* A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook *

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

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

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

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

BY MISS SEDGWICK.

The family of James O’Moore was a reputable branch of the old and broad-spreading tree of the O’Moores in Ireland. James had married young, in spite of the wise counsel of the sage and rich, who can themselves indulge in the luxury of wives and children, and think it very fitting the poor should do without them. Neither would Jemmy O’Moore be guided by others’ experience, which has been well called the “stern-light of the ship.” So, at five-and-thirty, he was a husband and the father of nine children; “five,” as his wife expressed it, “gone to the Blessed Virgin, in Heaven—three boys o’er-topping their father and stouter than he, and our Rosy, dear, the beauty o’ County Cork, tho’ her mother should be ashamed to say it, but her mother it was alone that knew she was the truest and best that ever mother leaned upon, God bless her!”

Those who, unreasonably, or, if they will, reasonably, dislike the Irish, cannot deny that, in the glowing fervor of their affections, in generosity to their kindred and people, and in gratitude to any member of the human family, Jew, Greek, or barbarian, who, in a kind manner, renders them a service, they are unequaled. O’Moore had a judicious and generous landlord, and he would have thriven well in his own country, with only his four surviving children to bury or bring up; but there was a cousin, with three sickly girls and a boy, to whom his kind heart bade him extend protection and support. The boy, Dennis Rooney, was, to be sure, no charge to him, or to his mother. Dennis was a stout, brave and manful boy, and, when but twelve years old, he had saved the life of the heir, and only son, of the lord of the domain on which they lived. This unfortunate only son of Sir Philip Morriti and his wife, Lady Ellen, was born with a deformity that made him incurably lame. He was beside sickly, and of a nervous temperament, and retiring disposition. He loved solitude; and, when possible, would escape from his mother and nurse and wander about the woodlands of the estate. His ruling passion was a love of wild flowers, and in trying to obtain some violets that grew on the brink of a stream that bounded the estate, he fell in, and, unable to resist the swift channel, he was carried down into an artificial pond, where he would inevitably have been drowned but for the timely intervention of Dennis Rooney. Dennis came near being dragged under by the convulsive grasp of the drowning child, but his stout arm and stouter heart prevailed; and he not only took the boy from the water, but carried him, half a mile, to the castle, and laid him in his mother’s arms. Dennis was at once taken to the castle, was taught, by Master Edward’s tutor, reading, writing and ciphering, and, what to Dennis was as important, he was put under the head gardener for instruction in his art. Master Edward now transferred his love for solitary places to the garden. His only pleasure, beyond the reach of his mother’s loved and tender voice, was working beside Dennis in the flower-beds. Time did not lighten the burden of life to the poor child; as he grew older his mind became dimmer, and his body feebler. He was always leaning on Dennis, or limping after him, and seemed to love the presence of the bright, strong, cheerful boy as a plant loves the sunshine.

At the period when our history of the O’Moores and Rooneys begins, the three sisters of Dennis had married and gone to America, loaded with favors and presents from Sir Philip and Lady Ellen. Dennis had manifested no disposition to join them. He was quite contented with the service he was in, and never left the castle but to visit the O’Moores. “And why do you always go there, and never to fairs, or wakes, or merry-makings of any kind?” asked Lady Ellen. Dennis looked straight up, and straight down—he looked one side, and the other—he looked sheepish, in short, he looked every way but in his mistress’ face, as he replied, “Sure my lady has seen Rosy O’Moore.” Sure my lady had, and, with a woman’s quick wit, she read the whole history of Dennis’ heart. After a little consideration, she told him so—drew from him a full disclosure of his wishes and dawning plans, and promised to forward them, by giving Rosy an eligible place at the castle. That Dennis should ever leave it, while Master Edward lived, was out of the question, Lady Ellen said, and Dennis assented, for he felt himself bound there not only by Edward’s dependence upon him, but by his gratitude for the multiplied favors heaped on him and his family by Sir Philip and Lady Ellen.

A week had passed since he had seen Rosy. In the next half hour after his communication with Lady Ellen he was on his way to the cottage. Rosy, who always knew when it was Dennis that knocked, opened the door for him. The flush of welcome, or the blush that overspread her cheek when Dennis kissed it, soon passed away, and he observed that she was paler and less cheerful than usual.

“Sure, Dennis,” said the mother, “these have been the longest days of the year that you have been staying away from us.”

“Indeed and that’s true,” replied Dennis, glancing at Rose, “hours are minutes here, and minutes are hours away from you.”

“Oh, it’s getting darker than ever we saw it yet, Dennis.” Dennis stared. “Is it O’Moore that’s been at the castle to-day?” continued the old woman.

“No.”

“Nor Dan, nor Pat, nor Tommy?”

“Not one of them.”

“Then the news—bad luck to it—is yet to tell.” Dennis was confounded. He fancied he only had news to tell, and, resolving not to have that interfered with, he turned from the mother and asked Rosy to walk down the green lane with him. Rose tied on a snow-white apron, threw her little cloak over her shoulders, and they went out together. The sentiment of the humble, like the diseases of childhood, is simple, uncomplicated, and little varying in its symptoms. “Thanks to you, Rosy, dear,” said Dennis, “it is not now to ask ‘do you love me?’ ” Rose only sighed in reply. “Sure that question was asked as long ago as we can remember?”

“And answered just as long ago—was it not Dennis?”

“Sure, sure it was, Rosy, and we have been as good as one ever since, having but one heart between us—troth plighted and all, and so Rosy, dear—but why are you so dark?—you send chills to the very soul of me.” Rosy burst into tears. “Oh, speak, Rosy; if trouble has come to you have not I a right to the better half of it?” Dennis’ arm was round Rosy’s waist, and Rosy pressed the hand that was on her heart, but she could not utter a word. Dennis wiped off the tears with Rosy’s apron, saying, “there, my life, don’t send any more after them! I have news to tell you that will drive away all sorrow—sunshine to melt away all the clouds, Rosy; if one door is shut another is opened.” And he proceeded to communicate the sure and near prospect that Lady Ellen’s kindness had opened to them. Poor Rosy’s sadness deepened at every word, and, when he had finished, she covered her face and sobbed out, “It cannot be—it cannot be—Dennis, it can never be.” Dennis, alarmed and confounded, was rather relieved when he found out the real lion in the way; and, after a little soothing and cheering. Rosy began to feel that there was still twilight above her horizon. She had communicated the following facts:

It seemed that James O’Moore had been long vainly struggling against the current of hard times. With all the indulgence of his landlord, it was hard for him to pay his rent; and his boys, now grown to be capable and industrious, had no work to do. Emigration is the great national resource for Ireland. O’Moore’s relations and friends, on every side, were going to America, and sending home letters with accounts of success, and remittances, for those left behind. A few days before, O’Moore had received letters from the husbands of Dennis’ sisters. They were still in Canada, where they had heard the most tempting accounts of the facilities for settlers on the new lands in the United States, and they vehemently urged O’Moore to come out, with his sons, and join them. O’Moore was an impulsive and determined man—qualities that do not often go together. Foreseeing opposition from the women, he imparted his plan to the boys, only. They joyfully concurred with him. He made fortunate arrangements for the sale of such effects as must be left behind him, and, on the morning of that day, he told his wife and daughter that, in one week, they must be riding on the salt water.

Rosy listened as she would have listened to a sentence of death, and, turning from her father, she sunk down on a chair, pale and motionless. Her mother understood her child’s feelings, and, after her own surprise and shock had a little subsided, she said, “Sure, Jemmy O’Moore, it’s for the good of your boys, I have not a word to say again it—I shall not long bide it—I cannot learn to stand alone in my old age.”

“Alone! will not we be on every side of you?”

“Not she that I most lane on. I have always had something to lane upon since first I lay upon my mother’s bosom; when she was taken, then it was my poor father, then it was you, Jemmy, and now is it not Rosy that’s my prop—my rest and comfort by night and by day?”

“And, God helping me, wilt still be, mother,” said Rosy, dropping on to the floor at her mother’s feet, and laying her head on her lap.

“Ah, my darling, is it not you that’re promised, and, as I left all for your father, so must you leave all for Dennis—this the thorny way of life that Providence has marked with his own finger.”

“Now, this is just women’s way,” interposed Jemmy, “flying off into the clouds, instead of walking in the beaten road before you. What the divil signifies blurring your eyes, Rosy?—can’t Dennis come with us?”

“Never, never, father; he is duty-bound to Master Edward. It’s the nearest duty we must do. I’ll go with you, mother—I will, and I’ll say never a word against Dennis doing God’s bidding, and that is all his possible to serve poor Master Edward. Should I, that love him before all things, stand between him and his duty?”

And to this noble resolution Rose adhered, at first with struggling sighs and bitter tears, and afterward with a stronger and more cheerful resignation.

How wisely and how beautifully Providence has interwoven the reciprocal relations of the rich and poor! Money could not buy, but it might reward such service as Dennis’. The sickly child of fortune was his dependent, and he was bound to the generous benefactors of his family by ties far stronger than any chains ever forged. Lady Ellen was sure her son would pine away and die, if Dennis left him; and so he probably would have done; and a man less true and constant to duty than Dennis might have questioned whether a life so feeble and profitless were worth preserving at such a cost. But there was no such question in Dennis’ clear mind. He threw his love, and longings to go with Rose, into one scale, and his duty into the other, and that preponderating the thing was settled.

The lovers parted. Rose came with her family to America, and Dennis remained in the service of Master Edward, at the castle. They were too young, and too strong of heart, to part without hope. “Be sure, Rosy, be sure,” were almost Dennis’ last words, “that poor Master Edward’s shattered frame cannot stand it long, and, when it pleases God to take him to His peace, I will be after you, as fast as winds and sails can bring me.”

Flowers have bloomed on our prairies, and passed away, from age to age, unseen by man, and multitudes of virtues have been acted out in obscure places, without note or admiration. The sweetness of both has gone up to Heaven.

The O’Moores joined the Kellys—Dennis’ brothers-in-law—at Montreal. The limit assigned to this slight sketch of their fortunes, does not permit our detailing, step by step, their progress; led on—as such wanderers are—by chance advice, and chance acquaintance, and the hope of casting off old burdens, and gaining new advantages, they reached Illinois, and there squatted on some new land, about six miles from the thriving little town of Clifton. To reach this point, all the O’Moores’ convertible property had been turned into money, and the money was nearly expended. The golden cloud that, to the poor emigrant’s eye, rests over this western world, had, till now, gone before them, and now, at the very point where they hoped it would stand still, it melted away. The fate of “the best laid schemes o’ mice and men” hung over our Irish friends. The first season, James O’Moore took the fever of the country, and died. His eldest son, finding that harder work than he had done at home met with smaller present returns, was disheartened and disgusted, and he quitted the land, and went to work on a railroad. Patrick, left to labor alone—for Thomas, the youngest, had remained in Ireland, to fulfill a year’s engagement—was discouraged, and was soon laid by with “the fever,” whose first victims the disheartened are. The Rooneys extended all the kindness in their power to our friends—they had difficulties of their own. The life of a settler is, at best, a life of hardship and endurance—emphatically a struggling life. The second spring opened gloomily on the O’Moores. Patrick could just crawl from his bed to the fire, his days being varied only by chills and no chills. His poor mother was like an old tree dying of transplantation, an unwise movement for an old subject. Rosy did her best with kind words, hopeful suggestions, smiles and ends of songs—her tears she kept to herself. Many a tear she shed, when there was no light in the hut but that of the smouldering log. They were all, in truth, pining with home-sickness. The Irish are often ridiculed, or contemned, for vaunting the comfortable homes they have left behind them. “The Almighty knows,” they say, “what we’ve come here for, we were a dale better off at home!” This is false in word, but true in feeling. Their earnest affections take possession of their memories, and efface all but that which made the happiness of their birth-place, and childhood’s home. There, in perpetual freshness, are the joys of youth; the associations of song and story are there—there, in golden light, all the bright passages of life—its pleasant acquaintanceships, and sparkling incidents. And there, those ministers of suffering, trial, superstition, even death itself, have their root of sorrow plucked out, and become ministering angels—messengers from another world. Who ever looked back upon home, through the vista of time, or the wide spaces of distance, and saw anything but light and beauty there? Surely, then, the poor Irish may be pardoned the hallucinations of their filial love.

Dame O’Moore’s widowed and sinking heart turned to Thomas. Many a weary month had come and gone since any tidings had reached them from Ireland. At last came a newspaper, forwarded by a friend in Montreal, giving an account of the wreck of a packet that had left Liverpool, on a certain day, with an unusual number of emigrants. The paper contained an imperfect list of the passengers, and among them was the name of Thomas O’Moore. “And sure it’s Tommy;” said the old woman, “as I look at it I see it’s Tommy’s own name, and no other.”

“But, mother, dear,” said Rosy, who could find a ray of light gleaming where all was darkness to her mother’s dulled vision, “all County Cork is full of O’Moores, and are there not six Thomas O’Moores, cousins to us, or something that way, besides our own Tommy?”

“Ah, yes—but this is my own—I feel it to be the very marrow of my bones—now look,” she said, pointing to the printed name, “it’s as like him as his own face. Oh, Rosy, it is he, and none other—my heart is broke!”

Rosy, in spite of having a weight of sorrow, of which her mother was ignorant, in the intervals of adjusting the old woman’s pillows, and administering a cup of hot, fresh tea, contrived to let a ray of hope into her drooping spirit. The day was bright, and, when the little cabin began to have the air of comfort that neatness and order give, even where there is poverty and sickness, Rosy proposed walking in to Clifton, to see if there were not a letter in the postoffice.

“That’s my own darling,” said her mother; “it was the night I was dreaming of roasted potatoes, and that’s a sign of letters coming—old blind Barry ’twas told me the sign, when Pat, his son, was away to the Indies. But, Rosy, dear, where’s the money to pay for the same?”

“Is there not a shilling, mother, left of the last pound of tea?”

“Ah! no, Rosy, that same went to Clifton for the last vial of my mixture. I would not rob you, darling, but sure a letter would be better to us all than gold. There’s the gold-piece Dennis—God ever bless him—gave you at parting.”

“Mother, what for would I tell you in that dark hour and you sick, but sure it was the gold-piece I paid for father’s coffin, to quiet his dear soul. Could he rest easy, the thing not paid for, and his own dear child having gold in her purse?”

“It’s all right, Rosy, love; the blessing of the dead and the living on you! If there should be a letter! Pat, boy, is there ne’er a shilling at the bottom of your empty purse?”

“Na, na, mother,” groaned Pat from the chair, where he sat cowering over the coals; “my last shilling went to the pedlar—bad luck to him—for the fever-pills.”

“Oh, mother, dear,” interposed Rosy, “it’s a lucky thought, the same I have.” She pulled from her bosom a shilling, suspended by a thread-bare ribbon, from which its original rose-color had been long washed out. “Sure I never thought of its being money—it was a love-token we called it. It was when you and I and Dennis went to the fair—he bought this ribbon and tied round my neck, you remember, mother—it was my seventh birth-day—I’ll scarce know myself without it—but I’ll not scruple parting with it to bring you the comfort of a letter—so kiss it for luck’s sake, mother, dear.”

Her mother kissed the love-token, and kissed her good child, and poured out a shower of tears, as she said “God Almighty’s blessing rest on you, as it does, and ever will, for you’ve kept all His laws, and crowned them all with honoring father and mother—so you’ve His sure word that these black days shall lighten up, and be long and bright to the last, in the land that the Lord thy God giveth to thee—God speed ye, my darling!”

These blessings, the very effluence of well-performed duties, fell, like dews from Heaven, on Rosy’s spirit, and filled it with cheerful expectation. She changed her working-dress for a holiday suit, and, having arranged becomingly her fine dark hair, she looked at herself with pardonable complacency, for no drawing-room mirror ever reflected a sweeter face than was given back by the little bit of broken, triangular glass, by which she tied on a pretty, straw hat. “Rosy,” said her mother, “your mourning bonnet, child!” A crape bonnet, of her own fashioning, was the only badge of mourning Rosy had been able to obtain. “There’s no luck under a black bonnet, mother dear,” said Rosy, “so this once I’ll leave it behind—the weed is on my heart all the same.” So, again kissing her mother, and giving Patrick a farewell pat on the shoulder, she set forth on her six miles walk, to the Clifton postoffice.

She called at the shanties of the sisters of Dennis, to ask if they had any money to send for letters. No, they had no money, and no expectation of letters. They expected their husbands from Buffalo, in a fortnight’s time, and, if Rosy would wait, they would then give her enough to pay for the letters that all Ireland would send her. Wait a fortnight! thought Rosy, as she definitively shook her head to their proposition. It was an affair in which the waiting of a “thousandth part of a minute” could not be voluntarily brooked.

But our readers are not yet acquainted with all the reasons of poor Rosy’s eagerness for a letter. It was not only that she might know her brother’s fate, but she had learned, by her last despatch from Dennis, that Master Edward’s health was rapidly declining, and Dennis said, if the poor young man died—“God forgive him for writing the same”—before Thomas sailed, he—Dennis—should go out in the ship with him. Rosy had no doubt that the Thomas O’Moore mentioned among the passengers in the wrecked ship, from Liverpool, was really her brother. It had sailed sooner than Dennis had anticipated, and her reason told her there was scarcely a chance that he was in her, but on that chance hung all her happiness. A longer interval than had before elapsed between his letters had now passed, and, if he were not in the fated ship, she felt sure of finding a letter, from him, in the Clifton postoffice. Sure, when a great good is at stake, with what fearful rapidity the mind calculates chances! how rapidly the pendulum vibrates!

Rosy pursued her walk for three miles, without passing a human habitation. She then passed near the comfortable farm-house of an eastern settler. The wife of the proprietor was a city-bred lady, from one of the Atlantic states, but, in common with her poorer neighbors, she had to suffer the inconveniences of a new country residence. Her husband was absent, and she too expected letters, and now called Rosy in, to ask her to inquire for her. “I will give you half-a-dollar,” she said, “for it may be a double letter.” Rosy took the half dollar, and promised to execute the commission. As she left house, the possibility that she too might have a double letter occurred to her, and, though the poor little love-token—the English shilling^[1]—was of inestimable value, it would not be so rated by the postmaster. Rosy paused. “I will ask Mrs. Johnston to lend me the money—how can I, she a stranger?—yes I will.” She retraced her steps, and proposed to the lady the possible contingency of there being a double letter for herself, and none for Mrs. Johnston. “In that case, ma’am,” asked Rosy, hesitatingly, “might I just borrow a bit of your money?”

“Certainly—yes—but stop a moment”—it can’t be, she said to herself, poor people never write double letters—my purse is very low—there is no saying when Mr. Johnston will be home—every penny counts—“no, my girl,” she concluded aloud, “you will have no occasion for my money, I am sure; I am sorry I can’t oblige you, but, if you find no letter for me, I had rather you would bring my half dollar back;” and when Rosy turned away, her face dyed with disappointment and mortification at having made the request, the mistaken lady thought, “it was well I refused her. She’ll have no double letter, and then the money would have been taken for something else and I should not have been the wiser. The Irish have always a lie ready.”

Oh what a pity that life should be marked by wasted opportunities of small kindnesses! Striking occasions and great deeds fall to the lot of few, but the humblest has every day an opportunity to do some little favor—to speak a kind word, or forbear a harsh one—to cheer with a smile, or withhold a frown; to do something in virtual obedience to the blessed command, “bear ye one another’s burdens.”

If recording angels do wait on men’s deeds, it is over the blank pages, we fancy, that most tears are dropped. Mrs. Johnston turned to her affairs quite unconscious of the wrong she had done, for the Irish were out of the pale of her sympathies; and our little friend pursued her way, stopping only once to rest by the road side, where she took Dennis’ last letter from her bosom and read it over, for the hundred thousandth time, with smiles and tears. She arrived at Clifton, a half an hour after the eastern mail had come in. The arrival of the mail, in a country town, is the great event of the day; but no where does it produce such a sensation as in one of our western settlements, for there are members of families newly sent out from their birth-places, their fibres still trembling with the disruption from the parent stock—there are exiles from the old world, too, their pulses still answering to every beat of the old heart, at home—there are the most anxious speculators, and there—if there be any graduations on this scale—the greediest politicians. The Clifton postoffice was in one extremity of a large “store,” whose proprietor was postmaster. There were two entrances to this semi-civilized establishment, one large door from the main street—“Broadway”—and the other a narrow door, from a narrow side street, little used; the great flux and reflux being through the main door. Rosy fell into the tide entering here. Her heart beat quick with fear and hope, and she began, as she afterwards said, to feel a choking, as if there were a whole loaf of bread in her throat. She was unconscious that she was stared at on the right hand and the left, and quite indifferent to the audible exclamations which her beauty called forth. The “store” was already full of people, all men; for our chary womankind do not reckon it a feminine service to go to the postoffice, being afraid, as one of their witty punsters once said, of seeming to “run after the males!”

The great men of Clifton (Clifton has its great men) were gathered round a table, on which Peter Smith, the postmaster, was depositing the newspapers, letters and parcels as he drew them from the deep abyss of the great leathern bag. The postmaster was a man of short stature and spare body, with a weasel-face and eyes glowing like a rat’s. He felt the importance of holding the wheel of destiny for the community of Clifton—of being the oracle to announce the voice of the divinities at Washington—the herald of all news, foreign and domestic, and the medium of all the good and evil tidings that came to Clifton. Some people are said to have the gift to see into a mill-stone. This was nothing to Peter Smith’s gift to see into a letter—to read it by managing the key of its superscription. But this required time. Champolion could not read hieroglyphics at a glance. The letters to the chief dignitaries of Clifton were thrown down on the table and caught up at once, but missives to humbler persons were fingered, viewed and reviewed, while Peter Smith thought to himself, or murmured to a village gossip, as he threw one after another down, “Slam has got his answer from the land office, at last—short and not sweet, I can tell him! Ah, news from that scamp Laffin!” and then a chuckle; “the widow will have another chance!”

By this time, a little boy had made his way to the table and asked bashfully, “if there was any letter for grandf’er?”

“Grandfather! who’s your grandfather? Oh, I know—Anson Valet—wait a minute—yes—where is your money for the postage?”

The little fellow drew nearer, and, frightened by being observed, he dropped his head and hesitated—

“Speak out; have you got the money or not, shaver?—a cash article, a letter at this postoffice.”

“Grandf’er is sick, sir, and he has not got any money left; but we expect there’s some in that letter from father, sir.”

“You and grandf’er must take it out in expectations, my lad, this is a single letter—marked so, and I’m sure of it—they can’t cheat me,” be continued, fingering the letter, “if they do the down-easters. It will keep till called for, my boy; there are fifty others there to keep it company; waiting till their owners can get money to pay for them.”

The poor child’s tears dropped on to the floor, and, losing his bashfulness in stronger feeling, he said, “I know there’s a bank-bill in it, for father promised to send it.”

A gentleman who had taken half a dozen franked letters from the table, with a score of newspapers, was awaiting the change of a half dollar; his attention was arrested by the little boy’s tremulous voice, and compassionating his hard case, he said to Peter Smith, “Give the poor child his letter, and let the balance of my half dollar pay for it.”

“Oh, thank you, sir,” said the boy, as he took the letter. “But I know the bill is in it—wont you please to open the letter, sir, and see?”

The gentleman broke open the letter, and, to the infallible Peter’s infinite mortification, the bank-note was there.

“I knew father would send it,” said the boy in a tone of irrepressible exultation. “Wont you please to take the money out of it, sir, that you paid for the letter?”

“No, my little fellow, carry the note home unbroken to your ‘grandf’er;’ I have got my money’s worth.”

Could one pierce into the sacred treasury in the heart, one might see how much richer the gentleman was by his spent money than Mrs. Johnston by the same sum saved!

All this while our poor little friend Rosy was an impatient and most attentive observer. While she modestly waited for an opportunity to approach the postmaster, without pushing her way through the crowd that surrounded him, she looked with fear and dismay at the masses of newspapers, fearing that her poor little letter, if she had one among them, would share the fate of the needle in the hay-mow. It so happened that the member from Clifton county had been making a speech in Congress on the Bankrupt Law, and that he had forwarded to his constituents not less than fifty newspapers containing this precious effusion, and half as many letters to his particular friends, filled with the gossip of Washington. There were a few papers of the best order, and any number of Atlasses, Transcripts, Suns and Heralds, beside some roods of Brother Jonathans and New Worlds. After these had been, for the most part, delivered, and the crowd ebbed, Rosy approached the table and modestly inquired if there were any letter for the O’Moores, but now the postmaster was lost in the politician. A hot discussion was begun on the bankrupt law, in which all were interested as parties, or creditors of parties—and Rosy repeated her inquiry thrice, before she was listened to, and then Peter Smith replied crabbedly, “Can’t you wait a minute, child?” and grumbled, “pests!—these Irish!” Rosy did wait five minutes at least, endless minutes they seemed to her, for she had the weight of her own anxieties and the burden of her poor mother and sick brother on her spirit. She then said “It’s my mother, sir, would thank ye to look if there’s e’er a letter for Rosy O’Moore, or any of her people?”

Smith either did not, or affected not to hear, till a person who stood near interposed, saying, “It is too bad, Smith; I’ll look over the letters myself for the poor girl if you don’t.” Peter turned pettishly round, and shuffling over a parcel of letters he paused at one—

“That’s mine!” exclaimed Rosy involuntarily, as she recognized the hand at the first glance at the superscription. She blushed at the sound of her own raised voice, and extended her English shilling, her ‘love-token,’ her hand trembling with eagerness—

“Not so fast, sweetheart,” said Peter, “this is a double letter, and so you must double your money to get it.”

“Double my money!” said poor Rosy, “indeed, sir, I cannot—I have not another penny—and it’s six miles I have walked for this same, sir.”

“And you must walk six miles back without it if you can’t pay the price of it. No cash, no letter, is the rule here, every body knows,” and he was turning to replace the letter in the grave of a pigeon-hole when Rosy laid hold of his arm.

