of their race. Calés is the name they give themselves.

Act III. Scene V.—The scraps of song in this scene are from Borrow’s “Zincali; or an Account of the Gipsies in Spain.”

The gipsy words in the same scene may be thus interpreted:

———

BY ROBERT MORRIS.

———

A TALE OF RICHELIEU.

———

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

———

(Continued from page 175.)

CHAPTER V.

Next morning, at the usual hour, Marguerite was at the door of the Conciergerie.

The thread of affairs had become so intricate—matters that she felt at liberty to explain to her father, and other circumstances, which regard for the page’s safety forbade disclosing—that, for the first time in her life, she felt ill at ease in his presence. She was conscious of being, to a certain degree, culpable—the unreserved confidence hitherto subsisting between father and daughter was no more—there was reservation, and it produced distress, regret, and confusion.

Still she was true to her own intent. She had made a deliberate resolve of secrecy when her mind was calm and free to judge, and she would not break it when in a state of fluttering and depression. The veteran was delighted with the progress in his affairs—there was yet some chance, he said, of his being able to make provision for a dutiful daughter—some temporal solace for old age.

Leaving him after a short visit—for, in truth, she felt much of what he said as a secret reproach—Marguerite hastened to the advocate.

“The packet is deposited in sure hands—and not at the Tuileries, Monsieur Giraud!” was her salutation.

“And half an hour hence will see me at the Hôtel De Fontrailles,” replied the party addressed.

“But I dread the peril you incur, Monsieur,” rejoined the damsel; “is there no”⁠—

“Has Marguerite done her duty?” demanded Giraud, interrupting her.

“I have,” exclaimed the lady, firmly.

“Then have no fear for the advocate,” said her friend, relaxing the piercing gaze he bent on the maiden.

Let us accompany Giraud. Donning hat—plain and featherless—tying a black mantle round his throat, and, with cane in hand—for he was a gentleman of the robe, not of the sword, and bore no weapon—he sallied forth, walking with deliberate air, till he reached a gloomy mansion in the Rue D’Orleans.

The gate or porte-cochère was opened to his knock by the ever ready porter, and he stood beneath the archway. The count had not yet gone abroad, and would doubtless see him—the name was carried to Monseigneur, and the lackey returned to usher the visiter. A spacious staircase of polished chesnut-wood, so slippery that the advocate had much ado to keep footing, led to a vestibule whence doors opened into various chambers. Passing through an ante-chamber into a saloon, he was at length conducted to the library of the Hôtel De Fontrailles.

The folios stood ranged in goodly rows, but the taste of the noble owner appeared more conspicuously in the abundance of maps, charts, plans of cities, models of European fortresses, and arms and armor. A large gothic arched window at the extremity afforded light to the chamber, and looked over a paved yard in the rear of the hôtel.

Fontrailles was seated at a table, his back toward the window. Robed in a loose gown, surrounded with papers, books, opened letters, and others tied with tape, among which had been negligently thrown his walking rapier; the courtier and diplomatist was more apparent in the occupation, than the gambler, gallant, and active political intriguer. The count might have attained forty years, perhaps more. The long dark face and prominent features, softened by the shade in which he sat, were far from unpleasing. In repose, the face might be reckoned handsome, certainly dignified.

A silent gesture to the advocate to take the seat which the lackey placed at the opposite end of the table, and who, upon doing so, immediately quitted the chamber—left the parties alone. The count waited in silence the business of the visiter, who announced himself as Etienne Giraud, avocat du parlement, friend and kinsman of Monsieur De Pontis, confined in the Conciergerie du Palais, and engaged in defending him against two suits now before the courts.

The count indicated by a slight motion that he was an attentive listener—then added, after a moment’s pause⁠—

“I am not ignorant of Monsieur Giraud’s merits, but I believe he has mistaken my hôtel for that of the President Longueil, the third porte-cochère beyond.”

“I have the honor to address the Count De Fontrailles?” replied the advocate in a tone of inquiry.

“I was at a loss to account for Monsieur connecting me with suits in the courts of parliament!” rejoined the count, smiling, “but I pray him to proceed.”

Giraud detailed concisely the history of De Pontis—his uniform ill luck, the present desperate situation of his affairs, and the probable destitution of Mademoiselle. Fontrailles replied that the case was distressing, but, like every other case of such description, it had originated in culpable negligence. De Pontis was so eager to avail himself of the fruits of the droit, that he had commenced appropriating the effects ere the necessary legal forms had been gone through—ere, indeed, it could be ascertained whether the deceased died a wealthy man or a bankrupt.

“But why make my ear the receptacle of Monsieur De Pontis’ calamities—I whom, I believe, he has never exchanged a word with,” asked the count, in astonishment, “and who am neither the organ of grace or justice?”

“It is to crave the intercession of Monseigneur with one who is the organ of both—to crave the intercession of the Count De Fontrailles with his eminence to cancel the penal proceedings, being, at best, a prosecution for the mere omission of a legal form which an old soldier could know nothing of,” replied the advocate.

“This pleading, Monsieur Giraud,” said Fontrailles, impatiently, “may prove effective in the proper quarters, but on me it is lost. I believe you mean well, but zeal in the cause of a friend has made you overlook the ordinary usages of society, in forcing the veteran’s tale of error and distress on a stranger. I, therefore, am calmer than I might be—indeed, may remind you that, being principally employed on foreign services, and indulging, unavoidably, in some of the irregularities of those whom it falls to my duty to have affairs with, I have not perhaps that personal weight and consideration with his majesty and with his court, which attends the grave and quiet discharge of offices of trust and responsibility in Paris and the Provinces. Mine has been a life of peril, though not of military warfare—danger has often beset me in foreign lands—but here, in Paris, my services are overlooked, and the disorders incident to a life of travel commented on. It is Monsieur’s zeal for De Pontis, which I admire, that wrings this confession from me—and I would recommend his application to the Tuileries, or the Palais Cardinal, or, if he be seeking a patron for his client, to some personage of more austere and reverential course of life than his humble servant.”

So speaking, the count rose with an air which implied that the interview should here terminate. The advocate could not but be surprised with the language and manner assumed by the dissolute, turbulent noble—his affected candor and sincerity—which he had doubtless acquired by intercourse with foreign courts—a varnish to the vices which disgraced his character.

Notwithstanding, however, this nonchalance, and professed ignorance of the affairs of De Pontis, there was that in his discourse which encouraged the advocate to persevere. His affectation of candor—the confession wrung from him!—rather overshot the mark, and betrayed weakness. Fontrailles was not the man to suffer any thing to be wrung from him; and the plea of want of personal weight and character, a mere mask. But wherefore interpose a mask, if there were nothing to conceal?

’Tis the most difficult part of simulation to refrain from covert defence of an act, of which the party may be acutely self-conscious, but desirous of concealing. With a shrewd, subtle, penetrating adversary—such for instance as Giraud—it defeats the very object, to aid which it is evoked. In the mild, moderate language of the count, the advocate felt that he was speaking in a falsetto key—that the sentiments were foreign to his natural character; and there was not, or ought not to be, any necessity for extreme complaisance, and disguise of feeling, with one of the comparative humbleness of the auditor.

Giraud arose from his seat in unison with the count’s movement, but had no intention of taking leave.

“It is reported,” said he, “that Monseigneur is interested in the droit d’aubaine for which Monsieur De Pontis holds the sign-manual, which may, perhaps, furnish a better argument than I have yet advanced for my appeal.”

“I know of no such report!” exclaimed the count, in a stern voice, “evil news flies quick, and had such been current, I have too many friends, glad of an opportunity to retail the slander, that they might watch its effect. But I must retract the high opinion I had of Monsieur Giraud, in carrying these fools’ messages—perhaps inventing. But we had better part, sir, ere I have reason to suspect worse of your motives.”

With these words, the count approached the table and rang a silver bell, a signal to the lackey in attendance to conduct the visiter to the gate.

“I have that to say, Monsieur le Comte, which it were better your household should not hear,” said the advocate, retaining his place.

“Ah! has it come to that?” exclaimed Fontrailles, darting a glance of anger; “so, the pleader threatens! Like the Spanish mendicant, he first solicits alms, and when refused, points the fusil which he had concealed in the grass.”

The lackey here entered in obedience to the summons, but the count motioned him to retire.

The advocate remarked in reply, that, as Monseigneur seemed bent on retaining his vantage-ground of professed ignorance of any special knowledge of the affairs of his client—and disclaimed the report respecting the droit d’aubaine—it became necessary that he should inform the count that an individual, one Pedro Olivera, whom he believed was not unknown to Monseigneur, had, like his superiors, occasion for more money than he could legitimately obtain, and that, often borrowing of his deceased countryman, the Spaniard, without the power or will of refunding, he was at length reduced, in efforts to obtain further supplies, to place in the hands of his rich friend, what was deemed good security, although of a strange character. He professed to have certain unsettled claims on the Count De Fontrailles for services of espionage, and holding intercourse with underlings of the ministerial bureau in Madrid. From his showing, it appeared that he had been the medium of a negotiation between the Spanish ministry and the count. For this service Fontrailles had not yet bestowed an equivalent, alleging the urgency of his own necessities; but, in one instance, certainly an unguarded one, he had given Pedro an authority in writing to appropriate to himself a certain portion of a sum of money, receivable at the bureau, in Madrid, and to be handed the count. Pedro, however, was unlucky, for, on application, he was informed that satisfaction had been afforded Fontrailles in person. He felt that this conduct of his patron was unhandsome—hence, perhaps, the betrayal of the count’s secrets—there was no proof, indeed, that the money had been paid Monseigneur—but the authority of Pedro to appropriate a portion of what he should receive, was still in existence in the count’s handwriting.

Pedro, as before intimated, having drawn all he could obtain by ordinary means from the deceased, inscribed a formal claim on the count for the heretofore named services, which he specially enumerated, and in which he made reference to the count’s authorization appended to the statement. The deceased upholsterer saw in this document, not only a security for the money owing by Pedro, but also a collateral guarantee for the refunding of what Fontrailles, who was also heavily his debtor, owed him.

In short, added Giraud, the evidence appeared clearly to convict the Count De Fontrailles of receiving money from Spain. The papers came into the possession of Monsieur De Pontis, and were by him handed to the advocate.

It would have baffled the painter’s art to have depicted the changing aspects which dwelt for awhile, and then fled the countenance of the noble. One minute listening attentively—the next he appeared lost in abstraction, or meditating some course of action—then starting up suddenly with menacing looks, the features took such a semblance, that his most intimate friend could not have indentified the face as belonging to the Count De Fontrailles.

“And this cunning cheat of forgery—this deep laid villany,” exclaimed the favorite of Richelieu, “what if I were so weak as to quail beneath it? What would the worthy, zealous, Monsieur Giraud require of me?”

“That the Count De Fontrailles cause Pedro Olivera to relinquish his fabricated claim—prevail on the cardinal to cancel the procureur’s proceedings, and leave the poor veteran in possession of the droit d’aubaine,” replied the undaunted advocate.

“A moderate request,” gasped the count, with suppressed rage, “what, give up all?”

“I knew not, so far as his own declaration went,” said Giraud, calmly, “that there was any thing for Monseigneur to give up. Unlike his friends, Pedro, and the deceased, we do not make the possession of these documents a pretext of extortion to be held over his head in terrorem—we ask of the count not the slightest pecuniary sacrifice, not a livre—we ask him merely to use his intercession, to act the honorable and coveted part of an interceder for mercy between justice and an innocent defendant. Such conduct will go far to lend the count that personal weight and respectability of character which he so much feels the want of.”

“Liar! It is false!” shouted the bitterly enraged noble, rushing upon the advocate. Seizing him by the throat, he bent his body over the table, depriving the victim both of power of speech and motion. “It is false, old dotard!” continued Fontrailles, without relaxing his grasp, “thou believest the droit is mine—and wouldst have me surrender it to gratify thy paltry pride. I have sweet revenge in store, or thou shouldst never have the chance of coining fresh lies!”

Being a powerful man, he was enabled to hold the advocate, prostrate and gasping for breath, with the right hand on his throat, whilst his left searched for the hand bell, which he rung violently. On the lackey entering, he commanded the attendance of Eugene and Robert, both armed, and to come without delay. Poor Giraud was nearly choked, and his back almost broken by the torturing position in which he was pinned to the library-table; nor did the count afford a moment’s respite till his creatures arrived armed to the teeth.

“Stand guard over the wretch,” cried Fontrailles, quitting his victim—“stand guard, at the peril of your lives, till I return—and if he offer the least resistance, or utters a single cry to raise an alarm, both of you fire—let him not escape, happen what may!”

The men mutely signified acquiescence by each taking a position, with pistols cocked, at the doors of the library.

“Monsieur le Comte!” said Giraud, in a feeble voice, recovering from the violence, “if you seek to commit a robbery, I promise you will be foiled—if you perpetrate violence on an unarmed man, it will not pass unrevenged. There are those able and willing waiting my return in safety—if I return not, then let the Count De Fontrailles tremble!”

“Peace, old dotard! You are not addressing a president of the Cour Royale!” said the count, now busily engaged in locking up his private papers.

“I warn you that what you seek will prove beyond reach,” added Giraud.

The count glanced at him for one moment without speaking, and then finished his occupation. Snatching the rapier, he quitted the chamber.

——

CHAPTER VI.

In the close immurement suffered by the advocate, he had leisure to reflect on his situation, and it was far from cheering. The count’s passion had carried him beyond bounds, more than Giraud had calculated on. He had believed Fontrailles to be a man of the world, so sensitively alive to his own interest, that the gratification of revenge would have held only a secondary place in his thoughts.

But from the specimen of anger, the effects of which were painfully visible, he began to dread the return of the incensed noble—disappointed of his prey, he might, regardless of consequences, abandon himself to a cruel revenge. There was no help in a house, and among creatures subservient to such a master. And where could aid spring from, even if it were posthumous only, but from the quarter where Marguerite had deposited the documents.

To this unknown refuge his thoughts fled for solace and support. If Marguerite’s friend failed her not—then, though his own life should be sacrificed—his character and heroism would be preserved—De Pontis and his daughter triumph, and infamy, ruin and disgrace be the portion of Fontrailles.

Some hours passed in this sad tribulation. He requested food—it was denied—water, if nothing else—Eugene shook his head. He was sorry for Monsieur, but he had received no orders on that point, and it might be, for aught he knew, the count’s desire that Monsieur should be kept without nourishment. If Monsieur felt very hungry, he had better compose himself to sleep—he had liberty to make a couch of the chairs—in his campaigns, Eugene had often found such a plan the only remedy for a barking stomach.

“But you had a contented mind, Eugene,” remarked the distressed advocate.

At length came a change. A knocking was heard below; Giraud trembled, for the footsteps of the count were on the stairs, and he presently entered the chamber.

Casting a glance round the library, he ordered the two sentinels to retire, but hold themselves in readiness. They obeyed the command, and Giraud and the noble were once more alone. The advocate scanned the countenance of Fontrailles attentively; there was a marked change, more of disappointment than anger. For awhile he made no remark, busying himself, or appearing to do so, with his papers—Giraud was equally silent.

The count, at length, broke silence. “I think, Monsieur Giraud,” said he, “that we are now on an equality to treat. You have suffered some violence at my hands, and I, since I left you, have found your pretensions to my interference better founded than I expected. My conditions are these. I will quash Pedro’s suit—I will cause his eminence to cancel the procureur’s proceedings, with guarantee from both that they shall not be renewed. De Pontis shall be liberated, and remain in undisturbed enjoyment of the droit d’aubaine. From you I expect a perfect silence, now and ever, in relation to these affairs—also a restitution of all papers which affect me. Further, the immediate payment of sixty thousand livres, and quittance of what I owe the estate—you will see, by the inventory, the abstraction of such a sum will leave De Pontis a very handsome maintenance for one of his rank. There are several minor conditions—but I wait your reply.”

“Has the Count de Fontrailles been to my house?” asked Giraud.

“I have—I searched it with Richelieu’s warrant,” replied Fontrailles.

“Is Monseigneur aware that that action would tend, in the estimation of the cardinal, to confirm the statement of Pedro Olivera?” demanded the advocate.

“Let me reply by asking a question,” rejoined the count. “Is Monsieur Giraud aware that, as affairs now stand, whatever the cardinal might affect toward me—even the withdrawal of his favor—it would not liberate De Pontis—would not leave him with the droit d’aubaine?”

“I know your agency is wanting—and I agree to the terms,” said the advocate.

“My other conditions are,” continued Fontrailles, “that you make no complaint of my search this morning—that you tell his eminence, should you chance to meet him, that by advising Monsieur De Pontis to surrender a portion to me, who, you are aware, had, even before the Spaniard’s death, asked the future droit of the cardinal, that you secured thereby the remainder to your friend.”

“Well! I do not object to building a bridge for Monseigneur’s retreat,” observed the advocate.

“It would be ridiculous toward one of your profession, and, above all, age, to offer the satisfaction accorded to a gentleman who has received violence at the hands of another,” said the count; “I, therefore, beg pardon of Monsieur Giraud for the same.”

The advocate bowed. It were, perhaps, better, he said, to allow it to pass thus, though the count must be aware that he had shown no want of courage. Fontrailles assented, remarking that he believed their business was now concluded—at least the preliminaries—and that he would call on the advocate on the morrow, when he hoped everything would be prepared.

Giraud was not sorry to see the exterior of the Hôtel De Fontrailles. The count had, however, made better terms for himself than he thought to have granted—still, it was true, as Fontrailles remarked, that, whatever became of him, through the cardinal listening to the tale of Pedro Olivera, De Pontis would be none the richer. The pride of Richelieu was touched by the veteran obtaining the sign-manual without his knowledge or intervention, and it was very probable that, if Fontrailles were disgraced, the droit d’aubaine would be destined to another favorite.

Giraud had foreseen this difficulty from the commencement, yet it was hard to part with so many thousand livres, especially to one who had almost choked him. On second consideration, the advocate thought it wiser to withhold this portion of the adventure from De Pontis and his daughter—the blood of the militaire would rise at the insult and imposition of hands offered to a kinsman, and fresh difficulties, perhaps, be thrown in the way of what was, after all, a very peaceful and happy termination of the affairs of the old soldier. The count had confessed the injury, and sued for pardon, and what more could he do? With this consolation, the advocate quieted himself.

The glad news was imparted to Marguerite that evening, and when the houblieur rang his bell, and was admitted, the maiden was more gracious than on the former occasion—the youth more thoughtful. As might be expected, from the previous intimacy shown relative to the secret affairs of the Palais Cardinal, its inmates and visiters, much of what had occurred was already known to the youth—the remainder he heard from the lips of Marguerite. She was charged by Giraud to reclaim the packet; it would be wanted on the morrow. That same night it was placed in her hands, the seal unbroken, and, before she retired to rest, it was again in the keeping of the zealous, faithful advocate.

Giraud was seated in his office. A night’s repose had calmed his spirits, refreshed the wearied frame. Fontrailles had kept the appointment, bringing an authenticated relinquishment of the suit of Pedro Olivera—also a notification from the procureur général that he had abandoned the prosecution of the decree of sequestration—and, lastly, a duplicate of Richelieu’s order to the warden of the Conciergerie to release the Sieur De Pontis. The count claimed and received satisfaction on the conditions insisted on—reference to the prisoner was not necessary, as Giraud had, on the committal of De Pontis, received a legal power to act as representative, and affix by procuration his signature to any act deemed necessary. As the cardinal’s seal was removed from the ware-rooms, and attachment withdrawn from the banker where the moneys of the deceased were lodged, there was no impediment to the prompt payment of the count’s subsidy—a matter, seemingly, of the utmost importance to Monseigneur.

Giraud, as we have said, was seated in his office, and alone. But presently there arrived visiters—the Sieur De Pontis, and the fair heroine, Marguerite. Congratulations and thanks exhausted, business recited and discussed, there ensued a pause—their hearts were full.

“There are but three here,” said Giraud, looking archly at Marguerite, “I should wish to see a fourth. There is a friend, Monsieur De Pontis, who has wonderfully aided our endeavors for your release, and to whom we owe many thanks. Shall we never see the unknown’s face?”

“Marguerite has my sanction to introduce him to Monsieur Giraud whenever she pleases,” said the veteran.

“Hah! then I have been forestalled in her confidence,” cried the advocate, “but I did not deserve the neglect!”

The day subsequent to the liberation of De Pontis, Louis was promenading alone his customary path in the garden of the Tuileries. The old soldier presented himself—he bent his knee to majesty.

“Rise, my good friend,” said the monarch, “I hear you have been better served than Louis could have wrought for you, though he had not forgotten his word, or his old servant.”

After a few remarks, the king complimented him on the perseverance and heroism of Marguerite adding that she was deserving of all honor.

“With your majesty’s permission, I believe I am about to marry her,” remarked De Pontis.

“To whom? I hope to a subject of mine!” exclaimed the monarch.

“François De Romainville, if it please your majesty,” replied the veteran.

“I know the youth,” said Louis, “our cardinal’s page, of good lineage, though accounted wild and reckless—the cardinal complains of his habits, but loves the page’s intelligence and capacity. We must see what can be done for this youth, also for Monsieur Giraud when the opportunity offers.”

He might have added, “when the cardinal permits,” thought the veteran, with a sigh.

“For yourself, De Pontis,” continued the royal personage, “I hope all will go well in future.”

“I intend to put it out of fortune’s power to do me further harm,” answered the militaire—“your majesty’s late bounty I shall settle on my daughter and her husband; for, though I hope a true man in the tented field, yet I do believe that, whether from my own fault, or an unlucky destiny, I should lose, or mismanage the fairest estate in your realm.”

At that moment, the cardinal and his suite were seen in the distance—the countenance of Louis fell, and De Pontis taking hasty leave—much to the royal satisfaction—glided through a side-walk.

———

BY MRS. BALMANNO.

———

———

BY J. FENIMORE COOPER, AUTHOR OF “THE SPY,” “THE PIONEERS,” ETC.

———

Dr. Harris, in his “Life and Services” of this distinguished officer, says that “The ancestor of Commodore Bainbridge, who, in the year 1600, settled in the province of New Jersey, was the son of Sir Arthur Bainbridge, of Durham county, England.” As no portion of the old United States was settled as early as 1600, and the province of New Jersey, in particular, was organized only about the middle of the seventeenth century, the date, in this instance, is an oversight, or a misprint; though the account of the ancestor is probably accurate. The family of the late Commodore Bainbridge was of respectable standing, beyond a question, both in the colony and state of New Jersey, and its connections were principally among persons of the higher classes of society. His father was a physician of local eminence, in the early part of his life, who removed to New York about the commencement of the Revolution, where he left a fair professional and personal reputation.

The fourth son of Dr. Bainbridge was William, the subject of our memoir. He was born at Princeton, New Jersey, then the residence of his father, May 7th, 1774. His birth must have occurred but a short time before the removal of the family to New York. The maiden name of Mrs. Bainbridge, the mother of William, was Taylor; a lady of Monmouth county, in the same colony; and her father, a man of considerable estate, undertook to superintend the education of the child.

Young Bainbridge was of an athletic manly frame, and early showed a bold spirit, and a love of enterprise. This temperament was likely to interfere with studies directed toward a liberal education, and, at the early age of fifteen, his importunities prevailed on his friends to allow him to go to sea. This must have been about the time when the present form of government went first into operation, and the trade and navigation of the country began to revive. In that day the republic had no marine; the old Alliance frigate, the favorite ship of the Revolution, then sailing out of the port at which young Bainbridge first embarked, as an Indiaman.

Philadelphia, for many years after the peace of 1783, produced the best seamen of America. Other ports, doubtless, had as hardy and as adventurous mariners, but the nicety of the art was better taught and practiced on the Delaware than in any other portion of the country. This advantage was thought to be owing to the length of the river and bay, which required more elaborate evolutions to take a ship successfully through, than ports that lay contiguous to the sea. The same superiority has long been claimed for London, and for the same reason, each place having a long and intricate navigation, among shoals, and in a tide’s way, before its wharves can be reached. The comparative decline of the navigation of these two towns is to be attributed to the very difficulties which made expert seamen, though the vast amount of supplies required by the English capital, for its own consumption, causes great bodies of shipping still to frequent the Thames. It is also probable that the superiority formerly claimed for the seamen of these two towns, was in part owing to the circumstances that, being the capitals of their respective countries, they were then in advance of other ports, both as to the arts, generally, and as to the wealth necessary to exhibit them.

Young Bainbridge, consequently, enjoyed the advantage of being trained, as a seaman, in what was then the highest American school. Singularly handsome and prepossessing in his appearance, of a vigorous, and commanding frame, with the foundation of a good education, all aided by respectable connections, he was made an officer in the third year of his service. When eighteen, he sailed as chief mate of a ship in the Dutch trade, and on his first voyage, in this capacity, he recovered the vessel from the hands of mutineers, by his personal intrepidity, and physical activity. In the following year, when barely nineteen, the owners gave him command of the same ship. From this time down to the period of his joining the navy, Bainbridge continued in command of different merchant vessels, all of which were employed in the European trade, which was then carried on, by this country, in the height and excitement of the war that succeeded the French revolution.

Occasions were not wanting, by which Bainbridge could prove his dauntless resolution, even in command of a peaceful and slightly armed merchantman. In 1796, whilst in command of the Hope, of Philadelphia, he was lying in the Garonne, and was hailed by another American to come and aid in quelling a mutiny. This he did in person; though his life had nearly been the sacrifice, owing to an explosion of gunpowder. The same season, while shaping his course for one of the West India islands, the Hope was attacked by a small British privateer, of eight guns and thirty men, being herself armed with four nines, and having a crew of only eleven souls before the mast—an equipment then permitted, by the laws, for the purposes of defence only. The privateer commenced the engagement without showing any colors; but, receiving a broadside from the Hope, she hoisted English, in the expectation of intimidating her antagonist. In this, however, the assailant was mistaken; Bainbridge, who had his colors flying from the first, continued his fire until he actually compelled the privateer to lower her flag. The latter was much cut up, and lost several men. The Hope escaped with but little injury. Although he had compelled his assailant to submit, it would not have been legal for Bainbridge to take possession of the prize. He even declined boarding her, most probably keeping in view the feebleness of his own complement; but, hailing the privateer, he told her commander to go to his employers and let them know they must send some one else to capture the Hope if they had occasion for that ship. It was probably owing to this little affair, as well as to his general standing as a ship-master, that Bainbridge subsequently entered the navy with the rank he obtained.

Not long after the action with the privateer, while homeward bound again, a man was impressed from Bainbridge’s ship, by an English cruiser. The boarding officer commenced by taking the first mate, on account of his name, Allen M’Kinsey, insisting that the man must be a Scotchman! This singular species of logic was often applied on such occasions, even historians of a later day claiming such men as M’Donough and Conner, on the supposition that they must be Irish, from their family appellations. Mr. M’Kinsey, who was a native Philadelphian, on a hint from Bainbridge, armed himself, and refused to quit his own ship; whereupon the English lieutenant seized a foremast hand and bore him off, in spite of his protestations of being an American, and the evidence of his commander. Bainbridge was indignant at this outrage—then, however, of almost daily occurrence on the high seas—and, finding his own remonstrances disregarded, he solemnly assured the boarding officer that, if he fell in with an English vessel, of a force that would allow of such a retaliation, he would take a man out of her to supply the place of the seaman who was then carried away. This threat was treated with contempt, but it was put in execution within a week; Bainbridge actually seizing a man on board an English merchantman, and that, too, of a force quite equal to his own, and carrying him into an American port. The ship which impressed the man belonging to the Hope, was the Indefatigable, Sir Edward Pellew.

All these little affairs contributed to give Bainbridge a merited reputation for spirit; for, however illegal may have been his course in impressing the Englishman, the sailor himself was quite content to receive higher wages, and there was a natural justice in the measure that looked down the policy of nations and the provisions of law. Shortly after this incident the aggressions of France induced the establishment of the present navy, and the government, after employing all the old officers of the Revolution who remained, and who were fit for service, was compelled to go into the mercantile marine to find men to fill the subordinate grades. The merchant service of America has ever been relatively much superior to that of most other countries. This has been owing, in part, to the greater diffusion of education; in part, to the character of the institutions, which throws no discredit around any reputable pursuit; and in part, to the circumstance that the military marine has not been large enough to give employment to all of the maritime enterprise and spirit of the nation. Owing to these united causes, the government of 1798 had much less difficulty in finding proper persons to put into its infant navy, than might have been anticipated; although it must be allowed that some of the selections, as usual, betrayed the influence of undue recommendations, as well as of too partial friendships.

