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GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

BY JAMES E. PAULDING, AUTHOR OF “THE DUTCHMAN’S FIRE-SIDE,” “WESTWARD HO!” ETC.

In a certain great city of the new world, which shall be nameless, there once lived, and, in fact, lives still, a citizen, at one time somewhat better known than respected, but who maintained rather a dignified position in society, on the score of the possession of three tin boxes, painted green, one of which was filled with deeds of the kind which may be emphatically called good deeds—the second, with bonds and mortgages—the third, with certificates of the stock of various incorporations, not one of which divided less than ten per cent. per annum. These were his patents of nobility, and gave him equal claims with those highly descended nobles of the old world, possessing a coat of arms with thirty-six quarterings, and a pedigree derived from the most impenetrable obscurity. And why should they not? It would be difficult to give a good reason why bonds, mortgages and stocks, gained by a life of persevering industry, should not confer equal rank and dignity, with lands acquired, for the most part, originally, by rapine and oppression.

Be this as it may; our wealthy citizen, whose name was Caleb Plant, had, by dint of poring over his genealogy in the tin boxes, gradually acquired a considerable degree of self-sufficiency. He would occasionally indulge in various sarcastic innuendos, having reference to upstart pretenders; and as for his good lady, she held her head above the clouds, and trod the world under her feet—by which is meant, that she despised all beneath, and crouched to all above her. If a titled foreigner came in the way of Caleb and his spouse, he might think himself extremely fortunate if he escaped being surfeited by a quick succession, a perfect feu de joie, of horrible attentions. Mrs. Plant having been, at least, fifteen years on the turf of fashion, considered herself one of the aborigines of the beau monde, and her indignation at the intrusion of an interloper was awful. Had it been possible, she would have planted spring-guns and man-traps around the sacred precincts, to deter these insolent poachers. In short, Caleb was a millionaire, which, in all conscience, is equal to the title of count, or marquis, with thirty generations of uninterrupted gentility.

But though Caleb often said so, he never could bring himself to think so, for there was always in a secret corner of his heart a lurking consciousness of inferiority, whenever he came in contact with persons of real merit; for, after all the paltry pretensions of rank and wealth, that is the standard by which men always estimate each other in the end. We may contemplate the distant shadow of a pigmy, as it lengthens over the plain, with admiration for a moment, but the instant we compare it with the substance, the illusion vanishes. In like manner the rank, the splendor, and the power of kings, which overwhelm the imagination with a feeling of awe and reverence, dwindle into objects of contempt and derision, when we find, from the evidence of the senses, that they are in the possession of a fool, or a madman. The way to estimate the real dignity of men, is to bring them into contact with each other, and set them in action. It is then that the great talker often turns out a coward, the rich man incapable of protecting his own wealth, and that the king becomes dependent on the basketmaker. Caleb often learned this lesson; and, though it made him never the wiser, it detracted much from that portion of his happiness which was derived from the ignoble pride of superior wealth. He was perpetually reminded, not by the ill-natured sneers of others, but by his own self-consciousness, that the men he affected to look down upon, were incomparably above him in knowledge, in intellect, and in all the qualities that give one man a natural claim to superiority over another. His great wealth, by investing him with the power to confer benefits and inflict injuries, necessarily gave him a station and influence in society; but, though others might think him great, he always felt himself little; and the latter years of his life had been one incessant struggle to disguise from himself what he often managed to conceal from the world. Hence he was zealous in cultivating the acquaintance of strangers, or rather inviting them to great entertainments, where he sought to dazzle them by outward show, while his inward deficiencies escaped detection in the labyrinth of a crowd, or behind an immense silver tureen.

Caleb Plant had come to the city a poor country boy, and by a series of well directed industry, joined to the most rigid habits of economy, aided by constant prudence, and that occasional good fortune by which it is ever rewarded, about the age of forty-five had amassed a great estate. The prudent mothers of grown up daughters had long had their eyes upon him, but he was too busy, too constantly in action to be hit by the shaft of Cupid, who seldom shoots flying. It is impossible for a man to fall in love while he is running full tilt after Lady Fortune; and friend Caleb never contemplated the desperate throw of the matrimonial die, until one bitter, stormy evening, when the wind whistled, the snows beat against the windows, and the “spirit of the storm,” so often conjured up by modern bards, roared and yelled, and knocked furiously at the doors and windows for admittance. Caleb sat alone at his fireside. He had read the newspaper, and attempted a story in some mammoth sheet, and got along pretty smoothly, until it became necessary to turn over a new leaf, when he lost the track, wandered from one vast region to another, until he became perfectly bewildered, and, at length, so impatient that he cast it into the flames, and thereby incontinently set fire to the chimney. After the hubbub had subsided, he threw himself back in his chair, and began to sum up what he was worth; but not being able to ascertain the point altogether to his satisfaction, he had resort to his tin boxes, and clearly made himself out a millionaire. He pondered on this agreeable circumstance until he fairly got tired—for even the contemplation of wealth is a pleasure that wears thread-bare at last—and could hardly keep his eyes open, though it was only eight o’clock. All at once, however, he started up with great alacrity, and, ringing the bell, ordered a glass of whiskey punch, with which he regaled himself gloriously. But, after all, drinking with oneself, thought Caleb, is a poor business. He had a great mind to call in his factotum Absalom and have a set-to with him, until his dignity came and rescued him from such a groveling alternative. Then he suddenly rose again from his chair, paced the room from right to left, and from one corner to another, with his head declined a little forward, as if in deep thought, and his hands clasped behind him. Thus he continued for some time, when suddenly he seemed to become inspired—he rubbed his hands together, cocked his nose and chin, and exclaimed at intervals, in disjointed sentences, “Yes—yes—I wonder I never thought of it before. I’ll do it, by Jupiter—I’ll look out for a wife, as soon as this infernal storm is over.” Thus a long storm and a glass of whiskey punch brought Caleb Plant to the desperate point of matrimony. How many Benedicts can give better reasons than these?

It cleared up, however, during the night; the snows had all melted away; the morn was bright and cheery; and Caleb remembered he had yet many resources against matrimony. He belonged to three clubs, each meeting once a week; he exchanged dinners, as regularly as clock-work, twice a week with two of his most particular friends; and, on Saturday evenings, he played whist at home, with two old cronies, and dummy. Thus the six days were pretty well disposed of, but the seventh day, and most especially the evening, brought the tug of war; and, for three months from the memorable night of the whiskey punch and the snow storm, he regularly came to a determination to get married every Sunday evening.

But the resolutions of men, and especially of a bachelor of forty-five, are like the sands held in suspension by the current of the stream while in a state of agitation, and which suddenly subside in a state of repose. It was not until about the middle of August following, that the punch and the snow storm received a reinforcement that finally enabled them to carry the day in favor of matrimony. As Caleb was shaving himself one morning, he received two great shocks, in quick succession, which brought him to the feet of Don Cupid in an instant. The first was the discovery of two very considerable circular furrows, ploughed by time, from the tip of his nose to the corners of his mouth; the second, the detection of a slight approximation of some straggling hairs about his ears to gray. He immediately rang the bell furiously, and, the servant entering somewhat in alarm, he exclaimed—

“Absalom!”

“Sir!”

“Get the carriage and horses in order—pack up my clothes, and be ready to-morrow morning to set out for the Springs. And, do you hear, lock up my spectacles—”

“In the portmanteau, sir?”

“No, blockhead, in the cabinet. I shan’t want them.”

The next morning Caleb, having no notes to pay, was off to the Springs, with his splendid equipage, and without his spectacles. Some very sensible, well informed writers have seriously questioned the sagacity of gentlemen seekers, who go to the Springs, or other public resorts, to look for a helpmate; but, for our part, we think the plan of Caleb Plant was very sensible and judicious. There are times that try the souls of women as well as men; and these occur quite as frequently at public places as within the domestic circle. Nay, the excitements are much greater, and the sins more besetting. It is there that human vanity is most successfully assailed; that envy, jealousy, and petty malice find their constant sphere of exercise, as well as their keenest stimulants; and she who can best withstand their instigations is the lady for a bachelor’s money. When he meets with one who speaks low, not from fear that she is saying what she ought not, but from modest diffidence; when he sees her admired without effort; neglected without ill-nature; outshone without envy, and followed without looking behind, let him gather himself together—yea, let him forthwith single her out from the rest of the sinful race of the daughters of Eve; let him cast himself, his equipage and his million at her feet, and if she do not accept him, it will not be the fault of her prudent mamma. But if, on the other hand, he finds a fair and beautiful young damsel, who talks loud in public; laughs like a certain animal called a horse; is impatient of admiration, and splenetic at being overlooked; one who cannot represent a wall flower without turning yellow with envy, or submit to abdicate the throne when claimed by the legitimate heir; one who usurps the prerogative of the Grand Signor, by throwing the handkerchief herself; one, in short, who waltzes with every ferocious stranger, in whiskers, at a moment’s warning. When thou shalt encounter such a damsel, I say unto thee, O! bachelor, flee to the uttermost ends of the earth; bury thyself deep under blankets and comfortables—pile Ossa on Pelion; yea, verily, cut a stick—make tracks, for thou art barking up the wrong tree. Or, if all other means fail, get thyself reported bankrupt, and if that don’t save thee, thou art foredoomed.

His arrival at the Springs created a sensation, and there was a great fluttering among the birds of paradise. It is true, Caleb was no beauty. He was somewhat bandy, his shoulders were as round as those of a fashionable belle; he was suspected of being pigeontoed, and he wanted tournure—he could never catch that indescribable grace with which our fashionable gentlemen carry their hands in their coat pockets. But he was a millionaire. Nor did he pretend to any particular accomplishment; he could neither murder French, dance the waltz, nor drive four in hand. But then he was a millionaire. As to mental cultivation, his pretensions were equally slender. He never read the reviews, consequently he never ventured an opinion on books; all his manuscripts were in his tin boxes, and he valued none except those which began with “Know all men by these presents.” But then he was a millionaire. He had not been two days at the Springs, before he was quite at home with all the ladies of the least pretensions, and hand and glove with all the gentlemen. He was under no necessity to make himself agreeable, for the ladies took all the trouble off his shoulders; and wherever he went he was accompanied by a cortège of men, who listened to his opinions with profound devotion, and reverenced him as an oracle.

There is nothing which so soon upsets the gravity of men of a certain age, as the admiration of the other sex. Men, except they are of entirely different pursuits and professions, seldom admire each other with sincerity; there is apt to be a little spice of envy or jealousy at the bottom. Hence they do not value the respect of each other so much as the homage of the ladies, who, being free from all rivalry with them, are presumed to be perfectly disinterested. Caleb could not withstand these attentions; his head grew dizzy; he actually became frisky, and was one night seduced into the enormous indiscretion of dancing a quadrille with Miss Julia Philbrick, the belle of the Springs, who persuaded him it was the simplest thing in the world. He got through with it awkwardly enough, and would certainly have been laughed at, if he had not been a millionaire. Two other feats are on record in the annals of the Springs. He attempted a waltz, but, the third round, his head began to swim like a top, a whirlwind raged in his ears, the floor rose up before him in great billows, and his partner seemed to be flying in the air. Caleb had just sufficient discretion to dart to a seat, leaving his partner to her fate, who is reported to have whirled round the circle three times before she could stop herself. Such a catastrophe might have been fatal to any other man, but Caleb was a millionaire. His last great feat, was attempting to climb the Lover’s Rock, to which he was imprudently excited by the insinuations of a young gentleman, having pretensions to the good graces of Miss Julia Philbrick, that he was rather old to try the experiment. He had got near the summit, when his evil genius prompted him to look down upon what seemed an abyss of a thousand feet; his knees trembled, his heart throbbed, his head swam, and there is no knowing what might have happened, had not Miss Julia Philbrick reached him the end of a pocket handkerchief, for which she gave forty-eight dollars, by the aid of which he was enabled to reach the top. This was the last performance of the millionaire, who was afterward content to repose under the shade of his laurels.

From that time, he considered Julia as the preserver of his life, and his gratitude corresponded with the benefit. She had saved a million of dollars, and deserved to be rewarded. His attentions became rather particular; he dipped water for her from the Pierian Spring, invited the mother and daughter to ride in his carriage and four, and asked them how they were every morning. Mrs. Philbrick—whose husband was a Mr. Nobody, and therefore not worth mentioning—was gifted with a world of motherly sagacity, and thought it was now time to draw the net a little closer about this precious gold fish. She had, several years before, got some how or other out of health, and was pining away with that singularly incomprehensible malady which baffles the skill of all our physicians, and can only be cured by the salubrious air of Paris. There she had thoroughly got rid of all those vulgar republican notions about mutual affection, exchanges of hearts, parity of age, connubial happiness, and all that sort of nonsense. She had learnt to know that the true end, object and destiny of all young ladies in matrimonial speculations, was obtaining a settlement. As to love without money, it was out of the question; and she held, with the better sort of people, as well as our unsophisticated Indians, that daughters were mere subjects of barter or sale, and that the first duty of an affectionate parent was to get as much for them as possible.

She had attempted to instill this excellent system of philosophy into her daughter, and had succeeded indifferently well. Julia was a clever girl; one of those on whom nature has kindly bestowed a disposition to be amiable and happy. Had she been blessed with a mother such as she deserved, she would have been all the best of mothers could have wished, for she was handsome enough to charm the eye, and might have been good enough to rivet the affections her beauty inspired. But the mother is the daughter’s destiny. Her example is her guide, her precepts her decalogue; and when we see a worthless son, or a willful, wayward, extravagant daughter, one may be almost sure the mother has been neglectful of the plant to which she gave being, but which she never nourished with the dew of affection, or the genial warmth of sleepless maternal care. Happy the child that has a wise and virtuous mother, and wretched should be the mother that has a worthless child, for if she look into her own heart, ten to one she will find that the fault is her own.

It was the unlucky destiny of poor Julia to have such a mother, and to be still more unfortunate in a father whose easy habits of passive indolence were such, that he was content to let every one around him do as they pleased, provided they would only let him alone. He hated trouble so much that he was always in trouble to avoid it; and a straw in his way was equal to an impossibility with other people. It is thus that Providence smooths the path of life into a dead level, where the only real sources of inequality in our portion of enjoyment are evil thoughts and evil deeds, visited, as they always will be, by the scourge of conscience, and haunted by the vindictive fiend remorse.

Poor Julia! no wonder the rich soil of her heart was sown with tares, by the precepts and example of her mother, the indolent neglect of her father. She had the most fashionable education, which, there is too much cause to believe, is not the most effectual barrier against the temptations of this world; and she grew up to place her happiness entirely in the possession of the means of indulging those vapid, heartless pleasures, that give nothing in return for robbing the heart of all its lasting and substantial sources of happiness. The only duty taught her by her mother, was that of implicit obedience; and, in process of time, this salutary obligation became so powerful that it finally superseded all the virtuous impulses of her heart, while it overpowered all the promptings of her reason. Sometimes, indeed, both would rebel; but, at the period of which I am speaking, long habits of submission to the mother’s precepts had almost completely subverted the independence of her mind; while a laborious pursuit of those pleasures which, though they are incapable of satisfying the craving appetite for happiness, render all other aliment distasteful, had hardened her heart to those more gentle and endearing feelings, which gray-beards call dreams, only when they have outlived their enjoyment, and can never hope for their return.

The details of the siege of the citadel of the millionaire, would be too tedious, we will not say disgusting, to those who set a proper value on the purity and dignity of woman. We, therefore, pass over the various manœuvres of the wily mother; the fantastic and original devoirs of Caleb, and the struggles of the victim, Julia, whose heart often rebelled against the sacrifice site was called upon to make to the golden calf, but was as often reduced to obedience by the habit of submission to her mother, aided by those visions of splendid misery presented in perspective from the inexhaustible purse of the millionaire. Before the season was over, Caleb had proposed, was accepted, and Mrs. Philbrick had the satisfaction not only of being the mother-in-law of a millionaire, but of triumphing over her particular friend, Mrs. Mugford, with whom she was very intimate, and who had a daughter her mother would very willingly have substituted in place of poor Julia. But the daughter happened to have a will of her own, and, we will do her the justice to say, was almost the only unmarried lady at the Springs who could resist the millionaire. Her reasons were so conclusive, that we will here record part of a conversation between mother and daughter, for the benefit of all young ladies similarly situated.

“But what objections,” said the mother, “have you to setting your cap at Mr. Plant—don’t you know that he is a millionaire?”

“O, Lord, yes—every body knows that—but I dislike his name—I shouldn’t like to be called Mrs. Plant—it is so common.”

“Well, but, my dear Louisa, he can get his name changed to Plantville, by applying to the Legislature. These millionaires can do any thing, you know. Besides, who knows but his name may be Plantagenet, and that he has changed it to Plant for shortness?”

“But I have other insuperable objections, ma.”

“Well! what are they, my love?”

“Why, he hasn’t got any moustaches—I can’t bear men without moustaches, they look so vulgar. They never can be distingué without moustaches.”

“Well, but, my love, if Mr. Plant cannot be, as you say, astringent—”

“Lord, ma! I said distingué—I meant distinguished, ma.”

“Well, then, why didn’t you say so, my love? But if Mr. Plant can’t be distinguished for mus—moustaches—he can make his with distinguished for her carriage, her house, her furniture, her dress, her jewels, her dinners and her soirées—and what can a reasonable woman want more?”

“My dear ma, it’s useless to talk about Mr. Plant. He can’t waltz—and I never can or will marry a man that can’t waltz; though, for that matter, I should never waltz with him after marriage, for fear of losing my reputation.”

“Very well, my love, you may go further and fare worse. A millionaire is not to be had every day—and—”

“O! Lord, ma, there’s the ball opening, and I am engaged to waltz with the foreign gentleman with such beautiful moustaches—I forget his name, for I have only seen him once this morning. He is just arrived from Europe, and Julia Philbrick, I’m sure, is dying to waltz with him—” and away she ran, leaving the good lady mother at a nonplus.

If Julia was offered, or had offered herself, up a sacrifice to the mammon of unrighteousness, and made herself a martyr, she was determined to enjoy the heaven thus dearly purchased. She resolved at once to become the bell-wether of the flock, the most distinguished of the tribe, the incontestable leader of fashion. This enviable eminence was seldom to be gained, in the great city she inhabited, except by the possession or at least the expenditure of a great deal of money. Either of these answered equally well; and the miser who had amassed his wealth by extortion and abstinence, who never missed a chance of availing himself of the misfortunes of others, or seized an occasion to alleviate distress, was equally an object of profound deference with the dashing spendthrift, who entertained the world at his table, and was equally liberal to his friends as charitable to the poor, at the expense of his creditors.

There are various modes of drilling a bachelor after he has been metamorphosed into a married man, and divers wiseacres have puzzled themselves to account for the facility with which the most silly, superficial women hit upon the shortest, as well as most certain system to train the lordly despot into submission. They do not consider that, with here and there an exception, all that is necessary to the success of the process of taming, is a tolerable insight into the character of the subject of the experiment; and that such are the daily, nay hourly, opportunities afforded in the constant associations or conflicts of domestic life, that little reflection and less sagacity is required to enable either party to comprehend the weak side of the other. A little condescension, a series of doses, dexterously administered to the ruling passion, will, if the good man is not altogether impracticable, by degrees subdue him into quiet acquiescence. There are, however, some men who must be conquered by opposition; open, undisguised rebellion to lawful authority. To humor them, but increases their waywardness, and their obstinacy only becomes more contumacious, by having nothing to encounter.

Such a man was the millionaire. He had begun the world without any of those supposed advantages, which are, in truth, often the greatest disadvantages; he had amassed an immense fortune by his own labors and good management; and, whoever else might doubt, he was perfectly convinced in his own mind that he was a remarkably clever fellow. Doubt the talents of a millionaire—thought Caleb. You may as well deny that a man who has conquered kingdoms is a hero. In addition to this, he had been his own absolute, uncontrolled master up to the age of forty-five, and in that time a man becomes a pretty obstinate twig to bend. Add to this, that he possessed but little sensibility either to menial or personal beauty, and the reader will imagine that Julia had a hard task before her, in reducing her impracticable helpmate to a proper stale of quiescence.

Yet Caleb was in reality the easiest man in the world to manage. He was a bull that might be subdued at once if you only seized him by the horns. In short, he was a passionate fellow; and, what is worse, always blew out his steam before the vessel got fairly under way. He consequently expended all his powder previous to the commencement of the battle, and before the enemy came fairly in sight he was hors de combat, and had nothing left for it but to surrender at discretion. These were the rough materials on which Julia had to operate, and she commenced without loss of time. She began in the last quarter of the honey-moon, when, as every body knows, the planet is pretty well on the wane.

“My dear Mrs. Plant,” said Caleb one morning at breakfast—

“Mrs. Plant!” iterated Julia, turning up her pretty Grecian nose a little superciliously—but a sudden thought coming over her, she checked herself. “My dear,” said she, in tones that might have softened the heart of a tiger—“My dear”—she never could bring herself to call him Caleb—“My dear, I wish you would oblige me in one single thing, and I promise never to ask for the like again.”

