The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844

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Title: The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844

Author: Various

Editor: Lewis Gaylord Clark

Release date: March 17, 2007 [eBook #20845]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KNICKERBOCKER, OR NEW-YORK MONTHLY MAGAZINE, APRIL 1844 ***

THE KNICKERBOCKER.

Vol. XXIII.
April, 1844.
No. 4.

A PILGRIMAGE TO PENSHURST.

BY C. A. ALEXANDER.

One of the admirers of Goëthe, commenting on his characteristic excellencies, has remarked that he is the most suggestive of writers. Were we to seek an epithet by which to describe the architectural remains and historical monuments of England, with reference to their impression on the mind of an observer, perhaps no better could offer itself than that which has been thus applied to the works of the great German. In the property of awakening reflection by bringing before the mind that series of events whose connection with the progress of modern civilization has been most direct and influential, and of recalling names which, to the American at least, sound like household words, they stand unrivalled. Our manners, our customs, our national constitution itself, may be said to have grown up beneath the shelter of these venerable structures, whose associations ally them in a manner scarcely less striking with those wider developments of social and political reason in which we believe the welfare of our species to be involved. Who is there, that, standing within ‘the great hall of William Rufus,’ can forget how often it has been the theatre of those mighty conflicts, in which, however slowly and reluctantly, error and prejudice have been compelled to relax their hold on the human mind? Dr. Johnson has spoken to us, in his usual stately phrase, of patriotism re-invigorated and of piety warmed amid the scenes of Marathon and Iona; but where is the Marathon which appeals to us so forcibly as the field consecrated by the blood of a Hamden or a Falkland? and where the Iona which is so eloquent with recollections as the walls which have echoed to the voices of a Ridley and a Barrow?

It is true indeed, that the recollections of many other lands, as associated with their monuments, lay much stronger hold upon the imagination than those of England. Of the former we might say that there was about them more of the element of poetry; of the latter, that they furnish an ampler share of materials for reflection. One great moral, ‘the comprehensive text of the Hebrew preacher,’ the invariable ‘vanity of vanities,’ is alike inscribed upon all the vestiges of human greatness. For the rest, a serene and touching beauty lingers around and hallows every relic which attests the hand of Phidias, or marks the country of Pericles and Epaminondas. No lapse of time, no process of decay, will ever wholly exorcise that spirit of stateliness and command which sits enthroned amid the ruins of the ‘Eternal City,’ as her own Marius once sate amid the ruins of a rival capital. But in all that regards a common standard of opinions, institutions and interests, and in the facility of reasoning as respects these, from the experience and practice of one time and people to those of another, we cannot but feel that a vast gulf has interposed between our own age and that which is commemorated by the monuments of Greece and Rome. The venerable genius of antiquity, seated among crumbling arches and broken columns, has but little to say to us respecting those questions which most deeply agitate and unceasingly perplex the busy and the thinking part of mankind at the present day. No response are we to expect from that quarter, concerning our bank-laws and our corn-laws; our systems of credit and of commerce; our endless disquisitions on the balance of power and of parties, on the rights of suffrage and of conscience. While we reserve to the theorist the privilege of adorning his theme by allusions to the polity of Lycurgus and Numa, we are sensible that the practical statesman who trusts himself to such examples will be constantly liable to be deluded by false parallels and imperfect analogies. A voice, like that which is said to have startled the mariner of old on the coasts of Ionia, and to have announced to him the cessation of oracles, comes to us from all the remains of pagan antiquity, warning us that the spirit of that ancient civilization has departed with its forms: and while it bids us look forward to a new destiny for the human race, it teaches us that the maxims and the oracles by which that destiny must be guided, are to be sought elsewhere than in the Republic of Plato and the grottos of Egeria.

Compared, then, with the monuments of classic antiquity, those of England claim the distinction of being associated with an order of things which is still existing and still in process of development: compared with those of the rest of christian Europe, they recall a progress, which, much more consistently than in other countries, has tended in the direction of popular rights and constitutional liberty. The reader of English history indeed has too often occasion to blush for the vices or mourn for the madness of his species, as the spectator who looks upon the grim fastnesses of the Tower, or into the gloomy purlieus of St. Giles’, will need but little else to remind him of the despotism and inequality which have pursued liberty into this her boasted and sea-girt retreat. But the Bastile, certainly, did not look in its day upon scenes of less flagrant atrocity than the ‘towers of Julius;’ while this advantage has always obtained in favor of the latter, that he who turned with disgust or terror from that image of despotic pride and violence, might behold at no great distance the piles of Westminster, the seats of law and legislation, where the irrepressible spirit of freedom in the bosom of the Commons was still nursing its resentment or muttering its remonstrances at seasons of the deepest gloom and depression. Henry VIII. might have heard that voice mingling with the groans of his victims; Charles II. could not altogether shut it out from the scenes of his midnight revel and debauchery. But no such hopeful contrast meets us in the features or the history of the neighboring continent. Democracy, it is true, the rough and hardy growth of the German forests, struck an earlier root and flourished at first with better promise there than in England. But this different fortune awaited it on the continent and the island; that in the former it was soon rooted out, and required in modern times the most violent and sanguinary efforts to reproduce it; in the latter it has constantly survived and struggled through every disaster toward a hopeful development. Such has been the different political fate of two branches of the great Teutonic family; let us observe whether some corresponding difference does not make itself manifest in the aspect of their respective countries.

It might have been readily anticipated that the maintenance of the popular right as a constitutional principle, operating through a long course of ages, would have produced not only a sturdy independence among the bulk of the English nation, but to some extent also, a local independence of the country as regards the capital and the court. It might have been foreseen, that instead of concentrating every separate ray of genius and renown into one grand halo around the throne, this habitual effort of the popular mind would have had a tendency to scatter those rays more equally over the land, making the green valley and the sequestered hamlet rejoice, each in the memory of its bard or hero. Such might have been our prognostic from the political condition of England as compared with that of the continent, and such will be found upon observation to have been the result. A French poet aptly describes the centralizing influences of his own capital as regards France, when he tells us that ‘at Paris people live, elsewhere they only vegetate.’ One great holocaust of talents, reputations and fortunes forever ascends there to the glory of the Grand Nation, absorbing every thing, assimilating every thing to itself, and leaving the country widowed of its interest and shorn of its appropriate graces. The poet, whose footsteps on the sunny plains of Provence would have long brightened in the traditions of its peasantry; the hero, whose name would have sufficed to confer undying interest on some old château of the Jura; the orator, whose leisure hours might have made some French Tusculum on the banks of the Loire forever fresh with the memory of associated honors; all these have alike hastened to Paris, identified themselves once for all with its crowds, and added whatever prestige might attend their own names through future ages to the already overshadowing prestige of that wonderful city. They point you there to the house where the great Corneille breathed his last; it is hard by the metropolitan church of St. Roche, and scarcely more than a bow-shot from the Tuilleries, as if the poet of Cinna and Polyeucte could not render up his breath in peace except in the neighborhood of those high dignitaries, into whose lips he had breathed while living so much of his own grandeur and elevation; but who reminds you of the hills of his native Normandy, or points you to the humble chamber or the peaceful valley where ‘gorgeous Tragedy in sceptred pall’ first swept before the eyes of his dawning fancy? No; if you would recall the memory of Corneille through the medium of places familiar with his presence when living, you must repair to the Hotel de Rambouillet, in one of the most noisy and unpoetic quarters of Paris.

Now with respect to England, all this is as nearly as possible reversed. The political influences spoken of before, operating no doubt with others of which it is unnecessary to speak, have acted dispersively on the sum of national reputations, and equitably allotted to almost every part of the fair island some parcenary share of fame, some hallowing memory, like a household genius, to preside over and endear its localities. London has not, like Paris, proved itself in this the insatiate Saturn of the national offspring. If you inquire, for instance, for memorials of the life and presence of Shakspeare, it is not probable, as in the case of Corneille, that you will be referred to the crowded streets and squares of the metropolis, though his active life was passed and his unrivalled fame achieved there; but far away to the west, where Nature received him on her flowery lap, beside his own Avon; in the shades where his genius first grew familiar with the shapes of beauty, sublimity, and terror, and whither he retired at last ‘to husband out life’s taper’ amid the common charities of home; to this spot it is that you must repair, if you would drink freshly of that well-spring of associations which hallows the footsteps of England’s immortal dramatist. In like manner, one might say, that it is not in the sumptuous galleries of Holland House, neighbored by the crowds and tumult of the parks, that the admirer of Addison would find it most easy to call up the image of the sage; but in that quiet meadow which he used to frequent on the banks of the Cheswell, when evening is gathering on the tops of the lofty elms and around the gray towers of Magdalen, how pleasing and unforced the effort which recalls him to our imaginations!

And so too of others. Gray has not made the country church-yard immortal in song alone, but has laid himself to rest with all the memories of that imperishable strain around him, beneath as green a sod as wraps the head of the humblest peasant for whom his muse implored ‘the passing tribute of a sigh.’ The pensive shade of Cowper beckons to the groves of Olney; and the melancholy ghost of Chatterton, (kindred to Cowper only in his woes and his genius,) has fled from the crowded thoroughfares of London, where he sank oppressed in the turmoil of life, to haunt forever, in the eyes of the dreaming enthusiast, those dim aisles of St. Mary Redcliffe in Bristol, whence he drew the spells which immortalized but could not preserve him. And thus will it be when the lights of to-day, the bards of living renown, shall have passed away, but not to be forgotten. No one will then think of tracing Wordsworth, or Moore, or Southey, amid the dusky lanes and glittering saloons of the metropolis, but the lakes of Cumberland and the bowers of Wiltshire will still rejoice in the ever-brightening honors of associated genius. Even the hardier spirits of the isle, whose destiny has called them to the rougher paths of life, to the battle-field or the senate, away from the haunts of nature and the Muse; even these have seldom failed, in the intervals of busier life, to remember the charms of the rural life of England, and in giving their more familiar hours to its enjoyments, have bequeathed to many a fair spot a heritage of memories more precious than wealth, and which the pilgrims of after ages will not willingly let perish.

It is to one of these provincial retreats, (if such they may be called, when the migratory habits of society are rendering them daily more known and frequented) that the foregoing remarks are designed to lead the attention of the indulgent reader.

‘The southern district of Kent,’ says Gibbon, ‘which borders on Sussex and the sea, was formerly overspread with the great forest Anderida; and even now retains the denomination of the Weald, or Woodland.’ On the verge of this region, now diversified with the traces of civilization and culture, and at the distance of some thirty miles from London, stands Penshurst, for many generations the domain and seat of the illustrious family of Sydney. The mansion is of that class termed castellated houses, as retaining some of the features of the feudal castle, but accommodated to the more secure and less circumspect usages of a later age. In itself, it presents perhaps no very striking example of the merits or defects of its class, but it claims a much higher distinction in having been the birth-place and paternal home of Sir Philip Sydney.