The navy offering a field exactly suited to the ambition and character of Bainbridge, he eagerly sought service in it, on his return from a voyage to Europe; his arrival occurring a short time after the first appointments had been made. The third vessel which got to sea, under the new armament, was the Delaware 20, Capt. Stephen Decatur, the father of the illustrious officer of the same name; and this vessel, a few days out, had captured Le Croyable 14, a French privateer that she found cruising in the American waters. Le Croyable was condemned, and purchased by the navy department; being immediately equipped for a cruiser, under the name of the Retaliation. To this vessel Bainbridge was appointed, with the commission of lieutenant commandant; a rank that was subsequently and unwisely dropped; as the greater the number of gradations in a military service, while they are kept within the limits of practical necessity, the greater is the incentive for exertion, the more frequent the promotions, and the higher the discipline. First lieutenants, lieutenants commandant, exist, and must exist in fact, in every marine; and it is throwing away the honorable inducement of promotion, as well as some of the influence of a commission, not to have the rank while we have the duties. It would be better for the navy did the station of first lieutenant, or lieutenant commandant, now exist, those who held the commissions furnishing officers to command the smallest class of vessels, and the executive officers of ships of the line and frigates.

The Retaliation sailed for the West India station, in September, 1798. While cruising off Guadaloupe, the following November, the Montezuma, sloop of war, Capt. Murray, and the brig Norfolk, Capt. Williams, in company, three sail were made in the eastern board, that were supposed to be English; and two more strangers appearing to the westward, Capt. Murray, who was the senior officer, made sail for the latter, taking the Norfolk with him; while the Retaliation was directed to examine the vessels to the eastward. This separated the consorts, which parted on nearly opposite tacks. Unfortunately two of the vessels to the eastward proved to be French frigates, le Volontier 36, Capt. St. Laurent, and l’Insurgente 32, Capt. Barreault. The first of these ships carried 44 guns, French eighteens, and the latter 40, French twelves. L’Insurgente was one of the fastest ships that floated, and, getting the Retaliation under her guns, Bainbridge was compelled to strike, as resistance would have been madness.

The prisoner was taken on board le Volontier, the two frigates immediately making sail in chase of the Montezuma and Norfolk. L’Insurgente again out-stripped her consort, and was soon a long distance ahead of her. Capt. St. Laurent was the senior officer, and, the Montezuma being a ship of some size, he felt an uneasiness at permitting the Insurgente to engage two adversaries, of whose force he was ignorant, unsupported. In this uncertainty, he determined to inquire the force of the American vessels of his prisoner. Bainbridge answered coolly that the ship was a vessel of 28 long twelves, and the brig a vessel of 20 long nines. This was nearly, if not quite, doubling the force of the two American cruisers, and it induced the French commodore to show a signal of recall to his consort. Capt. Barreault, an exceedingly spirited officer, joined his commander in a very ill humor, informing his superior that he was on the point of capturing both the chases, when he was so inopportunely recalled. This induced an explanation, when the ruse practiced by Bainbridge was exposed. In the moment of disappointment, the French officers felt much irritated, but, appreciating the conduct of their prisoner more justly, they soon recovered their good humor, and manifested no further displeasure.

The Retaliation and her crew were carried into Basseterre. On board the Volontier was Gen. Desfourneaux, who was sent out to supersede Victor Hughes in his government. This functionary was very diplomatic, and he entered into a negotiation with Bainbridge of a somewhat equivocal character, leaving it a matter of doubt whether an exchange of prisoners, an arrangement of the main difficulties between the two countries, or a secret trade with his own island, and for his own particular benefit, was his real object. Ill treatment to the crew of the Retaliation followed; whether by accident or design is not known; though the latter has been suspected. It will be remembered that no war had been declared by either country, and that the captures by the Americans were purely retaliatory, and made in self-defence. Gen. Desfourneaux profited by this circumstance to effect his purposes, affecting not to consider the officers and people of the Retaliation as prisoners at all. To this Bainbridge answered that he regarded himself, and his late crew, not only as prisoners of war, but as ill-treated prisoners, and that his powers now extended no farther than to treat of an exchange. After a protracted negotiation, Bainbridge and his crew were placed in possession of the Retaliation again, all the other American prisoners in Guadaloupe were put on board a cartel, and the two vessels were ordered for America. Accompanying the Americans, went a French gentleman, ostensibly charged with the exchange; but who was believed to have been a secret diplomatic agent of the French government.

The conduct of Bainbridge, throughout this rude initiation into the public service, was approved by the government, and he was immediately promoted to the rank of master commandant, and given the Norfolk 18, the brig he had saved from capture by his address. In this vessel he joined the squadron under Com. Truxtun, who was cruising in the vicinity of St. Kitts. While on that station, the Norfolk fell in with and chased a heavy three-masted schooner, of which she was on the point of getting alongside, when both topmasts were lost by carrying sail, and the enemy escaped. The brig went into St. Kitts to repair damages, and here she collected a convoy of more than a hundred sail, bound home. Bainbridge performed a neat and delicate evolution, while in charge of this large trust. The convoy fell in with an enemy’s frigate, when a signal was thrown out for the vessels to disperse. The Norfolk occupied the frigate, and induced her to chase, taking care to lead her off from the merchantmen. That night the brig gave her enemy the slip, and made sail on her course, overtaking and collecting the whole fleet the following day. It is said not a single vessel, out of one hundred and nineteen sail, failed of the rendezvous!

It was August, 1799, before the Norfolk returned to New York. Here Bainbridge found that no less than five lieutenants had been made captains, passing the grades of commanders and lieutenants commandant altogether. This irregularity could only have occurred in an infant service, though it was of material importance to a young officer in after life. Among the gentlemen thus promoted, were Capts. Rodgers, and Barron, two names that, for a long time, alone stood between Bainbridge and the head of the service. Still, it is by no means certain that injustice was done, such circumstances frequently occurring in so young a service, to repair an original wrong. At all events, no slight was intended to Bainbridge, or any other officer who was passed; though the former ever maintained that he had not his proper rank in the navy.

After refitting the Norfolk, Bainbridge returned to the West Indies, where he was put under the orders of Capt. Christopher R. Perry, the father of the celebrated Commodore Oliver H. Perry, who sent him to cruise off Cape François. The brig changed her cruising ground, under different orders, no opportunity occurring for meeting an enemy of equal force. Indeed, it was highly creditable to the maritime enterprise of the French that they appeared at all in those seas, which were swarming with English and American cruisers; this country alone seldom employing fewer than thirty sail in the West Indies, that year; toward the close of the season it had near, if not quite forty, including those who were passing between the islands and the home coast.

On the 31st October, however, the Norfolk succeeded in decoying an armed barge within reach of her guns. The enemy discovered the brig’s character in time to escape to the shore, notwithstanding; though he was pursued and the barge was captured. Six dead and dying were found in, or near the boat.

In November, Bainbridge took a small lugger privateer, called Le Républicain, with a prize in company. The former was destroyed at sea, and the latter sent in. The prize of the lugger was a sloop. She presented a horrible spectacle when taken possession of by the Americans. Her decks were strewed with mangled bodies, the husbands and parents of eleven women and children, who were found weeping over them at the moment of recapture. The murders had been committed by some brigands in a barge, who slew every man in the sloop, and were proceeding to further outrages when the lugger closed and drove them from their prey. An hour or two later, Bainbridge captured both the vessels. His treatment of the unfortunate females and children was such as ever marked his generous and manly character.

Shortly after, Capt. Bainbridge received an order, direct from the Navy Department, to go off the neutral port of the Havana, to look after the trade in that quarter. Here he was joined by the Warren 18, Capt. Newman, and the Pinckney 18, Capt. Heyward. Bainbridge was the senior officer, and continued to command this force to the great advantage of American commerce, by blockading the enemy’s privateers, and giving convoy, until March, 1800, when, his cruise being up, he returned home, anchoring off Philadelphia early in the month of April. His services, especially those before Havana, were fully appreciated, and May 2d, of the same year, he was raised to the rank of captain. Bainbridge had served with credit, and had now reached the highest grade which existed in the navy, when he wanted just five days of being twenty-six years old. He had carried with him into the marine the ideas of a high-class Philadelphia seaman, as to discipline, and these were doubtless the best which then existed in the country. In every situation he had conducted himself well, and the promise of his early career as a master of a merchantman was likely to be redeemed, whenever occasion should offer, under the pennant of the republic.

Among the vessels purchased into the service during the war of 1798, was an Indiaman called the George Washington. This ship was an example of the irregularity in rating which prevailed at that day; being set down in all the lists and registers of the period as a 24, when her tonnage was 624; while the Adams, John Adams, and Boston, all near one sixth smaller, are rated as 32s. The George Washington was, in effect, a large 28, carrying the complement and armament of a vessel of that class. To this ship Bainbridge was now appointed, receiving his orders the month he was promoted; or, in May, 1800. The destination of the vessel was to carry tribute to the Dey of Algiers! This was a galling service to a man of her commander’s temperament, as, indeed, it would have proved to nearly every other officer in the navy; but it put the ship quite as much in the way of meeting with an enemy as if she had been sent into the West Indies; and it was sending the pennant into the Mediterranean for the first time since the formation of the new navy. Thus the United States 44, first carried the pennant to Europe, in 1799; the Essex 32, first carried it round the Cape of Good Hope, in 1800, and around Cape Horn, in 1813; and this ship, the George Washington 28, first carried it into the classical seas of the old world.

Bainbridge did not get the tribute collected and reach his port of destination, before the month of September. Being entirely without suspicion, and imagining that he came on an errand which should entitle him, at least, to kind treatment, he carried the ship into the mole, for the purpose of discharging with convenience. This duty, however, was hardly performed, when the Dey proposed a service for the George Washington, that was as novel in itself as it was astounding to her commander.

It seems that this barbarian prince had got himself into discredit at the Sublime Porte, and he felt the necessity of purchasing favor, and of making his peace, by means of a tribute of his own. The Grand Seignor was at war with France, and the Dey, his tributary and dependant, had been guilty of the singular indiscretion of making a separate treaty of peace with that powerful republic, for some private object of his own. This was an offence to be expiated only by a timely offering of certain slaves, various wild beasts, and a round sum in gold. The presents to be sent were valued at more than half a million of our money, and the passengers to be conveyed amounted to between two and three hundred. As the Dey happened to have no vessel fit for such a service, and the George Washington lay very conveniently within his mole, and had just been engaged in this very duty, he came to the natural conclusion she would answer his purpose.

The application was first made in the form of a civil request, through the consul. Bainbridge procured an audience, and respectfully, but distinctly, stated that a compliance would be such a departure from his orders as to put it out of the question. Hereupon the Dey reminded the American that the ship was in his power, and that what he now asked, he might take without asking, if it suited his royal pleasure. A protracted and spirited discussion, in which the consul joined, now followed, but all without effect. The Dey offered the alternatives of compliance, or slavery and capture, for the frigate and her crew, with war on the American trade. One of his arguments is worthy of being recorded, as it fully exposes the feeble policy of submission to any national wrong. He told the two American functionaries, that their country paid him tribute, already, which was an admission of their inferiority, as well as of their duty to obey him; and he chose to order this particular piece of service, in addition to the presents which he had just received.

Bainbridge finally consented to do as desired. He appears to have been influenced in this decision, by the reasoning of Mr. O’Brien, the consul, who had himself been a slave in Algiers, not long before, and probably retained a lively impression of the power of the barbarian, on his own shores. It is not to be concealed, however, that temporizing in all such matters, had been the policy of America, and it would have required men of extraordinary moral courage to have opposed the wishes of the Dey, by a stern assertion of those principles, which alone can render a nation great. “To ask for nothing but what is right, and to submit to nothing that is wrong,” is an axiom more easily maintained on paper than in practice, where the chameleon-like policy of trade interferes to color principles; and O’Brien, a merchant in effect, and Bainbridge, who had so lately been in that pursuit himself, were not likely to overlook the besetting weakness of the nation. Still, it may be questioned if there was a man in the navy who felt a stronger desire to vindicate the true maxims of national independence than the subject of this memoir. He appears to have yielded solely to the arguments of the consul, and to his apprehensions for a trade that certainly had no other protection in that distant sea, than his own ship; and she would be the first sacrifice of the Dey’s resentment. It ought to be mentioned, too, that a base and selfish policy prevailed, in that day, on the subject of the Barbary Powers, among the principal maritime states of Europe. England, in particular, was supposed to wink at their irregularities, in the hope that it might have a tendency to throw a monopoly of the foreign navigation of the Mediterranean into the hands of those countries which, by means of their great navies, and their proximity to the African coast, were always ready to correct any serious evil that might affect themselves. English policy had been detected in the hostilities of the Dey, a few years earlier, and it is by no means improbable that Mr. O’Brien foresaw consequences of this nature, that did not lie absolutely on the surface.

Yielding to the various considerations which were urged, Bainbridge finally consented to comply with the Dey’s demand. The presents and passengers were received on board, and on the 19th of October, or about a month after her arrival at Algiers, the George Washington was ready to sail for Constantinople. When on the very eve of departing a new difficulty arose, and one of a nature to show that the Dey was not entirely governed by rapacity, but that he had rude notions of national honor, agreeably to opinions of the school in which he had been trained. As the George Washington carried his messenger, or ambassador, and was now employed in his service, he insisted that she should carry the Algerine flag at the main, while that of the republic to which the ship belonged, should fly at the fore. An altercation occurred on this point of pure etiquette, the Dey insisting that English, French, and Spanish commanders, whenever they had performed a similar service for him, had not hesitated to give this precedency to his ensign. This was probably true, as well as the fact that vessels of war of those nations had consented to serve him in this manner, in compliance with the selfish policy of their respective governments; though it may be doubted whether English, or French ships, had been impressed into such a duty. Dr. Harris, whose biography of Bainbridge is much the most full of any written, and to which we are indebted for many of our own details, has cited an instance as recently as 1817, when an English vessel of war conveyed presents to Constantinople for the Dey; though it was improbable that any other inducement for the measure existed, than a desire in the English authorities to maintain their influence in the regency. Bainbridge, without entering into pledges on the subject, and solely with a view to get his ship beyond the reach of the formidable batteries of the mole, hoisted the Algerine ensign, as desired, striking it, as soon as he found himself again the commander of his own vessel.

The George Washington had a boisterous and weary passage to the mouth of the Dardanelles, the ship being littered with Turks, and the cages of wild beasts. This voyage was always a source of great uneasiness and mortification to Bainbridge, but he occasionally amused his friends with the relation of anecdotes that occurred during its continuance. Among other things he mentioned that his passengers were greatly puzzled to keep their faces toward Mecca, in their frequent prayers; the ship often tacking during the time thus occupied, more especially after they got into the narrow seas. A man was finally stationed at the compass to give the faithful notice when it was necessary to “go-about,” in consequence of the evolutions of the frigate.

Bainbridge had great apprehensions of being detained at the Dardanelles, for want of a firman, the United States having no diplomatic agent at the Porte, and commercial jealousy being known to exist, on the subject of introducing the American flag into those waters. A sinister influence up at Constantinople might detain him for weeks, or even prevent his passage altogether, and having come so far, on his unpleasant errand, he was resolved to gather as many of its benefits as possible. In the dilemma, therefore, he decided on a ruse of great boldness, and one which proved that personal considerations had little influence, when he thought the interests of his country demanded their sacrifice.

The George Washington approached the castles with a strong southerly wind, and she clewed up her light sails, as if about to anchor, just as she began to salute. The works returned gun for gun, and in the smoke sail was again made, and the ship glided out of the range of shot before the deception was discovered; passing on toward the sea of Marmora under a cloud of canvass. As vessels were stopped at only one point, and the progress of the ship was too rapid to admit of detention, she anchored unmolested under the walls of Constantinople, on the 9th November, 1800; showing the flag of the republic, for the first time, before that ancient town.

Bainbridge was probably right in his anticipation of difficulty in procuring a firman to pass the castles, for when his vessel reported her nation, an answer was sent off that the government of Turkey knew of no such country. An explanation that the ship came from the new world, that which Columbus had discovered, luckily proved satisfactory, when a bunch of flowers and a lamb were sent on board; the latter as a token of amity, and the former as a welcome.

The George Washington remained several weeks at Constantinople, where Bainbridge and his officers were well received, though the agents of the Dey fared worse. The Capudan Pacha, in particular, formed a warm friendship for the commander of the George Washington, whose fine personal appearance, frank address and manly bearing were well calculated to obtain favor. This functionary was married to a sister of the Sultan, and had more influence at court than any other subject. He took Bainbridge especially under his own protection, and when they parted, he gave the frigate a passport, which showed that she and her commander enjoyed this particular and high privilege. In fact, the intercourse between this officer and the commander of the George Washington was such as to approach nearly to paving the way for a treaty, a step that Bainbridge warmly urged on the government at home, as both possible and desirable. It has been conjectured even, that Capt. Bainbridge was instructed on this subject; and that, in consenting to go to Constantinople at all, he had the probabilities of opening some such negotiation in view. This was not his own account of the matter, although, in weighing the motives for complying with the Dey’s demands, it is not impossible he permitted such a consideration to have some weight.

The visit of Clarke, the well-known traveler, occurred while the George Washington was at Constantinople. The former accompanied Bainbridge to the Black Sea, in the frigate’s long-boat, where the American ensign was displayed also, for the first time. It appears that an officer was one of the party in the celebrated visit of the traveler to the seraglio, Bainbridge confirming Dr. Clarke’s account of the affair, with the exception that he, himself, looked upon the danger as very trifling.

During the friendly intercourse which existed between Capt. Bainbridge and the Capudan Pacha, the latter incidentally mentioned that the governor of the castles was condemned to die for suffering the George Washington to pass without a firman, and that the warrant of execution only waited for his signature, in order to be enforced. Shocked at discovering the terrible strait to which he had unintentionally reduced a perfectly innocent man, Bainbridge frankly admitted his own act, and said if any one had erred it was himself; begging the life of the governor, and offering to meet the consequences in his own person. This generous course was not thrown away on the Capudan Pacha, who appears to have been a liberal and enlightened man. He heard the explanation with interest, extolled Bainbridge’s frankness, promised him his entire protection, and pardoned the governor; sending to the latter a minute statement of the whole affair. It was after this conversation that the high functionary in question delivered to Bainbridge his own especial letter of protection.

At length the Algerine ambassador was ready to return. On the 30th of December, 1800, the ship sailed for Algiers. The messenger of the Dey took back with him a menace of punishment, unless his master declared war against France, and sent more tribute to the Porte; granting to the Algerine government but sixty days to let its course be known. On repassing the Dardanelles, Bainbridge was compelled to anchor. Here he received presents of fruit and provisions, with hospitalities on shore, as an evidence of the governor’s gratitude for his generous conduct in exposing his own life, in order to save that of an innocent man. It is shown by a passage in Dr. Clarke’s work, that Bainbridge was honorably received in the best circles in Pera, during his stay at Constantinople, while the neatness and order of his ship were the subject of general conversation. An entertainment that was given on board the frigate was much talked of also; the guests and all the viands coming from the four quarters of the earth. Thus there was water, bread, meats, etc., etc., each from Europe, Asia, Africa and America, as well as persons to consume them; certainly a thing of rare occurrence at any one feast.

The George Washington arrived at Algiers on the 20th January, 1801, and anchored off the town, beyond the reach of shot. The Dey expressed his apprehensions that the position of the ship would prove inconvenient to her officers, and desired that she might be brought within the mole, or to the place where she had lain during her first visit. This offer was respectfully declined. A day or two later the object of this hospitality became apparent. Bainbridge was asked to return to Constantinople with the Algerine ambassador; a request with which he positively refused to comply. This was the commencement of a new series of cajoleries, arguments and menaces. But, having his ship where nothing but the barbarian’s corsairs could assail her, Bainbridge continued firm. He begged the consul to send him off some old iron for ballast, in order that he might return certain guns he had borrowed for that purpose, previously to sailing for Constantinople, the whole having been rendered necessary in consequence of his ship’s having been lightened of the tribute sent in her from America. The Dey commanded the lightermen not to take employment, and, at the same time, he threatened war if his guns were not returned. After a good deal of discussion, Bainbridge exacted a pledge that no further service would be asked of the ship; then he agreed to run into the mole and deliver the cannon, as the only mode that remained of returning property which had been lent to him.

As soon as the frigate was secured in her new berth, Capt. Bainbridge and the consul were admitted to an audience with the Dey. The reception was any thing but friendly, and the despot, a man of furious passions, soon broke out into expressions of anger, that bade fair to lead to personal violence. The attendants were ready, and it was known that a nod or a word might, at a moment’s notice, cost the Americans their lives. At this fearful instant, Bainbridge, who was determined at every hazard to resist the Dey’s new demand, fortunately bethought him of the Capudan Pacha’s letter of protection, which he carried about him. The letter was produced, and its effect was magical. Bainbridge often spoke of it as even ludicrous, and of being so sudden and marked as to produce glances of surprise among the common soldiers. From a furious tyrant, the sovereign of Algiers was immediately converted into an obedient vassal; his tongue all honey, his face all smiles. He was aware that a disregard of the recommendation of the Capudan Pacha would be punished, as he would visit a similar disregard of one of his own orders; and that there was no choice between respect and deposition. No more was said about the return of the frigate to Constantinople, and every offer of service and every profession of amity were heaped upon the subject of our memoir, who owed his timely deliverance altogether to the friendship of the Turkish dignitary; a friendship obtained through his own frank and generous deportment.

The reader will readily understand that dread of the Grand Seignior’s power had produced this sudden change in the deportment of the Dey. The same feeling induced him to order the flag-staff of the French consulate to be cut down the next day; a declaration of war against the country to which the functionary belonged. Exasperated at these humiliations, which were embittered by heavy pecuniary exactions on the part of the Porte, the Dey turned upon the few unfortunate French who happened to be in his power. These, fifty-six in number, consisting of men, women and children, he ordered to be seized and to be deemed slaves. Capt. Bainbridge felt himself sufficiently strong, by means of the Capudan Pacha’s letter, to mediate; and he actually succeeded, after a long discussion, in obtaining a decree by which all the French who could get out of the regency, within the next eight-and-forty hours, might depart. For those who could not remained the doom of slavery, or of ransom at a thousand dollars a head. It was thought that this concession was made under the impression that no means of quitting Algiers could be found by the unfortunate French. No one believed that the George Washington would be devoted to their service, France and America being then at war; a circumstance which probably increased Bainbridge’s influence at Constantinople, as well as at Algiers.

But our officer was not disposed to do things by halves. Finding that no other means remained for extricating the unfortunate French, he determined to carry them off in the George Washington. The ship had not yet discharged the guns of the Dey, but every body working with good will, this property was delivered to its right owner, sand ballast was obtained from the country and hoisted in, other necessary preparations were made, and the ship hauled out of the mole and got to sea just in time to escape the barbarian’s fangs, with every Frenchman in Algiers on board. It is said that in another hour the time of grace would have expired. The ship landed her passengers at Alicant, a neutral country, and then made the best of her way to America, where she arrived in due season.

This act of Bainbridge’s was quite in conformity with the generous tendencies of his nature. He was a man of quick and impetuous feelings, and easily roused to anger; but left to the voluntary guidance of his own heart, no one was more ready to serve his fellow creatures. It seemed to make little difference with him, whether he assisted an Englishman or a Frenchman; his national antipathies, though decided and strong, never interfering with his humanity. Napoleon had just before attained the First Consulate, and he offered the American officer his personal thanks for this piece of humane and disinterested service to his countrymen. At a later day, when misfortune came upon Bainbridge, he is said to have remembered this act, and to have interested himself in favor of the captive.

On reaching home, Bainbridge had the gratification of finding his conduct, in every particular, approved by the government. It was so much a matter of course, in that day, for the nations of Christendom to submit to exactions from those of Barbary, that little was thought of the voyage to Constantinople, and less said about it. A general feeling must have prevailed that censure, if it fell any where, ought to light on the short-sighted policy of trade, and the misguided opinions of the age. It is more probable, however, that the whole transaction was looked upon as a legitimate consequence of the system of tribute, which then so extensively prevailed.

Bainbridge must have enjoyed another and still more unequivocal evidence that the misfortunes which certainly accompanied his short naval career, had left no injurious impressions on the government, as touching his own conduct. The reduction-law, which erected a species of naval peace establishment, was passed during his late absence, and, on his arrival, he found its details nearly completed in practice. Previously to this law’s going into effect, there were twenty-eight captains in the navy, of which number be stood himself as low as the twenty-seventh in rank. There was, indeed, but one other officer of that grade below him, and, under such circumstances, the chances of being retained would have been very small, for any man who had not the complete confidence of his superiors. He was retained, however, and that, too, in a manner in defiance of the law, for, by its provisions, only nine captains were to be continued in the service in a time of peace; whereas, his was the eleventh name on the new list, until Dale and Truxtun resigned; events which did not occur until the succeeding year. The cautious and reluctant manner in which these reductions were made by Mr. Jefferson, under a law that had passed during the administration of his predecessor, is another proof that the former statesman did not deserve all the reproaches of hostility to this branch of the public service that were heaped upon him.^[1]

Not satisfied with retaining Capt. Bainbridge in the service, after the late occurrences at Algiers, the Department also gave him immediate employment. For the first time this gallant officer was given a good serviceable ship, that had been regularly constructed for a man-of-war. He was attached to the Essex 32, a fine twelve-pounder frigate, that had just returned from a first cruise to the East Indies, under Preble; an officer who subsequently became so justly celebrated. The orders to this vessel were issued in May, 1801, and the ship was directed to form part of a squadron then about to sail for the Mediterranean.

Capt. Bainbridge joined the Essex at New York. He had Stephen Decatur for his first lieutenant, and was otherwise well officered and manned. The squadron, consisting of the President 44, Philadelphia 38, Essex 32, and Enterprise 12, sailed in company; the President being commanded by Capt. James Barron, the Philadelphia by Capt. Samuel Barron, and the Enterprise by Lieut. Com. Sterrett. The broad pennant of Com. Dale was flying on the President. This force went abroad under very limited instructions. Although the Bashaw of Tripoli was seizing American vessels, and was carrying on an effective war, Mr. Jefferson appeared to think legal enactments at home necessary to authorize the marine to retaliate. As respected ourselves, statutes may have been wanting to prescribe the forms under which condemnations could be had, and the other national rights carried out in full practice; but, as respected the enemy, there can be no question his own acts authorized the cruisers of this country to capture their assailants wherever they could be found, even though they rotted in our harbors for the want of a prescribed manner of bringing them under the hammer. The mode of condemnation is solely dependent on municipal regulations, but the right to capture is dependent on public law alone. It was in this singular state of things that the Enterprise, after a bloody action, took a Tripolitan, and was then obliged to let her go!

The American squadron reached Gibraltar the 1st day of July, where it found and blockaded two of the largest Tripolitan cruisers, under the orders of a Scotch renegade, who bore the rank of an admiral. The Philadelphia watched these vessels, while the Essex was sent along the north shore to give convoy. The great object, in that day, appears to have been to carry the trade safely through the Straits, and to prevent the enemy’s rovers from getting out into the Atlantic; measures that the peculiar formation of the coasts rendered highly important. It was while employed on this duty, that Capt. Bainbridge had an unpleasant collision with some of the Spanish authorities at Barcelona, in consequence of repeated insults offered to his ship’s officers and boats; his own barge having been fired into twice, while he was in it in person. In this affair he showed his usual decision and spirit, and the matter was pushed so far and so vigorously, as to induce an order from the Prince of Peace, “to treat all officers of the United States with courtesy and respect, and more particularly those attached to the United States frigate Essex.” The high and native courtesy of the Spanish character renders it probable that some misunderstandings increased and complicated these difficulties, though there is little doubt that jealousy of the superior order and beauty of the Essex, among certain subordinates of the Spanish marine, produced the original aggression. In the discussions and collisions that followed, the sudden and somewhat brusque spirit of the American usages was not likely to be cordially met by the precise and almost oriental school of manners that regulates the intercourse of Spanish society. Bainbridge, however, is admitted to have conducted his part of the dispute with dignity and propriety; though he was not wanting in the promptitude and directness of a man-of-war’s man.

