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From Slade’s Travels in Turkey, Greece &c.

Not far from the Avret Bazar is a colossal stone edifice—an oblong square surmounted by two domes—the finest public bath in Stamboul, built by a certain Mustapha Pasha, and bearing his name. As bathing has a great share in the eastern customs, the baths being objects of solicitude to all classes, I may be excused digressing a little on the ceremonial. The structure is the same as that of the Roman baths. One of the domes is pierced by numerous illuminators, beneath it is the bath. The other dome is open at the summit like the Pantheon’s to let the rain descend in a marble basin of water on the floor. A broad bench surrounds the apartment, supplied with couches, each couch separated by a railing; so that the most timid person need apprehend no intrusion on the place which he takes, and where he leaves his clothes. Decorum is a natural virtue with Mussulmans, strictly, almost fastidiously enjoined by the Koran, and religiously observed. The Frank who goes for the first time to one of these establishments feels very awkward, and wishes to retreat, for the company gaze on him with surprise; the appearance of a Frank being not only unusual, but I may say, of no occurrence. The courtesy, however, of the hammamgi (master), and of the others, re-assures him. He is conducted to a sofa and presented with a chibouque, which gives him time for reflection. He observes, with pleasure, the perfect cleanliness of every thing, particularly the linen; the pavement too, variegated with slabs of verd antique, of roux antique, and of other coloured marbles; the basin in the centre, an urn of one piece; the elegant carved chimney; the position of the company, some proceeding to the bath, others coming from it; some reposing in delightful languor, others performing their devotions; for the Mussulman when purified outwardly, does not neglect the inward man. When ready to quit his outer garments, clean wrappers are put round his body, and over his shoulders; a towel is put round his head. This garment is precisely the same as the ihram, the costume in which the hadgis performed their ceremonies at Mecca, and doubtless the type has a very proper effect on a Mussulman. The Frank sees nothing symbolic in it, but he feels great satisfaction in being so completely covered that the most shrinking modesty could not take offence. He then steps into wooden clogs, and supported by his tellak (bather), walks towards the bath. A narrow passage intervenes between it and the dressing room, of moderate heat, where those who dislike rushing into a reservoir of vapour, like a steam engine’s receiver, sit awhile to allow the pores to adapt themselves gradually to the increased action of the blood. In summer when the thermometer is at 80° or 90°, the precaution is of little consequence, but when there are 30° or 40° difference between the dressing and bathing rooms the sensation on suddenly entering the latter, is suffocation. The average heat of both, is, in summer 102°, in winter 90°.

Our stranger then penetrates into what he may well deem Pandemonium. He sees imperfectly through the new medium a number of human figures stretched on the heated marble estrade, like corpses on the table of a fashionable dissector. Wild looking forms, half naked, with long loose hair, are enacting sundry manœuvres over them, rolling them about, twisting them like sticks of wax, kneading them like dough, singing wildly all the time in a strange dialect, and making the vault ring with the claps of their hands against each other or on the flesh of the prostrate. Round the sides of the hall, beneath fountains, he sees other subjects, equally passive, literally undergoing the process of drowning.

By the time that he has made these by no means consolatory observations, the perspiration is streaming from every pore, and his Asmodeus, who has never left him, seeing that he is in a fit state to act upon, signs to him to lie down. The stoutest has a nervousness creep upon him at this moment; would desist from the experiment were he not withheld by shame, and a natural desire to try a new thing. He takes another survey of the scene before resolving, and then, satisfied that no one has died under the operation, resigns his body; with dismal foreboding, though, if he possesses the slightest glimmering of anatomy, of suffering rupture or dislocation. I pass over the minor and agreeable process of titillation and friction to that of shampooing. Our Frank now begins to be alarmed; for his joints, unlike Turkish joints, are difficult of cracking. Fingers and toes soon yield, but his elbows and knees are obstinate and excite the tellak’s wrath, who sings in a louder strain, and applies in good earnest to the task. His patient, knowing that what is pleasure to one is death to another, imagines that his joints are not made to crack, and therefore begs him to desist, assuring him that he is well satisfied; but as he speaks in some western tongue, the swarthy demon over him merely replies by a grin, and continues his work.

At length imperfect sounds are produced, on which he addresses words of congratulation, not understood, and the other supposing all is over feels half mortified that the operation has not been so terrible. Before, however, he can raise himself, the tellak slaps him on the shoulders and turns him over on his breast with the dexterity of a cook with a pancake, seizes his arms, crosses them behind with a strain, as if about to draw them from their sockets, thrusts his knee into the small of the back, and with this lever pulls up the head and shoulders, letting them fall again, himself falling with his whole weight on the crossed arms.^[1] Each time this is repeated the internal fabric appears about to give way.

The patient almost screams with apprehension, and threatens loudly; but his tormentor no ways moved, thinking that the delhi ghiaour is only amusing himself with the chorus of a song, continues the sea-saw operation until the desired cracks issue from the shoulder-blades, or till he is tired. He then drops him, and wrings his own dripping locks. Our Frank forgets his rage, on finding after a minute investigation that he is whole, and allows himself to be led to a fountain; he conceives his terror over, but soon finds that he has only escaped being broken alive for drowning. During five minutes eyes, ears, nose, mouth (he fain tries to look and speak) are filled with soap; a tide of hot water, during another five minutes, washes that away, and leaves him clean for the first time in his life.— Thus, par-boiled, faint and angry, he is lifted on his legs; dry wrappers are put round him, a turban on his head, and he is led to his sofa with a determination never to enter another Turkish bath. He is laid on, and covered with hot linen, and fresh air is allowed to blow on him. He falls into a most voluptuous doze, sips his coffee and chibouque with a pleasure hitherto undreamt, while the nadins dry him by gentle pressure through the cloths—a species of magnetism—inducing slumber. A glass of sherbet thoroughly revives him, and he gets up so elasticized in mind and body that he resolves to come again next day. A mirror, with back of mother-of-pearl, is held before him to tie his cravat; he counts the money on it, and judges of his liberality by the tone in which hoch guieldin (welcome) is pronounced. A Frank deems it requisite to overpay, as he may consider himself as an intruder. In Stamboul a native pays fifty paras (4½d.) The poor are admitted for twelve paras, but then they have no tellak, nor are they entitled to a sofa; but they may use hot water for hours. In the interior of Asia Minor such a bath does not cost a poor man above one of two paras. Men and women use some of the baths on alternate days, while others are reserved expressly for the different sexes.

“As all our attempts to obtain an hippopotamus had hitherto failed, and as we were not likely to meet with another opportunity, this being our last visit to Delagoa Bay, a party of officers volunteered for the chase, and were conveyed up the Dundas river in the Albatross. The evening set in before they reached that part of the river where the hippopotami were the most abundant. Three parties were however formed, who at midnight commenced their pursuit. The scene was novel and imposing; a body of men, armed at all points with muskets, harpoons, and lances, walking on the shallows of the river, with nothing but the moon to light them, all hallooing and driving before them their huge game, who, blowing, snorting, and bellowing, were floundering through the mud from the numerous holes which they had made at the bottom for their retreat, but from which the hunters’ lances soon expelled them; until ultimately driven upon dry ground; where a running contest commenced, the beast sometimes being pursued and at others pursuing.

“This lasted for some time; but still there were no signs of man’s boasted pre-eminence: not an animal had the party secured dead or alive.* * * At low water the following morning one party formed a line across one of the shallows, where the depth was not above two feet, while the boats went up the river and actually drove the animals down the stream, another party having lined the banks to prevent their taking to the woods and reeds. These, whenever the monstrous but timid animals attempted to pass them, set up a shout, which in most instances proved sufficient to turn them back into the water; when, having collected a vast number on one shallow bank of sand, the whole of the hunters commenced from all sides a regular cannonade upon the astonished brutes. Unwieldly as they appeared, still much activity was displayed in their efforts to escape the murderous and unceasing fire to which they were exposed. The one-pound gun occasionally furrowed the thick hide of some, while others were perpetually assailed by a shower of pewter musket-balls. One, a cub, was nearly caught uninjured in attempting to follow its mother, who, galled to desperation, was endeavouring to escape through the land-party; but, as soon as the affectionate brute perceived her offspring falling into the hands of her enemies, forgetting her fears, she rushed furiously at the offenders, when they in their turn were obliged to retreat; but again they contrived to separate them, and had almost secured the prize, when the angry mother, regardless of their close and almost fatal fire, succeeded in redeeming it from their grasp and bearing it off, although herself in a state of great exhaustion. With the flood this sport ended.

“On their return to the schooner along the banks of the river, passing near a spot where an hippopotamus had been seen sporting in the water, a loud rustling was heard amongst the reeds, as if the animal had retreated thither on the discharge of their pieces. Messrs. Arlett and Barrette, with two of the seamen, immediately followed with the view of driving him out. The former gentleman was a little in advance, and eager in the pursuit, when he was heard loudly to exclaim, ‘Here he is!’ The shrill, angry scream of some large animal instantly followed, and in a few seconds Mr. Barrette rushed from the reeds with his face covered with blood and calling loudly for assistance, as Lieutenant Arlett was attacked and thrown down by an elephant. The party were immediately on the alert in search of the unfortunate officer, whom they expected to find a mangled corpse.— As they approached, the elephant, alarmed at their numbers, retreated, leaving his victim on the ground in a state that may more easily be imagined than described. He was stretched motionless on his back, covered with blood and dirt, and his eyes starting from their sockets, in all the expressive horror of a violent death.

“Every attention was immediately paid to him, but it was long feared that the vital spark had fled. Some water was procured, when, after his face had been washed and a little introduced into his mouth, he showed symptoms of returning life; but it was some time before he recovered his senses and became sufficiently collected to give a connected account of the occurrence that had led to his pitiable state. It appeared that, from the thickness of the reeds, he was close to the animal before he was at all aware of his situation, he uttered the exclamation heard by his companions of ‘Here he is!’ This had hardly escaped him, when he discovered that, instead of an hippopotamus, he was almost stumbling over an enormous elephant.— The animal, which appeared highly irritated at the intrusion, waved its trunk in the air, and the moment he spoke, reared upon its hind legs, turned short round, and, with a shrill, passionate cry, rushed after him, bearing down the opposing reeds in his way, while Lieutenant Arlett vainly attempted to effect his escape. For a short time he had hopes of eluding his pursuer, as the animal perceived one of the seamen mounted on the top of a tree, about twenty feet high and three in circumference, menacing him by his voice and gesture, while preparing to fire. The elephant turned short round, and, shrieking with rage, made a kind of spring against the tree, as if to meet the object of his attack, when his ponderous weight bore the whole to the ground, but fortunately without hurting the man, who slipped among the reeds. The ferocious animal still followed him, foaming with rage, to the rising bank of the river; the man crying loudly, ‘An elephant! an elephant!’ until closely pressed by his pursuer, they both came upon the top of the slope, where the party who had heard his cries were prepared, and instantly fired a volley as the elephant appeared. This made him turn with increased fury to Mr. Arlett, who, in his eagerness to escape, stumbled and fell, the huge beast running over him and severely bruising his ankle.

“As soon as he had passed, Mr. Arlett arose, and, limping with pain, attempted once more to retreat, but the animal returned to the attack; his trunk was flourished in the air, and the next moment the unfortunate officer was struck senseless to the ground. On recovering himself his situation appeared hopeless, his huge antagonist standing over him, chaffing and screaming with rage, pounding the earth with his feet, and ploughing it with his tusks. When the party first saw them, Mr. Arlett was lying between the elephant’s legs, and had it been the intention of the animal to destroy him, placing a foot upon his senseless body would in a moment have crushed him to atoms; but it is probable that his object was only to punish and alarm, not to kill—such conjecture being perfectly in accordance with the character of this noble but revengeful beast.

“Mr. Arlett was with much care instantly conveyed on board the schooner, when, on examination, it was found that his body was severely bruised, yet no bones were broken, excepting the fibula of the left leg, which was supposed to be slightly fractured. It appeared that the elephant, on his last return to Mr. Arlett, had filled his trunk with mud, which, having turned him on his back, and forced open his mouth, he blew down his throat, injecting a large quantity into the stomach. It was this that produced the inflated appearance of Mr. Arlett’s countenance, for he was almost in a state of suffocation, and for three days after this adventure, he occasionally vomited quantities of blue sand.

“When he encountered the elephant, he had a rifle in his hand, but he was too close to fire, knowing as he did, that in case of failure his destruction would be certain, for, when wounded, the desperation of this animal is fatal to all. Upon conveying him to the boat, this rifle was forgotten, and a party of four were despatched to recover it. They had just succeeded, and were about to return, when the elephant rushed in amongst them.— The first and second man fired without effect, but the ball of the third fortunately turned him.”—Owen’s Travels.