To what name can we point which is more brightly adorned than his with all the accomplishments of the soldier, the courtier and the scholar? Still rises upon the memory through the mists of three centuries that touching legend of Zutphen, where the wounded hero waived from his lips the cup of water because it was more needed by the dying comrade at his side; and the pure morality and lofty chivalry which animate the ‘Arcadia,’ still bear witness to us of the personal merit of this pride and ornament of the English court. His sagacious but selfish mistress, Elizabeth, once stood, we are told, between him and the proffered crown of Poland, as being loth to part (so she expressed herself,) with him who was ‘the jewel of her time.’ She is reported too to have denied him on another occasion the permission which he earnestly sought, of connecting his fame and fortunes with those trans-atlantic enterprises which were already beginning to crown with success and distinction the efforts of such men as Drake and Frobisher. This last is a field of adventure upon which we must still regret that Sir Philip was not allowed to enter. The New World was then no less the region for romantic enterprise than profitable exertion, although the explorers of these distant climes had too often sunk the generosity of the soldier in the rapacity of the spoiler. In Sir Philip Sydney the world of Columbus would have had a visitor of a different order. To the courage of Smith and the accomplishments of Raleigh he would have added a spirit of honor and moderation peculiarly his own, and we should still have delighted to trace the impressions of his genius and virtue in the early annals of our continent. But his fate was destined to a different scene; and his career, though thus limited by a jealous sovereign and an early death, has left little which we can reasonably deplore but its brevity; while that brevity itself throws around his character the last touches of romantic interest, and assigns him the not unenviable lot of having carried off the rewards of age without its infirmities, and borne a maturity of honors into the safe asylum of a premature grave:

‘Invida quem Lachesis raptum,

Dum numerat palmas, credidit esse senem.’

In this age of literary and multifarious pilgriming, it cannot be unacceptable to propose an excursion to a mansion dignified by its associations with such a name. Neither is it a slight recreation to him who has been confined for weeks and months within the dusky enclosures of London, to break his bounds and emerge into the breathing fields of Surry and Kent. The father of English poetry, and poet of English pilgrims, Chaucer himself, stands ready to accompany us for at least a small portion of our route: it was along the road on which we enter, that he conducted, ages ago, those pilgrims to the shrine of Canterbury who still live in his verses; and we may glance at the Tabard Inn whence they set forth, and indulge our fancy with the thought of their quaint equipments, while we betake ourselves to the modern ‘hostelrie’ of the Elephant and Castle, and commit our persons to the modern comforts of an English coach. Alas! for the fickleness of a world which changes its idols almost as often and as easily as its fashions. Time was when we should have found this great highway strewn with devotees hurrying to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket. But now, though we might detect, no doubt, in the throng around us, the counterpart of each individual whom Chaucer committed to his living canvass; of the knight who ‘loved chevalrie’ and the Frankelein ‘who loved wine;’ of the young squire ‘with his locks in presse,’ and the fair lady who

——‘of her smiling was ful simple and coy,

Her gretest oathe n’as but by Seint Eloy;’

all as intent as of old upon objects not less fleeting, and changed in little but the fashion of their attire; now there is none so poor as to do reverence to the martyr-prelate for the sake of those merits which were once thought a sufficient covering for the sins of countless followers.

As the great eastern artery of London, the road which we have thus far followed begins to distribute its living mass into the successive provincial avenues which diverge from it, we find ourselves included in that portion of the throng, whom the pursuit of health or pleasure conducts toward Tonbridge.1 The high and level country which under the name of ‘Downs’2 forms the northern and western boundary of Kent, sinks by a sudden and steep declivity on its eastern edge; which edge the geologists tell us was once washed by a primeval ocean, and is still seamed by the ineffaceable traces of its currents and storms. For ourselves it forms a vantage-ground from which we seem to look at one glance over almost the whole of that fair province which stretches nearly to the continent, and lifts the white cliffs of Albion above the surges of the British channel. We think of the day when the standard bearer of the tenth legion bore the eagle of Cæsar to the shore amid the cries of the opposing Britons; and of the still more signal day when Augustine displayed the cross before the eyes of the softened and repentant Saxons. We think too of the beings with whose memories Shakspeare has peopled this portion of the Isle; of Lear and Cordelia, of Edgar, Gloster, and Kent; of that night of horrors upon the stormy heath, and that scene of unutterable tenderness and heart-break on the sands of Dover. Unbidden, as we gaze over the fair and varied prospect, the words of the same great dramatist rise to our lips, in his appropriation of the sentiments and language of the first conqueror of Britain:

‘Kent in the commentaries Cæsar writ,

Is termed the civil’st place of all this isle;

Sweet is the country because full of riches,

The people liberal, active, valiant, wealthy.’

But the riches of Kent must be spoken of with due limitations. Those geological changes and formations before alluded to, which have marked the track of wealth across the British islands by deposits of mineral coal, as clearly as if it had been traced in sunbeams, have bequeathed no such sources of sub-terrene affluence to Kent. Nor has nature been more than parsimonious (to say the least) with respect to the superficial qualities of its soil. We have only, however, to cast our eyes on a topographical chart of Kent, to see how beneficently these disadvantages are balanced by considerations of a different sort. Washed along a vast line of coast by the ocean, and bordered to an equal or greater extent by the Thames; penetrated by the navigable Medway, and watered by such fertilizing streams as the Eden and the Ton; traversed through its whole length by that ancient highway of Dover, which figured in the itineraries of the Romans, and which still conveys much of the ceaseless intercourse between England and the Continent; its coast studded with towers and harbors; its interior sprinkled with hamlets, parks, cities, and baronial residences; claiming, finally, to be the episcopal head and fountain of ecclesiastical dignity for the whole British empire; we can readily see how Kent may vindicate to itself the praise conveyed in the lines of Shakspeare as the abode of a liberal, active, valiant, and even wealthy people.

Nor is this flattering ascription of personal qualities unsupported by the facts of its local history. To the great Roman conqueror the inhabitants of this part of Britain opposed a resistance, which taught him, as he indirectly confesses, to look back with many a wistful glance toward the coast where he had left his transports, but ill-assured against the ocean or the enemy. Against the Norman conqueror, likewise, when all the rest of the island had yielded implicitly to his sway and to the substitution of feudal for native usages, the people of Kent still made good their old hereditary law of Gavelkind. More than once in after times, stung by oppression or inflamed by zeal, they have drawn together in a spirit of tumultuous resistance, and borne their remonstrances to the very gates of the national capital. Connecting this history and character with their maritime position, we are led to apply a remark which our American historian Prescott has generalized from the circumstances of a people not dissimilarly situated. ‘The sea-board,’ says that admirable writer, ‘would seem to be the natural seat of liberty. There is something in the very presence, in the atmosphere of the ocean, which invigorates not only the physical but the moral energies of man.’ Or as Wordsworth has expressed the same idea, with an extension of it, no less just than poetical, to another class of natural objects:

‘Two voices are there; one is of the sea,

One of the mountains; each a mighty voice:

In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,

They were thy chosen music, Liberty!’

It has already been said that our route lay toward Tonbridge. True, those celebrated wells lie somewhat beyond Penshurst, yet few pilgrims will fail to visit them; and it may be permitted to glance aside from our immediate object to glean a very few observations from the customs of this fashionable watering-place. But the American visitor must not expect to meet at a watering-place in England precisely that aggregate of circumstances which goes to form his idea of the pleasures and privileges of one in his own country. There are restraints imposed by the circumstances of these elder lands, their necessity more than their choice, which must still at first sight appear forbidding and superfluous to the inhabitant of a new one. The rigid barriers of ceremony; the appearance of studied isolation and exclusiveness; the monotonous movement of the great social machine, organized to its minutest details, and regulated through all its processes; these at first may lead the visitor from the New World to suppose that he has fallen upon some region of persevering formality, where all is frost and show, perpetual glitter and unmeaning barrenness. But pierce these formal barriers of etiquette, dissolve by the requisite appliances this superficial frost-work of the English circles, and none, it is believed, will have any just reason to complain of coldness and reserve. By the social barriers spoken of, are not meant the distinctions of rank in European society, or the conventional observances by which they are guarded, for these do not constitute in fact the points of repulsion by which a stranger is apt to be encountered. Still less do they mean those mental habits of suspicion, mystery and indirectness, which may infect communities as well as individuals. For these there is neither extenuation nor excuse. Rousseau has finely said: ‘Le premier pas vers le vice est de mettre du mystere aux actions innocentes; et quiconque aime à se cacher, a tôt ou tard raison de se cacher. Un seul précepte de morale peut tenir lieu de tous les autres, c’est celui-ci: Ne fais, ni ne dis jamais rien que tu ne veuilles que tout le monde voie et entende. J’ai toujours regardé comme le plus estimable des hommes ce Romain qui voulait que sa maison fût construite de manière qu’on vît tout ce qui s’y faisait.’ Whether the Englishman would be the first or the last to submit himself to this crucial test of living in a transparent house, we do not feel called upon to decide. The barriers, of which some justification has been attempted, are merely those formal observances by which society aims to protect itself from the intrusion of the unworthy and designing; which all must perceive to be in some degree necessary, even to personal independence; and which common-sense teaches us must be of greater extent and more rigorous application in a crowded capital than a country village, in an English Almacks than an American drawing-room. No one will deny that these barriers are high and strictly guarded in England; but it would be unreasonable to impute as a fault what is a dictate of prudence, or to infer that coldness and incivility must of course lurk under forms which have been manifestly imposed by the necessity of constant circumspection.