On the arrival of the Essex below, with a convoy, it was found that the enemy had laid up his ships, and had sent the crews across to Africa in the night; the admiral making the best of his way home in a neutral. Com. Morris had relieved Com. Dale, and the Essex, wanting material repairs, was sent home in the summer of 1802, after an absence of rather more than a year. During her short cruise, the Essex had been deemed a model ship, as to efficiency and discipline, and extorted admiration wherever she appeared. On her arrival at New York, the frigate was unexpectedly ordered to Washington to be laid up, a measure that excited great discontent in her crew. One of those quasi mutinies which, under similar circumstances, were not uncommon in that day, followed; the men insisting that their times were up, and that they ought to be paid off in a sea-port, and “not on a tobacco plantation, up in Virginia;” but Bainbridge and Decatur were men unwilling to be controlled in this way. The disaffection was put down with spirit, and the ship obeyed her orders.

Bainbridge was now employed in superintending the construction of the Siren and Vixen; two of the small vessels that had been recently ordered by law. As soon as these vessels were launched, he was again directed to prepare for service in the Mediterranean, for which station the celebrated squadron of Preble was now fitting. This force consisted of the Constitution 44, Philadelphia 38, Siren 16, Argus 16, Nautilus 14, Vixen 14, and Enterprise 12; the latter vessel being then on the station, under Lieut. Com. Hull. Of these ships, Bainbridge had the Philadelphia 38, a fine eighteen-pounder frigate that was often, by mistake, called a forty-four, though by no means as large a vessel as some others of her proper class. It was much the practice of that day to attach officers to the ships which were fitting near their places of residence, and thus it followed that a vessel frequently had a sort of local character. Such, in a degree, was the case with the Philadelphia, most of whose sea-officers were Delaware sailors, in one sense; though all the juniors had now been bred in the navy. As these gentlemen are entitled to have their sufferings recorded, we give their names, with the states of which they were natives, viz:

Captain.—William Bainbridge, of New Jersey.

Lieutenants.—John T. R. Cox; Jacob Jones, Delaware; Theodore Hunt, New Jersey; Benjamin Smith, Rhode Island.

Lieutenant of Marines.—Wm. S. Osborne.

Surgeon.—John Ridgely, Maryland.

Purser.—Rich. Spence, New Hampshire.

Sailing-Master.—Wm. Knight, Pennsylvania.

Surgeon’s Mates.—Jonathan Cowdery, N. York; Nicholas Harwood, Va.

Midshipmen.—Bernard Henry, Pa.; James Gibbon, Va.; James Biddle, Pa.; Richard B. Jones, Pa.; D. T. Patterson, N. Y.; Wm. Cutbush, Pa.; B. F. Reed, Pa.; Thomas M’Donough, Del.; Wallace Wormley, Va.; Robert Gamble, Va.; Simon Smith, Pa.; James Renshaw, Pa.

The Philadelphia had a crew a little exceeding three hundred souls on board, including her officers. One or two changes occurred among the latter, however, when the ship reached Gibraltar, which will be mentioned in their proper places.

The vessels of Com. Preble did not sail in squadron, but left home as each ship got ready. Bainbridge, being equipped, was ordered to sail in July, and he entered the Straits on the 24th of August, after a passage down the Delaware and across the Atlantic of some length. Understanding at Gibraltar that certain cruisers of the enemy were in the neighborhood of Cape de Gatte, he proceeded off that well-known headland the very next day; and, in the night of the 26th, it blowing fresh, he fell in with a ship under nothing but a foresail, with a brig in company, under very short canvass also. These suspicious circumstances induced him to run alongside of the ship, and to demand her character. After a good deal of hailing, and some evasion on the part of the stranger, it was ascertained that he was a cruiser from Morocco, called the Meshboha 22, commanded by Ibrahim Lubarez, and having a crew of one hundred and twenty men. The Philadelphia had concealed her own nation, and a boat coming from the Meshboha, the fact was extracted from its crew that the brig in company was an American, bound into Spain, and that they had boarded but had not detained her. Bainbridge’s suspicions were aroused by all the circumstances; particularly by the little sail the brig carried; so unlike an American, who is ever in a hurry. He accordingly directed Mr. Cox, his first lieutenant, to board the Meshboha, and to ascertain if any Americans were in her, as prisoners. In attempting to execute this order, Mr. Cox was resisted, and it was necessary to send an armed boat. The master and crew of the brig, the Celia of Boston, were actually found in the Meshboha, which ship had captured them, nine days before, in the vicinity of Malaga, the port to which they were bound.

Bainbridge took possession of the Moorish ship. The next day he recovered the brig, which was standing in for the bay of Almeria, to the westward of Cape de Gatte. On inquiry he discovered that Ibraham Lubarez was cruising for Americans under an order issued by the governor of Mogadore. Although Morocco was ostensibly at peace with the United States, Bainbridge did not hesitate, now, about taking his prize to Gibraltar. Here he left the Meshboha in charge of Mr. M’Donough, under the superintendence of the consul, and then went off Cape St. Vincent in pursuit of a Moorish frigate, which was understood to be in that neighborhood. Failing in his search, he returned within the Straits, and went aloft, in obedience to his original orders. At Gibraltar, the Philadelphia met the homeward bound vessels, under Com. Rodgers, which were waiting the arrival of Preble, in the Constitution. As this force was sufficient to watch the Moors, it left the Philadelphia the greater liberty to proceed on her cruise. While together, however, Lieut. Porter, the first of the New York 36, exchanged with Lieut. Cox, the latter gentleman wishing to return home, where he soon after resigned; while the former preferred active service.

The Philadelphia found nothing but the Vixen before Tripoli. A Neapolitan had given information that a corsair had just sailed on a cruise, and this induced Capt. Bainbridge to despatch Lieut. Com. Smith in chase. In consequence of this unfortunate, but perfectly justifiable, decision the frigate was left alone off the town. A vigorous blockade having been determined on, the ship maintained her station as close in as her draught of water would allow until near the close of October, when, it coming on to blow fresh from the westward, she was driven some distance to leeward, as often occurred to vessels on that station. As soon as it moderated, sail was made to recover the lost ground, and, by the morning of the 31st, the wind had become fair, from the eastward. At 8, A. M., a sail was made ahead, standing like themselves to the westward. This vessel proved to be a small cruiser of the Bashaw’s, and was probably the very vessel of which the Vixen had gone in pursuit. The Philadelphia now crowded every thing that would draw, and was soon so near the chase as to induce the latter to hug the land. There is an extensive reef to the eastward of Tripoli, called Kaliusa, that was not laid down in the charts of the ship, and which runs nearly parallel to the coast for some miles. There is abundance of water inside of it, as was doubtless known to those on board the chase, and there is a wide opening through it, by which six and seven fathoms can be carried out to sea; but all these facts were then profound mysteries to the officers of the Philadelphia. Agreeably to the chart of Capt. Smyth, of the British navy, the latest and best in existence, the eastern division of this reef lies about a mile and a half from the coast, and its western about a mile. According to the same chart, one of authority and made from accurate surveys, the latter portion of the reef is distant from the town of Tripoli about two and a half miles, and the former something like a mile and a half more. There is an interval of quite half a mile in length between these two main divisions of the reef, through which it is possible to carry six and seven fathoms, provided three or four detached fragments of reef, of no great extent, be avoided. The channels among these rocks afforded great facilities to the Turks in getting in and out of their port during the blockade, since a vessel of moderate draught, that knew the land-marks, might run through them with great confidence by daylight. It is probable the chase, in this instance, led in among these reefs as much to induce the frigate to follow as to cover her own escape, either of which motives showed a knowledge of the coast, and a familiarity with his duties in her commander.

In coming down from the eastward, and bringing with her a plenty of water, the Philadelphia must have passed two or three hundred yards to the southward of the northeastern extremity of the most easterly of the two great divisions of the reef in question. This position agrees with the soundings found at the time, and with those laid down in the chart. She had the chase some distance inshore of her; so much so, indeed, as to have been firing into her from the two forward divisions of the larboard guns, in the hope of cutting something away. Coming from the eastward, the ship brought into this pass, between the reef and the shore, from fourteen to ten fathoms of water, which gradually shoaled to eight, when Capt. Bainbridge, seeing no prospect of overhauling the chase, then beginning to open the harbor of Tripoli, from which the frigate herself was distant but some three or four miles, ordered the helm a-port, and the yards braced forward, in the natural expectation of hauling directly off the land into deep water. The leads were going at the time, and, to the surprise of all on board, the water shoaled, as the frigate run off, instead of deepening. The yards were immediately ordered to be braced sharp up, and the ship brought close on a wind, in the hope of beating out of this seeming cul de sac, by the way in which she had entered. The command was hardly given, however, before the ship struck forward, and, having eight knots way on her, she shot up on the rocks until she had only fourteen and a half feet of water under her fore-chains. Under the bowsprit there were but twelve. Aft she floated, having, it is said, come directly out of six or seven fathoms of water into twelve and fifteen feet; all of which strictly corresponds with the soundings of the modern charts.^[2]

There was much of the hard fortune which attended a good deal of Bainbridge’s professional career, in the circumstances of this accident. Had the prospects of the chase induced him to continue it, the frigate might have passed ahead, and the chances were that she would have hauled off, directly before the mouth of the harbor of Tripoli, and gone clear; carrying through nowhere less than five fathoms of water. Had she stood directly on, after first hauling up, she might have passed through the opening between the two portions of the reef, carrying with her six, seven, nine and ten fathoms, out to sea. But, in pursuing the very course which prudence and a sound discretion dictated to one who was ignorant of the existence of this reef, he ran his ship upon the very danger he was endeavoring to avoid. It is by making provision for war, in a time of peace, and, in expending its money freely, to further the objects of general science, in the way of surveys and other similar precautions, that a great maritime state, in particular, economizes, by means of a present expenditure, for the moments of necessity and danger that may await it, an age ahead.

Bainbridge’s first recourse, was the natural expedient of attempting to force the ship over the obstacle, in the expectation that the deep water lay to seaward. As soon, however, as the boats were lowered, and soundings taken, the true nature of the disaster was comprehended, and every effort was made to back the Philadelphia off, by the stern. A ship of the size of a frigate, that goes seven or eight knots, unavoidably piles a mass of water under her bows, and this, aided by the shelving of the reef, and possibly by a ground swell, had carried the ship up too far, to be got off by any ordinary efforts. The desperate nature of her situation was soon seen by the circumstance of her falling over so much, as to render it impossible to use any of her starboard guns.

The firing of the chase had set several gun-boats in motion in the harbor, and a division of nine was turning to windward, in order to assist the xebec the Philadelphia had been pursuing, even before the last struck. Of course the nature of the accident was understood, and these enemies soon began to come within reach of shot, though at a respectful distance on the larboard quarter. Their fire did some injury aloft, but neither the hull nor the crew of the frigate were hit.

Every expedient which could be resorted to, in order to get the Philadelphia off, was put in practice. The anchors were cut from the bows; water was pumped out, and other heavy articles were thrown overboard, including all the guns, but those aft. Finally the foremast was cut away. It would seem that the frigate had no boat strong enough to carry out an anchor, a great oversight in the equipment of a vessel of any sort. After exerting himself, with great coolness and discretion, until sunset, Bainbridge consulted his officers, and the hard necessity of hauling down the colors was admitted. By this time, the gun-boats had ventured to cross the frigate’s stern, and had got upon her weather quarter, where, as she had fallen over several feet to leeward, it was utterly impossible to do them any harm. Other boats, too, were coming out of the harbor to the assistance of the division which had first appeared.

The Tripolitans got on board the Philadelphia, just as night was setting in, on the last day of October. They came tumbling in at the ports, in a crowd, and then followed a scene of indiscriminate plunder and confusion. Swords, epaulettes, watches, jewels, money, and no small portion of the clothing of the officers even, disappeared, the person of Bainbridge himself being respected little more than those of the common men. He submitted to be robbed, until they undertook to force from him a miniature of his young and beautiful wife, when he successfully resisted. The manly determination he showed in withstanding this last violence, had the effect to check the aggression, so far as he was concerned, and about ten at night, the prisoners reached the shore, near the castle of the Bashaw.

Jussuf Caramelli received his prisoners, late as was the hour, in full divan; feeling a curiosity, no doubt, to ascertain what sort of beings the chances of war had thrown into his power. There was a barbarous courtesy in his deportment, nor was the reception one of which the Americans had any right to complain. After a short interview, he dismissed the officers to an excellent supper which had been prepared for them in the castle itself, and to this hour, the gentlemen who sat down to that feast with the appetites of midshipmen, speak of its merits with an affection which proves that it was got up in the spirit of true hospitality. When all had supped, they were carried back to the divan, where the Pacha and his ministers had patiently awaited their return; when the former put them in charge of Sidi Mohammed D’Ghies, one of the highest functionaries of the regency, who conducted the officers, with the necessary attendants, to the building that had lately been the American consular residence.

This was the commencement of a long and irksome captivity, which terminated only with the war. The feelings of Bainbridge were most painful, as we know from his letters, his private admissions, and the peculiar nature of his case. He had been unfortunate throughout most of his public service. The Retaliation was the only American cruiser taken in the war of 1798, and down to that moment, she was the only vessel of the new marine that had been taken at all. Here, then, was the second ship that had fallen into the enemy’s hands, also under his orders. Then the affair of the George Washington was one likely to wound the feelings of a high spirited and sensitive mind, to which explanations, however satisfactory, are of themselves painful and humiliating. These were circumstances that might have destroyed the buoyancy of some men; and there is no question, that Bainbridge felt them acutely, and with a lively desire to be justified before his country. At this moment, his officers stepped in to relieve him, by sending a generous letter, signed by every man in the ship whose testimony could at all influence the opinion of a court of inquiry. Care was taken to say, in this letter, that the charts and soundings justified the ship in approaching the shore, as near as she had, which was the material point, as connected with his conduct as a commander; his personal deportment after the accident being beyond censure. Bainbridge was greatly relieved by the receipt of this letter, the writing of which was generously and kindly conceived, though doubts may exist as to its propriety, in a military point of view. The commander of a ship, to a certain extent, is properly responsible for its loss, and his subordinates are the witnesses by whose testimony the court, which is finally to exonerate, or to condemn, is guided; to anticipate their evidence, by a joint letter, is opening the door to management and influence which may sometimes shield a real delinquent. So tender are military tribunals, strictly courts of honor, that one witness is not allowed to hear the testimony of another, and the utmost caution should ever be shown about the expression of opinions even, until the moment arrives to give them in the presence of the judges, and under the solemnities of oaths. This is said without direct reference to the case before us, however; for, if ever an instance occurred in which a departure from severe principles is justifiable, it was this; and no one can regret that Bainbridge, in the long captivity which followed, had the consolation of possessing such a letter. It may be well, here, to mention that all the officers whose names are given already in this biography, shared his prison, with the exception of Messrs. Cox and M’Donough; the former of whom had exchanged with lieutenant Porter, now a captain, while the latter had been left at Gibraltar, in charge of the Meshboha, to come aloft with Decatur, and to share in all the gallant deeds of that distinguished officer, before Tripoli.

Much exaggeration has prevailed on the subject of the treatment the American prisoners received from the Turks. It was not regulated by the rules of a more civilized warfare, certainly, and the common men were compelled to labor under the restrictions of African slavery; but the officers, on the whole, were kindly treated, and the young men were even indulged in many of the wild expressions of their humors. There were moments of irritation, and perhaps of policy, it is true, in which changes of treatment occurred, but confinement was the principal grievance. Books were obtained, and the studies of the midshipmen were not neglected. Sidi Mohammed D’Ghies proved their friend, though the Danish consul, M. Nissen, was the individual to whom the gratitude of the prisoners was principally due. This benevolent man commenced his acts of kindness the day after the Americans were taken, and he continued them, with unwearying philanthrophy, down to the hour of their liberation. By means of this gentleman, Bainbridge was enabled to communicate with Com. Preble, who received many useful suggestions from the prisoner, concerning his own operations before the town.

The Turks were so fortunate as to be favored with good weather, for several days after the Philadelphia fell into their hands. Surrounding the ship with their gun-boats, and carrying out the necessary anchors, they soon hove her off the reef into deep water; where she floated, though it was necessary to use the pumps freely, and to stop some bad leaks. The guns, anchors, &c., had, unavoidably, been thrown on the rocks; and they were also recovered with little difficulty. The prisoners, therefore, in a day or two, had the mortification to see their late ship anchored between the reef and the town; and, ere long, she was brought into the harbor and partially repaired.

It is said, on good authority, that Bainbridge suggested to Preble the plan for the destruction of the Philadelphia, which was subsequently adopted. His correspondence was active, and there is no question that it contained many useful suggestions. A few weeks after he was captured he received a manly, sensible letter from Preble, which, no doubt, had a cheering influence on his feelings.

It will be remembered that the Philadelphia went ashore on the morning of the 31st October, 1803. On the 15th of the succeeding February, the captives were awakened about midnight by the firing of guns. A bright light gleamed upon the windows, and they had the pleasure to see the frigate enveloped in flames. Decatur had just quitted the ship, and his ketch was then sweeping down the harbor, towards the Siren, which awaited her in the offing!

This exploit caused a sensible change in the treatment of the officers, who were then captives in Tripoli. On the first of March, they were all removed to the castle, where they continued for the remainder of the time they were prisoners, or more than a twelvemonth. Several attempts at escape were made, but they all failed; principally for the want of means. In this manner passed month after month, until the spring had advanced into the summer. One day the cheering intelligence spread among the captives that a numerous force was visible in the offing, but it disappeared in consequence of a gale of wind. This was about the 1st of August, 1804. A day or two later, this force reappeared, a heavy firing followed, and the gentlemen clambered up to the windows which commanded a partial view of the offing. There they saw a flotilla of gun-boats, brigs, and schooners, gathering in towards the rocks, where lay a strong division of the Turks, the shot from the batteries and shipping dashing the spray about, and a canopy of smoke collecting over the sea. In the back-ground was the Constitution—that glorious frigate!—coming down into the fray, with the men on her top-gallant-yards gathering in the canvass, as coolly as if she were about to anchor. This was a sight to warm a sailor’s heart, even within the walls of a prison! Then they got a glimpse of the desperate assault led by Decatur—the position of their windows permitting no more—and they were left to imagine what was going on, amid the roar of cannon, to leeward. This was the celebrated attack of the 3d August; or that with which Preble began his own warfare, and little intermission followed for the next two months. On the night of the 4th of September, a few guns were fired—a heavy explosion was heard—and this terminated the din of war. It was the catastrophe in which Somers perished. A day or two later, Bainbridge was taken to see some of the dead of that affair, but he found the bodies so much mutilated as to render recognition impossible.

Bainbridge kept a journal of the leading events that occurred during his captivity. Its meagreness, however, supplies proof of the sameness of his life; little occurring to give it interest, except an occasional difficulty with the Turks, and these attacks. In this journal he speaks of the explosion of the Intrepid, as an enterprise that entirely failed; injuring nothing. It was thought in the squadron that a part of the wall of the castle had fallen, on this occasion, but it was a mistake. Not a man, house, or vessel of Tripoli, so far as can now be ascertained, suffered, in the least, by the explosion. Bainbridge also mentions, what other information corroborates, that the shells seldom burst. Many fell within the town, but none blew up. Two or three even struck the house of the worthy Nissen, but the injury was slight, comparatively, in consequence of this circumstance.

At length the moment of liberation arrived. An American negotiator appeared in the person of the consul general for Barbary, and matters drew toward a happy termination. Some obstacles, however, occurred, and, to get rid of them, Sidi Mohammed D’Ghies, a judge of human nature, and a man superior to most around him, proposed to the Bashaw to let Bainbridge go on board the Constitution, then commanded by Com. Rodgers. The proposal appeared preposterous to the wily and treacherous Jussuf, who insisted that his prisoner would never be fool enough to come back, if once at liberty. The minister understood the notions of military honor that prevailed amongst Christian nations better, and he finally succeeded in persuading his master to consent that Bainbridge might depart; but not until he had placed his own son in the Bashaw’s hands, as a hostage.^[3]

The 1st of June, 1805, was a happy hour for the subject of our memoir, for then, after a captivity of nineteen months, to a day, was he permitted again to tread the deck of an American man-of-war. The entire day was spent in the squadron, and Bainbridge returned in the night, greatly discouraged as to the success of the negotiation. Finding Sidi Mohammed D’Ghies, they repaired to the palace together, where the Bashaw received them with wonder. He had given up the slight expectation he ever had of seeing his captive again, and had been sharply rebuking his minister for the weakness he had manifested by his credulity. Bainbridge stated to the prince the only terms on which the Americans would treat, and these Jussuf immediately rejected. The friendly offices of M. Nissen were employed next day, however, and on the third, a council of state was convened, at which the treaty, drawn up in form, was laid before the members for approval or rejection.

At this council, Bainbridge was invited to be present. When he entered he was told by the Bashaw, himself, that no prisoner in Barbary had ever before been admitted to a similar honor, and that the discussions should be carried on in French, in order that he might understand them. The question of “peace or war” was then solemnly proposed. There were eight members of the council, and six were for war. Sidi Mohammed D’Ghies and the commandant of the marine alone maintained the doctrine of peace. There may have been preconcert and artifice in all this; if so, it was well acted. The speeches were grave and dignified, and seemingly sincere, and, after a time, two of the dissentients were converted to the side of peace; leaving the cabinet equally divided. “How shall I act?” demanded the Bashaw. “Which party shall I satisfy—you are four for peace, and four for war!” Here Sidi Mohammed D’Ghies arose and said it was for the sovereign to decide—they were but councillors, whereas he was their prince; though he entreated him, for his own interests and for those of his people, to make peace. The Bashaw drew his signet from his bosom, deliberately affixed it to the treaty, and said, with dignity and emphasis, “It is peace.”

The salutes followed, and the war ceased. The principal officers of the squadron visited the captives that evening; and the next day the latter were taken on board ship. A generous trait of the seamen and marines, on this occasion, merits notice. A Neapolitan slave had been much employed about them, and had shown them great kindness. They sent a deputation to Bainbridge, to request he would authorize the purser to advance them $700, of their joint pay; it was done, and, with the money, they bought the liberty of the Neapolitan; carrying him off with them—finally landing him on his own shores.

At Syracuse, a court of inquiry was held, for the loss of the Philadelphia. This court consisted of Capts. James Barron, Hugh G. Campbell and Stephen Decatur, jun. Gen. Eaton was the judge advocate. The result was an honorable aquittal. The finding of this court was dated June 29, 1805.

The country dealt generously and fairly by Bainbridge and his officers. The loss of the Philadelphia was viewed as being, precisely what it was, an unavoidable accident, that was met by men engaged in the zealous service of their country, in a distant sea, on an inhospitable shore, and at an inclement season of the year; and an accident that entailed on the sufferers a long and irksome captivity. To have been one of the Philadelphia’s crew has ever been rightly deemed a strong claim on the gratitude of the republic, and, from the hour at which the ill-fated ship lowered her ensign, down to the present moment, a syllable of reproach has never been whispered. Bainbridge, himself, was brought prominently into notice by the affair, and the sympathy his misfortunes produced in the public mind, made him a favorite with the nation. The advantage thus obtained, was supported and perpetuated by that frank and sincere earnestness which marked his public service, and which was so well adapted to embellish the manly career of a sailor.

The officers and crew of the Philadelphia reached home in the autumn of 1805, and were welcomed with the warmth that their privations entitled them to receive.

Capt. Bainbridge had married, when a young man, and he now found himself embarrassed in his circumstances, with an increasing family. But few ships were employed, and there were officers senior to himself to command them. The half-pay of his rank was then only $600 a year, and he determined to get leave to make a voyage or two, in the merchant service, in order to repair his fortunes. He had been appointed to the navy yard at New York, however, previously to this determination, but prudence pointed out the course on which he had decided. A voyage to the Havana, in which he was part owner, turned out well, and he continued in this pursuit for two years; or from the summer of 1806, until the spring of 1808. In March of the latter year, he was ordered to Portland, and, in December following, he was transferred to the command of the President 44, then considered the finest ship in the navy. Owing to deaths, resignations, and promotions, the list of captains had undergone some changes since the passage of the reduction-law. It now contained thirteen names, a number determined by an act passed in 1806, among which that of Bainbridge stood the sixth in rank. The difficulties with England, which had produced the armament, seemed on the point of adjustment, and immediate war was no longer expected. Bainbridge hoisted his first broad pennant in the President, having the command on the southern division of the coast; Com. Rodgers commanding at the north. In the summer of 1809 the President sailed on the coast service, and continued under Bainbridge’s orders, until May, 1810, when he left her, again to return to a merchant vessel.

On this occasion Bainbridge went into the Baltic. On his way to St. Petersburg, a Danish cruiser took him, and carried him into Copenhagen. Here, his first thought was of his old friend Nissen. Within half an hour, the latter was with him, and it is a coincidence worthy of being mentioned, that at the very moment the benevolent ex-consul heard of Bainbridge’s arrival, he was actually engaged in unpacking a handsome silver urn, which had been sent to him, as a memorial of his own kindness to them, by the late officers of the Philadelphia.

Through the exertions of this constant friend, Bainbridge soon obtained justice, and his ship was released. He then went up the Baltic. In this trade, Capt. Bainbridge was induced to continue, until the rencontre occurred, between his late ship, the President, and the British vessel of war, the Little Belt. As soon as apprized of this event, he left St. Petersburg, and made the best of his way to the Atlantic coast, over-land. In February, 1812, he reached Washington, and reported himself for service. But no consequences ever followed the action mentioned, and a period of brief but delusive calm succeeded, during which few, if any, believed that war was near. Still it had been seriously contemplated; and, it is understood, the question of the disposition of the navy, in the event of a struggle so serious as one with Great Britain’s occurring, had been gravely agitated in the cabinet. To his great mortification, Bainbridge learned the opinion prevailed that it would be expedient to lay up all the vessels; or, at most, to use them only for harbor defence. Fortunately, the present Com. Stewart, an officer several years the junior of Bainbridge in rank, but one of high moral courage and of great decision of character, happened to be also at the seat of government. After a consultation, these two captains had interviews with the Secretary and President, and, at the request of the latter, addressed to him such a letter as finally induced a change of policy. Had Bainbridge and Stewart never served their country but in this one act, they would be entitled to receive its lasting gratitude. Their remonstrances against belonging to a peace-navy were particularly pungent; but their main arguments were solid and convincing. After aiding in performing this act of vital service to the corps to which he belonged, Bainbridge proceeded to Charlestown, Massachusetts, and assumed the command of the yard.

War was declared on the 18th June, 1812; or shortly after Bainbridge was established at his new post. By this time death had cleared the list of captains of most of his superiors. Murray was at the head of the navy, but too old and infirm for active service. Next to him stood Rodgers; James Barron came third, but he was abroad; and Bainbridge was the fourth. This circumstance entitled him to a command afloat, and he got the Constellation 38, a lucky ship, though not the one he would have chosen, or the one he might justly have claimed in virtue of his commission. But the three best frigates had all gone to sea, in quest of the enemy, and he was glad to get any thing. A few weeks later, Hull came in with the Constitution, after performing two handsome exploits in her, and very generously consented to give her up, in order that some one else might have a chance. To this ship Bainbridge was immediately transferred, and on board her he hoisted his broad pennant on the 15th September, 1812.

The Essex 32, Capt. Porter, and Hornet 18, Capt. Lawrence, were placed under Bainbridge’s orders, and his instructions were to cruise for the English East India trade, in the South Atlantic. The Essex being in the Delaware, she was directed to rendezvous at the Cape de Verdes, or on the coast of South America. The Constitution and Hornet sailed in company, from Boston, on the 26th October, but the events of the cruise prevented the Essex, which ship was commanded by Porter, his old first lieutenant in the Philadelphia, from joining the commodore.