“For the love of Heaven, sir,” said she, “give me the letter; my old mother at home is perishing for news from Thomas, her youngest, that was wrecked in the Nancy.”

“And this letter comes from Tommy, from the bottom of the sea, does it?”

“It comes from one who may give us news of him,” said Rose with dignity, the color again mounting into her cheek, which had become deadly pale at the thought of losing the letter. “Oh, please, sir, let me look at the outside of it.”

Peter Smith vouchsafed to permit her to take the letter into her hands. The superscription was in Dennis’ well known hand—a fine legible character—

“Miss Rose O’Moore—Clifton Postoffice—Illinois—United States of America.”

“Can’t you read it?—it’s plain as print,” said Peter Smith. Rosy’s eye did not read, it devoured every letter, and tear after tear dropped upon it. The good-natured man who had interposed to procure the letter was now fumbling in every pocket, and turning his purse inside out, to make up her deficit, but in vain—there is many a man of substance in our western states who has not money to pay a letter’s postage. “It is too bad,” he said, “I see this going on here every day. Here comes this cavern of a mail-bag filled with all manner of trash; speeches not worth a groat, and letters worth less, brought all the way from Washington with the frank of some poor devil of a congressman, who had better be planting potatoes at home—why should his letters be free, and these poor emigrants pay a quarter of a dollar for a single sheet? who are thirsting for a word of news from their old homes—who, in their hard toil and hard fare, look forward to a letter to cheer and sustain them, who think of it by day end dream of it by night, and when it comes—their manna in the wilderness—it is loaded with a postage they cannot pay; an unrighteous, infamous tax it is.”

“Well! is that my business?” asked Peter.

“No—but it is the fault of our congressmen, who spend their time in party squabbles, in doing harm and undoing good, instead of working for the benefit of the people who pay them. Year after year we have a report in favor of the reduction of postage, and there is the end of it—not a finger is stirred to remove the burthen. It makes my blood boil to see these newspapers brought here for three cents each from New York and Boston, big enough, some of them, to cover a prairie, and in multitudes like the plague of frogs, and here this poor child cannot get a letter her heart is breaking for without paying fifty cents—tell your friends to print their letters, my girl! Ah, these politicians shall answer for these heart-wrenches, man by man—there are no accounts with double consciences—no open books with congressmen—they must answer as fathers, brothers and sons for this permitted wrong.”

Rosy, who had but half heard and half understood this philippic, started forward, saying, “Oh, pray, sir, let me have the letter with me; I’ll leave my cloak and my bonnet for a pledge.” She untied them both, and threw them on the table. “Sure, to you, they are worth more than the letter.”

“It’s against the rule,” replied Peter, somewhat softened, “to take any thing but cash.”

“But I’ll bring the cash—indeed I will—the Kellys are coming in one fortnight, and then surely I’ll bring it.”

“Oh, yes, no doubt—the Kellys are always coming—I’ll keep the letter safe for you, child, till their arrival—hand it over.”

We have noticed that there was a small door, which entered the shop from a narrow street on one side the building. At the moment Rosy threw down her hat and cloak, there appeared, at that door, a traveler just arrived in Clifton. His dress had that air of comfort and adaptation which is rather characteristic of the old country, and he had the robust frame and high colored cheek that marks the recent comer from a healthier land than our new countries. He had paused on the door step, and was regarding the scene within with an interest very unlike that of a careless stranger. Rosy’s back was toward him, but at every word she spoke his color heightened, and his eye flashed fire at Peter Smith’s command to her to “hand the letter over.” And, when to this Rosy replied vehemently, “That will I never—ye may keep the hat and cloak forever, but the letter ye shall never touch again!” She turned to escape with her treasure—her eye met the stranger’s—she shrieked—he sprung forward and caught her in his arms. With both her arms clasped around his neck, (this was not a moment for any consciousness but the blissful one of the presence of her lover,) Rosy held her head back, as if to assure herself of the reality of the vision, and then murmuring “It is you, Dennis—it is!” Her head fell back on his bosom, and there she laughed and cried irrepressibly. There was not a dry eye on one of the hard faces about her, and it was afterward averred that even Peter Smith was betrayed into a little snuffling sympathy.

The zealous advocate of the postage reform seemed the first to recover his self-possession. He gallantly threw Rosy’s cloak around her, and, offering her hat, he said, in a low tone of voice, “Perhaps, my child, now you have the living letter, you’ll leave the written one.”

“Sure, I’d like to keep it,” she replied, “and yet,” she added, in a lower voice to Dennis, “I would better like to get back my love-token—’t is the English shilling you gave me, Dennis, that I paid him.” Dennis comprehended, and redeemed the love-token with a crown, desiring the postmaster to reserve the balance for the first poor Irish emigrant who had not wherewith to pay for a letter.

We part with our friends at the dawning of a bright day. Dennis had brought news of Thomas’ safety. He was already in New York, whither Dennis proposed to convey Rosy and her family. Master Edward’s tribulations were over. He had left Dennis a legacy which would enable him to establish himself in the art and craft of Gardening, in the neighborhood of New York, where, with Rosy to keep his house, Patrick and Thomas to dig for him, and good old Dame O’Moore to sort his seeds, Dennis felt that he had taken for happiness

BY ERNEST HELFENSTEIN.

BY ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH, AUTHOR Of “THE SINLESS CHILD,” ETC.

It was a warm, still afternoon in Summer, the waters of Portland harbor were as quiet as if never ploughed by keel or tossed by tempest; the idle flag hung to the mast, and sails, half-hoisted to dry, lay in loose heavy folds. Every object was as palpable below as above the water. Old Zeke was seated on the bench under the ferry-house sign, and nothing was more natural than that we school children should gather about him and ask for a story. It was evident Zeke was in a sentimental mood, for his eye wandered far off upon the waters, and he heaved a deep sigh as we approached and claimed his attention. Then he glanced at the little, low window, where Mrs. Stanford was making pastry, a tumbler half filled with flies standing beside her, the top covered by a piece of bread with a hole in the centre.

“Do you see there?” said he. We all followed; the direction of his eyes, and rested ours upon the fatal fly-trap.

“That, accordin’ to my way of thinkin’, is a picter of the sea. Every shaver with free limbs and a bold heart is crowdin’ to it, and ten to one his first cruise is his last one. For, some how, an old salt a’int no man at all, but a kind of part of the ship; and he can’t be washed off into Davy’s locker unless the ship goes too. But ’t is the young ones that a’int got the right cut of the jib that get washed overboard. But as I was sayin’, they will go to sea, jest as them are flies crawl into that tumbler, and so fall off, flounder about for a little while, and then it’s all over with ’em. But that’s all nat’ral like, for some how I dont see how a right down tar could sleep in one of them graves, (and he pointed toward the churchyard,) with the arth and stones crowded down over him, and people walkin’ about and idlin’ all sorts o’ yarns right within hail of him. Oh, ’t is hard to think upon;” and he breathed heavily, giving his duck trowsers an uneasy hitch. “But, now, ’tis nothin’ to be drowned in comparison. No boxin’ up, no cold arth crowdin’ down, but the free water all about, and the wind pipin’, and sailors hailin’ one another, and singin’ the ‘Bay o’ Biscay,’ which, accordin’ to my notion, is one of the greatest songs ever sung, always exceptin’ the ‘Constitution and Gurrier.’ But, as I was sayin’, it must do a sailor’s bones good to hear sich things about them. They’d be kind o’ uneasy on the land, and miss the roll they’d always been used to.”

Here Zeke arose from his seat and paced back and forth upon the small patch of green, as if suffering from some painful emotion. At length he stopped before our little group, and fixing a tremendous quid within one jaw, he said very solemnly, as one who had become nearly desperate—

“I tell you what, children, ’taint no fault o’ mine that I’m keeled up here like a useless old hulk; I never wanted sich moorings, I can tell you. Why it does seem as if the sea wouldn’t take me in; I’ve been shipwrecked something like twenty times, off and on. I’ve been on short allowance nigh about as many times as there’s ropes in a ship, till I was about the leanest dog you ever see; I’ve been washed overboard, have been taken by privateers, have been scuttled, capsized, and, somehow, I’ve always got off. There’s the good ship Morgiany, I loved the wheel o’ that ship as if it had been my own child, and every cable, rib and spar in her. How prettily she’d answer to her helm! how sort o’ nice she’d come round to the wind; no yawing, no creaking, but sarcy like, and easy, jest as little Kate used to turn her head one side and sail to the leeward when I told her I shouldn’t object to tryin’ the flavor of them lips of hern. Well, the Morgiany went down one night in about the ugliest gale I ever weathered; and the poor thing cried and moaned jest as if it could feel for poor Zeke that couldn’t go with her. Well, she threw up a spar, and I clung to it for twenty-four hours, and then a ship picked me up, but not till I had chopped off a piece from one end to make a tobacco box of.”

Here he took a wooden box from his pocket and held it up before us. It was curiously carved with nautical devices, exhibiting no small skill in the graver. Anchors, cables, hearts and ships were everywhere intermingled.

“That’s all my work. I took comfort in doin’ it, for ’twas all I could do to show my respect for the poor Morgiany, and little Kate into the bargain.”

“Wont you tell us about Kate?” I whispered, drawing quite near him.

“Not now, child, not now,” and he drew his hard, red hand across his eyes. We were all hushed.

“Well, well, you see I wasn’t to go down with the Morgiany, much as I loved her, so here I am, keeled up like a great lubberly land turtle that’s lost his reckoning. But come, that’s nothin’ here nor there. I’ll tell you the story of Jack Spanker end the Mermaid, which was, take it for all in all, about the strangest story I ever heerd tell. Jack was a real sailor, and would tell about the toughest yarns of any sailor I ever heerd. Many’s the time I’ve heerd him tell this story over in the long watches, slow and airnest as if every word was true as the four gospels. Jack had a Christian mother, who taught him the truth, and made him promise never to swear to the day of his death. This came mighty hard upon Jack, for he was up to all kind of fun, and had a free, easy way of speakin’. I don’t know how he managed it, for swearin’ is as nat’ral to a sailor as grog or salt water; and, somehow, I never felt anywise uneasy about it, considerin’ it a part of the profession, a kind of edication that a tar can’t do without, and meenin’ jest nothin’ more than that he is wide awake, and knows which way the wind sets; and then, in case of a flaw, it sarves to cool off with, for when the blast is once blown out there’s nothing more to be said about it. Well, Jack always told the story in the same words, and though it did sound sort of incredible at first, yet we got to believin’ it, cause we’d got used to hearin’ it. That mermaid must have been a putty nice gal, and as to Jack, he was about the trimmest splice I ever see; not too tall, for that’s awkward aboard ship, nor yet short, and when he walked he brought his foot down square, and moved jest as the ship did, as if he’d grown up out of her. Then he’d a regular swab of brown curly hair, and a dimple in each cheek, and one in the chin. He laughed with his eyes and mouth too, and had teeth as white and even as a shark. Then, you should a heerd him roar out the songs, some of them of his own makin’ too. He had a sweetheart named Nelly Spaulding, and ’twas surprisin’ the way he used to praise her. Venus and Diany, and Neptin’s wife herself, was jest nothin’ at all ’long side of her. I don’t believe Jack ever cared to look at any other gal, and couldn’t a loved any thing else, savin’ his mother, the ship, or a mermaid. When he was out on the yards splicin’ a rope, or reefin’ a sail, you’d hear his voice, clear as a trumpet, singin’ as if nothing was to pay. He used to make up songs about the mermaids that set us all laughin’.

Old Zeke sang the foregoing with a comical mixture of sentiment and jovial reminiscence, bringing out the words full and round in true nautical style. We all gave a shout, and begged for more.

“No, no, I was only showin’ how Jack did it; but then you know he was young and handsome, and had a voice to be heerd a mile. Well, you see, ’twas these same songs that had like to bin the ruin of poor Jack. Had Old Nick come in any other shape he couldn’t have made any thing out of Jack, but how was he to know he’d covered his cloven foot and black ugliness in the shape of a pretty mermaid? ’Twasn’t in his log that sich a thing could be.

“Well, the winds had been light, and every little while there came a dead calm. We hadn’t much to do but tell long yarns, sing songs, and other fair weather work not worth tellin’. Jack had bin two hours out on the jib-boom, doin’ something he might have done in half the time, and we’d been laughin’ at his songs, and then forgot all about him; so I must tell the story jest as he told it to me.”

“I’d been singin’,” said Jack,

when I heerd an amazin’ soft-like sound, right under me, and I stopped workin’ to see what it meant. I heerd a little voice singin’

“That you shall, said I, lookin’ over into the water, and I must say, I don’t object lookin’ at you. But never mind singin’, I only sing myself on very particular occasions.

“With that I heerd a kind o’ ticklin’, and my faith, I never did see jest sich a pair of eyes. They wa’nt black, nor blue, nor green, nor—I can’t tell what, but they was wonderful bright, and went through and through, that sort of a thing that always has a skewer or arrow run through it.

“I won’t deny, says I, you’re a nice lookin’ gal, but what colors do you sail under, how do you hail? I’ve no notion bein’ fool’d by any heathenish critter, bred a Christian as I’ve been.

“You should a seen her laugh. ‘You may call me what pleases you best. Won’t you give me a name, Jack?’

“No, faith, I mean to do that for Nelly. Howsomever, I don’t object to call you Nelly jest one v’yge.

“The critter laughed agin, and I don’t know how it was, she did look like Nelly Spaulding. I rubbed my eyes over and over agin, but there she was growin’ more and more like her every minit. After awhile, says I,

“Don’t you find your berth down there rayther cold and wet?

“ ‘O, not in the least. We breathe the water as you do air. I wish you would come and see the way we live under the water.’

“ ‘Get thee behind me Satan,’ said I, remembering my mother. No, no, I’ve no notion drownin’ myself. You must try that trick upon the marines.’

“And I went to work, takin’ no notice of all her singin’. But ’twas no use, I couldn’t help lookin’ down agin, and there she was, lookin’ more like Nelly than she did before. Faith, says I, I don’t see how ’tis you contrive to look so much like Nelly Spaulding.

“ ‘Do I?’ says she, ‘well I dare say I do, though Nelly is called the prettiest girl along shore.’

“You may well say that, says I, and none of your fish-ending and ’yster kind of critters neither, for you must know I hadn’t hardly got over her asking me to take a trip to Davy’s locker. I hadn’t well nigh got the words out of my mouth, before there the critter was a sittin’ on the jib-boom, right before me, and two the funniest little feet just peeping out from under her petticoats. I jest took my fore-finger and touched her little white arm, same as I used to do to the dough, when my mother’s back was turned. And sure enough ’twas soft and warm, and nothing like clam or fish about it. But she didn’t mean to stay, for she jumped down agin, laughin’ in great fun. Then the mate called out, ‘Jack, a’int you done that jib yet?’

“Aye, aye, mostly, sir, but there’s been a confounded mermaid here plaguin’ me. Then the men all laughed, as if they thought it a good joke, but I knew it was airnest. But what’s the use tryin’ to teach poor ignorant critters what wont believe what a man tells them he has seen with his own eyes?”

Here Old Zeke gave a decided yawn and arose from the bench. “O, is that all? is there no more? what became of Jack?” we all cried out.

“No, there’s enough more, but that will do for to-day. I can’t stop to tell you how poor Jack did rayly go down with that mermaid, for the yarn was always a putty long one.”

CHAPTER II.

A real mermaid story—a live mermaid—and that from the lips of one who had the story only secondhand—one who had seen and heard the man who had seen the mermaid. Old Zeke became invested with a strange and mysterious awe—an ancient mariner, speaking words of solemn and deep import. Did he not have the story from the very lips of Jack?—from Jack, who had put his finger upon the mermaid’s arm, even as he would have punched into a real doughnut. The next day, we were all standing beside him, with hushed breath, awaiting his revealments.

“One night after this,” continued Old Zeke, “giving the story in the words of Jack, I was standing at the wheel, lookin’ at the long wake of silver the moon left upon the water, and then up at the stars, for they had a cunning sort of twinkle that made me think of Nelly’s eyes. Hap’ning to cast my eyes jest under the lee, I see somethin’ leap out of the water two or three times—some flounderin’ porpoise, says I, or one of them are flyin’-fish. Then there was a little spout of water risin’ up and showerin’ down, and lookin’ like a heap of all kinds of pearls and precious stones. I rubbed my eyes and looked agin’ and there right before me, laughin’ out of the corner of her eyes, stood that mermaid.

“I held out my hand, encouragin’ like, and says I, now, gal, come along side, for you see I can’t leave the wheel without loosin’ two or three pints, which would bring the captain up in no time. Faith you’re so like Nell, that I can’t help it, says I, and I gave her a kiss, as natral as if I’d known her a long cruise.

“ ‘I wish, Jack, you’d go down and see how nice we live under the water,’ says she, ‘you’d never miss Nelly Spaulding.’

“Nell would miss me though, I’m thinkin’, and ’tisn’t hardly fair for one gal to try to cut another out. Besides, I’m plaguey suspicious that, if you once got me down there, you’d be for turnin’ me into a great lubberly whale, to be harpooned sometime or other, and then Jack Spanker will be used for ile to light the binnicle. No, no, gal, you don’t catch me that way, and I turned my back square round, and look’d as savage as a shark.

“Arter awhile I jest tip’d a look over my shoulder, and, sure enough, there she stood with the great tears dropping out of her eyes, and falling in a considerable puddle on the deck. Now, the jig is always up with a tar when a woman cries. Avast, there, Nell, says I, let me wipe this drippin’ with this splice of a sail hangin’ to your flipper, and I said some pretty nice things to stop her cryin’. Did you ever see an apple when a boy drives it into a puddle of water, how it goes down and then comes smilin’ like up agin?—well, the mermaid look’d somethin’ so, when she looked coaxingly into my face.

“ ‘Jack,’ says she, ‘let one of my men hold the wheel, there, I want you to see something over the side of the ship.’

“I chuck’d her under the chin; your men, Nell, I should like to see one. Presently a little, old man, that look’d as if he’d been dryin’ since the time of that old sailor, Noah, pop’d over the tafrail; as much as to say, here’s your man, sir.

“Can you box the compass, gray beard? says I.

“ ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ says he, takin’ the helm.

“Steady, now, steady, says I, and mind, none of your cantrips, or I’ll knock you into foul weather, in less than no time.

“We looked over into the water, and the mermaid began to sing,

“Presently, the dim outline of things began to appear; and then the pavement of a world beneath the waters, inlaid with gems and gold and silver, and walls of crystal, and gates of emerald, towers of pearl, and bowers of coral.

“That’s a nice country of yourn, says I, only a leetle too dazzlin’-like, and nothin’ like potatoes and inyons growin’.

“The mermaid laugh’d; and then I saw some steps of ivory, and long walks with flowers on both sides, and all sorts of fruit and green things growin’, and everything amazingly clean, and not a speck like dust anywhere. Then I heard folks talkin’, and singin’ old songs, and some of them I knew. Presently, long come Bill Marlin, with a mermaid tucked under his right flipper. Now, we’d lost Bill overboard on the last v’yge, and a whole soul’d sailor he was.

“Ship ahoy, says I, how do you like your berth? and before he could speak, and I never could tell how, but there I was down alongside. I looked up, and there was the ship right over head, with her canvas all set, and now and then a fish darting past, and two or three piratical sharks ready for everything that fell overboard. I pinch’d my arm to see if ’twas real flesh and blood, and hallooed and ran about to see if I was dreaming; but the truth was, I was under the sea, and no mistake. How the little mermen and the mermaids laughed.

“Do you think your man will steer the ship right?” says I.

“ ‘O yes, he’ll be here directly to give the reckoning.’

“In that case, says I, it’s time for me to go up again, she wouldn’t go well without a helmsman.

“ ‘But you don’t mean to leave me, Jack,’ says the mermaid, putting her face close to mine.

“To be sure I do; did you think I was goin’ to forsake Nelly Spaulding for a fish-woman?

“Mermaids are just like other women; you abuse their beauty and they are right up about it, and that too when they’re no better lookin’ than a jury-mast. The mermaid’s eyes looked light’ning. She stood a minit, looking fire out of her eyes, and then she burst out a cryin’. Jest then, down came the little gray beard, and I saw the ship going ahead as if a tight breeze had just took her sails. I was in a terrible fix—there was that gal cryin’ tears by the quart, the ship about to leave me, and I down schooling about in Davy Jones’ locker. I looked at the mermaid and began to feel wrathy.

“Now, says I, you’ve got me into this botheration, gal, and you must get me out of it. I’ve no notion stayin’ down here you see, so you may as well contrive to get me up, or I shall kick up such a rumpus down here that Davy Jones will be glad to get me out of his kingdom.

“Then I see how the poor thing was a cryin’, and I felt kind of bad. Nelly, says I, you’re a nice gal for them what likes such a nice gal, but you don’t have Jack Spanker jest yet. Howsomever, should I ever get adrift, I should be glad to have you pick me up. Davy Jones’ locker aint so bad after all.

“Ship ahoy, says I, throw us a rope, I say.

“They got me on board, where everything was jest as I left it. They all said I must have got to sleep, and so rolled overboard, but I knew better.”

BY C. F. HOFFMAN.

The Attack

BY ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

BY J. S. KIDNEY.

BY J. FENIMORE COOPER, AUTHOR OF “THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY,” ETC.

(Concluded from Volume XXIII, No. 1)

The orders under which Jones sailed on his next and most remarkable cruise, directed him to go to the westward of Scilly, and to pass the west coast of Ireland, doubling the extremity of Scotland, and remaining some time on the Dogger Bank. By returning to his port of departure, this would have been making the complete circuit of Great Britain and Ireland, most of the time keeping the land aboard. The instructions, however, ordered him to put into the Texel for further orders. It was understood that this last destination was pointed out in the hope of putting the Indien under Jones, that ship still remaining in Holland, in a species of political durance. She was not released until England declared war against Holland, when the arrangement was made with South Carolina, as already mentioned.

The squadron left the roads of Groix, the second time, early on the morning of August 15th, 1779. One day out, it re-captured a large Dutch ship, laden with French property. In consequence of some misunderstanding with the commander of the Monsieur, which grew out of the disposition of this prize, that ship separated from the other vessels, which saw her no more. The Monsieur was subsequently captured by the enemy, and, as is believed, on this cruise. On the 20th, a brig from Limerick to London was taken, and ordered in.

The 23d, the squadron was off Cape Clear, having doubled Scilly, and passed up the west coast of England, in the intervening time. Here it fell calm, and Jones sent several of the Richard’s boats to seize a brig that was lying some distance to the northwest. As evening approached, he found it necessary to place his own barge in the water, containing a cockswain and six men, to keep the ship’s head off shore. The brig was captured, and towed toward the squadron. Just at this moment, the men in the barge cut the tow-line, and pulled for the shore. Several shots were fired at the fugitives, but without effect. Seeing this, Mr. Cutting Lunt, who appears to have been with the prize, took four soldiers in a boat and pursued the deserters, becoming lost in a fog. The Richard fired guns as signals to the master, but he never returned. Including himself, there were seventeen persons in his boat, making a total loss to the Richard, including the fugitives, of twenty-four men. It is now known that, on the morning of the 23d, (civil time) the seven men landed at Ballinskellix, in the county of Kerry, and that the other boat landed at the same place, the same day, about one, in pursuit. Mr. Lunt and his people were arrested, and sent to Mill prison. Jones intimates that he understood his master died in that place of confinement, but, in this, he was misinformed. Mr. Lunt was liberated in the course of a year or two, and was subsequently lost at sea. This was Cutting Lunt, it will be remembered; his kinsman, Henry Lunt, still remaining in the ship, as her second lieutenant. Through the reports of the deserters and prisoners, the character of the squadron, which was plainly visible, as soon as the fog dispersed, became known on shore, and its presence created great uneasiness. The linen ships were supposed to be Jones’ object, and precautions were taken accordingly. It is worthy of remark, that Jones states, the master saw the Cerf inshore, whither she had been sent to reconnoitre, and to look for the missing boats, but the cutter showed English colors and fired at the boat, which induced Mr. Lunt to land, as a last resort. To add to the misfortune, the cutter got separated in the fog, and did not rejoin the squadron.

It was at this time that Jones had a serious quarrel with his second in command, M. Landais. Insubordination soon began seriously to show itself; the conduct of the Cerf being very unaccountable. She went back to France. It is probable that the loss of so many men induced the French officers to distrust the fidelity of the Richard’s crew, and it is known that this distrust influenced the conduct of the Pallas on a most trying occasion, a few weeks later. On the 26th, the Granville was sent in, with a prize. This reduced the force of the squadron to four vessels; viz., the Richard, Alliance, Pallas and Vengeance.

It was the intention of Jones to remain a week longer off Cape Clear, but Capt. Landais seemed so apprehensive of the approach of a superior force, that he yielded to the opinion of his subordinate. On the 26th, it blowed fresh; the commodore accordingly made the signal to stand to the northward, the Alliance parting company the same night. On the 31st, the Richard, Pallas and Vengeance were off Cape Wrath, the northwestern extremity of the island of Great Britain, where the former captured a heavy Letter of Marque, of twenty-two guns, laden with naval stores for the enemy’s vessels on the American lakes. While this ship was chasing, the Alliance hove in sight, and joined in the chase, having another Letter of Marque in company, a prize. These two ships were manned from the Alliance, at Landais’ request; and the latter sent them into Norway, contrary to orders, where both were restored to the English by the Danish government. On the night of the 8th, the Alliance again parted company, in a gale of wind.