Duly impressed with these considerations, the stranger will be less disposed to complain when arriving at any place of fashionable resort in England; at Tonbridge, for instance, one of the most aristocratic; he finds himself consigned to the solitary comfort of his own apartments, without the prospect of any of those periods of social reünion, which elsewhere tend so strongly to break down the barriers of reserve and facilitate the process of introduction and acquaintance. Cardinal de Retz has told us, that the dinner-bell never fails to disperse a mob in France, and if English travellers are to be believed, it seldom fails to bring one together in an American hotel; but as a social summons, no such tocsin breaks the uniformity of the English ménage. The traveller may dine indeed in the public room, but it is at a separate table, on his separate repast; he is served with what viands, at what hour, he pleases, but no contiguity of position or interchange of friendly offices can remove the impalpable but impassable partition which divides him from his neighbors. He feels something of the air of the penitentiary in the very refinements of his luxurious hostelrie. But these are incidents not without their attendant advantages. If the stranger is thus separated from his fellows, he is at least saved, in turn, from the attempts of fraud, and the contact of impertinence. This is, in fact, the meaning of such arrangements, and if not exactly palatable, they are at any rate protective. But there are restrictions with regard to the fairer part of creation, and his correspondence with them, which admit of no such topics of comfort and alleviation. We nowhere find it stated, by what steps it is permitted to the English suitor to proceed from the distant bow to the morning call, always in the presence of the mother, the aunt, or other watchful guardian; and thence by regular gradations to the heart and hand of the object of his wishes. But it is enough for our stranger to know, that whatever may be the laws of strategy, provided for such cases in other lands, here it is necessary to begin his approaches with the father, and to lay his lines of earliest circumvallation around the watchful mother. These distant out-works must be mastered before there is the slightest chance of communicating even a summons to the citadel. English travellers, therefore, express surprise at the artless confidence with which unmarried ladies in America commit themselves to the solitary chat with a comparative stranger, take his hand or his arm after a few hours’ acquaintance, and expose themselves to the surprise of a declaration before the extent of his means or the respectability of his connexion have been discussed and settled. Between the merits of these different modes of procedure, the present writer has neither the wish nor the ability to arbitrate. They have their growth in such widely different states of society, that the reformer must be bold who should attempt to transpose or change them. It is sufficient for our present purpose to remark, that if the visitor at Tonbridge should have failed to make those preliminary advances just spoken of, his pleasures here, as an admirer of female loveliness, will most probably be limited to seeing the fair creatures ride on diminutive donkeys (such is the custom of Tonbridge) to the wells, there to drink the chalybeate and promenade the pantiles. But what then? If he have not the entrée of society, the charms of nature and the attractions of English scenery are spread before him. His guide-book will tell him of grotesque rocks upon lonely heaths where Druids may have worshipped; and of Bayham Abbey, with its mouldering walls and ‘antiquary ivy,’ which still attests amidst its ruins the luxury and wealth of its ancient masters. He may look in one direction over the broad lands and towering spires of Eridge Castle, or turning in another, soon lose amidst the recollections of Penshurst and in the homage which the heart renders to departed virtue, all sense of the vexatious forms and frivolous though perhaps inseparable distinctions of modern society.

Approaching Penshurst from Tonbridge, we alight at the ancient church which stands in close contiguity with the family mansion. A ramble amidst its graves, a walk through its solemn aisles, a moment’s pause among its darkened monuments, seems to be but a suitable preparation for our farther researches. It is scarcely possible to enter one of these venerable religious edifices of the old world, which form so striking a feature in its scenery, without feeling in some degree an impression as if the dim and solemn fane were peopled with shadows; as if indistinct forms were beckoning along its lonely aisles, or waiting the stranger’s approach in its deep and vaulted recesses. The building is not always of great extent, (this of Penshurst is not so,) but the impression seems to be the result not more of the solemn style of the building and its accessories, than of the admirable harmony which they preserve with the recollections and associations of all around them. Hence it may well be doubted whether, if we could transport one of these time-honored structures to our own land, with all its architectural peculiarities, it would have for us exactly the meaning or the charms which it possesses at home. Our career is as yet too brief, our land too full of the sounds of enterprise and excitement; our interest lies too largely and exclusively in the present and the future. The dawning light and the keen air of morning (sœvus equis oriens anhelis) are not, as represented by the poets, more uncongenial to the spectral shapes of night, than the recent origin and energetic action of our rising country to the dim traditions and mouldering memories which have grown incorporate with the weather-stains and damps of these hoary sanctuaries. At Penshurst in particular, so complete is this harmony between the ideal and the actual, and so strongly does it bring before us the image of the past, that it might seem no unnatural incident of our reverie, were the grave and reverend knight, the ancient head of the Sydneys and patron of the church, once more to enter with his retinue from the neighboring mansion and take his seat in the family chancel. But of that honored name nothing remains to Penshurst except the memory, and those fading inscriptions which inform us that they who slumber here bore it irreproachably in life, and have long since ceased from their earthly labors. Among these, however, we look in vain for the name of Sir Philip Sydney. He fell in a foreign land, and his country, we are told, mourned for him with a loud and poignant lamentation. His remains were afterward transferred to Saint Paul’s, where the ruin which fell at a later period upon the great national temple involved also the memorial of Sir Philip Sydney. But it matters less, since the achievements of his pen and sword have made all places where the name of England comes, his monument, and every heart which is alive to honor, a sanctuary for his memory.

Let us then pass on to that venerable mansion which having witnessed many of the incidents of his life may still be considered the lasting memorial of his virtues. Before us rises a building irregular in its design, but presenting an extensive line of front, in which square towers and pointed gables, connected by walls of unequal height, succeed each other with that sort of caprice which is common in mansions of the same age. Entering through a spacious gate-way, we cross a quadrangular court, and gain access by an unfurnished passage to the great hall, which formed the distinguishing feature of the feudal homestead. In the vast extent of this apartment we perceive an image of the pride which gloried more in the number of its retainers than in the luxury or refinement of its accommodations. Oaken tables, and benches of the same homely material, stretched from side to side, show that our ancestors required but rude accessories to recommend to them the substantial enjoyments of their mighty repasts. Through lofty windows strengthened by mullions and decorated with intricate carvings, the light streams softened by neither blind nor curtain. The middle of the hall is occupied by a spacious hearth, around which gathered the friends and followers of the noble house; and the fire-utensils which still remain, and which seem destined for the consumption of entire forests, intimate that the household gods which presided here dealt in no stinted or penurious economy. There was scarcely need of flue or chimney, for the smoke curling up among the interlacing rafters of the roof, might long gather in its ample cavity without threatening those below with serious inconvenience. It is curious to observe that when at length so obvious a contrivance as the chimney grew into more general use, its introduction was opposed by much the same sort of arguments as have in other ages resisted the encroachments of change and novelty. A moralist of the times has left us his recorded opinion, that nothing but agues and catarrhs had followed the abandonment of that old and genial practice which planted the fire in the middle of the room and left the smoke to spread its sable canopy aloft. Another peculiarity in this picture of ancient manners was the slightly-raised platform called the daïs, at the farther extremity of the hall, which reminds us of the distinction that was preserved even in the hours of convivial relaxation, between the family of the lord and its dependents. Nor was this distinction in general one of place alone: in most of the wealthy and noble houses of the period, it portended a corresponding distinction in the quality of the food. Hence in the homely times in which Ben Jonson has apostrophized Penshurst, it is mentioned as an honorable instance of the hospitality of its owner, that

——‘there each guest might eat,

Without his fear, and of the lord’s own meat;

Where the same beer, board, and self-same wine,

That is his lordship’s, shall be also mine.’

‘A strange topic of praise,’ remarks Gifford, ‘to those who are unacquainted with the practice of those times; but in fact the liberal mode of hospitality here recorded was almost peculiar to this noble person. The great dined at long tables, (they had no other in their vast halls,) and permitted many guests to sit down with them; but the gradations of rank and fortune were rigidly maintained, and the dishes grew visibly coarser as they receded from the head of the table.’ To sit below the salt, is a phrase with which the romances of Scott have made us familiar, and which originated, it seems, in the custom of placing a large salt-cellar near the middle of the table, not more for convenience than with reference to the distribution of the guests.

The same spirit which presided over the appointments of this stately hall extended itself to the other apartments and remoter details of the household. Every where there is the same reference to the power and even the supervision of the lord, manifested in the long suites of rooms which open upon each other, (the hall just mentioned is commanded by a small window opening from a superior and adjacent apartment,) as if to give the master at one glance a view of the number and a knowledge of the pursuits of the inmates. The ideas of the architects of that age seem to have been limited in their object, to realizing an image of the great feudal principle of preëminence and protection on the one side, submissiveness and reliance on the other. Hence designs and arrangements so little consistent with the privacy and personal independence which we regard at present as indispensable to every scheme of domestic accommodation. But these artists were not limited alone by a defective conception of the objects of their art; they were also embarrassed in its execution by the unequal manner in which the different branches of it had been cultivated and improved. It is doubtless a remark which will admit of very general application, that the arts which may be made subservient to embellishment and magnificence, have always far outstripped those which only conduce to comfort and convenience. The savage paints his body with gorgeous colors, who wants a blanket to protect him from the cold; and nations have heaped up pyramids to enhance their sense of importance, who have dwelt contentedly in dens and caves of the earth. Something of the same incongruity may be remarked at Penshurst, and other English mansions of the same age and order; where we sometimes ascend to galleries of inestimable paintings over steps roughly hewn with the axe, and look upon ceilings of the most exquisite and elaborate carving suspended over floors which have never had the benefit of the joiner’s plane.

In the tastes, too, and personal habits of that elder period, contrasts of a not less striking nature might be easily pointed out. We may doubt, for instance, whether beauty will ever array itself in apparel of more cost and profusion than that in which the high-born dames of Wresill and Penshurst swept through their stately apartments. Grandeur will never make its presence felt by a greater weight of ceremony, nor ever extend a more watchful and provident care to all the equipage of rank and ostentation. Flattery, we may safely assert, will never offer its incense in a more seductive form, than when it borrowed the pencil of Holbein and the lyre of Spenser. Yet these persons were the same who trode upon floors strewn with rushes, and deemed it a point of nicety and refinement if these were changed sufficiently often to prevent the soiling of their clothes. They are the same who dined without forks, and thought pewter dishes too great a luxury to be used in common by the highest nobility; who transported their ladies on pillions for want of coaches, and themselves struggled through mire for want of pavements; who, with a knowledge of the manufacture of glass, and possessed beyond ourselves of an exquisite skill in coloring it, were yet too frugal or careless to use it freely in lighting their houses. It was an age when the sick were plied with such delicate restoratives as ‘mummy and the flesh of hedge-hogs,’ and tables loaded with such dainties as cranes, lapwings, sea-gulls, bitterns and curlews. Such is the unequal progress which is often maintained in habits of undistinguishing luxury and habits of genuine refinement; so great the difference between a state of society which aims at the gratification of pride, and one which contents itself with diffusing comfort and promoting security.

It would be easy, no doubt, to draw from this sketch of ancient manners many reflections consoling to our own sense of superior comfort and discernment. But the subject is susceptible of being viewed under aspects not so flattering yet more instructive. Who is there gross enough to pride himself on superior wisdom because Kepler believed that the earth was a vast animal which breathed and reasoned, or to claim the palm of comparative merit because Sir Thomas More listened to the babbling of a pretended prophetess, and Luther waged what he considered no visionary but actual combats with the powers of darkness. If then we have dwelt on the defects of an age when civilization was still struggling with the remains of barbarism, it is to foster no spirit of vain exultation: it is rather to turn with increased pleasure from those stains which disfigure the picture, to the contemplation of the more prominent and brilliant figures which occupy the fore-ground. We remember that upon times thus backward in many of the refinements of life, and scarcely yet freed from the dregs of medi-œval darkness, genius and virtue have thrown a lustre by their presence, not merely sufficient to retrieve them from our scorn, but to make them in some respects the object of our admiration and even envy. Perhaps, if it were submitted to our choice to take our places at will in any circle which genius and merit have ever dignified and adorned, none could justly claim our preference over that of Penshurst, at the time when Sir Philip Sydney sate there in the same group with his lovely sister, the Countess of Pembroke, and with Edmund Spenser, the poet of ‘the Faërie Queen.’ Of the first of these eminent persons, it is enough to say, that his own age conceded to him the style of ‘the Incomparable,’ and that posterity has amply ratified the title. The second is known to us by that affectionate tribute of her brother’s love, which has identified the name of the Countess of Pembroke with his principal work; nor will the latest readers of English literature be forgetful of one whose memory Jonson has embalmed in the sweetest inscription that ever flowed from a poet’s pen. Of Spenser, the last but not least illustrious of the honored group, it is only necessary to say, that as he shared the hospitality, so he has not left unsung the praises of Penshurst. Where is the circle which shall again combine so many claims to our admiration and respect? What age shall presume to vaunt itself for genius or for virtue above the age of Sydney and of Spenser?