BY LADY MORGAN.

(2 Vols.)

We are quite sure that we cannot gratify our readers more than by some extracts from this work. The following is a little conversational piece, between Mr. Sackville and Mr. Galbraith, the sub-agent of the former possessor of the estate. Subsequently there is an inrush of neighbours, including Dr. Polypus, the rector, with some high church friends,—the Rev. Enoch Grimshaw, and a bevy of saints,—the Rev. Mr. O’Callaghan, alias Father Phil,—and sundry other varieties, to be met with only in Irish society. That we might, so far as space admitted, allow the parties to develope their several characters, we have struck out all the little dramatic points and by-play, which give life and interest to the dialogue in the work itself.—Ath.

“Mr. Sackville.—It is a great transition, Mr. Galbraith, from the centre of social civilization and refinement, arts, letters, and European interests, to these wild and dreary regions, to live among a people the most rude and lawless.

“Mr. Galbraith, (eagerly.)—Ah! there you are par-fect-ly right, Mr. Sackville, sir, in regard of the ragion, as you, observed, sir, surely; the trees blowing all one way; and the limestone bottom, from Sheemore to Dromahane, and heavy rains and floods sweeping down from the mountains, since the time of Noah, and before; only just your own demense; that I may seey is my own iday of surface-draining. And in regard of the lawless people, sir, you are par-feckt-ly right there, sir, for the finest pisantry in the world, as the agitaytors call them, are just a pack of bloody, murthering, papist villians, and care no more for taking the life of a Christian, than if he was a Jew, or a brute baste.

“Mr. Sack.—My object in coming here is to benefit the people committed by Providence to my care; for I cannot conceive that either the laws of God authorize, or the passions of society will much longer permit, the Irish proprietors to maintain their princely holdings, in an utter neglect of the millions by whose industry their property is rendered productive. As a matter of the plainest self-interest, I shall set earnestly to the task of improving not only the moral, but the animal condition of the peasantry.

“Mr. Galb.—I see, sir: you subscribe, I suppose, of course to the Kildare-street Society?

“Mr. Sack.—I believe I do; I have subscribed to so many things, by the advice and desire of my Irish friends in London, of all parties, that I really cannot remember the names of all. The multiplicity of those charities, by-the-bye, is a sad evidence of the disorganised state of the country. * * *

“Lady Emily.—I was thinking of those poor, haggard creatures all night. I saw them in my dreams, still more frightful. And the tall emaciated man that threw in the petition, and the wild woman, whose husband is to be hanged innocently. O Mr. Galbraith, if you had seen her, clinging to the window of the carriage, and running beside us as fast as the horses, her long black hair flying in the wind, and her really fine face, like the Kembles, and such tones! ‘Think of your own dear husband, lady, to be hang’d innocently.’ O Mr. Galbraith, you who are yourself so good and charitable, as Mrs. O’Quigley says you are,—you, who established such nice soup-kitchens at Bally something, you must help me to save this poor woman and her innocent husband—I have written down her name in my souvenir. Here it is—Honora Brien.

“Mr. Galb., (starts and changes colour.)—To be sure, my leedy. I am your leedyship’s humble servant, intirely, ma’am. But you must not believe all you hear, my leedy, till you inquire both sides, at laste. That woman’s a great white boy! * * *

“Lady Emily.—But, Mr. Gallespie, why, O why! do they look so very wretched—and starved?—

“Mr. Galb., (drily.)—Oh, there’s many a good raison for that, your leedyship. Besides, this is a bad saison for the pittaties—five-pence a stone for the red pittaties, ma’am—and sixpence for the apples.

“Lady Emily.—But why don’t they eat bread, or even paste-cakes? any thing is better than starving or living on apples * * * But Mr.—[she pauses: and then in a soothing tone]—now what is, once for all, your nice name?

“Mr. Galb., (a little mortified, and petulantly.)—Why then my leedy, once for all, Jerry Galbraith of Maryville, Sally Noggin—with your leedyship’s good lave.

“Lady Emily.—Mr. Galbraith! But why is it not Mac Rory, or Crohore of the Bill-hook, or something with an O, or a Mac, like the names in the novels? I thought, when I came to Ireland, I should have nothing but O’s and Macs, and names ending in aughs and cloughs.

“Mr. Galb.—Not at all, my leedy; only the peepists and the pisantry.

“Lady Emily.—The papists! what papists?

“Mr. Galb.—Why the Romans, my leedy. The gintry of the country have no much low neams at all at all,—that’s the Protestants, ma’am; for all the esteated gintry, and greet families, and thim attached to church and steat, and king and constitution, and of the right way, are Protestants, every mother’s son of them, time immemorial, since iver the Glorious and Immortal first set foot in the pleece. Och! the right sort are aisily known, my leedy, from the peepists, by name and neature, and it’s with the likes of thim, your leedyship will be after living here.

“Lady Emily, (interrupting him impatiently.)—But I don’t want to live with those people. I want something so very Irish, you know; such as one sees on the stage, and in the Irish novels, and that do such funny things, and are so amusing. Haven’t we any papists at all on our estates?

“Mr. Galb., (with a peculiar draw up of his mouth and eyebrow.)—Plinty, my leedy. All the pisantry, to a man, are the blackest of peepists.

“Lady Emily.—Oh! I am delighted! I will go and see them all. I know I shall so like a black papist! * * *

“Lady Rosstrevor, (in a rhapsodical manner.)—O Lady Emily! if you form an opinion of all the poorer classes of this country, from what you have seen in the benighted villages of Manor Sackville and Mogherow, you will greatly deceive yourself. You speak of their outward wretchedness; but what is it to their inward darkness!

“Lady Emily.—I do not see why the body is to be abandoned to filth and misery, because the soul is to be saved. Besides, as Mr. Sackville says, how can one shut oneself up, in measureless content, within one’s gates, when all without is wretchedness and privation?

“Miss Grimshaw.—That is rather, I beg your ladyship’s pardon, a selfish consideration. Turning charity into a luxury, is making it a purely human enjoyment.

“Lady Emily.—I have always been taught that charity is a virtue at all events; in this miserable country, it is a duty; and it will be to us, as Mr. Sackville says, a positive enjoyment.— We are therefore resolved to devote ourselves exclusively to doing good. All we want is to know how we shall set about it.

“The Church and the Saints, (in antiphonizing chorus.)—We shall be most happy, Lady Emily, to point out the way.

“Dr. Polypus, (laying both hands on the table, and with a stentorian voice and ex-cathedra manner.)—Lady Emily, I have the honor to be the rector of the parish of Manor Sackville; and if public station gave any right to meddle with private opinion, I certainly might claim the right of the church as by law established, to direct the benevolent views of the wealthiest of my parishioners. * * * By a detestable cant, even the poor Protestants are taught that the episcopal proprietors are an abuse of religion, and must be confiscated to their use; while the poor wretches are at the same time unpityingly drained of their last shilling, for the service of the ravenous tabernacle.

“Miss Grim.—Drained for the tabernacle! drained of their last shilling! O Dr. Polypus, this from you! who draw your four thousand a-year from these poor people!”

Here they adjourn to luncheon.

“Mr. Sack., (breaking off a conversation with Lady Rosstrevor, and walking round the table, stops opposite Mr. O’Callaghan.)—Perhaps you can give us some hints, sir. I assure you, I think such secrets worth knowing. I have always thought that potatoes are better dressed in France than anywhere. I like them à la maitre d’hotel amazingly.

“Mr. O’Callaghan.—Not at all, sir, begging your pardon. Potatoes should always come up in their jackets. You must ate a hot potatoe out of the pot, in an Irish cabin, to know what a delicious thing it is. The craturs won’t always have a grain of salt to give you with it: but they’ll be sure to sweeten it with a ceade mille faltha; and I believe, sir, there is no better sauce to a plain thing, than the hearty welcome of a cordial hospitality.

“Mr. Sack.—Not to have salt to one’s porridge, is a proverbial expression for poverty; and literally, not to have salt to one’s potatoe, seems even below the scale of Irish privation.

“Mr. O’Cal.—Why then, sir, at this moment, within gunshot of this stupendous and splendid banquet, at which we are (thanks to the Lord) faring sumptuously, and where, as the poet says, ‘all is more than hospitably good,’ there are hundreds of poor creatures, who would think themselves well off, to have plenty of potatoes, without the salt; and who would consider a scudan rhu, by way of a kitchen, a faist for a king.

“Mr. Sack., (much affected.)—Good God! The disparity is frightful. But what is that dish you speak of? Is it any thing that I can supply them with?

“Mr. O’Cal.—Is it the scudan rhu, sir? Oh, it’s only a salt herring, sir, and a single one is often a great trate to a whole family; and it is shough’d about like an anchovy, or other delicacy, after a fine dinner like this.

“Dr. Pol.—After all that is said of the poverty of the Irish peasantry, I most sincerely believe, that on an average, they are better off, or at least as well, as the peasantry of the continent. I have heard many enlightened travellers say so.

“Mr. O’Cal.—I make no comparisons, Dr. Polypus, for I have not travelled further than Paris; [turns to Mr. Sackville;] but when it is remembered, sir, that the Irish peasant pays to the land shark squireens at the rate of six pounds per acre, or more, for his half-acre of that land, which these middle men get from you, Mr. Sackville, for thirty shillings—a rent amounting to eleven-pence out of every shilling he earns—that when at the back of this, he contributes to keep Dr. Polypus’s coach-and-four,—laving a pretty profit to his proctor besides—that he maintains in a very genteel way my principal the Rivirend Father Everard, (who will give you as good a boiled fowl, and a bottle of port, as any man in the barony,) and that he even helps me to keep a tight little hack to ride to a station, or mass-house,—you will aisily concaive, Mr. Sackville, that the cratur may think himself well off with a potatoe;—without the luxury, of the scudan rhu, and often without a drop of butter-milk to wash it down. The pleasure of a glass of wine with you, Mr. Galbraith. Shall it be Burgundy, sir? I have it here beside me. [Helps himself, and Mr. Galbraith, who is overwhelmed by his ‘aisy assurance.’]

“Lady Emily, (poking her head forward, and listening with great earnestness.)—What is his name, Dr. Polypus? he is amazingly clever, and so amusing!

“Dr. Polypus.—Do you really think so? I never met him before. His vulgarity, as much as his peculiar position here, keeps him out of good society. I forget his name; but by the lower orders he is commonly called Father Phil of Mogherow.

“Lady Emily, (graciously.)—Father Mog-e-row, will you allow me to recommend you some gélée a l’aspic, with your cold ham? [A great titter.]

“Mr. Galb., (to Mr. O’Callaghan, who is still talking to Mr. Sackville, with ease and earnestness.)—Father Phil, my lady is asking you to take some jelley.

“Mr. O’Cal.—I ask your ladyship’s pardon, whatever you do me the honor to recommend.

“Mr. Sack., (still in conversation with Mr. O’Callaghan.)—For seven hundred years, the history of Ireland has remained the same;—misgovernment, ‘one and indivisible.’ What is the secret of this? Do you know, I am sometimes half inclined to suspect that there may be something of race at the bottom of all. Nothing as so like the physical character of the ancient Celts, as that of the modern Irish,—I mean the mere Irish.

“Mr. O’Cal., (wiping his mouth, throws his napkin on his plate, and gives himself up wholly to the subject.)—To be sure, sir, I am a studier of races. Every man who is fond of dogs and horses, and all the poor brute bastes in the creation, as I am, will be a believer in the hereditary temperament of the different great families of the earth. There, sir, sits my neighbour, Jerry Galbraith. Look at that face of his. [All turn their eyes on Galbraith, who is ‘bothered entirely,’ at being thus singled out.] Well, sir, all the world over, I would say that was an Irish graft on a Scotch stock. Thin, sir, you need not be after studying the genealogical families of the Polypuses and the Grindalls, to know them as Williamites,—Dutch transplanted to Ireland—a mixture of the tulip and the trefoil. * * * It’s among the pisantry that you will find the real ancient ould Celts, Mr. Sackville;—up in the mountains of Munster and Connaught, the Daltries and Cunnamara; and down in the lowlands, among the lower classes, like myself. As to the brass-buttoned gentry, as we call them at the fair of Ballynasloe, they’re all furreigners, sir, Danes, Saxons, Spaniards, (or Milesians, if you will,) Normans, Allemans, and Dutch. * * * Look to thim Anglo-Normans. Since iver they left the track of their traheens in the soil, there they are, rooted like docks.—They’ve held fast by the fiddle, as the clown says at Donnybrook fair, sticking like burrs, and nourishing like mustard-seed, to this day. They are the fils’s, (which we translate Fitzes.) the Geraldines, the Moriscoes, the de Talbots, and the de Botelers, six hundred years and more, keeping the place from the right owners.