The Constitution and Hornet arrived off St. Salvador on the 13th of December. The latter ship went in, and found the Bonne Citoyenne, an enemy’s cruiser of equal force, lying in the harbor. This discovery led to a correspondence which will be mentioned in the life of Lawrence, and which induced Bainbridge to quit the offing, leaving the Hornet on the look-out for her enemy. On the 26th, accordingly, he steered to the southward, intending to stand along the coast as low as 12° 20′ S., when, about 9, A. M., on the 29th, the ship then being in 13° 6′ S. latitude, and 31° W. longitude, or about thirty miles from the land, she made two strange sail, inshore and to windward. After a little manœuvring, one of the ships closing, while the other stood on towards St. Salvador, Bainbridge was satisfied he had an enemy’s frigate fairly within his reach. This was a fortunate meeting to occur in a sea where there was little hazard of finding himself environed by hostile cruisers, and only sixty-four days out himself from Boston.

In receiving the Constitution from Hull, Bainbridge found her with only a portion of her old officers in her, though the crew remained essentially the same. Morris, her late first lieutenant, had been promoted, and was succeeded by George Parker, a gentleman of Virginia, and a man of spirit and determination. John Shubrick and Beekman Hoffman, the first of South Carolina and the last of New York, two officers who stood second to none of their rank in the service, were still in the ship, however, and Alwyn, her late master, had been promoted, and was now the junior lieutenant.^[4] In a word, their commander could rely on his officers and people, and he prepared for action with confidence and alacrity. A similar spirit seemed to prevail in the other vessel, which was exceedingly well officered, and, as it appeared in the end, was extra manned.

At a quarter past meridian, the enemy showed English colors. Soon after, the Constitution, which had stood to the southward to draw the stranger off the land, hauled up her mainsail, took in her royals, and tacked toward the enemy. As the wind was light and the water smooth, the Constitution kept every thing aloft, ready for use, closing with the stranger with royal yards across. At 2 P. M. the latter was about half a mile to windward of the Constitution, and showed no colors, except a jack. Bainbridge now ordered a shot fired at him, to induce him to set an ensign. This order, being misunderstood, produced a whole broadside from the Constitution, when the stranger showed English colors again, and returned the fire.

This was the commencement of a furious cannonading, both ships manœuvring to rake and to avoid being raked. Very soon after the action commenced, Bainbridge was hit by a musket ball in the hip; and, a minute or two later, a shot came in, carried away the wheel, and drove a small bolt with considerable violence into his thigh. Neither injury, however, induced him even to sit down; he kept walking the quarter-deck, and attending to the ship, greatly adding to the subsequent inflammation, as these foreign substances were lodged in the muscles of his leg, and, in the end, threatened tetanus. The last injury was received about twenty minutes after the firing commenced, and was even of more importance to the ship than the wound it produced was to her captain. The wheel was knocked into splinters, and it became necessary to steer below.^[5] This was a serious evil in the midst of a battle, and more particularly in an action in which there was an unusual amount of manœuvring. The English vessel, being very strong manned, was actively handled, and, sailing better than the Constitution in light winds, her efforts to rake produced a succession of evolutions, which caused both ships to ware so often, that the battle terminated several miles to leeward of the point on the ocean at which it commenced.

After the action had lasted some time, Bainbridge determined to close with his enemy at every hazard. He set his courses accordingly, and luffed up close to the wind. This brought matters to a crisis, and the Englishman, finding the Constitution’s fire too heavy, attempted to run her aboard. His jib-boom did get foul of the American frigate’s mizzen rigging, but the end of his bowsprit being shot away, and his foremast soon after following, the ships passed clear of each other, making a lucky escape for the assailants.^[6] The battle continued some time longer, the Constitution throwing in several effective raking broadsides, and then falling alongside of her enemy to leeward. At length, finding her adversary’s guns silenced and his ensign down, Bainbridge boarded his tacks again, luffed up athwart the Englishman’s bows, and got a position ahead and to windward, in order to repair damages; actually coming out of the battle as he had gone into it, with royal yards across, and every spar, from the highest to the lowest, in its place! The enemy presented a singular contrast. Stick after stick had been shot out of him, as it might be, inch by inch too, until nothing, but a few stumps, was left. All her masts were gone, the foremast having been shot away twice, once near the catharpings, and again much nearer to the deck; the main-topmast had come down some time before the mainmast fell. The bowsprit, as has been said, was shot away at the cap. After receiving these damages, the enemy did not wait for a new attack, but as soon as the Constitution came round, with an intention to cross his fore-foot, he lowered a jack which had been flying at the stump of his mizzenmast.

The ship Bainbridge captured was the Java 38, Capt. Lambert. The Java was a French built ship that had been taken some time previously, under the name of La Renommée, in those seas where lies the island after which she was subsequently called. She mounted 49 carriage guns, and had a sufficient number of supernumeraries on board to raise her complement at quarters to something like 400 souls. Of these the English accounts admit that 124 were killed and wounded; though Bainbridge thought her loss was materially greater. It is said a muster-list was found in the ship, that was dated five days after the Java left England, and which contained 446 names. From these, however, was to be deducted the crew for a prize she had taken; the ship in company when made the day of the action. Capt. Lambert died of his wounds; but there was a master and commander on board, among the passengers, and the surviving first lieutenant was an officer of merit.

In addition to the officers and seamen who were in the Java, as passengers, were Lieutenant-General Hislop and his staff, the former of whom was going to Bombay as governor. Bainbridge treated these captives with great liberality and kindness, and, after destroying his prize for want of means to refit her, he landed all his prisoners, on parole, at St. Salvador.

In this action the Constitution had nine men killed and twenty-five men wounded. She was a good deal cut up in the rigging, and had a few spars injured, but, considering the vigor of the engagement and the smoothness of the water, she escaped with but little injury. There is no doubt that she was a heavier ship than her adversary, but the difference in the batteries was less than appeared by the nominal calibres of the guns; the American shot, in that war, being generally of light weight, while those of the Java, by some accounts, were French.

It has been said that Bainbridge disregarded his own wounds until the irritation endangered his life. His last injury must have been received about half past two, and he remained actively engaged on deck until 11 o’clock at night; thus adding the irritation of eight hours of exertion to the original injuries. The consequences were some exceedingly threatening symptoms, but skilful treatment subdued them, when his recovery was rapid.

An interesting interview took place between Bainbridge and Lambert, on the quarter-deck of the Constitution, after the arrival of the ship at St. Salvador. The English captain was in his cot, and Bainbridge approached, supported by two of his own officers, to take his leave, and to restore the dying man his sword. This interview has been described as touching, and as leaving kind feelings between the parting officers. Poor Lambert, an officer of great merit, died a day or two afterwards.

The Constitution now returned home for repairs, being very rotten. She reached Boston February 27, 1813, after a cruise of only four months and one day. Bainbridge returned in triumph, this time, and, if his countrymen had previously manifested a generous sympathy in his misfortunes, they now showed as strong a feeling in his success. The victor was not more esteemed for his courage and skill, than for the high and chivalrous courtesy and liberality with which he had treated his prisoners.

Bainbridge gave up the Constitution on his return home, and resumed the command of the yard at Charlestown, where the Independence 74 was building, a vessel he intended to take, when launched. Here he remained until the peace, that ship not being quite ready to go out when the treaty was signed. In the spring of 1815, a squadron was sent to the Mediterranean, under Decatur, to act against the Dey of Algiers, and Bainbridge followed, as commander-in-chief, in the Independence, though he did not arrive until his active predecessor had brought the war to a successful close. On this occasion, Bainbridge had under his orders the largest naval force that was ever assembled beneath the American flag; from eighteen to twenty sail of efficient cruisers being included in his command. In November, after a cruise of about five months, he returned to Newport, having one ship of the line, two frigates, seven brigs, and three schooners in company. Thus he carried to sea the first two-decker that ever sailed under the American ensign; the present Capt. Bolton being his first lieutenant. During this cruise, Com. Bainbridge arranged several difficulties with the Barbary powers, and in all his service he maintained the honor and dignity of his flag and of his command.

Bainbridge now continued at Boston several years, with his pennant flying in the Independence, as a guard ship. In the autumn of 1819, however, he was detached once more, for the purpose of again commanding in the Mediterranean. This was the fifth time in which he had been sent into that sea; three times in command of frigates, and twice at the head of squadrons. The Columbus 80, an entirely new ship, was selected for his pennant, and he did not sail until April, 1820, in consequence of the work that it was necessary to do on board her. The Columbus reached Gibraltar early in June. This was an easy and a pleasant cruise, one of the objects being to show the squadron in the ports of the Mediterranean, in order to impress the different nations on its coast with the importance of respecting the maritime rights of the republic. Bainbridge had a strong desire to show his present force, the Columbus in particular, before Constantinople, whither he had been sent twenty years before, against his wishes; but a firman could not be procured to pass the castles with so heavy a ship. After remaining out about a year, Bainbridge was relieved, and returned home, the principal objects of his cruise having been effected.

This was Bainbridge’s last duty afloat. He had now made ten cruises in the public service; had commanded a schooner, a brig, five frigates and two line-of-battle ships, besides being at the head of three different squadrons; and it was thought expedient to let younger officers gain some experience. Age did not induce him to retire, for he was not yet fifty; but others had claims on the country, and his family had claims on himself.

But, although unemployed afloat, Bainbridge continued diligently engaged in the service, generally of the republic and of the navy. He was at Charlestown—a favorite station with him—for some time, and then was placed at the head of the board of navy commissioners, at Washington. After serving his three years in the latter station, he had the Philadelphia yard. Bainbridge had removed his family twenty-six times, in the course of his different changes, and considering himself as a Delaware seaman, he now determined to set up his penates permanently in the ancient capital of the country. An unpleasant collision with the head of the department, however, forced him from his command in 1831; but, the next year, he was restored to the station at Charlestown. His health compelled him to give up this yard in a few months, and, his constitution being broken, he returned to his family in Philadelphia, in the month of March, 1832, only to die. His disease was pneumonia, connected with great irritation of the bowels and a wasting diarrhœa. As early as in January, 1833, he was told that his case was hopeless, when he manifested a calm and manly resignation to his fate. He lived, however, until the 28th of July, when he breathed his last, aged fifty-nine years, two months and twenty-one days. An hour or two previously to his death, his mind began to wander, and not long before he yielded up his breath, he raised all that was left of his once noble frame, demanded his arms, and ordered all hands called to board the enemy!

Bainbridge married, in the early part of his career, a lady of the West Indies, of the name of Hyleger. She was the grand-daughter of a former governor of St. Eustatia, of the same name. By this lady he had five children who grew up; a son and four daughters. The son was educated to the bar, and was a young man of much promise; but he died a short time previously to his father. Of the daughters, one married a gentleman of the name of Hayes, formerly of the navy; another married Mr. A. G. Jaudon, of Philadelphia, and a third is now the wife of Henry K. Hoff, a native of Pennsylvania, and a sea-lieutenant in the service, of eleven years standing. He left his family in easy circumstances, principally the result of his own prudence, forethought, gallantry and enterprise.

At the time of his death, Commodore Bainbridge stood third in rank, in the American navy; having a long list of captains below him. Had justice been done to this gallant officer, to the service to which he belonged, or even to the country, whose interests are alone to be efficiently protected by a powerful marine, he would have worn a flag some years before the termination of his career. Quite recently a brig of war has received his name, in that service which he so much loved, and in which he passed the best of his days.

Com. Bainbridge was a man of fine and commanding personal appearance. His stature was about six feet, and his frame was muscular and of unusually good proportions. His face was handsome, particularly in youth, and his eye uncommonly animated and piercing. In temperament he was ardent and sanguine; but cool in danger, and of a courage of proof. His feelings were vehement, and he was quickly roused; but, generous and brave, he was easily appeased. Like most men who are excitable, but who are firm at bottom, he was the calmest in moments of the greatest responsibility.^[7] He was hospitable, chivalrous, magnanimous, and a fast friend. His discipline was severe, but he tempered it with much consideration for the wants and health of his crews. Few served with him who did not love him, for the conviction that his heart was right, was general among all who knew him. There was a cordiality and warmth in his manner, that gained him friends, and those who knew him best, say he had the art of keeping them.

A shade was thrown over the last years of the life of this noble-spirited man by disease. His sufferings drove him to the use of antispasmodics, to an extent which deranged the nerves. This altered his mood so much as to induce those who did not know him well, to imagine that his character had undergone the change. This was not the case, however; to his dying hour Bainbridge continued the warm-hearted friend, the chivalrous gentleman, and the devoted lover of his country’s honor and interests.

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BY RICHARD H. DANA.

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BY MRS. SEBA SMITH.

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BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE.”

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CHAPTER I.

“No, no, Lowndes,” answered Mr. Gilmer, in reply to some question which the former had made his friend touching the accomplishments of his bride elect. “No, no: you will find Miss Vivian very different probably from what you expect. Men at my age, who know the world, know that talents and accomplishments are not the first qualities to seek in a wife. Freshness of heart and mind, naïveté and disinterestedness are the charms that we prize as we grow older, for they alone, springing from the heart, can insure us happiness. No, you will not find Miss Vivian accomplished to any high degree. Her extreme youth precludes that. But what music or language can equal the melody and eloquence that speak in a young voice fresh from a warm heart! Of disinterested affection, one can feel sure in a creature so young; and the pleasure of cultivating a heart and mind all your own, of feeling that every flower that springs there is of your own planting, is worth more to my taste than the utmost perfection of acquirements ready made to the hand.”

Mr. Lowndes, who was also mature in the world’s ways, was somewhat amused at his friend’s warmth, while he smiled as he thought of the disinterestedness that leads sixteen to wed with forty-two, and he said,

“The lady is beautiful, no doubt. For with all your philosophic knowledge of the world, Gilmer, I doubt whether you would appreciate so highly the charms of a youthful mind were they not united to the loveliness of a youthful person.”

Gilmer replied with a smile,

“I think you will find she does credit to my taste. You must let me introduce you;” and the friends having agreed to call at Mrs. Vivian’s for that purpose in the evening, separated; Gilmer pitying Lowndes’ forlorn state as an old bachelor, while Lowndes could not but be amused to see his friend so enthusiastic in a folly he had often ridiculed in others.

Mr. Gilmer, at forty-two, knew the world as he said; and what is more, the world knew him; and having run a gay career, to settle in a grave and polished middle age, he would now renew life, and start afresh for the goal of happiness; deeming himself, old worldling that he was, a fit match for bright sixteen, and a natural recipient for the first warm affections of that happy age.

But is time to be so cheated? Let us see.

“Look!” cried the little bride elect, “is not this beautiful?” showing her mother an exquisite cadeau from her lover. “Oh, mamma,” added she, clasping her little hands in an ecstasy, “how he will dress one!”

“Yes, my love,” said her mother tenderly, “it is beautiful, indeed. How very attentive and kind in Mr. Gilmer to remember that passing wish of yours.”

“Oh yes! and what perfect taste too he has,” continued the little lady, evidently much more intent upon her present than her lover; and so she flew to her aunt to show the rich present she had just received. Miss Lawrence, a younger sister of her mother, who resided with them, had been absent when this engagement took place; and having examined and admired the jewel to the satisfaction of her niece, said,

“I am quite anxious to see this Mr. Gilmer of yours, Charlotte.”

“Are you? Well, he will be here this evening, I suppose; and I dare say you will like him. He likes all those sensible, dull books that you and mamma are so fond of. He’ll just suit you.”

“I hope,” replied her aunt, smiling, “he suits you too.”

“Yes,” she answered, with a little hesitation, “only he is too grave and sensible: but then he’s old, you know,” she added with a serious look.

“Old!” replied Miss Lawrence, “what do you call old?”

“Oh, I don’t know; thirty, or forty, or fifty, I don’t know exactly; but he must be quite as old as mamma, maybe older: but,” added she, with more animation, “I shall have the prettiest phaeton, with the dearest little pair of black ponies you ever saw, just to drive when I shop, you know, and an elegant chariot to pay visits; and I mean to give so many parties and a fancy ball regularly every winter;” and she continued dwelling on her anticipated gaieties to the utter exclusion, in all her plans, of husband or lover, to the surprise and amusement, not unmixed with anxiety, of her aunt, who soon began to perceive that her niece’s young brain was dizzy with the prospect of splendors and gaieties that her mother’s limited income denied her, while her heart was as untouched by any deeper emotion as one might naturally have expected from her joyous, unthinking, careless age. She was dazzled by Mr. Gilmer’s fortune and flattered by his attentions, for he was distingué in society; but love she deemed out of the question with a man as old as her mother; and she was right. It was out of the question with a girl young enough to be his daughter; for however age may admire youth, there is nothing captivating to youth in age. His fine mind, cultivated tastes and elegant manners were lost upon one whose youth and ignorance precluded her appreciating qualities she did not comprehend; and she only looked forward to her marriage as the first act in a brilliant drama in which she was to play the principal part.

“Are you quite satisfied, sister, with this engagement of Charlotte’s?” asked Miss Lawrence, with some anxiety.

“Perfectly,” replied Mrs. Vivian, “more than satisfied. Mr. Gilmer’s fortune and station are all I could ask. He is a man of sense and a gentleman. What more could I desire?”

“He is that, certainly,” replied her sister, “but I confess I wish that the disparity of years between them was less.”

“I am not sure that I do,” answered Mrs. Vivian. “His age gives me a security for his character that I could not have otherwise. And the younger the wife the greater the idol generally. Charlotte has been too much of an indulged and spoiled child, if you will, to humor and support the caprices of a young man, and I had rather she were an ‘old man’s darling than a young man’s slave.’ ”

“If she were compelled to either alternative,” said Miss Lawrence.

“Beside,” continued Mrs. Vivian, scarce hearing her sister’s interruption, “his fortune is immense; and the certainty that she will always be encompassed by every luxury wealth can procure is to me an unspeakable comfort. You cannot know, Ellen, with what idolatry a mother loves an only child, nor can you, therefore, comprehend how anxiously I would guard her from every trial or privation that could beset her path in life. My income is so small that with me she must suffer many privations both as to pleasures and comforts that will now be showered upon her with a liberal hand; and I own I anticipate her marriage with as much happiness as a mother can look forward to a separation from her only child.”

And now the preparations were rapidly making for the marriage, and every day brought some new finery to deck the pretty bride, who was in one continued ecstasy at every fresh importation; and when the wedding-day arrived and brought with it a corbeille from Mr. Gilmer, which, when opened, disclosed a bouquet of sixteen white camellias, and underneath the bridal veil of costliest lace, with other elegancies too numerous to mention, she fairly danced in her childish glee as she threw the veil over her head and flew to the mirror; and the only shadow or doubt that crossed her fair young face that day, was lest Martille, that most faithless of coiffeurs, should disappoint her in the evening.

The veil is at last arranged, with its orange buds and blossoms, and as the sparkling, white dress floats around her airy figure, a prettier, brighter, more graceful creature has rarely glanced across this world than that beauteous young bride; and Mr. Gilmer as he stood beside her, high-bred, grave and middle-aged, looked better fitted to perform the part of father than of groom.

As his friend Mr. Lowndes gazed upon the flashing eyes and glowing cheeks of the young beauty, and heard the merry tones of her childish voice, and then glanced round at the small rooms and plain furniture of her mother’s house, he perfectly comprehended the infatuation of his friend and the motives of his bride.

——

CHAPTER II.

“Well, Charlotte,” said Mr. Gilmer, after they had been married about six weeks, “I suppose our wedding gaieties are nearly over?”

“Oh! I hope not,” cried she, looking almost aghast at the idea. “Why they have scarcely more than begun. There would be very little use in being a bride indeed, if it were to end so soon,” she continued.

“So soon!” replied her husband. “Why I should think that even you would be tired of this incessant gaiety. I fairly long for one quiet dinner and evening at home.”

“I agree with you,” she returned, “the dinners are bores. To be obliged to sit four or five mortal hours and talk is very dull. But the balls are delightful, and I hope may continue these three months. You don’t dance, however,” she added, “and I don’t wonder you find it tiresome. Mamma used to complain of it too, and I dare say it is dull to you old folks who look on. But to us who waltz, you don’t know how charming it is,” and as she shook back her curls and looked up in his face, with such an expression of youthful delight, he was compelled to swallow with good humor the being classed with “Mamma” and the “old folks,” unpleasant as it might be, in the hope that she would soon weary of this heartless gaiety, and ceasing to be a child, “put away childish things.”

Finding, however, that her youth was more than a match for his patience, he soon wearied of playing the indulgent lover, and within two months after their marriage he said,

“Charlotte, after to-night we go to no more evening parties. I am thoroughly tired of them, and you have had enough for this season.”

She would have remonstrated, but the decision, almost amounting to sternness with which he spoke, startled her, and she only pouted without replying. Her usual resource, to complain of her husband to her mother, was left her, and Mrs. Vivian’s spirit quickly fired at seeing her darling child thwarted, and she said with the feeling more natural than judicious in a mother-in-law,

“Tell your husband, Charlotte, that if he does not wish to go, I am always ready to accompany you,” and the young wife returned triumphantly to her husband to say, “that mamma would take her to Mrs. Johnson’s.” Mr. Gilmer could not reasonably object to the arrangement, little as he liked it; but thus Mrs. Vivian laid the foundation of a dislike between her son-in-law and self that took root but to flourish and strengthen with time.

Mrs. Vivian calling soon after on her daughter, found her poring over a large volume most intently.

“What are you reading, Charlotte?” inquired her mother.

“Oh!” she said, tossing the book from her, “the stupidest thing you ever read. Mr. Gilmer insisted on my reading it. He wants me to ‘cultivate my mind,’ to read and think, but I won’t think for him,” she said, pettishly pushing the book from her, “he can’t make me do that, do what he will. Now is it not hard,” she said, appealing to her mother, “that just as I have left school, I should be surrounded by masters and forced to study? He insisted on engaging Signor F. to give me Italian lessons, as he says that time will hang heavy on my hands if I have nothing to do when he is absent. Not nearly as heavy, I can tell him, as when I have something to do I don’t like. And, then, these stupid dinners he will give, where he has only grave, sensible old men. If I had thought I was to lead such a life as this, I would have married a young man at once;” and thus she poured out her complaints, which were “as fresh from a warm young heart,” as Mr. Gilmer himself could have desired in his most enthusiastic mood. In fact, he was beginning to find that this “cultivating a wife’s mind” was not the easy delightful task he had once promised himself; and the naïveté that had so charmed him before his marriage, annoyed him now not a little, as he saw it amuse his friends, particularly Mr. Lowndes, whose quick eye would involuntarily glance at him as his wife let forth most unconsciously some of the little disagrémens of their ménage. That same naïveté is the most unmanageable quality in an establishment where all does not run smoothly, and for that very reason, perhaps, often more amusing to strangers. But we pity the proud reserved man who is to be tortured with the “simplicity” by which he was once captivated.

And if she was weary of the “grave sensible men” that surrounded his table, he was not less so of her young companions, who chattered and gossiped till his ears fairly ached with their nonsense.

The career of self indulgence, generally denominated a “gay life,” that Mr. Gilmer had led, was not the best of preparations for an indulgent husband, and resuming, as time wore on, the selfishness that had been laid asleep or aside in the first excitement of winning his little beauty, he became more decided and less tender in his manner toward his young wife. Finding he could not make her a companion, and having no respect for her understanding, nor sympathy in her tastes, he soon began to treat her as a child, that is, as a being having no rights. She on her side, quicker in feeling than defining, felt as every child feels, when defrauded of their due, that she had claims to assert as well as himself; and thus commenced a struggle that each urged as far as they dared. We say dared, for there was a cold, stern decision about him, that awed her in spite of herself; and he saw a look in her eye sometimes that told him it were best not to push matters to extremities, or he might raise a spirit, once raised not so easily laid. Mrs. Vivian seeing her beautiful child consigned to the cold selfishness rather of a step-father, than the indulgent affection of a devoted husband as she had expected, injudiciously took part in their little differences, and could not help giving her son-in-law an occasional cut that neither sweetened his temper nor mended his manners. He respected her understanding, and feared her penetration; and fear and respect too often engender dislike; and it was not long before a state of feeling arose between mother and son-in-law less seldom than sorrowful.

——

CHAPTER III.

The birth of a daughter at length opened new feelings and hopes to the parents; and the thought “that Mr. Gilmer could no longer treat her as a child, and require her to study and read,” added not a little to the happiness that flashed in Charlotte’s eyes as she kissed her baby with rapture; and the quiet but deep satisfaction with which Mr. Gilmer contemplated his child, was partly founded in the expectation, “that Charlotte, in assuming the duties and feelings of a mother, would sink the giddiness of the girl in the steadiness of the woman.” But little did he know in supposing that youth and nature were thus to be cheated of their privileges by the assumption of the responsibilities of maturer age. That Charlotte loved her infant with the liveliest affection, is true; but it was rather the playful fondness of a child for its play-thing than the passionate love of a mother for her first born; and although she would delightedly fondle the infant for a few minutes, yet easily terrified by the cries of the little creature, drawn forth by the awkward handling of its inexperienced parent, she would quickly resign it to the soothing cares of its nurse, who, in fact, dreaded the sight of the young mother in the nursery. Once, indeed, after having been admonished and lectured by her husband on her new duties and responsibilities, she took it in her head, at the imminent risk of life and limb of her child, to wash and dress it herself, and which was most terrified and exhausted under the operation, mother or child, it would be difficult to say; and very soon she resumed her usual routine of life, only varied by occasional visits to her nursery. Mr. Gilmer, disappointed in the change he had hoped to see in her character and tastes, became more impatient and less yielding than before. Had he, in the indulgent spirit that should have accompanied his age and knowledge of the world, given way to the joyous spirits and excitable feelings natural to her youth, he would have won to himself a heart naturally warm and affectionate, at the same time that he quenched her ardent love of pleasure in satiety. But, too selfish to put that constraint on himself, he expected at once that calm indifference to society, in a girl of scarce eighteen, that was in himself the result of twenty-five years devotion to its frivolities, and his wife’s thirst for gaiety seemed to increase in proportion to the difficulties and objections he threw in the path of her enjoyment—and it was but natural that she should escape with delight, looks of grave displeasure, quick words of impatience, and selfish forgetfulness of her tastes at home, for the gaiety of brilliant throngs where she was followed, admired and flattered, and which she enjoyed the more, that the opportunities were rare and doubtful.

And thus time wore on, adding rather than diminishing the discontents of all parties. We have said before that the feelings subsisting between Mrs. Vivian and her son-in-law were any thing but kind and friendly; and they now rarely met without quick and biting sarcasms on her side, retorted by a cold and haughty disrespect on his. Age, too, was now adding its usual exactions to his natural selfishness of character, and that he might enjoy that luxurious indolence and tranquillity so necessary to his happiness, and withdraw his wife from the pleasure so opposite to his tastes, and, above all, that he might free himself from the interference and investigation of Mrs. Vivian, and separate Charlotte from her mother as much as possible, he resolved to purchase a place in the country. Regardless of the wishes of his wife, heedless of her remonstrance, the idea was no sooner conceived than executed, and however much Mrs. Gilmer disliked the removal, there was no resource but to submit. That she submitted with a good grace we cannot say, for Charlotte had now learned to think, (as what woman does not that makes an ill-assorted marriage?) although her mind had not expanded in the direction that her husband desired. She had become acquainted with her own claims, and in penetrating the heartlessness and hollowness of her husband’s character, had learned to mourn over the sacrifice of her youth and beauty with indignation and anguish. Resenting the steady pursuance of his own plans, to the utter exclusion of all consideration for her wishes, she in her turn became careless of his comforts and negligent of her duties. Who that passed that beautiful place, with its rich lawns, noble trees and magnificent views, would have suspected the discontented tempers and unsatisfied hearts that dwelt in that embowered paradise. Her child was a source of unmingled happiness to her as it grew in beauty and intelligence. But will the love of a child alone compensate for that want of companionship and sympathy that the heart asks for in vain where there is no equality of mind or years?