Later times have added to the social and literary lustre of Penshurst. It has been still farther illustrated by the talents and fame of Algernon Sydney, whose name never fails to awaken the sympathies of every friend of liberty for his honorable labors and unhappy fate. It has numbered among its guests and its eulogists such men as Jonson, Waller, and Southey; finally, even in our own time it has seen its horizon momently illuminated by the brief but dazzling splendors of the poet Shelly. This last was of the lineage of Sydney, and shared the talents and proud integrity, but not the wisdom and milder virtues of his house. It only remains to say, that the dwelling and estate of the Sydneys has passed into other hands, but finds, it would seem, in Lord De Lisle a proprietor not insensible to the worth nor regardless of the memory of his far-famed predecessors.

Thus the remarks intended, draw to an end. We leave the halls of Penshurst, and the gates of that venerated mansion close behind us forever. Even thus did they close ages ago upon him, the light and honor of that ancient house, who, leaving it in the glow of health, in the pride of manly beauty, in the aspirations of a high but not a haughty spirit, was destined never to cross that paternal threshold more. The blessings that went with him have mouldered on the lips that pronounced them; the tears that mourned his fall have dried upon the lids from which they streamed; all who knew and loved, all who watched and wept for Sir Philip Sydney are silent in the dust to which he himself has long been gathered. Yet does not his spirit commune with ours as we tread the halls once familiar with his presence, or gaze upon those all but animated portraits which Penshurst still numbers among the richest of its treasures? Does nothing survive here of so much honor, so much courtesy, so much courage, to elevate us by its example and to inspire us with new hope, ere we turn again to tread the toilsome mazes of the world? Let the acknowledgments of all those who with no unworthy or unreflecting spirit have traced these paths, reply; or rather let the answer embody itself in the words of a poet, who, while expressing his own sense of the merits of Sydney, has but given a suitable expression to sentiments which find an echo in every bosom:

‘Are days of old familiar to thy mind,

Oh reader? Hast thou let the midnight hour

Pass unperceiv’d, whilst thou in fancy lived

With high-born beauties and enamor’d chiefs,

Sharing their hopes, and with a breathless joy,

Whose expectation touched the verge of pain,

Following their dangerous fortunes? If such lore

Has ever thrill’d thy bosom, thou wilt tread

As with a pilgrim’s reverential thoughts

The groves of Penshurst. Sydney here was born,

Sydney, than whom no gentler, braver man

His own delightful genius ever feign’d,

Illustrating the vales of Arcady,

With courteous courage and with loyal loves.

Upon his natal day an acorn here

Was planted; it grew up a stately oak,

And in the beauty of its strength it stood

And flourished, when his perishable part

Had mouldered dust to dust. That stately oak

Itself hath perished now, but Sydney’s fame

Endureth in his own immortal works.’

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Before the extension of commerce and manufactories in Europe, the hospitality of the rich and the great, from the sovereign down to the smallest baron, exceeded every thing which in the present times we can easily form a notion of. Westminster Hall was the dining-room of William Rufus, and might frequently perhaps not be too large for his company. It was reckoned a piece of magnificence in Thomas à Becket that he strewed the floor of his hall with clear hay or rushes in the season, in order that the knights and squires who could not get seats might not spoil their fine clothes when they sat down on the floor to eat their dinner. The great Earl of Warwick is said to have entertained every day, at his different manors, thirty thousand people; and though the number may have been exaggerated, it must however have been very great to admit of such exaggeration. The personal expenses of the great proprietors having gradually increased with the extension of commerce and manufactures, it was impossible that the number of their retainers should not as gradually diminish. Having sold their birth-right, not like Esau, for a mess of pottage in time of hunger and necessity, but in the wantonness of plenty for trinkets and baubles, fitter to be the play-things of children than the serious pursuits of men, they became as insignificant as any substantial burgher or tradesmen in a city.

Wealth of Nations: Book iii., Chap. iv.

The planta-genista or broom having been ordinarily used for strewing floors, became an emblem of humility, and was borne as such by Fulke, Earl of Anjou, grandfather of Henry II., King of England, in his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The name of the royal house of Plantagenet is said to be derived from this circumstance.

Hunt’s Exemplars of Tudor Architecture.

Eleven continued to be the dining hour of the nobility, down to the middle of the seventeenth century, though it was still kept up to ten o’clock in the Universities, where the established system is not so easily altered as in private families. ••• The lord and his principal guests sate at the upper end of the first table, which was therefore called the lord’s board-end. The officers of his household and inferior guests at long tables below in the hall. In the middle of each table stood a great salt-cellar, and as particular care was taken to place the guests according to their rank, it became a mark of distinction whether a person sate above or below the salt. ••• Pewter plates in the reign of Henry VIII. were too costly to be used in common by the highest nobility. In Rymer’s Fœdera is a license granted in 1430 for a ship to carry certain commodities for the express use of the King of Scotland, among which are particularly mentioned a supply of pewter dishes and wooden trenchers. ‘Octo duodenis vasorum de pewter, mille et ducentis ciphis ligneis.’

Archæologia.

The use of forks did not prevail in England till the reign of James I.

Coryat.

In the list of birds served up to table were many fowls which are now discarded as little better than rank carrion, such as cranes, lapwings, sea-gulls, bitterns, ruffs, kerlews, etc.

Grose’s Antiq. Repertory.

The use of coaches is said to have been first introduced into England by Fitz-Allan, earl of Arundel, A. D. 1580. Before that time ladies chiefly rode on horseback, either single on their palfreys, or double, behind some person on a pillion. In cases of sickness or bad weather, they had horse-litters and vehicles called chairs, or carrs, or charres. Glazed windows were introduced into England, A. D. 1180.

Anderson’s History of Commerce.

The ceilings of that part of Wresill Castle left standing by the Commonwealth’s soldiers still appear richly carved, and the sides of the rooms are ornamented with a great profusion of ancient sculpture finely executed in wood, exhibiting the ancient bearings, crests, badges and devices of the Percy family, in a great variety of forms, set off with all the advantages of painting, gilding and imagery. ••• Noblemen in Henry the Eighth’s time were obliged to carry all the beds, hangings and furniture with them when they removed. The usual manner of hanging the rooms in the old castles was only to cover the naked walls with tapestry or arras hung upon tenter hooks, from which they were easily taken down upon every removal. On such an occasion the number of carts employed in a considerable family must have formed a caravan nearly as large as those which traverse the deserts of the East. ••• At the time of the Northumberland House-hold book, glass, though it had perhaps been long applied to the decorating churches, was not very commonly used in dwelling-houses or castles.

Archæologia.

Rooms provided with chimnies are noticed as a luxury by the author of Pierce Ploughman. ‘Now,’ says an author still more recent, ‘have we many chimnies, and yet our tenderlings complain of rheums, catarrhs and poses, (colds in the head.) Then had we none but rere dosses, (plates of iron or a coating of brick to enable the wall to resist the flame,) and our heads did never ache. For as the smoke in those days was supposed to be a sufficient hardening for the timber of the house, so it was reputed a far better medicine to keep the good man and his family from the quacke, (ague,) or pose, wherewith, as then, very few were oft acquainted.’

Harrison’s Description of England prefixed to Holinshed.

IDYLL.

IN IMITATION OF THEOCRITUS, BY WILLIAM CHIDDON.

Thou wanderer where the wild wood ceaseless breathes

The sweetly-murmuring strain, from falling rills

Or soft autumnal gales; O! seek thou there

Some fountain gurgling from the rifted rock,

Of pure translucent wave, whose margent green

Is loved by gentlest nymphs, and all the train

Of that chaste goddess of the silver bow;

For silent, shady groves, by purling springs,

Delight the train, and through the gliding hours

Their nimble feet in mazy trances wind;

And oft at eve, the wondering swain hath heard

The Arcadian pipe and breathing minstrelsy,

From joyous troops of those rude deities

Whose homes are on the steep and rocky mount,

Or by the silver wave in woody dell,

And know the shrine, with flowery myrtles veiled,

All lonely placed by that wild mountain stream,

That from the sacred hills, like Hippocrene,

With warbling numbers, softly glides along.

Kneel humbly there, and at the auspicious time,

Invoke the listening spirit to my aid,

That I may fly the nymph of shapely form,

Whose fragrant brow inwoven wreaths adorn,

Of blushing rose and ivy tendrils green.

Then swear for me to deck the favoring shrine

With flowrets, blooming from the lap of Spring,

And on the sculptured pile, with solemn vow,

The tender kid devote in sacrifice.

So may my heaving bosom rest serene,

Nor winged spells incite the soul again

To love the soft eyed maid Zenophyle.

THE LEGEND OF DON RODERICK.

NUMBER TWO.

The course of our legendary narration now returns to notice the fortunes of Count Julian, after his departure from Toledo, to resume his government on the coast of Barbary. He left the Countess Frandina at Algeziras, his paternal domain, for the province under his command was threatened with invasion. In fact, when he arrived at Ceuta he found his post in imminent danger from the all-conquering Moslems. The Arabs of the East, the followers of Mahomet, having subjugated several of the most potent oriental kingdoms, had established their seat of empire at Damascus, where, at this time, it was filled by Waled Almanzor, surnamed ‘the Sword of God.’ From thence the tide of Moslem conquest had rolled on to the shores of the Atlantic; so that all Almagreb, or Western Africa, had submitted to the standard of the prophet, with the exception of a portion of Tingitania, lying along the straits; being the province held by the Goths of Spain, and commanded by Count Julian. The Arab invaders were a hundred thousand strong, most of them veteran troops, seasoned in warfare and accustomed to victory. They were led by an old Arab general, Muza ben Nosier, to whom was confided the government of Almagreb; most of which he had himself conquered. The ambition of this veteran was to make the Moslem conquest complete, by expelling the Christians from the African shores; with this view his troops menaced the few remaining Gothic fortresses of Tingitania, while he himself sat down in person before the walls of Ceuta. The Arab chieftain had been rendered confident by continual success, and thought nothing could resist his arms and the sacred standard of the prophet. Impatient of the tedious delays of a siege, he led his troops boldly against the rock-built towers of Ceuta, and attempted to take the place by storm. The onset was fierce, and the struggle desperate: the swarthy sons of the desert were light and vigorous, and of fiery spirits; but the Goths, inured to danger on this frontier, retained the stubborn valor of their race, so impaired among their brethren in Spain. They were commanded, too, by one skilled in warfare and ambitious of renown. After a vehement conflict, the Moslem assailants were repulsed from all points, and driven from the walls. Don Julian sallied forth, and harassed them in their retreat; and so severe was the carnage, that the veteran Musa was fain to break up his camp, and retire confounded from the siege.