Jones kept well off the land, the weather being thick, and the wind foul. On the 13th, however, the Cheviot Hills, in the southeastern part of Scotland, became visible, and the commodore now seriously set about the execution of some of his larger plans. His intention was to land at Leith, the port of Edinburgh itself, and, not only to lay the place under contribution, but to seize the shipping he might find in the Forth. He had hopes that even the Scottish capital might be frightened into a temporary submission. This was a highly characteristic project, and one worthy of the military audacity of the man. Its great merit, in addition to its boldness, and importance, was the strong probability of success. The late Com. Dale, who was to act a most important part in the enterprise, and who was a man of singular simplicity and moderation of character and temperament, assured the writer that he never could see any reason why the attack should have been defeated, beyond the obstacle that actually arose. Jones himself intimates that his two colleagues, present, (for so he bitterly styled his captains, in consequence of the terms of the concordat,) threw cold water on his views, until he pointed out to them the probable amount of the contributions of two such places as Leith and Edinburgh. A delay occurred, moreover, in consequence of the momentary absentee of the Pallas and Vengeance, which vessels had given chase to the southward, a circumstance that compelled the Richard to quit the Forth, after she had entered it alone, and this at a moment when she might have secured a twenty-gun ship, and two cutters, all of which were lying in Leith roads, unsuspicious of danger; though it would have compelled him to abandon the other and principal objects of the attempt. In order to join his consorts, and consult his captains, therefore, Jones was compelled to quit the Forth, after having once entered it. It appears he had found a man ready to give him information, but the golden opportunity was lost, in consequence of the doubts and misgivings of his subordinates.

Still Jones determined to make the attempt. On the 15th, the Richard, Pallas and Vengeance entered the Forth in company, turning up with the tide, against a head wind. By this time, the alarm had been given on the shore, and guns were mounted at Leith to receive the strangers. A cutter had been watching the squadron for several hours, also; but Jones deemed all this immaterial. The ships had got up as high as Inchkeath, the island which shelters the roads seaward, and the boats were in the water, and manned. Mr. Dale, who was to superintend and command the maritime part of the debarkation, had received his instructions, and was on the point of descending into his boat, when a squall struck the ships, and induced an order to take the people from the boats, to clew up and clew down. Jones held on against the wind as long as he found it possible, but, the squall turning to a gale, he was compelled to bear up before it, and was driven out of the Frith again, at a much faster rate than he had entered it. The gale was short, but so severe that one of the prizes in company foundered. It moderated in the afternoon, but Jones, having plainly seen the cutter watching him, conceived it too late to hope for a surprise, his only rational grounds for expecting success.

It is a proof how much doubt existed concerning the true character of Jones’ vessels, among the people on shore, that a member of parliament sent off, to the Richard, a messenger to ask for powder and shot; stating that he had heard Paul Jones was on the coast, and that he wished to be ready for him. A barrel of powder was sent in answer, but the “honorable gentleman” was told the vessel had no shot of the size he requested. On this occasion, the ships were seen turning up the Forth, as they stood in quite near to the north shore, and, it being Sunday, thousands were out viewing the scene, which caused a great clamor, and made a deep impression.^[2]

Jones had now fresh projects to annoy the enemy; designs on Hull or New Castle, as is thought. His captains, however, refused to sustain him, and he was reluctantly obliged to abandon his plans. His object was glory; theirs appear to have been profit. It ought to be mentioned that all the young officers sustained the commodore, and professed a readiness to follow wherever he would lead. Jones had a respect for the opinion of Capt. Cottineau, of the Pallas, and it is believed he yielded more to his persuasions than to those of all the rest of his commanders. This officer seemed to think any delay of moment would bring a superior force against them. The commodore viewed the matter more cooly, well knowing that the transmission of intelligence, and the collection of three or four vessels, was a matter that required some little time.

Between the 17th and 21st, many colliers and coasters were captured. Most of them were sunk, though one or two were released, and a sloop was ransomed by the Pallas, contrary to orders. On the latter day, the ships were off Flamborough Head, where the Pallas chased to the northeast, leaving the Richard and Vengeance in pursuit of vessels in a directly opposite quarter. Jones overtook and sunk a collier, late in the afternoon. Several craft then hove in sight, and one was chased ashore. Soon after, a brig from Holland was captured, and, at daylight next morning, a considerable fleet was seen in shore, which kept aloof, on account of the appearance of the Bon Homme Richard. Finding it impossible to decoy them out, Jones used some artifices to decoy a pilot, and two boats came alongside. The pilots were deceived, and gave Jones all the information they possessed.

As it was now impracticable to bring the shipping out of the Humber, on account of the state of the wind and tide, and the Pallas not being in sight, the commodore turned his attention to looking for his consorts. He hauled off the land, therefore, making the best of his way back to Flamborough Head, after passing several hours in endeavoring to entice the ships out of the Humber.

In the course of the night of the 22d, two ships were seen, and chased for several hours, when, finding himself near them, Jones hove-to, about three in the morning, waiting for light. When the day returned, the strangers were found to be the Pallas and the Alliance; the latter of which had not been seen since she parted company off Cape Wrath.

After communicating with his consorts, Jones chased a brig that was lying-to to windward. About meridian, however, a large ship was observed coming round Flamborough Head, when Mr. Henry Lunt, the second lieutenant of the Richard, was thrown into one of the pilot boats, with fifteen men, and ordered to seize the brig, while the Richard made sail toward the strange ship. Soon after, a fleet of forty-one sail was seen stretching out from behind the Head, bearing N.N.E. from the Richard. The wind was light at the southward, and these vessels were a convoy from the Baltic, turning down the North Sea, toward the Straits of Dover, bound to London. This placed Jones to windward and a little inshore, if the projection of the headland be excepted.

As soon as the commodore ascertained that he was in the vicinity of this fleet, he made a signal of recall to the pilot boat, and another of a general chase to his squadron. The first was probably unseen, or disregarded, for it was not obeyed; and the officer and men in the pilot boat remained out of their vessel during most of the trying scenes of that eventful day. As twenty-four officers and men had been captured, or had deserted, off Cape Clear, these sixteen increased the number of absentees to forty; if to these we add some who had been sent away in prizes, the crew of the Richard, which consisted of but three hundred and eighty, all told, the day she sailed, was now diminished to little more than three hundred souls, of whom a large proportion were the quasi marines, or soldiers, who had entered for the cruise.

Jones now crossed royal yards and made sail for the convoy. He had intelligence of this fleet, and knew that it was under the charge of Capt. Pearson, of the Serapis 44, who had the Countess of Scarborough 20, Capt. Piercy, in company. As the scene we are about to relate is one memorable in naval annals, it may be well to mention the force of the vessels engaged.

That of the Richard has been already given. The Pallas mounted thirty guns, of light calibre, and was perhaps more than a third heavier than the Scarborough, the vessel she subsequently engaged. The Alliance was a large thirty-two, mounting forty guns, mostly twelve pounders. She had a full, but indifferent crew of about 300 souls, when she left the Roads of Groix, of which near, if not quite, fifty were absent in prizes. Of the Vengeance, who had no part in the events of the day, it is unnecessary to speak.

On the part of the enemy, many of the convoy were armed, and, by acting in concert, they might have given a good deal of occupation to the Pallas and Vengeance, while the two men-of-war fought the Richard and Alliance. As it was, however, all of these ships sought safety in flight. The Serapis was a new vessel, that both sailed and worked well, of a class that was then a good deal used in the North Sea, Baltic, and the narrow waters generally; and which was sometimes brought into the line, in battles between the short ships that were much preferred, in that day, in all the seas mentioned. She was a 44, on two decks; having an armament below of 20 eighteens; one of 20 nines, on the upper gun-deck; and one of 10 sixes, on her quarter-deck and forecastle. This is believed to have been her real force, though Jones speaks of her, in one place, as having been pierced for 56 instead of 50 guns. The former was the usual force of what was called a fifty-gun ship, or a vessel like the Leander, which assailed the Chesapeake in 1807. Sands, the most original writer of authority on the subject of Paul Jones, or of any reasoning powers of much weight, infers from some of his calculations and information that the Serapis had 400 souls on board her at the commencement of the action which is now to be related. The English accounts state her crew to have been 320; a number that is quite sufficient for her metal and spars, and which is more in conformity with the practice of the English marine. The India men, stated by Sands to have been obtained by Capt. Pearson, in Copenhagen, may have been 15 Lascars, who are known to have been on board, and to have been included in the 320 souls. It is not probable that the crews of the Richard and Serapis differed a dozen in number. The Countess of Scarborough was a hired ship in the British navy, differing in no respect from a regular man-of-war, except in the circumstance that she belonged to a private owner instead of the king. This was not unusual in that marine, the circumstance being rather in favor of the qualities of the vessel, since the admiralty, on the coast of England, would not be likely to hire any but a good ship. Her officers and people belonged to the navy, as a matter of course. There is a trifling discrepancy as to the force of the Scarborough, though the point is of no great moment, under the circumstances. Jones states that she was a ship mounting 24 guns on one deck, while other accounts give her armament as 22 guns, in all. She probably had a crew of from 120 to 150 men.

As soon as the leading English vessels saw that strangers, and probably enemies, were to the southward, and to windward, they gave the alarm by firing guns, letting fly their top-gallant sheets, tacking together, and making the best of their way in toward the land again. At this moment the men-of-war were astern, with a view to keep the convoy in its place, and being near the shore, the authorities of Scarborough had sent a boat off to the Serapis, to apprise her commander of the presence of Paul Jones’ fleet. By these means, the two senior officers were fully aware with whom they had to contend. Capt. Pearson fired two guns, and showed the proper signals, in order to call in his leading ships, but, as it very customary with merchant vessels, the warning and orders were unattended to, until the danger was seen to be pressing. While the merchantmen were gathered in behind the Head, or ran off to leeward, the Serapis signaled the Scarborough to follow, and stood gallantly out to sea, on the starboard tack, hugging the wind.

Jones now threw out a signal to his own vessels to form the line of battle. The Alliance, which ought to have dropped in astern of the Richard, paid no attention to this order, though she approached the enemy to reconnoitre. In passing the Pallas, Capt. Landais remarked that if the larger of the enemy’s ships proved to be a fifty-gun ship, all they had to do was to endeavor to escape! This was not the best possible disposition with which to commence the action. Soon after the Pallas spoke the Richard, and asked for orders. Jones directed her to lead toward the enemy, but the order was not obeyed, as will be seen by what followed.

The wind being light, several hours passed before the different evolutions mentioned could be carried into execution. As soon as Capt. Pearson found himself outside of all his convoy, and the latter out of danger, he tacked in shore, with a view to cover the merchantmen. This change of course induced Jones to ware and carry sail, with a view to cut him off from the land. By this time it was evening, and this sudden change of course on the part of the Serapis seems to have given rise to a distrust on the part of Capt. Cottineau, of the Pallas, concerning the direction she was under. There were so many disaffected men in the Richard, English and other Europeans, that the security of the ship appears to have been a matter of doubt among all the other vessels. When those on board the Pallas, therefore, perceived the Richard crowding sail in shore, they believed Jones was killed by his own people, and that the mutineers had run away with the ship, intending to carry her into a British port. With this impression, Capt. Cottineau hauled his wind, tacked, and laid the Pallas’ head off shore. In consequence of this manœuvre, and the Vengeance being far astern, nothing like a line was formed on this occasion.

Jones’ object was to cut his enemy off from the land. Keeping this in view, he pressed down in the Richard, regardless of his consorts, passing the Alliance, lying-to, out of gun-shot, on the weather quarter of the principal English ship. It was now dark, but Jones watched his enemy with a night-glass, and perceiving that he could cut off the Serapis from getting under the guns of Scarborough Castle, he continued to approach the Englishman under a press of sail. Soon after the Pallas wore round and followed. The Vengeance had directions to order the pilot boat back, and then to pick off the convoy, but as these last were in shore, and tolerably safe, she seems to have done little, or nothing. In the action that ensued she took no part whatever.

It was half past seven, or eight o’clock, when the Richard and Serapis drew near to each other. The former was to windward, both vessels being on the larboard tack. The Serapis now hailed, demanding “What ship is that?” “I can’t hear what you say,” was returned from the Richard. “What ship is that?” repeated the Englishman—“answer immediately, or I shall be under the necessity of firing into you.” The Richard now delivered her broadside, which was returned from the Serapis so promptly as to render the two discharges nearly simultaneous. In an instant the two ships were enveloped in smoke and darkness. The Richard backed her topsails, in order to deaden her way and keep her station, firing several times to windward. She then filled and passed ahead of the Serapis, crossing her bows, becalming the Serapis partially. The latter was a short ship, and worked quick. She was, moreover, a good sailor, and Capt. Pearson keeping his luff, as soon as his canvas filled again, he came up on the weather quarter of Jones, taking the wind out of his sails; both vessels fighting the other broadsides, or using the starboard guns of the Serapis, and the larboard of the Richard. It will be remembered that the Richard had six eighteens mounted in her gun-room. As the water was smooth, Jones relied greatly on the service of this battery, which, in fact, was his principal dependence with an adversary like the Serapis. Unfortunately two of these old, defective pieces burst at the first discharge, blowing up the main-deck above them, beside killing and wounding many men. The alarm was so great as to destroy all confidence in these guns, which made but eight discharges, in all, when their crews abandoned them. This, in addition to the actual damage done, was a most serious disadvantage. It reduced the Richard’s armament, at once, to 32 guns, or, as some authorities say, to 34; leaving her with the metal of a 32 gun frigate, to contend with a full manned and full armed 44. The combat, now, was in fact between an eighteen-pounder and a twelve-pounder ship; an inequality of metal, to say nothing of that in guns, that seemed to render the chance of the Richard nearly hopeless.

Half an hour was consumed in these preliminary evolutions, the wind being light, and the vessels nearly stationary a part of the time. When the Richard first approached her adversary, it will be remembered she was quite alone, the Vengeance having been left leagues behind, the Alliance lying-to, out of gun-shot, to windward, and the Pallas not bearing up until her commander had ascertained there was no mutiny on board the Commodore, by seeing him commence the action. All this time the Countess of Scarborough was coming up, and she now closed so near as to be able to assist her consort. The Americans affirm that this ship did fire at least one raking broadside at the Richard, doing her some injury. On the other hand, Capt. Piercy, her commander, states that he was afraid to engage, as the smoke and obscurity rendered it impossible for him to tell friend from enemy. It is possible that both accounts are true, Capt. Piercy meaning merely to excuse his subsequent course after having fired once or twice at the Richard. At all events, the connection of this vessel with the battle between the two principal ships, must have been very trifling, as she soon edged away to a distance, and, after exchanging a distant broadside or two with the Alliance, she was brought to close action by the Pallas, which ship compelled her to strike after a creditable resistance of an hour’s duration. This vessel fully occupied the Pallas, first in engaging her, then in securing the prisoners until after the conflict terminated.

When the Serapis came up on the weather quarter of the Richard, as has been mentioned, she kept her luff passing slowly by, until she found herself so far ahead, and to windward, as to induce Capt. Pearson to think he could fall broad off, cross the Richard’s fore foot and rake her. This manœuvre was attempted, but finding there was not room to effect her purpose, the Serapis came to the wind, again, as fast as she could, in order to prevent going foul. This uncertain movement brought the two ships in a line, the Serapis leading. It so far deadened the way of the English ship, that the Richard ran into her on her weather quarter. In this situation neither vessel could fire, nor could either crew board, the collision being necessarily gentle, and nothing touching but the jib-boom of the American. In this state the two vessels remained a minute or two.

While in this singular position, the firing having entirely ceased, and it being quite dark, a voice from the Serapis demanded of the Richard, if she had struck. Jones answered promptly, “I have not yet begun to fight.” As the ships had now been engaged nearly, or quite, an hour, this was not very encouraging certainly to the Englishman’s hope of victory, though he immediately set about endeavoring to secure it. The yards of the Serapis were trimmed on the larboard tack, and her sails were full as the Richard touched her; the latter ship bracing all aback, the two vessels soon parted. As soon as Jones thought he had room, he filled on the other tack and drew ahead again. The Serapis, however, most probably with a view of passing close athwart, either the Richard’s fore foot or stern, luffed into the wind, laid all aback forward, and keeping her helm down while she shivered her after sails, she attempted to break round off on her heel. At this moment, Jones seeing his enemy coming down, thought he might lay him athwart hawse, and drew ahead with that object. In the smoke and obscurity, the moon not having yet risen, each party miscalculated his distance, and just before the Serapis had begun to come up on the other tack, her jib-boom passed in over the Richard’s poop, getting foul of the mizzen rigging. Jones was perfectly satisfied, by this time, that he had no chance in a cannonade, and gladly seized the opportunity of grappling. He had sent the acting master for a hawser as soon as he perceived what was likely to occur, but it not arriving in time, with his own hands he lashed the enemy’s bowsprit to the Richard’s mizzen-mast by means of the Serapis’ rigging that had been shot away, and which was hanging loose beneath the spar. Other fastenings soon made all secure.^[3]

The wind being light, the movements of the two vessels were slow in proportion. It was owing to this circumstance, and to the fact that the Serapis was just beginning to gather way as she came foul, that the collision itself did little damage. As soon as Capt. Pearson perceived he was foul, he dropped an anchor under foot, in the hope that the Richard would drift clear of him. The fastenings having been already made, this aid was not obtained, and the ships tending to the tide, which was now in the same direction with the wind, the latter brought the stern of the Serapis close in, alongside of the bows of the Richard. In this position the ships became so interlocked, by means of their spars, spare-anchors and other protruding objects, for the moment, as to become inseparable.

As the stern of the Serapis swung round, her lower deck ports were lowered in order to prevent boarding. The ships’ sides touching, or at least being so close as to prevent the ports from being opened again, the guns were fired inboard, blowing away the lids. This was renewing the action, under circumstances which, in ordinary cases, would have soon brought it to a termination. Wherever a gun bore, it necessarily cleared all before it, and in reloading, the rammers were frequently passed into a hostile port in order to be entered into the muzzles of their proper guns. It is evident that such a conflict could be maintained only under very extraordinary circumstances.

The eighteens of the Serapis soon destroyed every thing within their range, nor was it long before the main-deck guns of the Richard were, in a great measure, silenced. A considerable number of the men who had been at the eighteens of the Richard’s gun-room had remained below after their pieces were abandoned, but the heavy fire of the Serapis’ lower guns soon started them up, and joining some of those who had been driven away from the twelves, they got upon the forecastle. As the Richard was a longer ship than the Serapis, this point was comparatively safe, and thence a fire of musketry was kept up on the enemy’s tops and decks. These men, also, threw grenades. The tops, too, were not idle, but kept up a smart fire of muskets, and the men began to resort to grenades also.

In this stage of the action, the Serapis had the cannonading nearly to herself. All her guns, with the exception of those on the quarter-deck and forecastle, appear to have been worked, while, on the part of the Richard, the fire was reduced to two nines on the quarter-deck, two or three of the twelves, and the musketry. The consequences were that the Richard was nearly torn to pieces below, while the upper part of the Serapis was deserted, with the exception of a few officers. Capt. Pearson himself appears to have sent his people from the quarter-deck guns. An advantage of this sort, once gained, was easily maintained; rendering it virtually impossible for the losing party to recover the ground it had lost.

The moon rose about the time the ships came foul. Until this occurred, the Alliance had not been near the principal combatants. She now passed some distance to leeward, and crossed the bows of the Richard and the stern of the Serapis, firing at such a distance as rendered it impossible for her to make sure of her enemy, even if she knew which was which. As soon as her guns ceased to bear, she up helm and ran a considerable distance farther to leeward, hovering about until the Scarborough submitted. Capt. Landais now spoke the Pallas, when Capt. Cottineau begged him to go to the assistance of the Richard, offering, at the same time, to go himself if the Alliance would take charge of his prize. All these facts appear under oath in the course of the controversy which grew out of the events of this memorable night.

Ashamed to remain idle at such a moment, and in the face of such remonstrances, Capt. Landais hauled up, under very easy canvas, however, for the two combatants, and making a couple of stretches under his topsails, he passed the bows of the Serapis and stern of the Richard, opening with grape, the last shot to be used under such circumstances; then keeping away a little, he actually fired into the Richard’s larboard quarter, or that most distant from the enemy. Some of the witnesses even affirm that this fire was maintained until the Alliance had actually passed the Richard’s beam, on her way to leeward.

These movements of the Alliance induced Sands aptly to term that frigate the comet of this bloody system. It is difficult to account for her evolutions without supposing treachery, or insanity, on the part of her commander. For the latter supposition there are some grounds, his subsequent deportment inducing the government to put him out of employment, as a man at least partially deranged. Still it is difficult to suppose the officers would allow their men to fire into the Richard’s quarter, as mentioned, unless they mistook the ship. On the other hand, it is affirmed by the witnesses that three lanterns were shown on the off side of the Richard, the regular signal of reconnaissance, that fifty voices called out, begging their friends to cease firing, and this, too, when so near that the remonstrances must have been heard. By direction from Jones, an officer hailed, too, and ordered Landais to lay the enemy aboard; a question was then put to ascertain whether the order was understood, and an answer was given in the affirmative.

The effect of this transit of the Alliance was very disastrous to the Richard. Her fire dismounted a gun or two on board the latter ship, extinguished several lanterns, did a good deal of mischief aloft, and induced many of the people to desert their quarters, under the impression that the English on board the Alliance had got possession of the ship, and were aiding the enemy. It is, indeed, an important feature in the peculiarities of this remarkable cruise, and one that greatly enhances the merit of the man who used such discordant materials, that the two principal vessels distrusted each other’s ability to look down revolt, and were distrusted by all the rest, on account of the same supposed insecurity. It may be added as one of the difficulties in explaining Capt. Landais’ conduct, that the moon had now been up some time, and that it was very easy to distinguish the ships by their offsides; that of the Serapis having two yellow streaks, dotted as usual with ports, while the Richard was all black.

Not satisfied with what he had done, Capt. Landais shortly after made his re-appearance, approaching the Richard on her off side, running athwart her bows this time, and crossing the stern of her antagonist. On this occasion, it is affirmed, her fire commenced when there was no possibility of reaching the Serapis unless it were through the Richard, and her fire, of grape especially, was particularly destructive to the men collected on the Richard’s forecastle. At this spot alone ten or twelve men appear to have been killed or wounded, at a moment when the fire of the Serapis could not possibly injure them. Among those slain was a midshipman of the name of Caswell, who affirmed with his dying breath that he had been hit by the shot of the Alliance. After this last exploit, Capt. Landais seemed satisfied with his own efforts and appeared no more.

While these erratic movements were in course of execution by the Alliance and her eccentric, if not insane, commander, the two ships engaged lay canopied by smoke, a scene of fierce contention, and of accumulated dangers, The alarm of fire was succeeded by reports that the Richard was sinking. To these sources of apprehension, soon followed that of the dread of a rising within. The accession of water in the hold, induced the master-at-arms to release the English prisoners on board, who were more than a hundred in number. As if this were not enough, the ships began to take fire from the explosions of the guns and grenades, and the combatants were frequently called from their quarters, in order to extinguish the flames. Capt. Pearson states, that the Serapis was on fire no less than twelve times, while the ships lay grappled; and, as to the Richard, in addition to several accidents of this nature that were promptly suppressed, for the last hour she was burning the whole time, the flames having got within her ceilings.

Jones was not a little astonished to see more then a hundred English mariners rushing up from below, at a moment when a heavy ship of their country was lashed alongside, and deliberately pouring her fire into his own vessel. Such a circumstance might have proved fatal, with a man less resolute and self-possessed. Lieut. Dale had been below, in person, to ascertain the state of the hold, and it was found that several heavy shot had struck beneath the water line, and that the danger from that source was in truth serious. Profiting by the alarm that prevailed among the prisoners, the commodore set the Englishmen at work at the pumps, where they toiled with commendable zeal near an hour! Had they been disposed, or cool, most of them might have escaped on board the Serapis.

The precise situations of the two vessels, and of the Richard in particular, are worthy of a passing remark. As for the Serapis, her injuries were far from great. She had suffered from the fire of her opponent at the commencement of the fight, it is true, but the bursting of the Richard’s eighteens, and her own superior working and better sailing had given her such essential advantages as, added to her heavier fire, must have long before decided the affair in her favor, but for the circumstance of the two vessels getting foul of each other. The quiet determination of Jones not to give up, might have protracted the engagement longer than usual, but it could hardly have averted the result. The vessels were no sooner square alongside, however, than the English ship’s heavy guns swept away every thing in their front. This superiority in the way of artillery could not be overcome, and continued to the close of the engagement. Under any thing like ordinary circumstances, this ascendancy must have given the victory to the English, but Jones was a man calculated by nature, and his habits of thinking, to take refuge against a defeat in extraordinary circumstances. He had succeeded in driving the enemy from above board, and was, in this stage of the action, diligently working two nine-pounders, in the hope of cutting away the Serapis’ main-mast. Had he succeeded in this effort, no doubt he would have cut the lashings, and, obtaining a more favorable position on the bow or quarter of his enemy, settled the matter with his main-deck battery. Still, it required many shot, of the weight of his, to bring down so large a spar, with most of its rigging standing, and in smooth water. No one knows what would have been the result, but for the coolness and judgment of a seaman, who belonged to the main-top. As the English had been cleared out of their tops by the greater fire of the Richard’s musketry, this man lay out on the main-yard, until he found himself at the sheet-block. Here he placed a bucket of grenades, and began deliberately to throw them upon the Serapis’ decks, wherever he saw two or three men collected. Finding no one on the quarter-deck, or forecastle, to annoy, he tossed his grenades into the hatches, where they produced considerable confusion and injury. At length, he succeeded in getting one or two down upon the lower gun-deck, where one of them set fire to some loose powder. It appears that the powder boys had laid a row of cartridges on the off side of this deck, in readiness for use, no shot entering from the Richard to molest. To this act of gross negligence, Capt. Pearson probably owed the loss of his ship. The lower gun-deck of the Serapis had been perfectly safe from all annoyance, from the moment the ships got foul, no gun of the Richard’s bearing on it, while the deck above protected it effectually from musketry. To this security, it is probable, the dire catastrophe which succeeded was owing. The powder that ignited set fire to all these uncovered cartridges, and the explosion extended from the main-mast aft. It silenced every gun in that part of the ship, and, indeed, nearly stripped them of their crews. More than twenty men were killed outright, leaving on many of them nothing but the waist-bands of their duck trowsers, and the collars and wrist-bands of their shirts. Quite sixty of the Serapis’ people must have been placed hors de combat, in a moment, by this fell assault. The reader may imagine its effects on a lower gun-deck, choked with smoke, with the ship on fire, amid the shrieks and groans of the living sufferers.