“Mr. Sack., (laughing.)—Six hundred years are no brief possession, Mr. O’Callaghan. * * * There is no wrestling with events. They are more powerful with men. The fate of Ireland was inevitable. It is her interest, now, to forget the past.

“Mr. O’Cal., (vehemently.)—I don’t agree with you, Mr. Sackville, as far as Ireland goes, Ireland is the last country on the face of the creation that should forget the past. It is all she has,—the memory of the time when she was ‘great, glorious, and free.’

“Lord Fitzroy, (dressing an orange with various condiments.)—When was that Mr. O’Callaghan?

“Mr. O’Cal., (intemperately.)—When was that, my lord?—Long before your lordship’s ancestors left their Bicocque in Normandy, and came over as officiers de bouche, in the domestic establishment of William the Conqueror of England. * * * Oh, Mr. Sackville, it is neither for the present interest, nor for the future fortunes of the country—neither for her pride nor her glory, that Ireland should forget the past. She should not forget that her soil, where for centuries ‘many a saint and many a hero trod,’ has been bathed in the blood of her brave sons, who were deprived of liberty, and of their ancient, national, and venerated church.

“Mr. Sack.—But your poetical saints and heroes, in plain English, were idle monks and ferocious banditti—alike barbarous, bigoted, and living by the plunder and degradation of the people. They have no longer advocates or admirers in the nineteenth century, save only in that house of refuge for all by-gone institutions and forms,—Ireland. * * * Other virtues, other energies than those of your barbarous ancestors, are necessary to lead you to prosperity and happiness. You want no saints, but citizens;—not heroes, but peaceable, industrious, and calculating utilitarians.

“Mr. O’Cal.—O none of your Utilitarians, none of your Benthams! Pathriotism, Mr. Sackville, pathriotism taches another lesson. Where else can our fine pisantry larn to love their country, and devote themselves to its freedom, but in the records of the courage and piety of their ancestors—the pages of O’Flaherty, Keating, and O’Hallorum?

“Mr. Sack.—Oh! Mr. O’Callaghan; that is no declamation of yours; you are evidently too clever, too clear-sighted a person to be the dupe of such vague generalities, or monstrous fables, as the authors advance to whom you allude. You must know and feel, that your peasantry are no longer the finest in the world; whatever they may have been. Neglect, oppression, want, and the influence of others over their deep, dark ignorance, have degraded them in too many instances, to the level of the brute animal, who shares their hut and their scanty food. Their very nature seems changed. Human life has ceased to be valued amongst them; they take it without remorse,—as they part with it without regret; and if the soil of Ireland is still bathed in blood, it is not drawn by her enemies, but by her infuriated children.”

“The conspirators finding themselves abandoned, gave themselves up to despair; the National Guard rushed rapidly up the stair, and entered the room where Robespierre and the leaders of the revolt were assembled. Robespierre was sitting with his elbows on his knees, and his head resting on his hand; Meda discharged his pistol, which broke his under jaw, and he fell under the table. St. Just implored Le Bas to put an end to his life. Coward, follow my example; said he, and blew out his brains. Couthon was seized under a table, feebly attempting to strike with a knife, which he wanted the courage to plunge in his heart; Coffinhal, and the younger Robespierre, threw themselves from the windows, and were seized in the inner court of the building. Henriot had been thrown down the stairs by Coffinhal, but though bruised and mutilated, he contrived to crawl into the entrance of a sewer, from whence he was dragged out by the troops of the convention.

“Robespierre and Couthon supposed to be dead, were dragged by the heels to the Quai Pelletier, where it was proposed to throw them into the river; but it being discovered when day returned, that they still breathed, they were stretched on a board, and carried to the Assembly. The members having refused to admit them, they were carried to the Committee of General Safety, where Robespierre lay for some hours stretched on a table, with his broken jaw still bleeding, and suffering alike under bodily pain, and the execrations of those around him. From hence he was sent to the Conciergerie, where he was confined in the same cell which had been occupied by Danton, Hebert, and Chaumette. At length, he was brought with all his associates, to the Revolutionry Tribunal, and as soon as the certainty of their indentity was established, they were condemned.

“At four in the morning, on the 29th July, all Paris was in motion to witness the death of the tyrant. He was placed on the chariot, between Henriot and Couthon, whose remains were as mutilated as his own; the crowd, which had for a long time ceased to attend the executions, manifested the utmost joy at their fate. The blood from his jaw burst through the bandage, and overflowed his dress; his face was ghastly pale. He shut his eyes, but could not close his ears against the imprecations of the multitude. A woman bursting from the crowd, exclaimed—‘Murderers of all my kindred, your agony fills me with joy; descend to hell covered with the curses of every mother in France!’—Twenty of his comrades were executed before him; when he ascended the scaffold, the executioner tore the bandage from his face; the lower jaw fell upon his breast, and he uttered a yell, which filled every heart with horror. For some minutes the frightful figure was held up to the multitude; he was then placed under the axe, and the last sounds which reached his ears, were the exulting shouts, which were prolonged for some minutes after his death.

“Along with Robespierre, were executed, Henriot, Couthon, St. Just, Dumas, Coffinhal, Simon, and all the leaders of the revolt. St. Just, alone displayed the firmness which had so often been witnessed among the victims whom they had sent to the scaffold. Couthon wept with terror; the others died uttering blasphemies, which were drowned in the cheers of the people. They shed tears for joy; they embraced each other in transport, they crowded round the scaffold to behold the bloody remains of the tyrants. ‘Yes, Robespierre there is a God!’ said a poor man, as he approached the lifeless body of one so lately the object of dread; his fall was felt by all present, as an immediate manifestation of the Divinity.”

INES.

The wide square of St. Mark’s was crowded with masqueraders, and a mimic day blazed from the torches and the lamps which clustered round the pillars and porticoes, revealing the barbaric splendour of the palaces, the elaborate ornaments of the architecture and the tapestry hangings, the rich draperies of silver tissue and embroidered silks, which were thrown over the balconies; whilst long garlands of flowers and fanciful knots of ribbons floated like pennants from the windows. The golden-winged lions crowning the columns of St. Mark, gleamed as brightly in the midnight radiance as when they reflected the rays of the meridian sun. The gods of the ancient mythology seemed to have descended from Mount Olympus to share the revels of the denizens of the lower world. The sea had given up its tritons, who, with conch and shell, made the air musical. The Gnome and the Guebre, the giant and the fairy, had quitted their secret haunts to give lustre to the Carnival. Mortal and immortal, deity and demon, sages and warriors of every country and of every age; Cleopatras more beautiful than she who lost Marc Antony the world, and Lesbian maids peerless as Sappho, and like Sappho crowned, were assembled in one glittering mass, Pageant succeeded to pageant; the muses struck their golden lyres, and chaunted a hymn to Apollo, as they moved gracefully before the chariot wherein their tuneful master sat enthroned.— Diana and her buskined nymphs, freshly emerged from greenwood shades and thickets deep, pursued their rapid course with feet which lightly skimmed the earth. A wild troop of Bacchanals, each waving a vine-garlanded thyrsis on high, shouted the praises of the jolly god as his leopard-drawn car shot madly across the plain; and Orestes haunted by furies, Faust and Mephistopheles, and Don Giovanni surrounded by the fiends, joined a brilliant company of armed knights and ladies fair, Amadis of Gaul, Charlemagne, and the court of King Pepin.— The red Arab and the dusky Moor, the swarthy Ethiop and feathered Indian, mingled freely with dainty cavaliers and gorgeous nymphs. Tripping to the merry sound of the castanet, and the tinkling melody of the gay guitar, men and maidens from the banks of the Guadalquivir performed their national bolero, whilst the loud war-hoop of the painted savage, brandishing his fearful tomahawk, in close conjunction, disturbed them not.— Belphegor and Lucifer, with their tails twisted over their arms, and their hideous horns erect, trod the sprightly measure with white-robed virgins, the vestal guardians of the sacred fire. Crowned Emperors and fettered slaves, rude pirates and gentle ladies, in this universal jubilee, joined hands and hearts. The gibbering ghost, the bright-eyed star, the tumbling scaramouch and stalking skeleton, entered alike into the joyous pleasures of the hour.— The gazer’s eye was dazzled by the vivid and fantastic spectacle which the Venetian carnival presented; the shout of the maddening populace was mingled with the sound of ten thousand instruments. During a moment’s pause a strain of melody came borne upon the breeze to the listening ear; in the next, it was lost to the deafening clang of the hoarse trumpet, and the double drum, the clash of the cymbal, and the roar of the multitude: all was splendour and excitation; the sky seemed one flash of crimson, as the flaming meteors from earth followed each other in quick succession, dimming the eternal stars; whilst the many-coloured lamps below flung their bright effulgence upon snowy plumes and roseate wreaths and sparkling gems.

In the centre of this gorgeous festival there were two persons who stood silent and alone. Unmasked, and leaning against a marble pillar, placed in the only solitary corner of the broad square, a young man, attired in a Turkish habit, disregarding the brilliant scene around him, gazed upon an opposite balcony, where a fair form, shrouded in a white veil, leaned listlessly over the carved rails. The peculiar form of the turban, the style of the dress, and the easiness of the wearer, told the observant stranger that this costume at least was not assumed. From under the muslin folds which encircled his head, beamed a brow of flame, yet the dark flash of his eagle eye was tempered by the melancholy expression of a countenance, whose lineaments the most celebrated Grecian sculptor might have copied in his finest work; the perfect symmetry of his form could not be hidden by the wide trowsers which enveloped it; and the splendour of his descent might be inferred by the rich jewels which glittered in bright profusion on his vest, his turban, and his diamond-hilted scimitar. The lady on whom his ardent gaze was bent, wrapped closely in her shadowy veil, seemed wholly unconscious of his regards, and solely intent upon shutting out the gaudy pantomime from her weary view. At length, to breathe a fresher air, or to inhale the perfume of the buds which canopied the balcony where she stood, she drew aside the mantling gauze. A light breeze, which now played softly amidst the trembling lights and waving flowers, wafted it gently from her head: the deep blue eyes, the skin of ivory hue, and the golden tresses wantoning over a neck of snow, revealed by the falling drapery, seemed not to be of Italian origin. She cast a languid glance across the square, and encountered the piercing gaze of the turbaned stranger. She started, clung with one hand to the rail for support, and passed the other over her brow—bent hastily forward, looked again, and again, and drawing her veil round her, disappeared. In another moment she made one of the crowd in the square of St. Mark’s. Passing eagerly through the idle throng, she turned towards an illuminated portico which led to a ballroom, where the nobles of Venice had assembled for the midnight revel, and entered the festal palace. The Turk was no longer stationary: he followed the steps of the veiled lady, and they who parted on the banks of the Danube met in the saloons of Venice. With bosoms agitated by the remembrance of the past, isolated and apart from the gay groups, swimming with luxurious movement through the winding mazes of the dance to the voluptuous melody of lutes, or dallying with sportive conversation, or engaged in the soft intercourse of the soul, the Moslem warrior and the Christian maid sat in a quiet nook, recalling with tender melancholy scenes of tumult and of horror, which had made a deep and lasting impression upon both.

Apparently born to act a prominent part on the grand theatre of life, a mind fitted to engage in deeds of high emprize, and thoughts of lofty daring, were stamped in legible characters on the manly countenance of the soldier; but the fair creature who bent like a drooping lily beside him, so fragile, so tender, so delicate, that she scarcely appeared like a daughter of earth, seemed to have been nursed in the lap of affluence and ease, and carefully secured from all contact with the rough tempests, the shocks and conflicts which are this world’s inheritance. But it was not so: even this sweet flower had been exposed to the rude breath of the stormy wind, to keen encounters with dire and desperate enemies; and, whilst her outward form retained its surpassing loveliness, her heart was deeply scathed.