The victory at Ceuta resounded throughout Tingitania, and spread universal joy. On every side were heard shouts of exultation mingled with praises of Count Julian. He was hailed by the people, wherever he went, as their deliverer, and blessings were invoked upon his head. The heart of Count Julian was lifted up, and his spirit swelled within him; but it was with noble and virtuous pride, for he was conscious of having merited the blessings of his country.

In the midst of his exultation, and while the rejoicings of the people were yet sounding in his ears, the page arrived who bore the letter from his unfortunate daughter.

‘What tidings from the king?’ said the count, as the page knelt before him: ‘None, my lord,’ replied the youth, ‘but I bear a letter sent in all haste by the Lady Florinda.’

He took the letter from his bosom and presented it to his lord. As Count Julian read it, his countenance darkened and fell. ‘This,’ said he, bitterly, ‘is my reward for serving a tyrant; and these are the honors heaped on me by my country, while fighting its battles in a foreign land. May evil overtake me, and infamy rest upon my name, if I cease until I have full measure of revenge.’

Count Julian was vehement in his passions, and took no counsel in his wrath. His spirit was haughty in the extreme, but destitute of true magnanimity, and when once wounded turned to gall and venom. A dark and malignant hatred entered into his soul, not only against Don Roderick, but against all Spain: he looked upon it as the scene of his disgrace, a land in which his family was dishonored: and, in seeking to avenge the wrongs he had suffered from his sovereign, he meditated against his native country one of the blackest schemes of treason that ever entered into the human heart.

The plan of Count Julian was to hurl King Roderick from his throne, and to deliver all Spain into the hands of the infidels. In concerting and executing this treacherous plot, it seemed as if his whole nature was changed; every lofty and generous sentiment was stifled, and he stooped to the meanest dissimulation. His first object was to extricate his family from the power of the king, and to remove it from Spain before his treason should be known; his next, to deprive the country of its remaining means of defence against an invader.

With these dark purposes at heart, but with an open and serene countenance, he crossed to Spain, and repaired to the court at Toledo. Wherever he came he was hailed with acclamations as a victorious general, and appeared in the presence of his sovereign radiant with the victory at Ceuta. Concealing from King Roderick his knowledge of the outrage upon his house, he professed nothing but the most devoted loyalty and affection.

The king loaded him with favors; seeking to appease his own conscience by heaping honors upon the father in atonement of the deadly wrong inflicted upon his child. He regarded Count Julian, also, as a man able and experienced in warfare, and took his advice in all matters relating to the military affairs of the kingdom. The count magnified the dangers that threatened the frontier under his command, and prevailed upon the king to send thither the best horses and arms remaining from the time of Witiza, there being no need of them in the centre of Spain in its present tranquil state. The residue, at his suggestion, was stationed on the frontiers of Gallia; so that the kingdom was left almost wholly without defence against any sudden irruption from the south.

Having thus artfully arranged his plans, and all things being prepared for his return to Africa, he obtained permission to withdraw his daughter from the court, and leave her with her mother, the Countess Frandina, who, he pretended, lay dangerously ill at Algeziras. Count Julian issued out of the gate of the city, followed by a shining band of chosen followers, while beside him, on a palfrey, rode the pale and weeping Florinda. The populace hailed and blessed him as he passed, but his heart turned from them with loathing. As he crossed the bridge of the Tagus, he looked back with a dark brow upon Toledo, and raised his mailed hand and shook it at the royal palace of King Roderick, which crested the rocky height. ‘A father’s curse,’ said he, ‘be upon thee and thine! May desolation fall upon thy dwelling, and confusion and defeat upon thy realm!’

In his journeyings through the country, he looked round him with a malignant eye; the pipe of the shepherd, and the song of the husbandman, were as discord to his soul; every sight and sound of human happiness sickened him at heart, and, in the bitterness of his spirit, he prayed that he might see the whole scene of prosperity laid waste with fire and sword by the invader.

The story of domestic outrage and disgrace had already been made known to the Countess Frandina. When the hapless Florinda came in presence of her mother, she fell on her neck, and hid her face in her bosom, and wept; but the countess shed never a tear, for she was a woman haughty of spirit and strong of heart. She looked her husband sternly in the face. ‘Perdition light upon thy head,’ said she, ‘if thou submit to this dishonor. For my own part, woman as I am, I will assemble the followers of my house, nor rest until rivers of blood have washed away this stain.’

‘Be satisfied,’ replied the count; ‘vengeance is on foot, and will be sure and ample.’

Being now in his own domains, surrounded by his relatives and friends, Count Julian went on to complete his web of treason. In this he was aided by his brother-in-law, Oppas, the Bishop of Seville: a man dark and perfidious as the night, but devout in demeanor, and smoothly plausible in council. This artful prelate had contrived to work himself into the entire confidence of the king, and had even prevailed upon him to permit his nephews, Evan and Siseburto, the exiled sons of Witiza, to return into Spain. They resided in Andalusia, and were now looked to as fit instruments in the present traitorous conspiracy.

By the advice of the bishop, Count Julian called a secret meeting of his relatives and adherents on a wild rocky mountain, not far from Consuegra, and which still bears the Moorish appellation of ‘La Sierra de Calderin,’ or the mountain of treason. When all were assembled, Count Julian appeared among them, accompanied by the bishop and by the Countess Frandina. Then gathering around him those who were of his blood and kindred, he revealed the outrage that had been offered to their house. He represented to them that Roderick was their legitimate enemy; that he had dethroned Witiza, their relation, and had now stained the honor of one of the most illustrious daughters of their line. The Countess Frandina seconded his words. She was a woman majestic in person and eloquent of tongue; and being inspired by a mother’s feelings, her speech aroused the assembled cavaliers to fury.

The count took advantage of the excitement of the moment to unfold his plan. The main object was to dethrone Don Roderick, and give the crown to the sons of the late King Witiza. By this means they would visit the sins of the tyrant upon his head, and, at the same time, restore the regal honors to their line. For this purpose their own force would be sufficient; but they might procure the aid of Muza ben Nosier, the Arabian general in Mauritania, who would no doubt gladly send a part of his troops into Spain to assist in the enterprise.

The plot thus suggested by Count Julian received the unholy sanction of Bishop Oppas, who engaged to aid it secretly with all his influence and means: for he had great wealth and possessions, and many retainers. The example of the reverend prelate determined all who might otherwise have wavered, and they bound themselves by dreadful oaths to be true to the conspiracy. Count Julian undertook to proceed to Africa and seek the camp of Muza, to negotiate for his aid, while the bishop was to keep about the person of King Roderick, and lead him into the net prepared for him.

All things being thus arranged, Count Julian gathered together his treasure, and taking his wife and daughter and all his household, abandoned the country he meant to betray; embarking at Malaga for Ceuta. The gate in the wall of that city, through which they went forth, continued for ages to bear the name of Puerta de la Cava, or the gate of the harlot; for such was the opprobrious and unmerited appellation bestowed by the Moors on the unhappy Florinda.

When Count Julian had placed his family in security in Ceuta, surrounded by soldiery devoted to his fortunes, he took with him a few confidential followers, and departed in secret for the camp of the Arabian Emir, Muza ben Nozier. The camp was spread out in one of those pastoral vallies which lie at the feet of the Barbary hills, with the great range of the Atlas mountains towering in the distance. In the motley army here assembled were warriors of every tribe and nation, that had been united by pact or conquest in the cause of Islem. There were those who had followed Muza from the fertile regions of Egypt, across the deserts of Barca, and those who had joined his standard from among the sun-burnt tribes of Mauritania. There were Saracen and Tartar, Syrian and Copt, and swarthy Moor; sumptuous warriors from the civilized cities of the east, and the gaunt and predatory rovers of the desert. The greater part of the army, however, was composed of Arabs; but differing greatly from the first rude hordes that enlisted under the banner of Mahomet. Almost a century of continual wars with the cultivated nations of the east had rendered them accomplished warriors; and the occasional sojourn in luxurious countries and populous cities, had acquainted them with the arts and habits of civilized life. Still the roving, restless, and predatory habits of the genuine son of Ishmael prevailed, in defiance of every change of clime or situation.

Count Julian found the Arab conqueror Muza surrounded by somewhat of oriental state and splendor. He was advanced in life, but of a noble presence, and concealed his age by tinging his hair and beard with henna. The count assumed an air of soldier-like frankness and decision when he came into his presence. ‘Hitherto,’ said he, ‘we have been enemies; but I come to thee in peace, and it rests with thee to make me the most devoted of thy friends. I have no longer country or king. Roderick the Goth is an usurper, and my deadly foe; he has wounded my honor in the tenderest point, and my country affords me no redress. Aid me in my vengeance, and I will deliver all Spain into thy hands: a land far exceeding in fertility and wealth all the vaunted regions thou hast conquered in Tingitania.’

The heart of Muza leaped with joy at these words, for he was a bold and ambitious conqueror, and having overrun all western Africa, had often cast a wistful eye to the mountains of Spain, as he beheld them brightening beyond the waters of the strait. Still he possessed the caution of a veteran, and feared to engage in an enterprise of such moment, and to carry his arms into another division of the globe, without the approbation of his sovereign. Having drawn from Count Julian the particulars of his plan, and of the means he possessed to carry it into effect, he laid them before his confidential counsellors and officers, and demanded their opinion. ‘These words of Count Julian,’ said he, ‘may be false and deceitful; or he may not possess the power to fulfil his promises. The whole may be a pretended treason to draw us on to our destruction. It is more natural that he should be treacherous to us than to his country.’

Among the generals of Muza was a gaunt swarthy veteran, scarred with wounds; a very Arab, whose great delight was roving and desperate enterprise; and who cared for nothing beyond his steed, his lance, and his scimitar. He was a native of Damascus; his name was Taric ben Zeyad; but, from having lost an eye, he was known among the Spaniards by the appellation of Taric el Tuerto, or Taric the one-eyed.

The hot blood of this veteran Ishmaelite was in a ferment when he heard of a new country to invade, and vast regions to subdue; and he dreaded lest the cautious hesitation of Muza would permit the glorious prize to escape them. ‘You speak doubtingly,’ said he, ‘of the words of this Christian cavalier, but their truth is easily to be ascertained. Give me four galleys and a handful of men, and I will depart with this Count Julian, skirt the Christian coast, and bring thee back tidings of the land, and of his means to put it in our power.’