It is now known that the English would have struck, soon after this accident occurred, had not the master of the London Letter of Marque, captured off Cape Wrath, passed out of a port of the Richard into one of the Serapis’ and announced that the American ship was in a still worse situation, having actually released her prisoners, as she was on the point of sinking. About this time, too, another incident occurred, that aided in sustaining the hopes of Capt. Pearson. Two or three of the warrant officers of the Richard, when they found the ship in danger of sinking, had looked in vain for Jones, and Mr. Dale being below, himself, at that moment, examining into the state of the pumps, they determined that it was their duty to strike the colors, in order to save the lives of the survivors. Luckily, the ensign had been shot away, and the gunner, who had run up on the poop to lower it, called out for quarter. Hearing this, Capt. Pearson demanded if the Richard had struck. Jones answered for himself in the negative, but in such a way that he was not either heard or understood, and the English actually mustered a party of boarders to lake possession of their prize. As this was giving Jones’ men a better chance with their muskets, the English were soon driven below again, with loss. Some of the latter, however, appeared on the sides of the Richard.

These reverses turned the tide of battle in favor of the Americans. The latter got a gun or two more at work, and, while the fire of their adversaries was sensibly diminishing, their own began to increase. The spirit of the Englishman drooped, and he finally hauled down his colors with his own hands, after the ships had been lashed together nearly, if not quite, two hours and a half. The main-yard of the Serapis was hanging a-cock-bill, the brace being shot away, and the brace pendant within reach. Lieut. Dale seized the latter and swung himself over upon the quarter-deck of the Serapis. Here he found Capt. Pearson quite alone, and received his submission. At this instant, the first lieutenant of the English ship came up from below, and inquired if the Richard had struck, her fire having now entirely ceased. Mr. Dale explained to this officer how the case stood, when, finding his own commander confirmed it, the lieutenant offered to go below, and to stop the guns that were still at work in the Serapis. Mr. Dale objected, however, and these two officers were immediately passed over to the quarter-deck of the Richard. A party of officers and men had followed Mr. Dale from his own ship, and one of them, a Mr. Mayrant, of South Carolina, one of the Richard’s midshipmen, was actually run through the thigh by a boarding spike; the blow coming from a party of boarders stationed on the main-deck. This was the last blood spilt on the occasion, the firing being stopped immediately afterward.

Thus ended the renowned conflict between the Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard; one of the most remarkable of naval annals, in some of its features, though far from being as comparatively bloody, or as well fought in others, as many that may be cited. Com. Dale, who served in both actions, always placed the combat between the Trumbull and Watt, before that between these two ships, in the way of a cannonade; nor was there much difference in the comparative loss of the English vessels, the Watt having about half her crew killed and wounded, which was not far from the casualties of the Serapis. Still, this battle must ever stand alone, in a few of its leading incidents. There is no other instance on record of two vessels, carrying such batteries, remaining foul of each other for so long a period. It could have happened in this case, only, through the circumstances that the Richard had the combat nearly all to herself above board, while the Serapis was tearing her to pieces below decks. The respective combatants were, in truth, out of the range of each others’ fire, in a great degree; else would the struggle have been brought to a termination in a very few minutes. The party that was first silenced must have soon submitted; and, as that was virtually the American ship, the victory would have belonged to the English, in any other circumstances than those which actually occurred. As for the cannonading that Jones kept up for more than an hour on the main-mast of the Serapis, it could have had no material influence on the result, since the mast stood until the ship had struck, coming down just as the two vessels separated.

An examination into the injuries sustained by the respective combatants, proves the truth of the foregoing theory. As for the Richard, she had suffered a good deal during the first hour, or before the vessels closed, receiving several heavy shot between wind and water. Some shot, too, it would seem to be certain, were received in the same awkward places, from the fire of the Alliance, after the ships had grappled. But, the most extraordinary part of her injuries were those which were found from the main-mast aft, below the quarter-deck. Perhaps no vessel ever suffered in a degree approaching that in which the Richard suffered in this part of her. Her side was almost destroyed by the guns of the Serapis, and nothing prevented the quarter-deck, main-deck and poop from literally falling down upon the lower deck, but a few top-timbers and upper-futtocks that had fortunately escaped. This left Jones and his companions fighting on a sort of stage, upheld by stanchions that were liable at any moment to be carried away. Nothing, indeed, saved these supports, or the men on the deck above them, but the fact that they were all so near the enemy’s guns, that the latter could not be trained, or elevated sufficiently high to hit them. It was the opinion of Com. Dale that the shot of the Serapis, for the last hour of the action, must have passed in at one side of the Richard, in this part of the ship, and out at the other, without touching any thing, the previous fire having so effectually cleared the road!

The loss of men, in each ship, was fearfully great, and singularly equal. A muster-roll of the Richard has been preserved which shows that, out of 227 souls on board, when the ship sailed, exclusively of the soldiers, or marines, 83 were killed, or wounded. As many of these 227 persons were not in the action, while a few do not appear on this roll, who were on board, by placing the whole number of this portion of the crew at 200, we shall not be far out of the way. About 120 of the soldiers were in the combat, and this proportion would make such an additional loss, as to raise the whole number to 132. These soldiers, however, suffered in the commencement of the action more than the rest of the people, more especially a party of them that had been stationed on the poop; and, the reports of the day making the loss of the Richard 130 altogether, we are incline to believe it was not far from the truth. This was very near one half of all the men she had engaged.

On the part of the English, Capt. Pearson reported 117 casualties, admitting, however, that there were many more. Jones thought his own loss less than that of the Serapis, and there is reason to think it may have been so, in a trifling degree. It is probable that something like one half of all the combatants suffered in this bloody affair, which is a very unusual number for any battle, whether by sea or land. Many of those who suffered by the two explosions—that of the Richard’s eighteens, and that of the Serapis’ cartridges—died of their injuries.

To return to the state of the two vessels, and the events of the night: Jones no sooner found himself in possession of his prize, than he ordered the lashings cut, in order to separate the vessels. This was done without much difficulty, the wind and tide, in a few minutes, carrying the Richard clear of her late antagonist. The Serapis was hailed, and ordered to follow the commodore. In order to do this, her head-yards were braced sharp aback, to cause the vessel to pay off, her main-mast having come down, nearly by the board, bringing with it the mizzen top-mast. The wreck was cleared, but the ship still refused to answer her helm. Excited by this singular state of things, Mr. Dale sprung from a seat he had taken and fell his length upon deck. He had been wounded in the foot, and now ascertained for the first time that he was unable to walk. Luckily, Mr. Lunt, with the pilot boat, had come alongside, as soon as the firing ceased, and was ready to take his place. The fact being communicated to this officer that the Serapis was anchored, the cable was cut, and Jones’ orders obeyed. It is proper to add that the party in the pilot boat were of great service, as soon as they got on board again.

The vessels of the squadron now collected together, and fresh men were obtained from her consorts, to attend to the critical wants of the Richard. That ship, it will be remembered, was not only on fire, but sinking. Gangs of hands were obtained from the other vessels to work the pumps, as well as to assist in extinguishing the flames, and the night passed in strenuous efforts to effect their purposes. So critical was the condition of the vessel, however, that many men threw themselves into the water and swam to the nearest ship, under an apprehension that the Richard might, at any moment, be blown up. In the course of this eventful night, too, eight or ten Englishmen, who had formed a part of Jones’ own crew, stole a boat from the Serapis, and deserted, landing at Seaborough. Despair of ever being able to escape into a neutral, or friendly port, was doubtless their motive; and, in the circumstances, the reader can see the vast disadvantages under which Jones had achieved his success. A careful attention to all the difficulties, as well as dangers, that surrounded him, is necessary to a just appreciation of the character of our subject, whose exploits would have been deemed illustrious if accomplished with means as perfect as those usually at the disposal of commanders in well established and regular marines. It is not to be forgotten, moreover, that Jones was personally so obnoxious to the anger of the English, as to render it certain that his treatment would be of the severest nature, in the event of his capture, if, indeed, he were allowed to escape with life. It was surely enough to meet an equal force of English seamen, on the high seas, favored by all the aids of perfect equipments and good vessels; but, here, a desperate battle had been fought in sight of the English coast, against an enemy of means to render success doubtful, and with a reasonable probability that even victory might be the agent of destroying the conqueror.

Many a man will face death manfully, when he presents himself in the form of a declared enemy, in open fight, who will manifest a want of the highest moral qualities which distinguish true courage, when driven to a just appreciation of the risks of an unseen source of alarm. It is this cool discrimination between real and imaginary difficulties and dangers, which distinguishes the truly great commander from him who is suited only to the emergencies of everyday service; and when, as in the case of Jones, this ability to discriminate, and to resist unnecessary alarms is blended with the high military quality of knowing when to attempt more than the calculations of a severe prudence will justify, we find the characteristics of the great land or sea captain.

Daylight afforded an opportunity of making a full survey of the miserable plight in which the Richard had been left by the battle. A survey was held, and it was soon decided that any attempt to carry the ship in was hopeless. It may be questioned if she could have been kept from sinking in smooth water, so many and serious were the shot-holes; though, after getting the powder on deck, by way of security, and contending against them until ten next morning, the flames were got under. The fire had been working insidiously within the ceiling, or this advantage, immaterial as it proved in the end, could not have been gained. It was determined, after a consultation, to remove the wounded, and to abandon the ship. Jones came to this decision with the greatest reluctance, for he had a strong and natural desire to carry into port all the evidence of the struggle in which he had been engaged; but his own judgment confirmed the opinions of his officers, and he reluctantly gave the order to commence the necessary duty.

The morning of the 24th, or that of the day which succeeded the battle, was foggy, and no view of the sea was had until near noon. Then it cleared away, and the eye could command a long range of the English coast, as well as of the waters of the offing. Not a sail of any sort was visible, with the exception of those of the squadron, and its prizes. So completely had the audace of Jones, to use an expressive French term that has no precise English translation, daunted the enemy, that his whole coast appeared to be temporarily under a blockade.

The two pilot boats were very serviceable in receiving the wounded. After toiling at the pumps all the 24th and the succeeding night, the Richard was left in the forenoon of the 25th, the water being then as high as the lower deck. About ten she settled slowly into the water, the poop and mizzen-mast being the last that was ever seen of the old Duc de Duras, a ship whose reputation will probably live in naval annals as long as books are written and men continue to read.

Jones now erected jury-masts in the Serapis, and endeavored to get into the Texel, his port of destination. So helpless was the principal prize, however, that she was blown about until the 6th October, before this object could be effected. With a presentiment of what would have been best, Jones himself strongly desired to go into Dunkirk, for which port the wind was fair, where he would have been under French protection; but the concordat emboldened his captains to remonstrate, and they proceeded to Holland.

The arrival of the soi-disant American squadron in a neutral country, accompanied by two British men-of-war as prizes, gave rise to a great political commotion. The people of the Dutch nation were opposed to the English and in favor of America, but the government, or its executive at least, and the aristocracy, as a matter of course, felt differently. We shall not weary the reader with the details of all that occurred. It will be sufficient to say, that it was found necessary to hoist French flags in most of the ships, and to put the prizes even under the protection of the Grand Monarque. Jones, for a time, got rid of Landais, who was sent for to Paris, and he transferred himself and favorite officers to the Alliance. This vessel, the only real American ship in the squadron, continued to keep the stars and stripes flying. At one time matters proceeded so far, however, that ships of the line menaced the frigate, with forcing her out to sea, where thirty or forty English cruisers were in waiting for her, if she did not lower the as yet unacknowledged ensign. All this Jones withstood, and he actually braved the authorities of Holland, under these critical circumstances, rather than discredit the flag of the country he legitimately served. A French commission was offered to himself, but he declined receiving it, always affirming that he was the senior American sea-captain in Europe, and he claimed all the honors and rights of his rank. His prizes and prisoners were taken from him, in virtue of the concordat, and through orders from Dr. Franklin, but the Alliance was an American ship, and American she should continue as long as she remained under his orders!

At length, after two months of wrangling and mortification, Jones prepared to sail. He had been joined by the celebrated Capt. Conyngham, who went passenger in his ship for France. He left the Texel on the 27th December, and a letter written by himself, just as he discharged the pilot, stated that he was fairly outside, with a fair wind, and his best American ensign flying. The last was a triumph, indeed, and one of which he was justly proud.

The run of the Alliance from the Texel, through the British Channel, while so closely watched, has been much vaunted in certain publications, and Jones himself seemed proud of it. It is probable that its merits were the judgment and boldness with which the passage was planned and executed. Com. Dale, a man totally without exaggeration, spoke of it as a bold experiment, that succeeded perfectly because it was unexpected. The enemy, no doubt, looked for the ship to the northward, never dreaming that she would run the gauntlet at the Straits of Dover.

Jones hugged the shoals as he came out, and kept well to windward of all the blockading English vessels. In passing Dover he had to go in sight of the shipping in the Downs. As the wind held to the eastward, this he did at little risk. He was equally successful at the Isle of Wight, a fleet lying at Spithead; and several times he eluded heavy cruisers, by going well to the eastward of them. The Alliance went into Corunna to avoid a gale. Thence she sailed for France, arriving in the Roads of Groix on the 10th of February. This was the only cruise Jones ever made in the Alliance. Capt. Landais had injured the sailing of the ship, by the manner in which he stowed the ballast, and this it was that induced her present commander to go in so early, else might he have made a cruise as brilliant as any that had preceded it. It is matter of great regret that Jones never could get to sea in a vessel worthy of his qualities as a commander. The Ranger was dull and crank; the Alfred was no better; the Providence was of no force, and the reader has just seen what might be expected from the Richard. The Alliance was an excellent ship of her class, though not very heavy; but, just as accident threw her in Jones’ way, he was compelled to carry her into port, where she was taken from him.

The history of Jones’ life, after he joined the navy, with the exception of the short intervals he was at sea, is a continued narrative of solicitations for commands, or service, and of as continual disappointments. During the whole war, and he sailed in the first squadron, Jones was actually at sea a little short of a year. The remainder of his seven years of service were employed in struggling for employment, or in preparing the imperfect equipments with which he sailed. Could such a man have passed even half of his time on board efficient and fast cruisers, on the high seas, we may form some estimate of what he would have effected, by the exploits he actually achieved. By the capture of the Serapis, and the character of his last cruise generally, Jones acquired a great reputation, though it did little for him, in the way of obtaining commands suitable to his rank and services.

Our hero had obtained some little circulation in Parisian society by his capture of the Drake, though there is surprisingly little sympathy with any nautical exploits, in general, in the brilliant capital of France. But the exploits of the Bon Homme Richard overcame this apathy toward the things of the sea, and Jones became a lion, at once, in the great centre of European civilization. It would be idle to deny that this flattery and these attentions had an influence on his character. New habits and tastes were created, habits and tastes totally in opposition to those he had formed in youth, and these are changes that rarely come late in life altogether free from exaggeration. The correspondence of Jones, which was very active, and in the end became quite voluminous, proves, while his mind, manners and opinions were in several respects improved by this change of situation, that they suffered in others. He appears to have had an early predilection for poetry, and he seems to have now indulged it with some freedom, in making indifferent rhymes on various ladies. Some of his biographers have placed his effusions on a level with those of the ordinary vers de société, then so much in vogue; but they seem to forget that these were very indifferent rhymes also. In that gay and profligate society to which he was admitted, it was scarcely possible that a bachelor of Jones’ temperament should altogether escape the darts of love. His name has been connected with that of a certain Delia, supposed to be a Madame T——, and also with that of a lady of the name of Lavendahl. The attachment to the last, however, has been thought a mere platonic friendship. Some pains have been taken to show that these were ladies of high rank, but a mere title is not now, nor was it in 1779, any proof of a high social condition in France, unless the rank were as high as that of a duchesse. That Jones was a lion in Paris is a fact beyond question, but much exaggeration has accompanied the accounts of his reception. His return occurred in the midst of an exciting war, and it is scarcely possible that his exploits should be overlooked by the government, or the beau monde, but they were far from occupying either, in the manner that has been mentioned by certain of his panegyrists.

After a visit to Paris, he returned to the coast, where new difficulties arose with Landais. By a decision of one of the commissioners, that officer was restored to the command of the Alliance, and the quarrel was renewed. But the brevity of this sketch will not permit us to give an account of all the discussions in which Jones was engaged, either with his superiors or with his subordinates. It is difficult to believe that there was not some fault in the temperament of the man, although it must be admitted that he served under great disadvantages, and never had justice done to his talents or his deeds in the commands he received. The end of this new source of contempt was Landais putting Jones’ own officers, Dale and others, ashore, and sailing for America, where he was laid on the shelf himself, and his ship was given to Barry.

The immediate nautical service on hand was to get several hundred tons of military stores to America. With this duty Jones had been entrusted, and he now begged hard that his prize, the Serapis, might be borrowed for that purpose. He doubtless wished to show the ship in this country, as his plan was to arm her en flute merely, and to give her convoy by a twenty-gun ship, called the Ariel, which the French government had consented to lend the Americans. On reaching America, he hoped to get up a new expedition, with the Serapis for his own pennant.

This arrangement could not be made, however, and Jones was compelled to receive smaller favors. As a little consolation, and one to which he was far from being indifferent, the King of France sent him about this time, (June, 1780,) the cross of military merit, which he was to carry to the French minister in America, who had instructions to confer it on him on some suitable occasion. At the same time, he was informed that Louis XVI. had directed a handsome sword to be made, with suitable inscriptions, which should be forwarded to him as soon as possible. This was grateful intelligence to a man so sensitive on the subject of the opinions of others, and doubtless was received as some atonement for his many disappointments.

By the beginning of September, Jones was ready to sail for America in the Ariel. He had got together as many of his old Richard’s as possible for a crew, and had crammed the vessel in every practicable place with stores. He lay a month in the roads of Groix, however, with a foul wind. On the 8th October he went to sea, but met a gale that very night, in which his ship was nearly lost He was obliged to anchor at no great distance to windward of the Penmarks, where the Ariel rolled her lower yard-arms into the water. She could not be kept head to sea with the anchors down, but fell off with a constant drift. Cutting away the fore-mast relieved her, but now she pitched the heel of the main-mast out of the step, and it became necessary to cut away that spar to save the ship. This brought down the mizzen-mast, as a matter of course, when the vessel became easier. For two days and near three nights did the Ariel continue in her crazy berth, anchored in the open ocean, with one of the most dangerous ledges of rock known, a short distance under her lee, when she was relieved by a shift of wind. Jury-masts were erected, and the vessel got back to the roads from which she had sailed.

In speaking of this gale, in a letter to one of his female friends, Jones quaintly remarks, “I know not why Neptune was in such anger, unless he thought it an affront in me to appear on his ocean with so insignificant a force.” It is in this same letter that he makes the manly and high-toned remark, apropos of some imputed dislike of a certain English lady, “The English nation may hate me, but I will force them to esteem me too.”

In the gale Jones was supported by his officers. Dale and Henry Lunt were with him, as indeed were most of the officers of the Richard who survived the action, and the risks of this gale were thought to equal those of their bloody encounter with the Serapis. Dale spoke of this time as one of the most, if not the most, serious he had met with in the course of his service, and extolled the coolness and seamanship of Jones as being of the highest order. The latter indeed was a quick, ready seaman, never hesitating with doubts or ignorance.

It is worthy of being mentioned, that while lying at Groix, repairing damages, a difficulty occurred between Jones and Truxtun, about the right of the latter to wear a pennant in his ship; he being then in command of a private armed vessel. It appears Truxtun hoisted a broad pennant, and this at a time when he had no right to wear a narrow one, Congress having passed a law denying this privilege to private vessels. These fiery spirits were just suited to meet in such a conflict, and it is only surprising Jones did not send a force to lower Truxtun’s emblem for him. His desire to prevent scandalous scenes in a French port alone prevented it.

Jones did not get out again until the 18th December, when he made the best of his way to America. The Ariel appears to have made the southern passage. In lat. 26, N. and long. 59 she made an English frigate-built ship, that had greatly the superiority over her in sailing. Jones, according to his own account of the matter, rather wished to avoid this vessel, his own ship being deep and much burdened, his crew a good deal disaffected, and the stranger seeming the heaviest. After passing a night in a vain attempt to elude him, he was found so near the next day as to render an action inevitable, should the stranger, now known to be an enemy, see fit to seek it. Under the circumstances, therefore, Jones thought it prudent to clear ship. The stranger chased, the Ariel keeping him astern, in a way to prevent him from closing until after nightfall. As the day declined the Ariel occasionally fired a light gun at the ship astern, crowding sail as if anxious to escape. By this time, however, Jones was satisfied he should have to contend with a vessel not much, if any, heavier than his own, and he shortened sail to allow the stranger to close. Both ships set English colors, and as they drew near, the Ariel hauled up, compelling the stranger to pass under her lee, both vessels at quarters, with the batteries lighted up. In this situation, each evidently afraid of the other, a conversation commenced that lasted an hour. Jones asked for news from America, which the stranger freely communicated. He said his ship was American built, and had been lately captured from the Americans and put into the English service. Her name was stated to be the Triumph, and that of her commander Pindar. Jones now ordered this Mr. Pindar to lower a boat and come on board. A refusal brought on an action which lasted a few minutes, when the stranger struck. The fire of the Ariel was very animated, that of the soi-disant Triumph very feeble. The latter called out for quarter, saying half his people were killed. The Ariel ceased firing, and as she had passed to leeward before she commenced firing, the stranger drew ahead and tacked, passing to windward in spite of the chasing fire of her enemy.

Jones was greatly indignant at this escape. He always considered, or affected to consider, the Triumph a king’s ship of equal force, though she was probably nothing more than a light armed, and weakly manned Letter of Marque. By some it has even been imagined the Triumph was an American, who supposed he was actually engaged with an English vessel of war. Different writers have spoken of this rencontre as a handsome victory; but Com. Dale, a man whose nature seemed invulnerable to the attempt of any exaggerated feelings, believed the Ariel’s foe was an English Letter of Marque, and attributed her escape to the cleverness of her manœuvres. That her commander violated the laws of war, and those of morality, is beyond a question.

Shortly after this affair, Jones discovered a plot among the English of his crew to seize the ship, and twenty of the most dangerous of the mutineers were confined. It was not found necessary, however, to execute any of them at sea, and the ship reached Philadelphia on February 18th, 1781, making Jones’ absence from the country a little exceeding three years and three months.

Notwithstanding certain unpleasant embarrassments awaited Jones, on his return to America, after the brilliant scenes in which he had been an actor, he had no reason to complain of his reception. Landais had actually been dismissed as insane, and this, too, principally on the testimony of Mr. Lee, the commissioner who had reinstated him in the command of the Alliance; a circumstance that, of itself, settled several of the unpleasant points that had been in dispute. But the delay in shipping the stores had produced much inconvenience to the army, and Congress appointed a Committee formally to inquire into the cause. The result was favorable to Jones, and the Committee reported resolutions, that were adopted, expressive of the sense Congress entertained of Jones’ service, and of the gratification it afforded that body to know the King of France intended to confer on him the order of military merit. In consequence of this resolution, the French minister gave a fête, and in presence of all the principal persons of the place, conferred on Jones the cross of the order. In the course of the examinations that were made by Congress, forty-seven interrogatories were put to Jones, and it is worthy of remark, that his answers were of a nature to do credit to both his principles and head. This affair disposed of, nothing but the grateful respect which followed success awaited oar hero, who justly filled a high place in the public estimation. The thanks of Congress were solemnly voted to him as his due.

A question now seriously arose in Congress, on the subject of making Jones a rear-admiral. He had earnestly remonstrated about the rank given him when the regulated list of captains was made out, and there was an éclat about his renown that gave a weight to his representations. Remonstrances from the older captains, however, prevented any resolution from passing on this question, and Jones was finally rewarded by an unanimous election, by ballot, in Congress, appointing him to the command of the America 74, a ship then on the stocks. As this was much the most considerable trust of the sort within the gift of the government, it speaks in clear language the estimation in which he was held.

The America was far from being ready to launch, however. Still Jones was greatly gratified with the compliment. He even inferred that it placed him highest in rank in the navy, the law regulating comparative rank with the army, saying that a captain of a ship of more than forty guns should rank with a colonel, while those of forty guns ranked only with lieutenants colonel; and the America being the only ship that carried or rated more than forty guns, be jumped to the conclusion that he out-ranked the eight or ten captains above him, whose commissions had higher numbers than his own. It is probable this reasoning would have given way before inquiry. A captain in command of a squadron, now, ranks temporarily with a brigadier general. The youngest captain on the list may hold this trust, yet, when be lowers his pennant, or even when he meets his senior in service, though in command of a single ship, the date or number of the commission determines the relative rank of the parties.

It is worthy of remark that Jones, before he quitted Philadelphia, exhibited his personal accounts, by which it appeared that he had not yet received one dollar of pay, and this for nearly five years’ service; proof of itself that he was not without private funds, and did not enter the navy a mere adventurer. On the contrary, he is said to have advanced considerable sums to government, and in the end to have been a loser by his advances. But who was not, that had money to lose, and who sustained the cause that triumphed in that arduous struggle?

It would be useless here to follow Jones, step by step, in connection with his new command. He joined the ship in the strong hope of having her at sea in a few months; but this far exceeded the means of the country. As he traveled toward Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, where the America was on the stocks, he wore his cross of the order of Military Merit, which did well enough at Head Quarters, when he paid a visit to Washington. There, however, it was hinted to him he had better lay it aside on entering the New England states, a portion of the country in which personal distinctions were, and are peculiarly offensive to the people. One cannot object to this particular instance of the feeling, for the citizen of a nation that rejects such rewards in its own political system, ought to have too much self-respect to accept them from a foreign state; but an affectation of humility, rather than its reality, forms a part of the social faith of this section of the republic. Thus it is that we see the manly practice of self-nomination frowned on, while nowhere else are lower arts practiced to obtain nominations by others than among these fastidious observers of a proud political modesty. Exaggerations, whether in religion, morals, manners, speech, or appearance, always result in this; the simplicity of truth being as far removed from the acting they induce, as virtue is remote from vice. Nothing in nature can be violated with impunity, her laws never failing to vindicate their ascendancy in some shape or other.