Osmyn Mehemmed Ali was the son of the Sultan Achmet, by Chandara, a Georgian princess. From his mother he inherited the beauty which characterized her race and country, and a spirit resolutely bent upon overcoming every difficulty opposed to its high aspirings. He was not the heir to the Ottoman throne; an elder brother, Ibrahim, claiming that dignity by birth; but Chandara was the favourite of the harem; and though the policy of the Turkish court confined all the males of the royal house to as rigid a seclusion within the palace walls as is alloted by the custom of the country to every female above the lowest rank, the united influence of the mother and son prevailed, and the youthful suppliant was permitted to go forth in search of glory. The terrors of the sword of Osmyn Mehemmed were spread throughout a vast portion of the globe. A conqueror wherever he appeared, he had defeated the troops of Hungary and of Austria upon their own soil, and brought fire and famine into the centre of Ispahan. The rebellious Moors, on the shores of the Mediterranean, had felt the power of his arm, and the wild Arabs of Upper Egypt trembled at his name. With the splendour and the speed of a comet he rushed to battle, and victory crowned him with her greenest laurels. Nor did his prowess alone win for him a name exalted amid nations; skilled in all the learning of the East, the cultivation of his mind shed a brighter lustre over the conquests he achieved. Intrepid and generous, brave and compassionate, mercy followed his triumphal car, nor sued to him in vain. Adored by his soldiers and respected by his enemies; Osmyn Mehemmed had run a race of glory worthy of a veteran in arms, ere the fresh bloom of youth had deepened into the fiercer flush of manhood’s prime. Ere Belgrade had submitted to his sword, a deadly battle was fought beneath its walls. The imperial eagle fled before the bright crescent, and the banks of the Danube were covered with the corpses of the slain. The tumultuous joy of conquest had subsided in Osmyn’s breast; he gazed upon the scene before him with tender melancholy, strongly, yet vainly wishing that another path to glory could be chalked out, unstained with human blood, and that he might become a benefactor to neighbouring kingdoms rather than a scourge. The victorious soldiers were busily employed in the burial of their dead. Suddenly a female form was seen eagerly advancing over the ensanguined field. She passed, with shuddering horror, the Moslems who lay stretched upon the earth, but bent down with anxious and piercing gaze beside every recumbent Austrian. For a time she fluttered like a bird from corpse to corpse—but anon her progress was arrested: she stood for the space of a minute motionless—then a wild shriek burst from her lips—another—and another! She was instantly surrounded by a lawless band of Spahis, who essayed to tear her from a prostrate body, to which she clung with fearful energy. Osmyn flew to the spot: he, too, perceived that life still lingered in the bosom of the disabled warrior. The affliction, even more than the beauty, of the fair creature who had adventured in such a perilous pursuit touched his heart. With assurances of faith and friendship, so candidly and so deeply sworn, that no spirit blessed with kindred rectitude could doubt his given word, he conveyed the weeping daughter and her wounded parent to his tent: the best aid which the Turkish camp could afford was applied to the sufferer, and hope again beamed upon the brow of the lovely Jacqueline.

It was summer; the broad waters of the rolling Danube flowed in front of the spacious area wherein the Turkish legions reposed; the snow-white tents, crowned with the gleaming crescent glittered in the sun, as they contrasted with the dark forests of pines on the summits above; the towers of Belgrade were seen in the distance; and, seated at her father’s couch, with Osmyn by her side, the beautiful Austrian marvelled that she should feel so secure, nay even so happy, in the power of an infidel, who threatened to deluge that fair river with blood, and to crumble the proud walls of the beleaguered city to the dust.

As the time approached, destined for an assault on the town, which, in all probability, would prove final, the Count of Altendorf—so was the prisoner styled—dreading the danger to which his gentle daughter would be exposed should her generous protector fall, and thereby leave her to the mercy of his troops, grew evidently worse. The anguish of his mind was painted on his countenance; and Osmyn, having ascertained that a removal would not be attended with any immediate danger, generously offered to forego the pleasure which he enjoyed in the society of his guests, and conducted them himself in safety to the limits of his own jurisdiction.

Scenes of strife and danger, in which Osmyn became subsequently engaged, did not banish the sweet image of his fair captive from his mind; and, when restored to the haunt of her childhood, far removed from the din of battle and the clash of arms, Jacqueline dwelt fondly on the remembrance of that invincible enemy to her country, who now triumphantly waved the Standard of his Prophet over the Christian spires of Belgrade.

The Sultan Achmet, whilst his favourite son was pursuing the full career of his glory, died. Breathless with speed, a favourite slave of the Princess Chandara arrived at the head-quarters of Osmyn’s army; then moving towards the Russian frontier. He brought intelligence of high import to the young Prince from his mother. The jealousy of Ibrahim, one of those monarchs who would not endure a younger brother near the throne, threatened his life; a few hours alone would elapse before the fatal mandate for his execution, or more properly his assassination, would reach the camp; and the crafty and ambitious Georgian conjured him to employ this precious interval in proclaiming himself Sultan; promising to aid an insurrection in Istamboul, by fomenting the discontents which were already visible in the capital, and by bribing the licentious Janizaries who guarded the royal person. But Osmyn, though condemned to die by a brother’s voice, would not purchase empire by revolting against him. He promulgated the news of his father’s decease in the camp, and eloquently exhorted his troops to preserve their allegiance to his lawful successor. The soldiers with one consent loudly exclaimed, “We will have no Sultan save Osmyn; no King save the conqueror who leads us to victory.” The youthful hero thanked his brave comrades for this warm expression of their affection, but solemnly assured them, that rather than plunge his country into civil war, and usurp a crown which of right belonged to another, he would pour out his blood before them with his own sword. Having somewhat succeeded in calming the rebellious spirit, which, however, still manifested itself in murmurs, he retired to his tent, secreted the most valuable jewels about his person, and having given the rest of his moveable wealth in charge to a trusty friend, to distribute amongst his brave companions in arms, he disguised himself, and reaching the coast in safely, sailed to Venice.

In the interim the Count of Altendorf died: his heiress was consigned by his last will to her maternal relations in Italy; and, surrounded by a mercenary and selfish family, who, though her near kindred, were yet strangers in sentiment, Jacqueline languished in the deadly fear of becoming the prey of her cousin Leonardo, who, seeking her wealth, in despite of her expressed aversion was a suitor for her hand.

It was under these circumstances that Osmyn met the fair Austrian at the Venetian Carnival; and, almost forgetting his country and his creed, she flew to him as the only friend upon whom she could rely. It was not wonderful that, thus situated, the gay pageant around should be disregarded, and that Osmyn and Jacqueline, wholly absorbed in each other, should rejoice in the festival, only as the means of affording them a free opportunity for conversation.

Every hour strengthened the tie which bound them together, and one obstacle alone seemed to oppose a legal union between hearts already entwined as one—the creed of the Moslem. Jacqueline would have relinquished country, fortune, and relatives, but not to one whose faith she held in detestation; but daring, when the welfare of a soul so dear to her was concerned, she essayed to turn him from those erroneous doctrines in which he had been educated. Osmyn’s mother was a Christian; and though in her, religion was merely nominal, her son dutifully held the opinions which she professed in respect. The devoted lover became a convert. Already had they meditated a retreat to some sweet sequestered spot, where competence and ease would bless a life of peaceful obscurity. These anticipations, however, were speedily annihilated by intelligence which arrived from Chandara. The sudden death of Ibrahim called Osmyn to the Ottoman throne. Fired with the zeal of a young proselyte, grand designs came crowding to his heart for the advancement of Christianity in the East, nor in such a cause did the timid Jacqueline fear danger. Young and enthusiastic, both confidently expected the realization of their projects in the promulgation of the true religion throughout the realm which owned their sovereignty; and, with these hopes and determinations, they withdrew from Venice, where their marriage could not have taken place without such publicity as would have inevitably ruined their prospects. The blessing of a priest sanctioned their union in one of those sweet isles which smile, like fairy gardens, on the Adriatic sea; and full of hope and love, they pursued their blissful voyage to Istamboul.

Hours of rapturous felicity, too exquisite, too bright to last! Sailing upon the Bosphorus, the gorgeous city, with mosque and minaret, tower and dome, rising in the midst of myrtle groves and tufted orange trees, burst upon their admiring eyes. They felt as if destined to bestow the only blessing denied to the happy soil, and their hearts beat high with pious exultation.— Chandara, the still beautiful Georgian, rushed into the embrace of her son, but coldly received his fair companion! Osmyn’s dream of bliss was disturbed by the painful discovery, that his mother, whom he had fondly hoped would aid him in his endeavours, was unworthy of his confidence. Ibrahim had been murdered, and the guilt of this outrage was fastened on the proud Sultana. The necessity of dissembling his feelings, and of outwardly conforming to a religion which he held in detestation, was irksome to him; yet, aware that it was only by observing the utmost caution that he could ever hope to succeed in his designs, he submitted to many painful duties. Still his evident departure from long established customs gave offence. Murmurs and whispers of discontent reached the ear of Chandara; she saw her son tottering on a throne which she had secured for him by the commission of a deadly crime. To the influence of Jacqueline she attributed his estrangement from Oriental manners, and her fate was instantly decided.

Inhabiting a superb suit of apartments, where the fervid heat of the climate was cooled by the fresh breeze from the river, admitted through shades kept constantly dripping with rose-water; surrounded by pomp and splendour, and her every wish anticipated, Jacqueline languished and drooped. Imagining that the gushing fragrance of those clustering flowers whose perfume she loved to inhale, might have formed a deleterious atmosphere to one so delicate, the heliotropes, the Persian lilacs and hyacinths, together with all the breathing sweets of blooming myriads, were withdrawn, and scentless blossoms alone permitted to deck her chamber. But the precaution was vain. The resplendent light of day now became too powerful for her weak frame, and a soft twilight was shed, during the blazing hours of meridian heat, through the still open lattices. Osmyn, half distracted by his fears, hung in speechless anguish over the silken couch whereon the pale and wasted form of his beloved reclined. No entreaties could lure him from the spot; and the stern Chandara, perceiving that the means which she employed worked too slowly for her purpose, increased the deadly draught; and, devoured by an insatiable thirst, the lovely victim eagerly drained the poisoned chalice. Even by the faint uncertain light which rendered every surrounding object dim and indistinct, Osmyn saw the lily fairness of that angelic countenance, which he watched with such fond solicitude, change to a livid hue.—Jacqueline lay a corpse before him! The frightful truth struck upon his soul; he knew that she was murdered, and by whom. He called vehemently for lights; but, ere the attentive slaves had yielded their prompt obedience, he was stretched in happy oblivion on the floor; and, before he had recovered to a sense of his wretchedness, the lifeless form of Jacqueline was hurried to the grave. Osmyn awoke to fruitless rage, to hopeless misery. Breathing vengeance, he resolved upon the sacrifice of the cruel destroyer of his happiness; but the bitter reflection, that his powerless arm might destroy the living but could not restore the dead, changed the fierceness of his anger into gloomy despair. Spurning his mother from his presence, he demanded to be left alone. Many hours elapsed ere the chief officers of the household dared to invade his retirement; but when, at length, they burst the door of his chamber, they found it untenanted. Osmyn had resigned the crown—had fled from the throne. No trace of him could be discovered; until, at the expiration of twenty years, on the dead body of a grey-headed hermit, who died in his cell upon Mount Caucasus, was found the signet ring of the Sultan.—La Belle Assemblée.

Selected for the Museum.

“To hold the Mirror up to nature.”

I might undoubtedly say this is “a true story” but unfortunately the world pays little regard to names; whatever may be the peculiarities of one, or the excentricities of another, the world will pronounce it overdrawn,—or fiction;—nevertheless the sketch of character I now give, is true, essentially true, and I could name many living persons, as the law requires to substantiate the fact, and give evidences of its truth. Uncle Toby was a batchelor—one of the best of his kind—good hearted and generous (so his nephews and nieces say) although some persons think one hundred pounds (out of a plumb) to charitable funds, was not an evidence of it; he was fond of good living, and money—Well! Uncle Toby amassed it by the sweat of his brow and lived not to enjoy; but death who is no respecter of persons, just took him off in the nick of time; for some dozens of nephews and nieces to squander and dash—brag and boast, that they were most fortunate, in being born after poor Uncle Toby, and thereby enjoying the reward of his labours, and hard earnings. Ah! poor Uncle Toby, he had all his honors “in death”, was kept in state for three days and followed to the grave, by his heart-wrung nephews and ninety mourners, then came the opening of the will, tears were checked, noses wiped,—some were astonished, others dismayed. As is usual in such cases, there were agreeable and disagreeable disappointments, as certain favourites expect a leetle more, and others less, although all live in hopes; poor Miss Bella had but four thousand while her sisters had six; but never mind, each were to give their mite and Miss Bella was to weigh as heavy as the rest, a promise made at that moment of independance, but soon forgotten.