The words of the veteran pleased Muza ben Nosier, and he gave his consent; and Taric departed with four galleys and five hundred men, guided by the traitor Julian. This first expedition of the Arabs against Spain took place, according to certain historians, in the year of our Lord seven hundred and twelve; though others differ on this point, as indeed they do upon almost every point in this early period of Spanish history. The date to which the judicious chroniclers incline is that of seven hundred and ten, in the month of July. It would appear from some authorities, also, that the galleys of Taric cruised along the coasts of Andalusia and Lusitania, under the feigned character of merchant barks; nor is this at all improbable, while they were seeking merely to observe the land, and get a knowledge of the harbors. Wherever they touched, Count Julian despatched emissaries, to assemble his friends and adherents at an appointed place. They gathered together secretly at Gezira Alhadra, that is to say, the Green Island; where they held a conference with Count Julian in presence of Taric ben Zeyad. Here they again avowed their readiness to flock to his standard whenever it should be openly raised, and made known their various preparations for a rebellion. Taric was convinced, by all that he had seen and heard, that Count Julian had not deceived them; either as to his disposition or his means to betray his country. Indulging his Arab inclinations, he made an inroad into the land, collected great spoil and many captives, and bore off his plunder in triumph to Muza, as a specimen of the riches to be gained by the conquest of the Christian land.

On hearing the tidings brought by Taric el Tuerto, and beholding the spoil he had collected, Muza wrote a letter to the Caliph Waled Almanzor, setting forth the traitorous proffer of Count Julian, and the probability, through his means, of making a successful invasion of Spain. ‘A new land,’ said he, ‘spreads itself out before our delighted eyes, and invites our conquest: a land, too, that equals Syria in the fertility of its soil, and the serenity of its sky; Yemen, or Arabia the happy, in its delightful temperature; India, in its flowers and spices; Hegias, in its fruits and flowers; Cathay, in its precious minerals; and Aden, in the excellence of its ports and harbors! It is populous also, and wealthy; having many splendid cities, and majestic monuments of ancient art. What is to prevent this glorious land from becoming the inheritance of the faithful? Already we have overcome the tribes of Berbery, of Zab, of Derar, of Zaara, Mazamuda, and Sus; and the victorious standard of Islem floats on the towers of Tangier. But four leagues of sea separate us from the opposite coast. One word from my sovereign, and the conquerors of Africa will pour their legions into Andalusia, rescue it from the domination of the unbeliever, and subdue it to the law of the Koran.’

The Caliph was overjoyed with the contents of the letter. ‘God is great!’ exclaimed he, ‘and Mahomet is his prophet! It has been foretold by the ambassador of God, that his law should extend to the ultimate parts of the west, and be carried by the sword into new and unknown regions. Behold, another land is opened for the triumphs of the faithful! It is the will of Allah, and be his sovereign will obeyed!’ So the Caliph sent missives to Muza, authorizing him to undertake the conquest.

Upon this there was a great stir of preparation; and numerous vessels were assembled and equipped at Tangier, to convey the invading army across the Straits. Twelve thousand men were chosen for this expedition: most of them light Arabian troops, seasoned in warfare, and fitted for hardy and rapid enterprise. Among them were many horsemen, mounted on fleet Arabian steeds. The whole was put under the command of the veteran, Taric el Tuerto, or the one-eyed, in whom Muza reposed implicit confidence, as in a second self. Taric accepted the command with joy: his martial fire was roused at the idea of having such an army under his sole command, and such a country to overrun; and he secretly determined never to return unless victorious.

He chose a dark night to convey his troops across the Straits of Hercules; and, by break of day they began to disembark at Tarifa, before the country had time to take the alarm. A few Christians hastily assembled from the neighborhood and opposed their landing, but were easily put to flight. Taric stood on the sea-side, and watched until the last squadron had landed; and all the horses, armour, and munitions of war were brought on shore: he then gave orders to set fire to the ships. The Moslems were struck with terror when they beheld their fleet wrapped in flames and smoke, and sinking beneath the waves. ‘How shall we escape,’ exclaimed they, ‘if the fortune of war should be against us?’ ‘There is no escape for the coward!’ cried Taric: ‘the brave man thinks of none: your only chance is victory.’ ‘But how, without ships, shall we ever return to our homes?’ ‘Your home,’ replied Taric, ‘is before you; but you must win it with your swords.’

While Taric was yet talking with his followers, says one of the ancient chroniclers, a Christian female was described, waving a white pennon on a reed, in signal of peace. On being brought into the presence of Taric she prostrated herself before him. ‘Senior,’ said she, ‘I am an ancient woman; and it is now full sixty years, past and gone, since, as I was keeping vigils one winter’s night by the fireside, I heard my father, who was an exceeding old man, read a prophecy, said to have been written by a holy friar; and this was the purport of the prophecy: that a time would arrive when our country would be invaded and conquered by a people from Africa, of a strange garb, a strange tongue, and a strange religion. They were to be led by a strong and valiant captain, who would be known by these signs: on his right shoulder he would have a hairy mole, and his right arm would be much longer than the left; and of such length as to enable him to cover his knee with his hand without bending his body.’

Taric listened to the old beldame with grave attention; and, when she had concluded, he laid bare his shoulder, and lo! there was the mole as it had been described; his right arm, also, was, in verity, found to exceed the other in length, though not to the degree that had been mentioned. Upon this the Arab host shouted for joy, and felt assured of conquest.

The discreet Antonio Agapida, though he records this circumstance as it is set down in ancient chronicle, yet withholds his belief from the pretended prophecy, considering the whole a cunning device of Taric to increase the courage of his troops. ‘Doubtless,’ says he, ‘there was a collusion between this ancient sybil and the crafty son of Ishmael; for these infidel leaders were full of damnable inventions, to work upon the superstitious fancies of their followers, and to inspire them with a blind confidence in the success of their arms.’

Be this as it may, the veteran Taric took advantage of the excitement of his soldiery, and led them forward to gain possession of a stronghold, which was, in a manner, the key to all the adjacent country. This was a lofty mountain, or promontory, almost surrounded by the sea; and connected with the mainland by a narrow isthmus. It was called the rock of Calpe, and, like the opposite rock of Ceuta, commanded the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. Here, in old times, Hercules had set up one of his pillars, and the city of Heraclea had been built.

As Taric advanced against this promontory, he was opposed by a hasty levy of the Christians, who had assembled under the banner of a Gothic noble of great power and importance, whose domains lay along the mountainous coast of the Mediterranean. The name of this Christian cavalier was Theodomir, but he has universally been called Tadmir by the Arabian historians; and is renowned as being the first commander that made any stand against the inroad of the Moslems. He was about forty years of age; hardy, prompt, and sagacious; and had all the Gothic nobles been equally vigilant and shrewd in their defence, the banner of Islam would never have triumphed over the land.

Theodomir had but seventeen hundred men under his command, and these but rudely armed; yet he made a resolute stand against the army of Taric, and defended the pass to the promontory with great valor. He was, at length, obliged to retreat; and Taric advanced, and planted his standard on the rock of Calpe, and fortified it as his stronghold, and as the means of securing an entrance into the land. To commemorate his first victory, he changed the name of the promontory, and called it Gibel Taric, or the mountain of Taric; but, in process of time, the name has gradually been altered to Gibraltar.

In the mean time, the patriotic chieftain, Theodomir, having collected his routed forces, encamped with them on the skirts of the mountains, and summoned the country round to join his standard. He sent off missives, in all speed, to the king; imparting, in brief and blunt terms, the news of the invasion, and craving assistance with equal frankness. ‘Senior,’ said he, in his letter, ‘the legions of Africa are upon us, but whether they come from heaven or earth I know not. They seem to have fallen from the clouds, for they have no ships. We have been taken by surprise, overpowered by numbers, and obliged to retreat; and they have fortified themselves in our territory. Send us aid, senior, with instant speed; or, rather, come yourself to our assistance.’

When Don Roderick heard that legions of turbaned troops had poured into the land from Africa, he called to mind the visions and predictions of the necromantic tower, and great fear came upon him. But, though sunk from his former hardihood and virtue, though enervated by indulgence, and degraded in spirit by a consciousness of crime, he was resolute of soul, and roused himself to meet the coming danger. He summoned a hasty levy of horse and foot, amounting to forty thousand; but now were felt the effects of the crafty council of Count Julian, for the best of the horses and armour intended for the public service had been sent into Africa, and were really in possession of the traitors. Many nobles, it is true, took the field with the sumptuous array with which they had been accustomed to appear at tournaments and jousts; but most of their vassals were destitute of weapons, and cased in cuirasses of leather, or suits of armor almost consumed by rust. They were without discipline or animation; and their horses, like themselves pampered by slothful peace, were little fitted to bear the heat, the dust, and toil, of long campaigns.

This army Don Roderick put under the command of his kinsman Ataulpho, a prince of the royal blood of the Goths, and of a noble and generous nature; and he ordered him to march with all speed to meet the foe, and to recruit his forces on the way with the troops of Theodomir.

In the mean time, Taric el Tuerto had received large re-inforcements from Africa, and the adherents of Count Julian, and all those discontented with the sway of Don Roderick, had flocked to his standard; for many were deceived by the representations of Count Julian, and thought that the Arabs had come to aid him in placing the sons of Witiza upon the throne. Guided by the count, the troops of Taric penetrated into various parts of the country, and laid waste the land; bringing back loads of spoil to their stronghold at the rock of Calpe.

The prince Ataulpho marched with his army through Andalusia, and was joined by Theodomir with his troops; he met with various detachments of the enemy foraging the country, and had several bloody skirmishes; but he succeeded in driving them before him, and they retreated to the rock of Calpe, where Taric lay gathered up with the main body of his army.

The prince encamped not far from the bay which spreads itself out before the promontory. In the evening he despatched the veteran Theodomir, with a trumpet, to demand a parley of the Arab chieftain, who received the envoy in his tent, surrounded by his captains. Theodomir was frank and abrupt in speech, for the most of his life had been passed far from courts. He delivered, in round terms, the message of the Prince Ataulpho; upbraiding the Arab general with his wanton invasion of the land, and summoning him to surrender his army, or to expect no mercy.

The single eye of Taric el Tuerto glowed like a coal of fire at this message. ‘Tell your commander,’ replied he, ‘that I have crossed the strait to conquer Spain, nor will I return until I have accomplished my purpose. Tell him I have men skilled in war, and armed in proof, with whose aid I trust soon to give a good account of his rabble host.’

A murmur of applause passed through the assemblage of Moslem captains. Theodomir glanced on them a look of defiance, but his eye rested on a renegado Christian, one of his own ancient comrades, and a relation of Count Julian. ‘As to you, Don Greybeard,’ said he, ‘you who turn apostate in your declining age, I here pronounce you a traitor to your God, your king, and country; and stand ready to prove it this instant upon your body, if field be granted me.’