The society of her mother had been her greatest source of comfort during the last few years of her existence, as she turned to her for that indulgence and love of which she felt the want more and more; and which was poured forth upon her more fully in her hour of disappointment than even in her petted childhood by her doting parent. And now how gladly did she hail every little excuse the calls of life afforded her, the procuring a servant, the necessary purchases, &c., to drive to the city and spend as many hours as possible with that dear friend. And oh, how doubly happy was she on such occasions, if she were caught in a storm, or losing the boat, was compelled to remain a few days in that small house, which with its mean furniture she had once been so anxious to escape, but which was now to her the centre of all happiness, for there she found liberty, sympathy, love; and her mother acknowledged to herself that when she had so anxiously essayed to guard her child from every sorrow and trial of life, she had attempted a task not to be achieved upon earth. Cares and sorrows are the lot of earth’s children; but they fall comparatively lightly on those whose hearts are strengthened and sustained by an all-supporting and enduring love for those to whom fortune has connected their destiny.

And was Mr. Gilmer happier for the new mode of life he had adopted? No. Accustomed to the habits of a city, he was wanting in that personal activity necessary for the enjoyment of country pleasures, or keen interest in the agricultural improvement of his place. His literary pursuits, wanting the stimulus of congenial spirits, was degenerating into careless reading and sedentary habits, only diversified by light dozing; and, after spending the afternoon and evening hours in his library alone, there was a dreamy abstraction in his eye, that the keen vigilance of Mrs. Vivian having once detected, she knew immediately came neither from literary excitement nor intellectual meditation. Thus will the selfish pursuance of one’s own gratification, alone, fall back upon the head of him who essays to secure all for himself in yielding nothing to others.

A wasted youth and useless manhood must end in a neglected and unhonored age.

Should a few years bring forth a young and beauteous widow, society may look for the natural results of an unnatural youth, in that saddest of anomalies, a gay widow. And should she essay a second “Experiment of Living,” we fear that having been worldly when she should have been romantic, she will now be romantic when it would be more graceful, or at least more respectable, to be worldly, and the result will scarcely be less unfortunate and infinitely more ridiculous than the first.

F. E. F.

Fanny Corbaux       H. S. Sadd, N. Y.

The Pet Rabbit

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.

Painted by Destouches.       Eng^d by J.N. Gimbrede.

The Reprimand

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.

———

BY EPES SARGENT.

———

In this utilitarian, leveling, democratic age, when candidates for the Presidency are expected to attend “mass clam-bakes,” at Seekonk, Squam, or some equally central and populous locality, it is quite delightful to meet with a good, old-fashioned, uncompromising aristocrat like Aunt Adeline. Possessing no discoverable attraction, personal, intellectual, or moral—masculine in her features, voice and manners—penurious in her habits—and violent in her prejudices—all these little foibles and defects are redeemed and dignified by her magnificent family pride. Her grandmother was niece to a lady, whose husband had a cousin, whose husband’s brother’s wife’s sister had been lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne. What a blessed privilege! What a cause for felicitation and delicious retrospection to the remotest posterity!

Amy Ammidon and her brother Harry had the never-to-be-sufficiently-appreciated good fortune to be the children of Aunt Adeline’s brother, and to partake consequently in the lustre of her ancestral glories. At the time of the incident, the particulars of which have been communicated to me, Mr. Ammidon, who had been a prosperous merchant, had met with reverses in business, which compelled him to circumscribe his expenditures. Harry was supposed to be traveling in Europe; and Aunt Adeline, much to the chagrin of all concerned, had undertaken to supply the void in the family, occasioned about a year before by the death of an affectionate mother and wife, by taking up her residence amongst them. Such were the circumstances of the little group early in the spring of 1842.

What a dear, artless, sunny-tempered creature was Amy! Vainly, vainly has the limner tried accurately to trace her face and figure. He deserves credit for what he has done. I can see a resemblance—a strong one, in the picture which the graver of Gimbrede has transferred to steel. But where is the ever-varying expression, the sparkling animation of lip and eye, too evanescent and too mutable to be daguerreotyped even by memory with fidelity? Art can do much, but it cannot do justice to such a Protean beauty as Amy.

Although born in the city—although the din of Broadway was the first noise that broke upon her infant slumbers—Amy was as much out of place in New York, with its reeking gutters, its eternal omnibuses and its “indignation processions,” as a pond lily would be in a tanner’s pit. The country, with its wealth of foliage, its fields and its wild flowers, was her delight. The anticipation of visiting it seemed to be alone sufficient to fill her heart with cheerfulness during the winter months. A little cottage, in Westchester county, to which the name of Glenwood had been given, and which had not been sacrificed in the general wreck of her father’s property, was her beau ideal of Paradise. And a delicious spot it was—cool, sequestered, rich in its smooth lawns and ancient forests, and commanding a fine view of Long Island Sound, from which a fresh breeze was wafted in the hottest days of summer. I cannot imagine a more suitable place at which to introduce Amy to the friendly regards of my readers.

But before I proceed, let me express my regret that a rigid adherence to truth and candor will not permit me to conceal the fact that there was one trait of character in which Amy was lamentably and unaccountably deficient. Notwithstanding the lessons and the example of her respectable aunt—notwithstanding the hereditary blood in her veins—notwithstanding the family tree and the family pictures, Amy had not one particle of that praiseworthy and truly disinterested pride which springs from the contemplation of the superiority of some remote ancestor over ourselves. She had not sense enough to see (poor thing!) why the circumstance of her great grandfather’s having been a bishop was a sufficient proof of her own orthodoxy and worth, or what her grandmother’s merit had to do with hers. Had she been in the habit of quoting poetry, she might have adopted the base-spirited sentiment expressed by Pope:

A great fallacy, and one which never failed to excite the vehement and proper indignation of Aunt Adeline! I am sorry that at the very outset I am compelled to tell these things of Amy, but, as they illustrate her conduct on an important occasion, they could not well be omitted.

It was a bright and beautiful afternoon in June. The air from the water was fresh and elastic. The bees about Glenwood were plying a brisk business among the clover, and the birds were singing as if their life depended on the amount of noise they could make. Amy stole in from the piazza that encircled the cottage, and, with her apron full of newly plucked flowers, sat down in the big leathern armchair in the library to arrange a nosegay. To one who could not sympathize with her admiration of their fragrance and beauty, her delight would have seemed almost childish, for she kissed them and laughed, and laughed and kissed them again, then put her forefinger to her mischievous lips, and whispered “hush!” as if warning herself against intrusion, then shrugged her ivory shoulders and laughed once more, as if congratulating herself upon the undisturbed enjoyment of some interdicted pleasure.

But Amy was mistaken in supposing that she was alone and unobserved, for at that moment Aunt Adeline, who had been watching her antics from behind a door, burst in upon her with an exclamation which made her start from her seat and drop the half-formed nosegay, and scatter the flowers upon the floor, while she stood trembling like a culprit, with one hand grasping her apron, and her left elbow instinctively resting on a couple of large volumes which concealed a whole wilderness of pressed flowers.

And what was Amy’s crime? Listen, and perhaps you may find out.

“So, Miss—so!” screamed Aunt Adeline, at the top of her voice, which, in its melody, resembled a Scotch bag-pipe more than a Dorian flute. And having uttered these monosyllables, she tossed herself into the vacated chair, as if preparing for a reprimand of some length. Then, pointing to the abandoned flowers, she sternly asked—“How came you by those flowers? Speak, minx!”

Amy continued silent; and Aunt Adeline renewed her interrogation with more severity. A little indignation began now to mingle with Amy’s grief, and she was on the point of astonishing her aunt with a spirited reply, when the latter exclaimed:

“You needn’t tell me where you got them, Miss. I know all about it. They were given to you by that plebeian clodhopper, Tom Greenleaf, the milk-man’s son. Yes, you mean-spirited thing, you. The milk-man’s son!”

It was even so. Mortifying to my feelings as it is to make any such admission in regard to a heroine of mine, I must confess that Aunt Adeline was right, and that the flowers were the gift (pah!) of an individual of thoroughly rustic extraction. Some twenty years since, old Greenleaf was the owner of a snug farm on the island of Manhattan; where he obtained a frugal subsistence by selling milk to the denizens of the city. It was even true, that occasionally, when the old man was confined at home by the rheumatism, Tom, who was then a mere lad, would mount the cart and go the rounds in his father’s stead. While engaged in this employment, it was his lot to meet Amy Ammidon, whose family he supplied with the snowy beverage enclosed in his large tin tubs. Amy was then as rosy-cheeked, black-eyed a little maiden as ever perpetrated unconscious damage in the hearts of venturous youths. Tom instinctively discovered her fondness for flowers, and the nosegays he used to bring her in consequence surpassed all computation. Years rolled on; and one fine summer day the old milk-man was overwhelmed with astonishment at discovering that his little thirty-acre farm was worth a hundred thousand dollars. He sold out, purchased a beautiful estate in Westchester, removed to it, and just as he was beginning to feel the ennui of inert prosperity, he died, leaving Tom the sole heir of his safely invested property.

Tom showed himself a man, every inch of him, in the course he pursued. He had always had a taste for reading, and he now devoted himself with assiduity to the attainment of a fitting education. At the age of twenty-one he graduated at a respectable college, and then wisely chose the profession of a farmer. He had not been home many days, when in one of his walks he encountered his old friend Amy. Both were equally delighted at renewing the acquaintance; and one step led to another, until Tom had the audacity to send her the nosegay which had called down Aunt Adeline’s appropriate indignation.

“Hear me, Amy Ammidon,” continued she; “if you dare to disgrace your family by receiving the addresses of that son of a cauliflower—that low-born, low-bred cultivator of turnip-tops and radishes—that superintendent of hay-mows and pig-pens—that vulgar cow-boy—if you dare to sully the blood of an Ammidon by such a union, I will utterly disown you, and you shall never have the advantage of my society again.”

Strange to say, Amy’s eyes brightened at this menace, and I am afraid she was just on the point of exclaiming, “O, then, I will marry him, by all means;” but she checked herself, and said: “Can’t one receive a few flowers from a gentleman without risking the imputation of being engaged to him?”

“Gentleman, indeed! Tom Greenleaf a gentleman!”

“Yes, Miss Adeline Ammidon,” exclaimed Amy in a tone which transfixed her aunt with amazement, “as true a gentleman as any ancestor of yours or mine ever was! A gentleman not only in mind and manners, but what is better far, in heart—and therefore a perfect gentleman!”

“Oh dear! What a deal of spirit Miss Innocence can show when a word is said against the clodhopper! Why doesn’t she show as much indignation when Frank Phaeton and Harry Hawker, from both of whom she has had offers, are abused?”

“I shall be eighteen next January—heigho!”

“So, you mean by that to taunt me with your approaching freedom; but we will have you married before that time in a manner becoming your rank. Have you forgotten what I told you about Col. Mornington, a son of the Earl of Bellingham, being in the city from Canada? My friend, Mrs. Ogleby, has promised to give him a letter to me, and I am daily expecting a call. When he comes, I mean to invite him to pass a week at Glenwood, and if you are not a fool you can bring him to your feet.”

“Isn’t he very dissipated?”

“That is not of the slightest consequence, my dear, when you think of his splendid connections.”

“I am told he is utterly destitute of principle.”

“He will be a lord when his eldest brother dies. It is ridiculous to bring up such frivolous objections.”

While this conversation was going on, Greenleaf, who had been lying in wait for Amy near the porch, was attracted to the window by the loud, objurgatory tones of aunt Adeline’s voice, and, to his dismay, found that Amy was the victim of her anger. He was on the point of jumping into the room, and gagging the old woman, when his eye fell on a suspicious-looking flask near the window-sill, and he charitably concluded that the cordial it contained was at the bottom of the disturbance. How far this conjecture was correct I have never been able to ascertain. Tom was soon joined by Amy, who, with tears in her eyes, told him of her aunt’s violent behavior. The lovers sauntered away, arm in arm, and, as they reached the termination of a shady lane that opened upon the highway, they saw a carriage, containing a young man of foreign appearance, with long hair and moustaches, drive toward the cottage.

“That must be the Colonel Mornington, of whom Aunt Adeline spoke,” said Amy, stifling a sob.

“Shall I knock him down?” asked Tom, clenching his fists.

Before Amy could reply, the carriage was suddenly stopped, and the stranger, throwing open the door, jumped from it without waiting for the steps to be let down. Then, rushing toward Amy, he threw his arms about her neck, hugged and kissed her. So abrupt and rapid was the act, that Greenleaf was thoroughly confounded at the fellow’s impudence, and had no opportunity of interposing. He was making preparations to seize the coxcomb, however, and throw him over the hedge, when he was relieved by Amy’s exclaiming, “Brother Harry! Is it possible? I should never have dreamed it was you, with those frightful whiskers.”

“Yes, Amy, it is Harry himself. And you—how you have grown! When I last saw you, you were a chubby little girl, But, Amy, Amy, is that a tear on your cheek? What is the meaning of it?”

“Oh, nothing serious, I assure you. I am so glad—so very glad to see you, Harry! You intend to remain with us, do you not?”

“Nay, I must know the meaning of that tear. Father is well, is he not?”

“When I last heard from him, at Charleston, he was never better. We are all well—quite well.”

“Introduce me to your companion, Amy.”

Amy did as her brother requested; and the introduction was soon succeeded by a frank explanation of the position of the parties, and of Aunt Adeline’s ferocious opposition to the existence of their present relation.

“I will punish the old shrew,” exclaimed Harry. “I owe her an ancient grudge, for making me go in petticoats, when a boy, a year longer than was necessary. Let me see—she is daily expecting this Colonel Mornington, you say?”

“Yes; and she is studying, with more zest than ever, the family records, to enlighten him fully in regard to her pedigree.”

“Well, you must concur in a little plot, by which you can be relieved from her present system of annoyance, and I can gratify the long-deferred vengeance implanted by her opposition to my appearance in jacket and trowsers. It is nearly ten years since she saw me. Of course she will not recognize me with these hirsute appendages. I will appear as Col. Mornington. I will make love to you. You must prove fickle, and receive my attentions—and then leave the dénouement to me.”

“Delightful! Do you approve of it, Thomas?”

“By all means. It will be a very harmless mode of revenging ourselves.”

An hour afterwards, as Aunt Adeline was peeping through the parlor blinds, she saw, as she supposed, the long expected carriage of Col. Mornington dash up before the door, and the colonel himself—the “dear, delightful colonel,” with a remarkably languid air, alight. Preceded by a servant, she hastened to receive him, and, as the door was thrown open, welcomed him to Glenwood with an antiquarian courtesy. The colonel’s manner of receiving her salutation was rather peculiar. Before replying to her greeting, or saying a word, he slowly drew from his pocket a leather case, from which he took an enormous opera-glass. Then hunting, first in one pocket and then in another, for a handkerchief, he finally succeeded in finding one; and, in a manner which was not at all significant of haste, proceeded to wipe the glasses. Then leisurely returning the handkerchief to its place of deposit, he balanced himself in a sort of easy straddle, coolly put the opera-glass to his eyes, and took a long survey of Aunt Adeline’s physiognomy. As soon as he had finished his inspection he returned the glass to its case, and asked, in a drawling tone—“Are you Miss Am-Am-Amworth, or Amburgh, or Am⁠—”

“Miss Ammidon, you probably mean,” said Aunt Adeline. “I am that person, and you, sir, I presume, are Colonel Mornington. You needn’t hunt for your letter of introduction. I have been expecting the honor of a visit, sir, for some days, and now bid you heartily welcome to Glenwood. Have the goodness to walk into the parlor. Your baggage shall be taken care of. I must insist on your making our cottage your home while you are in the village.”

“Thawideawquoitewavishesme,” said the colonel, but whether he was speaking in the Choctaw or Hindostanee tongue, Aunt Adeline could not guess.

Entering the parlor he encountered Amy, to whom he was at once introduced by Aunt Adeline. He again went through the process of inspection with the aid of an opera-glass, and Amy, in spite of her aunt’s frowns, burst into a fit of laughter and left the room.

“Extwardinarygwirl!” exclaimed the colonel, in the same unknown tongue. Then turning to Aunt Adeline, he abruptly asked for “bwandy and water.”

As soon as she could comprehend his wants, she recollected, much to her chagrin, that there was no brandy in the house; and informed the colonel of the fact, promising at the same time to send to the nearest grocery, which was a mile off, and obtain the desired article.

“No bwandy! No bwandy in the house!” exclaimed the noble visiter, staring at his dismayed hostess with an expression of utter consternation and despair depicted in his countenance.

Assuring him that the brandy should be procured with all possible expedition, Aunt Adeline hurried out of the room, and despatched all the servants in different directions, promising a reward to that one who would be the first to bring home a pint of brandy. No sooner had she disappeared than Amy re-entered the parlor; and when Aunt Adeline returned, which she did not venture to do until, after great exertions, the brandy had been obtained, she saw to her surprise her niece and the colonel sitting familiarly on the sofa, engaged, apparently, in affectionate dalliance.

“Now, colonel, if you will try some of this brandy,” said Aunt Adeline.

“Throw it away!” exclaimed the colonel, “here is something better than eau de vie!” and saying thus, he kissed Amy, first on either cheek, then on her lips, to all which she submitted with perfect resignation. Aunt Adeline flung up both arms in astonishment. “This is the quickest wooing,” thought she, “that I ever heard of!”

The colonel had not been two days in the family before it was regarded as settled that he and Amy were affianced. Aunt Adeline eagerly gave her consent, notwithstanding some little eccentricities in the young man’s conduct, of which she did not wholly approve. For instance, when she undertook to bore him with an explanation of her family tree, he laughed in her face, and told her that his mare Betsey could boast a better pedigree. This was touching the old woman on a tender point, but she suppressed the exhibition of her chagrin through a secret admiration of that superiority in blood, which could afford to sneer at her genealogy. Another circumstance was rather annoying, and some illiberal people might have considered the trait it displayed objectionable in a lover. The colonel, who had apparently been indulging too freely in strong potations, on meeting Aunt Adeline alone on the stairs, was rude to the ancient vestal, and even attempted to throw his arms about her neck. To tell the truth, Aunt Adeline was a very little shocked at this ebullition, but when she recollected that the aggressor was the son of an earl, she forgave him with all her heart, and determined not to mention the occurrence to her niece.

These, however, were but trivial symptoms of depravity, compared with those which were soon developed. The colonel had not been engaged two days when he petrified the “old woman,” as he called her to her face, by applying to her for money. She could have endured any thing but this without faltering in her alliance. He might have been as tipsy and profligate as he pleased, and still she would have thought him an excellent match for Amy; but in money matters, Aunt Adeline was rigid and inexorable as death itself. Although in the receipt of a competent annuity, she had always contrived, from parsimonious motives, to live upon her friends and relatives; and it was rare indeed that a dollar found its way from her store. And now Colonel Mornington called upon her, peremptorily, for a hundred dollars, and would not listen to a refusal! It was like draining her of her life-blood, but there was no remedy. With a heavy heart, and with many a longing, lingering look at the money, she placed it in his hands. She had hoped that he would of his own accord offer to give her his acceptance for the sum; but the idea evidently did not occur to him, and she timidly hinted something about a receipt.

“A what!” exclaimed the colonel in a tone, and with a stare, which effectually prevented her from renewing the suggestion.

The very next day the colonel applied for another hundred dollars, ingenuously informing her that he had experienced heavy losses at the village nine-pin alley. Aunt Adeline at first peremptorily refused to give him the amount, but she was finally so worked upon by his taunts and menaces that she acceded to his exorbitant demands. The same scene was repeated the next day, and the next, and the next, until the colonel was her debtor to the amount of five hundred dollars, when she unequivocally declared that she would advance him no more money. The colonel left her presence, muttering mysterious threats.

Late that night, as Aunt Adeline, with a mind torn by unavailing regrets and painful conjectures as to the probabilities of her ever getting back her loan, was vainly trying to compose herself to sleep, she heard a slight noise at the handle of her chamber door, and, turning her eyes in the direction, saw to her horror the colonel enter with a dark lanthorn in his hand and two enormous pistols under his arms. Gently closing the door, he locked it, and stealthily advanced toward the toilet table, where he deposited one of the murderous weapons, and then cocking the other, approached the bed-side. Although Aunt Adeline was shaking with fright, she had sense enough to feign slumber, and the colonel, after examining her features and muttering, “it is lucky for the old girl she is asleep,” proceeded to search the various drawers and trunks in the room for plunder, having first abstracted a formidable bunch of keys from under the venerable spinster’s pillow. The most valuable articles he found were a bag filled with golden half eagles and a little casket of jewels. Thrusting these into the pockets of his dressing-gown, he replaced the keys where he had found them, took another look at Aunt Adeline, to assure himself that she was asleep, and glided quietly out of the room.

At the breakfast-table the next morning, when Aunt Adeline made her appearance, both her niece and the colonel professed to be very much shocked at her pale and altered features; and the latter pressed upon her some patent pills, in regard to the efficacy of which he told some wonderful stories. Had not Aunt Adeline been thoroughly convinced of his wish to poison her, she might have taken some. The poor woman’s troubles were by no means lessened on the reception of the following letter from her brother, which was handed to her while her coffee was cooling:

As Aunt Adeline lifted her eyes from the letter, she beheld Amy seated in the colonel’s lap, and playfully feeding him with a spoon, while at intervals she smoothed back his hair and kissed his forehead. The girl was evidently wildly enamored of a character who had shown himself a most eligible candidate for Sing Sing; and Aunt Adeline had the soothing reflection, that she herself had originated and encouraged the attachment. Requesting Amy to follow her to the library, she at once made known to her the fact of the colonel’s unworthiness, and related the occurrence of the night before. Amy professed her utter disbelief of the charges against her “own Arthur,” as she called him, and on her aunt’s offering to prove them, by calling in a magistrate, and having the colonel’s trunk searched, the infatuated girl exclaimed:

“Well, what if he is guilty? His father is an earl, and his aunt is the daughter-in-law of a duke, and happen what may I won’t give up my own Arthur.”

Aunt Adeline groaned in spirit as she replied—“Have you so soon forgotten that nice, respectable, amiable young man, Greenleaf, to whom you gave so much encouragement? I never believed you could be so fickle, Amy!”

“Greenleaf! Foh! Turnip-tops and cabbage-heads! Radishes and carrots! How can you condescend to mention his vulgar, vegetable name after what yourself have said about him to me, my dear aunt? Besides, how do you know that the milk-man’s son has not changed his mind by this time, seeing your hostility to his pretensions?”

Aunt Adeline had penetration enough to put a favorable construction upon this last interrogation, and, leaving her niece, she started off to pay a visit to Greenleaf. After an abundance of circumlocution, she ventured to sound him upon the subject of her niece. To her disappointment, she found him cold and impenetrable, and when she put him the question point-blank, whether he wished to marry Amy, the upstart replied that he had some young ladies in his eye, who, if they did not possess the personal charms of her niece, could boast of more illustrious ancestors, which, of course, rendered them far more eligible. Aunt Adeline could only groan. The weapons with which she was foiled were of her own forging.

Poor Aunt Adeline! After being tormented a couple of days longer, the joke was explained to her, the money and jewels were restored, and Colonel Mornington and Harry Ammidon were shown to be one and the same personage. In the first blush of her mortification and rage, she packed up her trunks, and removed to the city, where she bivouacked upon a niece, who was blessed with a houseful of small children. Soon after her departure, Greenleaf and Amy were married, and established in the new and tasteful structure built by the father and embellished by the son. Since that event, there has been but one ripple in the smooth stream of their felicity, and that was occasioned by the reception of a letter from Aunt Adeline, in which was the following passage:

“You know, Amy dear, that you were always my favorite niece, and I am sure you will be pleased to hear that I intend paying you a long visit next month. I am quite willing to forego the gayeties of New York, for the pleasure of passing a year or two with you and your charming husband. I hear you see a good deal of company, and are visited by many highly genteel people from the city. I always said that my darling Amy would make a creditable match. You may expect me early in October.”

Immediately on the arrival of this letter, there were a number of anxious consultations in regard to its contents. A proposition was brought forward by Harry Ammidon for blowing up the old woman with gunpowder, after a plan that had been communicated to him in Paris by one of the conspirators against Louis Philippe. This project being objected to, he suggested whether she couldn’t be put into a haunted room, and a ghost hired, for a small compensation, to torment her nightly. But the house being one of modern construction, and no well authenticated murder having been yet committed in it, this contrivance did not appear altogether feasible.

When I took leave of the family, which was on a pleasant afternoon last September, they were still plotting the means of averting the menaced visitation. Should any thing interesting transpire in this connection, perhaps I will give an account of it in a supplement to my present narrative.

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BY FRANCES S. OSGOOD.

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BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.

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“So Miss Ormesby is dead. Well, no one will miss her; these queer people are never of any use in the world.” Such was the cold and sneering comment made by a certain commonplace, precise, pattern woman, upon the sudden death of one whose exaggerated sensibility had been her only fault, and who had expiated her folly by a life of sorrow and seclusion. Such is the judgment of the world: a crime may be forgiven, while a weakness receives no pardon.

Hester Ormesby had been one of those supernumeraries usually found in all large families. She was neither the eldest child, the pride of the household—nor the youngest, usually the pet: she was distinguished neither for great beauty nor precocious talent, and as she had been not only preceded in the world by four promising sisters, but also succeeded by several sturdy brothers, she certainly occupied a very insignificant position. The mother, who had early determined that the beauty of her girls should purchase for them a more elevated station in society, already saw in imagination her blooming roses transplanted to the hotbed of fashionable life, but for this new claimant on her maternal care, this humble little “cinque-foil,” a lowlier destiny must be anticipated. She could devise no better plan, in aid of the child’s future fortunes, than to bestow upon her the name of an eccentric old relative, whose moderate estate was entirely at her own disposal. This was accordingly done, and, notwithstanding the indisputable authority of Shakspeare on the subject of names, it was Hester Ormesby’s name which decided the fate of her future life, since it was the means of placing her under such influences as could not fail to direct the flexile mind of childhood.

Miss Hester Templeton was a maiden lady who had long passed her grand climacteric, and who lived in that close retirement which is so peculiarly favorable to the growth of whims and oddities. At the age of twenty she had been betrothed, but her lover died on the very day fixed for their marriage; and the widowed bride, yielding to the violence of her overwhelming sorrow, determined to abjure the world forever. For years she never quitted the limits of her own apartment, and was generally looked upon as the victim of melancholy madness; until the death of her parents made it necessary for her to take some interest in the affairs of every-day life, when it was discovered that whatever might be her eccentricity, her intellect was perfectly unclouded. Acute and sensible in all worldly matters, quite competent to manage her pecuniary affairs, and gifted with a degree of shrewdness which enabled her to see through the fine-spun webs of cunning and deceit, there was yet one weak point in her character which showed how immedicable had been the early wound of her heart. Her memory of the dead was still religiously cherished, her vow of seclusion still bound her, and thirty years had passed since her foot had crossed the threshold of her own door. Living in a remote country village, which offered no temptation to either the speculator or the manufacturer, time had wrought few changes around her. The old homestead, in which she was born, was the spot in which she meant to die, and she would have thought it sacrilege to change the position of the cumbrous furniture, or even to displace a superannuated article by a more modern invention. Her own apartment was filled with memorials of her lost lover. His picture looked down upon her from the wall, his books lay on her table, and in an antique cabinet were preserved letters, love gifts, withered nosegays and all the melancholy remnants of by-gone affection, which, to the bereaved heart, are but as the dust and ashes of the dead.

To this lonely and isolated being, in whose character romance and morbid sensibility were so singularly combined with worldly prudence and sagacity, the acquisition of a new object of interest, in the person of her little namesake, formed an epoch in life. She was flattered by the compliment, and pleased with the importance which it gave her in her own opinion. She determined to adopt the child, and, as she found no difficulty in obtaining the consent of the parents, she scarcely waited for the lapse of actual infancy ere she look the little girl to her heart and home.