“Well, what is it, Julia?”

“Change your name, my dear. You know I’ve changed mine to oblige you, and one good turn deserves another.”

“What!” answered Caleb, dashing down his cup with considerable emphasis—“What! change my name, and be obliged to get all my bonds, deeds, mortgages and certificates of stock altered from Caleb Plant to Caleb Plantville, or I don’t know what?”

“Yes, Plantville—that is a charming name—it sounds like the founder of a city—and now I think of it, you might purchase a site somewhere out in the west, and establish a great emporium to be called after your name, and carry it down to the latest generations. But Plant! O! my dear, dear husband, if you only knew how it puts me in mind of planting cabbages and onions!”

Caleb was a perfect percussion cap—a charge of fulminating powder—in short, he was a millionaire, and things are come to a fine pass when a millionaire can’t fall into a passion ex tempore, just when he pleases.

“I’ll tell you what, my dear Jul—I mean Mrs. Plant—my name is a good name, it will pass for a million on ’Change, and if you don’t like it you may give it me back again, that’s all!” and then, as is always the case with men of his temperament, he gradually inflamed himself by his own words and the sound of his own voice, like a lion lashing himself with his tail—“Yes, madam, Plant is a good name—you’ll not find it in the list of bankrupts, where so many of your fashionable friends cut a figure. But, madam, I’ll tell you where you’ll find it”—and he looked like a hero—“You’ll find it belonging to a man that won’t be made a fool of by his wife, his mother-in-law, his second cousins, nor all of them put together.”

“Well, my dear,” replied Julia, as smooth as oil and perfectly self-possessed, “Well, my dear, whatever you may say of Plant, I hope you don’t mean to defend that awful name Caleb. Why, don’t you know that’s the name the hunters give to the grizzly bears in the great west? Mr. Catlin told me so. Old Caleb! ha! ha! only think of having the same name as the grizzly bear, when you grow old, as you will do in a very few years.”

This speech blew up Caleb into a flame, as well it might, and produced a decisive contest, which ended in his being completely routed. Julia maintained that self-command which is held to be the perfection of good breeding, and said the slyest, cutting things in the most genteel tone and manner possible. Caleb blustered, swore, and actually abused both his wife and mother-in-law, in such a wholesale style, that he thought, on reflection, the only way of making amends was by changing his name as soon as possible. It happened that a friend, a member of the legislature, dropped in while the discussion was going on, to whom Julia immediately applied, stating that her husband, in expectation of inheriting the estate of a distant relative, who had no children, and who had given him several broad hints on the subject, was desirous of changing his name from Caleb Plant to Hyacinth Plantville, and begged the honorable member to interest himself in this behalf. The honorable member immediately proffered his best services—for what member could refuse so small a trifle to a millionaire? The honorable legislature changed his name with as much celerity as legislatures generally pass appropriations for the god of their idolatry, the glorious per diem; the bill was read three times by the clerk, so fast that not a soul could understand it, which was, however, of little consequence, as nobody listened, and passed unanimously—for what honorable body can resist a millionaire? Caleb Plant came out Hyacinth Plantville as clear as a whistle.

“What an impudent jade is that wife of mine,” quoth Caleb, in a short soliloquy, after the honorable member had concluded his visit; “What consummate impudence! but never mind, I paid her beforehand. I gave her a piece of my mind, and there is no use in saying any thing more on the subject. Hyacinth! d—n Hyacinth, it puts me in mind of a flower-pot in a window. But Plantville is not so bad—ville—what’s ville in French? O! now I recollect; a city. I shall certainly follow the suggestion of Julia, and found a great emporium somewhere in Illinois, Iowa, or Wisconsin, to transmit my name to posterity. Upon my word, she is a handsome, sensible hussy after all is said and done.” Self-love will solace itself with such crumbs of comfort sometimes.

This victory was decisive, although it by no means prevented future contests, which all ended in the same way. Caleb—we beg pardon, Hyacinth—scolded sometimes; sometimes swore; and was occasionally a little scurrilous; Julia kept her temper, took it all quietly, let him say what he would, and then did as she pleased afterward. The poets were fools who feigned the lion was subdued by a virgin; a wife is worth a dozen of them in the taming process.

The millionaire having, not long after his subjection was finally achieved, been appointed one of the commissioners to decide on the location of a pump, in a very critical position, was complimented by the title of honorable, and his glory consummated. He bought a site—unsight unseen—at a great price; founded a city on a rock, at the head of the navigation of a river, that contained no water except during heavy rains or the melting of the snows; appointed a long-headed, calculating genius his agent, who laid it out in lots and squares, with most illustrious names; suborned an artist to paint the emporium with all the houses, churches, and public edifices in anticipation, which he got lithographed by an expert builder of cities; and, as a last coup de main, sold several lots at auction, which he bought in himself at a swingeing price.

In the mean time, Mrs. Hyacinth Plantville had become the incontestable leader of that strange, fantastic, indefinable shadow, Fashion, which has never been defined, because it is in reality nothing. Politically we may be free, but there is no people on earth so completely henpecked in every thing relating to modes, manners, dress and opinion as our worthy countrymen, and more especially our charming countrywomen. They are both absolute slaves—one to foreign reviewers, the other to French milliners. Did our limits allow it, we would trace her step by step, and disclose the mysterious process by which she attained this awful pre-eminence. Suffice it to say, that she was a handsome, shrewd, clever woman, and had the advice and assistance of a mother more experienced than herself. But, had she been a simpleton and a dowdy, her husband was a founder of cities and a millionaire. She could afford to waste—at least she wasted—more money than any of her rivals, and the old proverb has a peculiar application to the votaries of fashion, who are supposed to be directly descended from the ancient worshipers of the golden calf.

In process of time, she became the mother of two children, a son and a daughter, and the birth of the former was the crisis of her fate. Had she done what her heart, in the secret core of which nature sometimes made an unavailing struggle, prompted her to do; had she sacrificed those empty delusions which not only never confer happiness themselves, but render their slaves incapable of deriving it elsewhere; had she stopped short in her career of idle, unsubstantial vanity; had she, in one word, assumed and fulfilled the sacred duties of a mother, she might have not only been happy herself, but prevented the happiness of her children from being wrecked forever. But, like the inexperienced mother of our race, she was tempted by the glistening eyes, the golden waving scales, and wicked whisperings of the wily serpent, Vanity, and after a few struggles, the last she ever felt, yielded a final and decisive victory. She who resists and conquers the first fond yearnings of a mother’s heart, need never hope to be overcome by any other impulse of duty or affection; for her fate is ever afterward to starve on empty pleasures, and never to know the purest, most sacred, most delightful and absorbing of all the cares and enjoyments that fall to the lot of woman. She may consider herself forsaken of her God, for she has abandoned the post of honor in which he had placed her, by acting in direct opposition to that heaven-born instinct which impels even the wild beasts of the forest to nurse and protect their offspring in the days of their helplessness.

But Julia had fallen a victim to her mother’s vanity, and she now offered up her children at the shrine of her own. One of the most formidable of her competitors for the bauble sceptre of fashion, just about the period of the birth of her son, had returned from a tour in Europe, during which she had spent a winter in Paris, the paradise of fools. She had brought with her a powerful reinforcement of new manners, fashions and tastes; a French cook, two ignorant nurses to teach the young ladies the true French pronunciation, a poodle, and a whiskered cosmopolite, whether an admirer of herself or her daughters no one could tell. He bore the title of count, was devoted to music and waltzing, and his moustaches were inimitable. The fashionable world began to waver in its allegiance, and the count and the poodle seemed on the point of carrying the day, especially when it was whispered abroad that the latter was of royal lineage, being descended in a direct line from the favorite poodle of the late Duchess of Angoulême, which is said to have been choked by a diamond necklace. A severe contest ensued, in which the tin boxes of the millionaire suffered considerably. Julia sought victory by the splendor of her entertainments, and tried to allure the knights of the moustache by the profusion of wines and delicacies, and the number of pâtes, concocted of a stuffed goose’s liver, she offered for their discussion. Her rival, not being able to dispute this pre-eminence with her, entrenched herself in another stronghold, from which she annoyed the enemy exceedingly. She appealed to the intellectual instead of the corporeal appetite, and to the ears instead of the eyes and palate. She affected a marked simplicity in her establishment and entertainments; she invited a host of famous musicians, all of whom had presided over orchestras, and played before kings; she exhibited the count and the poodle to the greatest advantage; and, in short, various ominous appearances indicated that the count, the poodle, and the fiddlers would carry the day against the millionaire and his tin boxes. A revolution was at hand, and a change of dynasty appeared inevitable. What rendered this state of things still more mortifying and deplorable, Julia, during the most critical period of the contest, was in “the state that ladies wish to be who love their lords,” according to Shakspeare, who, however, is not the best authority in the fashionable world of the present day. This untoward accident greatly embarrassed her exertions and impeded her activity, so that toward the end of the campaign, when she gave birth to a daughter, her rival, or rather the count, the poodle, and the fiddlers, might be said to have almost secured the victory.

Poor Mrs. Hyacinth Plantville suffered dreadfully during the period of her abstraction from the world, to which, however, she hurried back with such imprudent precipitation that she caught a severe cold, of which, like a prudent woman, she availed herself in the most dexterous manner. She saw that for the present her fashionable retainers were irreclaimable, and as the next thing to a victory is a masterly retreat, at once decided that the state of her health required a sea voyage, and a residence in a milder climate. She assured the Honorable Hyacinth that such was the case, and the doctor strenuously advised that no time should be lost, as the spring air was particularly dangerous to the lungs. Hyacinth swore he would not stir a peg; strutted, fretted, scolded and fumed; abused his wife, insulted the doctor, and consigned all Europe, particularly Paris, to eternal perdition. After which, having spoken his mind, and paid Julia off beforehand, as he said, he submitted without further demur, and consented in silence to his approaching martyrdom. No time was to be lost, the spring climate being so dangerous; and things were hurried on at such a rate that Hyacinth had scarcely time to metamorphose some of the contents of his tin boxes into bills of exchange. The truth is, that even millionaires may sometimes want money; and what with the extravagance of Julia, the demands of his long-headed, calculating agent, who always assured him his city was growing so fast that it would soon make a great figure, together with the consequences of that great revulsion which was then fast approaching, and from whose gripe neither rich nor poor have since escaped—however surprising it may seem, our millionaire was often pushed for ready money. One of his tin boxes, or at least the contents, had departed from his custody, and the others were in a fair way of speedily following. Had Hyacinth not relied on his great city in the west to make up his leeway, he would before this time have died of a broken heart.

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Julia, who had been very much puzzled to keep ill enough to require a sea voyage, and a residence in the milder climate of Europe; “Good Lord!” cried she, suddenly recollecting herself and mustering up a violent cough, “what shall we do with the children? I had quite forgot the poor little creatures.”

“Do with them!” quoth Hyacinth—“Why take them with us, to be sure.”

“But, my dear, they are so young, and I am so poorly, that I should never be able to take care of them on board the ship, I’m sure.”

“You can take as much care of them on board ship as you do at home for that matter, and not kill yourself either,” replied Hyacinth bluntly.

This was a home thrust. It was too true to be spoken, and above all to be heard by the mother who felt she had merited the reproach. The first shock brought tears to her eyes, but the fountain was scorched dry in an instant by the first sparks of anger that her husband had ever seen flash from her eyes. She was actually on the very point of pouring vials of wrath on his head, when suddenly recollecting she had a point to carry, she replied with her usual derisive composure.

“Well, suppose you stay and take care of them, while I am seeking that health I fear I shall never more enjoy. It will be an amusement to you, and console you in my absence, my dear.”

“Hum,” quoth the millionaire to the great consternation of Julia, who was never so much afraid of his opposition as when he said nothing, for it was the only sign he ever gave of a determination to do a great deal. The consultation ended in deciding to leave the children at home, with four nurses to take care of them, and two governesses, under the eye of their grandmother, to superintend their morals and education. The arrangement was made in such haste, that there was no time for the necessary inquiries into the morals, habits and qualifications of the two governesses, and the millionaire together with Julia and her suite departed on their tour, leaving, as the latter said, “all their cares behind them.”

We shall not dwell at length on the incidents and adventures, the inconveniences and enjoyments, the anticipations and disappointments which befell the millionaire and his wife, who, if the truth were fairly told, often felt by mortifying experience that they had not left quite all their cares behind them. It is sufficient to the moral of our story, that according to the custom in all similar cases, the wife cut the figure while the husband represented the cipher. Julia’s health mended surprisingly, and had it been the fashion in the old world, where maturity, not to say decay, is preferred to the charm of youthful bloom and freshness, she might have passed for the daughter of the millionaire. She visited Italy, where Hyacinth became something of a connoisseur in painting, by purchasing several original copies, and Julia almost ran mad after music. They visited Switzerland, where our hero mounted a glacier, and was very near being precipitated into an icy chasm so deep that it is doubtful whether he would ever have found the bottom; and Julia became smitten with a violent fit of the picturesque. They visited honest, old-fashioned Germany, the modern court of the muses as well as temple of philosophy; sailed down the Rhine in a steamboat, in the midst of a cloud of tobacco smoke; saw everywhere so much that they could remember nothing; and finally came back to Paris to spend the winter preparatory to their return home. During all this time they received no letters, for Julia had desired her mother and the governesses not to write, since if there was any bad news it would only make her miserable; and if good, before it could be received something ill might have happened.

At Paris Julia laid herself, and especially her husband’s money, out to make a figure in that huge vortex of discontented, aspiring spirits, who, finding no happiness at home, seek for the jewel in other caskets where it is never found. Young, handsome, graceful, accomplished, and with the reputation as well as outward exhibition of great wealth, her vanity might have perhaps been gratified, had she been content to be sought instead of seeking. But the quick-sighted pupils of that great school of life soon discovered her feverish anxiety to excite notice, and be admitted into the circles of the would-be great, and consequently set her down as one of the vulgar herd of Americans, who, while pretending to despise titles, are more abject in their devotion to them than the lowest slave of an eastern despot. Julia courted, and fidgetted, and floundered about in her splendid equipage; gave grand entertainments at the hotel which our millionaire, or rather his better half, had hired for the winter; and, in order to allure the birds of fashion, induced an old dowager of the ancien regime, who had survived all the possessions of the family but their title and their pedigree, to condescend, for an adequate consideration, to receive her guests and do the honors.

But it would not do. All that her own spasmodic exertions, aided by Hyacinth’s money, could accomplish, was to attract a few straggling outcasts of the magic circle, who had preserved the ragged remnant of a title, and were permitted to claim kindred with their illustrious houses, provided they claimed nothing else. Before the winter was fairly over, Julia suddenly discovered the air of Paris did not agree with her; and Hyacinth, who had begun to relish the society of Messieurs the Restaurateurs, was forthwith put under sailing orders for England. In London they were lost in a fog, both literally and metaphorically. They had letters, but not being lions, nobody thought they could derive any éclat or consequence from entertaining them. The American minister was civil, but not being a worshiper of the golden calf, he was nothing more. The banker gave them a dinner to quiet his conscience, and then cut them adrift. Julia found the air of London even worse than that of Paris; and, having accomplished an introduction to the royal levee, turned away from “merry England,” with a solemn declaration that it was the dullest place she ever saw in her life.

On her arrival in the great city, her first inquiries were about the rival queen, who, she found, still possessed the throne, but had many competitors, among which the most formidable was the wife of a man who possessed more property belonging to other people, than any one of his contemporaries. He had founded several cities; was sole proprietor of a bank without capital; and if wealth, as many people believe, consists in the amount of a man’s debts, he certainly was one of the richest men of his day. Julia then called for her children, and attempted to kiss them, telling them she was their mother. But the little girl slapped her in the face, crying out, “You aint my mother—nurse Jenny is my mother;” and the boy, turning up his nose, skipped away to tell his nurse there was a strange woman in the parlor who wanted to make him believe site was his mamma. “What unnatural little monsters!” exclaimed Julia, and she almost hated them.

Her first step was renewing the war against her ancient rival, who, she rejoiced to find, had lost two of her most powerful auxiliaries. The poodle had died under strong suspicion of being poisoned—that being the appropriate fate of all dogs of distinction—and the count had disappeared in a mysterious manner, leaving none behind to lament his fate but his landlord, his tailor, and his shoemaker. Nobody knew what became of him, though there was a vague report that he had begun the world anew, in one of the remote towns of the west, under the auspices of a barber’s pole. The war was commenced with desperate vigor, money on one side and music on the other. Julia renewed and outdid former extravagancies, and talked incessantly of the condescending affability of Queen Victoria, while the tin boxes of the millionaire grew lighter and lighter. But experience soon brought home the mortifying conviction that, however it may be in political revolutions, those who have once abdicated, or been driven from the throne of fashion, can never be restored.

While this fierce contest was going on, the millionaire, finding his resources daily diminishing, and his tin boxes at the point of exhaustion, determined to replenish them by resorting to some of the means by which he had acquired his riches. He plunged by degrees into the vortex of speculation; purchased vast amounts of fancy stocks; became a dealer in city lots, lithographic cities, and broken bank charters. But Fortune, though she may sometimes carry a man on the top of her wheel for a long time, is pretty certain to throw him off in the end, especially if he does not dismount and retire in time. Though she may yield to early youthful addresses, she revolts at the gray-beard and his wrinkled brow, and seldom twice takes the same man for her paramour. Accordingly, she turned her back on the millionaire, and amused herself with enriching a more youthful suitor, with the spoils of her ancient beau. Hyacinth, in short, had commenced at the wrong end, and just at the time the balloon had begun to collapse. Every thing was falling, and as our hero, in pursuance of his old system of doing business, always purchased on the presumption of a rise, he never failed to go in at the big, and come out at the little end of the horn. It is amazing how soon the candle will burn out when you light it at both ends. Julia burnt one end at home, and Hyacinth the other abroad; no wonder it began to flicker in the socket. Julia, for the first time, made a draft on the pocket of the millionaire, which was returned protested.

“I have no money,” said he, with all the coolness of desperation.

“No money! impossible.”

“Such a thing is possible, my dear.”

“But how is it possible to spend a million of money?”

“Much easier than to get it, my dear.”

“I don’t believe a word of it. It’s only one of your stingy fits come over you.”

“The fit will last a long time, I fear.”

“Well, I must have the money, and there’s no use in talking.”

“None in the world, my dear. It’s all talk and no cider.”

“Out upon your filthy, musty old saws. I wish you would say something to the purpose, Mr. Plantville.”

“Well, Mrs. Plantville,” replied the millionaire, drawing himself up with an air almost of sublimity, “for once I will speak to the purpose, and you must hear to the purpose, too. Your extravagance, and my folly, have reduced both of us to beggary. The wealth accumulated by years of honest, persevering industry and economy, has been wasted in almost as few months, in the vain pursuit of what we never could attain. In striving to make up for what was thus wasted in folly and extravagance, I have only plunged into more irretrievable difficulty, and I now tell you, madam, that the utmost I can save from the wreck of my fortune will not exceed twenty thousand dollars.” Hyacinth spoke this with a calm, yet somewhat severe moderation, far different from the peevish irritability with which he was wont to meet the little rubs his wife often threw in his way; so true it is that those whom trifles discompose, often encounter the most severe calamities with unflinching fortitude. The weight of the blow crushed the little thorns and briers, but left the stem of the plant not only unhurt, but reinvigorated, by the absence of these excrescences.

It is needless to dwell on the catastrophe of the millionaire. Hyacinth was a man of at least conventional honesty. In the long course of his business, it had been his interest, if not his principle, to pay his debts punctually, and on this occasion he behaved with the most scrupulous integrity. This being perceived by his creditors, they unanimously agreed to commit to his own hands the settlement of his own affairs; and we will do him the justice to say that he fully justified their confidence. He labored with assiduity, not only from gratitude to his creditors, but because he was striving at the same time for himself, since all he could save from the wreck would be justly his own. In short, he paid all he owed, and saved some twenty thousand dollars, preserving, at the same time, what was of far more worth than the million he had lost, a quiet conscience, and an unsullied name.

It was now, too, that Julia emerged from the total eclipse which bad example and worse precepts had cast over the lustre of her virtues. She was a sensible, clever woman, and of such we need never despair. Nature once more awakened and exerted her prerogative; and, though it may seem strange, it is not in reality so, she began to respect and love her husband. When she saw him laboring incessantly to preserve the remnant of his fortune; how careful he was of the interests of others; with what a decent, manly resignation he, one by one, sacrificed all those splendors which he had devoted his youth and manhood to obtain; and with what delicacy he ever afterward abstained from all allusion to her agency in dissipating his fortune, she could not but acknowledge there was that within him which fully merited a better wile than she had been. She fell much brighter than she rose; and when they retired from their fine establishment to occupy a small house in the outskirts of the city, it was with a fixed determination to make up, as far as it was possible, for the errors of the past, by the exertions of the future.