The traitor knight was stung with rage at these words, for truth rendered them piercing to the heart. He would have immediately answered to the challenge, but Taric forbade it, and ordered that the Christian envoy should be conducted from the camp. ‘’Tis well,’ replied Theodomir; ‘God will give me the field which you deny. Let yon hoary apostate look to himself to-morrow in the battle, for I pledge myself to use my lance upon no other foe until it has shed his blood upon the native soil he has betrayed.’ So saying, he left the camp; nor could the Moslem chieftains help admiring the honest indignation of this patriot knight, while they secretly despised his renegado adversary.

The ancient Moorish chroniclers relate many awful portents, and strange and mysterious visions, which appeared to the commanders of either army during this anxious night. Certainly it was a night of fearful suspense, and Moslem and Christian looked forward with doubt to the fortune of the coming day. The Spanish sentinel walked his pensive round, listening occasionally to the vague sounds from the distant rock of Calpe, and eyeing it as the mariner eyes the thunder cloud, pregnant with terror and destruction. The Arabs, too, from their lofty cliffs beheld the numerous camp-fires of the Christians gradually lighted up, and saw that they were a powerful host; at the same time the night breeze brought to their ears the sullen roar of the sea which separated them from Africa. When they considered their perilous situation, an army on one side, with a whole nation aroused to re-enforce it, and on the other an impassable sea, the spirits of many of the warriors were cast down, and they repented the day when they had ventured into this hostile land.

Taric marked their despondency, but said nothing. Scarce had the first streak of morning light trembled along the sea, however, when he summoned his principal warriors to his tent. ‘Be of good cheer,’ said he: ‘Allah is with us, and has sent his prophet to give assurance of his aid. Scarce had I retired to my tent last night, when a man of a majestic and venerable presence stood before me. He was taller by a palm than the ordinary race of men; his flowing beard was of a golden hue, and his eyes were so bright that they seemed to send forth flashes of fire. I have heard the Emir Bahamet, and other ancient men, describe the prophet, whom they had seen many times while on earth, and such was his form and lineament. ‘Fear nothing, O Taric, from the morrow,’ said he, ‘I will be with thee in the fight. Strike boldly, then, and conquer. Those of thy followers who survive the battle will have this land for an inheritance; for those who fall, a mansion in paradise is prepared, and immortal houris await their coming.’ He spake and vanished; I heard a strain of celestial melody, and my tent was filled with the odors of Arabia the Happy.’ ‘Such,’ says the Spanish chroniclers, ‘was another of the arts by which this arch son of Ishmael sought to animate the hearts of his followers;’ and the pretended vision had been recorded by the Arabian writers as a veritable occurrence. Marvellous, indeed, was the effect produced by it upon the infidel soldiery, who now cried out with eagerness to be led against the foe.

The gray summits of the rock of Calpe brightened with the first rays of morning, as the Christian army issued forth from its encampment. The Prince Ataulpho rode from squadron to squadron, animating his soldiers for the battle. ‘Never should we sheath our swords,’ said he, ‘while these infidels have a footing in the land. They are pent up within yon rocky mountain, we must assail them in their rugged hole. We have a long day before us: let not the setting sun shine upon one of their host, who is not a fugitive, a captive, or a corpse.’

The words of the prince were received with shouts, and the army moved toward the promontory. As they advanced, they heard the clash of cymbals and the bray of trumpets, and the rocky bosom of the mountain glittered with helms and spears and scimetars; for the Arabs, inspired with fresh confidence by the words of Taric, were sallying forth, with flaunting banners, to the combat.

The gaunt Arab chieftain stood upon a rock as his troops marched by; his buckler was at his back, and he brandished in his hand a double-pointed spear. Calling upon the several leaders by their names, he exhorted them to direct their attacks against the Christian captains, and especially against Ataulpho; ‘for the chiefs being slain,’ said he, ‘their followers will vanish from before us like the morning mist.’

The Gothic nobles were easily to be distinguished by the splendor of their arms; but the Prince Ataulpho was conspicuous above all the rest for the youthful grace and majesty of his appearance, and the bravery of his array. He was mounted on a superb Andalusian charger, richly caparisoned with crimson velvet, embroidered with gold. His surcoat was of like color and adornment, and the plumes that waved above his burnished helmet were of the purest white. Ten mounted pages, magnificently attired, followed him to the field, but their duty was not so much to fight as to attend upon their lord, and to furnish him with steed or weapon.

The Christian troops, though irregular and undisciplined, were full of native courage; for the old warrior spirit of their Gothic sires still glowed in their bosoms. There were two battalions of infantry, but Ataulpho stationed them in the rear; ‘for God forbid,’ said he, ‘that foot soldiers should have the place of honor in the battle, when I have so many valiant cavaliers.’ As the armies drew nigh to each other, however, it was discovered that the advance of the Arabs was composed of infantry. Upon this the cavaliers checked their steeds, and requested that the foot soldiery might advance and disperse this losel crew, holding it beneath their dignity to contend with pedestrian foes. The prince, however, commanded them to charge; upon which, putting spurs to their steeds, they rushed upon the foe.

The Arabs stood the shock manfully, receiving the horses upon the points of their lances; many of the riders were shot down with bolts from cross-bows, or stabbed with the poniards of the Moslems. The cavaliers succeeded, however, in breaking into the midst of the battalion and throwing it into confusion, cutting down some with their swords, transpiercing others with their spears, and trampling many under the hoofs of their horses. At this moment, they were attacked by a band of Spanish horsemen, the recreant partisans of Count Julian. Their assault bore hard upon their countrymen, who were disordered by the contest with the foot soldiers, and many a loyal Christian knight fell beneath the sword of an unnatural foe.

The foremost among these recreant warriors was the renegado cavalier whom Theodomir had challenged in the tent of Taric. He dealt his blows about him with a powerful arm and with malignant fury, for nothing is more deadly than the hatred of an apostate. In the midst of his career he was espied by the hardy Theodomir, who came spurring to the encounter: ‘Traitor,’ cried he, ‘I have kept my vow. This lance has been held sacred from all other foes to make a passage for thy perjured soul.’ The renegado had been renowned for prowess before he became a traitor to his country, but guilt will sap the courage of the stoutest heart. When he beheld Theodomir rushing upon him, he would have turned and fled; pride alone withheld him; and, though an admirable master of defence, he lost all skill to ward the attack of his adversary. At the first assault the lance of Theodomir pierced him through and through; he fell to the earth, gnashed his teeth as he rolled in the dust, but yielded his breath without uttering a word.

The battle now became general, and lasted throughout the morning with varying success. The stratagem of Taric, however, began to produce its effect. The Christian leaders and most conspicuous cavaliers were singled out, and severally assailed by overpowering numbers. They fought desperately, and performed miracles of prowess; but fell, one by one, beneath a thousand wounds. Still the battle lingered on throughout a great part of the day; and as the declining sun shone through the clouds of dust, it seemed as if the conflicting hosts were wrapped in smoke and fire.

The Prince Ataulpho saw that the fortune of battle was against him. He rode about the field calling out the names of the bravest of his knights, but few answered to his call; the rest lay mangled on the field. With this handful of warriors he endeavored to retrieve the day, when he was assailed by Tenderos, a partisan of Count Julian, at the head of a body of recreant Christians. At sight of this new adversary, fire flashed from the eyes of the prince, for Tenderos had been brought up in his father’s palace. ‘Well dost thou, traitor!’ cried he, ‘to attack the son of thy lord, who gave thee bread; thou, who hast betrayed thy country and thy God!’

So saying, he seized a lance from one of his pages, and charged furiously upon the apostate; but Tenderos met him in mid career, and the lance of the prince was shivered upon his shield. Ataulpho then grasped his mace, which hung at his saddle bow, and a doubtful fight ensued. Tenderos was powerful of frame and superior in the use of his weapons, but the curse of treason seemed to paralyze his arm. He wounded Ataulpho slightly between the greaves of his armor, but the prince dealt a blow with his mace that crushed through helm and skull, and reached the brains; and Tenderos fell dead to the earth, his armor rattling as he fell.

At the same moment a javelin, hurled by an Arab, transpierced the horse of Ataulpho, which sunk beneath him. The prince seized the reins of the steed of Tenderos; but the faithful animal, as though he knew him to be the foe of his late lord, reared and plunged, and refused to let him mount. The prince, however, used him as a shield to ward off the press of foes: while, with his sword, he defended himself against those in front of him. Taric ben Zeyad arrived at the scene of conflict, and paused, for a moment, in admiration of the surpassing prowess of the prince: recollecting, however, that his fall would be a death-blow to his army, he spurred upon him, and wounded him severely with his scimetar. Before he could repeat his blow, Theodomir led up a body of Christian cavaliers to the rescue, and Taric was parted from his prey by the tumult of the fight. The prince sank to the earth, covered with wounds, and exhausted by the loss of blood. A faithful page drew him from under the hoofs of the horses, and, aided by a veteran soldier, an ancient vassal of Ataulpho, conveyed him to a short distance from the field of battle, by the side of a small stream that gushed out from among rocks. They staunched the blood that flowed from his wounds, and washed the dust from his face, and laid him beside the fountain. The page sat at his head, and supported it on his knees; and the veteran stood at his feet, with his brow bent, and his eyes full of sorrow. The prince gradually revived, and opened his eyes. ‘How fares the battle?’ said he. ‘The struggle is hard,’ replied the soldier, ‘but the day may yet be ours.’

The prince felt that the hour of his death was at hand, and ordered that they should aid him to rise upon his knees. They supported him between them, and he prayed fervently for a short time, when, finding his strength declining, he beckoned the veteran to sit down beside him on the rock. Continuing to kneel, he confessed himself to that ancient soldier; having no priest or friar to perform that office in this hour of extremity. When he had so done, he sunk again upon the earth, and pressed it with his lips, as if he would take a fond farewell of his beloved country. The page would then have raised his head, but found that his lord had yielded up the ghost.

A number of Arab warriors, who came to the fountain to slake their thirst, cut off the head of the prince and bore it in triumph to Taric, crying, ‘Behold the head of the Christian leader!’ Taric immediately ordered that the head should be put upon the end of a lance, together with the surcoat of the prince, and borne about the field of battle, with the sound of trumpets, atabels, and cymbals.

When the Christians beheld the surcoat, and knew the features of the prince, they were struck with horror, and heart and hand failed them. Theodomir endeavored in vain to rally them; they threw by their weapons and fled; and they continued to fly, and the enemy to pursue and slay them, until the darkness of the night. The Moslems then returned, and plundered the Christian camp, where they found abundant spoil.

STANZAS TO E——.

Where the young mountain river

Springs for the far-off ocean;

Where the fresh leaflets quiver

With a delightful motion;

Oh! thither hie, and see

How Nature’s youth doth tell of thee.

Where hang the sweet wild roses,

And the pale lilies drooping;

Where the violet reposes

’Neath young leaves o’er it stooping;

Oh! wander there, and see

How Nature’s beauty speaks of thee.