Few children would have been happy in such seclusion as that in which Miss Templeton lived; but Hester Ormesby possessed that quiet, gentle, loving nature which finds sources of content and fountains of affection everywhere. With the quick perception of a sensitive nature, the little girl had early discovered that she was not a favorite at home. She could not complain of unkindness, for Mrs. Ormesby considered herself a most exemplary mother, and prided herself upon the strict performance of every duty. She would not, for the world, have given a cake to one child without furnishing all the others with a similar dainty, but she was quite unaware of the fact that in voice, and look, and manner may be displayed as much of the injustice of favoritism as in the unequal distribution of bounties. There are no beings on earth to whom sympathy is so essential as to children. Those “little people,” as Dr. Johnson calls them, well know the difference between simple indulgence and actual interest in their concerns. The most expensive gifts, the most unlimited indulgence, is of less value to them than an earnest and affectionate attention to their petty interests, and the mother whose influence will linger longest in the minds of her world tried sons is she who has most frequently flung aside her work or her book, to share their infantine sports, or listen to their boyish schemes of happiness. This sympathy was denied to Hester. Her mother was proud of the four beautiful girls, who attracted the notice even of strangers, but the little sickly looking child, whose nervous timidity rendered her almost repulsive, was merely one to be well fed, and clad, and kept from bodily harm. The transition between this indifference and the affection with which Miss Templeton treated her, was delightful to the shy and sensitive child. In her father’s house she was perfectly insignificant, in her new home she was an object of the greatest importance; and though Miss Templeton’s quiet, old-fashioned mode of life offered few attractions to a healthy and spirited child, it was exactly the kind of existence best suited to the taste of a delicate one, like Hester, who possessed a precocity of feeling more dangerous, in all cases, than precocity of mind.

Miss Templeton had some excellent notions respecting education. Implicit obedience, deference, perfect truthfulness and active industry were, in her opinion, essential points; and as these requisites have become so obsolete as to have quite gone into disuse in modern systems of instruction, it may be judged how entirely the old lady had fallen behind the march of intellect. Her affection awakened some of the dormant energy of her character, and she applied herself diligently to the task of training and disciplining the mind of her young charge. In this, as in most other cases, usefulness brought its own blessing along with it, and, as the child increased in knowledge, the heart of the recluse seemed to expand to a wider circle of sympathies. It was, indeed, a pleasant thing to see the frost of so many winters melting away before the sunshine of childish happiness, and it may be questioned whether Miss Templeton or Hester derived the most benefit from this close connection between them.

But character in its earliest development is very chameleon-like, and takes its hue from the objects with which it is brought directly in contact. Miss Templeton educated Hester thoroughly and usefully; she imparted to her a stock of knowledge far beyond that acquired at the most of schools, she imbued her with noble principles and an accurate sense of duty, but she also endowed her, unconsciously and involuntarily it may be, with her own high-toned and romantic sentiments. Indeed, it was impossible for a sensitive child to live within the atmosphere of romance and not imbibe its spirit. The circumstances of Miss Templeton’s life, her unselfish devotion to the memory of the dead, her reverential love for him who had lain so many years within the tomb, her scrupulous adherence to a vow made in the first anguish of a wounded spirit, her quiet sufferance of a blighted heart during a long life, all were calculated to make a deep impression on the mind of a girl whose sensibilities were already morbidly acute. The unlimited range of her reading, too, tended to confirm such impressions. With that respect for every thing which bears the semblance of a printed volume, so characteristic of a bookworm, Miss Templeton had carefully preserved an extensive but very miscellaneous library. The poets and essayists of England’s golden age were ranged side by side with the controversial theologists—sermons were elbowed by cookery books—Sir Charles Grandison was a close neighbor to the grave Sherlock—while Clarissa Harlowe and Pamela were in curious juxtaposition with the excellent Jeremy Taylor and Richard Baxter. Novels and romances formed no small part of this heterogeneous collection, and Hester, who was a most inveterate reader, devoured every work of fiction which came in her way. To the present generation, who have become fastidious from literary indulgence, and who, since the days of Edgeworth and Scott, ask for vraisemblance in the fiction over which they hang enraptured, the romances of a preceding age seem dull, prosy and unnatural. But at the time of which I speak, the great object of the novelist was to portray heroines, such as never could exist, and events such as never could have happened, while feelings refined to absolute mawkishness, and sentiments sublimated beyond the limits of human understanding, were expressed in parlance to which the language of common life was tame and trite. With such models placed before her in her favorite volumes, and the example of Miss Templeton to impress their truthfulness upon her ductile mind, it is not surprising that Hester Ormesby should have been thoroughly imbued with romance at an age when most girls are only thinking of their dolls.

Hester was in the habit of paying an annual visit to her parents, but seldom derived much pleasure from her short sojourn with the family. Her mother derided her rustic manners, while her sisters ridiculed what they termed her “highflown notions,” and it was rather in obedience to the dictates of duty than in the hope of pleasure that she ever turned her face toward the home of her infancy. On one occasion, however, her visit produced a more lasting impression. Among the gentlemen who surrounded her elder and lovelier sisters was one whose personal appearance was little calculated to prepossess a stranger. Small in stature, and with a slight deformity which destroyed all grace, his countenance full of intelligence, but “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,” Edward Legard was not one on whom the eye of woman rests with pleasure. Reserved and almost cold in manners, he mingled rarely in the gayeties of society, and, excepting amid a select circle, seldom displayed the treasures of his gifted mind. Yet those who had once seen him in moments of enthusiasm, when the fire of genius lit up his dark eye, and the honey-dew of eloquence hung on his pale lip, could never forget the effect of his words and looks. But he was excessively sensitive, the merest trifle discomposed him, and there were times when, for days together, his manner was moody, sad, and almost severe. Legard was an artist of no mean skill, but he was young and poor, and the poetic images which filled his imagination, and were depicted on the speaking canvass, or portrayed in the graphic language of eloquence, were unable to secure him the gifts of fortune. The hope of his heart was a visit to the birthplace of Art—the glorious land of shadows—the kingdom of noble memories—even Italy; and for this he toiled day after day as if life had no other object worth attainment.

When she first met Legard, Hester Ormesby had just numbered her fourteenth summer, and the genial influence of renovated health had given beauty to her countenance and symmetry to her form. Struck with the bounding freedom of her step, the grace of her unfettered movements, and the rich bloom of her dark but clear complexion, the young artist had already made several sketches of the unconscious girl before she became sensible of his notice. He regarded her as a lovely child, who stood upon the very threshold of womanhood, while the sentiments which were hereafter to become passions, were slowly budding within her heart, their existence only known by their sweet and delicate perfume of maiden modesty. He was charmed with her freshness of feeling, her enthusiasm, her girlish romance, and found in her artless character a new and delightful study. An intimacy, characterized by all the purest and best impulses of human nature, sprung up between them; yet it was only the familiar intercourse which might safely exist between a gifted man and an admiring child. Legard would have denied the possibility of inspiring a passion in so young a heart, but a very little knowledge of woman’s nature might have led him to doubt the prudence of forcing into premature existence those passions whose slow expansion formed so sweet a subject of contemplation.

Hester returned from this visit almost reluctantly, and, for the first time in her life, her home seemed dull and sad. She carried with her a beautifully finished sketch of herself, painted by Legard, for Miss Templeton, while a few stanzas addressed to her, on parting, by the same gifted individual, and a faded rosebud which he laid once twined in her long curls, were her own solitary treasures.

Not long after this, Miss Templeton was seized with a severe nervous affection, which partially deprived her of the use of her limbs, and compelled her to require the constant aid of others. Hester loved her too devotedly to shrink from such attendance, and month after month passed away, while she was confined to the invalid’s apartment, with only her own thoughts to relieve the monotony of her existence. Had she never met Legard, such thoughts would have been but

Like all the fancies of a young and pure-hearted girl, they would have been indefinite and dream-like, fading away ere their outlines were accurately determined, like the frost-work landscapes on a window-pane. But now there was form and coloring to all such visions. The image of that pale intellectual being, full of genius and morbid feeling, aspiring after immortality, yet pining over mere physical defects, was ever present with her. She thought over all their past interviews, and words which seemed meaningless when first uttered, now were of deep import when repeated by the magical voice of memory. She recalled his looks, and the glance which then only spoke a love for the beautiful in nature, now, when reflected from the mirror of fancy, was fraught with earnest tenderness. The consequence of such pernicious day dreaming may be easily imagined. She persuaded herself into the belief that she was beloved, and, at fifteen, Hester Ormesby was already the passionate, the tender, the loving woman. Reader, do you doubt the possibility of such rapid development of the affections? Ask any imaginative, warm-hearted, truth-loving woman, if, amid the arcana of her past emotions, some remnants of such a girlish passion do not yet exist.

During several years Hester was confined to Miss Templeton’s sick room, and, though occasionally receiving visits and letters from her family, she heard nothing of Legard, excepting that he had departed for Italy. Perhaps the knowledge of his absence tended to reconcile her to the close seclusion in which she now lived, and, with a degree of imprudence perfectly natural to such a character, she treasured up every thing which could feed her romantic passion. A book which his pencil had marked—a plant which he had admired—a melody which he had praised—even the color of a ribbon which he had once approved, were objects of remembered interest to her. She delighted to think of him as roaming through the galleries of ancient art, drinking deep draughts of beauty from the antique fountains of classic taste, and winning, leaf by leaf, the laurel bough which had been the object of his vain longing. Of the future—of his return and its probable results to herself, she never thought. Nothing is so purely unselfish as true love; it asks every thing for its object, but nothing for itself; and she who finds matrimonial calculations mingling with the early emotions of her heart, may make a notable managing and useful creature, but cannot lay claim to the character of a true, devoted, self-forgetting woman.

Hester Ormesby was just eighteen when the death of Miss Templeton deprived her of her best friend, and made it necessary for her to return to her childhood’s home. Her mother’s scheme had fully succeeded, and, as a compensation for her homely appellation, she was now the mistress of the old homestead, together with some five or six thousand dollars in personal property. It was but a small fortune, to be sure; but Mrs. Ormesby had managed to marry two of her daughters advantageously by means of their extreme beauty, and concluding that Hester was quite pretty enough for an heiress, she had been careful to quadruple the amount of her bequest when making mention of it to those who were likely to repeat the tale. But the poor woman found that the daughters, for whom she was now to manœuvre, were far more difficult to manage than those whom she had already placed so comfortably in their carriages.

Celestina Ormesby was exceedingly beautiful. Her blond hair, dazzling complexion, clear blue eyes, and rosy mouth, together with the expression of cherub sweetness which characterized her countenance, made her just such a creature as a painter might select as his model of seraphic loveliness; while her manners were perfectly bewitching from their innocent frankness. There was a tenderness in her voice—an almost plaintive tone—as if her heart were longing for sympathy; which, combined with her pleading glance and sweet simplicity of demeanor, was quite irresistible. Yet all this, except the natural gift of beauty, was the effect of consummate art. Celestina had been a coquette from her very childhood—deception seemed an innate idea, and from the time when she first practiced her little arts upon the boys at dancing school, she never looked, or said, or did any thing without calculating its full effect. She cared less for marrying well than for securing a host of lovers. To have refused many was her proudest boast, and she looked forward to matrimony as the termination of a long vista of triumphs. In vain Mrs. Ormesby argued, and scolded and entreated; Celestina trusted in the power of her charms, and suffered several most advantageous matches to escape, while she was enjoying the unprofitable pleasures of admiration.

Hester was as different from her sister in character as in person, and, if she attracted less general attention, she obtained more lasting regard. Men of talent and character—persons of quiet domestic habits, who had been brought up among virtuous sisters, and, therefore, knew how to appreciate the real value of woman—such were the admirers of the less obtrusive sister. But Hester was insensible to all their homage, and, far from imitating Celestina’s example, sought rather to withdraw from all their adulation. Her acquaintance with society had taught her to distrust her long cherished dream of love, and, though the image of Edward Legard still possessed its influence over her imagination, she was not insensible to the fact that, in shutting out all other affections from her heart, she should be guilty of an act of folly. When, therefore, she was addressed by a man whose talents commanded her respect, while his virtues won her esteem, she yielded to her mother’s wishes, and, without actually accepting his proffered hand, contented herself with not rejecting his suit. Many a girl is placed in precisely similar circumstances. Many a woman accepts one who ranks second in her estimation, because he who stands first is unattainable; and, however wrong such conduct may seem in principle, it will still be pursued so long as women are taught that the term “old maid” is one of reproach, and that the chief end and aim of their existence is marriage.

Mr. Vernon was a widower, rather past the prime of life, remarkably handsome in person, a great lover of literature, gifted with fine talents, and possessed of an ample fortune. Even Hester, uncalculating as she was, could not be insensible to the advantages of such an alliance, and, had she never seen Legard, she would doubtless have been quite satisfied with the calm, quiet liking which she felt for her new lover. But in the stillness of her own bosom arose the spectre of that first vague love—the very shadow of a shade—throwing its dark image athwart the stream of memory. Mr. Vernon was one of those persevering men, however, who will not be repulsed. His proposals were rather hesitatingly declined, but he proffered them a second time. Hester explained to him her scruples respecting the feelings with which he had inspired her, and he answered her by disclaiming all pretensions to that passionate and devoted love which his principles taught him to denounce as idolatrous. A calm and tender friendship was all he asked, and that Hester had already given. It was no wonder, therefore, that, pressed as she was, on all sides, by advice and entreaty, while the lapse of every day made her more and more ashamed of the real cause of her reluctance, she at last yielded her consent to become a wife.

Overjoyed at his success, Mr. Vernon urged a speedy fulfillment of her promise. Preparations were immediately commenced, and, as the bridegroom was already installed in a stately mansion, nothing now was necessary but to arrange the bridal paraphernalia. But no sooner was the affair definitively settled, than Hester seemed to become sensible she had done wrong. Early associations returned in their full force—her ideas of first love, enduring through a life of estrangement, and living even beyond the dreary changes of the grave, came back with reproachful power to her mind. She hated herself for the facility with which she had yielded to new impressions. The dream of her youth was so much sweeter to her heart than the realities of the present, that she felt as if it would be sacrilege to wed another. She became half wild with excitement, and, at length, poured out her whole heart in a letter which she determined to place in Mr. Vernon’s hands; hoping that he might be induced to withdraw his suit. But Mrs. Ormesby now exerted her skill and tact. Unwilling to lose such a son-in-law, she assailed Hester with every weapon her ingenuity could devise. Though ignorant of the real cause of Hester’s repugnance, she yet half suspected some secret attachment, and, knowing the sensitive delicacy and maiden pride of the poor girl, she was enabled to influence her in the most effective manner. Hester was persuaded to suppress the letter—she was assured that many women married with no more ardent attachment than actuated her, and instances were adduced of the happy results which were sure to proceed from a union founded on mutual esteem. Weak as a child in all matters of mere feeling, utterly incapable of reasoning on such subjects; and, accustomed to give up her judgment entirely to the control of her imagination, Hester saw the approach of her bridal day with mingled terror and remorse.

The appointed time arrived, and Hester, in a tumult of feeling which, but for her mother’s watchfulness, would have led her even then to confess the truth to Mr. Vernon, was attired for the ceremony. Pale and trembling she met her lover, and as she placed a hand, cold as death, in the warm grasp of his, she was in doubt whether her reluctance arose from the memory of past affection, or from a simple consciousness that her heart held treasures which did not accompany the gift of her hand—whether she shrunk because she loved another, or only because she did not love him. So vague, so indistinct had been her early dream, that, even now, she could not define the limits between it and reality. The ceremony was to be performed in church, and, placed before the altar, with her beautiful sister at her side, as bridemaid, Hester heard the commencement of the service. The awful requisition which demands truth, even as it will be exhibited “at the last day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed,” was solemnly uttered, and the officiating clergyman paused one moment, as if to give time for the confession of any impediment which might exist. At that instant Hester raised her eyes and beheld, leaning against a pillar near the altar, with a countenance in which the wildest emotions of grief were depicted, the long absent Edward Legard. The shock was too great—with a faint cry, she sunk to the floor, while her head struck, with some violence, against the rails of the altar. All was now confusion and dismay. The unwedded bride was borne to her home, and her medical attendants enjoined the most perfect quiet, both of mind and body. Her nervous system had received a severe shock; and, while her physicians attributed it to the over excitement of the moment, her family fancied they could trace it to the deep reluctance with which she had contemplated the marriage. For several weeks she was in imminent danger, and, even after her convalescence, she suffered from a deep dejection which seemed to portend the most serious injury to the mind as well as the body. One of her first acts, when permitted to exercise her slowly returning strength, was to write a letter to Mr. Vernon, frankly stating her repugnance to the marriage, and entreating his forgiveness for the wound she had inflicted upon his feelings. But Mr. Vernon was too matter-of-fact a man to understand Hester’s character. His self-love was wounded, and he deigned no reply to her eloquent and passionate appeal. In little more than three months afterwards she received her letter, enclosed in a blank cover, together with a piece of bride-cake, and the “at home” cards of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon.

When Hester was so far recovered as to admit the family to her apartment, she learned that Legard, who had only arrived from Europe the day preceding her ill-omened nuptials, had been a constant visiter during her illness. The first evening that she descended to the drawing-room she met him, and she could but rejoice that the absence of Celestina secured to them an uninterrupted interview. Ever ready to deceive herself, she fancied that the warmth of his congratulations, on her recovery, proceeded from a peculiar interest in her welfare, and, as she gazed on the emaciated form and pallid cheek of the poor artist, she felt all her romantic passion revive. A recurrence to their first meeting led to one of those half-sentimental, half-tender conversations which are always so dangerous to a susceptible heart; and when he spoke of long-hidden sorrow, and hinted at a hopeless attachment, Hester could not doubt that she fully understood his meaning. Maiden modesty restrained the confession which rose to her lips, but she felt that the time was fast approaching when both would be made happy; and, while Legard saw in her only the sympathizing friend, she fancied he beheld the mistress of his heart.

Two days later, when Hester returned from a short ride, she was informed that Legard had called to bid farewell. No one but Celestina had been at home to receive him, and, after a long interview with her, he had left his adieus for the family, previous to his embarking for Charleston. Hester was too much accustomed to Celestina’s vanity to pay much attention to the significant smile with which her sister mentioned Legard. She knew that it was no uncommon thing for the beautiful coquette to claim, by insinuation, lovers who had never thought of offering their homage; and, therefore, while she deeply regretted the fatality which seemed to interpose obstacles between Legard and herself, she felt no doubt as to her own possession of his heart. She believed that his poverty and ill success had restrained the expression of his cherished love, and she determined on his return to afford him such opportunities of avowal as he could not mistake. But alas! for all her anticipations. Legard reached Charleston just as the yellow fever had commenced its frightful ravages; he was one of its first victims, and the ship which had borne him from his native shore brought back the tidings of his untimely death.

To the Ormesby family the poor artist was an object of such utter insignificance that they never dreamed of attributing Hester’s sudden relapse to the news of his melancholy fate. A long fit of illness left her listless and inert, and giving herself up entirely to the guidance of her romantic nature, she withdrew entirely from society. The more she reflected upon the past, the more she was confirmed in the belief of Legard’s attachment to her. His words, his manners, and, above all, the wretched countenance which he wore on the day of her bridal, all convinced her of his love; while an acute sense of his poverty and his personal defects, together with his probable belief in Hester’s attachment to the man to whom she had been betrothed, seemed to her sufficient reasons for his silence and reserve. She became cold, abstracted and indifferent to every thing. Life seemed to her one long dream, and her days were passed in that vague reverie which is as pernicious to the mind as the habitual opium draught to the body.

Fifteen years were passed in this aimless, useless kind of existence. She walked amid shadows, a quiet, harmless being, mechanically performing the common duties of life, even as a hired laborer, who toils rather to finish the day than to complete his work. The dream of her youth became a sort of monomania; the one subject on which her mind was unsound and unsettled; while the epithet of “eccentric,” which is so often used to cover a multitude of errors, was here applied to a single weakness. That dream was destined to be rudely broken; but the strings of her gentle heart—that delicate instrument on which fancy had so long played a mournful melody—were destined to be broken with it.

Celestina Ormesby had married, and, with the usual fortune of a coquette, had made the worst possible choice. Deserted by a worthless husband, after years of ill treatment, she had returned home only to die; and it was during the examination of her letters and papers, after her decease, that Hester was awakened at length to know the truth. With a natural but unpardonable vanity, Celestina had carefully preserved all the epistles of her various lovers, and Hester, wondering at the indiscriminate vanity which had led her sister to encourage the addresses of some who were far beneath her in the scale of society, had thrown by many packages, unread, when her attention was attracted by a parcel lettered “From Edward Legard.” It was not in the nature of woman to resist such a temptation. The letters were opened and read with the most intense eagerness, and Hester at length learned the extent of her own weakness. The secret of Legard’s unhappiness was revealed to her. He was indeed the victim of a hopeless passion, but he pined not for her who had cherished the life-long vision of his love. He had fallen a victim to the arts of Celestina, who, in the gratification of her own inordinate selfishness, had not scrupled to add the envenomed draught of disappointed affection to the bitter chalice from which gifted poverty must ever drink. He had loved her passionately and devotedly, and the look of hopeless sorrow which, even at the foot of the altar, had transformed the half-wedded bride into the lonely and heart-stricken spinster, had been directed not to her, but to the fickle and beautiful bridemaid at her side.

Hester had long suffered from an organic disease of the heart, and her physicians had warned her that any sudden excitement, or severe shock, whether of grief or terror, might prove fatal. The event justified their predictions. She was found sitting at a table, strewed with letters, her head was resting upon her arms, as if, like a wearied child, she had been overcome with slumber, but it was the weight of a colder hand which pressed her brow. She had received the severest of all shocks—the illusion that had brightened her early life, and shed a pure, sweet radiance over the loneliness of her latter days, was suddenly dispelled, and the victim of imaginary sorrows now “slept the sleep that knows no waking.”

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BY JAMES ALDRICH.

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BY ANN S. STEPHENS.

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(Continued from page 214.)

CHAPTER II.

Those less innocent and pure minded than Phebe Gray, might have thought lightly both of her sister’s fault and its probable punishment, but to one brought up in the strict discipline of a Connecticut church, and with a deep reverence for all its exactions, any thing like contempt of them was little less than sacrilege; and to be reprimanded by the minister, a disgrace which would have broken poor Phebe’s heart, had she been called upon to endure it instead of her sister. When she reached her room the gentle girl knelt down in the midst of her tears and prayed earnestly, for in all her troubles and in all her tranquil joys, she had a Father to whom she could plead as a little child—a Father in heaven, though she had none on earth.

Phebe was yet kneeling, subdued and tranquilized, for prayer was the poetry of her existence, when the door was flung suddenly open, and Malina entered the chamber, her eyes flashing and her lips trembling with passionate feelings.

“Never!” she exclaimed, while the tears stood on her burning cheeks, “never, never!”

“What has happened—what have they done to you?” inquired her gentle sister, rising from her knees; “Oh Malina, do not look so angry, I scarcely know you with that face.”

“Angry, sister, who would not be angry, persecuted as I am, and all because I would not sit still and be insulted in open church, because I did not cringe in my seat and acknowledge that to hear a sermon from any man but Minister Brown was a deadly sin; but I will never listen to him again, never enter the old meeting-house while he preaches there—I will take a vow here—and this moment.”

As she spoke, the excited girl snatched the pocket Bible which her mother had replaced on the toilet, and was about to press her burning lips upon the cover, but Phebe sprung forward, laid her small hand on the book, and turned her pale earnest face on the excited features of her sister.

“Malina!” she said.

There was something solemn and sweet in the tones with which this little word was uttered—a look of awe and wonder in the large blue eyes which Phebe Gray lifted to her sister’s face, which would have checked the passions of a fiend—a flood of crimson rushed over Malina’s face, she laid the Bible down, covered her eyes with both hands, and shuddered amid her tears with a sense of the sacrilege which she had been tempted to commit. Phebe drew her gently to the bed, and when they were seated she placed an arm around her neck, and kissed the trembling fingers that covered her eyes.

“Don’t cry,” she said softly, repeating her kiss, “they have been harsh, perhaps, but it was intended for your good.”

Malina suddenly removed her hands—dashing the tears from her eyes with the action—while her lips and cheeks began to glow again.

“Phebe,” she said, sitting upright and grasping her sister’s hand, “Phebe, you will not believe it, but our mother has commanded me to kneel down before the minister and ask his pardon for what I have done.”

A look of indignation, almost the first that had ever visited the sweet features of Phebe Gray, was all the answer she could give.

“But you did not obey?” she said at last.

“Obey! sister, no, no; but I said things which made them both look aghast. They called me audacious, and so I was—they called me an unnatural child, and so I was—for I told my mother that she was a tyrant to her face. I told Minister Brown that I was not audacious enough to mock my Creator, by giving the homage which he alone should have to a weak fellow creature; and when they would have read me a chapter in the Bible, I told them the holy book was given as a blessing, not to be used as a punishment, with much more—but this I fear has made you angry with me already. Dear Phebe, don’t you turn against me with the rest, I am wretched enough without that.”

“But what did the minister say? surely he did not wish you to humble yourself so far?” inquired Phebe, thoughtfully.

“No, he begged my mother not to urge it, and even said that he had perhaps acted unwisely in reprimanding me from the pulpit. But mother still insisted. I do believe she is setting her cap at Parson Brown, and thinks if I kneel to him he will return the compliment by kneeling to her.” Here Malina broke off with a hysterical laugh, while a flash of mischievous humor shone through her tears.

Phebe smiled very faintly, and kissing her sister once more, murmured, “But there is One to whom we may kneel,” and sinking to her knees, Phebe Gray kept Malina’s hand and would have drawn her to the same position.

“I am not fit to pray,” exclaimed the passionate girl, struggling faintly to free her hand.

Phebe did not urge her, but scarcely were the first faint words of her own petition breathed through the chamber, when Malina was by her side, and when they went to rest that night the high spirited girl went to sleep with her head nestled on her sister’s bosom, half subdued by her pure and affectionate counsel.

Mrs. Gray had no sympathy for the faults of a warm and sensitive disposition. She scarcely knew what an impulse was; even her anger was systematical, and she exhibited it with a cold perseverance which only served to irritate and mortify her daughter. Like all girls, Malina was fond of dress, but months went by and Mrs. Gray seemed altogether unconscious of her wants. She had kept her resolution not to enter the old meeting-house again, and when Mrs. Gray brought home a new dress or shawl for Phebe, Malina was quietly told that as she never went to meeting her old dresses were quite good enough for school; indeed it is doubtful if she would have been permitted to remain at home but for the claim which her majority would give upon the property. Mrs. Gray was quite too politic for violent measures, so she contented herself with annoying negatives, and tormented her sensitive and high-tempered child by doing nothing, while she comforted her self-sanctity with a belief that it was all meek and Christian forbearance. It was not long before the gay, dashing Malina became one of the most shabbily dressed girls in the village. She wore her thin straw gipsy and roses through all the cold winter months—mended her gloves over and over again—concealed her summer dresses beneath a cloak when she came to school, and returned the jeers of her schoolmates with a sort of important pride which soon silenced them. When spring came she still remained obstinate in a determination never to visit the old meeting-house so long as Parson Brown preached there. A few kind words from her mother might have persuaded her, but those words were not spoken. Mrs. Gray only showed her sense of this contumacious conduct by heaping that finery on poor Phebe which should have been her sister’s, but which she was forbidden even to share with her. Well, the spring came round again, and Malina was still obstinate. She bleached her bonnet, brightened up the roses, and altered over the old muslin dress with an ingenuity which made her wardrobe quite respectable once more; but she was not happy in her disobedience, the habits of her childhood could not be shaken off so easily, and many a quiet Sabbath as she sat by her chamber window and watched Phebe gather a handful of snowdrops in the yard, spread her green parasol and go forth to “meeting” by her mother’s side, looking so chaste and beautiful in her white dress and new cottage bonnet, poor Malina would turn away with tears in her eyes and think of the old meeting-house, with a yearning wish to sit in the family pew once more, which made her petty chamber seem almost like a prison.