Ah! said Miss Dulcy, I thank heaven Master Tommy is not better off than us, notwithstanding he toadied after Uncle Toby, eating cold round every day at twelve, purposely to please him—favourite indeed! said she with a toss of the head, he might have saved his stomach. The aside was neither unheard or unfelt and Master Tommy muttered the word vixen, and took a year of his precious speech from her, by the calendar of spite. As a tribute to the memory of the dead a monument of stupendous size was raised with an epitaph a folio long, commemorating virtues, we all must die to have discovered.— Wealth to the virtuous, brings happiness—to the frivolous, depravity—and thus it is when I look around me and see those towering in purse pride for whom near and dear friends have benefited in their hour of need, forgetful of the past; but why dwell on the world’s ingratitude! is it not proverbial?—do we not daily see grey heads scorned; ties which God has put upon us of kindred rent asunder, and the beings that have received our bounty from their very birth sting the hand that fostered them? Oh! do we not live in an unsympathetic world; where years only will bring the knowledge, that our pilgrimage in this, is but to purify us for a better? but I digress.

To me years had elapsed since my Uncle Toby’s death, but with it “not forgetfulness” here have we evidences of the value of “riches” in cut stone fronts, “washing tub societies,” gas companies, continental tours with their usual accompaniments of descriptions of Herculaneum, Carnival and its ceremonies, the Pope’s big toe, and the Priest’s little one; Paris and its pick-pocket fascinations, and London with its Westminster, St. Paul’s, Horse Guards, House of Lords, House of Commons, and lord knows how many other houses, and then he must not forget Lord Powder Puff’s dinner the last he was at, there I mean (and first too by the bye) and all the airs and elegancies appertaining to such great people, and in fact relating so many things, and grasping at so much, for the benefit of his wonder-struck auditors, that he reminds one “of a tree too crowded with blossoms, ever to ripen into sound fruit,” but such must be the case in a bird’s eye view of every thing, and a stock of knowledge, accumulated during a tour of a few months; by persons fancying, that this is sufficient for a traveller’s name, and the world’s wisdom, while they have yet to learn, that is gathered from thorns not flowers. Giving a just tribute to the dead is all very well, but to be so confoundedly grateful (mind I now speak of the few exceptions that redeem human nature) is a great bore—go where you will Uncle Toby stares you in the face, the very compliments of the morning are interrupted with “my compliments to Miss Grundy, the patte pans look dark, but poor Uncle Toby gave them to me fifteen years since.” Walk in, Dr. Dearburn, walk in! Poor Jack was very sick in the night, he eat too much sour crout at dinner yesterday, a dish poor uncle Toby was very fond of; he always said nobody ever cooked it as well as me, so Jack, as I was saying, eat too much of it; and was so sick I thought he would have died; I asked if he wanted a doctor; he said it would be too expensive; then, said I, if you please, thanks to uncle Toby, I can pay doctors’ bills now; Ah! Mrs. Sharpe, is that you, walk in, do! do! glad to see you, as I was just telling Dr. Dearburn, Jack was so ill (relates the whole story) he has taken nothing but a leetle soup, cut a small piece of beef as large as my hand, put it in a pint of water, little mace and salt and baul it down to a cup full (she was housekeeper and assistant cook to uncle Toby) this was what uncle Toby always called for when any way sick, do allow me to give you a little liqueur this cold morning—do! do! I gathered the black currants, put them into a demi-john of white rum I had in the cellar, run it through brown paper; by this time she had reached the interior of another room, the rest of the receipt was unintelligible, but the voice still heard through rattling of keys and glasses, and an occasional interruption of a bawl—John, where’s the cork screw? Sally, bring a duster! there; there; that will do, and back she comes with her peculiar gait, a decanter in one hand, and a tray with glasses in the other. Uncle Toby never drank it himself, but always made me keep it in the house. Well, Dr. Dearburn, how do you find Jack? better of course, was very sick tho’ in the night; turned up the corner of my new carpet, put the basin along side of him. That snuff-box was poor Uncle Toby’s, Jack bought it at the sale. But now in a degree Uncle Toby’s name has given place to the gas pipes, and every salutation commences with, “have you seen the pipes?” as if horrid iron pipes staying your steps wherever you turn could escape the observation, of either the blind or absent—did you come by Charles Street? asks another of the proprietors, who knows the street is impassable to man or beast, from the deep ravines (as Miss Polly Ross would say) from half covered holes, and open spaces occasioned by the laying of these same pipes, have you seen our Cousin Tommy since his return from abroad? asks a third. Had the honor of being nearly run over by him this very moment.— Oh aye! he is very near sighted, ought to have taken up his glass. I shall tell him when I see him he is very much improved, tho’, don’t you think so? Very likely, he ought to be, certainly, so great a traveller. Oh dear yes! he has been all over the world, dined with all the nobility of England, at Sir John Powder Puff’s, which has improved his morals no doubt, as well as manners, there was no room for that, Mr. Stuart, Cousin Tommy has had as good an edication as the best of you, thanks to Uncle Toby, we need not go to England for either morals or manners. A smile of assent satisfied the speaker Uncle Toby’s money could buy both as well here as abroad. Yes indeed, has he not shares in the washing tub society, gas lights, and all our concerns? Thanks to Uncle Toby, we can all travel and dash if we please. Thanks to the executor of Uncle Toby’s will, thought I, who having a wheel, within a wheel, does his best for himself and you.— Stop! Mr. Stuart, stop! allow me to introduce you to my Cousin Grandly (another proprietor, thought I, God help us) Mr. Grandly, Mr. Stuart, Mr. Stuart, Mr. Grandly (both bow politely) happy to make your acquaintance, sir, (in rather a drawlish accent). Mr. Grandly deserved his name, a really fine looking man with a blue surtout, buff vest, and inexpressibles, and rather a juvenile tournure of hat; fine day, sir, but roads impassable, those gas pipes break up all our comforts either in walking or riding. My poor horse’s leg nearly suffered from those many confounded little holes. I gave the whole company of gas pipes a blessing, I assure you. I smiled in all the harmony I could bring my features to, when I knew myself on the eve of Uncle Toby.— You have no doubt seen the process of bringing the gas through those pipes, Mr. Stuart? Yes, sir, some years ago in England. Oh? in England indeed! (with rather a disappointment that this was not the first to astonish the natives with.) Oh certainly in England, but this has been attempted by many here before, but never has succeeded, with our large capital (thanks to Uncle Toby thought I) we must do the thing well, and a— and a— (the word generally took flight before uttered). I wish to observe the many advantages we have over others. I see them all, my dear Mr. Grandly, at a glance, but a hurried engagement must plead the incivility of running away—we shall however renew the introduction I hope with mutual pleasure, and walking off with more haste than politeness, I mentally vowed, never voluntarily to put myself either in the way of gas light proprietors, or washing tub societies, until this last dose had been well digested.

St. Ives.

FOUNDED ON FACT.

Written for the Montreal Museum.

“Another of those murderous follies, duels, has lately been fought, and terminated fatally. One man has lost his life, and three or four others—if they have the feelings of men—their happiness for the remainder of theirs.”—Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine.

Clara Delville was the only child of an opulent merchant residing in London, the capital of merry England. As this gentleman died when his daughter was in her infancy, it is unnecessary to enlarge upon his character or life. It is equally unnecessary for my purpose to give a minute description of the person of my heroine; it may suffice to say, that to a very pleasing exterior she united the most fascinating manners, and a mind endowed with every charm.

The chief characteristic of my Clara, must not, however, be passed over in silence, this was a sensibility but too deep for her happiness. Her nature, otherwise rather inclined to a spirited dignity, was instantly reduced to a state of the most yielding softness by a tale of woe, whether real or fictitious. The loss of her father at so early an age proved doubly unfortunate, as by this circumstance she was left entirely to the care of a young mother, whose health and mind, both suffered much from the disappointment of all her early hopes of earthly bliss; and naturally doating fondly on this child, it is not surprising that she was unable to perform her duties with the strictness required. Instead of allowing the mind of her idol to range abroad, and, by healthful exercise through the vast fields presented by the study of human nature, acquire the requisite strength to struggle through the world, she confined it within the limits of a happy home, and an ill selected library. The real depravity of man, aye, and of women, for unfortunately it must be admitted, that all are not good, this I say, was carefully concealed from the pure being I am attempting to describe; and had she thought on the subject, it is probable her embodied ideas would have been, that the comparatively small circle of her mother’s friends and acquaintances was a correct specimen of the whole world: perhaps it was; but not in the light in which the individuals composing it, shone before the good and amiable Mrs. Delville, whose conduct and principles inspired all who approached her, with too much tact, to allow them to expose their own or their neighbours’ faults to any extravagant degree in her presence.

Time, thus sped lightly on, gently fanning my heroine into lovely maturity, and she had reached the age of eighteen, that period when short lived beauty reaches its first stage of perfection; when the scarcely formed features of girlhood give place to the rich full growth of the young woman. Hitherto all had been bright and calm in her career; but the slight bark that was thus skimming lightly over the smooth surface of the sea, was about to experience storms that had nearly wrecked the delicate structure—but I must not anticipate.

Clara Delville, as with young and rich ladies in general had several aspirants to her hand; as yet she had not particularly distinguished any by the bestowal of her heart. Two gentlemen had, however, made a more favorable impression than is usually produced by commonplace acquaintances. Sir Henry Temple, by far the most striking in manners and appearance of the persons in question, was of the middle height, and handsome to an eminent degree. Master of every showy accomplishment, it was asserted that he had danced, sung, and blown, it was expressed to me, fluted, but I conceive that blown, however awkward it looks and sounds, to be the most proper word, he had then, it was said, insinuated himself into the affections of a score or so of young hearts, and moreover, frequently been in love himself, but as he had never married, although in actual possession of a large fortune and such a prepossessing person, this is not likely to be true, for why, if he had both loved and been beloved, should he not, under such a favorable combination of events, have united himself to one of the distinguished objects? It was also whispered, that Sir H. was a heartless voluptuary, who basked in the smiles of beauty, and revelled in the delicious excitement of uncertain success, but that as soon as the downcast eye, anxious look, and faltering tongue had confessed deeply implicated feelings, the gay butterfly would flutter away to sip the sweets of first love from some other beauteous budding flower. This must also have been false, for he looked so good, so frank, and spoke so feelingly, that he must have been as free from selfish coquetry as from every other evil inclination. Thus reasoned Clara; time will show the truth or fallacy of her amiable sophistry. So much I can take upon myself to assure my readers: that whatever may have been the actions of Sir H. heretofore, he had now, at the age of thirty-two come to the determination of marrying, that he sought for a lady of distinguished manners, and above all, of large fortune; to account for the last mentioned advantage being thought absolutely requisite, I must own, that to a certain extent at least the world had spoken truth, in calling Sir H. a voluptuary. His table and the general arrangement of his household was a model for modern epicures, his wines, for variety and exquisite flavor were unequalled, in England; his carriages, coaches, and ottomans unique for luxurious ease and beauty, and lastly, his pecuniary affairs were kept in the strictest order, not, indeed, from any particular fear of proving unjust to others, but, because any negligence on this point had endangered the loss of some highly prized enjoyment. This being the way in which Sir H. lived and thought, he had cast his eyes on Clara Delville, and judging her worthy to fill the distinguished place at the head of his household, and her fortune sufficient to supply any deficiency in his own, besides the additional expences of the married state, to the astonishment of many he formally paid his addresses to her.

The other candidate for the favor of Clara, Charles Stanhope, was as different in mind, disposition, and appearance as can be imagined. Plain in his dress, but strictly gentlemanly, his manners were in conformity with it, neither ever produced what is termed a sensation, but, both bore well the test of close observation. His features were manly, but in no ways remarkable, if we except a noble brow, and eyes of almost superhuman beauty, to do the latter justice were impossible. Slawkenbergius describes noses, with such life and interest that you fancy the elegant Diego present before you, but I believe he says nothing of eyes; of this, it is true, I am uncertain, for my smattering of Latin does not allow of my reading him in the original; be it as may, he does not furnish me with any ideas on the subject. A more modern writer certainly, often speaks of that feature, but unfortunately, I have a most vicious memory, and spite of the rack to which I have subjected it for the last half hour, I can think of nothing but “Blue water lilies &c.” Now water lily eyes may do well enough for a spirit, but would be very ridiculous for a gentleman, so here I am as poor as ever, and must set off again on my own funds. Charles Stanhope’s eyes were of the darkest shade to which the name of hazel may be applied; large in size, their habitual expression was mildness and love, but there were times, although extremely rare, when they had been seen to flash forth fire, that caused the beholder to quail, as does the gleaming of the sword of Azrael. His disposition was kind and his affections ardent, the only circumstance that prevented him from universally pleasing, was his extreme diffidence. This was heightened by a sense of comparative poverty, for like Clara, Charles had been left an orphan when very young, but unlike her, the trifle he inherited barely sufficed to procure a liberal education; on completing this, he entered a public office, and had probably risen to high diplomatic honors, but for his extreme modesty, which ever caused him, rather to conceal his brilliant talents, than court promotion by display.