Jones reached Portsmouth at the close of August, 1781. The duty of superintending a vessel on the stocks, in the height of a war, was particularly irksome to a man of his temperament, and Portsmouth was a place very different from Paris. He was more than a year thus engaged, during most of which time he did not quit his post. In the course of the summer of 1782, however, the French lost a ship, called the Magnifique, in the harbor of Boston, and Congress determined to present the America to the King of France as a substitute. This deprived Jones of his command, just as he was about to realize something from all his labors. Fortune had ordered that he was never to get a good ship under the American flag, and that all his exploits were to derive their lustre more from his own military qualities than from the means employed.

Nov. 5th, 1781, the America was launched; the same day Jones transferred her to the French officer who was directed to receive her. At the time he did this, he believed he was to be employed on a second expedition. He expected, indeed, to get his old flame, the Indien, which was called the South Carolina, and was lying at Philadelphia. Her arrangement with South Carolina was nearly up, and Congress had claims, by means of which it was hoped she might yet be transferred to her original owners. Matters went so far that Com. Gillan, who commanded the ship, was arrested; but the vessel got to sea under Capt. Joyner, and was captured by three English frigates, a few hours out; not without suspicions of collusion with the enemy.

There were now no means of employing Jones afloat, and he got permission to make a cruise in the French fleet, for the purpose of acquiring some knowledge of a fleet. He sailed in the Triomphante, the flag-ship of M. de Vandreuil. M. de Viomenil, with a large military suite, was on board; and sixty officers dined together every day. It is characteristic of Jones that he should mention the French general was put into the larboard state-room, while he himself occupied the starboard! This might have been done on account of his being a stranger, and strictly a guest; or it might have been done because M. de Viomenil knew nothing of naval etiquette on such points, while Jones attached great importance to it.

This cruise doubtless furnished many new ideas to a man like Jones, but its military incidents were not worthy of being recorded. Peace was made in April, 1783, and Jones left the fleet at Cape François, reaching Philadelphia, May 18th. His health was not good, and he passed the summer at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, for the benefit of a cold bath. He now had a project of retiring to a farm, but, it is probable, the quiet, dull condition of the country, under the reaction of peace, did not suit him; for he applied to Congress for a commission as agent to look after the prizes made on his great cruise, particularly those which had been given up to the English by the Danes. Armed with such authority, he sailed for France, November 10th, in the Washington, late General Monk, the ship Barney had so gallantly taken in the Hyder Ally, and which he then commanded. This vessel was the last relic of the navy of the revolution, being the only vessel then owned by the government, or, at least, employed. Jones landed in England, at some risk, as he thought, of being massacred. He went from Plymouth to London, and thence to Paris, making the whole journey in five days; tolerable proof he did not relish the country, though despatches were the professed object of so much haste. Had he been known, it is by no means probable that he would have escaped without injury; for no man had ever alarmed the English coast so thoroughly in these later times.

Jones was two years engaged in settling his prize questions in France. This was done after a great deal of vexation, and his active mind then turned to a voyage of commercial enterprise, that included the Northwest Coast, Japan, the Sandwich Islands and the ends of the earth, in its plans. The celebrated Ledyard was to be his supercargo, and Jones commander-in-chief. Discovery, science and honor were to be united with profit, and the whole was to have a character of high motives. Like so many others of our hero’s projects, this failed for want of means.

In 1789, Jones determined to go to Denmark, to push his demands on that government, in person. He had actually got as far as Brussels, when he was unexpectedly called to America, in consequence of some new difficulty connected with his compensation. The new constitution was not yet framed, and the affairs of the confederation presented embarrassments at every turn to all the public servants. This visit to America was made in the spring, and Jones remained in this country until autumn. October 18, 1787, Congress voted him a gold medal, in honor of his services while at the head of the squadron of the concordat. A letter to the King of France, in his favor, was also written by that body; one of the highest honors it ever paid a citizen. It is singular that Jones, on his return to Europe, manifested an apprehension of being seized by some of the English ships, though a general peace prevailed, and it is not easy to see under what pretence such an outrage could have been committed. It would have been just as legal to arrest Washington, had he been found on the high seas. There was certainly no love between the parties, and England, in that day, did many lawless things; but, it may be questioned if she would have presumed to go as far as this. Jones did not quit America until November 11th, 1787, which was the last day he ever had his foot on the western continent.

In January, Jones received some new credentials for Denmark, and shortly after he proceeded to Copenhagen. He is known to have been in that capital early in March. Previously to quitting Paris, some proposals had been made to Jones to enter into the service of Russia, which were now renewed through Baron Kreudener, Catherine’s minister in Denmark. In April, our hero, in consequence of the negociations which had commenced on this subject, determined to go to St. Petersburg. As regards his application to the Danish Court, it resulted in fair promises. The demand amounted to £50,000, sterling, and Jones was put off with fine speeches and personal compliments, and had a patent sent after him entitling him to a pension of 1500 Danish crowns, in consideration of “the respect he had shown to the Danish flag, while he had commanded in the North Seas.” It seems to us impossible to understand this as any other than a direct bribe, ingeniously covered up, to induce Jones not to press his demands. The agent who is sent to recover claims, in which others are interested, cannot accept compensation for himself, unless it include the interests of all the parties concerned. Jones himself did not, at first, seem to know in what light he was to view this pension, and for several years he did not ask for the money. When in want of funds, at a later day, however, he was more willing to profit by this patent, though it appears nothing was ever paid on it. Nothing was ever received, either, for the prizes. It must be confessed, Denmark paid her debts at a cheap rate.

Jones had been well received at all the courts where he presented himself. Immediately on his arrival at St. Petersburg, Catherine made him a rear-admiral. His passage across the Gulf of Finland had been perilous and romantic, and threw an éclat around his approach that was not unsuited to his established character. He reached St. Petersburg April 23d, (old style.) and he left it to join Prince Potemkin, in the Black Sea, on the 7th May, with his new commission in his pocket. His reception by Potemkin was flattering, but our admiral did not conceal from himself that his brother flag-officers felt any thing but joy at seeing him. The cabals against him commenced the first hour of his arrival, nor do they appear to have ceased until the day of his departure. The motley force assembled under the Imperial flag, included officers of many different nations, some of whom much affected superiority over one whom the English, in particular, took every occasion to malign.

The history of Jones’ service under the Russian flag is a revolting account of intrigues, bad management and disappointment. The operations were far from trifling in their extent, and there were several engagements, in all of which the Turks suffered, but nothing was effected of the brilliant and decisive character that marked the proper exploits of Paul Jones. Such a man ought not to have served under a chief like Potemkin, for nothing is more certain that in any glory, the favorite would seize the lion’s share. Still Jones distinguished himself on more than one occasion, though our limits will not admit of entering into details. In one or two actions he was much exposed, and manifested high personal resolution; perhaps as much so as in any other occasions of his life.

It has been seen that Jones left St. Petersburg May 1788; in December he had returned, virtually in disgrace. This event has often been ascribed to the enmity of the English officers in the Russian marine; never to any official act of Jones himself. It was, in truth, owing to the personal displeasure of Potemkin, one with whom a man of our rear-admiral’s disposition would not be likely long to agree. Catherine received Jones favorably, as to appearance at least, and, for a short time, he had hopes of being again employed.

But the enemies of Jones had determined to get rid of him, and it is believed they resorted to an infamous expedient to effect his ruin, in the estimation of the empress. A girl who entered his apartment to sell some light articles, charged him with an attempt to violate her person. Inquiry subsequently gave reason to believe the whole thing a trick, and Jones always protested his entire innocence; but sufficient clamor was made to render his further sojourn in Russia, for the moment at least, unpleasant. Catherine was evidently satisfied that injustice had been done him, but she did not care to offend Potemkin. Jones was permitted to travel, retaining his rank and appointments. His furlough, which Jones himself, oddly enough, more than once calls his “parole,” extended to two years; but was doubtless meant to be unlimited in its effect. Catherine had previously conferred on him the ribbon of St. Anne.

Jones left St. Petersburg in July, 1789, after a residence of about fifteen months in Russia. He traveled south, by Warsaw, where he remained some time, after which he visited Holland. About this time his constitution began sensibly to give way. It is probable that the disappointment he had met with in the north, preyed upon his feelings, his enemies being as active as ever in circulating stories to his disadvantage. His finances were impaired too, and he appears to think that his pecuniary compensation from Russia had been light. Now it was that he would gladly have received the arrears of his pension from Denmark, a pension that certainly he ought never to have seemed to accept. In his justification, however, he says that both Jefferson and Morris advised him to profit by the liberality of the Danish court; but, in all cases, a man should decide for himself in a matter touching his own honor.

In 1790, Jones was at Paris, well received by his friends; but no longer a lion, or a subject of public attention. He manifested more interest in his Scottish relations this season than he had lately done, and speaks of the education of his nephews and nieces. It was a blank year to him, however, his time being mostly occupied in endeavoring so to settle his affairs as to procure funds. In March, 1791, he addressed the empress, stating that his “parole” had nearly expired, and desiring to be ordered to return. All his letters and communications show that his spirit was a good deal broken, and the elasticity of his mind partially gone. He still thought of and reasoned about ships, but it was no longer with the fire and earnestness of his youth. The events in progress at Paris may have had some influence on him, though nowhere does he speak of them in his letters. His silence, in this respect, is even remarkable.

The new American Constitution went into operation in 1789; and Jones rightly enough predicted that this event would produce a regular and permanent marine. His hopes, however, outstripped the facts, the results which he hoped would affect himself, and that soon, occurring several years later. He expected, and with reason, so far as his claims were concerned, to be commissioned an admiral in the new marine, but he did not live to see the marine itself established. One ray of satisfaction, however, gleamed on his last days, the government of Washington giving him reason to expect a diplomatic appointment to arrange certain difficulties with some of the Barbary powers. The appointment came shortly after Jones was laid in his grave; proving beyond a question that he possessed the confidence of some of the wisest and best men of America, as long as he lived.

Jones’ health had been impaired for some years. The form which his disease assumed—jaundice—renders it probable that the state of his mind affected his health. Dropsy supervened, and, in July, 1792, he was thought so ill as to send for Mr. Morris, and other friends, in order to make his will. For two days he was so much swollen as not to be able to button his vest; this it was that induced him to make his will. It was signed about eight o’clock in the evening of the 18th, and he was then left, seated in his chair, by the friends who had witnessed it. Shortly after he walked into his bed-room, by himself. It was not long before his physician came to see him. The bed-room was entered, and Jones was found lying on his face, on the bed, with his feet on the floor, quite dead.

The death of Jones was honorably noticed in France. The National Assembly sent a deputation of twelve of its members to attend the funeral, and other honors were shown his remains. He was interred at Père la Chaise, July 20th, or two days after his death.

The estate left by Jones was respectable, though far from large. Still, he could not be said to have died in poverty; though so much of his estate was in claims that he often wanted money. Among other assets mentioned in his will were $9000 of stock in the Bank of North America, with sundry unclaimed dividends. On the supposition that two years of dividends were due, this item alone must have amounted, with the premium, to something like £2000, sterling. He bequeathed all he owned to his two sisters, and their children.

There can be no question that Paul Jones was a great man. By this we mean far more than an enterprising and dashing seaman. The success which attended exploits effected by very insufficient means, forms the least portion of his claims to the character. His mind aimed at high objects, and kept an even pace with his elevated views. We have only to fancy such a man at the head of a force like that with which Nelson achieved the victory of the Nile—twelve as perfect and well commanded two-decked ships as probably ever sailed in company—in order to get some idea what he would have done with them, with a peerage or Westminster Abbey in the perspective. No sea captain, of whom the world possesses any well authenticated account, ever attempted projects as bold as those of Jones, or which discovered more of the distinctive qualities of a great mind, if the quality of his enemy be kept in view, as well as his own limited and imperfect means. The battle between the Serapis and Richard had some extraordinary peculiarities, beyond a question, and yet, as a victory, it has been often surpassed. The peculiarities belong strictly to Jones; but we think his offering battle to the Drake, alone in his sloop, in the centre of the Irish channel, with enemies before, behind and on each side of him, an act of higher naval courage than the attack on the Serapis. Landais’ extraordinary conduct could not have been foreseen, and it is only when Jones found himself reduced to an emergency, in this affair, that he came out in his character of indomitable resolution. But all the cruises of the man indicated forethought, intrepidity and intelligence. Certainly, no sea captain, under the American flag, has ever yet equaled him, in these particulars.

That Jones had many defects of character is certain. They arose in part from temperament, and in part from education. His constant declarations of the delicacy of his sentiments, and of the disinterestedness of his services, though true in the main, were in a taste that higher associations in youth would probably have corrected. There was ever a loftiness of feeling about him, that disinclined him equally to meanness and vulgarity; and as for the coarseness of language and deportment that too much characterized the habits of the sea, in his time, he appears never to have yielded to them. All this was well in itself, and did him credit; but it would have been better had he spoken less frequently of his exemption from such failings, and not have alluded to them so often in his remarks on others.

There was something in the personal character of Jones that weakened his hold on his cotemporaries, though it does not appear to have ever produced a want of confidence in his services or probity. Com. Dale used to mention him with respect, and even with attachment; often calling him Paul, with a degree of affection that spoke well for both parties. Still, it is not to be concealed that a species of indefinite distrust clouded his reputation even in America, until the industry of his biographers, by means of indisputable documents and his own voluminous correspondence, succeeded in placing him before the public in a light too unequivocally respectable to leave any reasonable doubts that public sentiment had silently done him injustice. The power of England, in the way of opinion, has always been great in this country, and it is probable the discredit that nation threw on the reputation of Jones produced an influence, more visible in its results than in its workings, on his standing even with those he had so well served.

In person, Jones was of the middle stature, with a complexion that was colorless, and with a skin that showed the exposure of the seas. He was well formed and active. His cotemporaries have described him as quiet and unpresuming in his manners, and of rather retiring deportment. The enthusiasm which ran in so deep a current in his heart was not of the obtrusive sort; nor was it apt to appear until circumstances arose to call it into action; then, it seemed to absorb all the other properties of his being. Glory, he constantly avowed, was his aim, and there is reason to think he did not mistake his own motives in this particular. It is perhaps to be regretted that his love of glory was so closely connected with his personal vanity; but even this is better than the glory which is sought as an instrument of ruthless power.

If an author may be permitted to quote from himself, we shall conclude this sketch by adding what we have already said, by way of summary, of this remarkable man, in a note to the first edition of the History of the United States Navy—viz: “In battle, Paul Jones was brave; in enterprise hardy and original; in victory, mild and generous; in motives, much disposed to disinterestedness, though ambitious of renown and covetous of distinction; in his pecuniary relations, liberal; in his affections, natural and sincere; and in his temper, except in those cases which assailed his reputation, just and forgiving.” That these good qualities were without alloy it would be presumptuous to assert; but, it appears certain that his defects were relieved by high proofs of greatness, and that his deeds were no more than the proper results of the impulses, talents and intrepidity of the man.

BY REV. WALTER COLTON, U.S.N.

BY LOUIS L. NOBLE.

(Continued from Volume XXIII, No. 1)

THE HUNT.

O-SA-WAH, IN THE CAVE.

THE PROPHECY.

V.—The story-teller, as Mish-qua-gen, continues the tale through the first act.

THE RETURN.

THE GAME.

THE MYSTERY.

THE PRIZE.

VI.—As Mish-qua-gen, the story-teller carries the tale through the second act.

SPRING.

THE BANQUET NIGHT.

[To be continued.

OR WHICH IS THE BLUE-STOCKING?

BY MRS. FRANCES S. OSGOOD.

CHAPTER I.

“ ‘No more of that, an thou lovest me, Hal,’ ” replied Charles Elliott to his friend Curtis, as they stood together at Mrs. Richmond’s soirée; “any thing but a learned lady—any thing but a blue-stocking! Bah! the very name gives me the blues, already. Besides, in these times, a man wants a wife that can condescend to see to household matters now and then, and I never knew a blue-stocking that could do that.”

“But you know your aunt’s last words were, ‘Be sure you obtain an introduction to that little genius, Miss Melvyn.’ The old lady has set her heart upon the match, and, at any rate, there can be no harm in becoming acquainted with her.”

“Yes, there can. I wouldn’t know her on any account. I can see her now ‘in my mind’s eye’—frowsy, yellow hair, braided, curled, bewitched with an endeavor to look romantic—sky-blue eyes, upraised to heaven—red nose—thin, sharp mouth—scraggy form—unhealthy complexion—clumsy, slip-shod feet—croaking voice—bold expression—dowdy dress—bah! I will never marry a blue-stocking. What are you laughing at?”

“Mr. Elliott,” said a gentle voice at his elbow, “come with me, and be presented to my friend Miss Melvyn. I promised your aunt you should become acquainted with her.” There was a pause.

“Do you not hear me, Mr. Elliott?” And the young lady looked surprised at receiving no answer. But Mr. Elliott’s silence was soon explained. His eyes and mind were riveted on a young, and brilliantly beautiful girl, about seventeen years of age, who was tripping gaily down the contra-dance, as if her soul were in her feet, little as they were. She was almost, not quite, a brunette, with a pair of melting, black eyes, shaded by long and glossy lashes—a bewitching mouth, daintily curved and richly colored—a cheek glowing warmly with feeling and animation—soft hair, bright and black as jet, plainly parted on her smooth, graceful brow, and twisted, with simple taste, behind—delicately formed and exquisitely dressed; she was, indeed, a being formed to enchant a less susceptible heart than that which Mr. Charles Elliott now felt to be beating faster than ever it had before.

“Ah! my dear Miss Richmond,” he exclaimed, as, startled from his trance by the tap of her fan upon his arm, he turned toward her, “I beg your pardon—I did not see you. Tell me, who is that beautiful creature in white! there, dancing with that officer? Will you introduce me to her?”

“Yes, if you will let me introduce you to Miss Melvyn.”

“What! to blue-stocking!”

“Those who know of her accomplishments only by report have given her that name, I understand, but I am sure you will forget it when you know her. Come!”

“Well, then, I will do penance for my sins, with the hope of reward for my virtues. You promise me an introduction to the beauty, too?”

“Yes—come!”

The beauty was now seated, and by her side was a lady, almost the very counterpart of Elliott’s ideal of a blue-stocking. Miss Richmond led him toward her.

“Miss Melvyn, allow me to present my friend, Mr. Elliott.” The stiffest of bows were exchanged.

“Miss Grace Melvyn, Mr. Elliott.” And the beauty smiled, and bent her graceful head.

Elliott drew a chair, and, seating himself near them, commenced a conversation. Miss Melvyn was cold, dull and taciturn, but her sister, Grace, was all sweetness and vivacity, though with a certain arch and mischievous expression about her rosy mouth and radiant eyes, which he puzzled his brain in vain to account for, not having noticed that Miss Richmond had whispered a few words in her ear, as he turned for the chair; probably a brief summary of the conversation she had overheard between the two young men. Meanwhile, her frank and gay simplicity of word and manner, her childlike naiveté, and the soft, enchanting grace with which she spoke, looked and moved, completed the fascination of our hero; and, ere the hour of parting arrived, he had fairly—no! not quite fairly—lost his very loseable heart.

CHAPTER II.

“Where can the child be!” exclaimed the widow Melvyn, glancing through the open window, as she took her seat at the tea-table, with her oldest daughter and Mr. Elliott, who had now become a frequent and welcome visiter at her house.

“Oh! here she comes, as usual,” she continued, “with a little ragamuffin in one hand, and a basket of flowers in the other,” and, as she finished, Grace showed her earnest, glowing face at the window. “Mamma! Mr. Elliott! please give me that loaf of bread from the table, and a bit of that nice cheese, too! (It was a country tea-table, reader.) This poor child has had nothing to eat since morning! Thank you! that will do. I can put them in the basket.” And, throwing the flowers hastily in upon a table that stood near, she placed in the basket the bread and cheese, and, giving them to the boy, bade him haste home to his mother, and tell her she would see her the next day.

After tea, Charles watched her as she bent over a beautiful vase, arranging in it the flowers she had brought, and he said, to himself, “She loves flowers better than books—I am glad of that. Any thing but a blue-stocking! I hope she hasn’t studied Botany.” “Have you studied Botany, Grace?” said he, approaching her. Grace stopped her ears with a playful shake of the head.

“Now don’t! You know how I hate hard words. You know I had to look out ‘Idiosyncrasy’ in the dictionary the other day, when you wouldn’t tell me its meaning, and now you are going to frighten me out of my love for these dear little rosebuds by telling me their order and class. Just as if I could enjoy them any the more by knowing that they were of the class Tetro—how is it?—Tetro-dy-namia, or the order Poly-gynia! oh! it positively hurts my mouth to say it. Only be quiet, and you shall have the sweetest I can find—there! isn’t that a darling?” And placing in his hand a half-blown rose, with one laughing glance at her mother and sister, she continued her graceful employment so demurely as to set them both laughing.

“I almost wish you could read German,” said Charles, as he turned over the pages of a volume of Schiller, “for then you could enjoy, with me, this glorious poem to the Ideal.”

“What a pity, now! isn’t it?” replied Grace, drooping her head and turning up her dark eyes to his, with an expression half plaintive, half comical, and altogether bewitching. “But read it, by all means, for I like the sound of the German.”

And Elliott read, half sighing, as he did so, that the lovely, but simple, little Grace could not share in his delight. As he came to the lines which have been translated as follows—

He looked up, involuntarily, and caught those dark, deep eyes bent full upon him, and filling fast with tears. She turned away in blushing embarrassment, and Charles began to think he must have a very expressive voice and face, since they alone could have so moved “the child,” as her mother called her.

CHAPTER III.

To Henry Curtis, Esq.

Roxbury, Monday Morning.

“She is mine! I have won her!” Congratulate me, my dear fellow! She has consented to be mine, and she is the veriest little ignoramus in the world! She hardly ever reads—she never uses hard words—she never punctuates her notes (that’s rather too bad though)—she talks delicious nonsense, with now and then a flash of real genius, which startles, but delights me—she is afraid of sensible people, (so she says, and yet, come to think of it, she never shows much awe of me; I must ask her what she means by that.) She is a capital housekeeper—she can sew like a professed sempstress, and sing like a St. Cecilia. If she only understood Italian, now! Her voice would make it more than music! She dances divinely, and, to crown the whole, she loves Charlie Elliott with all her heart and soul! But here she comes—and she insists upon reading my letter, too—she always will have her own way—I must break her of that. It seems to amuse her mightily, this letter! She is laughing and clapping her little hands, in a perfect ecstasy of delight. My aunt still insists, in her long epistles, upon my want of taste in preferring her to her accomplished, intellectual, talented sister—the genius, the learned lady, the blue-stocking—bah! Here she is again! If she could only understand Schiller! The witch! I must finish another time; she has made me forget all I was going to say.

Monday Evening.

Oh! Harry! how completely I have been misled, bewitched, deceived, duped, humbugged! She is a blue-stocking—the blue-stocking, after all! confound her!—bless her, I mean! Yes! “darkly, deeply, beautifully blue.” Good heavens! Harry, would you believe it? the little rogue can read Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, German—and, for all I know, Choctaw and Cherokee, too—as well as I can, almost!

This morning, after laughing, as I told you, at my letter, she suddenly grew very serious. The tears came into her beautiful, earnest eyes; she took my hand in both hers and said, “Charles, I have deceived you. I never realized till now how wrong it was. I did it only in sport, not dreaming that we should ever be so foolish as to fall in love with each other. But I cannot continue the deception. Come with me into the library.” I followed her, dreading I knew not what; but half expecting an introduction to some country clown, to whom she had been betrothed in childhood, and whom she was virtually and sublimely determined never to desert!

Had even this fear been realized, I could hardly have been more astounded than I was to see her take from the shelves a volume of Sophocles, and, opening to the Prometheus, read, with a faltering voice and blushing cheek, but with just and graceful emphasis, a portion of that glorious work! Perfectly transported with wonder and delight, I caught her in my arms and stopped her sweet mouth with kisses. “Should you like to read Schiller’s Ideal, again?” said she, when I released her, trying to look demure, but smiling in spite of herself. She took from the table, and handed to me, a MS. translation of the verses signed “Grace!” It was charming. I was dumb with astonishment.

“And now, will you have a French song, or shall we discuss a law question?—perhaps you would prefer hearing the Iliad in the original, or a page or two of Danté’s Inferno, or a bit of philosophy from Seneca—any thing you choose—I am quite at your service, sir.” And she dropped a low courtesy, with a grace so enchanting and a smile so exquisitely saucy, that I was more fascinated than ever.

Then she seated herself at a harp. “If you will be very good, and never call me a ‘blue-stocking’ again, I will sing you a Spanish song, of my own composition, Charles.”

And she warbled, with deep and serious feelings, a brief song, of which, as you do not understand the language, I will give you an English version:

At the close of the song, she approached the sofa, where I sat entranced with her beauty, her feeling, her genius, and, seating herself on a low stool, she laid her head on my knee, looked up in my face, and said, in a low and solemn tone, “Good-bye, Charles!”

“Grace! what do you mean?”

“I mean good-bye, Charles! You know, you ‘will never marry a blue-stocking.’ You ‘wouldn’t even know one, on any account.’ ‘Croaking voice—bold expression—dowdy dress—bah! What are you laughing at?’ ” Harry, did you tell her that?

“Grace—my angel, Grace! forgive me!”

“Forgive me, Charles, and I will try to forget all I know, just as fast as I can, and, in future, learn only——to love!” The darling!—her own dear heart taught her that long ago.