How long this state of things might have remained is uncertain, but that spring Minister Brown was taken ill. He had preached in that same pulpit thirty years, and had grown old in it. It was a melancholy service which the deacon read after announcing the state of their pastor to the congregation, for it was the first time in many years that Minister Brown had been absent from his people. It seemed all that solemn day as if the angel of death were mournfully brooding over the old meeting-house, and when the closing prayer was made, sobs deep and audible were heard in the congregation.

Another Sabbath came and our minister grew worse. After the solemn service was over, the deacon arose to appoint watchers for the suffering man. It is a solemn and beautiful practice, that of “appointing watchers” for the sick in our Connecticut churches. When the village is collected together in one vast family, it is both an affecting and pleasant sight to witness the young and kind-hearted rise, with blooming cheeks and modest looks, to offer themselves as nurses for the sick. Among the first who arose that Sabbath was Malina Gray, and her eyes were full of tears. The deacon was looking very sad when he cast his eyes over the congregation to mark who would rise. When he saw Malina standing there in her simple dress, and her beautiful face shaded by her last year’s bonnet, a moisture glistened in his eyes also, and he smiled kindly as her name was pronounced.

Malina went home with a full heart. When she thought of the minister ill and suffering, it smote her that she could ever have felt enmity toward him. He was a widower and childless, so all that week she lingered by his bed, prepared his medicines, smoothed the pillows beneath his fevered temples, and many a time, when no one was near, would the warm-hearted but wayward creature kneel down, cover his hand with tears, and beseech him to forget the harsh, rude language which she had used that night at her mother’s.

Our minister was trembling on the verge of another world, and he felt perhaps that Malina also had something to forgive, and at such times he would lay his thin hand on her hair, murmur thanks for all her kindness, would beg her to forget the past, and then he would dwell on the time when she would meet him in Heaven, and all this with a gentle sweetness that made poor Malina’s heart ache the more that she could ever have pained so good a man.

Still our minister grew worse, and the next Sabbath a student of divinity from New Haven, who had just taken orders, stood in his pulpit. It was a sorrowful day that—and as the clear solemn tones of the young divine filled the old meeting-house, their youthfulness and their sweet ringing melody made us feel like strangers in our house of worship. He was a handsome man, slight and pale, with hair sweeping aside from his white forehead like the wing of a raven, and those large sad eyes which take their color from the soul, and are changeable from the feelings that live there—one of those men who interest you almost painfully, you cannot understand why. He was indeed a man to awaken the heart to strange sympathies; but we felt without understanding this on the day when he first preached to us, for our hearts were heavy with thoughts of the dear old minister who lay almost within hearing on his death-bed, and we yearned to see his calm face and gray hairs in the place of this strange young man.

Mr. Mosier—for that was the name of our new minister—did not return to New Haven for many weeks, and all that time he spent by the sick-bed of our pastor. Malina Gray seldom left her post, and Phebe, the meek and gentle Phebe, was often there to comfort and assist. Flowers, the beautiful children of the soil, sometimes spring up brightest and sweetest on a grave; so human affection often takes deepest root beneath troubled shadows. Religion must have some strange and comprehensive power, which fills the soul with affection for all things; for those who love our heavenly Father most, cherish that love as a brave tree, around which a thousand earthly ties are lifted like green and clinging vines toward the blue skies. I have said Malina never left her station by the sick-bed; her cheek grew pale with watching, her bright eye dim, but yet she was always there, subdued to the meekness of a lamb by the dark and solemn shadows of death that fell everywhere around her. And he was her fellow watcher, and the strange fascination of his voice, the spell of those large eyes, tranquil, almost sad, and forever changing, settled upon the young girl’s heart, and it was the voice of a pure and high-souled Christian in prayer which first taught the gay and careless girl how well she could love. And she did love, happily, blindly; every impulse of her heart was full of gushing tenderness, and that soft repose which thrills the soul it sleeps in, blended while it made her happy. She was changed even in countenance; the glad healthy smile which had been the playmate of her lips from infancy, now half fled to her eyes. The color was not so deep upon her cheek, but it came and went like shadows on a flower, and her whole face looked calm and yet brighter, as if sunshine were striking up from the heart of a rose instead of falling upon its leaves. Her voice became more low and calm, but a richer tone was given to it, and the tread of her little feet became more noiseless as she glided around that sick chamber. Alas, alas, poor Malina Gray, the fountains of her young heart were troubled, never to rest again; the destiny of her womanhood was upon her.

One Sabbath morning the congregation came to our old meeting-house in a body, two and two; the young, the middle-aged, and the old filing solemnly from the parsonage door along the road, and over the sward which sloped greenly down from our place of worship. Our minister came also, but he lay upon a bier, a velvet pall swept over him, and four pale men carried him through the door which we had seen him enter so often. They placed him in the broad aisle which his feet had trod for twenty years, and eyes that had scarcely known moisture for that duration of time were wet as they fell upon the coffin. Pale young faces looked down upon him from the galleries, old men veiled their foreheads with hands that had so often grasped his, and women sobbed aloud in the fullness of their grief. Prayer and solemn music, with the deep tones of the young student, swept over that bier, and swelled through the old building amid all these manifestations of sorrow. When the bier was lifted again, with slow and solemn footsteps the congregation followed their pastor for the last time, and to his grave.

There was a grave in our burial ground sunken almost level with the earth, covered with tall grass and marked by old and moss covered stones. It was the grave of our minister’s wife; she had died in her youth, he never married again, and so they brought the old man, true even to her ashes, and laid him by her side. The shadow of his grave fell upon hers, as if it were still his duty to cherish, and the dew that fell upon the rich grass which had sprung up from her ashes, slept within that shadow longer each morning than in any other place.

When Malina Gray left the funeral procession she went to the parsonage house. The ashes lay cold upon its hearth-stone, and a chill, desolate silence reigned through the building, for the old woman who had been housekeeper had not yet returned, and no living thing was there save a pet robin that stood mute upon his perch, and a large gray cat which walked slowly from room to room as if wondering at the silence that reigned there. A chill crept over Malina as the cat came with a soft purr and rubbed his coat against her ankle. She looked at the robin, there was no food to his cage, and his dejected manner probably arose from hunger. The back door opened upon an orchard, and a line of cherry-trees, red with fruit, ranged along the stone wall. The minister had always kept his orchard and the grass around the back door steps neat and green, but this year a growth of plantain leaves had started up amid the grass, and docks grew rife around the well-curb, a few paces from the stepping stones. During his illness Malina had scarcely noticed these things, but now that the minister was dead and she had no hopes nor fears regarding him, they struck upon her heart with painful force. She went to the nearest tree, gathered some ripe cherries for the bird, and carried them into the house. The poor creature was half famished, and coming down from his perch, pecked at the ruby fruit with an eagerness that made the young girl smile through her tears.

“Poor fellow, he wants drink,” she murmured softly, and laying the cherries that filled her hand on a table, she took a glass and went out to get some water. How much more effective than a thousand lectures were the silence and the familiar objects that surrounded Malina. It seemed as if she had learned to think and feel for the first time in that desolated place. As she grasped the well-pole with her small hand and saw the deep round bucket rise up from the water, with the bright drops dashing over the moss-covered brim, she began to weep afresh, and her hands trembled so that she could hardly balance it on the curb. How many times had she seen the minister come from that door, rest that same bucket on the well-curb, and slant it down to meet her lips, when she was a little girl and had come with her mates from the close school-room, at “play-time,” to drink at the minister’s well. How often had he filled her apron with cherries, and allowed her to pick up the golden apples from that orchard; now she could almost see his new grave through the trees—and she had dared to speak unkindly, rudely to him. Malina was athirst and she remembered the grateful coolness of the water, but with all these memories swarming to her heart she could not touch her lips to that moss-rimmed bucket; the waters dripping over it seemed too pure for one who could speak as she had spoken to the dead. That which Mrs. Gray had struggled and waited for a whole year was accomplished in a few moments by less stern influences than human upbraiding. Never was a girl more penitent than Malina amid the silence of that funereal dwelling. The heart which can reproach itself needs no other accuser, and that which cannot, will remain hardened to the reproaches, however just, which come from another.

Malina filled her glass, and entering the house, gave the neglected robin some drink. The grateful bird began to flutter his wings, and plunging into the water, sent a shower of drops over his cage. Malina was so occupied with him that she did not observe when the door-yard gate fell to with a slight sound, and Mr. Mosier, the young clergyman, came slowly along the footpath leading to the front door; and when she did hear his step upon the threshold, her eyes drooped and she began to tremble as if there had been something to apprehend in his sudden presence.

Mr. Mosier approached the young girl, and addressed her in those calm low tones which her heart had learned to answer too thrillingly.

“It was kind to think of the bird,” he said almost smiling upon her, “our friend that is gone mentioned it but the day before he died; he gave it to you, Miss Gray, and that with many grateful thanks for all your kindness.”

Malina’s bosom heaved and she strove to conceal the tears that sprung to her eyes, by a quick motion of the heavy lashes that veiled them.

“He has left other tokens of his regard,” continued the young divine, kindly observing her. “A clergyman with his benevolent habits is not likely to become rich, but this quiet old house and the savings of his income are left behind and for you—he has no legal heirs.”

Malina lifted her large eyes to the minister’s face with a look of mute astonishment, and it was a moment before she comprehended him.

“Oh, no, no,” she said at last, bursting into tears, “he could not, I never deserved it. It was Phebe that he meant. It must have been Phebe.”

“You will find that I am correct,” said Mr. Mosier; “indeed I can hardly see how it should be otherwise, for never was there so faithful or so kind a nurse.”

Malina did not speak, but a rosy flood swelled over her neck and face, which glowed warmly beneath the concealment of her hands. These were the first words of commendation she had ever heard from that voice, and she was lost in the delicious pleasure they excited. At length she removed her tremulous hands and looked up, but instantly the silken lashes drooped over her eyes again, and she blushed and trembled beneath his gaze. Yet his look was tranquil and kind, only it was the tumult of her own feelings which made the young creature ashamed to meet it, feelings all pure and innocent, but full of timidity and misgiving.

“I must go home,” she said in confusion, moving toward the door. Mr. Mosier extended his hand. “We have performed a painful and yet pleasant duty together in this house,” he said; “the thanks of the departed are already yours, may I offer mine? It may be wrong to think so, but young and gentle women hovering near a sick-bed seem to me angels of earth, consigning the sufferer to sister angels in heaven. Good night, my dear Miss Gray. To-morrow, by your kind mother’s invitation, I shall make my home at your house.”

Malina started, and a look of exquisite happiness beamed over her face.

“To-morrow!” she repeated, unconscious of the rich tones which joy gave to her voice.

“Yes, I shall stay here to-night,” he replied in the same tranquil tones, but a little more sadly. “The solemn scene through which we have passed unfits me for any thing but solitude. I never knew till now how beautiful and holy are the links which bind a minister to his people. It is sweet to think how completely our brother’s spirit was borne up to heaven on the hearts of those who had listened to him so many years.”

“He was indeed a good man, and we all loved him,” murmured Malina Gray.

“And such love would fill any life with sunshine; but God bless you, my dear Miss Gray, seek repose to-night, for your strength must be overtaxed with so much watching. I will see you in the morning, and our departed friend’s pet shall come with me.”

Malina longed to say how happy his visit would make her home, how full of delight she was, but some intuitive feeling checked her tongue, and murmuring a few indistinct words she turned away in a tumult of strange happiness.

When she reached home, Malina went directly to her chamber, took off her bonnet, and lying down on the bed, drew the curtains and fell into a pleasant half sleepy day dream, with her eyes fixed languidly on the folds of snowy muslin which fell around her and on the rose branches seen dimly through as they waved and rustled before the open sash. All at once she started, and turning her damask cheek upon the pillow, stole both hands up to her face as if some thought of which she was half ashamed had crept to her heart. It was no guilty thought, but Malina blushed when it broke upon her mind, that she might some day live in the old parsonage which had become her property, and that he who was now resting beneath its roof might share her home. She was dreaming on. The tinge of gold which fell over her bed drapery as the sun sunk behind Castle-rock had long since died away, and the chamber was filled with the misty and pleasant gloom of a summer twilight, and yet Malina lay dreaming on. Phebe came softly into the apartment, lifted the curtains, and stealing her arms around the recumbent girl, laid her own pure cheek against the rich damask of her sister’s.

“Poor Malina, you are tired out,” she murmured fondly, “but we are so glad to get you home once more. I only came to say this—now go to sleep again.” So Phebe kissed her cheek, let the curtains fall softly over the bed and went away—and still Malina dreamed on.

The next morning Mr. Mosier took up his abode at Mrs. Gray’s. Our minister had called the elders of his church around his death-bed, and besought them to let this young man fill his place in the pulpit, so he was to remain a few months, on trial, and then be installed as pastor in the old meeting-house.

Our young pastor, though never gay, was at all times filled with a degree of tranquil enjoyment that diffused itself over all things that surrounded him—his sadness was never gloomy, and when he seemed thoughtful, it was the quiet repose of a mind communing with its own treasures rather than an unsocial humor. He was musical as well as studious, and often, during those summer nights when Mrs. Gray’s family sat in the portico, would we assemble round the door of our dwelling to hear the notes of his flute, as they mingled in some sacred harmony with the soft clear voice of Phebe, or with the bolder and richer tones of her sister. At such times this music, softened by distance, and blended with the still more remote sound of the waterfall, seemed almost heavenly. We became well acquainted with the young minister, for though not exclusively of his congregation, he loved to ramble about the pine grove and the waterfall, where he was certain to find some of “us children” at play. Like all pure hearted men, he was fond of children, and loved to sit down in the shade and talk with us for hours together, when he would lead us to the gate, on his way home, and sometimes walk into the cottage for a glass of water and a few minutes’ chat with its inmates. Sometimes Phebe Gray and her sister accompanied him in these walks, and once or twice I remember to have seen him standing on the ledge near the falls at sunset, with Phebe leaning on his arm, while he seemed deeply occupied with her rather than the surrounding scenery. Once when they were together thus, he slightly bending toward her and speaking in a low earnest tone, while her eyes were fixed on the waters foaming beneath their feet, Malina, who had lingered behind to help me up the rocks—for I was often of their party—moved lightly toward them, holding up her finger to me with a look of good natured mischief, as if she intended to startle them with her sudden presence. I was a very little girl and knew that Malina was doing this to amuse me, so clapping a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing aloud, I stole on softly by her side till the folds of my pink dress almost mingled with the white muslin that Phebe wore. I have said that Mr. Mosier was talking low and earnestly—he was, in truth, so earnestly that our mischievous progress neither aroused him nor his companion. I was not aware that love could know a language save that which breathed in my mother’s voice, but there was something earnest and thrilling in the impassioned word which Mr. Mosier was pouring into the ear of Phebe Gray, which checked my childish playfulness, and made me turn wonderingly to Malina. She was standing as I had seen her last, with her finger still held up as if to check my mirth, but there was no look of gleeful mischief in her eyes nor a vestige of color in her face. She stood motionless, white, and like a thing of marble, save that her eyes were bright and filled with a look of such agony as made my young heart sink within me. At last Phebe spoke, and her voice was so faint and soft as she leaned gently toward her companion, that the words were lost in the rushing sound of the waterfall; their broken melody and the rose tinge that flooded her face and neck, were all the tokens by which their meaning could be guessed; but the young clergyman must have heard her more distinctly, for his face lighted up with an expression of happiness that made his usually quiet features brilliant almost beyond any thing human. His arm trembled as he drew the young girl to his bosom, and with murmuring words of tenderness pressed his lips to her forehead. Phebe neither shrunk from his embrace nor resisted his caress, but the crimson flood swelled more deeply over her neck, and when his arm was withdrawn from her waist, her little hand timidly sought his and nestled itself in the clasp of his fingers, as if it sought his protection from the very solitude which she believed had alone witnessed her modest confession, a confession which made her tremble and blush with a tumult of strange sensations—all pure as the sigh of an angel, but startling to a young creature who had been taught to think every warm impulse almost a sin against Heaven.

They stood together hand in hand, silent and happy. Malina remained motionless, distant scarcely two paces, and yet they were so absorbed in the delirium of their own thoughts that her presence was unnoticed. My hand was still in hers, but the fingers which clasped mine grew cold as ice, and when I looked anxiously into her face again, the lips which had kissed me so often appeared hard and colorless; her forehead was contracted as if from physical suffering, and she seemed rooted to the stone, never to move again. A moment, and I felt that a shiver ran through her frame down to the cold fingers that grasped mine. She turned and moved away mechanically and noiseless as a shadow, leading me down the rocks and gradually tightening her grasp on my hand till I could scarcely forbear calling out from pain; but my childish heart ached so from the intuitive sense which taught me how dreadful were the feelings of my poor companion, that I could not complain. She moved forward hurriedly and with rapid footsteps, which made my earnest effort to keep up with her almost impossible. We left the rocks and crossing the highway plunged into the pine-woods; she did not take the footpath, but all unmindfully forced a passage through the undergrowth, crushing the rich winter-green with her impetuous tread. A humble ground bird started up from a tuft of brake leaves directly in her path, and took wing with a cry of terror. Still she hurried on unconscious, without heeding the bird who fluttered around us, uttering cry upon cry with a plaintive melody which made the tears start to my young eyes; but her racked heart was deaf even to that, and her foot passed so near the pretty nest which lay in its green lawn filled with speckled eggs, that a fox-glove which bent beneath her tread dipped its crimson cup into the nest, where it lay to perish on the broken stem. Still she hurried me on through the thickest undergrowth, and where the grove was cut up into knolls and grassy hollows which even my venturous footsteps had never searched before, all the time her cold hand tightened its grasp till my fingers were locked as in a vice, and the pain became insupportable.

“Oh don’t, Miss Malina, you walk so very fast and hurt my hand so it almost kills me!” I exclaimed at last, looking piteously up into her pale face. “Indeed, indeed, I can’t go any further, I am tired, see how the bushes have torn my new frock,” I added, sobbing as much from want of breath as from grief.

She stopped the moment I spoke, and looked at me as if surprised that I was her companion. Not even the piteous expression of my face, with the tears streaming down it, and the tattered state of my dress, which was indeed sadly torn, could arouse her to a consciousness of our position; for more than a minute she stood looking earnestly in my face, but perfectly unconscious of what she gazed upon.

“Oh, Miss Malina, don’t look at me in that way!” I said, burying my face in her dress and weeping still more bitterly. “Take me back to the falls, Miss Phebe and the minister will think we are lost.”

Malina dropped my hand as I spoke, and sunk to the grass, trembling all over and utterly strengthless; after a moment she lifted her head, looked wildly around as if to be certain that no eye witnessed her grief, and then she gave way to a passionate burst of sorrow, which to my young perception seemed like madness; she wrung her hands, shrouded her tearful face in the long curls which fell over it one moment, and flung them back with both hands damp and disheveled the next; her lips trembled with the broken and sorrowful words that rushed over them, words that had no connection but were full of that passionate eloquence which grief gives to the voice. At length she ceased to tremble and sat motionless, bending forward with her hands locked over her face and veiled by the drooping tresses of her hair. Now and then a sob broke through her fingers, while tears would trickle over them and fall, one after another, like drops of rain, over my dress, for I had crept into her lap and with my arms about her neck was striving in my childish way to comfort her.

“Don’t cry so,” I entreated, kissing her hands and exerting my infant skill to put back the curls which drooped in wet and glossy volumes over her face, “I love you very much.” She unclasped her hands, and drawing me closer to her bosom, looked with a mild and touching sorrow into my eyes.

“Nobody loves me,” murmured the poor, sobbing girl, shaking her head mournfully, “nobody loves me.”

I could only answer with childish expressions of endearment, which made her beautiful eyes brim with tears, and she wept on calmly and in silence, for the passion of her grief had exhausted itself. At length she placed me on the turf, and gathering up her hair, strove to arrange it, but the tresses were too abundant, and had become so disordered, that when she was compelled to grasp it in both her hands, and knot it back from her face beneath the cottage bonnet, the plain look which it gave to her forehead, the pallor of her face, with the dint and sorrowful expression of those eyes, almost transformed her. She was altogether unlike the gay and frolicsome girl who had helped me climb the rocks but one hour before. Alas! how few moments are required to change the destiny of a heart!

[To be continued.

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BY C. F. HOFFMAN.

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BY H. T. TUCKERMAN.

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The romantic traveler who enters Italy at Leghorn, cannot but feel disappointed. No antiquated repose broods, like a dream, over the scene; no architectural wonders arrest the eye. The quays present the same bustle and motley groups observable in every commercial town; and were it not for the galley slaves, whose fetters clank in the thoroughfares, and the admirable bronze group, by Pietro Tacco, around the statue of Ferdinand I., it would be difficult to point out any distinctive feature amid the commonplace associations of the spot. To a stranger’s eye, however, the principal street affords many objects of diversion. The variety of costume and physiognomy is striking in a place where pilgrims and merchants, Turks and Jews, burly friars and delicate invalids are promiscuously clustered; and one cannot long gaze from an adjacent balcony, without discovering some novel specimen of humanity. A more secluded and melancholy resort is the English burying-ground, where hours may be mused away in perusing the inscriptions that commemorate the death of those who breathed their last far from country and home. The cemeteries devoted to foreign sepulture, near some of the Italian cities, are quite impressive in their isolated beauty. There, in the language of a distant country, we read of the young artist suddenly cut off at the dawn of his career, and placed away with a fair monument to guard his memory, by his sorrowful associates, who long since have joined their distant kindred. Another stone marks the crushed hopes of children who brought their dying mother to this clime in the vain expectation to see her revive. Names, too, not unknown to fame, grace these snowy tablets—the last and affecting memorials of departed genius. Monte Nero is an agreeable retreat in the vicinity where the Italians make their villeggiatura, and the foreigners ride in the summer evenings, to inhale the cheering breeze from the sea. Leghorn was formerly subject to Genoa, and remained a comparatively unimportant place until Cosmo I. exchanged for it the Episcopal town of Sarzana. I had quite exhausted the few objects of interest around me, and my outward resources were reduced to hearing Madame Ungher in Lucrezia Borgia in the evening, and dining in the afternoon in the pleasant garden of a popular restaurant; when, one day as I was walking along a crowded street, my attention was arrested by a singular figure ensconced in the doorway of a fashionable inn. It was a lank, sharp-featured man, clad in linsey-woolsey, with a white felt hat on his head and an enormous twisted stick in his hand. He was looking about him with a shrewd gaze in which inquisitiveness and contempt were strangely mingled. The moment I came opposite to him, he drew a very large silver watch from his fob, and, after inspecting it for a moment with an impatient air, exclaimed,

“I say, stranger, what time do they dine in these parts?”

“At this house the dinner hour is about five.”

“Five! why I’m half starved and its only twelve. I can’t stand it later than two. I say, I guess you’re from the States?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe you came here to be cured of dyspepsy?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, I’m glad of it, for it’s a plaguy waste of money. I just arrived from New Orleans, and there was a man on board who made the trip all on account of dyspepsy. I as good as told him he was a fool for his pains. I know a thing or two, I guess. You see that stick? Well, with that stick I’ve killed six alligators. There’s only one thing that’s a certain cure for dyspepsy.

“And what’s that?”

For a moment the stranger made no reply, but twisted his stick and gave a wily glance from his keen, gray eyes, with the air of a man who can keep his own counsel.

“You want to know what will cure dyspepsy?”

“Yes.”

“Well then—Speculation!”

After this announcement the huge stick was planted very sturdily, and the spectral figure drawn up to its utmost tension, as if challenging contradiction. Apparently satisfied with my tacit acceptance of the proposition, the man of alligators grew more complacent.

“I’ll tell you how I found out the secret. I was a schoolmaster in the State of Maine, and it was as much as I could do to make both ends meet. What with flogging the boys, leading the choir Sundays, living in a leaky school-house and drinking hard cider, I grew as thin as a rail, and had to call in a traveling doctor. After he had looked into me and my case; ‘Mister,’ says he, ‘there’s only one thing for you to do, you must speculate.’ I had a kind of notion what he meant, for all winter the folks had been talking about the eastern land speculation; so, says I, ‘Doctor, I haven’t got a cent to begin with.’ ‘So much the better,’ says he, ‘a man who has money is a fool to speculate; you’ve got nothing to lose, so begin right away.’ I sold my things all but one suit of clothes, and a neighbor gave me a lift in his wagon as far as Bangor. I took lodgings at the crack hotel, and by keeping my ears open at the table and in the bar-room, soon had all the slang of speculation by heart, and, having the gift of the gab, by the third day out-talked all the boarders about ‘lots,’ ‘water privileges,’ ‘sites’ and ‘deeds.’ One morning I found an old gentleman sitting in the parlor, looking very glum. ‘Ah,’ says I, ‘great bargain that of Jones, two hundred acres, including the main street as far as the railroad depot—that is, where they’re to be when Jonesville’s built.’ ‘Some people have all the luck,’ says the old gentleman. ‘There isn’t a better tract than mine in all Maine, but I can’t get an offer.’ ‘It’s because you don’t talk it up,’ says I. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘you seem to understand the business. Here’s my bond, all you can get over three thousand dollars you may have.’ I set right to work, got the editors to mention the thing as a rare chance, whispered about in all corners that the land had been surveyed for a manufacturing town, and had a splendid map drawn, with a colored border, six meeting-houses, a lyceum, blocks of stores, hay-scales, a state prison and a rural cemetery—with Gerrytown in large letters at the bottom, and then hung it up in the hall. Before the week was out, I sold the land for cash to a company for twenty thousand dollars, gave the old gentleman his three thousand, and have been speculating ever since. I own two thirds of a granite quarry in New Hampshire, half of a coal mine in Pennsylvania, and a prairie in Illinois, besides lots of bank stock, half of a canal and a whole India rubber factory. I’ve been in New Orleans, buying cotton, and came here to see about the silk business, and mean to dip into the marble line a little. I’ve never had the dyspepsy since I began to speculate. It exercises all the organs and keeps a man going like a steamboat.”

Just then a bell was heard from within, and the stranger, thinking it the signal for dinner, precipitately withdrew.

IMITATED FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE.

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BY WILLIAM FALCONER.

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

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THE OPEN BOAT.

How shall I describe the horrors of that seemingly endless night. Borne onward at the mercy of the waves—possessing just sufficient control over the boat to keep her head in the proper direction—now losing sight altogether of our consort, and now hanging on the top of the wave while she lay directly under us, we passed the moments in a succession of hopes and fears which no human pen can adequately describe. As the night advanced our sufferings increased. The men, worn out with fatigue, were kept at their oars only by the consciousness that even a moment’s respite might be our destruction. With difficulty we maintained even the slightest communication with our fellow sufferers in the other boat, and, as the hours wore away, communication became almost impossible. It was only at intervals that we caught sight of our companions through the gloom, or heard their loud huzzas in answer to our shouts. And no one, except he who has been in a like situation, can tell how our sense of loneliness was relieved when we saw these glimpses of our consort, or caught the welcome sound of other voices than our own across that fathomless abyss.

At length a gigantic wave rolled up between us and the launch, and, when we rose from the trough of the sea, I fancied I heard beneath us a wild, prolonged cry of human agony. At the sound, my blood curdled in my veins, and I strove to pierce the obscurity ahead, hoping almost against hope that our companions yet survived, and that I might catch a glimpse of the launch; but my straining eyes scanned the prospect in vain, for the thick darkness shut out every thing from my vision, except when the ghastly foam whitened along the waves beside me. For an instant I tried to believe that what I heard had sprung from a disordered fancy, but the eager, yet horror-struck faces of my shipmates beside me soon convinced me that I was not the only one who had heard that cry. We looked at each other for a moment, as men may be supposed to look who have seen a visitant from the tomb, and then, with one common impulse, we joined in a halloo that rose wildly to windward, swept down on us, rose again, and finally died away to leeward in melancholy notes. No answering cry met our ears. Again and again we united in a shout—again and again the roar of the wind and wash of the waves was our only reply. Suddenly a flash of lightning blazed around us, and, taking advantage of the momentary light thus shed on the prospect, I gazed once more across the waste of waters. We hung, at the moment, on the topmost height of a mountain wave, while beneath yawned a black abyss, along whose sides the foam was rolling in volumes, while the ghastly crests of each mimic billow and the pitchy darkness of the depths below were lit up with the awful glare of the lightning, presenting to the imagination a scene that reminded me of the lake of fire into which Milton’s apostate spirits fell. Just at the lowest point of the vortex a boat was seen, bottom upwards, while, in close proximity to it, one or two human forms were struggling in the sea; but all in vain; for at every despairing stroke they were borne further and further from the few frail planks which now were to them their world. Oh! never will that sight fade from my memory. A cry of horror broke simultaneously from all who beheld the scene, and long after it had vanished from our eyes, we heard the first despairing shriek of our drowning messmates, we saw the last look of agony ere they sank forever. To save them was beyond our power. As we were whirled down into the abyss we leaned over the gun-wale to catch, if possible, a sign of the vicinity of any of the sufferers, but our efforts were in vain, and, after watching and listening for more than an hour, we desisted in despair. As the storm gradually passed away, and the stars broke out on high, diffusing a shadowy light around us, we gazed again across the waste for some token of our lost messmates, but our scrutiny was in vain. The tale of their death, save as it is rehearsed in these hurried pages, will never be told until the judgment day.