From the first time that he had seen Clara she had never been absent from his mind, and each subsequent interview had engraved her image more deeply on his heart; no word had yet told that he loved, but his countenance, that true index to an honest man’s heart had long since betrayed the truth. Candid to an extreme, dissimulation was impossible to him, his voice might be silent, but love beamed on his open brow; none could mistake the expression of those liquid orbs, that seemed even to shed additional interest over the object of their impassioned gaze.

As I said before, Clara had not yet made any choice among her lovers. Sir Henry Temple, she admired, and his delicate attentions flattered her, neither could she feel entirely free from a slight sensation of pride to see a man so universally sought after, a willing captive in her chains. Towards Charles Stanhope, her feelings were different, she esteemed him for his probity, and looked up to him as a perfect being; his approbation imparted an undefined and pure sensation of pleasure which she never thought of analysing.

About this time a great and unexpected change took place in the affairs of Mrs. Delville and her daughter. Mr. Delville had died leaving a fortune of fifty thousand pounds, to his wife and child; this had all, excepting the property on which they resided, been placed in the hands of two eminent merchants. Being intimately connected with each other, it is no way surprising that in the course of time they became partners; for several years their affairs prospered, and not a doubt ever existed concerning the large sum they held in trust. But adversity struck them; fire and disease ravaged their immense possessions in one of the West India Islands. Alarmed beyond their reason, the two partners made one desperate speculation to retrieve their affairs, that failed, and they were ruined, drawing several individuals in their train, among whom were my heroine and her mother. This was a dreadful blow for poor Mrs. Delville; she had been in a precarious state of health for the last two years, and grief for her daughter’s change of prospects sealed her doom.

But Mrs. Delville did not drop suddenly into the grave, that had been a mercy; she lingered on for the space of nine months, with feelings acutely alive to every fresh proof of their misfortune. These were not wanting in daily occurrence; first came trades-people, some of whom had almost amassed little fortunes out of the custom of the Delvilles, but fearing to lose the amount of their last half yearly accounts, were suddenly seized with a fearful want of money. Next came the trial of the world: nay, look not impatient, gentle reader, I am not going to write a tirade against the world, God wots, I love it, and its inhabitants too well for that, I think it pretty, beautiful, grand, and glorious. The people it contains, are, on ne peut être mieux. True, some are rich, and others poor: some glide along through life, scarcely dreaming on their couches of down, of the existence of misery; others, from their earliest infancy know it in all its varieties; the rich are courted, and the poor scorned, the children of the former are often bloated with luxurious food, and those of the latter pinched with hunger—but what of all that? the misfortunes of the one would not be alleviated by those of the whole country; no pain is rendered less acute by seeing it suffered by a fellow being. That some are happy, and others not so, helps to maintain the equilibrium; I look upon calms and storms, sunshine and clouds, palaces and hovels, as the necessary variety to form a world, and reformers, and anti-reformers, or in other words more in use here, Radicals and Bureaucrats, failures, bad servants, and bad halfpence, as absolutely necessary to keep up a proper degree of excitement, without which, all would be tame, and the blood would stagnate. Ergo, all is for the best, in this best of all possible worlds. This is shocking bad reasoning, and the whole “loosely put together.” My last expression is borrowed from the Editor of the Philadelphia National Gazette, who makes use of it, in reference to Bulwer’s last work “England and the English.” I have read it since, and disagree entirely with the learned judge, for it strikes me, as being firmly constructed of sound reasoning and lucid delineations of the character, politics &c. of my beloved country.— More I cannot say, for even this much is out of place here, and I must hurry on to the end of my little story.

To Clara the shock was equally severe, for it first suggested the idea of the possibility of being separated from her adored parent. Once this thought awakened, many circumstances tended to enforce it; with an eager wish to do justice to their creditors, she hastened to satisfy their utmost demands, nor was it till the last had retired in delight that he had lost nothing by them, that Clara noticed with dismay that her stock of money had nearly disappeared; with this idea came that of her mother’s illness and increasing wants. How did her heart sink when she thought of the physician’s respectful bow at the close of his visits, intimating as plainly as a bow could:—madam, I have done, and only wait for a guinea. Even the apothecary never made up a prescription without at the same time furnishing his bill for the same.

It was one morning, when sitting by her mother who was reclining on a sofa, that a servant announced to Clara the presence of Sir Henry Temple in an adjoining room; Mrs. Delville, who felt rather revived at the moment ordered him to be admitted.— Sir Henry entered smiling, and in the best of spirits, which he accounted for by the fineness of the weather; they conversed for some time on indifferent subjects, till with a loud laugh he suddenly recalled something to mind, of which he did not keep his auditors long in ignorance: this was the advice sent through him to Clara, of seeking a situation as teacher, and offers of service in furtherance of this purpose, without noticing Clara’s burning blushes, or her mother’s evident agitation, he proceeded in a lively manner to paint the mortifications to which governesses are subject, and concluded by advising her to act like a girl of spirit and try the stage. With this advice and assurances of deep interest, he departed.

To describe what were the feelings of the mother and daughter at that moment is impossible; Clara threw herself into her mother’s arms in a passion of tears; to her, a volume had lately been opened, every page of which contained a lesson that lacerated the heart. Bitterly did Mrs. Delville reproach herself for having neglected to prepare the mind of her child for this reverse of fate, and fain would she have whispered consolation, but a consciousness of her own precarious state and weakness deprived her of utterance, and she fainted. With much difficulty life and consciousness was restored, but a severe fit of illness succeeded, during which Clara seemed to exist but in the room of her beloved parent. Long before Mrs. Delville was so far restored as to be enabled to converse on her affairs, the remainder of their money was exhausted, and Clara had been forced to part with her jewels, and even a part of the family plate.

During this time Charles Stanhope, who was absent from town when the first news of their misfortunes were published, returned, and hastened to call at their residence; on being informed of Mrs. Delville’s illness he returned home and sent a note to Clara entreating her to employ him in some manner that might prove useful to them. She returned her thanks in a polite answer, but declined his offers of service. From that day forward, Charles was regular in his enquiries each morning and evening at their door, till at length the temporary convalescence of the invalid gave him admittance. How different was his manner from that of Sir Henry, at this last visit. Shocked by the great alteration in the looks of both the ladies, his respectful look was changed to that of deep feeling: he pressed the hand of Mrs. D. and was forced to turn to a window to conceal his emotion. That visit was painful to all parties; not daring to speak on the subject nearest his heart, Charles could not bring himself to converse on any indifferent one; and Clara’s spirits were too much worn out to admit a cheerful thought. He soon took leave requesting permission to return the next day.

By this time, Mrs. Delville who was perfectly ignorant of business, was prevailed upon by interested advisers to mortgage her remaining property, as her only means of raising money for the purposes of life. The idea of selling it and thereby forming a small capital having never occurred to her mind; and with respect to Clara, the real situation of her mother had at length become impressed on her mind, and she lived in a kind of reckless despair, her only object being to contribute to her comforts; further than that she thought not, cared not. A vague hope might exist that she should not survive that mother, but it was undefined. Poor credulous girl! to fancy for a moment that grief could break a woman’s heart. She had yet to learn that it might be crushed, lacerated, and tortured, and even consumed by every species of misfortune, and that still another, and another strong in feeling at least, would arise out of the ashes of the first.

Charles was now a constant visitor at the house, and unconsciously, Clara began to look forward to the time of his visits with something like pleasure; a very great change had taken place in him, although evidently labouring under a secret weight of anxiety, he was always cheerful in presence of Mrs. Delville and Clara. His manner to both was tender and affectionate, he had ever some new trifle to engage their attention; books, pictures, and music, of which latter they were all equally enthusiastic, all was put in requisition. His conversation was suited to his hearers, never had Clara believed him so rich in the graces of the mind, his wit was ready, but though bright and sparkling as a crystal stream in the noon-day sun, it was as harmless and refreshing. Too kind in disposition to injure the insect that crossed his path, he could not sting a human being, even to display his own superior powers.

One day, that Mrs. Delville experienced one of these deluding changes, peculiar to her malady, which almost revive extinguished hope, Charles Stanhope came rather later than usual and bearing the marks of agitation in his countenance; shortly after his entrance he announced his intended departure to South America; the ladies looked astonished, and Mrs. Delville enquired if the object of his journey was a secret.— I had intended it should be so, Madam, but your permission to divulge it in your presence, is the only alleviation I can experience in a circumstance that fills me with despair. Clara, who had displayed strong emotion during this speech, now offered to leave the room. Leave me not, he exclaimed, but stay, Clara, to decide my fate; and leading her beside her mother he continued: I have long loved you Miss Delville, as those only who are as isolated in the world as myself can love, my very limited income forced me to be silent, and almost, to banish hope, as the height of presumption. I have formed plans for the acquirement of riches, but none have yet succeeded, at length I am come to the resolution of seeking elsewhere, not what will render me worthy of you, but at least that which is your due; as I said before, I did not intend to whisper my wishes yet, but the trial for which I have taken so much pains to prepare myself, has proved above my strength; and now may I depart with one ray of hope?

Clara much affected by her lover’s devoted affection, and struck with admiration by the convincing artlessness of his manner, nobly discarded the natural confusion arising from the unexpected avowal, and awakening to a consciousness, that, however absorbed by the late events and the state of her parent, she yet felt a deep interest in the disinterested being before her, frankly avowed the state of her mind, and referred Charles to her mother for an answer. Mrs. Delville, who like Clara, had learned more within the last few months than in her whole life of prosperity, was deeply impressed by the scene; she gave her warm approbation of Charles’ attachment, and endeavored to cheer her daughter’s mind, and induce her to look forward with hope to the future. But Clara fixing her eyes upon her mother’s pallid countenance answered only by a desponding look, and left the apartment. Mrs. Delville then conversed calmly with Charles on his prospects, and earnestly dissuaded him from leaving England; you have, she said, an income that would, even without addition, enable you to live with comfort; rest then contented for the present, and in time your abilities and steady perseverance must meet with their just reward. It proved difficult to persuade Charles to forego the hope of offering Clara a splendid establishment, but the representation of the uncertainty of obtaining riches, should he even put his plans into execution, and the dread of leaving Clara prevailed.

The two following months were unmarked by any particular circumstance except the gradual decline of Mrs. Delville.— Charles became more dear each day to her, and at length at his repeated solicitation she consented to his immediate union with Clara. I see your kind wishes, she said, you are aware that I must soon leave my poor orphan girl, and you would first obtain the most sacred of rights to sustain her through the trial, take her accompanied by my warm blessings on you both, I shall then be ready to depart, and with my dying breath, praise my Heavenly Father, for his great mercy and goodness to the widow and orphan; for if our weakness has been made manifest in our afflictions, his greatness, and love has been displayed in our consolation.

Ten days after, Charles and Clara were privately married in presence of a young friend of his, an old housekeeper, and Mrs. Delville. No joyous laugh echoed through the house, or splendidly dressed guest offered laboured compliments to the bride, but the look of unbounded love and happiness expressed in the eyes of Charles, and his thrilling voice when pressing her to his heart for the first time, he whispered, you are mine, sunk into her breast and seemed to change her whole being. For a moment she forgot all, in the sweet sense of dependence that a happy wife feels on the love and superior strength of a husband.

It seemed that Mrs. Delville had only waited for this to close her mortal career; three weeks after the event, that reconciled her to meet the great change, she died, without pain and without regret. Clara was deeply affected by her loss, indeed she never entirely shook off the effects of the last eventful year, she would indulge at times in the most distressing thoughts; and the slightest indisposition of Charles filled her with forebodings of the worst of evils.

A year after the death of Mrs. Delville, Clara presented her husband with a healthy boy, a beautiful but softened resemblance of his father. To describe the happiness of both the parents, were beyond the powers of the most vivid pen. Almost separated from the world, they lived but to each other. No harsh word, no look of indifference ever interrupted their harmony.— Each carefully warded from the other every shaft that might have wounded their peace of mind.