But she had much to learn, and what is not gained in youth is ever afterward difficult to acquire. The mind, like the muscles, becomes rigid with age, and, as in dancing, the steps we can accomplish without effort in youth, become unattainable in latter years. Julia, however, persevered, and achieved all that could reasonably be expected from one who had passed through such an ordeal. She adapted herself to her new situation; economized as well as she knew how; superintended the operations of the lower region, which we will not outrage the feelings of our fashionable readers by naming; eschewed fancy stores and milliners’ shops, and never afterward talked of the condescending affability of Queen Victoria. Happiness once more began to dawn on her, and might, perhaps, have shone betimes in its meridian splendor, had it not been for one single crime, for which, as she never could atone, she was destined perpetually to suffer.

She had neglected her children; she had committed them to hirelings, to derive their nourishment and imbibe their first impressions. The earliest dawnings of their affections were given to others; their earliest recollections of kindness and care never came home to the bosom of their mother, whose first remembered appearance was that of a stranger; whose first offered kiss was rejected with dislike, and who never could gather, in after times, those fruits, the seeds of which she had not planted in the proper season. The name of mother carries little magic with it, unless connected with the recollection of a mother’s cares, anxieties, sacrifices, and ever watchful tenderness; and she who does not nurse her offspring in their infancy, has no right to expect to be nursed by them in her old age. Julia spoiled them to make them love her, but that only made matters worse, by rendering them more selfish and exacting; and she now every day learned, by painful experience, that the early neglect of our offspring can seldom, if ever, be remedied by after exertions. Whether, when time and reason exert their influence, these unfortunate children may be enabled to correct their errors and reform their conduct, remains to be seen.

They are all still living; and our hero has long since learned, with equal surprise and gratification, that enough is as good as a feast, and the reputation of having once been a millionaire almost equal to being one in reality.

BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.

BY A MAIDEN AUNT.

“Tuesday Morning, March 28th. Clouds this morning rather threatening, and an impertinent wind, that I fear may spoil our ride. Ladies’ habits should be double shotted, and then a breeze would not be a bugbear. If Laura Annesley is a more splendid creature at one time than another, it is when she is equipped for riding, with her rich locks braided close to her cheek, the single plume floating on her shoulder, and the dark dress showing her faultless outline to perfection. Kate is a pretty girl too, but timid as an unfledged dove; and it is a great fault of hers, that blushing at every thing, so undiscriminatingly. She should never ride with Laura Annesley; her figure looks more petite than ever, by contrast.

“Ernest Hyndford is cultivating a pair of moustaches, in preparation for his European tour. Your handsome men are almost always foppish. Ah! the sun shines out gloriously! Via!

“Wednesday. Our promenade à cheval was charming, with the one single drawback of Hyndford’s puppyism. How can any man be so presuming! He does not need a foreign tour to give him assurance. One would have thought him the accepted lover of both the ladies. He was in riotous spirits, and talked until he inspired even Kate Brooks. Miss Annesley, too, seemed very willing to be entertained, and I was stupid as an owl. A spell seemed to come over me, or Ernest’s chattering had the effect of one. It is always a marvel to me that women of sense can be so easily pleased! However—if Miss Annesley likes Hyndford, I am sure it is no concern of mine. She will only amuse herself by trying the effect of her bewitching looks and tones upon him for awhile, and then cast him off for some new victim. What a stupid world this is! It is wonderful that people desire to live long in it! My head aches horribly, and I must try a walk.

“Thursday. Some of us certainly come into this world foredoomed to be misjudged, even by those nearest to us. I suppose it is vain to struggle against what is written in our foreheads. My friends have always insisted that I am impetuous, headlong, imprudent, while I know that, if I have one fault more obvious than the rest, it is a supine indifference to every thing; a habit of deliberation which is the very opposite of imprudence. My father used to say, ‘Charles always wears his heart upon his sleeve, for daws to peck at—’ Heaven bless him! how completely he was mistaken! Any body but myself would be furious at such treatment as I have received this day, while I am perfectly cool. I will let Miss Annesley know that her power over my feelings is not so great as she may imagine it. To pass me unnoticed in the street—I waiting, like a fool, to catch her eye—and she leaning, so confidentially, on Ernest Hyndford’s arm—very lady-like, truly! What a puppy Ernest has become! I thought that wonderfully seductive moustache was not got up for nothing!

“I have been too often at Mr. Annesley’s, and Miss Laura doubtless supposes me in love. Quite out there, I assure you, most queenly Juno! Never cooler in my life! I should like nothing better than a voyage to the North Pole—to sail to-morrow.

“I will go and see my cousin Kate this evening. She is kind and gentle; handsome enough, yet not so much so as to be insolent from a consciousness of power; Kate would make a sweet little wife—why should I not think of her? Our cousinship is scarcely more than nominal, and she has always liked me. Girls with fair hair and blue eyes are so mild and unpretending—generally, that is—that they must make charming wifes. A great tall woman, with a full dark eye and a majestic step, is enough to make one tremble. Yes! I will go and see Kate to-night.

“Friday. I found Kate at her work-table, sewing as if to-morrow’s bread depended upon the number of stitches accomplished this evening. I wonder that women can spend their time in such an insipid way! Laura Annesley does just so; although she knows that she looks like an angel at the harp. I could not persuade Kate to music, or any thing but the needle. Yet she looked pretty, and quite interesting too, and I thought her manner was even kinder than usual. There was an unusual softness of tone, and I fancied—when I could get a glance at her eye—that she had been crying. She is a sweet girl, certainly, thought I. I drew a chair at her side, and, getting her tiny scissors on the tips of my fingers, began snipping scraps from her spool of thread, for want of something to say.

“ ‘You’re not well to-night, Charles,’ she said, at length, quite tenderly, as I fancied.

“ ‘A head-ache only,’ I replied; ‘but you, coz, do not seem quite as lively as usual.’

“She looked up at me with a half smile, but with suffused eyes. Oh! those dewy eyes, how irresistible they are! I felt at once sure of sympathy, and began forthwith to open my heart—that is to say, as much of it as it is prudent to open—telling Kate what a miserable, false, hollow, heartless world I found this to be, and how very tired I was of it.

“ ‘I cannot agree with you, Charles,’ she said, ‘in thinking there is nothing here worth living for. I believe the means of some degree of happiness are always within our power. We have sorrows and disappointments, it is true, but how far our joys outnumber them!’

“What a commonplace observation! She did not understand my feelings, after all. Still, her tones were all kindness, and I saw a bright tear fall beneath the ringlets that veiled her eyes, even as she uttered this sentiment, intended to be so cheerful. Well! women ought not to have too great depth of feeling. They have not weight of intellect enough for ballast. Laura Annesley to be sure—but she is an exception. And those very intellectual women are apt to be rather overpowering. It is safer to choose a wife who will not expect to dazzle any body. Women accustomed to admiration are always setting traps for it. As these thoughts passed through my mind, I loved her the better (Kate, I mean,) for her simplicity and naturalness.

“ ‘Your experience has been very limited, my dear cousin,’ said I, clipping thread after thread, with the rapidity of fate; ‘the world looks bright to you, because you have seen only its sunny side. Your morn of life has been without a cloud.’

“ ‘And has yours been so very different, Charles?’ said she, with a smile.

“ ‘Different!’ I exclaimed, bitterly enough—‘different! ay, indeed! dark, gloomy, chilling! I meet nothing but treachery and disappointment. For me to trust is to be deceived. I began life with as warm and confiding a heart as ever beat within a human bosom. I was ready to worship the good and the beautiful. Beauty, indeed, I have found, but truth—If I could interest a heart like yours, dearest Kate, kind and true, and full of unselfish feeling—if I had always a ready ear, a faithful adviser, a sympathizing friend, to warn and to encourage me—another self, dear Kate, such as you could be if you would—then, indeed, the world might seem to me, too, to be strewn with roses; then, indeed, I should learn to adopt your sweet and pure philosophy, and to find good every where. Dear Kate! I have never whispered love, but you know I have prized you as a sister. May I dare to hope—’ and here I ventured to take the hand that lay powerless in her lap—‘may I hope some day to be able to excite a dearer interest? May I——’

“ ‘Why Kate! I do really believe you’re asleep!’

“She started up, rubbed her pretty eyes, and looked about her in confusion.

“ ‘Oh, Charles! pray excuse me! Indeed I have heard every word you’ve said until the very last! I heard you say the world had no charms for you; indeed I did! Don’t be so vexed, Charles dear! You know last evening was poor Ernest’s last, and he stayed so late!’

“Ernest! . . . I took my hat and my leave very speedily, pleading my head-ache. A brilliant night’s work, truly! I will sail for New Orleans, and get the Yellow Fever.

“I shall call in the morning and leave a fashionable ‘D.I.O.’ for Miss Annesley. I can be chilling too, as she shall see. False girl!—but they are all alike!

“Saturday, April 1st. Laura says it was all a mistake. She threw me off my guard in a moment, by the frank kindness of her manner, and I told my grievance without intending it. She says she met Ernest by chance, and that he was telling her how happy Kate had made him. He is to return in six months, to be married. And such a look as she gave me when she concluded with, ‘How could you for a moment suspect—but there she is, on the other side of the street.’ ” . . . .

TO A FRIEND ON HER BIRTHDAY.

NOTES.

OR WHY MR. BROWN CRASH TOOK HIS TOUR.

(COPYRIGHT SECURED.)

BY N. P. WILLIS.

Fashion is arbitrary, we all know. What it was that originally gave Sassafras street the right to despise Pepperidge street, the oldest inhabitant of the village of Slimford could not positively say. The court-house and jail were in Sassafras street, but the orthodox church and female seminary were in Pepperidge street. Two directors of the Slimford Bank lived in Sassafras street—two in Pepperidge street. The Diaper family lived in Sassafras street—the Dimity family in Pepperidge street; and the fathers of the Diaper girls and the Dimity girls were worth about the same money, and had both made it in the lumber line. There was no difference to speak of in their respective modes of living—none in the education of the girls—none in the family grave-stones, or church pews. Yet, deny it who liked, the Diapers were the aristocracy of Slimford.

It may be a prejudice, but I am inclined to think there is always something in a nose. (I am about to mention a trifle, but trifles are the beginning of most things, and I would account for the pride paramount of the Diapers, if it is any way possible.) The most stylish of the Miss Diapers—Harriet Diaper—had a nose like his grace the Duke of Wellington. Neither her father nor mother had such a feature, but there was a foreign umbrella in the family, with exactly the same shaped nose on the ivory handle. Old Diaper had once kept a tavern, and he had taken this umbrella from a stranger for a night’s lodging. But that is neither here nor there. To the nose of Harriet Diaper, resistlessly and instinctively, the Dimity girls had knocked under at school. There was authority in it, for the American Eagle had such a nose, and the Duke of Wellington had such a nose, and when, to these two warlike instances, was added the nose of Harriet Diaper, the tripod stood firm. Am I visionary in believing that the authority introduced into that village by a foreigner’s umbrella (so unaccountable is fate!) gave the dynasty to the Diapers?

I have mentioned but two families—one in each of the two principal streets of Slimford. Having a little story to tell, I cannot afford to distract my narrative with unnecessary “asides;” and I must not only omit all description of the other Sassafrasers and Pepperidgers, but I must leave to your imagination several Miss Diapers, and several Miss Dimitys. Harriet Diaper and Meena Dimity being the two exclusive objects of my hero’s Sunday and evening attentions.

For eleven months in the year, the loves of the ladies of Slimford were presided over by indigenous Cupids. Brown Crash and the other boys of the village had the Diapers and the Dimitys for that respectable period to themselves. The remaining month, when their sun of favor was eclipsed, was during the falling of the leaf, when the drummers came up to dun. The tonnish clerks of the dry goods merchants were too much for the provincials. Brown Crash knocked under and sulked—owing, as he said, to the melancholy depression accompanying the fall of the deciduous vegetation—but I have not yet introduced you to my hero.

Brown Crash was the Slimford stage-agent. He was the son of a retired watch-maker, and had been laughed at in his boyhood for what they called his “airs.” He loved, even as a lad, to be at the tavern when the stage came in and help out the ladies, with instinctive leisureliness he pulled off his cap, as soon after the “whoa-hup” as was necessary—and no sooner—and asked the ladies if they would “alight and take dinner,” with a seductive smile that began, as the landlord said, “to pay.” Hence his promotion. At sixteen, he was nominated stage-agent, and thenceforward was the most conspicuous man in the village—for “man” he was, if speech and gait go for any thing.

But we must minister a moment to the reader’s inner sense, for we do not write altogether for Slimford comprehension. Brown Crash had something in his composition “above the vulgar.” If men’s qualities were mixed like salads, and I were giving a “recipe for Brown Crashes,” in Mrs. Glass’ style, I should say his two principal ingredients were a dictionary and a dunghill cock—for his language was as ornate as his style of ambulation was deliberate and imposing. What Brown Crash would have been, born right honorable, I leave (with the smaller Diapers and Dimitys) to the reader’s fancy. My object is to show what he was, minus patrician nurture and valuation. Words, with Brown Crash, were susceptible of being dirtied by use. He liked a clean towel—he preferred an unused phrase. But here stopped his peculiarities. Below the epidermis he was like other men—subject to like tastes and passions. And if he expressed his loves and hates with grandiloquent imagery, they were the honest loves and hates of a week-day world; no finer nor flimsier for their bedecked plumage.

To use his own phrase, Brown frequented but two ladies in Slimford, Miss Harriet Diaper, and Miss Meena Dimity. The first we have described in describing her nose, for her remainder was comparatively inconsiderable. The latter was “a love,” and, of course, had nothing particular about her. She was a lamp—nothing till lighted. She was a mantle—nothing, except as worn by the owner. She was a mirror—blank and unconscious till something came to be reflected. She was any thing, loved—unloved, nothing! And this (it is our opinion, after half a life) is the most delicious and adorable variety of woman that has yet been spared to us from the museum of specimen angels. (A remark of Brown Crash’s, by the way, of which he may as well have the credit.)

Now Mr. Crash had an ambitious weakness for the best society, and he liked to appear intimate with the Diapers. But in Meena Dimity there was a secret charm, which made him wish she was an ever-to-be-handed-out lady-stage-passenger. He could have given her a hand, and brought in her umbrella and bandbox, all day long. In his hours of pride, he thought of the Diapers—in his hours of affection, of Meena Dimity. But the Diapers looked down upon the Dimitys, and to play his card delicately between Harriet and Meena took all the diplomacy of Brown Crash. The unconscious Meena would walk up Sassafras street, when she had his arm, and the scornful Harriet would be there, with her nose over the front gate, to sneer at them. He managed as well as he could. He went on light evenings to the Diapers—on dark evenings to the Dimitys. He took town walks with the Diapers—country walks with the Dimitys. But his acquaintance with the Diapers hung by the eyelids. Harriet liked him, for he was the only beau in Slimford whose manners were not belittled beside her nose. But her acquaintance with him was a condescension, and he well knew that he could not “hold her by the nose,” if she were offended. Oh no! Though their respective progenitors were of no very unequal rank—though a horologist and a “boss lumber man” might abstractly be equals—the Diapers had the power! Yes—they could lift him to themselves, or dash him down to the Dimitys, and all Slimford would agree in the latter case, that he was a slab and a small potato!

But a change came over the spirit of Brown Crash’s dream! The drummers were lording it in Slimford, and Brown, reduced to Meena Dimity, (for he was too proud to play second-fiddle to a town dandy) was walking with her, on a dark night, past the Diapers. The Diapers were hanging over the gate, unluckily, and their Pearl street admirers sitting on the top rail of the fence.

“Who is it?” said a strange voice.

The reply, sent upward from a scornfully projecting under lip, rebounded in echoes from the tense nose of Miss Diaper.

“A Mr. Crash, and a girl from the back street!”

It was enough. A hot spot on his cheek—a warm rim round his eyes—a pimply pricking in his skin, and it was all over! His vow was made. He coldly bid Meena good night, at her father’s door, and went home and counted his money. And from that hour, without regard to sex, he secretly accepted shillings from gratified travelers, and “stood treat” no more!

Saratoga was crowded with the dispersed nuclei of the metropolises. Fashion, wealth and beauty were there. Brown Crash was there, on his return from a tour to Niagara and the lakes.

“Brown Crash, Esq.,” was one of the notabilities of Congress Hall. Here and there a dandy “could not quite make him out,” but there was evidently something uncommon about him. The ladies thought him “of the old school of politeness,” and the politicians thought he had the air of one used to influence in his county. His language was certainly very choice and peculiar, and his gait was conscious dignity itself. He must have been carefully educated, yet his manners were popular, and he was particularly courteous on a first introduction. The elegance and ease with which he helped the ladies out of their carriages were particularly remarked, and a shrewd observer of manners said of him that “that point of high breeding was only acquired by daily habit. He must have been brought up where there were carriages and ladies.” A member of Congress, who expected to run for governor, inquired his county, and took wine with him. His name was mentioned by the letter writers from the Springs. Brown Crash was in his perihelion!

The season leaned to its close, and the following paragraph appeared in the New York American:

“Fashionable Intelligence.—The company at the Springs is breaking up. We understand that the Vice President and Brown Crash, Esq., have already left for their respective residences. The latter gentleman, it is understood, has formed a matrimonial engagement with a family of wealth and distinction from the south. We trust that these interesting bonds, binding together the leading families of the far-divided extremities of our country, may tend to strengthen the tenacity of the great American Union!!”

It was not surprising that the class in Slimford who knew every thing—the milliners, to wit—moralized somewhat bitterly on Mr. Crash’s devotion to the Diapers, after his return, and his consequent slight to Meena Dimity. “If that was the effect of fashion and distinction on the heart, Mr. Crash was welcome to his honors! Let him marry Miss Diaper, and they wished him much joy of her nose; but they would never believe that he had not ruthlessly broken the heart of Meena Dimity, and he ought to be ashamed of himself, if there was any shame in such a dandy!”

But the milliners, though powerful people in their way, could little affect the momentum of Brown Crash’s glories. The paragraph from the “American” had been copied into the Slimford Advertiser, and the eyes of Sassafras street and Pepperidge street were alike opened. They had undervalued their indigenous “prophet.” They had misinterpreted and mis-read the stamp of his superiority. He had been obliged to go from them to be recognized. But he was returned. He was there, to have reparation made—justice done. And now what office would he like, from assessor to path-master, and would he be good enough to name it before the next town-meeting. Brown Crash was king of Slimford!

And Harriet Diaper! The scorn from her lip had gone, like the blue from a radish. Notes for “B. Crash, Esq.,” showered from Sassafras street—bouquets, from old Diaper’s front yard, glided to him, per black boy—no end to the endearing attentions, undisguised and unequivocal. Brown Crash and Harriet Diaper were engaged—if having the front parlor entirely given up to them of an evening meant any thing—if his being expected every night to tea meant any thing—if his devoted (though she thought rather cold) attentions meant any thing.

They did not mean anything! They all did not mean any thing! What does the orthodox minister do, the third Sunday after Brown Crash’s return, but read the banns of matrimony between that faithless man and Meena Dimity!

But this was not to be endured. Harriet Diaper had a cousin who was a “strapper!” He was boss of a saw-mill, in the next county, and he must be sent for. He was sent for.

The fight was over. Boss Diaper had undertaken to flog Brown Crash, but it was a drawn battle, for the combatants had been pulled apart by their coattails. They stepped into the bar-room and stood, recovering their breath. The people of Slimford crowded in, and wanted to have the matter talked over. Boss Diaper bolted out his grievance.

“Gentlemen!” said Brown Crash, with one of his irresistible come-to-dinner smiles, “I am culpable, perhaps, in the minutiæ of this business—justifiable, I trust you will say, in the general scope and tendency. You, all of you, probably, had mothers, and some of you have wives and sisters; and your ‘silver cord’ naturally sympathizes with a worsted woman. But, gentlemen, you are republicans! You, all of you, are the rulers of a country very large indeed; and you are not limited in your views to one woman, nor to a thousand women—to one mile, nor to a thousand miles. You generalize! You go for magnificent principles, gentlemen! You scorn high-and-mightiness, and aristocracy!”

“Hurra for Mr. Crash!” cried a stage driver from the outside.

“Well, gentlemen! In what I have done I have deserved well of a republican country! True, it has been my misfortune to roll my juggernaut of principle over the sensibilities of that gentleman’s respectable female relative. But, gentleman, she offended, remedilessly and grossly, one of the sovereign people! She scorned one of earth’s fairest daughters, who lives in the back street! Gentlemen, you know that pride tripped up Lucifer! Shall a tip-top angel fall for it, and a young woman who is nothing particular be left scornfully standing? Shall Miss Diaper have more privileges than Lucifer? I appreciate your indignant negative!