Morning at length dawned. Insensibly the first cold streaks of day crept along the eastern horizon, gradually diffusing a gray twilight over the vast solitude of waters around, and filling the mind with a sensation of utter loneliness, which, though I had experienced it partially before, never affected me with such indescribable power as now. As far as the eye could stretch there was nothing to break the vast monotony of the horizon. The first glance across the deep destroyed the hope which so many had secretly entertained, that morning would discover some sail in sight, and, though no unmanly lamentations were uttered, the dejected look with which each shipmate turned to his fellow was more eloquent than words. All knew that we were out of the usual route of ships crossing the Atlantic, and that our chances of rescue were consequently lessened. We were, moreover, nearly a thousand miles from land, with but scanty provisions, and those damaged. Our boat was frail, and one far stronger had already been submerged—what, then, would probably, nay! must be our fate. It was easy to see that these thoughts were passing through the minds of all, and that a feeling akin to despair was gathering around every heart.

“Cheer up, my hearties!” at length said Bill Seaton, a favorite topman, looking round on his companions, “it’s always darkest just before day, and if we don’t meet a sail now we must look all the sharper for one to-morrow. Never say die while you hear the wind overhead, or see the waves frolicking around you. Twenty years have I sailed, in one craft or another, and often been in as bad scrapes as this—so it’s hard to make me think we’re going to Davy Jones’ locker this time. Cheer up, cheer up, braves, and I’ll give you ‘Bold Hawthorne,’ ” and, with the words, he broke out into a song, whose words acted like an inspiration on the crew, and in a moment the air rung with the ballad, chorused forth by a dozen stentorian voices. And thus, alternating between hope and despair, we spent the day. But, unlike the others, my situation forbade me to betray my real sentiments, and I was forced to maintain an appearance of elation which illy agreed with my feelings.

Meanwhile the day wore on, and as the sun mounted toward the zenith, his vertical rays pouring down on our unprotected heads, became almost insupportable. The gale had long since sunk into a light breeze, and the mountainous waves were rapidly subsiding into that long measured swell which characterizes the deep when not unusually agitated. Over the wide surface of the dark azure sea, however, might be seen ten thousand crests of foam, one minute crisping into existence, and the next disappearing on the declining surge; and, as the hour approached high noon, each of these momentary sheets of spray glistened in the sunbeams like frosted silver. Overhead the dark, deep sky glowed as in a furnace, while around us the sea was as molten brass. Parched for thirst, yet not daring to exceed the allowance of water on which we had determined—burning in the intense heat, without the possibility of obtaining shelter—worn out in body and depressed in spirits, it required all my exertions, backed by one or two of the most sanguine of the crew, to keep the men from utter despair, nor was it until evening again drew on, and the intolerable heat of a tropical day had given way to the comparative coolness of twilight, that the general despondency gave way. Then again the hopes of the men revived, only, however, to be once more cast down when darkness closed over the scene, with the certainty we should obtain no relief until the ensuing day.

Why need I recount the sufferings of that second night, which was only less dreadful than the preceding one because the stars afforded us some comparative light, sufficing only, however, to keep us on the watch for a strange sail, without allowing us to hope for success in our watch, unless by almost a miracle? Why should I narrate the alternation of hope and fear on the ensuing day, which did not differ from this one, save in the fiercer heat of noon day, and the more utter exhaustion of the men? What boots it to recount the six long days and nights, each one like its predecessor, only that each one grew more and more intolerable, until at length, parched and worn out, like the Israelites of old, we cried out at night, “Would God it were morning,” and in the morning, “Would God it were evening.” And thus, week after week passed, until our provisions and water were exhausted, and yet no relief arrived, but day after day we floated helplessly on that boiling ocean, or were chilled by the icy and unwholesome dews of night. Hunger and thirst, and heat—fever and despair contended together for the mastery, and we were the victims. Often before I had read of men who were thus exposed, coming at length to such a pitch of madness and despair, that they groveled in the bottom of the boat, and cried out for death; but never had I thought such things could be credible. Now, how fearfully were my doubts removed! I saw lion-hearted men weeping like infants—I beheld those whose strength was as that of a giant, subdued and powerless—I heard men who, in other circumstances, would have clung tenaciously to life, now sullenly awaiting their fate, or crying out, in their agony, for death to put a period to their sufferings. No pen, however graphic—no imagination, however vivid, can do justice to the fearful horrors of our situation. Every morning dawned with the same hope of a sail in sight, and every night gathered around us with the same despairing consciousness that our hope was in vain.

There was one of my crew, a pale, delicate lad, whom I shall never forget. He was the only son of a widow, and had entered the navy, though against her will, to earn an honorable subsistence for her. Though he had been among us but a short time, he had already distinguished himself by his address and bravery, while his frank demeanor had made him a universal favorite. Since the loss of the Dart he had borne up against our privations with a heroism that had astonished me. When the rest were sad he was cheerful; and no suffering, however great, could wring from him a complaint. But on the twentieth day—after having tasted no food for forty-eight hours—the mortal tenement proved too weak for his nobler soul. He was already dreadfully emaciated, and for some days I had been surprised at his powers of endurance. But now he could hold out no longer, and was forced to confess that he was ill. I felt his pulse—he was in a high fever. Delirium soon seized him, and throughout all that day and night he was deprived of reason. His ravings would have melted the heart of a Nero. He seemed conscious of his approaching end, and dwelt constantly, in terms of the most heart-rending agony, on his widowed mother—so soon to be deprived of her only solace and support. Oh! the terrible eloquence of his words. Now he alluded in the most touching accents to his father’s death—now he recounted the struggles in his mother’s heart when he proposed going to sea—and now he dwelt on her grief when she should hear of his untimely end, or watch month after month, and year after year, in the vain hope of again pressing him to her bosom. There were stern men there listening to his plaintive lamentations, who had perhaps never shed a tear before, but the fountains of whose souls were now loosened, and who wept as only a man can weep. There were sufferers beside him, whose own anguish almost racked their hearts to pieces, yet who turned aside from it to sorrow over him. And as hour after hour passed away, and he waxed weaker and weaker, one feeble shipmate after another volunteered to hold his aching head, for all thought of the lone widow, far, far away, who was even now perhaps making some little present for the boy whom she should never see again.

It was the evening of the day after his attack, and he lay with his head on my lap, when the sufferer, after an unusually deep sleep of more than an hour, woke up, and faintly opening his eyes lifted them to me. It was a moment before he could recognize me, but then a grateful smile stole over his wan face. I saw at a glance that the fever had passed away, and I knew enough of the dying hour to know that this return of reason foreboded a speedy dissolution. He made an attempt to raise his hand to his face, but weakness prevented him. Knowing his wishes, I took my handkerchief and wiped the dampness from his brow. Again that sweet smile played on the face of the boy, and it seemed as if thenceforth the expression of his countenance had in it something not of earth. The hardy seamen saw it too, and leaned forward to look at him.

“Thank you, Mr. Cavendish, thank you,” he said faintly, “I hope I haven’t troubled you—I feel better now—almost well enough to sit up.”

“No—no, my poor boy,” I said, though my emotion almost choked me, “lie still—I can easily hold you. You have slept well?”

“Oh! I have had such a sweet sleep, and it was full of happy dreams, though before that it seemed as if I was standing at my father’s dying bed, or saw my mother weeping as she wept the night I came away. And then,” and a melancholy shadow passed across his face as he spoke, “I thought that she cried more bitterly than ever, as if her very heart were breaking for some one who was dead—and it appears, too, as if I was that one,” he said, with child-like simplicity. Then for a moment he mused sadly, but suddenly said—“Do you think I am dying, sir?”

The suddenness of the question startled me, and when I saw those large, clear eyes fixed on me, I was more embarrassed than ever.

“I hope not,” I said brokenly. He shook his head, and again that melancholy shadow passed across his face, and he answered in a tone of grief that brought the tears into other eyes than mine,

“I feel I am. Oh! my poor mother—my poor, poor widowed mother, who will care for you when I am gone?”

“I will,” I said with emotion; “if God spares me to reach the land, I will seek her out, and tell her all about you—what a noble fellow you were—”

“And—and,” and here a blush shot over his pale face, “will you see that she never wants—will you?” he continued eagerly.

“I will,” said I, “rest easy on that point, my dear, noble boy.”

“Aye! and while there’s a shot in the locker for Bill Seaton she shall never want,” said the topman, pressing in his own horny hand the more delicate one of the boy.

“God bless you!” murmured the lad faintly, and he closed his eyes. For a moment there was silence, the hot tears falling on his face as I leaned over him. At length he looked up; a smile of joy was on his countenance, and his lips moved. I put my ear to them and listened.

“Mother—father—I die happy, for we shall meet in heaven,” were the words that fell in broken murmurs from his lips, and then he sunk back on my lap and was dead. The sun, at the instant, was just sinking behind the distant seaboard. Ah! little did his mother, as she gazed on the declining luminary from her humble cottage window, think that that sun beheld the dying hour of her boy. Little did she think, as she knelt that night in prayer for him, that she was praying for one whose silent corpse rocked far away on the fathomless sea. Let us hope that when, in her sleep, she dreamed of hearing his loved voice once more, his spirit was hovering over her, whispering comfort in her ear. Thank God that we can believe the dead thus revisit earth, and become ministering angels to the sorrowing who are left behind!

Another sun went and came, and even the stoutest of hearts began to give way. For twenty-three days had we drifted on the pathless deep, and in all that time not a sail had appeared—nothing had met our sight but the brazen sky above and the unbroken deep below. During the greater portion of that period we had lain motionless on the glittering sea, for a succession of calms had prevailed, keeping us idly rocking on the long, monotonous swell. When the sun of the twenty-fourth day rose, vast and red, there was not one of us whose strength was more than that of an infant; and though, at the first intimation of dawn, we gazed around the horizon as we were wont, there was little of hope in our dim and glazing eyes. Suddenly, however, the topman’s look became animated, and the color went and came into his face, betokening his agitation. Following the direction of his eyes, I saw a small, white speck far off on the horizon. I felt the blood rushing to the ends of my fingers, while a dizziness came over my sight. I controlled my emotion, however, with an effort. At the same instant the doubts of the topman appeared to give way, and waving his hand around his head, he shouted,

“A sail!—a sail!”

“Whereaway?” eagerly asked a dozen feeble voices, while others of the crew who were too far gone to speak, turned their fading eyes in the direction in which all were now looking.

“Just under yonder fleecy cloud.”

“I can’t see it,” said one, “surely there is a mistake.”

“No—we are in the trough of the sea—wait till we rise—there!”

“I see it—I see it—huzza!” shouted several.

A sudden animation seemed to pervade all. Some rose to their feet and clasping each other in their arms, wept deliriously—some cast themselves on their knees and returned thanks to God—while some gazed vacantly from one face to another, every now and then breaking out into hysterical laughter. For a time it seemed as if all had forgotten that the strange sail was still far away, and that she might never approach near enough to be hailed. But these thoughts finally found their way into the hearts of the most sanguine, and gradually the exhilaration of sudden hope gave way to despair, or the even more dreadful uncertainty of suspense. Hour after hour, with flushed cheeks and eager eyes, the sufferers watched the course of that strange sail, and when at length her topsails began to lift, and her approach was no longer doubtful, a faint huzza rose up from their overcharged hearts, and once more they exhibited the wild delirious joy which had characterized the first discovery of the stranger.

The approaching sail was apparently a merchant ship of the largest class, and the number of her look-outs seemed to intimate that she was armed. She was coming down toward us in gallant style, her canvass bellying out in the breeze, and the foam rolling in cataracts under her bows. Once we thought that she was about to alter her course—her head turned partially around and one or two of her sails shook in the wind—but, after a moment’s anxious suspense, we saw her resume her course, her head pointing nearly toward us. For some time we watched her in silence, eagerly awaiting the moment when she should perceive our lug sail. But we were doomed to be disappointed. Minute after minute passed by, after we had assured ourselves that we were nigh enough to be seen, and yet the stranger appeared unconscious of our vicinity. She was now nearly abreast of us, running free before the wind, just out of hail. Our hearts throbbed with intense anxiety. But though several minutes more had passed, and she was directly on our beam, her look-outs still continued gazing listlessly around, evidently ignorant that we were near.

“She will pass us,” exclaimed Seaton, the topman, “how can they avoid seeing our sail?”

“We must try to hail them,” I said, “or we are lost.”

“Ay—ay, it is our only chance,” said the topman, and a grim smile passed over his face as he looked around on his emaciated shipmates, and added bitterly, “though it’s little likely that such skeletons as we can make ourselves heard to that distance.”

“We will try,” said I, and raising my hand to time the cry, I hailed the ship. The sound rose feebly on the air and died waveringly away. But no symptoms of its being heard were perceptible on board the stranger.

“Again,” I said, “once more!”

A second time the cry rose up from our boat, but this time with more volume than before. Still no look-out moved, and the ship kept on her course.

“A third time, my lads,” I said, “we are lost if they hear us not—ahoy!”

“Hilloo!” came floating down toward us, and a topman turned his face directly toward us, leaning his ear over the yard to listen.

“Ahoy!—a-hoy!—Ho-ho-o-oy!” we shouted, joining our voices in a last desperate effort.

“Hilloo—boat ahoy!” were the glad sounds that met our ears in return, and a dozen hands were extended to point out our location. At the instant, the ship gallantly swung around, and bore down directly toward us.

“They see us—praise the Lord—they see us—we are saved!” were the exclamations of the crew as they burst into hysteric tears, and fell on their knees in thanksgiving, again enacting the scene of delirious joy which had characterized the first discovery of the strange sail.

On came the welcome ship—on like a sea-bird on the wing! Scores of curious faces were seen peering over her sides as she approached, while from top and cross-trees a dozen look-outs gazed eagerly toward us. The sun was shining merrily on the waves, which sparkled in his beams like silver; while the murmur of the wind over the deep came pleasantly to our ears. Oh! how different did every thing appear to us now from what it had appeared when hope was banished from our hearts. And when, weak and trembling, we were raised to the deck of the stranger, did not our hearts run over with gratitude to God? Let the tears that even our rescuers shed proclaim.

“Water—give us water, for God’s sake,” was the cry of my men as they struggled to the deck.

“Only a drop now—more you shall have directly,” answered the surgeon, as he stood between the half frenzied men and the water can.

With difficulty the ravenous appetites of the crew were restrained, for to have suffered the men to eat in large quantities after so long an abstinence would have ensured their speedy deaths. The sick were hurried to cots, while the captain insisted that I should share a portion of his own cabin.

It was many days before we were sufficiently recovered to mingle with our rescuers, and during our sickness we were treated with a kindness which was never forgot.

The strange sail was a privateersman, sailing under the American flag. We continued with her about two months, when she found it necessary to run into port. As we were nearly opposite Block Island, it was determined to stand in for Newport, where accordingly we landed, after an absence of nearly a year.

Here I found that we had been given up for lost. A bucket, with the name of the Dart painted on it, having been picked up at sea, from which it was concluded that all on board the vessel had perished. This belief had now become general in consequence of the lapse of time since we had been heard from. I was greeted, therefore, as one restored from the dead.

A BALLAD.

THE POETRY BY MISS PARDOE, THE MUSIC BY DAVID LEE.

Selected for Graham’s Magazine by J. G. Osbourn.

This work in its original language has been very popular, and some critics have deemed it the best of Segur’s productions. It is a history of France while that country was in the transition state between feudalism and centralism, and is written in the picturesque style of the old chroniclers.

Louis XI., the father of Charles, died in 1483. He had wielded the sceptre with strong hands, and given an extraordinary impulse to public affairs. It was therefore necessary that the government should be administered by an experienced person during the minority of the young king. There was a deep and pervading dissatisfaction in the country, especially among the nobles, who had been repressed by Louis, and were now anxious to reclaim their lost privileges. Anne of Beaujeu, the eldest daughter of the deceased monarch, and wife of the lord of Bourbon Beaujeu, had been selected by her father for the regency. She was not more than twenty-two years old, but at that early age was shrewd, resolute and dignified—the wisest and most beautiful woman of the realm. Her first act was the convocation of the Estates General at Tours, an event long celebrated on account of the ability and independence manifested by the deputies in their debates. She afterward undertook and accomplished the conquest of Bretagne—the great measure for which the regency was distinguished,—and finally, having maintained her position amid innumerable dangers, adding from year to year to her own and the national glory, resigned the government to Charles. A new policy was from that time pursued. The young king was ignorant and capricious, guided by his own mad impulses, or the wishes of intriguing courtiers, to whom he had given the places before occupied by gravest and wisest counsellors; and his reign, disastrous to France, prepared the way for the most important changes in European politics. A false notion of honor and the ambition of two favorites made him undertake the conquest of Naples. He succeeded, but instead of endeavoring to secure the permanent possession of that kingdom, gave himself up to a thoughtless voluptuousness, until a confederacy was formed which expelled him from Italy. After re-entering his own dominions his conduct and policy continued to be nerveless and vacillating. He seemed to regard the Neapolitan expedition as of slight importance, speaking of it as a series of passages at arms, a royal adventure which had resulted somewhat unfortunately; and never dreamed that the foolishly commenced and insanely conducted enterprise had destroyed the balance of power in Italy, taught the states of Europe to view with jealousy each other’s motions, and opened the way for the cultivation of those sciences and arts which civilized society and made men feel that they had other pursuits and pastimes than war. A short time before the close of his life a change came over his character; hitherto Cæsar had been his hero, and Charlemagne his model, but from the death of his third son, in infancy, he was ambitious to imitate St. Louis, and occupied himself with reforms in religion, legislation, and the administration of justice. How long he would have continued in his new career, but for his sudden death, cannot be known. He died in consequence of an injury, received in his magnificent château d’Amboise, in the year 1498.

Many eminent men flourished in France during this reign, among whom were the brave and intriguing Dunois; Philip de Comines, the celebrated historian and minister; La Tremouille, a principal actor in the Neapolitan expedition; Savonarola, the prophet priest of Florence; and others of less distinction.

The work of Segur is not alone interesting as a history of important political transactions; it contains numerous passages of a romantic description, characteristic of the age and its institutions, and written in a highly dramatic and picturesque style. The translation we doubt not is rigidly correct; but had Mr. Montgomery been less studious to render his original literally, his version would have flowed somewhat more smoothly, without losing any of its freshness or animation.

Mr. Frost has succeeded in his attempt to present the leading incidents in the history of our national marine in an attractive form. The Book of the Navy is one of those “books for the people” which awaken only patriotism, pride and emulation. The Appendix, containing selections of naval lyrical pieces and anecdotes, seems to have been prepared with less care than the historical part of the work. The best American naval songs are Edwin C. Holland’s “Pillar of Glory” and the “Old Ironsides” of Oliver W. Holmes, neither of which appears in Mr. Frost’s collection, while it embraces some which have no allusion to the navy, and others too worthless in a literary point of view to deserve preservation. The volume is very elegantly printed, and is embellished with several portraits on steel, and other engravings from designs by Croome.

This work is composed of a series of tales, each illustrating a principle or enforcing a moral. The first volume contains, Dangers of Dining Out, Confessions of a Madman, Somerville Hall, The Rising Tide, and The Favorite Child; the second, First Impressions, and The Minister’s Family. The characters are usually well-drawn, and the interest of some of the stories is deep and well sustained.

The name of Jean Paul has become so familiar to American and English readers, that this work will doubtless supply a great desideratum with many ardent admirers of German literature. Our ideas of Jean Paul do not coincide with those of most critics. We have great respect for his genius, the purity of his thoughts, the extreme delicacy of his sentiments, and his almost universal learning; but we think his style forced and unnatural, and the amount of his wit, sarcasm, humor and hyperbolical refinement, altogether disproportionate to the “littleness” of his subjects. He is the most poetic of prose writers, and his autobiography furnishes many happy illustrations of this assertion. In our opinion, however, he indulges far too much in didacticism, a style which we dislike equally in poetry or prose, and which is seldom chosen by men of great intellect. He is a feminine writer, and much which in his works appears and is applauded as poetry, is in truth only high wrought feminine delicacy. He is accordingly much read and admired by women. But we doubt whether in all his productions there is a well drawn character of a man. When we look upon his heroes we cannot but remember Hotspur⁠—

The writings of Jean Paul have had a pernicious influence on the minds of the youth of Germany, who are naturally inclined to sojourn in the regions of fancy; but it is a proof of returning reason that among the numerous republications of the works of German authors his have not gone through very large editions.

Schiller and Goethe disliked the muse of Jean Paul; the former because she had not warmth, and the latter because as an artist he was shocked with her morbid taste. Jean Paul was much mortified at the coldness of this Corephæus of German literature, and in giving an account of his visit to Weimer, says⁠—

This sentiment is unworthy the mind of Jean Paul. The best relations existed between Schiller and Goethe through life. Each of them was great enough in his sphere to fear no rival. The jealousies which Jean Paul refers to were those of some women in “the society” of Weimer, but the men whom they maligned were both immeasurably beyond their reach.

Gervinus, in his “History of German Literature,” the most national work lately published, assigns to Jean Paul rather a low rank among the poets of his country. There is much thought and meditation in his works, but that divine spark which kindles enthusiasm and inspires men to sublime action is not in them. Even his female portraits are not drawn after Nature, and his Linda, in “Titan”—perhaps the best of his novels—is, after all the praise it has received, but a transparent shadow.

This memoir contains Jean Paul’s autobiography, reaching to his thirteenth year; a connected narrative of his life, compiled and translated from the best sources, and copious extracts from his correspondence. The translation is generally correct and elegant, but many errors occur in the proper names, especially by the transpositions of the i and e. We have seen mentioned, as the compiler and translator, Miss Lee of Boston, a lady of taste and learning, to whom the public have before been indebted for several pleasing and instructive publications.

We have read the sermons, sketches of sermons, and letters in this volume with considerable attention, and regret finding in them so little to praise. Mr. Downing died when but twenty-six years old, in Boston. He was a pious, earnest and efficient minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and, had he lived to a mature age, we doubt not, would have been one of the most useful clergymen of his denomination. But, however excellent his qualities as a man or as a preacher, his printed discourses bear too few of the marks of genius or learning to secure for him a high reputation as a writer. They are not distinguished for graceful expression, vigor, or originality. The fraternal partiality of the editor deserves not to be censured, but the common practice of printing sermons, “called so,” as Bishop Andrews well remarks, “by a charitable construction,” and other “remains,” not originally designed for the press and unworthy of publication, is an evil which can be remedied only by honest critical judgments.

Chemistry, more than any other science, is progressive. In the work before us Mr. Kane has exhibited with great ability its advancement, general extent, and present condition. There is no lack of elementary works on the subject, but we know of none which enter into it so fully or are so clear and comprehensive as this. Dr. Kane ranks among the first philosophical inquirers of the day, and is probably unequaled as a chemist. The American editor is likewise well known for his profound knowledge of this science. In looking through the work we have been particularly pleased with its practical character—the explanations it contains of the various processes by which chemistry has been made to contribute to the progress of the arts, which enhance its value to the medical practitioner and the manufacturer.

The new series of Miss Strickland’s Lives of the Queens of England contains memoirs of Elizabeth of York, Katharine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katharine Howard, Catherine Parr, and Mary “the Catholic.” The work improves as it advances and the materials for history accessible to the authoress become more abundant. Some of the memoirs in the second series are exceedingly interesting. The volumes deserve a place in every lady’s library.

This is an interesting and valuable contribution to our historical writings. Uncas, “the white man’s friend,” was the king of a powerful tribe of Indians occupying a large part of the territory now called Connecticut, when it was colonized by the English Pilgrims, in 1635. His ashes rest in the “royal burying-ground” near Norwich; and, above them, in 1833, when General Jackson was on a visit to that city, the corner stone of a monument was laid, with imposing ceremonies. The granite obelisk, with the simple inscription, Uncas, was finished on the fourth of July, 1842, and on that day Mr. Stone delivered the address which, with its appendix and notes, composes the volume before us.

“Charlotte Elizabeth” is the wife, we believe, of a London clergyman. Excepting Hannah More, no woman has written so much or so well on religious subjects. In the work before us she treats with her usual ability of the holy angels and of evil spirits, their existence, character, power, and destiny.

This volume contains several interesting prose pieces, mingled with lyrics, smoothly versified, and poetical in ideas and expression.

This is the title of a large and closely printed octavo just issued from the press. It embraces much curious and valuable information, some of which is from original sources. The work, however, is badly arranged and carelessly written. The different parts, having but little connection with each other, should have been published separately.

These are short stories, for children and youth, written with simplicity and in a genial and loving spirit, and in every way superior to the books of the class written before the last few years.

This little work is well known to Christians, and to others its title will convey an accurate idea of its character. The present edition is doubtless the most beautiful that has been published.

We have, in manuscript, a biographical sketch of the late Commodore Perry, from the pen of Mr. Cooper, which it was our intention to publish in December, but, it proving too long for a single number, we shall carry it over to the next year, that its parts may appear in the same volume. In this sketch Mr. Cooper has gone into the critical details concerning the battle of Lake Erie, which were not thought proper to be introduced into his great naval work, as they belong to biography rather than to history. Mr. Cooper, we learn, has delayed publishing his answer to the Lectures of Burgess, the Biography of Mackenzie, and his account of the late arbitration in New York, in order not to anticipate the appearance of the biographical sketch, which, while it is critical rather than controversial, will necessarily cover much of the same ground. We understand that the “Answers” will immediately follow the appearance of the article in our magazine.

The naval story entitled “Harry Cavendish,” will be brought to a close in our next number, and we shall not hereafter commence the publication of any article which may not be completed in two or three months.

A new edition of the works of Jonathan Edwards will be published within a few weeks, by Jonathan Leavitt and John F. Trow, of New York, in four very large octavo volumes. Edwards was the greatest metaphysician of the eighteenth century—and his name, first and highest in our literary history, can never be spoken but with pride by an American. The only copies of his writings for sale in this country for several years have been from the English press.

Mr. Cooper’s new romance, “Wing and Wing, or Le Feu Follet,” will be published about the fifteenth of this month, by Lea & Blanchard, and we are pleased to learn that it is to be sold at one third the price of his former novels—that is, for fifty cents per copy. We are confident the publishers will find in nearly all cases—international copyright or no copyright—that the greatest profits accrue from small prices and consequent large circulation.

“The Life and Adventures of John Eugene Leitensdorfer, formerly a Colonel in the Austrian Service, and Adjutant and Inspector-General in the United States’ Army under General Eaton, in the Tripolitan War,” is the title of a work soon to appear in St. Louis, where the veteran hero and biographer resides. Few persons in any period have passed through more romantic scenes than Colonel Leitensdorfer, and his memoirs cannot fail to be deeply interesting.

A new prose romance, entitled “Idomen, or the Vale of Yumuri,” by Mrs. Brooks, better known by her poetical name, Maria del Occidente, will soon be published by Colman, of New York. We have had the pleasure of reading the work in manuscript. It will sustain the reputation of the authoress as the “most passionate and most imaginative of all poetesses.”

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. Other errors have been corrected as noted below.

[The end of Graham's Magazine Vol. XXI No. 5 November 1842 edited by George Rex Graham]