Since their marriage, Charles and Clara had lived in a very retired manner, they saw little or no company at home, and never accepted invitations to entertainments abroad. It so happened, that a young friend of Clara’s who had married at about the same time, sent them a very pressing request to attend a private concert at her house; their infant being in perfect health, and the promise of some beautiful music tempted them to go; accordingly, on the appointed evening they gratified their kind friend by their attendance. Never perhaps, had Clara looked so lovely as on that night, she was robed in a rich black velvet dress, that set off the dazzling white of her throat and rounded arms, with no other ornament than a bandeau of pearls which confined the luxuriant curls of her raven hair.— The extreme beauty of her dress, joined to the look of subdued happiness of the loving and beloved wife and mother, cast a ray of such transcendent brightness over her, that Charles trembled with joy and pride as he led her forth to take her place once more among the accomplished of her sex.

The company was select, and received the almost forgotten Clara with evident surprise and admiration. In the course of the evening she was prevailed upon to sing a beautiful ballad accompanied by herself on the piano, her voice was touchingly sweet, and unbounded applause attended her execution; but this was not enough to satisfy her ambitious heart, and she sought for her dearest and best reward in her husband’s approving glance, she received it, and was turning her head away when her eye met that of Sir Henry Temple, whom she had not seen since his last visit at her mother’s house. That evening he had seen and marked all that passed between the happy pair; it opened his eyes, and understanding to the selfishness of his own life, and the superior enjoyment of his rival, as he chose to consider Charles: rage and jealousy took possession of him, and after bowing with a supercilious smile to Clara, turned to Charles and exclaimed, well Stanhope, tired of love in a cottage yet? your wife is a pretty singer, dances well, promised to patronize her once, will do it yet, if you like. This wanton insult from a person of Sir Henry’s known politeness and usage du monde, can only be accounted for by his anger in having lost a treasure which he had in a manner once despised, because the fine gold had not been offered to his corporeal sight. Clara did not hear her husband’s answer, but she saw the look that accompanied it; his eyes assumed that appearance of which she had heard, but never before witnessed; open to their full extent, they shot forth a bright spark that seemed to scathe like lightning. Sir Henry looked withered, but spoke again in a low tone, and then all seemed forgotten between them. Shortly after the company retired, on arriving at their door Charles said he wanted some papers from his office, and as the night was so light, the moon being at its full, he would walk over for them. Clara, in haste to see her child made no objection, and they parted. An hour elapsed, ere she felt any surprise at the length of his absence, but at the end of another half, she recalled to mind the scene that had passed between Sir Henry and Charles, at the concert.

Instantly the most intense anxiety filled her mind, and with a throbbing heart she counted the minutes as they passed, still Charles came not; she sent to his office, but there, all was closed and dark. Almost harrowed up to madness, she rushed out to seek him herself. Instinct led her steps to the door of Sir Henry Temple’s elegant mansion, where ringing violently, a servant made his appearance; to her eager enquiries he returned no answer but a mournful look of sympathy; seeing another person in the hall, she entered, but was horror-struck by the sight of Charles’ watch lying on a table. She grasped it with a violence that crushed the frail object to pieces, and again screamed her husband’s name. A low, sarcastic laugh grated on her ear and Sir Henry Temple stood before her with blood-stained hands; at the same moment a door opened, and she saw the corpse of him she sought after stretched on a sofa!— One long, agonized shriek announced the departure of her reason, and bursting from the detaining hands of the servants, she again fled into the street. She traversed one after another with astonishing rapidity, uttering peals of wild laughter, until she fell exhausted, and some kind hand carried her into a house, and laid her on a bed. Sadness then came over her spirit, and she wept because she had gone mad, and deserted her lovely boy; suddenly she raised her eyes, and saw the spirit of her Charles hovering by her pillow with their baby in his arms: she tried to reach them, but a dead weight pressed on her arms, she gasped for breath, the infant put out his little hand, and the icy touch on her burning brow broke the spell, Clara awoke once more to unutterable bliss—she had slept late, and Charles brought the child to rouse her, it accomplished this by touching her forehead with the pearl bandeau, which had decorated it the evening previous. Clara had in reality attended a concert, but did not meet Sir Henry Temple there, nor of course had her husband fought a duel with him; something, it is true, recalled him to her recollection, and that perhaps had partly caused her singular dream.

G.

Montreal, Sept. 24, 1833.

For the Montreal Museum.

BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘THE DUTCHMAN’S FIRESIDE’ &C. [2 vols.]

The professed object of this novel, is to hold forth by example, a warning against fanaticism, and what is called faith in presentiment. The hero is a young man, whose grandfather was forewarned by an idiot beggar, that he would go mad, leaving a mad family: of course, the fate of grandfather and father verifies the prediction; his two brothers also become melancholy proofs of the misery to which the family are doomed; and our hero lives in all the horrors of anticipated and coming madness; which is eventually brought on by the sermon of a wandering fanatic. The fate thus denounced, and the corroborating proofs of its truth, is a secret which the hero wishes to conceal, and out of this concealment, is woven the mystery of the plot: he sells his patrimonial estate, and removes into the back settlements of Kentucky, where, of course, he falls in love, and out of the now contending passions, fear and hope, the interest of the work is wrought up. This outline of the story will, perhaps remind the reader of the novels of Brockden Brown; but Brown, though a coarse hand, could yet throw in some gentle touches of deep pathos—whereas, here, it is all backwood work—hewing down passion and feeling like an oak tree. There are some scenes of considerable power, but, upon cultivated minds they lose much of their effect, from exaggeration; and if there were nothing else in the novel, we should here dismiss it. But some of the parties who figure in the story, will interest English readers.— The sketch of old Virginia, with which the novel opens, is very clever. The Col. Dangerfield of this part of the story, is a fine specimen of the true Virginian, a race of men who think it unbecoming a liberal mind to concern themselves with such peddling matters as the management of their estates, indifferent whence money comes, whether from rent or mortgage, so that it does come when wanted; and squandering away noble fortunes in gambling and racing, yet with such a dash of open-hearted generous liberality, as to win from us our best wishes, and almost our admiration. The Colonel has a very pleasant satellite in a Mr. Littlejohn—a friend of the same humour—“the merriest rogue in all the country round, and who did more laughing than any ten men in Virginia. I mean,” says the writer, “white men; for, notwithstanding the negroes are so utterly miserable, it somehow or other happens, that they are a hundred times merrier than their masters.” At the opening of the novel, the Colonel is very nearly a ruined man, and his fate is soon after determined at a horse race, when “an estate of six generations” passes away from him and his heirs for ever. Losing the race has other consequences. Soon after their return home, a horrible outcry is heard in the stables. The Colonel hurried there, and on arrival,

“He beheld Pompey the Little (his jockey) tied incontinently to a beam, and Pompey the Great (otherwise called Pompey Ducklegs) belabouring him with a cowskin so lustily, that if ever man or boy had a good excuse for roaring like ten thousand bulls of Bashan, it was that luckless composition of ebony. Between every stroke, which was followed by a roar the indignant Ducklegs would exclaim:—

“ ‘You young racksal—you lose he race, eh!—(whack!)—You no beat Molly Magpie, eh!—(whack!)—You no be free nigger, eh!—(whack!)—You no get a hundred a year, eh!—(whack!)—You disgrace you family, you young racksal, eh!—(whack! whack! whack!)’

“ ‘Pomp,’ cried the colonel, ‘how dare you strike any of my slaves without my permission!’

“ ‘He disgrace he family, massa.’

“ ‘Pshaw! untie the poor fellow; he did his best—it was not his fault that Barebones lost. Untie him, I say, and never take such a liberty again, sir.’

“ ‘Huh!—libbety!’ grumbled Pompey Ducklegs, as he obeyed his master, ‘debbil! an’t he old nigger’s own flesh and blood, dough he be a disgrace to he family?’ ”

With the wreck of his fortune, the Colonel marches off to the Western Country, and there, removed from temptation, he becomes a thriving and prosperous gentleman. Some new characters now appear on the stage, to whom we shall introduce our readers. The following account of Bushfield, will give a good idea of the hazard run by the early settlers:—

“ ‘I’ll tell you what, stranger, if you had lived in Old Kentuck as long as I have, and seen what I have seen, you’d talk other guess, I reckon. When I first remember this country, nobody could sleep of nights for fear of the Ingens, who were so thick you couldn’t see the trees for them. There isn’t a soul in all Kentucky but has lost some one of his kin in the Ingen wars, or had his house burnt over his head by these creturs. When they plough their fields, they every day turn up the bones of their own colour and kin who have been scalped, and tortured, and whipped, and starved by these varmints, and are ten thousand times more bloodthirsty than tigers, and as cunning as ’possums. I, stranger, I am the last of my family and name; the rest are all gone, and not one of them died by the hand of his maker. My grandfather fell and was scalped at Old Chilicothe; my uncle was massacred at Ruddle’s Station, after he had surrendered; my father lost his life at the Blue Licks, when all Kentucky was in mourning; my two brothers were kidnapped when they were boys, and never heard of afterwards; and—and—my mother and sister were burnt up in our house, while all the men were out to catch a horse-thief, by a party of Shawanoes. They barred the doors and windows, and my little sister loaded the gun, which my mother fired as fast as she loaded. They killed two of the varmints; the others set fire to the house, and—and J—s! that any white man should pity an Ingen here on “the dark and bloody ground.” ’ ”

The hero of the tale appears in the following dialogue, but we quote it, as throwing further light on the character of Bushfield, one of the best drawn in the volume, though evidently a copy from old Col. Boone:—

“As they rode to the spot which was the object of their visit, the colonel spoke of what was necessary to be done in the first stage of a new settlement, and entered on a variety of details, such as he thought might interest his guest; but his mind seemed to be wandering to other subjects. Sometimes he did not answer at all, and at others nothing or very little to the purpose.

“ ‘Stranger,’ said Bushfield, who accompanied them on his way home, he not being a resident in the village of Dangerfieldville, ‘stranger, you don’t seem on the track of what the colonel says. But I’ll tell you what, a man that comes to settle in these parts must be wide awake, and rip and tear away like a horse in a cane-brake. But somehow you don’t appear to mind what’s said to you, any more than my old horse Shavetail, who lost his hearing at the last general training, they fired at such a rate.’

“ ‘I believe, indeed, I was guilty of the ill manners of thinking of something else; I am apt to be absent,’ said Rainsford, with a melancholy smile.

“ ‘What! you’re one of the booky fellers that think one thing while they are talking about another. There’s an old varmint at Frankford Academy, as I heard, that one day cut his forefinger to a sharp point instead of a pencil, for want of thinking what he was about.’

“ ‘What a beautiful country!’ exclaimed Rainsford.

“ ‘Beautiful?—it’s transcendent! Yes, if Old Kentucky was cut off from all the rest of the earth, she’d be a world within herself,’ answered Bushfield.

“A spot was selected for the residence of Rainsford on the bank of a little stream which found its way to the Kentucky River through a rich meadow imbosomed in the hills.

“ ‘’Tis a little paradise,’ said he; ‘but I fear it is too distant from any other habitation.’

“ ‘Distant!’ cried Bushfield, ‘not at all; why, you and I shall be nigh neighbours. Don’t you see that blue mountain yonder? I live just on the other side, and it’s only fifteen miles off.’

“ ‘That’s rather too far from me; I don’t like to be alone.’

“ ‘Not like to be alone! why, where under the sun did you spring from, stranger? Now, for my part, I don’t want any other company than my dog, my rifle, and plenty of game. I never wish to see the smoke of my neighbour’s chimney. You’ll have a smart chance of company at Dangerfieldville, which isn’t above six miles off, as I should calculate.’

“After a few minutes’ reflection, Mr. Rainsford assented to the location of his house, observing it was after all, perhaps, of little consequence where he pitched his tent, to the great disgust of Bushfield, who set him down in his own mind as a fellow that hadn’t fire enough in him to prevent his being frostbitten in the dog days.”

Our readers may desire to know something more of this wild-backwoodsman, and we shall therefore extract his leave-taking:—

“ ‘Well, colonel,’ said Bushfield, ‘I’ve let go the willows at last. I can’t go it any longer here.’

“ ‘Why, what’s the matter?’ asked the other.