“But, gentlemen, I am free to confess, I had also my republican, private end. You know my early history. You have witnessed my struggles to be respected by my honorable contemporaries. If it be my weakness to be sensitive to the finger of scorn, be it so. You will know how to pardon me. But I will be brief. At a particular crisis of my acquaintance with Miss Diaper, I found it expedient to transfer my untrammeled tendernesses to Pepperidge street. My heart had long been in Pepperidge street. But, gentlemen, to have done it without removing from before my eyes the contumelious finger of the scorn of Sassafras street, was beyond my capabilities of endurance. In justice to my present ‘future,’ gentlemen, I felt that I must remove ‘sour grapes’ from my escutcheon—that I must soar to a point, whence, swooping proudly to Meena Dimity, I should pass the Diapers in descending!” (Cheers and murmurs.)

“Gentlemen and friends! This world is all a fleeting show. The bell has rung and I keep you from your suppers. Briefly. I found the means to travel and test the ring of my metal among unprejudiced strangers. I wished to achieve distinction, and return to my birth-place—but for what? Do me justice, gentlemen! Not to lord it in Sassafras street! Not to carry off a Diaper with triumphant elation! Not to pounce on your aristocratic No. 1, and link my destiny with the disdainful Diapers! No! But to choose where I liked, and have the credit of liking it! To have Slimford believe that if I preferred their No. 2, it was because I liked it better than their No. 1. Gentlemen, I am a republican! I may find my congenial spirit among the wealthy—I may find it among the humble. But I want the liberty to choose. And I have achieved it—I trust you will permit me to say. Having been honored by the dignitaries of a metropolis—having consorted with a candidate for gubernatorial distinction—having been recorded in a public journal as a companion of the Vice President of this free and happy country—you will believe me when I declare that I prefer Pepperidge street to Sassafras—you will credit my sincerity, when, having been approved by the Diapers’ betters, I give them the go-by for the Dimitys! Gentlemen, I have done.”

The reader will not be surprised to learn that Mr. Brown Crash is now a prominent member of the legislature, and an excessive aristocrat—Pepperidge street and very democratic speeches to the contrary notwithstanding.

FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND.

BY WILLIAM PITT PALMER.

JUNE 17, 1775, AND JUNE 17, 1843.

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

BY MRS. A. M. F. ANNAN.

CHAPTER I.

Scarcely a turnout of any distinction, in New York, but was to be seen in Broadway one evening, which closed a beautiful spring day; and amid their glitter and dash, very much out of place, appeared a towering, dusty, country vehicle, with scarlet bombazette curtains, and a top projecting like the roof of a Dutch porch. It was drawn by two fat horses, of different sizes and colors, which, instead of champing and caprioling, in the excitement of competition, as animals of more ambition would have done, seemed conscious of their false position, and moved along with their heads down, and at a pace so slow that even their sturdy driver appeared ashamed of their performance. He was a respectable looking farmer, dressed in a coat of substantial blue cloth, with gilt buttons; pantaloons of the same material, which, from the absence of straps, were drawn up high enough to reveal a pair of snow white, flaxen stockings, and a hat of which not a hair of the nap seemed yet to have been disturbed, though its block must have been good five years old. At length he drove up before a large house, of unexceptionable style and finish, within the windows of which stood two very pretty little girls.

“Ciel!” exclaimed the elder, throwing up her hands—a miniature dandizette, some twelve or thirteen years old; “here, mamma, is a market-wagon stopping before our door!”

“It can’t be a market-wagon, Victorine,” said the other, “for there is nothing inside but people. What a funny looking concern!—with red curtains, and a big gray horse and a little brown one!—and there’s a woman getting out, and such a queer-looking little girl! see, Victorine, her frock comes down to her heels, and up to her throat, and what big leather boots she has on, and what a monstrous green silk reticule is swinging from her arm!”

“Hush, Clara—come from the window, Victorine,” said their mother, approaching through the folding-doors; “in all probability it is your sister.”

“Our sister!” ejaculated Victorine, again throwing up her hands, while Clara burst into a laugh, saying; “If it were Lucette I dare say she would know naturally how to pull a bell, though she was brought up in the country; just listen—jerk, jerk, jerk! why the servants will be scared out of their wits—there, now, the wire is broken, to a certainty!”

They were interrupted by the entrance of the party from the carriage, the farmer leading the little girl, and presenting her to the lady of the mansion, with a cordial “How d’y’ do, Mrs. De Ford?—you see I have brought home your daughter, safe and sound.”

“Thank you, Mr. Horton. Ah! Mrs. Horton, how are you?” replied Mrs. De Ford, civilly; “come here, Lucette, child, and speak to me and your sisters.”

The little girl walked shyly forward, and, taking the offered hands, made an effort to shake them, with a gesture particularly uncouth and unbecoming in a child, whereupon Victorine returned a dancing-school courtesy, and Clara put her handkerchief to her face and giggled.

“I did not think you could be here so soon after receiving my letter, Mr. Horton,” said Mrs. De Ford.

“It is a good distance to come in one day, ma’am, but I put two horses to the carriage and drove fast, thinking you would be impatient to see your daughter.”

“I am much obliged to you,” said Mrs. De Ford, and, hearing the door bell ring again, she added hurriedly, lest she might be surprised with visiters so unusual, “walk out into the dining-room, if you please, and I will settle for the last quarter’s board. Come along with Mrs. Horton, Lucette.”

“I hear my horses moving, I shall have to go out to look after them,” said Mr. Horton.

“Ah—but I suppose Mrs. Horton can sign a receipt for you,” said Mrs. De Ford, for though her spruce waiting man stood holding the street door in his hand, she had no inclination to lower his dignity by sending him in the farmer’s place. She then busied herself in getting her pocket-book and writing materials.

Meanwhile, little Lucette clung to the kind-looking country woman, in apparent agony at the thought of separation. Mrs. Horton seemed almost equally distressed, and, while the tears rolled down her cheeks, she drew the child to her bosom, whispering, “Don’t forget the prayers I have taught you, Lucette. You will see much to grieve and fret you, but beg the Almighty to keep you humble, and make you good, and you will be much happier.”

“Now, if you will put your name to this receipt, Mrs. Horton,” said Mrs. De Ford, presenting a slip of paper with one hand and a roll of bank-notes with the other; “you find I have allowed liberally for your traveling expenses;” and, while the fashionable mother believed she had amply discharged her obligations by pecuniary justice, Mrs. Horton, though mechanically complying with her request, thought of nothing but the privation of losing a child whom she had regarded as her own. Not trusting herself again to speak, she once more clasped Lucette in her arms, and hurried to the door. The little girl flew after her, screaming, “I must see my dear, dear uncle Horton once more!”

“Stop the child from going into the street, Pierre,” said Mrs. De Ford, hastily, “and look after the horses while Mr. Horton comes in.”

Mr. Horton came into the entry, and lifting up the poor child, he kissed each of her wet cheeks, whispering, “God bless my little Lucette,” and then hurried out with his wife.

“Oh my dear, dear aunty! my dear, good uncle Horton!” sobbed Lucette, throwing herself upon the stairs, and burying her face in her lap.

“Hush, hush, my dear!” said Mrs. De Ford; “you must learn to call Mrs. Horton ‘nurse Horton,’ and not aunt; and Mr. Horton is not your uncle—you have no uncle; call him your foster-father;” but the poor child still sobbed and screamed, and she was led up stairs to be put to bed as soon as she could be quieted.

Mrs. De Ford was the widow of a French merchant, who had left her, if not wealthy, at least in very easy circumstances. Madame De Ford, she wished much to be called, but though her husband had been French, and her servants were French, and she kept French furniture, and wore French dresses, and tolerated only French cookery, yet, as she was altogether American by family and birth, she remained still simply Mrs. De Ford. She was a young looking, handsome woman, and of late she had felt some concern to be reminded that the time was approaching when she would have to chaperon three daughters. The beauty of the two elder had, in some measure, reconciled her to the prospect—they would be some credit to her—but the arrival from the country of the third, who appeared a hopelessly ugly child, filled her with an anxiety which spoiled her night’s rest.

Lucette was now eight years old. She had been a puny, sickly little thing from her birth; but as her father had possessed much parental feeling, he loved her though she was ill-favored, and, by the advice of his physician, took her into the country in her infancy, to insure her better health and a longer life. She was placed in the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Horton—a worthy couple who had no children of their own—and, while her father lived, had always received several visits in a year from him, with at least one or two from her mother. But Mr. De Ford had been dead three years, and his widow had found so many engagements since, that for eighteen months she had not seen the little exile, whose education she now designed to commence, and whose appearance now struck her with double dismay, when it was contrasted with that of her sisters.

The next morning Mrs. De Ford entered the sleeping-room of her children at an earlier hour than usual. Lucette was on her knees by her little cot, and the other two were tittering at the toilette. Their mother had sense of propriety enough to check them, but when Clara whispered to her what they had overheard of the child’s devotions, she joined in their laugh. It was “Oh, dear Lord, if I am ugly, pray make me good!”

The little stranger’s wardrobe was now overhauled, and as the various articles were drawn forth from her trunks, each one was received by her sisters with a peal of merriment. Her mother had never taken any charge of her clothing, but had merely sent money to Mrs. Horton, with instructions that she should be supplied with what she needed, and was suitable to the country. She had now nothing that was considered fit to wear, and a dress of Clara’s was tucked for her. Her mother was in hopes that it would improve her appearance, but she wore it with so bad a grace that it had rather a contrary effect; and, with a sign, Mrs. De Ford directed Victorine to bring Lucette to pay her respects to aunt Bently.

Lucette accordingly followed to the state chamber, which was now occupied by a guest, an aunt of her mother’s. Mrs. Bently was in her second widowhood—a stern, coarse, though rather a fine-looking woman, considerably advanced in years, and, from her dress, evidently valuing beauty as highly as did her niece. She had won her first husband, indeed, by that endearment, and her second also, according to her own belief, though as to that there is some difference of opinion, as she was middle aged when she captivated him, and known to possess a large fortune. Her wealth she still retained, and by her niece she was always treated with the greatest deference. She put on her spectacles as Lucette approached, and looked at her so keenly that the poor child colored until her skin showed its redness through her light and scanty hair.

“Why, it is even worse than you told me, Harriet,” said the old lady, sourly, when the children had been directed to go and sit down; “who under the sun does she take after?”

“Not after me, I trust,” said Mrs. De Ford, pensively; “and her father was a handsome man.”

“Where in the world did she get those eyes?” exclaimed aunt Bently; “perfect gooseberries!”

“If they only had better lashes, their color and dullness would not be so perceptible,” returned the mother, “but, as it is, there is nothing to relieve them.”

“And such a nose!—so nondescript and so ugly!—her father’s, I believe, was well shaped, and inclined to Roman.”

“And mine is considered pure Grecian. Clara and Victorine both have my nose.”

“And was there ever such hair!—thin and stringy, and several colors all mixed; upon my word, some locks are white, some yellow, and some inclined to lead-color! I wonder if we can’t get some preparation to improve it. Such things are often advertised.”

“I would not mind the hair so much, but the skin looks so dark by contrast with it, and is so deplorably freckled. Lucette, child, did not Mrs. Horton know enough to make you wear your bonnet, to keep you from getting so much freckled?”

“Yes, ma’am, she did,” replied the affrighted child; “I always wore my bonnet, and she washed me every day in buttermilk, but the freckles would come.”

“I would get some kind of a caustic wash to take them off, even if it took the skin with them;” said the aunt, decisively.

“Lucette,” again called the mother, “were you never taught to sit upright? I never did see a little creature so round shouldered.”

Lucette, accordingly, held up her head and threw forward her chest, but aunt Bently thought it only made matters worse. She was now square shouldered.

“If you keep her with you, she will be apt to spoil your own market, Harriet,” said the old lady, with a rough laugh; “no man would like to marry a woman who had been so unfortunate as to have such a child. He would fear a repetition of it.”

There was little comfort in the remark, and Mrs. De Ford turned a look to the other children. “We must try what artificial means will do for her,” said she; “her sisters have beauty enough to insure their fortune, and besides are so extremely graceful! I never saw any one more sylph-like than Clara, when she dances, and Victorine, when she sits at the harp, is a perfect seraph.”

Two or three weeks were devoted to remodeling Lucette, but without any encouraging effect. New clothes were furnished, but they only made her look more awkward, by confining her movements, and nothing would become her complexion. Her head was shaved for the improvement of her hair, and she looked still uglier in caps. A patent wash was tried on her skin, but it only, as aunt Bently remarked, “seemed to set the freckles.” She did not care for music, and, though she had a good talking voice—her only perceptible attraction—she could not turn a tune, so there was no hope in attempting to accomplish her in that line; and as for dancing, her want of ear for time made that an equal impracticability. The discussions she was hourly subjected to, and the efforts she was constantly required to make, were torture to the poor child, and she pined after her country home till her health was evidently failing.

“It is a pity to see her suffering,” said her mother, “for she is a good little thing, after all; so obedient and submissive, and so free from all envy and jealousy of her sisters.”

“Yes,” returned aunt Bently, “she is getting so thin and pale that she will soon be quite hideous, so you’ll just have to send her back to the country, Harriet. From her account, there is a good enough school at Arlington, and you can let her go back to the Hortons and attend it. It is to be hoped she will imbibe a taste for literature, and come out a blue in course of time—it is the best hope for her. Let her learn every thing she can, at all events, and, when she grows up, she may, at least, have a chance of making a match in the country, where looks are of not so much consequence.”

The advice was taken. Mrs. De Ford wrote to Mr. Horton, proposing to send Lucette back again. Her letter received a joyful answer, and the little girl, with tears of happiness in her eyes, was placed under the care of a country neighbor, delegated to escort her, and forwarded by the stage-coach to her foster parents.

CHAPTER II.

Two or three furlongs from the village of Arlington, and adjoining the farm of Mr. Horton, was a pretty estate, of a few acres, which, from its abounding in an innumerable variety of trees, shrubbery and plants, was known by the name of the “Botanical Gardens.” It had belonged to a nursery-man, but, on his resigning it for a more profitable location nearer the city, had fallen into the hands of a new resident of the district, a Doctor Wykoff. He was a German, a man of varied and extensive attainments, and of profound and active philanthropy. Next to her foster parents, he was the kindest friend to little Lucette, and she had given him a large portion of her heart, for she had few friends, as is commonly the lot of children so lacking the gift of beauty, and those she had, she valued accordingly. The doctor had been attracted to notice her by the neglect of others, and she soon won his regard by the patient cheerfulness of her disposition, and by her love of flowers—one of his own strong feelings. Many a long, tiresome walk she had taken with him, in search of her painted favorites, and many a luxurious hour she had spent in studying their names and likenesses in the rich folios he piled before her, in his quiet library.

The commonest haunts, in her play hours, to our little heroine were along a fine stream, which on one side bounded both the farm and the doctor’s little domain. Its banks, for some distance, were composed of precipitous rocks, overgrown with trees, and here and there draped with heavy vines of the wild grape, and of the graceful clematis. Among these rocks Lucette could always find a sheltered seat, where she could listen to the gurgling of the water, watch the labors or the frolics of the birds, or, undisturbed, enjoy such books as her pocket money afforded her. The beautiful scenes of nature to which she had been accustomed, and the loneliness of her life had already awakened in her a taste for the love of fancy, and a new fairy tale was her most delectable feast. She naturally loved those the best that brought her own trials the most feelingly before her, and her favorite characters were such as poor Cinderella, and the persecuted girl in “Toads and Diamonds.”

The acquisition of two or three unexplored volumes was the only agreeable result of her recent visit to the city, and on her first walk, after her return, her companion was “Riquet with the Tuft.” She seated herself by the water’s edge, at the foot of a cliff which rose abruptly beside her to the height of thirty feet or more, and was soon happy to learn that, in spite of ugliness and deformity, her new prince had, by virtue and wit, made himself beloved and admired. Lucette had no aspiration after wit, she was too humble for that; so she was content to forego admiration, but she had always tried to be good, and she found the success of her hero fresh encouragement. But before she had finished the story, her reading was interrupted. A stone fell from the rock into the water, and on looking up she saw a slightly formed, handsomely dressed boy, some three or four years older than herself, on its summit, and approaching with a fearless step to its very edge. His face was upturned toward the trees, as if in listening to the birds, and he seemed apparently unconscious of any danger.

Lucette perceived at a glance that he was a stranger, and called out loudly, “Go back, little boy, go back! If you fall over into the water you’ll never get out again. This is the deepest place in all the creek; the miller’s colt was drowned in it, and the town’s people bring here all the kittens and puppy dogs they want to get rid of!”

The boy halted instantly on hearing her voice, and carefully reaching out a stick he held in his hand, he passed it along the edge of the precipice. “Are you a little girl?” he asked, bending in the direction whence the warning proceeded.

“Yes, don’t you see me?—down here by the water, just at the foot of the rock.”

“No, I can’t see you—but won’t you come up here?”

Wondering what he wanted with her, Lucette ran some distance back, and mounted the rock. “Give me your hand,” said he, as she approached him; “I can’t see, and, as you tell me the place is dangerous, I am afraid to move. You’ll lead me away, won’t you?”

“Why can’t you see?” said Lucette, looking into the full, soft blue eyes which seemed fixed upon her.

“Because I am blind,” answered the boy.

Lucette had heard of blindness, but she had never before met any afflicted with that terrible privation, and, with a feeling of awe, she took his hand and led him to some distance away. “Now,” said she, with her voice softened and sweetened by compassion, “you are in the smooth, open road, and you have nothing to fear.”

“You are a good little girl,” said the boy, appreciating her tones, and laying his hand on her head to judge of her height; “what is your name?”

“Lucette De Ford.”

“I shall remember your voice if I hear it again, and let me feel your face, that I may know it too,” but Lucette drew back and refused.

“Why won’t you?—I would just touch it gently.”

“Because,” she returned, artlessly, “you might laugh at me, and, like the other boys, call me ‘ugly Lucette.’ ”

“I don’t know what it is to be ugly,” said the boy; “and I would rather call you ‘good Lucette,’ for you perhaps saved my life,” and, as she did not again object, he moved his fingers slowly over her features.

“But, can you see nothing at all?” asked the little girl, her curiosity rising as her first surprise abated.

“I know light from darkness, and can tell if people move before me. That’s all.” He was interrupted by a voice familiar to Lucette, and Doctor Wykoff emerged from a thicket near them, with a couple of mineralogical specimens in his hand.

“Ah, my little Lucette,” said he, “I perceive you have found out the new companion I had to bring home to supply your place while you were gone. I am glad to have you back again, and, as I wish you to be friends and playmates, you must shake hands with each other. His name is Ernest Cline.”

Lucette gave her hand again to the blind boy, and the doctor, turning to him, continued; “But how happens it, Ernest, that you are so far from the place where I left you? did you get tired of waiting for me? My specimens were more difficult to find than I expected.”

Ernest related that, having grown tired of being alone, he had left his seat to walk in the woods, as he supposed, and had been found by Lucette in a place of danger.

“I hope you will let this be a warning to you, Ernest,” said the doctor, in a grave tone, and noticing, from the flush which covered the clear, white forehead of his young charge, that the reproof was felt, he proceeded no farther, but, giving him his hand, asked Lucette to walk with them.

“Mrs. Horton tells me, Lucette,” remarked the doctor, “that your mamma wishes you to go regularly, now, to school. How would you like me for your school-master?”

“Oh, a great deal better than any one else!”

“Would you? I am glad to hear it. Ernest is now to live with me, and I am to instruct him. He ought to have a companion in study as well as in play, and, as I do not wish him to have any intercourse with the boys of the village, I should like you to share his lessons. Would that please you?”

“Oh, yes, sir—if they would not be too hard.”

“I shall take care of that,” returned the doctor, smiling; “and, if you are agreed, I will write to your mamma about it. It will be pleasanter to study in my garden and green-house than you would find it in the seminary school-room, I am certain.”

Lucette gladly assented, and, her mother having been written to, in a few days her new course of tuition commenced.

Ernest Cline was the orphan of a wealthy foreigner, who had left him to the guardianship of Doctor Wykoff. “I wish my son,” said his father’s will, “to remain where he now is—in the Asylum for the Blind—until he shall have acquired the rudiments of education, and afterward to be placed under the immediate eye of his guardian, to be orally instructed by him in the attainment of literature, science, and Christian virtue, as far as his capacity will admit. I know not a man as competent to such a task as my friend, and, trusting to his profound and extensive knowledge, his ingenuity, his wisdom and his excellence of heart, I rest satisfied that my boy, should he live, will become, notwithstanding his natural infirmity, an honor to his species.”

The conditional time had now expired, and the doctor assumed his position of tutor. He had no family of his own, and the employment promised to be one of pleasure as well as usefulness. The talents of Ernest were of an encouraging order. He acquired readily, and reasoned with a degree of acuteness and strength uncommon to one so young. In selecting Lucette as a companion for his pupil, the sagacity of the doctor was not deceived. Her abilities, also, were good, and, being treated with constant kindness, she was grateful, docile, and eager to learn. Then she was always at hand, to relieve the tedium of study by devising amusements for Ernest. “How much better I like her than if she were a boy!” he often innocently observed to his guardian; for, without any of the reckless hardihood which would have made one of his own sex and age repulsive to a boy of his refined and sensitive nature, she was sprightly, active, and able to share all his physical diversions. She also imparted to him a taste for her own favorite pastimes, reading to him her fascinating stories, wandering with him about the fields and woods, exciting his curiosity and then patiently answering his questions, until he could tell almost every herb and flower they met with in their walks, by the touch, and every bird by its song.