It seems, Harry, the little gipsy has had a passion for study from infancy, and, as her worthy mother did not choose she should neglect her other duties for it, she has been in the habit for years of rising an hour or two earlier than the rest of the family, in order to prosecute her favorite pursuits. She is almost entirely self-taught, and her mind is as original and brilliant as it is highly cultivated. No wonder my dear aunt wondered at my taste when I told her the genius of the family, which, of course, I set down poor Mary to be, was the last person I should choose for a wife. I know my letter has proved an unconscionably long one, but forgive me, and I wont write again these six months.

Yours, faithfully,

Charles Elliott.

CHAPTER IV.

A year had elapsed ere Elliott wrote again, as follows:—

Providence, July 18.

Harry, you know what I have lost, within a few months, by my blind confidence in others—“a moderate fortune, and that fortune’s friends!”—but you do not know what a treasure, beyond price, I have gained.

As soon as I had ascertained that my losses were irreparable, I went, with an aching heart, to Grace Melvyn, to take a last farewell. I might have written, but I could not leave her without one last look. She had not heard of my misfortunes, and I knew that if I betrayed to her the cause of my determination to dissolve our engagement, her generous nature would refuse compliance, and I could not bear the thought of her enduring the hardships and struggles of poverty on my account. I thought her pride, once roused, would support her in her disappointment I was wrong, Harry, cruelly wrong. By a candid statement of facts, I should have spared, both to her and myself, all the heart-rending anguish we have endured.

She flew to me, when I entered, with her accustomed welcoming caress—

“Charlie, dear Charlie! what is the matter? How stern and cold you look!—what have I done? Charles, speak to me, I implore you!”

“Grace, I have come to release you from your engagement, and to bid you—farewell.”

She looked at me for a moment, as if doubting the evidence of her senses, and then drew haughtily back, with a flushed cheek and flashing eye.

“Grace!”

“Sir!”

“Will you not say farewell?”

Save that the lip slightly quivered, she stood motionless as a statue—a glorious statue—with her proud young head thrown lightly back, and the dark, drooping lashes wet with tears. I took her hand—with averted face and a cold, calm voice, I bade her farewell and left her. As I passed from the room, she murmured almost inaudibly, “Farewell, Charles, may God forgive and bless you!”

The following lines, which I composed in order to calm, in a degree, my excited feelings, will show you how much I suffered in thus dissembling to her, whom I loved far more than life.

THE PARTING.

I left Roxbury immediately, and came, by my aunt’s invitation, to Providence. Here excitement of mind soon brought on a fever, which confined me to the house for several weeks. When I was convalescent, my friend D——, who had been constant in his inquiries and attentions during my illness, insisted upon driving me out to his country-seat, to pass a few days.

We arrived just at twilight. As it was a summer’s evening, the lamps had not been lighted, and it was difficult to distinguish the half dozen people to whom I was introduced in the drawing-room. Among them were my friend’s wife and sisters, and a fragile-looking girl, whose name I did not distinctly hear. This lady was entreated to sing, and was led, with apparent reluctance, to the piano-forte by Mrs. D——. The first notes of her rich but tremulous voice startled and affected me strangely. The song was that lovely one of Moore’s—“Thy Heart and Lute”—and her sweet tones were just trembling on the words—

when suddenly lights were brought in, and revealed to my eager gaze—the pale, inspired countenance of Grace Melvyn! Spiritualized by suffering, it was more divinely beautiful than ever.

I hastily approached the instrument—she gazed upon me with an expression of tenderness indescribably touching, and then playing a short and plaintive prelude, began another song. The words went to my heart. I was sure they were her own; and that she had learned the cause of my apparently cruel conduct was evident from their tenor. They were as follows—

I bent over her in deep emotion. Fortunately the family were at the other end of the room, and our backs were toward them. She went on playing unconsciously, almost blinded by her tears, while I poured forth my love, my gratitude, my sorrow, my remorse; but her feelings overpowered her; gradually the notes grew wilder—weaker—ceased; and she fell back into my arms insensible!

While my friends were employing the usual remedies, I informed them, in a few hurried words, of the truth; and the next morning, thanks to their consideration, had a long and uninterrupted interview with Grace, in which, convinced of my unaltered devotion, she generously insisted upon sharing and lightening my lot “through good and ill,” “for better and for worse.”

We have been married a month. I have commenced the practice of law in Providence, with a fair prospect of emolument, and my noble and true-hearted Grace is teaching music and the languages to a few young ladies, whose parents pay her a high price for her valuable instruction. After all, if I had taken a mere doll, instead of a learned lady, to wife, I should not have been as I am now, in a fair way to retrieve my shattered health and fortunes. Fill your glass, Harry, with pure Croton—pure as her spirit—and drink a bumper to the Blue-Stocking!

CHAPTER V.

To Miss Julia Richmond, Roxbury, Mass.

Providence, September 1st, 18—.

I promised you, dear Julia, that when I had been married two whole years, I would write and tell you if all those fond anticipations of happiness, which you were wicked enough to smile at, had been fully realized. Oh, Julia! my wildest and dearest dream could not equal the reality, “the sober certainty of waking bliss,” which I now experience. Let me describe my home to you. You remember that beautiful little brown cottage, on the hill, with green blinds, built in the Elizabethan style of architecture, and surrounded by forest trees, which we both admired so much when we saw it, three years ago. You remember how you laughed as I exclaimed—“Ah! ‘love in a cottage’ like that could not well help being charming!” Little did I then dream that the charming cottage, with the charming love in it, would one day be mine! But it is, indeed! It was a wedding-gift to me from Charlie’s generous aunt; and oh! it is so pleasant!

I am sitting in a little room—which Charlie calls “the Muse’s boudoir”—it is adorned and enriched with books, pictures, flowers, birds, bijouterie, most of them bridal presents from my friends. The sun shines softly in through the muslin curtains. My baby, my darling Louise—I have named her for mother—it is a pretty name, isn’t it? Louise Elliott, she is playing with the sunbeams on the richly colored carpet. Julia, I have no words to tell you how charming, how lovely she is!—“the softened image of her noble sire,” with a slight dash of the mother’s saucy expression about the mouth and eyes, and rather more than a dash of her vivacity in manner. Charlie worships her, and well he may! plump, and white, and soft—as—swan’s down, gay and graceful as a kitten, with a rosy, cherub mouth, and eyes divinely blue, dark-brown, glossy hair, curling naturally; it is gold now in the sun. Oh, Julia! let me stop one minute just to kiss the precious creature and tell her how much I love her, for the hundredth time this morning!—There! I have turned my back upon the pet, for I cannot write when she is before me; and now let me answer your questions of “How I pass my time,” etc.

If I say that the description of one day will serve for the rest, you will call our life monotonous, and it is, in a degree; but, oh! such a soothing, pleasant, musical monotony, that it lulls my heart and does not weary it. Well, then, we will take yesterday. I rose at five, and after taking my cold bath, which you know I deem indispensable to health and comfort, I dressed myself and the baby, and at six gave her an airing in her little carriage, composing on the way a sonnet to her eyelid, beginning with,

Returned, resigned her to the maid, and mended stockings till half past seven—the breakfast hour. After breakfast, superintended household matters till nine; from nine till twelve, received and attended to my pupils; from twelve till two, busied myself in the kitchen and the nursery with my pets, flowers, birds and baby, then dressed for dinner and seated myself at the window with a book, to watch for Charlie’s return; flew to the gate to meet him; entertained him at dinner with a rapturous account of all the pretty and winning things Louisa had said and done; after dinner read him my sonnet, sang to him, and then accompanied him to and left him at his office; made a few visits to poor and rich; called again for Charlie, and took a long, delicious sunset walk with him to Slate Rock, where Roger Williams landed, you know; returned, undressed the baby, washed her, and sang her to sleep; Charlie meanwhile enjoying the operation with all his heart and eyes.

Should you like to hear one of my impromptu nursery songs? The one I sang last night Charlie calls a free translation from the Greek of Euripides! Isn’t he saucy? Thus it runs—

here Miss Louise invariably interrupts me with “kiss, mamma!” which she lisps out exultingly, proud of having learned the words from only once hearing me sing them. The evening is employed in reading, music, sewing, or visiting.

Are you weary of Louise and her mamma? Well, I have only one thing more to say, and that is, that Charlie is the best, the noblest, the kindest, the dearest, the handsomest husband that ever lived—except yours that is to be—and the harshest word he ever says to his wilful little wife, be she ever so wild and naughty, is—“Blue-stocking!”

BY C. P. CRANCH.

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT.

NO. IV.—MARION’S FEAST.

BY F. E. F., AUTHOR OF “A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE.”

In the spring of the year 18— I returned to my father’s house, after an absence of two years at a fashionable boarding school in New York, where I had been sent to receive the last polish in what I may fairly say I had never been taught the first elements, viz: the accomplishments. Let that pass, however. It was not likely that in the little village of S——, where my father resided, my French would be put to the test; and as to my music, a naturally good voice, with plenty of pretension on my part, and ignorance on that of my listeners, stood me in the place of science. And so I returned home, at the age of sixteen, full of health, high spirits and high notions. I was the eldest of seven children, five of them daughters; the pride of my father, the belle and bel esprit of the family, to whom, unfortunately for me, the rest looked up as to one superior, who was to do great things and make a great figure in the world, in which persuasion I fully participated. And when, at this distance of time, I look back upon myself, as upon a third person, I own I am surprised at the sway I was allowed with so few positive claims to superiority. I was showy, and passed for handsomer than I actually was; without wit or information, I had vivacity and pretension, and was pronounced a bel esprit. I was ambitious, had a great opinion of myself, and was determined to be a belle; and the wish is often parent to the power; at least it was so in my case, for I took immediately that stand in our small society, which was not only permitted, but fostered at home, and it succeeded. I was beyond all dispute the star of our little circle. I was called beautiful, talented, accomplished. My languages were taken upon trust, and my music really pleased. Nature had given me a good voice, and when I flourished off a bravura, in a style which even now I blush to think of, I was listened to in reverent ignorance; or if an English melody, as I pronounced distinctly, and sang with some spirit, was rapturously applauded.

How many a time have I been told by my admirers that they would rather hear my “Home, sweet home,” or “Red, red rose,” than a whole Italian Opera. Good souls! they had about as much idea of an Italian Opera as of the Arabic or the Chinese languages. No matter; they meant it as a compliment, and I, though not quite as ignorant as my audience, was fool enough to be flattered.

My father was not rich; but he had a tolerable income, and a social, hospitable disposition induced him to receive as much company as his means permitted; consequently a gay and pleasant circle was always to be met with at our house, of which of course I was the queen bee. And soon I began to have some particular suitors amid the throng of general admirers. The first was a plain widower of about forty, well to do in the world, who wanted to transplant some portion of the gayety of our house to his own cheerless abode. But I hardly deigned the man a civil refusal. I had too often heard my father say “his Charlotte was fit to grace a court,” not to look with disdain upon a plain country gentleman, and visions of ambassadors, members of the cabinet or congress at least, floated in my brain. Where I was to meet with these grandees, or how I was qualified to fill such high stations, were questions I never troubled myself about. Mr. Loyd’s addresses however, though deemed by my family much beneath my deserts, flattered their pride and seemed an earnest of the brilliant future which they all anticipated for me so sanguinely.

In one respect I think I differed from the common run of girls—I was neither a coquette nor romantic. I was fond of general attentions, but I never purposely misled an admirer; and to dreams of romantic love I never was given. I meant to marry; but ambition was my ruling passion. The “pride and power of place” dazzled my young imagination.

I had several suitors the first three years after my return home; but none that came at all up to my mark, and one alone that at all interested my feelings. Charles Connover I might have loved, had I permitted myself to have a heart. He was full of the brilliancy of talent, youth and hope; but, alas! he was only a poor young lawyer; and, although I sighed, I refused him positively, and very glad was my father to see him walk out of his house with the half angry, half despondent air with which he made his exit.

I was now twenty-two, and already weary of the small society that I knew by heart, I began to long for a more expanded sphere of action. My vanity, too, received at this time a slight check in the engagement of my second sister. Not that I envied her her happiness, nor would for a moment have thought of the man she had accepted. But I was astonished to find another preferred where I had always considered myself pre-eminent. And Mary, though a gentle and pretty girl, I had never deemed my equal. But it was not that that wounded my vanity so much as the importance that she acquired at once in the family, particularly too with my father, with whom till then I had always been supreme.

Time passed on, and I had attained my twenty-fifth year, and still my “lord out of Spain” had not made his appearance, and my brothers began to look on me as an old maid, and my father’s anxiety on the subject was becoming as painful to him as mortifying to me, when, happily as I thought, I was invited to pay a visit to New York. What rapture filled my bosom! With what visions teemed my mind! “Now,” I thought, “my destiny is about to be fulfilled.” The family with which I was to stay were among the moat fashionable of that gay city, and I was at last to make my entrée into that charmed circle of which I had so often dreamed.

I arrived and was received with the kindest hospitality by the Smithes; soon put at my ease, and introduced to their gay friends. I was still a fine looking girl, and I received attention enough to flatter my vanity, and enable me to write home glowing accounts of my belleism. The second week of my visit I was invited to a small party of the very élite, and, it being generally understood that I was musical, I was urged to sing. With gracefully affected diffidence, but perfect inward confidence, I consented. I sat down to the instrument, and flourished my pretty little hands in a style that must have excited the smiles of the more regularly taught, and dashed at once into one of my favorite bravuras. As I rose from the piano I received the thanks of my hostess, without a suspicion of the exposé I had made, until Miss V. succeeded me at the instrument. And never shall I forget the clear melody of that full voice, the simple but perfect execution of the style, the exquisite brilliancy of the accompaniment. Never shall I forget my shame, my anguish; for then, for the first time, I was sensible of the wretchedness, the ridicule of my music, and consequently of what I then felt to be the enormity I had perpetrated. Earth can inflict few sharper pangs or severer mortifications than I experienced that night. It had one good effect, however. I determined to keep all my music for the good people of S—— alone. And though, at the moment, I would have been glad if the ground could have opened and swallowed me, I so far mastered my agitation as to join in the plaudits that rained round the fair performer.

A few weeks of pleasure, and my visit was drawing to a close; not, however, without exciting in one bosom at least more than passing admiration. Mr. Lewis, a wealthy and respectable merchant, followed me to S——, and made his proposals in form. My father warmly seconded his addresses, which deeply mortified me, as I felt that the time had been when he would have looked upon them as almost as much beneath my merits as I myself. However, I was not to be reasoned, or reproached, or flattered into accepting Mr. Lewis, and he returned to New York disappointed and surprised.

Charles Connover, who had really loved me with all the fervor of a first passion, finding that I had rejected a man of Mr. Lewis’ fortune, took courage and again addressed me. If time had taken from my claims, it had added considerably to Charles’; and this circumstance, which materially changed my father’s views on the subject, was perhaps one of the strongest inducements to my pride to persist in a refusal of the only man in whom I ever felt the least interest, or whom I believed to be truly attached to me. But what once would have been deemed romance would now be thought necessity; and I could imagine my cousin Augusta Willouby saying, “So, Charlotte Burns has taken up with Charles Connover at last. Poor thing, it was her last chance I fancy, and a belle upon the wane, etc.,” and I would rather have died than have given Augusta Willouby an opportunity of triumphing over me. Augusta, it must be known, was my rival cousin, who, when a girl, had hated me with all a girl’s spite; while I, Heaven only knows why, disdained her as unworthy even of being a rival. She was very pretty, though possessing, I think, an inferior mind of common tone. At any rate she was not too proud to be happy in a common way, but married a respectable and wealthy young man, whom I contemned, while the rest of the village looked upon him as a great match for her. I have said that I had merely despised Augusta; but now my feelings toward her were taking a more angry and bitter tone, as I found that, surrounded by all the consequence of a handsome establishment and carriage, she was beginning to look upon me as an old forlornity. And what stung me to the quick was that I saw it was not an affected scorn, but the genuine feeling of contempt which married women (no matter who or what their husbands) indulge themselves in toward their unmarried cotemporaries. How I longed to tell her that her establishment would have been to me no compensation for her husband; that I had refused better matches than him. I could, however, but look my disgust, and Augusta was too purse-proud and too happy to divine my looks.

The years of my youth had fled. I found myself looking upon the young people who now formed society as “boys and girls,” and too old for a young lady and too proud for an old one, I began to retire from a place where I was evidently looked upon as an intruder, when again another vista opened upon me, more brilliant than the former. I was invited to pass a winter in Washington with our member’s family. “Ah! in Washington,” thought I, “I am destined to close my career brilliantly; and so confound and dazzle friends and enemies. And then Augusta shall find which of us two is the ‘old forlornity.’ ”

I went and joined fully in the dissipation of that oddly compounded society. With such crowds of men, and clever men, too, any woman that is tolerably passable is sure to receive attention, and I still retained enough of my old self to be a belle with the western members. But my taste had not become less fastidious, nor my standard less high, with my waning beauty—my feelings were yet fresh, though my complexion was not. I found the really great men of whom I had heard all my life, most of them old gentlemen with large families, and occupied by their duties. And if by chance there was a widower among them, that was neither bald nor gouty, alas! he was pouring forth his eloquence and heart to a pretty trifler of eighteen. One member of Congress, however, of talents, station and fortune, who resided in the back part of one of our states, was captivated by my old fashioned graces, and old times wit. My friends heard of it at home. They thought the unlooked-for fulfillment of bygone hopes about to be accomplished. “What could I desire more? talents, station, fortune.” Alas! they did not see the man. He was one to talk of but not to. I need not dwell upon his tobacco and accompaniments, the remnants of early habits, etc., etc. In short, he was an old man, and not an old gentleman, and I could not go it. And, to the violent indignation of my friends, I refused him, to return home as I came.

The first time I went to an evening party, on my return home, Charles Connover introduced me to his pretty, youthful bride. I saw she eyed me curiously, but with a look of mirth I could not account for, as Charles had evidently made his former attachment no secret to her. He greeted me with the cordial, warm interest a man always feels for his first love, and, joyous in his new wed happiness, he talked to me long and animatedly. As he turned afterward, and spoke laughingly to his pretty little wife, I heard her mirthful girlish voice answer, “Oh no fear of my being jealous of her. Such a droll, odd looking old affair—no, no; you must flirt with something younger and prettier if you want to make me jealous. Why, Charles, you told me she was handsome. I can hardly keep my countenance as I look at her.” I had heard enough, and hastily changed my place. Let my readers imagine my sensations if they can.

Long since, my brothers and sisters have married; and, on my father’s death, the family dispersed; and I am living at lodgings, a solitary old maid, happy in having the means so to live; not to be forced to reside with a brother or sister, and expected to take equal interest, and more than equal labor, for my nieces and nephews. As it is, they look upon me as “poor old Aunt Charlotte;” but at least I am not obliged to darn their stockings and sew on their buttons and strings.

And now, reader, you may ask if I repent? I confess myself punished, but does that necessarily comprehend reformation of spirit? When I see T., whom in the plenitude of my arrogant gayety and commonplace wit, I used to call “Tommy duck legs,” do I repent? No! I only see “two Tommies rolled into one.” And so I might go on through the whole list of rejected addressee. The faults I saw then I now see doubled and tripled by Time, and my vision has grown clearer to deficiencies than ever. I now begin to wonder that I ever could have found enough in their admiration to compensate for their prosy ways and weary conversation. Charles Connover stands the test of time better than any of them; but even Charles Connover is growing somewhat of the “earth earthy;” and his eagle eye and brilliant smile have become considerably duller under the combined influence of wealth, good living and years.

No, they may, one and all, look upon me with horror; I suppose they do; though, to confess all my weaknesses, I still catch myself, as I sit knitting, building castles in the air, and peopling them with ambassadors, etc., etc., as of yore. Yet never do I feel that in the main I would not do over what I have done. That Augusta Willouby’s taunt of “Charlotte’s being on the wane” would have its same old influence: and so I must end by confessing that I am punished, but not corrected.

BY GEORGE W. BETHUNE, D.D.

BY G. G. FOSTER.

The Park Fountain of City Hall

BY HARRY DANFORTH, AUTHOR OF “CRUISING IN THE LAST WAR.”

It was a calm and moonless night; but the stars were out on high, shining with a brilliancy only seen in the tropics. The brig lay almost motionless, her sails hanging loosely from the yards, and her bow slowly lifting with the almost imperceptible heave of the lone, regular swell. There was not a sound to disturb the silence, except the wash of an occasional ripple against her side, or the impatient whistle of a seaman. On every side the ocean stretched away until lost in the dim obscurity of the horizon; and the blue concave was unbroken by clouds, except toward the west, where a bank of vapor hung on the seaboard, like a thin veil of gauze; but a spicy odor impregnating the air told the practiced seaman that what seemed only a cloud was in reality land. The beauty and stillness of the scene were beyond description, and even the rudest of the crew, as they leaned idly over the brig’s side, seemed to feel the dreamy influence of the hour.

There were but three passengers beside myself, a father and his daughters, two of the most beautiful girls I ever saw. One had dark eyes and hair, with a most queenly presence. She was the elder sister; but the other was my favorite. Rarely does nature gift a human being with such transcendant loveliness as that enjoyed by Ellen Benson. Her eyes were of a deep blue, humid, melting and heavenly. Her hair was of that rare golden color of which the poets speak, and each wavy tress glistened with every motion in the sun. Her voice was like running water, clear, silvery and liquid, or like a flute at night heard across a quiet lake. Her form was so light and aerial that it seemed to float along, as if it were that of a goddess, and the movements of her limbs kept time like sisters dancing. Though I had known her scarcely a week, she had already twined herself around my heart, for there was an artless frankness and reliance about her which might have won on one far less imaginative and susceptible than myself.

The day had been excessively sultry, so that when night came on and the air grew cooler, we gathered on the quarter-deck with reviving spirits, and spent a gay and happy evening. Long will those few hours remain stamped on my memory, for, in the course of an eventful life, I have spent few so pleasantly. Ellen had been singing to us, and the soft notes of her voice yet lingered in our thoughts, producing that holy silence which always follows a plaintive song well sung, when suddenly a cry broke from the lips of the performer. It was a cry of alarm, so startling and wild that I turned hastily toward her. Her face was paler than that of death—her lips were parted in terror—her eyes stared fearfully at some object in the distance; and her finger, which pointed in the direction of her look, quivered like an aspen. Instinctively I followed her eye. The cause of her agitation was apparent. Far up to windward, and scarcely discernible amid the thin haze which hung in that direction, appeared a long, heavy oared boat; and, though the distance and the fog bank rendered it nearly undistinguishable, enough could be seen to make us certain that it was crowded with men and pulling directly for us. The size of the boat, its dense crew, and the reputation of the seas we were in, left no doubt as to its character. It was a pirate.

In an instant the alarm became general. A dozen eyes, at the same moment, discerned the outlaws. The sisters had heard so much of pirates that they knew immediately the character of the boat. The elder uttered a faint shriek and clung closer to her father’s arm; while Ellen, after gazing in horror a moment longer on the barge, turned shudderingly away and buried her face in her parent’s bosom. Never shall I forget the look of agony that shot over the sire’s countenance. A dark frown gathered on the skipper’s face, but to this speedily succeeded an expression of deep anxiety. He looked eagerly around the horizon, then up to the sails, then around the horizon again, and called for a lighted candle. By this time every eye was fixed on him. The crew gathered within a short distance of the quarter-deck, anxiously awaiting his orders; while the father and his daughters stood forming a group by themselves, the parent with one arm wound around either child, each of whom convulsively clung to him, while all gazed wistfully into the skipper’s face, as if on his looks hung life or death. He was now calm and collected. He held the candle aloft, and though, for some minutes, it streamed perpendicularly upward, at last it slightly inclined and finally flared almost horizontally outward from the wick. Simultaneously I felt on my cheek a nearly imperceptible puff of air. But our sanguine feelings were of short duration. Again the candle burned up steadily, and as minute after minute passed, during which, though we watched the light anxiously, no perceptible effect was produced on it, our hearts sunk within us.

There is no feeling so agonizing as suspense. As I watched the candle, my anxiety gradually became so intense that I could hear the beating of my heart increasing nervously in rapidity and strength until it smote on my ear like the strokes of a force pump. Soon, too, other sounds reached me—they were those of the quick rollicking of oars at a distance. I started, and, seizing a night-glass, gazed at the approaching barge, determined to know the worst at once. Good God! I counted no less than thirty ruffianly negroes. Our own force, all told, did not amount to ten. Sick at soul, I shut the glass and turned to the skipper. We exchanged a look of mutual intelligence, and then again he fixed his eye on the candle. I fancied that it flared slightly. Wetting my hand I held it up and felt, yes! I felt the water evaporating on the palm. I turned to the light. It now bent steadily over. Half a minute passed, during which my heart beat faster and faster with anxiety, and I trembled nervously lest the flame should again resume the perpendicular, but it gradually inclined nearer to the horizon, and finally streamed out nearly at right angles to the wick, in which position it continued a moment, when it suddenly went out. At the same instant I heard a light murmur in the rigging, while a steady though light breeze poured gently by my cheek.

“Thank Heaven! here it comes at last,” said the skipper in a cheering tone: then, lifting his voice, he cried with startling energy, “All hands make sail—lay aloft!—out to’gallant sails and royals. Away there—cheerily my lads. It is for life or death.”

The men sprung to their duty; the sails were quickly distended, and the glad sound of the water rippling under our bows soon met our ears, telling us that we were in motion. With a sudden feeling of exhilaration I turned astern, and it seemed as if we had already increased our distance from the foe. Unconsciously I uttered an exclamation of joy. At this instant I heard a deep respiration at my side. The sound proceeded from Ellen, who, attracted by my words, had read hope in my face, and thus given utterance to her relief.

“Do you think we shall escape?” she said eagerly.

“I hope so—indeed I am nearly sure we shall,” I added quickly, observing the sudden expression of agony on her face at my first doubtful words, “if the wind continues to freshen we shall in an hour run them out of sight.”

She clasped her hands and turned her eyes to heaven with a look of mingled hope and gratitude indescribable. That look gave me courage to face a dozen foes. I mentally resolved to lay down my life sooner than suffer her to fall into the hands of the pirates.