“ ‘O, every thing is getting so dense here, that a man can’t turn round, or, say his soul is his own. There’s that interloper that has located himself just under my nose, about five miles off, I caught him in the very fact of shooting a deer on my side of the river, I’ll be goy blamed if I didn’t, colonel. Well, what would you have a man do? I challenged him to take a shot at from a hundred yards to meeting muzzles. But he’s as mean as gar-broth. He said he’d bought the land of Uncle Sam, and had as good a right to shoot there as the old man himself. This was more than a dead ’possum could stand. I wish I may be shot if I didn’t lick him as slick as a whistle in less than no time. Well, by George!—would you believe it?—he took the law of me! Only think of the feller’s impudence, colonel, to take the law of a gentleman! I paid him fifty dollars for licking him; but if I don’t give him a hundred dollars’ worth the next time we meet, I’m a coward, anyhow.’

“The colonel condoled with him, but at the same time advised him to submit to the laws.

“ ‘Laws! none of your laws for me, colonel. I can’t live where there’s law or lawyers, and a feller don’t know whether he’s right or wrong without looking into a law-book. They don’t seem to know any more about conscience than I do about law. Now, for my part, I do just what I think right, and that’s what I call going according to my conscience. But colonel,’ continued he, with a queer chuckle, ‘I’ve got into a worse scrape than that business with the squatter.’

“ ‘No! I’m sorry for that; what is it?’

“ ‘Why, you must know, not long after you went away there came a man riding along here that I calculate had just thrown off his moccasins, with another feller behind him in a laced hat, and for all the world dressed like a militia officer. Well, I hailed him in here, for you know I like to do as you would in your own house; and he came-to like a good feller. But the captain, as I took him to be, hung fire, and staid out with the horses. So I went and took hold of him like a snapping-turtle, and says I, “Captain, one would think you had never been inside of a gentleman’s house before.” But he held back like all wrath, and wouldn’t take anything. So says I, “Stranger, I’m a peaceable man anyhow, but maybe you don’t know what it is to insult a feller by sneaking away from his hospitality here in Old Kentuck.” I held on to him all the while, or he’d have gone off like one of these plaguy precussion-locks that have just come into fashion. “Captain,” says I, “here’s your health, and may you live to be general.” “Captain!” says the other, “he’s no captain; he’s my servant.” “What!” says I, “one white man be a servant to another! make a nigger of himself! come, that’s too bad;” and I began to feel a little savage. I asked one if he wasn’t ashamed to make a nigger of himself; and they got rather obstropolous. I don’t know exactly how it came about, but we got into a fight, and I lick’d them both, but not till they got outside the door, for I wouldn’t be uncivil anyhow. Well, what do you think? instead of settling the thing like a gentleman, the feller that had a white man for his nigger, instead of coming out fine, I’ll be eternally dern’d if he didn’t send a constable after me. Well, I made short work of it, and lick’d him too, anyhow. * * * I must look out for some place where a man can live independent, where there’s no law but gentlemen’s law, and no niggers but black ones. I sha’n’t see you again, colonel, it’s most likely, so good-by all. I expect you’ll be after me soon, for I look upon it to be impossible for a man in his senses to live here much longer, to be hoppled like a horse, and not go where he pleases.’ And away he marched, with a heart as light as a feather, in search of a place where he might live according to his conscience.”

Another party met with on the descent of the Ohio, are sufficiently original to be interesting—it consisted of Captain Sam Hugg, the master of a trading boat—Cherub Spooney, his mate, and “a gentleman of colour,” who officiated as cook, and whom Captain Sam swore to be the knowingest chap he ever knew:— “The varmint can’t read,” would he say, “but I wish I may be split into shingles, if he can’t tell what’s in a newspaper by only smelling it.”

BY MRS. LEMAN GRIMSTONE,

(2 Vols.)

The authoress of this tale is the Champion of her sex, the elegant and fearless advocate of the RIGHTS OF WOMAN; one who admires an independent and high-spirited Vashti more than a beautiful, submissive, meek, and prudent Esther. She is consequently a radical reformer of the modern system of female education; a leveller of unjust masculine domination, and a denouncer of the cant and conventionality which obstructs woman’s advancement, and woman’s moral and intellectual equality and independance of character. Taken altogether this is no common tale: it is calculated to make a sensation far beyond the novel-reading circles; if it does not, we know the reason why. The authoress has embodied certain favourite opinions and pet prejudices under particular characters. Old Mr. Coverly, for instance, represents a numerous and respectable sect, the opponents of all improvement, which they call innovation or revolution. He is especially, the opponent of the monstrous heresy, of the female character being capable of exaltation to an equality with that of her lord and master. He is a kind of a small Samuel Johnson; less acute, but quite as dogmatic and prejudiced; and his fierce encounters and skirmishes with Mrs. Lennox, the eloquent promulgator and defender of the New Light, produce many amusing, brilliant, and effective scenes. The lady will allow the nobler sex no superiority save physical strength. Physical beauty is conceded, even by Mr. Coverly, to her own kind. The phrenological argument of the quantity of the male brain, she adroitly balances by the other admitted element, the quality of all brains; appearing to regard the texture of Mr. Coverly’s brain, which must have been a large one, as very honey-combed, or fozzy indeed. The old gentleman is forced to bring up the moral poet, Pope, and next the apostle Paul, to the rescue.

“ ‘Zounds, madam!’ cried Mr. Coverly with uncontrollable anger, ‘do you mean to contravene St. Paul, and deny the Scriptures?’

“ ‘The old stronghold,’ into which, exclaimed Agnes, ‘the baffled controversialist retreats; whence he silences those he cannot answer, and assails their belief when he cannot attack their understanding. And are you really going to march out Adam and the Apostles, with King Ahasuerus at their head, against me? As to the first witness, let me examine his character before I admit his evidence. He, when he erred, yielded to an inferior power; for it was the spirit that even God could not conquer that tempted Eve, while only a mere mortal solicited Adam; and when he was questioned as to his disobedience, how readily he cried out—‘The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.’ As he greedily partook of the fruit, he might have generously shared the fault. How like dutiful sons you have followed the example of your father ever since! From the co-partnership of error and folly you never shrink; but as for the penalty, you leave to woman the full benefit of that. No, no; as to your great prototype, Adam, I’ll none of him.’

“ ‘But the Apostles, madam!’

“ ‘They were,’ said Agnes, ‘men; and though filled with the divine doctrine of their great Master, they could not transmit it without giving it a tinge of the earthly vessel through which it passed. As for him who reigned from ‘India unto Ethiopia’ he proves to me how little change, time, clime, and Government have effected in men! You will say, or in woman either, when I tell, under like circumstances, it is highly probable I should act like the rebellious Vashti. Every sect, my dear Mr. Coverly, have their own interpretation of Scripture, why not every individual? I could show you some you could find it easier to frown at that refute. The world may yet see a translation of the Scriptures by a woman, who may detect more mistranslations than even Mr. Bellamy. It will be interesting, if not instructive, to collect the old and new translation.”

One almost regrets that, in the discussion of her female system of moral philosophy, Mrs. Grimstone should have encumbered herself with an involuted, romantic plot; which, to say the least, is neither natural nor useful; and which merely developes characters, in which we can see little good, whether viewing them as foils, warnings, or examples.—Tait’s Magazine.

Quebec, Sept. 1833.

The following account of Captain Back and party have been forwarded to the Editors in Montreal by the Agent of the Hudson’s Bay Company:—

“On Monday the 12th August, two canoes manned by Voyageurs of the H. Bay Company arrived at Lachine from the Interior.

By these, letters have been received from Captain Back, dated 19th June, from Jaik River, a small depot and trading post of the Company at the N. W. extremity of Lake Ouinipique, in which Captain Back reports himself and party in excellent health.

He also expresses himself much satisfied with the arrangements made and zeal manifested by the gentlemen in the Interior to facilitate the object of the expedition. The following is verbatim.— “As the season is fast advancing I purpose proceeding “immediately in a light canoe to find out the Thleu, ci. cho, and also to select a wintering station, which may be effected before or by the time my heavy barges reach the Athabasca, and by this means they will be enabled to come on direct to the end of their journey.”

We observe with regret that the intelligence from the Lander party, bound for the interior of Africa in search of Timbuctoo, is not equally cheering; but we still trust that all will be well; that England may have the pleasure of rewarding the successful exertions of her sons, and of proving once more to her neighbours, that if the nation of “shop-keepers” does encourage their stray quacks and buffoons, it is not to the exclusion of true merit at home. We say nothing of the public spirit of England among nations, displayed in the immense sums expended for the acquisition of science, which when obtained, is common to all. The following article from an English paper, contains the last news of the African expedition:—

LANDER’S EXPEDITION.

The following extract of a letter from Bristol, was posted at Lloyd’s, dated August 17—The John Cabot, Crawford, arrived here this morning, left Acurb on the 2d of June. She received from His Majesty’s ship Favorite the following intelligence, a few days before leaving the coast. That Lander had returned from the interior to Fernando Po, in one of the steamboats, having purchased ten tons of ivory for a trifle. The other steamboat was left ashore in the Niger. Lander was very ill, and many of the white people of the expedition had died. His Majesty’s ship Favorite may be expected daily.

A more elevated and extensive genius is required, to possess the whole circle of knowledge necessary for the perfect economy, and proper regulation of a family, which is in itself a little republic, than to play on an instrument, to speak on the reigning modes, and to make a display of the little graces of conversation. We every where meet with women whose conversation is well stocked with common maxims, but whose conduct owing to a defect in their early education, present nothing but what is trifling and insignificant.

A reasonable wife ought only to seek in frugality and industry to avoid the shame and injustice that attach to a prodigal and ruinous conduct. One true motive in retrenching superfluous expences should be, to unable us to preform more liberally what good breeding, friendship, or charity may require. It is good order and regularity in the whole household, not sordid parsimony in trifles which bring in great profit.

Fenelon.

The following is taken from Korner’s poems, translated from the German by G. F. Richardson.

Evening dress.—of mousseline Indoue, a fancy colour, between a rose and a brown. The corsage cut exceedingly low round the bust, and a little pointed before. Pelerine-cazenou of blond lace. A double fall encircles the back and shoulders, the front forms a stomacher. A narrow heading of blond lace stands up round the bust. A fall of lace descends en tablier on each side of the skirt. The hair is parted on the forehead, disposed in full curls at the sides, and twisted in a knot at the back of the head. A wreath of marguerites brought low upon the forehead, passes round the knot of hair, and is intermixed with it. Gold ear-rings, neck-chain of twisted gold; the pendants and those attached to the point of the corsage, are of fancy jewelry, the mantelet is of black blond lace.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Variety in materials at least appears to be the order of the day in promenade dress. Clear muslin pelisses, lined with coloured sarsenet, or gros de Naples, and fastened down the front by knots of gauze riband to correspond with the lining, are still as fashionable as they were the beginning of the season; but there is a considerable alteration in the form of the pelerines worn with them. Some are small and round, a double fall, with a square collar trimmed with English lace. Others are pointed in front, and with the material arranged full upon the shoulder, so as to have the effect of a mancheron. A third kind are quite square, like those worn last year, but not near so large. Whatever may be the form of the pelerine, it is always embroidered, or trimmed with lace. Clear muslin, printed in delicate patterns, and in colours partly full, and partly light, is fashionable for dresses, but not so much so as washing silks with white grounds, printed in very small bouquets of pink flowers.

Poux de soie, mousseline Indoue, painted Pekin, and mousseline de soie, are the fashionable materials in evening dress. Corsages are cut extremely low round the bust, and are covered, at least partially, by mantelets or cazenous of black or white blond lace. Short sleeves, of the double sabot kind, are the most in favour. Head dresses are principally of hair in evening dress; they are always decorated with flowers. Wreaths and bouquets are equally fashionable. Roses, marguerites, pinks, sprigs of hawthorn in blossom, jessamine, and honeysuckle are all in request. Fashionable colours are the lighter shades of green and blue, straw colour, lilac, different shades of rose and dust colour, and some fancy colours.

Several papers in Canada and in the U. States having named Miss Tracey as being the Editor of the Montreal Museum, the undersigned considers it her duty to inform the public that she is the sole Editor and proprietor of this journal, Miss T. having had no connection with it since the publication of the second number. This declaration is made as much to shield Miss T. from any criticism and censure to which the Museum may be exposed, as to avoid a repetition of the mistakes frequently committed by correspondents in directing their letters and contributions.

Mary (Graddon) Gosselin.

Montreal, September, 1833.

Page 617, instead of lillies, and lilly, read lilies, and lily.

This digital version of this issue is based on a digital image provided by Early Canadiana Online. That copy had many blemishes, including the loss of the edges of some pages towards the binding. Missing parts of the following articles were reconstructed from copies published elsewhere:

Punctuation and spelling have been changed silently to achieve consistency.

[The end of The Montreal Museum Volume 1 Number 10 edited by Mary Graddon Gosselin]