Thus passed four years, and Doctor Wykoff had reason to be proud of his pupils. Their attainments were surprisingly varied, and, though acquired in a desultory manner, were by no means superficial.

Lucette’s mind had become vigorous and methodical, while she had lost none of her simplicity and gentleness of character; and Ernest, confined to her sole companionship, retained all the purity of his childhood. But at this time came an unanticipated change. A letter was received from the elder brother of the deceased Mr. Cline, stating that he had recently lost an only son by death, and that as Ernest was to be his heir, he wished him to be brought to Germany, under the charge of his tutor. The proposition was not unwelcome to the doctor. He had for some time wished that his ward should have the advantage of hearing lectures in the transatlantic universities, and, as he was now sufficiently advanced in his education to be benefited by it, he made immediate preparations to comply. Then there was a sorrowful parting of the three friends. The heavy tears dropped from the sightless eyes of Ernest upon the face of Lucette, as he took leave. “I shall have a lonely time without you, dear Lucette,” said he, “but if we live we shall meet again. Who can prevent one from coming back to America?—I should be allowed to come on account of a sister, and to you I owe more than any sister could have earned of me.”

Mrs. De Ford, on hearing that her daughter had lost her instructor, thought proper to make her a visit, to decide upon what was to be done for the future. She found her much grown, having sound, white teeth, hair considerably improved, and manners quite divested of their awkward shyness; yet she was still “ugly Lucette,” whom it would have been as impolitic as ever to take to the city. Therefore, and as there was a respectable female school in the village, she concluded to leave her with the Hortons, and again trust to time to befriend her.

To the school Lucette was accordingly sent, but it soon proved in the capacity of teacher rather than of scholar. She had so improved the instructions of the doctor that she found little there to learn, so she relieved the languid assistants of their wearisome duties, did their needle work for all the lazy girls, and simplified their lessons for all the stupid ones. As she grew older, her sphere of usefulness extended. She became the main support of the Sunday-School; she was the first to whom application was made, if a bundle of sewing was to be done for the poor, and if a nurse was needed to “sit up” with the sick, she was always ready for double duty. In all domestic affairs she was ably trained by her excellent foster-mother, whose services she repaid by making her best gowns, caps and collars, and by stitching all the holiday linen of her worthy husband. Nor was her own mind neglected. Doctor Wykoff had left her a valuable little library, with written suggestions for her progress in knowledge; and thus, with abundant employment for hands and heart, with a consciousness of the respect and affection of all around her, and with no lack of intellectual resources, she ceased to lament her personal disadvantages, and in the whole country there was not a happier person than ugly Lucette.

CHAPTER III.

Public opinion was the idol and the bugbear of Mrs. De Ford; and when, at length, it was hinted to her that she might be pronounced an unnatural mother for continuing so protracted a separation from her daughter without any ostensible reason, she hastened to summon her home.

Victorine and Clara had by this time fulfilled all their early promise of extreme beauty, and had been carefully educated, agreeably to what appeared their peculiar endowments. The former was a tall, pensive-faced blond, affecting Italian music and German poetry, and looking surpassingly elegant as she sat at her harp, or moved in a quadrille. The latter was of a smaller, lighter figure, with a richer complexion and a brighter cast of countenance, and was bewitchingly graceful in the waltz, or in singing gay ballads and love songs to her guitar. In opposition to her sister’s sentiments, her forte was piquancy and bon mots. But Clara was now twenty, and Victorine full two years older, and, though all seemed to acknowledge the attractions of her fair charges, none of eligibility had offered to relieve her of them, greatly to the amazement of Mrs. De Ford.

The presence of Lucette in the household, except by giving her mother’s vanity an occasional twinge, was less of an inconvenience than had been apprehended. She was perfectly willing to keep in the back ground; she had no ambition for fashionable acquaintances, no curiosity about parties, and, besides, she was easily satisfied with regard to dress, making no demands for new, and even receiving what her sisters had cast off as superfluously fine. Indeed, in a short time she was regarded as a domestic acquisition. She seemed to perceive at a glance all the bearings of a fashion plate, and had the readiest fingers in the world at applying them. So well she convinced her sisters of her aptness, that, in a month or two after her return, they were able to dispense with their lady’s maid.

“After all,” observed Mrs. De Ford, one day, “poor Lucette verifies the remark that there is nothing which was not made for some use. I think, girls, your hair was never arranged so well, nor your dresses put on with so much style as since you have given yourselves into her hands. And then she saves the extortionate wages of Florine. And my own caps, too—this one particularly, is so neat and becoming, that no one would take it to be home-made. Lucette seems to have a gift for such occupations, and, as she is so capable, it is a pity she has not more to do. Employment will save her from the mortification of feeling herself neglected. I have thought of turning over the whole of the house-keeping to her—it costs so much to hire a house-keeper, and the servants seem to respect Lucette more, and to obey her better than any one else. Besides that, those two parties have somewhat crippled our winter’s resources, and, if you must have those cashmere shawls, it will be necessary to retrench.”

Thus, able to minister to the selfish requisitions of the family, our heroine was treated without any manifest unkindness, and though her sisters did avoid walking with her, and though, when an eligible widower or old bachelor happened to call, her mother did merely present her as Miss De Ford, and not as “my daughter,” she was too single-hearted to think that any thing was meant. Yet her modest virtues were not hidden from all. There were those who could discover the gems even through their homely casket; and many an elderly lady who was plagued with a family of ill-tempered, thriftless daughters, pointed out, as an example, the amiability, industry and usefulness of Lucette; and many an elderly gentleman, past the time for being fascinated by beauty alone, wished the young ladies of his acquaintance would give less attention to their bonnets and bandeaux, and garnish the insides of their heads like that of the plain Miss De Ford.

The second spring after Lucette’s return, Mrs. De Ford was surprised by an unexpected visit from her aunt Bently. Lucette had never seen her since the old lady struck her with terror when a child, and some of the ancient feeling was depicted on her face in their renewed intercourse.

“Lucette is almost as ugly as ever,” remarked the dowager, a day or two after her arrival.

“Yes, aunt, but we find her very useful,” replied Mrs. De Ford.

“So you wrote to me, and I perceive that she is uncommonly intelligent. Can’t you adopt my old plan and make a blue of her?”

“She only laughs at the idea—she is so unambitious—indeed, that is her good point, poor thing!—she says she is content to remain a consumer of literature, and has no hope to become a producer.”

“What plans have you for spending the summer?” asked aunt Bently, abruptly.

“None matured. I do wish to go to the Virginia Springs, but it would be so expensive to take the girls. There’s the disadvantage of having so many unprovided for; Victorine and Clara ought to go somewhere. As to Lucette, she has made arrangements to go back to the Hortons.”

“I can settle all that for you. Go alone to the Virginia Springs. You have never visited there, and, as you look as well as you did ten years ago, if you are not clogged with matronizing your daughters, it will be strange if, among the troops of southerners you will meet, something do not turn up to your advantage. I will take charge of the girls myself. It is time you had some of them off your hands, and a new chaperon may prove more successful. I intend to go to Boston and that quarter, and, if you choose, let them go along—they will be new there. Even Lucette shall go. She ought to have a chance for a husband, and, as such things depend upon chance, after all, it is not impossible she may get one—she would make a capital wife for a missionary, or a school-master, or some widower with children. She seems cut out for a step-mother. And at Boston, with her knowledge of languages and mathematics and all that, she would pass off better than any where else.”

“And she has become indispensable to her sisters about their dress,” added the mother.

The plan of Mrs. Bently was received with favor on all sides, except that of poor Lucette; but of what consequence was Lucette’s disapproval? She had written to Mrs. Horton, rejoicing in the hope of spending another summer at Arlington, and now there was nothing to do but to write again, that her foster parents might grieve with her.

It was early in the season when our party reached Boston, so early that the fashionable world had not yet commenced their migrations; and, as aunt Bently had many acquaintances among them, and was known to be a person of wealth, her two beauties had a prospect of a successful enterprise. But simultaneous with themselves had arrived a new lion, who threatened, in the notice of the ladies at least, to stand beyond all competition. This was a German nobleman, who bore the title of Count Lindenthal.

“None of us has yet had the honor of an introduction,” said a female visiter, “but we all expect to find him irresistible. He is quite young, and that his rank is real, and his estates are immense is beyond all doubt, some of our most respectable merchants being accurately informed on those points. The announcement of his arrival, two or three weeks ago, in the list of passengers, caused quite a sensation; you may have seen it—Count Lindenthal, two friends and servants—but then he merely passed through the city. Now, however, it is understood he will remain awhile. One of the friends is presumed to be his physician, and the other, a fine-looking young man, who is as inseparable from him as his shadow, his secretary. Our gentlemen have commenced calling, and it is to be hoped he will soon enter into society. I had the pleasure of a sight of him, yesterday, in the street, leaning on his secretary’s arm, and I have never seen any one so strikingly handsome. He has a cast of abstraction in his face so German and sentimental, it is inconceivably interesting. Withal, he is said to be highly accomplished and intellectual. So, fair ladies, you may think yourselves in luck to have entered our field, while it affords a prize so well worth contending for.”

Victorine and Clara did think themselves in luck, and still more so when the distinguished stranger was known to have taken lodgings, with his whole suite, in the hotel at which they were boarding.

“If we had only begun by taking our meals at the table d’hôte,” said Clara, “we might have a sight of him, but now, as we have still eaten in our room, it would be improper to appear at the ordinary.”

“For you it would,” said Mrs. Bently, “but persons of my age are privileged to do as they please, and I shall take my dinner there this very day. I intend that you shall have every advantage in my power, and as your old New York acquaintance, Mr. Mansfield, has come on opportunely, I shall make him give me a helping hand. He has been introduced to this foreign rara avis, and he shall introduce me.”

“Dear, dear aunt Bently!” exclaimed both the girls, and as aunt Bently was well known as a skillful manœuverer, they had no doubt of her success.

“Well, aunt?” was the anxious salutation which greeted the old lady on her return from the dinner-table.

“Well, it’s all settled. I waylaid Mr. Mansfield, took his arm, and proposed to have a place beside where the count still sat, which I obtained without difficulty, as there was no other lady at table. I was presented to him, of course, and before parting got a promise that he would spend the evening in our parlor; Mr. Mansfield helping me along by saying that two of my nieces were fine German scholars. You ought to be one of them, Clara, for it is a pity that the knowledge should be lost upon poor Lucette. To be sure, he speaks English astonishingly well, but it might aid you to be acquainted with German literature.”

“But what is he like, dear aunt?”

“All that Miss Langtree stated him to be, with an exception she never dreamed of, and which is the secret of that fascinating abstraction of manner. You could not guess it till doom’s day. He is blind.”

“Blind!” almost shrieked the girls.

“Blind!” re-echoed the old lady, with her rough laugh; “and, after all, there is nothing so horrible in that. There is many a woman that would rejoice to have a blind husband. Haven’t you often heard me say that it is best for a man to have a blind side, and for his wife to keep beside it?—this youngster is not stone blind, only enough so not to know one person from another—not a man from a woman; and it does not hurt his appearance at all. I would never have suspected it had he not told me.”

Against evening the young ladies had reconciled themselves to the convenient philosophy of their aunt, and had prepared themselves to receive the distinguished visiter. Wisely considering that, though he might not himself be able to discern their beauties, he would be likely to receive a report from his secretary, or whoever his attendant might be, their appearance was in no wise neglected. So when they had entered the drawing-room and placed themselves, Victorine near her harp, and Clara with her guitar beside her, both of which instruments had accompanied them, it was with a consciousness that they were looking unusually charming. Lucette had no share in the excitement. In unpacking and preparing for the summer’s campaign, she had had enough to occupy her through the day, and this evening, having found an agreeable book, she had concluded to remain in her chamber.

At the appointed hour Count Lindenthal made his appearance, unattended except by old Mr. Mansfield, by whose arm he was guided. He was, indeed, singularly handsome, with a tall figure, slender, but finely formed; a firm, graceful carriage, in which appeared none of the caution and restraint habitual to the blind; and curls of light, silken hair waving round a head of the most classic contour, and shading a countenance of the most symmetrical and expressive beauty. One glance sufficed for the conquest of two hearts. Both young ladies taxed to the utmost their different powers of pleasing, and their efforts were met by the Count with all the polite courtesy of the high-bred gentleman.

At length, Mr. Mansfield drew a small volume from his pocket. “I promised a treat to Count Lindenthal, ladies,” said he, “in coming from his apartments. I have obtained a new volume of German poetry, which he tells me was just issued at Leipsic as he set sail, and with which he is anxious to be acquainted. I have examined one or two pieces, and find them so admirable that I am desirous to have them read for his gratification. You know I do not pretend to pronunciation of the language, so, Miss Victorine, I must delegate the duty to you.”

But Victorine, though she read German, was conscious that she did not do it so well as to be able to make a hit by it with one to whom it was native, and, saying that she always avoided reading poetry until she was sufficiently familiar with its spirit to do it justice, she declined.

“Then, where is your sister?—I do not see her present. I hope she will be less scrupulous.”

“She is shut up in her chamber—you know how unsocial she generally is,” replied Clara.

“Will you allow me the liberty of sending for her?” and, ringing the bell, the old gentleman despatched a servant for Lucette.

She promptly presented herself, and Mr. Mansfield, for whom she had a great regard, communicated his wishes. She took the volume without hesitation, and placed herself near a light, intending to retreat as soon as her task was accomplished. She possessed a voice “ever soft, gentle and low” as Cordelia’s, and her reading, from her usually strong appreciation of an author, was peculiarly effective. The young stranger bent forward and listened eagerly, and by the time she had concluded the first stanza, had risen from his seat.

“Elevate your voice, a little, Lucette,” said Victorine.

“Perhaps Count Lindenthal would like to move a little nearer,” said Clara; “will you accept me as a guide?” and she gracefully held out her arm, whose beautiful outline was clearly revealed through the snowy muslin that enveloped it.

“Thanks—I need no other guide than that voice!” returned he, quickly passing her and crossing the room; “I cannot be mistaken—it is no other than that of my early friend, Lucette!”

“Ernest!” exclaimed the astonished girl, and in an instant her hands were clasped in his.

“He must be the blind boy she used to know at Arlington,” whispered Clara to Victorine, and both belles soon saw that, for the evening, at least, they might give their exertions a respite. The two old playmates, like overjoyed children, seemed to have thoughts of nothing else than their own happiness.

“At what hour in the morning can I see you, Lucette?” said Ernest, as he took leave; “I have so much to say to you! you must admit me early—even before you receive Doctor Wykoff.”

Lucette named an hour which would not interfere either with the toilette or the visiters of her sisters, and at its arrival she was summoned to the drawing-room. She knew not why, but, as she entered the door, she felt that her step was not so free, nor her tones so steady as usual. Ernest, also, was less gay than on the night before, and, as he placed her on a sofa beside him, she could not but notice that his hands slightly trembled.

“Do you look as you did in former times, Lucette?” he asked, gently passing his fingers over her face, and, for an instant, his soft curls were pressed against her cheek; “I have learnt through absence so deeply to value my old privilege, that, last evening, I would not have dared to assert it,” and Lucette did not answer a word.

“When we parted as children, Lucette,” continued Ernest, seeming to mark her every breath and pulsation, “I said we should meet again, but how little I knew, in my boyish unconsciousness, that to meet you would become the strongest necessity of my existence!—the longer I was separated from you the more I missed your companionship, and the more anxious I was to recover it, and at length time revealed to me the nature of the want. I had rank to command for me every attention, wealth to purchase me every amusement, friends from whom I received every substantial kindness, but the ever-present and sympathizing tenderness of one of your sex was what I needed to secure my happiness. Without that I felt that to me every thing would be doubly dark, that I would be doubly desolate. And in you, dear Lucette, was, to me, comprehended your whole sex. I pictured you as having perfected all your early promise; as being all that was gentle, patient, affectionate and true, of heart; all that was graceful, sound, rational and healthful, in mind; all that would be valuable in a companion, all that would be loveable in a wife. Many were named to me who might have given me their hand on my darkened path, and who were called fair and good, but what to me were personal charms, when I could perceive beauty in the immaterial alone? and how, except through others, was I to test the character of a woman? My uncle’s death set me at liberty to follow the impulses of my heart, and my guiding point was our dear old village. I did not find you there, but soon one part of my mission was accomplished. I heard your name ever mentioned with praises sweeter to me than fairy-music. Your winning home virtues, your untiring benevolence, your piety, your intellectual powers, were a grateful theme to all, and hearing that you were coming hither, I turned my course, secure from my opportunities of introduction to society, that I could discover you before long.

“But now, dear Lucette—I tremble while I ask it—what have I to hope? do not withdraw your hand—you know I used to try to read your thoughts through it—you are too good, too compassionate, to send me again with my loneliness into the world!—surely to no one could your sympathy be so precious, by no one could your gentle offices be so much needed!—let me not be mistaken, dearest Lucette—promise that you will be as light to my eyes, as sunshine to my heart!”

Again he passed his fingers over her face, and felt that there were tears on her cheeks. He had an instinct that they were not tears of sadness, and he dried them in his bosom.

A tap at the door was followed by the entrance of Doctor Wykoff. “I have won her, my best friend, my father!” exclaimed Ernest in a tone of rapture; “the companion you gave me to make my childhood happy, is to be my blessing through life!”

The doctor caught his extended hand joyfully, and clasped Lucette in his arms with the fondness of a parent.

Wealth and rank are marvelous beautifiers—at least so it appears in the instance of our heroine. Much as Mrs. De Ford, in her various fashionable progresses with her two single daughters, talks about their sister, “the Countess of Lindenthal,” describing her arrivals and departures in and from America, her travels in this country, and her estates in that, she is never known to allude to her as “ugly Lucette.”

BY HON. J. W. WILDE.

BY LOUIS L. NOBLE.

(Continued from Volume XXIII, No. 2)

THE DEPARTURE.

THE BURIAL.

ME-ME.^[22]

THE LOVERS.

THE REVENGE.

THE RESCUE.

THE CURSE.

THE RETURN.

THE MEETING.

THE CONCLUSION.

ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE.

My First Love

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

A city lounger, whether inhabitant of New York or London, becomes familiar with strange mutations of fortune. New faces, new enterprise, new stores, greet his daily observation. After awhile, the old site puts on a new face, hangs out a new sign. The former occupant and his business disappear. No one knows whither—few care, least of all, the idle loiterer seeking amusement in the changing diversity of the streets. Sometimes an old face reappears after a lapse of years; of such an event, we have a strange story to tell.

Many years since, we were acquainted with a young man who opened a jeweler’s shop, in Bond street, London. His name, for obvious reasons, we conceal, but he shall be known to our readers as Charles Stanwood. In personal accomplishments and family connections he was superior to the generality of the class who follow mechanical professions. Reverse of fortune caused young Stanwood to be apprenticed to a jeweler; he became, in the course of time, an experienced judge and skillful setter of precious stones; and, with promise of support from a numerous circle of acquaintance, opened—perhaps prematurely, for his capital was of trifling amount—a shop (or, as we should call it this side of the Atlantic, a store) in the leading thoroughfare of fashion.

Business throve. The shop became a favorite resort of ladies, who possibly might have been influenced by the handsome person and captivating manners of the young jeweler. Although Stanwood’s capital was small—stock, therefore, necessarily scanty—yet, through connection with his deceased father’s mercantile friends, he was occasionally entrusted with diamonds, and other precious articles, to sell on commission, and so was enabled to compete, in point of attractive display, with his most wealthy rivals in trade.

It is not every time a lady enters a shop that she makes, or intends making, a purchase; often she resorts to the rich bazaars, and marts of fashion, for sake of spending—not money, but—time. Our own lounging experience afforded ocular demonstration of the practice; but in the case of young Stanwood we thought it carried to an inconvenient excess; oft rallied him on entertaining, so urbanely, his unprofitable visiters, and hinted the mutual attractiveness of flirtation. By his replies, we found our acquaintance had not lost sight of business, even in his polite and gallant devotions; the well appointed equipages which stood at the door—though time were lost with the fair owners—proved a ready and efficacious mode of advertising, fully compensating for absence of purchasers. We placed more faith in his declaration, as we knew he was attached to a young lady, by whom the affection was returned; though it would have put her inexperienced feelings to a severe trial if she had seen what we were daily witnesses of—the specious, courtly, insinuating attentions of the handsome jeweler to the youth and beauty who crowded his establishment.

One day there alighted, from a dashing equipage, two ladies whom Stanwood recognized—one as a peeress, her companion, the wife of a rich commoner.