The next fifteen minutes were passed in a state of the most agonizing suspense. At first, she fancied that the pirates were dropping astern, and a general feeling of relief passed through the ship, perceptible in the altered and gayer demeanor of the men, but particularly of the passengers. But, when I had watched the barge for several minutes, my heart misgave me, and at most I could only hope that the buccaneers did not gain on us. Anxious to conceal my fears from the sisters—for they studied my face continually, as if it were an index to our peril—I assumed a cheerfulness I did not feel, and endeavored to divert their minds from the contemplation of their dangerous situation. But my efforts were in vain. In spite of my attempts to appear composed, there was an increasing nervousness about me which reawakened the fears of the sisters, and when Ellen caught a stolen glance, which I directed anxiously from the horizon to our sails, she laid her hand on my arm, and said,

“Do not deceive us. They—the—” she could not utter the word, and said, abruptly, “they are gaining on us!”

She looked up into my face so pleadingly that, for my life, I could not tell her a falsehood. Yet I hesitated to acknowledge the truth. My silence convinced her that her suspicion had not been false. She looked up to heaven again mutely, clasping her hands; but this time her expression was one of agony and supplication. How my heart bled for her!

I strove to encourage her with hope, and, for the few succeeding minutes, there seemed a faint chance of yet escaping from the pirates. The wind coming fitfully and in puffs, forged us ahead one moment, and then, almost dying out, left us comparatively motionless. Sometimes we would gain half a cable’s length on our pursuers, but, just as the sisters’ eyes began to sparkle with hope, the breeze would decline, and the dark forms on board the barge again perceptibly grow larger. But, during the whole time, we could hear the quick rollicking of their oars, the sounds becoming fainter as the boat dropped astern, but increasing as the pirates gained on us. These fluctuations from hope to despair grew momently more frequent and terrible. Never before in real life had I experienced so fully the horrors of suspense. I remember once, when a boy, dreaming that an enemy pursued me with a drawn sword, and never shall I forget my emotions as I looked back and beheld him, now at some paces behind, and now within a step or two of me. But that had been only a feverish dream—now I felt the horrible reality. Yet, it was not for myself that I cared. Had those lovely sisters been safe at home, I could have met these ruffians, as I had often, in earlier life, met other enemies at as great odds.

At last the breeze died out, or only blew so lightly that it afforded us no hope. For the first time since they had come in sight, the pirates now uttered a wild yell, or rather a howl like that of famished wolves at sight of their prey, and, springing to their oars with increased energy, sent their boat along at a fearful pace, rolling the foam in cataracts under her bows. Ellen gave vent to a stifled shriek, and buried her face on her father’s bosom. The other sister’s lips parted in mortal terror, and her eyes were fixed on the barge, as if fascinated by some strange spell. Words cannot describe the agony expressed in the parent’s look, or in the wild embrace with which he drew his children to his bosom.

The skipper glanced at the now rapidly approaching boat, and, coming close to me, said, in a hoarse voice,

“In ten minutes all will be over. Good God!” and he looked earnestly toward the sisters, “to think of those lovely girls in the hands of brutal violators.”

“It shall never be,” I said. “Arm the men, and let us make a desperate defence. We may beat them off.”

He shook his head mournfully; and I knew when he surrendered hope that the case was indeed desperate.

“We will arm, certainly, and do our best.” Again he glanced at the sisters, and something seemed on his mind. After a pause of a second, he said,

“But, if we fail, shall we suffer these angels to fall into the hands of the ruffians?”

“Better death than dishonor,” I responded, understanding his meaning. No other word was said, but we pressed each other’s hands convulsively. Then he turned away and ordered the arm chest to be opened. His whole demeanor was changed. His voice was calm and energetic, his countenance glowed with high resolution, his form was erect, and his deportment calculated to inspire the crew, as far as the confidence of a leader can inspire his followers, in so desperate a situation as ours. Weapons were soon distributed to the men, and a short address made by the skipper. He did not pretend to conceal our danger; he told them they had no alternative but to conquer or die. No allusion was made to the females, but a single glance of his eye toward them was understood, and each man grasped his cutlass tighter as he comprehended the silent appeal. When the voice of the skipper ceased, there was a hush for a second. The first sound that broke the quiet was the rollicking of the pirates’ oars, striking with fearful distinctness on our ears, and telling, by its increased loudness, how the foe had gained on us during the harangue. The measured sound was like the ticking of the clock that counts the criminal’s last hour.

I have said that, when the pirates first appeared, they were scarcely distinguishable, on account of the distance and the fog bank from which they emerged. This bank of vapor had, at that time, seemed scarcely more dense than a thin veil of gauze, or the semi-transparent clouds which the spectator on a mountain side sees streaming upward from a river at sunrise. Gradually, however, this pile of vapor had been creeping down toward us, lying flat on the water like a heap of snowy fleeces, and advancing with an almost imperceptible, but not less certain motion, until, at last, the fog enveloped us on every hand, growing momently denser and more opaque, and moving in a rapid whirl, like smoke when a hand is turned rapidly in it. By this time, the mist had grown so thick that, up to the west, it shut out the horizon from sight, veiling sea and sky alike in a thick, impenetrable shroud, though, as the fog extended only for a few degrees above the seaboard, the stars were still visible higher up toward the zenith. Nearer us the vapor was less dense. Objects were still visible for some distance across the water, and, though the mist had enveloped the pirates, they were only rendered shadowy, and not concealed, by its folds. Besides, they were advancing toward us at a speed that almost rivaled the velocity of the vapor.

“I think I can pick off one of those ruffians,” said I to the skipper. “We may disable three or four before they reach us, and every life will increase our chances. We have four muskets on board. I think you are a good shot?”

“Ay!” said my friend. “I will take care of one, if you will hit the other fair. Let us take the two leading oarsmen. What we do had best be done at a distance, for, the instant they touch us, we shall have them pouring in, on our low decks, like a cross wave over the knight heads. Are you ready?”

“Ready!” was my response. There was a death-like pause for a single breath, when we fired.

I had taken deliberate aim, and, simultaneously with the flash of my piece, I saw the bow oarsman fall over. Quick as thought, the skipper followed my example and pulled trigger. The second ruffian leaped up, with a yell, and tumbled across the seat. Both oars caught in the water, and were snapped off at the thwart. For an instant, the negroes seemed paralysed, and then a cry of savage ferocity burst from them, while the oars, which had suddenly stopped, were again seen flashing in the water, and with increased velocity.

The skipper had turned to me, with an exulting smile, but had not spoken, as he saw the two men fall, and now, seizing his second piece, he said, sternly,

“Again!”

We fired so nearly at the same instant, that there was but one crack of our pieces, but our success was not so decided as before. One of the men we aimed at appeared wholly to have escaped, but the other, from a quick start and cry, we judged to be wounded. Both oarsmen kept their places at the oars, and our failure was received by the pirates with a sharp yell of exultation. So near had the ruffians now approached that we could make out the Spanish tongue as that in which they conversed, while the surging of the water under the bows of their barge was plainly distinguishable to the ear.

“Would Heaven we had a carronade here!” I exclaimed. “We might rake them with grape, and, perhaps, sink their boat.”

“Ay!” answered the skipper. “But we must do our best with what we have. The muskets are ready again, and now for a last shot.”

The boat was now within pistol shot, for a delay had occurred while our muskets were being reloaded. We saw that our all depended on this single discharge.

“Take off that colossal fellow with the red sash,” hoarsely whispered the skipper, “I will aim at the helmsman. One of the two must be the leader.”

I comprehended at once the reasoning of the skipper. If the pirates could be deprived of their head, they would board us, perhaps, in a state of irresolution, consequent on the want of an acknowledged leader to whom to look. The same idea had already occurred to me, and I had, after scanning the desperadoes, concluded also that the two persons named by the skipper were the most prominent of our foes. I nodded an assent. The seconds that elapsed were, to me, the most intensely absorbing that I ever spent. I felt the mighty stake which hung on the accuracy of my aim. Some men grow nervous under such circumstances; but my eye was never keener, nor my hand more firm than at that moment. One might have counted three while I paused; then my piece blazed, and my man sprung forward and fell, struggling convulsively. The skipper fired simultaneously, and the helmsman tumbled headlong forward, falling on the man I had shot. Instantaneously there was a howl of lamentation from the negroes; the rowers stopped, several rushed aft, and all was confusion. The boat shot forward until almost abreast of us, and then lay motionless on the water.

But the hesitation of the pirates was of short duration. We had scarcely begun to congratulate ourselves on our success, when the cries of grief on the part of the negroes became exchanged for shouts of rage, and, repairing again to their oars, the pirates rapidly brought the head of the boat around, and dashed up toward us. Their leader had evidently fallen, but this only inflamed them with the desire for revenge. We had barely time to note the horrible expression of their faces, glaring with revenge and the most savage passions; we had barely time to level the remaining muskets hastily at them and fire, though with what effect the confusion would scarcely allow us to perceive, when the bow of the barge grated against our sides, and immediately a boathook was fixed into the low bulwarks. One of the crew, with a blow of an axe, cut the implement in two, but, as he did so, a huge negro, whom we had noticed pointing at us, with violent gestures, after his leader’s fall, started up, and, discharging a pistol, sprung, like a tiger, on deck, where the desperado stood, a brawny and gigantic opponent, keeping a charmed circle around him with his cutlass. Instantaneously, like a swarm of bees, the buccaneers clustered on the side of the vessel, and, despite our desperate resistance, eventually gained a footing, crowding around their leader, with ferocious and brutal looks, brandishing their weapons, and seeming to thirst for blood, yet to be afraid to move until he began the onset.

We had, after we found our efforts unavailing to prevent the ruffians from boarding, retreated to the quarter-deck, where we prepared to make our stand. To reach us, the assailants would have to pass the narrow passages on each side of the companion way, and these had been partially blocked up, with such efficiency as time would admit, by the water casks that usually stood on the quarter-deck. Our whole force was drawn up within this little fortification.

The piratical leader, whose sudden authority appeared to result from that power which great strength and daring give a man in moments of peril, saw our hasty preparations, and the pause we have recorded was spent in scanning our position. Thus both parties remained, for a few seconds, inactive, eyeing each other, however, keenly, as men are apt to do when about to engage in mortal conflict. On the part of the assailants, this scrutiny was carried on with feelings akin to those with which a tiger gloats over the prey he knows cannot escape him; our emotions were those of men doomed to death, and, aware of their fate, but resolved to sell their lives as dearly as possible. On one side was fiendish exultation, on the other manly despair.

“Have at them!” shouted the ruffian in Spanish, after this breathless pause had continued for nearly a minute, “revenge! revenge!”

As he spoke, he waved his cutlass and turned to his men, who, answering with a shout or rather a yell, dashed forward.

“Stand fast, my hearts,” said the skipper, confronting the foe at the pass on the right of the companion way, while I took the opposite pass on the left, “you strike for life or death.”

Of the succeeding minutes I have no distinct recollection. There was a wild clashing of cutlasses, mingled with the reports of pistols and the shouts of angry combatants, while occasionally a shrill cry of agony, from some one desperately wounded, rose over the uproar. Our stock of fire-arms was scanty, so that we had little with which to oppose the foe except cutlasses, while most of the desperadoes were armed with pistols. But our men were nerved with the energy of despair, and our defences, slight as they were, considerably retarded the approach of the foe. In vain the piratical leader, urging on his ruffians by his example, struggled to penetrate into our little circle; the skipper, bravely confronting him and sustained by four sturdy old men-of-war’s men, hurled him back on his followers as often as he endeavored to clamber over our defences. So fierce was the contest in this quarter that the cutlasses, crossing each other in strife, formed a bridge over the two leaders, while the blades flashed so rapidly and incessantly as to conceal the real state of the conflict. The few hasty glances which I was able to cast toward my comrades revealed nothing except a wild confusion, from which I could extract only the fact that the skipper, though wounded, desperately maintained his ground. And my attention was soon wholly occupied by my own immediate opponents, for a party of the ruffians, seeing the determined opposition made to their leader, made a diversion in his favor, and the fight on my side of the companion way grew as fierce as that maintained by the two leaders. Standing at the opening between the water casks, and sustained on either side by two of the crew, we beat down successively every man who attempted to pass our defences. In this desperate struggle we were all speedily wounded, but I still continued cheering my men, for the thought of our innocent companions nerved me to the utmost. Again and again our defences were nearly surmounted; again and again, with gigantic efforts, we hurled back the assailants. Three several times was I wounded, one of my little party was shot dead, and all of us were streaming with blood, yet still we maintained the unequal combat. For the rest of the fight all was confusion. Shouts and oaths, the rattle of blades, the crack of pistols, the dull, heavy sound of men falling to the deck; the groans of the wounded and the despairing shrieks of the dying met the ear, mingled in a wild uproar, like the noises in a fevered dream. During this mêlée I was conscious only that the gray-haired father of Ellen, taking the place of a seaman who had fallen, was fighting at my side, his silvery locks dabbled with blood from a cut in his head; and the spectacle roused all the energy within me. But I felt that our resistance could not much longer be protracted. We had suffered quite as severely as the pirates—for every man they lost there were three to take his place; while it had required, even at first, the whole of our little force to defend our barricade, and our thinned numbers could now scarcely maintain their footing, and with the loss of one or two more would be totally inadequate to it. We had just, for the fourth time, beaten back our assailants, and a momentary breathing space ensued, the first since the pause I have narrated at the opening of the combat. A fifth attempt, I feared, would be successful. As I thought thus, I cast my eyes hastily around to the sisters, who sat, or rather cowered, under the shelter of the companion way. The eyes of the younger were fixed mutely, in tearful agony, on her bleeding sire, but the elder had her gaze fixed to windward, as if earnestly contemplating some object. With sudden hope, I followed the direction of her look.

I have said that the wind had died away before the pirates boarded us, and, since then, every faculty had been so absorbed in the terrible conflict for existence, that I had not been aware of the gradual revival of the breeze. Now, however, when the din of battle momentarily ceased, my ears were greeted with the sighing of the wind among the rigging, and the pleasant murmur of the water as it was parted under our bows, and glided along the sides—gentle and soothing sounds after the maddening uproar of the mortal strife. I became conscious also, the instant my eyes turned to windward, that the fog, which I have described as settling around us, was slowly dissipating, and, although it still lay thick and palpable along the surface of the water, higher up it thinned off, and finally disappeared altogether. The object which had attracted the elder sister’s attention, was the tall mast of a ship, rising majestically above the fog, not a cable’s length distant, and, though the hull was invisible, I saw, with what delight my readers can imagine, that the Union-Jack of my beloved country was floating from the mast head.

“Huzza!” I cried, exhilarated beyond control, “huzza! The day’s our own. Succor is at hand. Here comes our gallant flag.”

Had a thunderbolt fallen at their feet and torn up the deck beneath them—had a whirlpool opened under the brig and engulfed them, the pirates could not have shown more consternation than at these words. Every man looked round in search of the new comer, and, when the stranger was discovered to windward, no pen can describe the expression of amazement and affright which gathered on the faces of the negroes. If the approaching sail had been a basilisk it could not have riveted their gaze more completely. They stood staring at the tall masts, that rose majestically above the fog, their eyes distending with an astonishment that seemed to have paralysed them. At last, as the ship bore down on us, the mists rolled slowly aside from her; first her bowsprit shoved itself slowly out of the fog, then the white vapor curled along her side, and her forechains became visible, as she approached on the starboard tack; and, finally, like a magic picture emerging from the smoke of an enchanter’s tripod, the whole symmetrical hull rose to sight, disclosing a row of teeth, frowning from their open and lighted ports. At this sight, the negroes no longer wavered. A cry of affright broke simultaneously from them, and, regardless of their leader, who strove to inspirit them, they turned to flight, hurrying to their boat, into which they tumbled, pell mell, and pushed off, leaving behind, in their consternation, a third of their number, who were yet on our decks. Availing ourselves of this happy juncture, we sallied from our defence, and, cutting down those who resisted, chased the rest overboard.

The sloop of war was now close on to us, and, in a few hurried words, we acquainted her commander with our situation, and the character of the fugitives, whose boat was rapidly pulling into the fog. Not a second was lost in the pursuit. The sloop glided majestically by, and, just as she passed across our forefoot, a stream of fire gushed from one of her guns. Instantaneously I saw the splinters flying from the boat, which sunk almost immediately, leaving her crew struggling and shrieking in the water. We could see, even at our distance, the wounded wretches fighting for a plank, or squattering a moment on the water, like wounded ducks, ere they sank forever. In a few minutes all was still in the vicinity of the spot where the barge went down. The boats of the sloop were launched as soon as possible, and every effort made to save the drowning wretches, but only a few were rescued, to be reserved for a fate more ignominous.

The sloop proved to be the —— of the United States navy, cruising among the islands in search of pirates. She had heard the sounds of strife, while we were yet hidden in the fog, and, suspecting the cause, for a gang of pirates was known to infest the neighborhood, had come down to us, and arrived thus opportunely.

When we came to examine our crew, we found that three were either dead or mortally wounded, while no one had escaped unhurt. Our injuries, however, were speedily dressed by the sloop’s surgeon, and, on the whole, we had cause to be grateful.

How shall I describe the scene that occurred, after the pirates had been driven from our decks, and when the sisters, flinging themselves into their father’s arms, wept hysterically, and embraced him by turns! How shall I record the eager anxiety they showed until the surgeon had pronounced their parent’s wound a comparatively slight cut, which would be healed in a few weeks! How shall I picture these, and many other tender things which passed between the rescued family! My pen drops from my fingers, incapable of the task. But, if you should ever visit the village of Canandaigua and become acquainted with Ellen, now a matron with daughters only less fair than herself, you will hear the story from lips more eloquent than mine.

BY J. R. LOWELL.

BY MRS. SARAH JOSEPHA HALE.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

There stands William Cullen Bryant—with a head approaching nearly the highest ideal of Spurzheim, and a face that would have charmed the amiable Lavater. That calm, high forehead indicates the severity and dignity of his character, the sunken and piercing eyes his far-reaching sagacity, and the finely moulded and compressed lips his decision and firmness. The insignia of his nobility would at once be recognized and respected the world over. It is altogether an excellent likeness, one of the best which Thompson—who, by the way, is one of the cleverest young artists of the country—has painted, and Parker has seldom copied a head with more fidelity and beauty. Yes, that is Bryant: natural, life-like, just as he appeared when I saw him delivering the admirable address on homœopathy which lies beside you on the table.

Bryant a homœopathist? Pshaw! he is not such a fool.

My dear sir, what do you know of homœopathy?

That it is a humbug.

Did you ever read a line in its explanation or defence?

No: nor do I intend to do so.

Just as I supposed. You regard this new theory of medical science as the masses do all new ideas, and for the same reason—you know nothing about it. Now, one of the differences between you and Mr. Bryant is, that he is an earnest, careful and independent examiner of every subject upon which he attempts to form an opinion. In his childlike simplicity he supposes there are truths worth learning that were unthought of by the ancients. He has faith in man’s improvability. He would not be surprised to hear of the discovery of new facts or theories in any field of exertion or investigation. His candor, patience and acute perception enable him in both new and old to distinguish the false and transient from the true and permanent. Speaking of homœopathy reminds me of his origin. From his name it might readily be inferred that at least one of his parents admired the great Doctor Cullen. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all physicians. His father—of whom you will find a memoir in Knapp’s American Biography—was a gentleman of sound scholarship, extensive information, and cultivated taste, excellently qualified to educate the mind and heart of a youth of genius, as Bryant early proved himself to be. Only such a son could do justice to such a father; and he has done it eloquently, in his noble Hymn to Death, and in other poems, as well as in his life. As I have somewhere said before, a remarkable precocity of intellect has been common in America. This has been a land of psychological wonders. Every exhibition of unusual mental power in childhood has not indeed been followed by corresponding eminence in maturity; but while “the wonderful calculating boy,” Zerah Colburn, and that young “Roscius” who, thirty years ago, threatened with his own to overshadow the names of Garrick, Talma and Kean, have in middle age sunk into unenviable obscurity, the great Jonathan Edwards, a man at twelve, at fifty had no equal in the world; and Bryant, surpassing Tasso, and Cowley, and Pope, in his early poetical development, is still the first of the poets of his country. A wonderful production was “The Embargo,” for a boy of thirteen. No other work, so long, so well sustained, was ever written by so young a person. Still, it is a marvel only on account of the author’s youth; it is not a true poem. Thanatopsis, that grand and solemn hymn, was composed at eighteen, and, of all the poets, only Bryant could at that age have produced a work exhibiting such maturity of thought, such mastery of language.

“The Embargo” was a political satire, if I am not mistaken?

Yes; it was directed against the administration of Jefferson. Here is a copy of it, “printed for the author,” at Boston, in 1809, one year before he entered college. The volume contains also “The Spanish Revolution,” and several very neat translations. I will read you a passage from “The Embargo,” which one might fancy had been written in 1810 instead of thirty-five years ago, when, our fathers tell us, demagogueism was unknown:

Really that is harmonious and manly verse; but Mr. Bryant has changed his opinions since he wrote “The Embargo.”

Aye, and I have seen this boyish pasquinade quoted to prove him an inconsistent politician! the ideas of thirteen gravely arrayed against those of forty-nine! The work attracted considerable attention, and the first impression was quickly sold. To the second is prefixed this curious advertisement:

When about fifteen years of age Bryant entered Williams College, where he greatly distinguished himself by his acquisitions in ancient and modern belles-lettres. He solicited and obtained from the faculty an honorable discharge after remaining in the institution two years, and soon afterward commenced the study of the law. He was admitted an attorney and counsellor in 1815, and for ten years followed his profession at Great Barrington, where, in 1821, he was married to Miss Fairchild, a most beautiful and lovely woman—if an opinion may be formed from a portrait of her by Thompson, which I saw not long ago at his rooms in the New York University—worthy to be the wife of a great poet: and William Cullen Bryant is a great poet, not so to be regarded by us his countrymen and cotemporaries only, but by the world, and in all future ages. A great poet! there is no nobler title among men than this. If every human soul be, as some contend, a portion of the Eternal and Unseen, how large a portion of the Divine Essence exists in men like Shakspeare, Spenser, Milton, Byron, Wordsworth, Bryant!

A category! and do you compare Bryant with the most famous of the British bards?

I have named the greatest poets who have written in the English language: one, world-renowned and forever unapproachable, another unequaled by any since he sung. Wordsworth alone, of the fixed stars, is living, and he is the only English poet of our time whose name receives not additional lustre from being united with that of William Cullen Bryant. But I will not now discuss his poetical character. The review of his works in the twenty-fourth volume of Graham’s Magazine expresses my opinions as they were when that review was published, and as they now are, except that a more careful study of them has increased my admiration.

Mr. Bryant was not unsuccessful as a lawyer, but a quiet New England village was no place for a man of his genius. After twenty terms of intimacy with dockets and briefs, constables, jurors and justices, he wisely determined to abandon the courts, and go to New York—the London, the world of America—and there devote his attention to letters. Paulding, Verplanck, Halleck and Sands were then the chief literary characters of the metropolis. Drake was dead, Irving was in Europe, and others, who have since won reputations, and lost them, had not yet written. The Literary Review, the St. Tammany Magazine, and the Atlantic Magazine, had successively failed, yet it was determined to establish a new periodical, the prospectus of the New York Review was issued, and Bryant was engaged to conduct it. He published in that work some of his most admirable poems, and, with Sands and his other confreres, obtained for it great popularity.

In 1826 he became associated with Colman in the editorship of the New York Evening Post, one of the oldest and most influential journals in the country, with which he has ever since been connected. In the summer of 1834 he committed its direction to his partner, Mr. Leggett—an able and ardent politician—and with his family sailed for Europe, intending to remain there three or four years. The sickness of Leggett induced him to return in the spring of 1836, however, and from that period he has labored earnestly, constantly and effectually, to advance the interests of the democratic party. As a writer he has no superior in the editorial fraternity. His reasonings are clear and forcible; his sentences smooth and compact; and his articles are enlivened by the most apposite wit and anecdote. Amos Kendall, Edwin Croswell, or Francis P. Blair, would sooner be acknowledged as leaders; for Bryant is not guided by policy or circumstances, and he often rises above or disregards partisan dictation, and avows opinions, regardless whether they will aid or injure a candidate or his party. Yet he is, unquestionably, the leading journalist of the opposition, and is always, or nearly so, in advance of his colleagues in the avowal and advocacy of doctrines and measures. From the beginning, he has been earnest in his hostility to a United States Bank; he has surpassed John Randolph in enmity to a protective tariff; his fingers have tingled when he has heard of internal improvements by the governments; and he has not a doubt that the golden age would dawn in five years after the thorough establishment of the metal money Sub-Treasury System.

Mr. Bryant governs his life by the rules of a wise philosophy. Doubtless he is as familiar with the best works on health and longevity as with Say or Adam Smith. In all seasons he is the first man of his ward to try the morning air; he remains in his office from his breakfast hour till the Post for the day is ready for the press; dines, takes what Christopher North calls a “pedestrial meditation,” and spends the remainder of the day with his family—or writes a poem for our magazine, a leader for the next day’s “Post,” or sees his friends—

A model—for the man as well as for the poet.

NO. III.—WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

In speaking of Mr. William Ellery Channing, who has just published a very neat little volume of poems, we feel the necessity of employing the indefinite rather than the definite article. He is a, and by no means the, William Ellery Channing. He is only the son of the great essayist deceased. He is just such a person, in despite of his clarum et venerabile nomen, as Pindar would have designated by the significant term τις. It may be said in his favor that nobody ever heard of him. Like an honest woman, he has always succeeded in keeping himself from being made the subject of gossip. His book contains about sixty-three things, which he calls poems, and which he no doubt seriously supposes so to be. They are full of all kinds of mistakes, of which the most important is that of their having been printed at all. They are not precisely English—nor will we insult a great nation by calling them Kickapoo; perhaps they are Channingese. We may convey some general idea of them by two foreign terms not in common use—the Italian pavoneggiarsi, “to strut like a peacock,” and the German word for “sky-rocketing,” schwarmerei. They are more preposterous, in a word, than any poems except those of the author of “Sam Patch;” for we presume we are right (are we not?) in taking it for granted that the author of “Sam Patch” is the very worst of all the wretched poets that ever existed upon earth.