After minute inspection of many articles, which oft caused him to leave the fair customers, in quest of jewelry in a different part of the shop, they departed without making a purchase, and were ushered to the carriage by the obsequious jeweler. There was nothing extraordinary or unusual in such a proceeding; but in replacing, in proper safety, one of the trays, he missed a necklace of diamonds, of exceedingly great value, but which his visiters had not, apparently, particularly scrutinized. The necklace belonged to a merchant, to whom it had been consigned from Russia, and who, being a personal friend, and having a high opinion of Stanwood’s integrity, deemed his attractive and fashionable shop the best mart for sale of such an article. It was, therefore, placed in his charge to find a purchaser.

Breathless, with emotion at the sudden loss, the jeweler stood leaning against the counter, endeavoring to recall minutely every circumstance of the visit. There was—there could be no mistake! He had seen the necklace when displaying the tray; he missed it on returning from the carriage. Although he happened to be alone, without assistant, it were impossible any depredator could have seized the opportunity of his back being turned for a moment, as he had taken the precaution, ere handing the ladies to the carriage, of locking the trays, temporarily, under one of the glass cases, and retaining the key. The glass was unbroken, the bolt of the lock duly shot, when he returned.

What should he do? Put up with the loss was out of the question. The necklace was worth more than all he possessed—the profits of business (beyond personal and necessary expenditure) he had disbursed in attractive but unsubstantial display, relying on the future for ample return. The high rank of the parties placed them above suspicion—their noted wealth removed ordinary motives of temptation. His daring insolence and presumption, as it would be termed, should he venture an accusation, must entail, in all but his own eyes, well merited retaliation, and certain ruin to his business. If his first step were to seek the ladies, they would, he judged, deny the appropriation, (perhaps, indeed, one only was guilty) and time would be afforded for effectually concealing, or destroying the property. He deemed it more advisable to seek a private interview with the peer, lay open the state of affairs, and, by promising secrecy, the matter might doubtless be arranged without loss.

It was a task requiring more than ordinary courage, even to state his case, but character, property, credit—all that was valuable—were at stake; nerving resolution to a pitch of daring, he knocked at the door of his lordship’s gloomy, but capacious mansion. On being ushered into the library, the peer—who perceived his embarrassment—by kindliness of tone, and the urbanity peculiar to high station, succeeded, in some measure, in putting him at ease.

After stammering awhile, the jeweler delivered himself of the strange, unpleasant tale, which the nobleman heard with so much composure, that the other began to believe his lordship was aware of his wife’s propensities, and that the untoward affair would—for himself—have happier termination than his fears first suggested. But this belief was illusory. A strong, burning indignation was suppressed under outward calmness of demeanor. Soon as Stanwood concluded, the peer rang the bell, and, on a servant’s entrance, inquired if her ladyship had come home. He was answered in the affirmative. Bidding the man wait, his lordship wrote a hasty note to the magistrate of a neighboring police-office, which he was ordered to deliver immediately, without further communication with any party.

“I would have you, sir, take notice,” said the nobleman, leaving the door of the library open as the man lingered a moment in the hall, “that my messenger has had speech with no one in the house—it may be important to the justice of your case!”

The valet shortly returned, accompanied by a police-officer. Soon as the latter appeared, the owner of the mansion commanded the outer doors to be locked, the keys to be given to the functionary.

“Now restate your charge in presence off the officer,” said the peer, addressing Charles Stanwood.

The jeweler, whose thoughts began to take an unpleasant turn at the probable consequences of a charge he might fail to substantiate, repeated the history of the transaction. When he had concluded, the nobleman, addressing the officer, recapitulated the leading points, and requested he would instantly commence a search through the house, in presence of Mr. Stanwood and himself, as rigid—or he himself should not be satisfied, and certainly the accuser would not be more contented—as though he were in the domicile of a reputed thief. He begged also the officer and accuser, both, to bear witness that, up to the present moment, her ladyship was ignorant of the charge. We need not repeat the details of this domiciliary inquiry—suffice it to say, the jeweler himself, both openly and to his own conscience, was forced to confer that all had been done which the strongest suspicion warranted. The necklace was not found.

“We will now, if you please,” said the peer, casting a keen glance at the discontented jeweler, “pay a visit to my friend. His wife is as deeply implicated as her ladyship—though I have no control over his proceedings.”

The commoner, who lived in an adjoining street, happened to be at home when the ill-matched visiters arrived. In his presence, Stanwood had to repeat once more the perplexing story. The gentleman betrayed considerable anger and excitation during the recital, and was with difficulty persuaded by his friend to wait the conclusion.

“You hear what Mr. Stanwood affirms,” said the noblemen, addressing his friend; “let me tell you what I have done!”

When he had informed him of the nature and extent of search which his house had undergone, he added, “I do not presume to dictate what should be your conduct.”

“My house shall undergo the same scrutiny,” cried the commoner.

Search commenced, was carried on and concluded, as unsatisfactory—to Stanwood—as in the previous instance.

“Can you aid Mr. Stanwood further in recovery of his property—so far as we, or our families are concerned?” demanded the nobleman.

The officer replied he had never, during his experience, made a more rigorous search, and, as it had been done promptly and unexpectedly, he could assure Mr. Stanwood that, so far as the two gentlemen and their families were concerned, there was nothing further could be done—and, were they even of disreputable character, nothing more could he attempt or advise.

“Have you, sir, now done with us?” cried the peer, addressing the jeweler, sternly yet quietly.

Charles, distracted with his loss, stunned by the unavailing result of the search, which seemed to foreclose hope of recovering the necklace, and foreshadowed approaching ruin, replied, that he had no other remark to offer, or course to pursue, than repeat what he asserted in the morning—begging pardon of his lordship and friend for the nature of the unpleasant revelation, which his own conscience and justice to his creditors demanded should not be stifled.

“Well, sir!” continued the peer, “your further proceedings are of no moment to us. Whether we have done with you is a material question, which I shall take the advice of friends on ere I decide. If you ever did, or do now, entertain an opinion, that through fear of this disgraceful charge being made public, we—or I will speak only for myself—I should be induced to purchase your silence, banish the thought! Take the full measure of action which the law allows to suspicion, and let this officer be witness that I afford every facility.”

The commoner said his lordship’s intentions coincided with his own.

There was something so oppressive to a clear conscience in the quiet, dignified hauteur of the two friends, that the spirit of the young man was roused, and, though he beheld ruin in every shape, and on every side, staring him in the face, he plucked up courage to say that, in the present state of the affair, advice might prove of benefit to all parties—with that view, he would himself seek it; and, meanwhile, he was as firm in his charge as they were in submitting themselves to the proof. Here ended the colloquy.

In returning home, chafed and distressed, Charles could not dismiss from his mind that he ought immediately to acquaint the owner of the necklace of the loss, yet he could not summon courage—he clung to the hope that something might yet turn up to guide him out of the perplexing labyrinth. He went straight to his lawyer. The solicitor shook his head—it was a bad case! The parties were of such high rank, undoubted wealth, so liberal in their household expenditure, that the ladies would appear, according to all ordinary judgment, to have no temptation. There was perhaps a mistake—at least the world would say so. As his suspicions were so strong, he should have followed the carriage, or have seen the ladies in the first instance. Without, of course, giving any opinion on the guilt or innocence of the accused, his client would have had more power over female fears, and doubtless have reaped more advantage, than by running tilt against the virtuous indignation of their husbands.

“A man whom ruin frowns on maybe excused some confusion in his actions,” said Stanwood, rather sharply; “I consult you for the benefit of your skill in my future course, not that you should read me a lecture on what I have done. A prophet of the past is not entitled to much honor!”

The lawyer, with a smile at the excusable anger of his client, declared he should not suffer from want of advice—but he viewed the case as nigh hopeless. As his own testimony was entirely unsupported by other evidence, it were useless to commence proceedings against the nobleman or his friend; they had already done voluntarily as much, or more, than the law could have enforced. As for making it a jury case, it was impracticable for want of witnesses, and even if this difficulty were removed, sympathy would be strongly in favor of the defendants, from the manner in which they met the charge. The property must be somewhere. And all that he could do, was to make the police acquainted not only with the robbery, (of that by-the-by they already knew something) but with the exact description of the necklace, the facial cutting and weight of the precious stones, mode of setting, and other particulars. An accurate description should also be distributed among the trade, to which might be added the offer of a competent reward for recovery of the property, or on apprehension of any party on whom it should be found. With respect to the owner’s claim, that was a matter of debtor and creditor, which would be arranged better by appeal to the party’s feelings, than by a solicitor’s interference. As Stanwood was, by bond, answerable for return of the jewels, or their value, he could not escape from the penalty. As to the threatened legal proceedings of the peer, and his untitled friend, he had not much to fear; though indirectly, in respect to his business connection, their hostility might prove extremely hurtful.

The solicitor’s advice, as far as practicable, was adopted, and Stanwood passed a miserable, restless night. Next morning, on looking over the public journals, he found a tolerably distinct representation of the affair, though filled out with blanks, asterisks and innuendos, in lieu of streets and names. He who had prided himself on the array of handsome equipages, blocking the way-side in front of his door, was doomed to loiter through the morn without a call, without a customer. The afternoon prints repeated the morning version, with additions descriptive of the magnanimous forbearance of the high-spirited nobleman, &c., with tribute of consolation to the injured dames, concluding with advice to ladies in selecting their tradesmen.

Dinner and afternoon paper discussed—alike indigestible—Stanwood was relieved from the solitary monotony of the morning by a visiter. It was the owner of the necklace, who, having heard reports which the papers circulated, came, with anxious face, to ascertain whether the story referred to Charles Stanwood. It was but too true, as the jeweler, with rueful visage, admitted!

“This happened yesterday morning,” exclaimed the merchant, in extreme anger; “and every one is to be informed of the loss—if you call it such—but myself! What construction am I to put on such behavior?”

Stanwood answered, though not with clearness, that no unfavorable construction could be justly applied—a man’s honesty were not less, if his courage were not always equal to the emergency. The merchant, without commenting on this reply, inquired if he had not been at certain rooms (which he named) on last Monday night, after play-house hours.

Charles admitted that he was present.

“Did he know,” inquired the creditor, “the name and character of the tall man, with dark whiskers, and black cane with jeweled top, whom he appeared so familiar with, on that night?”

The startled jeweler replied in the negative—he was a total stranger—had never seen him before—knew not his name.

“Then I do,” exclaimed the merchant; “he is a noted gambler. Is it fair to ask, whether you often frequent those rooms?”

Poor Charles began to believe that all powers, human and transcendental, were leagued against him. With quiet and correct habits, such as would have commanded respect from the most rigid business man, or moralist, he had been induced on that evening—having heard frequently of the rooms—to venture on a glance, by way of curiosity, after leaving the theatre, in order that he might not appear quite ignorant of life among his acquaintance. When there, probably a new face attracted the gambler’s attention, whom he certainly knew not, nor had met there, or elsewhere, before—as he now solemnly assured the merchant.

The proprietor of the necklace replied, coldly, he was glad to hear it; a party known to both, a young man on town, with more money than prudence, had seen him there, on the occasion, and, knowing Stanwood’s responsible connection with the merchant, had wit enough to put his friend on his guard.

From examination of the jeweler’s books and stock, it appeared he was far from being able—if every thing were sold—to pay, in full, all demands, including the limit price put on the necklace. But as he offered to make immediate inventory of effects, and showed every disposition to act honorably, the merchant was much softened, and went away with the declaration that he would allow fair time for the discovery of the property, ere he pressed his claim; and that an additional reward, on his behalf, should be advertised.

There were yet two parties whom he was most anxious, yet most dreaded to encounter. These were the lady to whom he was attached and her father. Mr. Benson was a retired merchant, and had higher notions of his daughter’s future position than as wedded partner of a shopkeeper. He was, therefore, extremely averse to the match, although he could not object to Stanwood, either in respect of deficiency of personal accomplishments, or morals, nor yet on the score of means, as the business of the jeweler, though comparatively in embryo, promised eventually to realize its owner a handsome fortune. Clara Benson was nineteen, in two years more would be of age, and, as her father feared, if he interposed decided obstacle to a union, would, on attaining her majority, exercise its privilege, as guardian of her own happiness. The jeweler, as we have intimated, was of respectable family, his father having been a merchant of repute. It was at the house of a mutual acquaintance—no other than the proprietor, or consignee, of the lost necklace—that the lovers first met; the father, therefore, had no plea of reproach against the daughter, from the way in which they became acquainted. So he thought fit (on reviewing all the circumstances, more especially that the time would arrive when his consent or denial would not be regarded or required, and the swain’s increasing income rendered application to his purse unnecessary) to yield at discretion, and the addresses of Stanwood were permitted.

The first hint of a storm in that quarter occurred in the evening, when Charles, summoning courage, ventured a visit to the house of his expected father-in-law. He was informed, at the door, that both Mr. and Miss Benson were “not at home,” which, from circumstances, he disbelieved, and construed into a denial. His strong hopes had been ever built on the depth of Clara’s affection; on that rock he now relied, and resolved to seek an interview—and, if necessary, explanation—at an early hour in the morning.

By putting in practice this resolution, he, in fact, stole a march on Mr. Benson, who was surprised, on returning home from a morning walk, to learn that Mr. Stanwood was in the drawing-room with his daughter. Thither the retired merchant stole, deeming it no breach of decorum—under the peculiar circumstances—to listen in the back drawing-room to what was uttered in the front. He heard, from the lover, sighs, protestations, vows of unalterable affection, mixed with complaints of cruel fortune. These were in response to the cruel interdict which her father had placed against further intercourse. A week ago, Mr. Benson’s injunction would have been laughed at by the jeweler, disregarded by his daughter. But times were changed, and Stanwood, who had now no home to offer, felt the change bitterly, yet he struggled against his hard lot.

“It rests with yourself, Miss Benson,” exclaimed Charles, in agony, “whether I am to be treated as a criminal—I have had property stolen from my possession, and every one turns upon me as though I were the thief. Let me but meet with pity in one dear bosom, and I will bear misfortune bravely, proudly!”

The low voice of Clara was heard murmuring a disclaimer of accusation. Her father, she said, had not asked her to give up her attachment—indeed, he would find he had no power to extort such a surrender—but she had promised—what she could not refuse an only surviving parent—that, as there were rumors affecting Mr. Stanwood’s character, (which she had no faith in) as well as a certainty of his complete ruin, she would postpone further intimacy for the space of one twelvemonth, to allow interval for the truth to appear.

“And what were these rumors affecting his character?” demanded young Stanwood, with eagerness.

“Let me answer that question,” cried Benson, throwing open the folding-doors.

Charles could not deny having held conversation with a professed gambler, in a disreputable locality—though in vain urging the excuse, that he had been led there for the first and only time, having been often jeered for his ignorance, even by young men of high standing and character.

His excuse might be certainly fair—as Mr. Benson admitted—yet appearance with such company stood in very disagreeable apposition with the mysterious disappearance of the diamonds! He was also forced to confess insolvency, if the jewels were not forthcoming; and whether recovered or not, his business in Bond street—as one but slightly acquainted with the peculiarities of a West-End connection must be aware of—was totally ruined. Had he even stanch friends, he would be unable to bear up against the influence of the deeply insulted ladies, whose wide aristocratic circle would make common cause with them.

Against these arguments and insinuations, Charles had nothing to oppose—so far as they militated against his union with Clara. He felt himself totally in the old man’s power—he had no home to offer the lady, were she disposed to accept his suit—he had only his own conscientious integrity to rely on, and that availed naught in the way of providing maintenance for a wife. The postponement of intercourse for one year, was, he judged, a manœuvre to deceive Clara—the real intention being to break off the match altogether. Like a general, who has made the best fight circumstances admit of, and who retreats slowly, and with regret, before a superior force, so Stanwood was forced to accept the conditions, and take a year’s farewell of Clara.

At home, the jeweler had leisure to reflect on the occurrences of the last three days. He felt thoroughly beaten. He had often read how hard it was to climb—how easy to fall; yet, in his own history, he had exceeded romantic fiction. From comparative affluence to poverty, he slid down, as though along an inclined plane, and every one gave him a kick as he passed. The world, in its infinite wisdom, had condescended to read him a great moral lesson—yet he knew not how to profit by it, for he could neither see the crime he had committed, nor was he prepared to act otherwise than he had done, if the same circumstances—for which he suffered—were repeated.

Time was fruitful in events. The necklace could not be heard of. His once crowded shop was shunned—the principal creditor grew pressing, as his effects, through lack of business, were undergoing a process of gradual dissipation instead of increase. He committed a voluntary act of bankruptcy—obtained, in due course, his discharge, and left the court with the bankrupt’s allowance-money, clothes and gold watch. The world was all before him, and before he renewed general acquaintance with it, love prompted inquiry after the Bensons. On passing final examination, and receiving his certificate, the commissioner complimented the bankrupt on the accuracy of his books and faithful account of stock. Elated with the praise, hope whispered he might regain influence with Mr. Benson, perhaps be put in a way to begin business under happy auspices. This hope perished miserably. The harsh, unfeeling old man had carried off his daughter to the East Indies, under pretence of realizing long-neglected property, but—as Charles knew but too well—to escape the alliance.

What bitter thoughts succeeded this news! His character was unimpeached—his creditors pitied his fate! Had but his friends (and who should have been more eager than his intended father-in-law?) rallied round him in the hour of difficulty—he might have transferred his business to the city, or some quarter beyond the influence of his aristocratic enemies, and flourished anew!

He fell sick—became the victim of a long, cruel fever, and when he slowly awoke to recovery, found himself penniless, deserted, and forgotten. His name had passed away from the street where he once dwelt—another name occupied its place—ware of another description ornamented the windows. To look at Bond street, with his melancholy gaze, it seemed as though what had been was nothing but a dream. His eye glanced on his apparel—there was change there—and he hurried away to conceal his poverty.

After awhile, Stanwood sought and obtained employment as a journeyman, in the service of a jeweler in the city. We use the word “city” as it is ordinarily used in London, to distinguish the mercantile quarter from the West-End, or court and aristocratic part of the metropolis. Some years passed over his head whilst gaining a mere livelihood by skill in repairing jewelry and setting stones. Use is second nature, and Charles became, in some degree, reconciled—if not contented—with his humble situation. In the city, he was removed from casual contact either with former customers or rivals in trade—was known merely as an artisan who had—to use the common expression—seen better days, and was appreciated by his employer, as an excellent workman.

Memory of former elation held him solitary in his amusements. He would not consort with members of his class—was fond, when holy and leisure days permitted, (he worked at home, as it is technically called, by the piece, not day-work,) to stroll by himself into the country. Though abandoned by former equals—without relish for society of a lower grade—nature had not lost her charms. Though even hope had fled—that kindly aspiration which dwells in the ruined tenement when every other glorious guest has departed—yet he felt a melancholy pleasure in the woods, and by the silent stream; elsewhere he was frowned on by the aristocratic spirit of man; in solitude, which was not solitude to him, he experienced in the glorious sunlight, and beneath the chequered shade of the grove, a buoyant upspringing of mind, which was, at times, more than consolation—a positive delight.

Fed by such high thoughts and aspirations, he was sustained in poverty, without falling into the coarse habits and associations which poverty breeds. It chanced, on one occasion, that loitering through a lane, a few miles from London, he leaned over a paddock-fence, attracted by the beauty of the verdure. A carriage drove by, and, turning his head, he beheld a face changed, though unforgotten. He could not be mistaken—it must be Clara Benson! The carriage was fortunately detained at the entrance of the paddock sufficient time to allow Stanwood to confirm his conjecture of the lady’s identity; yet the aged gentleman at her side was certainly not her father. Perhaps he was her husband—some old, wealthy nabob, whom an unfeeling parent had forced on her choice. The thought conveyed a bitter pang, which he would gladly have deemed himself insensible of, at such lapse of time. Both occupants of the carriage stared at the lingering intruder—but it was the idle glance cast on a stranger. The gate was opened and the equipage passed on.

This unexpected rencontre was food of bitter thought for many a day. Oft memory recurred to his lone walk to the close-shaven paddock, the equipage which bore her who was once the load-star of his affections. Oft was he prompted to pay a second visit to the spot, but reason sternly asked to what purpose, but to embitter his peace? If Clara had left the protection of her father, it was exchanged only for the guardianship of a husband. No! no! there are incidents in some men’s lives which they do well to tear from memory.

As the most efficient and skillful workman, Stanwood was one morning sent for, to receive instructions to reset some jewelry. His employer informed him he had gained a new customer, a lady of fashion and distinction, and as it was not usual for people of quality to resort to city tradesmen, he was anxious to show her ladyship that the work entrusted to his care could be as well executed as in Bond street or St. James’. A diamond necklace (old fashioned style) was to be changed into ear-rings and bracelets, after a particular pattern produced. The master-jeweler told his workman, that although he had full confidence in his honesty, yet the stones being of great value, he should require him to bring his work every evening, to be placed in the vault, to prevent chance of loss by fire, house-robbery or other casualty—indeed, in the case of any other artificer than Stanwood, he would have had the work performed under his own personal inspection. Perhaps the confidence reposed was not so very great, as gems of great value are not easily disposable by workmen, and would be stopped by pawnbrokers and money-lenders on suspicion.

A draught of the pattern was placed in Stanwood’s hands, together with the jewel-case, which he opened to inspect the contents.

“Are you sick?” cried the employer, seeing his workman tremble and turn pale.

Charles made excuse, pleading sudden giddiness, and promising to bring back the precious articles in the evening—and every evening until the work was completed—half an hour before the shop closed, departed. The necklace was the same he had lost! Her “ladyship”—the lady of fashion and distinction—he made no doubt was his old customer; her coming to the city in quest of a jeweler confirmed suspicion. Among new workmen, new tradesmen, who worked for a different class of customers, she doubtless felt certain of evading detection; and, as some years had passed, the diamonds, remodeled into fresh ornaments, and reset, would surely escape recognition, or marked notice. He felt inclined to return to his employer and obtain the name of the lady, but after doubt and hesitation, thought it advisable not to raise suspicion. He remembered previous castigation, and resolved to act with caution, and make what he was entitled to—the most of his position.

Changing his ordinary daily dress, for apparel of a better description, he proceeded westward with the necklace in his pocket. With some difficulty, he procured an interview with the nobleman, without stating the object of his visit. He was ushered into the well-remembered library, associated in his memory with every thought and feeling which the former interview gave birth to; it looked the same as though he had seen it but yesterday. Yet how changed was he! The noble owner was slightly altered—time had not stood still—six summers had left their impress. Motioning his visiter to take a chair, he awaited in silence his communication, with an expression of face which seemed to imply expectation of claim for relief, or charitable donation.

“My lord! you do not recognize me!” said Charles, without accepting the proffered seat.

The peer, rather impatiently, intimated ignorance of his person.

Poverty and suffering had no doubt done their work—as Stanwood confessed—yet he was the same party who had complained to his lordship, six years since, of the loss of a diamond necklace.

The peer said he remembered the circumstance well—the person of the jeweler was indeed changed. If he came to express contrition, he, for his part, could afford to pardon the slander, especially as the crime had brought its own punishment.

“I have come, my lord,” said Charles sternly, “to save the real criminal from punishment:”

“How, sir—what mean you?” exclaimed the peer.

Stanwood related exactly how the necklace had fallen again into his possession. The nobleman changed color—stammered—begged to have the article in his possession five minutes, that he might take it up stairs, and resolve the horrid doubts which his story had raised.

Stanwood declared it should not go out of his possession, save into the hands of a magistrate.

“Wait awhile,” cried the nobleman hurriedly, as he rushed from the room.

In a quarter of an hour he returned, pale in face, and with disturbed eye, and seating himself near Stanwood, said he understood him to say that he had not testified recognition of the necklace in presence of his employer or any one else—the secret was still in his own breast.

Charles replied, that what he had stated was the fact—he had acted more tenderly than he had been acted by.

“At what amount of money,” said the peer, tapping the elbow of the chair, as though his fingers were striking the keys of a piano, “do you estimate the loss of your character—station—time?”

Stanwood burst into tears. He had lost everything, he said—what money could never replace or restore—the friends of his youth—the idolized being to whom he was betrothed—and if he thought of less important objects, a business which, in a few years, would have realized a fortune.

The nobleman dashed aside a tear as he turned to his writing-desk. He wrote an order on his banker for ten thousand pounds and handed it to Charles. There were not, he said, at present, sufficient assets—but if he presented the order two days hence it would be duly honored. If he deemed that sum sufficient, all he required in return was, that he should complete the task for his city employer, and bury the secret forever. His restoration to competence might be easily ascribed to other sources than the real one. Charles complied with the conditions, and left the house a changed and happier man.

Two months saw Stanwood once more himself—in handsome lodgings, with a showy nag, fingers cleansed and purified from stains and marks of tool edges, and possessor, in banco, of ten thousand pounds. In such good trim, he must needs satisfy a lingering, longing curiosity to visit the neighborhood of the paddock which he had seen Clara enter, accompanied by her aged companion. By inquiries, he learned that the secluded mansion, bidden by plantations from the public road, was tenanted by an old gentleman and his niece, from the East Indies, and—as matter of course with all East-Indians—reputed immensely rich. They were now at a fashionable bathing-place on the coast. To this resort posted Charles Stanwood, full of hope and wild expectation, on the discovery that the lady was still her own mistress. He contrived to meet and ride slowly past her carriage, to determine if he were recognized. She started, as though struck with the face, and he rode on. They met again, in the evening, at a public library, a fashionable promenade when the weather out-of-doors was unfavorable. On beholding, a second time, the apparition, the lady fainted, and was conveyed home by her uncle.

Stanwood called in the morning, was admitted. To Clara, he was as one risen from the dead. On her lover’s bankruptcy, her father hurried her from England, promising they should return after a very short stay in the East. Under one pretence or another she was detained in luxurious captivity—she could bestow no milder term on her unwilling residence in the Indies—till Mr. Benson fell sick and died. By his will it appeared she was bequeathed heiress of his wealth, under trust for a term of years, provided—such was his aversion to the jeweler—that she did not marry Charles Stanwood: if she broke this stipulation the property passed to the testator’s only brother, a merchant at Calcutta, who was also appointed guardian. Her uncle being inclined to forsake commerce, she waited the arrangement of his affairs, and under his escort returned to England. Since her return, she had made repeated inquiries of mutual friends, but could learn nothing respecting Mr. Stanwood; all trace was lost.

The lovers found Mr. Benson, the guardian, far more tractable and considerate than his deceased brother. He very cheerfully executed an instrument reconveying his brother’s property to his niece, on her marriage with the long-lost, and, by all but Clara, forgotten Charles Stanwood. Once more, the jeweler was visible in his old haunts; was seen in Bond street—not in his former capacity, but in a new profession—a lounger like ourself. From his lips—long after the aristocratic parties affected by his story were at rest—we gleaned what we have faithfully narrated; and have only to add that the career of Charles and his wife was smooth and unruffled.

BY ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

BY C. P. CRANCH.

BY JUDGE CONRAD.

BY ELIZABETH OKES SMITH, AUTHOR OF “THE SINLESS CHILD,” ETC.

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.

WITH A PORTRAIT.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

No name in the American poetical world is more firmly established than that of Fitz-Greene Halleck, and yet few of our poets—none, indeed, of eminence—have accomplished less, if we regard the quantity without the quality of his compositions. That he has written so little, becomes, thus, proof positive that he has written that little well.

Personally, no man has a more extensive or more attached circle of acquaintances, yet very scanty, indeed, are the materials for any thing like a personal biography of the poet. He was born at Guilford, in Connecticut, in August, 1795, and is now, consequently, in his forty-eighth year. In very early youth he was distinguished for poetic talent, and wrote many brief pieces of unusual merit. These, however, have, very judiciously, been kept from the public eye.

When eighteen, he removed from Guilford to New York, where he has since constantly resided, and where, we believe, he first attracted attention to his poetical powers by the publication of several pointed satires, over the signatures “Croaker” and “Croaker & Co.” These appeared in the New York Evening Post, in the year 1819, and occasioned much excitement and speculation. Their authorship was, at the time, attributed to various literary personages about town; but the real author, or rather the real authors were, for a long period, unsuspected. It is now nearly certain that the pieces signed “Croaker” were the composition of Mr. Halleck only, while those to which “Croaker & Co.” was appended, were the work of his friend, Doctor Joseph Rodman Drake. That any one article was the joint composition of these gentlemen, is improbable. The series was, no doubt, commenced by Mr. Halleck, as “Croaker.” Afterward Doctor Drake furnished a squib in the same vein, and, being thus Mr. Halleck’s coadjutor, signed himself “Croaker & Co.” Possibly all the pieces signed “Croaker & Co.” were written entirely by Drake, with suggestions and modifications by the subject of our memoir. The political and personal features of these satires gave them, perhaps, a consequence and a notoriety which, however excellent, they might not otherwise have obtained.

About the close of the year 1819, Mr. Halleck published “Fanny,” his longest and most celebrated poem, and one which has passed through numerous editions, without any positive avowal of its authorship. It is said to have been written and printed within three weeks from its commencement.

In 1827, was issued a small volume, containing “Alnwick Castle,” “Marco Bozzaris,” and some other brief effusions, previously contributed to the miscellanies of the day.

In 1836, there appeared an edition of all our poet’s serious pieces then written, including not only “Alnwick Castle” and “Marco Bozzaris,” but “Burns,” “Red Jacket,” “The Field of the Grounded Arms,” “Wyoming,” “Lines on the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake,” “Lines on the Death of William Howard Allen,” “Magdalen,” “Love,” “Domestic Happiness,” “Woman,” “Connecticut,” “A Poet’s Daughter,” &c., &c. The most complete collection of his works, however, was published in the beginning of the year 1842.

We cannot better preface what we have to say, critically, of Mr. Halleck, than by quoting what has been said of him by his friend, William Cullen Bryant. To a poet what is more valuable—by a poet what is more valued—than the opinion of a poet?

“Sometimes,” says Mr. Bryant, “in the midst of a strain of harmonious diction, and soft and tender imagery, he surprises by an irresistible stroke of ridicule, as if he took pleasure in showing the reader that the poetical vision he had raised was but a cheat. Sometimes, with that äerial facility which is his peculiar endowment, he accumulates graceful and agreeable images in a strain of irony so fine that, did not the subject compel the reader to receive it as irony, he would take it for a beautiful passage of serious poetry—so beautiful that he is tempted to regret that he is not in earnest, and that phrases so exquisitely chosen, and poetic coloring so brilliant, should be employed to embellish subjects to which they do not properly belong. At other times he produces the effect of wit by dexterous allusion to cotemporaneous events, introduced as illustrations to the main subject, with all the unconscious gracefulness of the most animated and familiar conversation. He delights in ludicrous contrasts, produced by bringing the nobleness of the ideal world into comparison with the homeliness of the actual; the beauty and grace of nature with the awkwardness of art. He venerates the past, and laughs at the present. He looks at them through a medium which lends to the former the charm of romance, and exaggerates the deformity of the latter. His poetry, whether serious or sprightly, is remarkable for the melody of the numbers. It is not the melody of monotonous and strictly regular measurement. His verse is constructed to please an ear naturally fine, and accustomed to a range of metrical modulation. It is as different from that painfully balanced versification, that uniform succession of iambics, closing the sense with the couplet, which some writers practice, and some critics praise, as the note of the thrush is unlike that of the cuckoo. He is familiar with those general rules and principles which are the basis of metrical harmony; and his own unerring taste has taught him the exceptions which a proper variety demands. He understands that the rivulet is made musical by obstructions in its channel. In no poet can be found passages which flow with more sweet and liquid smoothness; but he knows very well that to make this smoothness perceived, and to prevent it from degenerating into monotony, occasional roughness must be interposed.”

Every reader of taste must agree with this criticism in its general conclusions. The passage about the rivulet being “made musical by the obstructions in its channel” is, perhaps, somewhat more poetical than clear in its application. The fact is, that a general and total misapprehension prevails upon the subject of rhythm, its uses and its capabilities—a misapprehension which affects the best poets and critics in the land—and to which, of course, we can no more than allude within the limits of this article. Mr. Bryant speaks of “that uniform succession of iambics,” &c., as if the iambic were the sole metre in the world; and the idea that “occasional roughness must be interposed to make smoothness perceptible,” is based upon the assumption that the relative conceptions of smoothness and roughness are not, at all times, existing, through memory, or experience, in the mind of the adult. Mr. B. would be quite as philosophical in asserting that, to appreciate a lump of ice in one hand, it is necessary to hold a red-hot horse-shoe in the other. The “occasional roughness” of which the critic speaks, is at no time a merit, but, in all instances, a defect. For the relief of monotone, discords are very properly and necessarily introduced; but these discords affect only the time—the harmony—of the rhythm, and never interfere, except erroneously, with its smoothness or melody. The best discord is the smoothest. Another vulgar error is involved in the notion that roughness gives strength. Invariably it weakens. What is pronounced with difficulty is feebly pronounced. Where is the roughness, and where is the weakness, of the Homeric hexameters? What more liquidly smooth—what more impetuously strong?

“Fanny” is, perhaps, better known, and more generally appreciated than any of Mr. Halleck’s poems. It embraces a hundred and seventy-five of the “Don Juan” stanzas, and, in manner, throughout, is a close, although, we must admit, a well executed imitation of Lord Byron’s eccentric production. The plot, if plot it can be called that plot is none, is a mere vehicle for odd digressions and squibs at cotemporary persons and things. Fanny, the heroine, is the pretty and amiable daughter of a parvenu, whose rise and fall form the thesis of the story. This story, when we consider the end in view, which is mere extravaganza, has but one original defect; and this lies in the forced introduction of one or two serious songs, put into the mouth of the parvenu, in defiance of every thing like keeping—a point which can never be disregarded, even in the grossest of burlesques. This, we say, is the only original defect. There are numerous other defects, however, which are adopted from Byron; and among these we must designate, notwithstanding the opinion just quoted from Mr. Bryant, a loose and uncouth versification as the principal. As Mr. Bryant, however, is very high authority, we may as well support our position by a few examples.

The whole of “Fanny” is iambic verse, and the line last quoted is thus scanned.

Here either “the” is tortured into a long syllable or the line limps. The natural, reading, or colloquial emphasis, in verse, must always tally with the rhythmical. The sense of a passage, as its most important element, must be preserved at all hazards, and if the question occur, whether to sacrifice the sense to the rhythm or the rhythm to the sense, we make the latter sacrifice, of course. But then the question should never occur, and, as regards well constructed verse, never will.

In the seventeenth stanza the same error is seen:

Again, twice in the same line, at stanza thirty-five:

Again, very obtrusively, at stanza the eightieth:

Again, very ridiculously, twice in the same verse, at stanza the ninety-second:

and in innumerable other instances throughout the poem.

Sometimes the lines are deficient in half a foot, when no emphasis, however forced, can supply the deficiency. Thus, at stanza sixty-nine:

By adding the half foot the line becomes perfect, thus:

The same error is observable at stanza thirty-two, where

should read

These specimens are from the body of the poem, which, as we have already said, is iambic, the most simple and usual of English metres. One of the songs introduced, however, is meant for dactylic, a more difficult rhythm, and here Mr. Halleck signally and totally fails. For example:

To uncultivated ears this may seem endurable, but to a practiced versifier, it is little less than torture. To scan it is impossible, for every foot is an error. We may convey some idea of its deficiency, however, by contrasting it with a passage of the true dactylic rhythm:

We give the scansion of the last of these stanzas:

Each verse consists of a mere succession of dactyls, terminating with a single long syllable, or, cæsura, upon which the pause is equivalent to the time occupied by each of the preceding dactyls. In order to relieve the monotone of this regular succession, an additional short syllable is introduced into the dactyl which commences the last line. “Fettering the” is used instead of “Clothing the,” or any similar legitimate dactyl; and the effect is a discord; but this discord is only of time, and not of melody. Nothing can be smoother. And nothing can be more sonorous or stronger than the whole stanza; but this strength arises—surely not from roughness, according to Mr. Bryant’s idea—but from the facility with which it is uttered. This facility, again, arises from the rigorous employment only of truly short syllables where the rhythm requires short, and of truly long where it requires long. In other words, a perfect coincidence is preserved between the scansion and the natural reading flow.

In thus pointing out, however, the rhythmical defects of “Fanny”—defects observable in all the poems of Halleck—we wish to be understood as speaking with reference to Mr. Bryant’s eulogium, and thus rather positively than comparatively. Judged by the laws of verse, which are the incontrovertible laws of melody and harmony, needing only to be clearly put to be admitted—judged by these laws, he is very far indeed from deserving the commendation which his too partial friend and admirer bestows; but, examined only with reference to other American versifiers, he merits all that has been said, and even more.

The excellences of “Fanny” are well described in Mr. Bryant’s general comments upon the works of our poet—in the comments we have quoted above. No one can fail to perceive and appreciate the brilliant wit, the bonhommie, the fanciful illustration, the naïveté, the gentlemanly case and insouciance which have rendered this charming little jeu d’esprit so deservedly popular.

“Alnwick Castle,” written in 1822, is an irregular iambic poem, of one hundred and twenty-eight lines, and describes a seat of the Duke of Northumberland, in Northumberland, England.

It is sadly disfigured by efforts at the farcical, introduced among passages of real beauty. No true poet can unite, in any manner, the low burlesque and the ideal, without a consciousness of profanation. Such verses as

are odd, and nothing more. They are totally out of keeping with the graceful and delicate manner of the initial portions of “Alnwick Castle,” and serve no better purpose than to deprive it of all unity of effect.

The second stanza of this poem has that easy grace, both of thought and expression, which is the leading feature of the Muse of Halleck.

We might quote many other passages of remarkable excellence, and indicating an ideality of far loftier character than that which is usually ascribed to our poet. For example:

The commencement of the fourth stanza is especially beautiful:

In the line Italicized two discords of excess are introduced with the happiest effect, and admirably serve to heighten the quaint fancy of the thought—a thought which, standing alone, would suffice to convince any true poet of the high genius of the author.

“Wyoming” consists of nine Spenserian stanzas—some of which are worthy of all commendation. For example:

This poem, however, is also disfigured with some of the merest burlesque—with such absurdities, for instance, as

The “Lines on the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake” are deservedly popular. We quote them in full.

The tenderness and simplicity of these stanzas are worthy of all praise; but they are not without blemish.

is excessively rough.

involves a false metaphor, when referred to “wreath.” “To show the world” would be better. “Weep thee” and “deeply” form an imperfect rhyme; and the whole of the first quatrain,

although beautiful, bears too close a resemblance to the still more beautiful lines of Wordsworth:

The verses entitled “Burns” have many of the traits of “Alnwick Castle,” and are remarkable, as are all Mr. Halleck’s compositions, for a peculiar grace and terseness of expression. For example:

“Marco Bozzaris,” however, is by far the best of the poems of Halleck. It is not very highly ideal, but is skillfully constructed, abounds in the true lyrical spirit, and, with slight exception, is admirably versified. The exceptions will be found in such verses as

and

where the rhythm requires the lengthening of naturally short syllables; or in such as these:

and

where the crowd of harsh consonants renders the verse nearly unpronounceable. We quote from this truly beautiful poem a passage which, for vigor both of thought and expression, has seldom been equaled and never excelled:

The lines Italicized we look upon as, in every respect, the finest by Halleck. They would do credit to any writer living or dead.

Our poet is unmarried. His usual pursuits have been commercial; but, for many years, he has been the principal superintendent of John Jacob Astor’s monetary and general business affairs.

Of late days, consequently, he has nearly abandoned the Muses—much to the regret of his friends, and to the neglect of his reputation. He is now in the maturity of his powers, and might redeem America from an imputation to which she has been too frequently subjected—the imputation of inability to produce a great poem. A few brief translations, at rare intervals, and chiefly from vapid German or Spanish originals, are now all that remind us of “Marco Bozzaris,” or that, as a poet, its author still lives.

My Flowers

This pamphlet, reprinted from the American Journal of Sciences and Arts, gives a synopsis of the Reynolds Expedition of Discovery, and conveys a general idea of the material on hand for publication by the General Government. Hitherto little has been satisfactorily known in respect to the extent or the results of the voyage; the compendious account furnished by Captain Charles Wilkes being, perhaps, somewhat less luminous than succinct. The general impression, deduced very naturally from the scandalous chicanery practiced in the outfit of the Expedition, with a view to thwart the will of the nation, as manifested in the action of Congress, and to thrust from all participation in the enterprise the very man who gave it origin, and who cherished it to consummation—the general impression, we say, has very naturally been that little or nothing was accomplished. But this opinion does injustice, not less to the scheme itself than to the many able and respectable gentlemen who constituted the scientific corps. In the mere point of approaching the south pole—that pole which, in the opinion of an Honorable Secretary, formed the sole object of the adventure—something more, indeed, might have been performed; but so far as regards the more momentous objects, the making of surveys, the location of reefs, the examination of harbors, the discovery and investigation of new lands, the permanent establishment of our intercourse with the Pacific islands, the impression produced by our vessels in remote seas, the consequent protection afforded our commerce, and, especially, so far as regards the advancement of many important branches of natural science, the results of the American Expedition have been all that could be desired.