In spite, however, of the customary phrase about a man’s “making a fool of himself,” we doubt if any one was ever a fool of his own free will and accord. A poet, therefore, should not always be taken too strictly to task. He should be treated with leniency, and, even when damned, should be damned with respect. Nobility of descent, too, should be allowed its privileges not more in social life than in letters. The son of a great author cannot be handled too tenderly by the critical Jack Ketch. Mr. Channing must be hung, that’s true. He must be hung in terrorem—and for this there is no help under the sun; but then we shall do him all manner of justice, and observe every species of decorum, and be especially careful of his feelings, and hang him gingerly and gracefully, with a silken cord, as the Spaniards hang their grandees of the blue blood, their nobles of the sangre azula.

To be serious, then; as we always wish to be if possible. Mr. Channing (whom we suppose to be a very young man, since we are precluded from supposing him a very old one) appears to have been inoculated, at the same moment, with virus from Tennyson and from Carlyle. And here we do not wish to be misunderstood. For Tennyson, as for a man imbued with the richest and rarest poetic impulses, we have an admiration—a reverence unbounded. His “Morte D’Arthur,” his “Locksley Hall,” his “Sleeping Beauty,” his “Lady of Shalott,” his “Lotos Eaters,” his “Ænone,” and many other poems, are not surpassed, in all that gives to Poetry its distinctive value, by the compositions of any one living or dead. And his leading error—that error which renders him unpopular—a point, to be sure, of no particular importance—that very error, we say, is founded in truth—in a keen perception of the elements of poetic beauty. We allude to his quaintness—to what the world chooses to term his affectation. No true poet—no critic whose approbation is worth even a copy of the volume we now hold in our hand—will deny that he feels impressed, sometimes even to tears, by many of those very affectations which he is impelled by the prejudice of his education, or by the cant of his reason, to condemn. He should thus be led to examine the extent of the one, and to be wary of the deductions of the other. In fact, the profound intuition of Lord Bacon has supplied, in one of his immortal apothegms, the whole philosophy of the point at issue. “There is no exquisite beauty,” he truly says, “without some strangeness in its proportions.” We maintain, then, that Tennyson errs, no in his occasional quaintness, but in its continual and obtrusive excess. And, in accusing Mr. Channing of having been inoculated with virus from Tennyson, we merely mean to say that he has adopted and exaggerated that noble poet’s characteristic defect, having mistaken it for his principal merit.

Mr. Tennyson is quaint only; he is never, as some have supposed him, obscure—except, indeed, to the uneducated, whom he does not address. Mr. Carlyle, on the other hand, is obscure only; he is seldom, as some have imagined him, quaint. So far he is right; for although quaintness, employed by a man of judgment and genius, may be made auxiliary to a poem, whose true thesis is beauty, and beauty alone, it is grossly, and even ridiculously, out of place in a work of prose. But in his obscurity it is scarcely necessary to say that he is wrong. Either a man intends to be understood, or he does not. If he write a book which he intends not to be understood, we shall be very happy indeed not to understand it; but if he write a book which he means to be understood, and, in this book, be at all possible pains to prevent us from understanding it, we can only say that he is an ass—and this, to be brief, is our private opinion of Mr. Carlyle, which we now take the liberty of making public.

It seems that having deduced, from Tennyson and Carlyle, an opinion of the sublimity of every thing odd, and of the profundity of every thing meaningless, Mr. Channing has conceived the idea of setting up for himself as a poet of unusual depth, and very remarkable powers of mind. His airs and graces, in consequence, have a highly picturesque effect, and the Boston critics, who have a notion that poets are porpoises, (for they are always talking about their running in “schools,”) cannot make up their minds as to what particular school he must belong. We say the Bobby Button school, by all means. He clearly belongs to that. And should nobody ever have heard of the Bobby Button school, that is a point of no material importance. We will answer for it, as it is one of our own. Bobby Button is a gentleman with whom, for a long time, we have had the honor of an intimate acquaintance. His personal appearance is striking. He has quite a big head. His eyes protrude and have all the air of saucers. His chin retreats. His mouth is depressed at the corners. He wears a perpetual frown of contemplation. His words are slow, emphatic, few, and oracular. His “thes,” “ands,” and “buts” have more meaning than other men’s polysyllables. His nods would have put Burleigh’s to the blush. His whole aspect, indeed, conveys the idea of a gentleman modest to a fault, and painfully overburthened with intellect. We insist, however, upon calling Mr. Channing’s school of poetry the Bobby Button school, rather because Mr. Channing’s poetry is strongly suggestive of Bobby Button, than because Mr. Button himself ever dallied, to any very great extent, with the Muses. With the exception, indeed, of a very fine “Sonnet to a Pig”—or rather the fragment of a sonnet, for he proceeded no farther than the words “O piggy wiggy,” with the O italicized for emphasis—with the exception of this, we say, we are not aware of his having produced anything worthy of that stupendous genius which is certainly in him, and only wants, like the starling of Sterne, “to get out.”

The best passage in the book before us, is to be found at page 121, and we quote it, as a matter of simple justice, in full.

The four lines Italicized are highly meritorious, and the whole extract is so far decent and intelligible, that we experienced a feeling of surprise upon meeting it amid the doggerel which surrounds it. Not less was our astonishment upon finding, at page 18, a fine thought so well embodied as the following:

But, in the way of commendation, we have now done. We have carefully explored the whole volume, in vain, for a single additional line worth even the most qualified applause.

The utter abandon—the charming negligé—the perfect looseness (to use a western phrase) of his rhythm, is one of Mr. C’s. most noticeable, and certainly one of his most refreshing traits. It would be quite a pleasure to hear him read or scan, or to hear any body else read or scan, such a line as this, at page 3, for example:

where “masculine” has to be read as a trochee, and “almost” as an iambus; or this, at page 8:

where “that compels” has to be pronounced as equivalent to the iambus “me on;” or this, at page 18:

where both the “thes” demand a strong accent to preserve the iambic rhythm; or this, at page 29:

where (to say nothing of the grammar, which may be Dutch but is not English) it is quite impossible to get through with the “steps strides truth” without dislocating the under jaw; or this, at page 32:

or this, on the same page:

Sometime of sorrow, joy to thy Future;

or this, at page 56:

or this, at page 59:

or this, at page 138:

about all of which the less we say the better.

At page 96 we read thus:

At page 51 we have it thus:

At page 136 we read as follows:

At page 116 he has this:

Just below, on the same page, he has

and at page 76 he fairly puts the climax to metrical absurdity in the lines which follow:

This is to be read, of course, intrikkittly delikkit, and “intrikkittly delikkit” it is—unless, indeed, we are very especially mistaken.

The affectations—the Tennysonisms of Mr. Channing—pervade his book at all points, and are not easily particularized. He employs, for example, the word “delight,” for “delighted;” as at page 2:

He uses, also, all the prepositions in a different sense from the rabble. If, for instance, he was called upon to say “on,” he wouldn’t say it by any means, but he’d say “off,” and endeavor to make it answer the purpose. For “to,” in the same manner, he says “from;” for “with,” “of,” and so on: at page 2, for example:

For “serene,” he says “serene:” as at page 4:

For “subdued,” he says “subdued:” as at page 16:

By the way, what kind of fears are bright?

For “eternal,” he says “eterne:” as at page 30:

For “friendless,” he substitutes “friendless:” as at page 31:

To “future,” he prefers “future:” as at page 32:

To “azure,” in the same way, he prefers “azure:” as at page 46:

In place of “unheard,” he writes “unheard:” as thus, at page 47:

In place of “perchance,” he writes “perchance:” as at page 71:

Instead of “more infinite,” he writes “infiniter,” with an accent on the “nit,” as thus, at page 100:

And here we might as well ask Mr. Channing, in passing, what idea he attaches to infinity, and whether he really thinks that he is at liberty to subject the adjective “infinite” to degrees of comparison. Some of these days we shall hear, no doubt, of “eternal, eternaler, and eternalest.”

Our author is quite enamored of the word “sumptuous,” and talks about “sumptuous trees” and “sumptuous girls,” with no other object, we think, than to employ the epithet at all hazards and upon all occasions. He seems unconscious that it means nothing more than expensive, or costly; and we are not quite sure that either trees or girls are, in America, either the one or the other.

For “loved” Mr. C. prefers to say “was loving,” and takes great pleasure in the law phrase “the same.” Both peculiarities are exemplified at page 20, where he says:

He is fond, also, of inversions and contractions, and employs them in a very singular manner. At page 15 he has:

At page 86 he says:

At page 143 he writes:

meaning that men change so much that Heaven above does not change more. At page 150, he says:

by which he would imply that the lady has so much soul within her form that she is more luscious than luscious summer days.

Were we to quote specimens under the general head of “utter and irredeemable nonsense,” we should quote nine tenths of the book. Such nonsense, we mean, as the following, from page 11:

Now let us translate this: He hears (Mr. Channing,) a solemn anthem, of richest song, fall upon his ear, and this anthem clothes the individual who sings it in that individual’s golden pall, in the same manner that, or at the time when, the wide sun flows on the mere—which is all very delightful, no doubt.

At page 37, he informs us that,

And that it is

And we dare say it is, if one could only understand what kind of equipoise is intended. It is better to be forgotten, for instance, than to lose one’s equipoise on the top of a shot tower.

Occupying the whole of page 88, he has the six lines which follow, and we will present any one (the author not excepted,) with a copy of the volume, if any one will tell us what they are all about:

At page 102, he has the following:

This we think we can explain. Let us see. Dry leaves, mixed with yellow ferns, are a wreath fit for autumn at the time when our frosty air shivers a still, bright, and pure star with twinkling points of thin celestial hair, and with this hair, or hair plaster, anoints one side of the sky. Yes—this is it—no doubt.

At page 123, we have these lines:

Yes; we think, upon the whole, it would. The eight lines are entitled a “Song,” and we should like very much to hear Mr. Channing sing it.

Pages 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, and 41, are filled with short “Thoughts” in what Mr. C. supposes to be the manner of Jean Paul. One of them runs thus:

All our readers will be happy to hear, we are sure, that Mr. C. is going “to flash out.” Elsewhere, at page 97, he expresses very similar sentiments:

It will be observed, here, that Mr. Channing’s empire is himself, (a small kingdom, however,) that he intends to defy “the external,” whatever that is—perhaps he means the infernals—and that, in short, he is going to rule the whole or die; all which is very proper, indeed, and nothing more than we have to expect from Mr. C.

Again, at page 146, he is rather fierce than otherwise. He says;

Here Mr. Channing not only intends to “speak loud and free” himself, but advises every body else to do likewise. For his own part, he says, he is going to “boom”—“to hum and to boom”—to “hum like a roaring waterfall,” and “boom to an infinite abysm.” What, in the name of Belzebub, is to become of us all?

At page 39, while indulging in similar bursts of fervor and of indignation, he says:

and this passage we quote by way of instancing what we consider the only misprint in the book. Mr. Channing could never have meant to say:

for what is a delusive show of can? No doubt it should have been,

A can, we believe, is a tin-cup, and the cup must have been tied to the tail of the pup. Boys will do such tricks, and there is no earthly way of preventing them, we believe, short of cutting off their heads—or the tails of the pups.

And this remarkable little volume is, after all, by William Ellery Channing. A great name, it has been said, is, in many cases, a great misfortune. We hear daily complaints from the George Washington Dixons, the Socrates Smiths, and the Napoleon Buonaparte Joneses, about the inconsiderate ambition of their parents and sponsors. By inducing invidious comparison, these prænomina get their bearers (so they say) into every variety of scrape. If George Washington Dixon, for example, does not think proper, upon compulsion, to distinguish himself as a patriot, he is considered a very singular man; and Socrates Smith is never brought up before his honor the Mayor without receiving a double allowance of thirty days; while his honor the Mayor can assign no sounder reason for his severity, than that better things than getting toddied are to be expected of Socrates. Napoleon Buonaparte Jones, on the other hand, to say nothing of being called Nota Bene Jones by all his acquaintance, is cowskinned, with perfect regularity, five times a month, merely because people will feel it a point of honor to cowskin a Napoleon Buonaparte.

And yet these gentlemen—the Smiths and the Joneses—are wrong in toto—as the Smiths and the Joneses invariably are. They are wrong, we say, in accusing their parents and sponsors. They err in attributing their misfortunes and persecutions to the prænomina—to the names assigned them at the baptismal font. Mr. Socrates Smith does not receive his double quantum of thirty days because he is called Socrates, but because he is called Socrates Smith. Mr. Napoleon Buonaparte Jones is not in the weekly receipt of a flogging on account of being Mr. Napoleon Buonaparte, but simply on account of being Mr. Napoleon Buonaparte Jones. Here, indeed, is a clear distinction. It is the surname which is to blame, after all. Mr. Smith must drop the Smith. Mr. Jones should discard the Jones. No one would ever think of taking Socrates—Socrates solely—to the watch-house; and there is not a bully living who would venture to cowskin Napoleon Buonaparte per se. And the reason is plain. With nine individuals out of ten, as the world is at present happily constituted, Mr. Socrates (without the Smith) would be taken for the veritable philosopher of whom we have heard so much, and Mr. Napoleon Buonaparte (without the Jones) would be received implicitly as the hero of Austerlitz. And should Mr. Napoleon Buonaparte (without the Jones) give an opinion upon military strategy, it would be heard with the profoundest respect. And should Mr. Socrates (without the Smith) deliver a lecture, or write a book, what critic so bold as not to pronounce it more luminous than the logic of Emerson, and more profound than the Orphicism of Alcott. In fact, both Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones, in the case we have imagined, would derive, through their own ingenuity, a very material advantage. But no such ingenuity has been needed in the case of Mr. William Ellery Channing, who has been befriended by Fate, or the foresight of his sponsors, and who has no Jones or Smith at the end of his name.

And here, too, a question occurs. There are many people in the world silly enough to be deceived by appearances. There are individuals so crude in intellect—so green, (if we may be permitted to employ a word which answers our purpose much better than any other in the language,) so green, we say, as to imagine, in the absence of any indication to the contrary, that a volume bearing upon its title-page the name of William Ellery Channing, must necessarily be the posthumous work of that truly illustrious author, the sole William Ellery Channing of whom any body in the world ever heard. There are a vast number of uninformed young persons prowling about our book-shops, who will be raw enough to buy, and even to read half through this pretty little book, (God preserve and forgive them!) mistaking it for the composition of another. But what then? Are not books made, as well as razors, to sell? The poet’s name is William Ellery Channing—is it not? And if a man has not a right to the use of his own name, to the use of what has he a right? And could the poet have reconciled it to his conscience to have injured the sale of his own volume by any uncalled-for announcement upon the title-page, or in a preface, to the effect that he is not his father, but only his father’s very intelligent son? To put the case more clearly by reference to our old friends, Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones. Is either Mr. Smith, when mistaken for Socrates, or Mr. Jones, when accosted as Napoleon, bound, by any conceivable species of honor, to inform the whole world—the one, that he is not Socrates, but only Socrates Smith; the other, that he is by no means Napoleon Buonaparte, but only Napoleon Buonaparte Jones?

[EXCUSE FOR NOT MAKING A PARTING CALL.]

BY HENRY THEODORE TUCKERMAN.

BY S. D. PATTERSON.

The unfortunate La Perouse, while cruising in the southern seas, rejoices that he “has no occasion to stop at those everlasting Society Islands, of which more has been written than concerning several of the kingdoms of Europe.” Readers of the present day may deem this remark as applicable to the Sandwich Islands as it was formerly to the southern group. We have a variety of works upon the Hawaiians, written by missionaries, and counter statements, by sundry voyagers; yet the perusal of either or all of them leaves only a confused and unsatisfactory impression upon the mind of the merchant, the philanthropist, or the Christian. The work before us supplies the desideratum. It is complete in itself, and contains more than every previous publication upon the subject. Mr. Jarves has not only given us a complete history of the Hawaiians, from the most authentic sources, but he has embodied in his book all that is interesting in regard to their manners, customs, and civil polity, the geography and resources of the islands, and their commercial and political relations with foreign powers. His style, though occasionally somewhat too ornate and formal, is generally perspicuous and agreeable, and he has so tempered the spirit of his narrative as to avoid in most cases the overwrought descriptions of the missionaries and the yet more prejudiced accounts by licentious residents and superficial visiters.

It might be well, did our limits permit, to discuss at length some of the subjects suggested in the work before us, and even to take a discursive view, prospective and retrospective, of that vast archipelago of Polynesia which is destined at some early period to become the West Indies of the Pacific, with the Hawaiian group for its Cuba. We should like to dwell for a few moments upon the question of the Malayan origin of the Polynesian races; to look backward to that period when the Malayans, now bands of barbarian pirates, were distinguished as an enterprising, commercial people, skilled in many of the useful arts, and traversing in their ships large portions of the western Pacific and Indian seas; to examine the opinion—sustained by numerous facts—that these adventurers were occasionally driven by adverse winds to the coasts of America, and founded here the earliest colonies. There is little doubt that all the inhabitants of the Pacific islands had a common origin, and Dr. Lang, in an elaborate essay, supports the theory that the “ancient discovery and progressive settlement of America were accomplished by a Polynesian nation.” Whether this hypothesis be true or not, there are good reasons for believing that our aborigines and the Polynesians were of one family at a period not very remote from that of their migrations to the countries in which they now live, and where the signs of their identity may still be traced. Much attention has recently been directed to the ruins of Palenque, and we have been surprised that no comparison has been made of these vestiges of old civilization with those in some of the islands in the southern seas, so like them as to render certain a relationship between their authors. The Marianne Isles, near the Philippines, are covered with massive ruins like the temples in Uxmal. The island of Tinion, though but thirty miles in circumference, contains a vast number of gigantic temples and palaces, called by the natives “houses of the ancients;” in the island of Rota are broken columns and arches of “a circular edifice more than eight hundred paces in circumference;” in the island of Ascension are the remains of a structure enclosing a square within a square of more than four acres, with walls, of hewn stone, thirty feet high, and so thick as to contain arched vaults and secret passages. There are many subjects of this kind which we might notice at length in a more elaborate review.

Mr. Jarves devotes several chapters to the early history, government, religion and customs of the Hawaiians—necessarily, like those of the first eras of all countries, involved in obscurity, and known at all only through the ballads of their minstrels. Mungo Park found in the heart of Africa a class of singing men, the only annalists of their tribes, and heard them recount the story of the great victory which Daniel, the prince of the Jalaffs, won over Abdulkader, and Capt. Barclay, when first visiting the Sandwich Islands, heard their bards recite the heroic actions of Tamahaméha. We should have been pleased if Mr. Jarves had given us more specimens of the songs and ballads still sung by the Hawaiian scalds. An ode to the Soul, by Maewa, indicates a peculiarity of their religion. They supposed they had two spirits, one remaining ever with the body, and the other leaving it, for good or evil, to aid a friend or pursue an enemy. We quote the beginning of this ode, with a translation by one of the American missionaries.

TRANSLATION.

After describing social life in Hawaii previous to the visits of Captain Cook, our author points out the changes which have since occurred; traces the history of their progress from its primary causes; the influences of civilization and commerce; and presents in a strong light the contrast between the past and present.

The unwarrantable attack upon Honolulu by the French commander, La Place, to establish the claims of the Roman Catholic missionaries, and the introduction of French wines, is animadverted upon in the latter part of the volume with great severity and justice. Mr. Jarves has devoted a large portion of his work to an account of the difficulties with which the missionaries from this country have had to contend, and he dwells with the ardor of an advocate upon the course of the American clergy and the Hawaiian government against the French priests. Upon no other portion of his work will there be such a diversity of opinions. The missionaries have been charged with interfering with the administration of justice, and with procuring from the government intolerant restrictions against the Roman Catholics. It is true that they were often consulted by the authorities, as the most honest and enlightened civilians in the islands, and that they were occasionally solicited to give advice in important political transactions. It has been so in many places. The British missionaries in the Society Islands were the chief counsellors of the queen and supreme minister in regard to the treaty with the United States, offered by Captain Thomas Ap Catesby Jones. Upon the question of the rights of the Roman Catholic priests in the Sandwich Islands there may be some doubt. Two French missionaries, Rives and Mirieri, had gained some influence over the Hawaiian authorities before the arrival of the Americans, in 1820, and they caused our countrymen to be kept at sea eight days without the privilege of landing. Rives, who was then the king’s interpreter, has ever been the principal instigator of opposition to the Protestants, who finally succeeded in gaining the favor of the government and the people, so that laws were passed prohibiting the introduction or establishment of the Roman Catholic religion, on the ground that it resembled too much in its forms the old Hawaiian idolatry.

A new interest has been imparted to these islands by the ridiculous proceedings of Captain Lord Paulet, who recently “seized the king, court and government in the name of his mistress the Queen of England.” This Lord Paulet would be a vagabond if he were not a nobleman. He has been repeatedly arrested in the streets of London for rioting and ruffianism, and probably was sent abroad that he might not disgrace himself and his caste at home. His conduct, as might have been anticipated, has been disavowed by the English ministry.

The author of these sermons is the reputed writer of Tract XC. which was the crowning publication of that series, issuing from Oxford, which has created greater sensation than any English theological works during the present century. But he who opens these volumes in the hope of finding the peculiarities of the Oxford Theology, supported by elaborate argument, will be disappointed; and, on the other hand, the reader who arms himself in triple caution against what he deems the errors of the Tractarians, will find when he reaches the end of the second volume that his panoply of resistance might have been spared. And to the end of the second volume every reader will go, whose habits of reading or of study incline him to such works as the one under notice. Eloquent but simple and nervous English, direct and forcible arrangement of the points of the subjects, mark these sermons as models in style; while a spirit of fervent piety breathes through them all, which gives them, what we too seldom find in printed sermons, the persuasiveness and force of spoken discourses. The reader who could feel the influence of oratory, were the author addressing him in person, must forget, while reading his book, that he is not present and exhorting him in living words.

We would by no means be understood to say that the Parochial Sermons contain no marks of the characteristics of their author; but we have the opinion of one American prelate of the Episcopal Church, that “the portions of their contents about which there is a difference of opinion, are not to be set in the scale against the general tendency of the volumes;” and of another, that, “while they are free from those extravagances of opinion usually ascribed to the author of the 90th Tract, they assert in the strongest manner the true doctrines of the Reformation in England, and enforce with peculiar solemnity and effect that holiness of life, with the means thereto, so characteristic of the fathers of that trying age.”

It may be true that the writer shows in some particulars that he is for Cephas or Apollos; but in his leading and cardinal views he speaks as the ambassador of a greater than any earthly teacher; and he who reads the Parochial Sermons, in the spirit in which they should be read, cannot fail to derive edification, whatever be his sentiments upon the mooted points which they barely touch. This magazine represents no school in Theology, nor does it assume to teach or to inform its readers upon any but æsthetic doctrines; yet the reviewer can but feel confident that he has done the reader good service in directing his attention, if indeed it has not already been thus directed, to this collection of sermons, which will rank among the most elegant in diction and practical in application in the English language.

Of all the American poets Whittier has the most strength, the most vigor, the most independence. His lines ring like the clang of the anvil. He has no meek phrases for any kind of rascality. Like Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn Law Rhymer, whom of all the English bards he most resembles, he “speaks as he feels, and he feels like a man.” He hates all that is false, treacherous, tyrannous, and loves all that is true, ingenuous, liberal. He is not free from prejudices. His ancestors, for four or five generations, lived on the same estate, by the margin of the Merrimack, and suffered, perhaps, from Puritan intolerance. He inherits, with their home, their principles, feelings, sympathies. In the following spirited ballad he has displayed the strong enthusiasm of the early Quaker, the short-sighted bigotry of the clergy and magistrates, and that fellow-feeling which the “common people,” when not directly under the control of spiritual despotism, have ever evinced. It is founded upon an incident related in Sewall’s History. A son and daughter of Lawrence Southwick, of Salem, who had himself been imprisoned and deprived of all his property for having entertained two Quakers at his house, were fined, for not attending church, ten pounds each, which they were unable to pay. The General Court, then sitting at Boston, issued an order by which the treasurer of the county was “fully empowered to sell the said persons to any of the English nation at Virginia or Barbadoes, to answer said fines.” An attempt was made to carry the decree into execution, but no shipmaster was found willing to convey the prisoners to the West Indies.

THE BALLAD OF CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK.

This is written in the true ballad style. In a different spirit altogether are the beautiful poems entitled “Raphael,” “Follen,” “Chalkley Hall,” and “To a Friend on her Return from Europe,” which, did our limits permit, we would gladly present to our readers as most chaste and finished compositions, in their way worthy of the best masters.

Mr. Whittier is by no means a faultless versifier. He sometimes writes very carelessly, and fails of that directness and simplicity which distinguish the productions of the poet thoroughly trained in the school of taste. We have not now however space in which to point out his defects, and content ourselves with awarding that meed of praise to which the volume before us is so well entitled.

The principal poem in the volume takes its name from the battle of Clontarf, in which the Irish, under the famous Brian Boiroilune, defeated the Danes, and ended forever their struggle for dominion in Ireland. Mr. Shea has the vivid fancy and warm imagination for which his countrymen are usually distinguished, and he writes with ease, directness and elegance. We had marked several passages in Clontarf and one of the minor poems, to quote, but are reluctantly compelled to omit them.

The author of this work, by his popular treatises on Indigestion and Consumption, became known as a sensible and attractive writer. The object of the present work is to exhibit the effects of the passions on health. Every position is supported by well authenticated facts; and the happy quotations and agreeable anecdotes interspersed through the book render it entertaining as well as instructive. Some essay of the kind has long been needed; and at a period so abounding in occasions of mental and moral excitement as the present it will be read with signal advantage by persons of every class and profession.

Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

Some photographs have been enhanced to be more legible.

A Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience.

[The end of Graham's Magazine Vol. XXIII No. 2 August 1843 by George Rex Graham]