The several vessels left the Chesapeake on August 19th, 1838, and sailed for Rio Janeiro, touching at Madeira and the Cape de Verds. From Rio they proceeded to Rio Negro—thence to Nassau Bay in Tierra del Fuego. Thence the Peacock, Porpoise, and two schooners, cruised in different directions toward the pole; the Flying Fish reaching 70° 14′—nearly the highest point attained by Cook, and almost in the same longitude. Weddell, it will be remembered, made as far as 84°. While the schooners were thus employed, the ship Relief narrowly escaped wreck, under Noir Island, in an attempt to enter a southern channel, opening from Nassau Bay into the Straits of Magellan. The Vincennes remained in the bay. In May, 1839, the Expedition rendezvoused at Valparaiso, with the exception of the Sea-Gull, which was lost in a gale. On the 6th of June they sailed for Callao, Peru, and hence the Relief, proving ill-adapted for her purposes, was sent home. On the 12th of July the squadron left the South American coast, and, proceeding westwardly, surveyed fourteen or fifteen of the Paumotu Islands, two of the Society Islands, and all the group of the Navigators. On the 28th of November they repaired to Sydney, New South Wales, and thence sailed on a second cruise in the Antarctic. The first discovery of land was in longitude 160° E. and latitude 66° 30′ S. This land was tracked by the Vincennes and Porpoise, steering to the west, along a barrier of ice, for the distance of one thousand five hundred miles. The Vincennes occasionally approached to within three fourths of a mile of the shore. At a place called Piner’s Bay, soundings were obtained in thirty fathoms, and “they had hopes of soon landing on the rocks; but a storm came up suddenly which lasted for thirty-six hours, and drove the vessels far to leeward; they consequently pushed on with their explorations to the westward, hoping for some more accessible place, but were disappointed.”^[25]

On the 24th of February the squadron met at Tongatabu, and were here joined by the scientific corps, who, during the Antarctic cruise, were occupied in New Holland and New Zealand. From Tongatabu our voyagers sailed to the Fejees. At the expiration of four months they proceeded thence to the Sandwich Islands, surveying several small coral islands on their way. At the Sandwich group the Vincennes spent the winter, while the Peacock and Flying Fish cruised in the equatorial regions of the Pacific; visiting, especially, the Navigators and the Kingsmill group, with others of the Caroline Archipelago. The Porpoise made charts of several of the Paumotu Islands not before surveyed, and touched again at Tahiti.

In the spring of 1841, the Vincennes and Porpoise arrived at the coast of Oregon; the Peacock and Flying Fish not reaching it until July. While attempting to enter the Columbia, the Peacock was wrecked. From the coast of Oregon several land expeditions were made into the interior; one of the most important being a journey from the Columbia, a distance of eight hundred miles, to San Francisco, in California.

Leaving California in November, 1841, the vessels touched for supplies at the Sandwich Islands, and thence sailed to Manila; thence to Mindanao; thence, through the Sooloo Archipelago, and the Straits of Balabac, to Singapore; thence, by the Straits of Sunda, to the Cape of Good Hope; thence, by St. Helena, to New York, where they arrived in June, 1842, having been absent three years and ten months, and having sailed between eighty and ninety thousand miles.

In this memorable Expedition about two hundred and eighty islands were surveyed, beside eight hundred miles on the streams and coast of Oregon; not to speak of the fifteen hundred miles of Antarctic continent. It has been the fashion to doubt the actual discovery of this continent; but this doubt is unreasonable, and arises from a misunderstanding in relation to our dispute with the French. This dispute is not in regard to the discovery itself—but to the priority of discovery. The French have yielded their claim to this. It has been said, too, that Ross actually sailed over a portion of what Capt. Wilkes supposed to be land; but this is not so; the points sailed over were points of a discovery claimed by Bellamy and not by Capt. Wilkes. Notwithstanding all this, it must forever remain a subject for wonder, regret and mortification, that, having sailed for fifteen hundred miles along an Antarctic continent, the Expedition should have been enabled to furnish no result more satisfactory than a few stones picked up from fragments of floating ice, and far more solid in themselves than as arguments of the immediate vicinity of land, or as specimens of that particular land in the neighborhood of which they happened to be found afloat.

The National Gallery at Washington contains suites of better specimens, however, from the various regions surveyed. These, of course, are of high value, and of deep interest. Among them are gems and gold and iron ores from Brazil; copper and silver ores from Peru and Chili; vast collections of shells and corals; fifty thousand plants—two hundred and four of them living; two thousand birds; and an immense variety of objects, even more important than any of these, in the numerous divisions of Natural Science.

The country will soon be put in possession of the facts of the Expedition in full. When we say “soon,” we mean in a year or thereabouts. The publication will be made upon a magnificent scale, and will compare with that of the voyage of the Astrolabe. The plates alone will form several folio volumes. The mere history of the whole has been put in charge of Captain Wilkes. The purely scientific departments are in the hands of the able gentlemen who had their supervision during the voyage. Each will prepare his portion of the great work in his own manner.

To the prime mover in this important undertaking—to the active, the intelligent, the indomitable advocate of the enterprise—to him who gave it birth, and who brought it through maturity, to its triumphant result, this result can afford nothing but unmitigated pleasure. He has seen his measures adopted in the teeth of opposition, and his comprehensive views thoroughly confirmed in spite of cant, prejudice, ignorance and unbelief. For fifteen years has he contended, single-handed, in support of this good cause, against all that a jealous and miserably despicable esprit de corps could bring to his overthrow. He has contended, we say, single-handed, and triumphed. And well knew we, at least, that he would. Many years ago we maintained the impossibility of his failure. With mental powers of the highest order, his indomitable energy is precisely of that character which will not admit of defeat.

To him, we say—and to him in fact solely—does the high honor of this triumphant Expedition belong. Take from the enterprise the original impulse which he gave—the laborious preliminary investigation which he undertook—the unflinching courage and the great ability with which he defended it when attacked—the unwearying perseverance with which he urged its progress, and by which he finally ensured its consummation—let the Expedition have wanted all this, and what would the world have had of it but the shadow of a shade? To him, we repeat, be the glory of this important undertaking—and to those who deserve it—and who now sorely feel they deserve it—be whatever of disgrace has attached to its conduct. One thing is certain—when men, hereafter, shall come to speak of this Expedition, they will speak of it not as the American Expedition—nor even as the Poinsett Expedition, nor as the Dickerson Expedition, nor, alas! as the Wilkes Expedition—they will speak of it—if they speak at all—as “The Expedition of Mr. Reynolds.”

This is an able and thorough defence of the Protective Policy, in opposition to the doctrines of Say, Ricardo, M’Culloch, and other teachers of the Free Trade school. It is remarkable as taking up the great question it treats of in the must catholic spirit, and advocating Protection, not as desirable at this particular juncture for this particular people, but as eminently calculated to promote the prosperity of every nation, and as essential to the welfare of the laboring class especially. Mr. Atkinson quotes at length those propositions of the Free Trade economists which he controverts, and replies to them with signal perspicuity and force. The able Introduction to the American edition applies the principles of Mr. Atkinson to the circumstances of our own country, and is mainly distinguished for the clearness and appositeness of its familiar illustrations. The work deserves and will repay the exertions of the friends of the Protective Policy to diffuse it universally among the people—the price being less than one tenth that of the English edition, while the paper and typography are much superior to those of the ordinary cheap publications.

The rarest of all poetry is the poetry of devotion, and the most common of all verses are those on religious subjects. Very few who have possessed “the vision and the faculty divine,” have had a devotional spirit, and fewer still of those who have felt the true emotion have understood

The collections of hymns used in nearly all the churches are lamentably deficient in the most essential qualities of works of this description. Dr. Watts has been regarded by the religious as a model poet, and every volume which has not embraced the larger portion of his compositions has been deemed without merit for this reason. He certainly wrote some very creditable lyrics, but no man of equal reputation ever produced so much mere fustian or so little worthy of preservation. One half of his hymns are beneath contempt in a literary point of view, and are quite as worthless as expressions of religious feeling. They first appeared when the Bay Psalm Book of President Dunster, in England as well as in America, divided with Sternhold and Hopkins the general applause, and being really better than the verses of those Puritan bards, they soon and deservedly became popular; but nine tenths of them should long ago have been forgotten. Worship is an act of the heart,—

But what high emotion is expressed or can be created by such lines as these—

or these—

Yet these quotations are from popular selections—the last, from the Village Hymns of Nettleton. The saints in the last day awaking from their centuries of slumber and rubbing the dust out of their eyes like so many vagabonds who have lodged uncomfortably in the gutters of the city streets! Could any thing be more ludicrous? Much more poetical and true is this stanza from a specimen of psalmody in one of the gazettes—

A purer taste is beginning to prevail; the necessity of having the religious and poetical character united in the sacred lyric is acknowledged; and the collections before us afford cheering evidence that our literature embraces much more devotional poetry, with the true power and spirit of harmony, than has been generally supposed. None of these collections however are faultless. Many pieces in each of them are without euphony, unity, or completeness, and many more are too long. A hymn should treat of but one subject from its beginning to its end; it should be complete in itself, embracing nothing superfluous or irrelevant to its theme; and it ought in no case to extend to more than six stanzas, each of which, when practicable, should express a distinct and independent thought.

The first of the volumes on our table—“The Psalmist”—is in our opinion decidedly the best compilation of sacred lyric poetry ever published in this country. Its editors are distinguished clergymen of the Baptist Church, and one of them is himself a poet of no mean reputation. Mr. Smith’s Missionary Hymn, commencing,

is nearly as well known as the celebrated lyric of Heber—

and a large number of his pieces, on a variety of subjects, rank among the best of their kind in the English language. We should be pleased, did our limits permit, to present several fine lyrics by him and other American writers, which we have marked in this volume, but must refrain. Cowper, who was doubtless the first of the religious poets of England, is much quoted, but we could never see any merit in that repulsive piece of his, beginning

it is in wretched taste, unfit to be “said or sung;” and we notice it here as one of the chief blemishes of Messrs. Stow and Smith’s collection.

“The Church Psalmist” was prepared, we understand, by one of the most eminent divines of the Presbyterian Church. In an able preface the editor points out the common faults in works of the kind, and his selections and adaptations appear, so far as we have examined, to have been guided by a nice judgment.

“The Christian Psalter” was edited by Rev. William P. Lunt, of Quincy, Massachusetts, pastor of the Unitarian Church in that town, of which John Quincy Adams is a member, and the venerable ex-president is author of about twenty of the best hymns in the book. The “Hour Glass” and the “Death of an Infant” are among the most beautiful effusions of the great statesman, and have rarely been surpassed by any of the religious poets.

The arrangement of the Hymns of Dr. Watts by Dr. Rippon, with the Selections of Dr. Rippon, are well known to the religious throughout the country. The new edition published by Messrs. Lippincott & Co. is beautifully printed, and the accomplished editor has much improved the work by a careful revision.

“Parish Hymns” is a smaller compilation than any of those before noticed, and is designed rather for social and private worship than to be used in the public services of the Sabbath. The contents have been chosen with care by an editor of refined taste, and the book is printed and bound in the neatest manner. It will probably supersede the “Village Hymns” and most of the similar collections in the sphere for which it is intended. We observe that it contains several fine original hymns by Rev. Dr. Bethune, Rev. Walter Colton, U.S.N., and others of our correspondents.

The limits of our work have prevented us hitherto from noticing these exceedingly spirited and masterly designs by a young artist of this city. The highest praise we can award them is to say they put us more strongly in mind of the celebrated linear illustrations by the great German Retsch than any we have seen, end they, it is well known, have been considered the ne plus ultra at which etchings of this kind can attain. The advantage of the play of light and shade, and consequently of äerial perspective, being necessarily denied to the artist, boldness of design, vigor of execution, and correctness of drawing, are the great points in this style, and in them Mr. Darley greatly excels. In another point of view this work is most interesting; as an illustration, namely, and we doubt not a very correct one, of a most singular people rapidly passing from about us, and soon to become extinct. In the first number, Slaying the Bison is a splendid specimen of outline drawing—the foreshortening of the horse exceedingly able—and the whole attitude and action of the rider full of life and power. If there be any fault it is that the hind quarters of the bison are a little under size. In the second, Spearing Fish could not be improved; the drawing is most admirable. Fighting the Bear is not so good, for though the bear himself is done to the very nature, the figure of the young chief shooting at him with the arrow, is neither vigorous nor striking. On the other hand, it would be difficult indeed to improve the splendid composition of Finding the Dead Chief, either in design, truthfulness, or power. The Surprise is, if possible, yet more spirited, from the gripe of the young chief on the arm of his foe, from his brandished knife and the deadly glare of his fixed and savage eye, to the ineffectual clutch of the other, taken at unawares, on the tree which alone hinders him from falling, and the leaves of the bush scattered by the fury of the combatants, all is masterly, energetic, and to the life. Discovering the Enemy is somewhat too similar to one of Retsch’s illustrations of the Fights of the Dragon, the attitude of the principal figures being nearly identical, though we presume, from the originality of the other drawings, the resemblance is merely fortuitous. The Council of the Chiefs is scarcely inferior to any, although the figure of the orator might be improved. In the fourth number, The Battle is unsurpassed by anything in the series for boldness of design or splendid execution. The War Dance is also admirable. In early life it was our fortune to travel largely among the great western lakes, where we have looked upon scenes of almost every description attempted by Mr. Darley, and we have never seen any thing more historically truthful than these sketches.

On the whole, we consider this work one of the most interesting that has lately issued from the American press, inasmuch as while showing great present ability in the youthful artist, and possessing high intrinsic merits, it gives promise in our opinion of the highest future excellence. We shall note Mr. Darley’s future with interest, and shall be disappointed if we do not find him ere long a placed man, and that in no mediocre station.

Epitaphs, Anagrams, etc. of the Puritans.—Nothing more admirably illustrates the character of the founders of New England than their epitaphs, elegies, anagrams, and other portraitures of each other. Grave doctors of divinity—men more learned in classical literature and scholastic theology than any since their time—prided themselves upon the excellence of their puns and epigrams, and the cleverness shown by a few celebrated persons in this species of fashionable trifling constituted their principal claim to immortality. In the Magnolia Christi Americana, Thomas Shepard, a minister of Charlestown, is described as “the greatest anagrammatizer since the days of Lycophron,” and the pastoral care of the renowned Cotton Mather himself is characteristically described as distinguished for

One of the anagrams upon the name of Mather makes out of Cottonus Matherus, Tu tantum Conors es, another Tuos tecum ornasti, etc.; and on the death of the Rev. Thomas Wilson, Shepard wrote,

We have collected a few specimens of the epitaphs of our first century, which from their ingenuity or quaintness cannot fail to amuse the reader. The first is on Samuel Danforth, a minister of Roxbury, who died in 1674, a few days after the completion of a new meeting-house, and was written by Thomas Welde, a poet of considerable reputation in his day,—

Thomas Dudley, who come to Massachusetts in 1630 as deputy-governor, was subsequently chief magistrate of the colony for several years. He died on the last day of July, 1653, in the seventy-third year of his age, and was buried in Roxbury, where, in the records of the Congregational church, is preserved on anagram said to have been sent to him by some anonymous writer, in 1645.

The following was found in his pocket, after his death:

This is characteristic of the Puritans. The reader should however understand that the old meaning of the word libertine was tolerant or liberal, so that the governor merely designed to enjoin conformity to his doctrines. Dudley was a narrow minded man, as much distinguished for his miserly propensities as for his bigotry. Among the epitaphs proposed for his monument was one by Governor Belcher—

Donne nor Cowley ever produced any thing more full of quaint conceits, antithesis, and puns, than the elegy written by Benjamin Woodbridge, in 1654, on John Cotton—

The celebrated epitaph of Dr. Franklin is supposed to have been suggested by this; but the lines of Joseph Capen, a minister of Topsfield, on Mr. John Foster, an ingenious mathematician and printer, bear to it a still closer resemblance—

One of the most poetical of the epitaphs of this period is that by Cotton Mather on the Rev. Thomas Shepard, before mentioned, who died in 1649—

The following lines are from the monument of the Rev. Richard Mather, who died in Dorchester, in 1669, aged 73.

The Rev. Edward Thompson, a preacher of considerable reputation in his day, died at Marshfield, Massachusetts, in 1705. His epitaph is preserved by Alden—

Governor Theophilus Eaton, of New Haven, died at an advanced age on the 7th of January, 1657. His son-in-law, Deputy-Governor William Jones, and his daughter, are buried near him, and are alluded to in the lines upon the monument erected to his memory.

The next is from an old monument in Dorchester.

In the same cemetery “lies the body of James Humfrey, one of the ruling elders of Dorchester, who departed this life the 12 May, 1686, in the 78 year of his age.” His epitaph, like many of that period, is in the form of an acrostic—

The most ingenious of the Puritan poets was the Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, whose “Day of Doom” is the most remarkable curiosity in American literature. “He was as skilled,” says one of his biographers, “in physic and surgery as in diviner things,” and when he could neither preach nor prescribe for the physical sufferings of his neighbors,

He was buried in Malden, near Boston, and his epitaph was written by Mather—

THE EXCELLENT MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH,

Remembered by some good tokens.

The last epitaph for which we have now space is from the monument of Dr. Clark, a grandson of the celebrated Dr. John Clark who came to New England in 1630.

Serial Publications.—Messrs. Harper, of New York, are now publishing, in semi-monthly parts, “A Dictionary, Geographical, Statistical and Historical, of the various countries, places, and principal natural objects in the world, by J. R. M’Culloch, in which the articles relating to the United States have been greatly multiplied and extended, and adapted to the present condition of the country, and to the wants of its citizens, by Daniel Haskell, late President of the University of Vermont.” This is decidedly the best universal gazetteer ever published in any language. The American edition is well printed, though on rather small type, and the various maps which it contains are from the latest and most accurate authorities. The same publishers have nearly completed their serial edition of Brande’s “Encyclopedia of Literature, Science and Art,” a work containing more valuable and interesting matter than many libraries of a hundred volumes. The fifth number of the Collected Writings of Cornelius Mathews has been published in New York by M. Y. Beach. Mr. Winchester, proprietor of “The New World” newspaper, is publishing, in semi-monthly parts, an excellent edition of the celebrated Chronicles of Froissart, at about one fifth of the price of the foreign impressions. W. H. Graham of this city is issuing a very handsome edition of the Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe, to be completed in twenty parts. These tales are, in many respects, the most remarkable ever published in this country, and we shall take an early opportunity to review them in on appropriate manner.

New Works.—The Rev. Dr. Stone, of Brooklyn, has nearly ready for the press, Memoirs of the late Right Rev. Alexander Viets Griswold, Bishop of the Eastern Diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. The life of the late Noah Webster, LL. D., will be published from his MSS., etc., in the ensuing autumn. Mr. Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico will be issued by Messrs. Harper early in November. W. H. Graham, of this city, and H. W. Hewitt, of New York, have in press “An Illustrated Sacred History of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as recorded in the four Gospels; to which is added an appendix, containing explanatory notes; embellished with numerous engravings on wood, illustrating the principal events from the annunciation to the ascension. By J. M. Wainwright, D. D.” This will be one of the must elegant of the illustrated works of the season.

Books Lately Published.—Among the recent publications which we have not noticed elsewhere, is “Classical Studies,” embracing essays on ancient Literature and Art, with the biographies and correspondence of eminent philologists, by some of the most distinguished Dutch and German scholars, translated by Barnas Sears, President of the Newton Theological Seminary, B. B. Edwards, Professor in the Andover Theological Seminary, and C. C. Felton, Professor in Harvard University. It is the most able plea for classical learning ever published, and we hope it will be largely read by the teachers and the students of the country. We have read no work during the year which we could more cheerfully or warmly praise. Messrs. Campbell & Co., of this city, have reprinted McCrie’s “Vindication of the Scottish Covenanters” against the attacks made upon them by Sir Walter Scott in the first series of his “Tales of My Landlord.” It is an eloquent and interesting history of a conscientious and intelligent sect, who were grossly caricatured by the great novelist. They have likewise issued a cheap but excellent edition of Liebig’s works on Agricultural and Animal Chemistry. One of the most interesting books we have ever read is the one on Russia, by J. G. Kohl, lately reprinted in a cheap form, by Carey & Hart, of this city. Mr. Kohl is among travelers what Boswell is among biographers. We know of no one who more admirably describes still nature or social life, and of no work of the same description embracing more fresh and interesting information.

The “Antique Bokestore.”—He who makes the northern tour will peradventure stop a day in Boston, where, after making the circumambulutory ascent of “the Monument,” he will find nothing more worthy his regard—at least if he be an antiquary or man of letters—than the “old curiosity shop” of Burnham, in Cornhill. It is styled the “Antiqve Bokestore,” and is the largest, indeed the only, establishment of its character in the country—a repository of all that is curious and rare, especially in our own literature, from the days of Mather and Wigglesworth to those of Pop Emmons and Dr. McHenry—four stories filled with Puritan theology, Indian war clubs, transcendental philosophy and Polynesian gods! No man has seen the “Athens of America” who has not passed a morning in this literary museum.

Washington Allston.—This illustrious man—the greatest painter of his time—died suddenly at Cambridgeport near Boston on the 8th of July, while sitting alone near midnight in his studio, surrounded by his imperishable creations. He was in the seventy-fourth year of his age.

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. 3, September 1843 by George Rex Graham]