Where the glad brook is bringing

Sweet music never dying;

Where the bright birds are singing,

And gentle winds are sighing;

Oh! thither go with me,

And list to Nature’s song of thee.

Where ivy is entwining,

The stern tree’s branch down-bending;

Where flowers are e’er combining

Their perfume, heaven-ascending;

Oh! roam thou there, and see

How Nature’s love breathes but of thee.

BELISARIUS.

The trumpet’s voice had stirred the sky,

And rustling banners waved on high;

The shouts of victory went up,

And wreaths of laurel crowned the cup

That flowed amid the festal halls,

Within the crowded city’s walls;

Stern warriors came in long array

To grace the conqueror’s pageant day:

Triumphant peeled the clarion’s tone

And spears and glancing armor shone,

Mid the dust of thousands sweeping by,

Like meteors in a midnight sky.

They’d left behind their hosts of slain

Upon the far-off battle plain,

And brought the marks of conquest back;

Proud trophies glittered on their track:

Rich armor from the vanquished won,

Bright jewels glancing in the sun;

A captive monarch’s golden throne,

And heaps of countless treasure shone;

But prouder, nobler spoils and high,

Adorned that mighty pageantry.

Reluctantly, with lofty form,

Like strong oaks blasted by the storm

But not bowed down, the captives came,

Their dark brows flushed with grief and shame;

And he, their sovereign, king no more,

In mockery the purple wore.

His the proud step, majestic mien,

The lip compressed and look serene

That mark a spirit strong and high,

A soul that smiles on destiny.

As surges breaking on the shore,

Or like the distant torrents roar,

The shouts of victory rolled afar.

And shook the hills, as the victor’s car

Gorgeous and bright was borne along

By the swift rush of the gathered throng.

A glorious sight on his haughty way,

With laurel crown, and mail-clad breast,

With waving plume and princely crest,

Was the conqueror on that day.

·····

An old man paced the guarded room,

With quivering lip and brow of gloom,

And his silver hair in the moonlight shone

Like the grayish front of a time-worn stone;

Nor voice, nor sound the still air woke,

Till his burning words the silence broke:

I.

‘Where is the shining car

And where the gorgeous train?

Fled as the falling star

That sunk behind the main!

II.

‘Where is the victor’s crown?

The pageant sweeping past?

Gone with the thistle-down,

Swept by the hurrying blast.

III.

‘Where is the trump of Fame

That woke the startled air?

’Tis like my branded name,

And like my dying prayer.

IV.

‘I’ve braved the din and strife

Of many a battle-plain,

And lavished strength and life;

My guerdon is a chain!

V.

‘I brought a true heart brave,

A spirit bold and free,

Free as the ocean wave;

My country! unto thee.

VI.

‘I had not thought to start

Before thy stinging frown;

Wo for the trusting heart!

Wo for the laurel crown!’

Shelter Island. Mary Gardiner.

A VERITABLE GHOST STORY.

‘There are more things in heaven and earth

Than are dreamed of in our philosophy.’

Some forty years since, an elderly English gentleman, who had been successful in his pursuit after wealth in the British metropolis, determined upon purchasing an estate in the country, upon which he might retire and enjoy the residue of life in unostentatious ease and quiet. He was a man of elegant tastes and fond of antiquarian pursuits. This latter predilection induced him, in his various summer journeyings in England, to select from among those old inns or taverns which are invariably to be met with in every ancient borough or market-town, the most respectable one, as the place at which he would put up; and when ‘mine host’ gave token of being a gentleman, his companionship would generally be requested, through a card by the waiter, bearing the compliments of the guest, with a hope that it might be convenient for the landlord to favor him with his company over a bottle of wine. This was the almost invariable plan adopted, when he was unaccompanied with his ‘better half.’ It will readily be conceived that in these tête-à-tête gossipings, a great fund of anecdote and legendary tales had been gleaned, which were made subservient to the entertainment of friends when assembled around the social board. It is from this fund of gossip to which I have so often listened, that I propose to select one which, owing to my close relationship to the stout gentleman, has been to me a source of no little interest, even as a ‘thrice-told tale.’ The incident occurred at the time when he was in search of the estate to which I have alluded in the commencement of this sketch.

It was late in the evening, in the spring of the year, when he arrived at the destined stopping-place for the night, which if I remember rightly was the ancient borough of St. Albans. Here he selected an inn according to his usual taste; an old rambling disjointed patch-work piece of architecture, the gradual accumulation of many preceding generations, where might be seen rude carvings of grinning nondescript monsters supporting the projecting stories as they each hung over the side-walk; large and small casement windows, with square mullions and gothic arches, and many a gabled roof fronting on the street, where at their junction the continuous gutters projected in the form of long pipes, which in rainy weather discharged cataracts of water, deluging the unfortunate pedestrian who should unwittingly prefer the side-walk to the rough paved road. In the centre of this pile of buildings was the gate-way, large enough to admit coaches with outside passengers; and under its ample, shadowy shelter would be found the entrance to the building itself. On one side was the door to the tap-room, used by post-boys, servants, and the like class, while on the opposite side the glazed door led to the coffee-room and the more respectable apartments. Here Boniface would present himself whenever a carriage drove up, to give a hearty welcome to his guests. The interior, in accordance with the outside, was composed of low, spacious rooms, wainscoated in oaken pannels, blackened with age, but brightly polished by continued rubbings. The furniture was of a past century; the floors worm-eaten but of scrupulous cleanliness, their centres covered with modern or perchance Turkish carpets. The mullioned windows with their appropriate leaden-lozenged casements, glazed with glass of various shades of green, were ornamented with curtains, not hung for show but intended to be used nightly.

Into one of these rooms our elderly gentleman was ceremoniously shown by the obsequious waiter; and here, after the hearty meal was ended and the newspaper run through, the evening was spent, as the reader will perhaps anticipate, in company with ‘mine host.’ It was spring, as I have before said; cold and cheerless without, but within a bright blazing fire, and a table upon which sparkled generous wine, ‘that maketh glad the heart of man,’ gave earnest of comfortable quarters. You may fancy the stout gentleman and his companion honest Boniface, no shadow, each seated in arm chairs of creditable proportions, whiling away the evening hour with many a tale; a fragment of one of which we will now just touch upon.

‘And you really think the tile which you have dug up from below the foundation in the cellar, to be of the date of Julius Cæsar; and infer from it that a roof has sheltered this spot for two thousand years? It is a hallowed thought to reflect upon the crowd of spirits which must hover over and around us, if we suppose, as some do, that when we leave this tabernacle of clay, we shall continue to linger in the midst of our old haunts; and that these spirits are the unseen and unfelt witnesses of our every act. It may be mere fancy, but I am inclined to think there is more truth in the thought than cold philosophy is willing to admit.’

‘Then, Sir, you are a believer in ghosts?’ observed Boniface.

‘Why, no; I cannot say truly that I am, though I have oftentimes longed to make an acquaintance with one. By the way, I should think this building of nooks and corners was admirably adapted for the carrying out some marvel of the sort. Pray, is there not some hobgoblin or merry sprite playing his antics about your premises, my worthy host?’

Hereupon Boniface looked doubtingly, and feeling his way before committing himself, he at last admitted that ‘there was some idle story of the kind, but for his part, he put no faith in such silly things.’

‘Well, of course,’ said his guest, ‘it must be some particular room that is thus honored?’

‘Well?’ was the deferential rejoinder, in a tone denoting a wish to hear the deduction.

‘Then, if it is a bed-chamber, snug and comfortable, do me the favor to apportion it to me for the night.’

‘Most certainly, if you are serious,’ rejoined Boniface; ‘it shall be made ready immediately; but I assure you that my patrons seldom give it the preference.’

Hereupon the bell was rung, and the waiter presenting himself, was requested to direct the chamber-maid to prepare the large room, and to see that the bed was well aired, and to tell Boots to take the gentleman’s trunk up, to kindle a fire, and to see that every thing was tidy.

The evening was thus whiled away until the hour of eleven had arrived, when the great stillness of the house betokened the time for retiring. Accordingly, the chamber-maid was summoned, and with a candle in each hand, she led the way up a wide stair-case, graced with twisted bannisters and of easy ascent, terminating on a long corridor, the floor full of uncertain undulations, running the entire length of the building. At the end was a door, which upon opening, discovered a room of large proportions, with a low ceiling divided into square compartments. Here our traveller was no sooner installed and left alone, than he locked the door; then with candle in hand he began to examine each crack and cranny, but could find nothing suspicious. There were few things in it worthy of note, excepting a large bed with drawn curtains of dazzling whiteness; a most ample hearth, on which was blazing a bundle of dry faggots, sending forth a warm, cheerful light into the room, more powerful than both the candles. This huge fire-place, with its concomitant ornament, a profusely-carved mantel-piece of the usual time-stained oak, was at least five feet high, and more than two feet broad; its ingenious workmanship occupied his attention, and kept him for some time engaged in curious admiration of its exquisite quaintness. The other furniture consisted of chairs, a chest-of-drawers, and a table, all the work of a former age. An easy chair was placed in the middle of the room, in which the stout gentleman composed himself luxuriously for a short time. The room however was too large to be easily warmed, and he soon abandoned it for the bed, but not before he had raked the remaining brands together and extinguished the candles. Not feeling at once the influence of the drowsy god, he abandoned himself to many fanciful speculations. He marvelled why it was that the concurrence of all ages and nations, enlightened or ignorant, savage or civilized, should have so uniformly led to the belief in good and evil spirits wandering at large on the earth, not subject to the laws of matter, save in the sensation of sight and hearing. The creditable phalanx of names of distinguished persons who had placed their veracity on the side of believers, as having themselves been visited by the inhabitants of the other world, was opposed by his own experience; for although he had frequently thought he had been so honored, yet upon investigating the cause, he had invariably found it to be a mere delusion.

It was not long however that he was suffered thus to enjoy himself; for hearing a slight noise near the fire-place, he turned his head, and saw a deformed, dwarfish body emerge from the shadowy part of the room, proceed stealthily toward the fire, over which he rubbed his thin, attenuated hands, and then placing them under their opposite arms, he hugged himself in evident comfort. The fire had by this time so far dwindled away as to be only a handful of smouldering embers, which cast but an exceedingly feeble and uncertain light, sufficient only to reveal the general outline of the pigmy spectre. The old gentleman, with strained eyes, attentively observed his motions, till from very weariness, caused by looking through a light so dim, he began to doubt whether he saw truly: he reasoned with himself, but with no satisfactory result; till at last, desirous of ‘making assurance doubly sure,’ he gently enlarged his look-out in the slightly-opened curtains in order that he might more attentively observe the room; but all was darkness, save in the immediate vicinity of the fire. The removal of the curtain however had made a rustling noise, which had given the alarm to the spectre-imp, who immediately vanished into the gloom of the apartment on the side of the fire-place.

This was no sooner observed by the wide-awake old gentleman, than he jumped out of bed, resolved to give chase; but although stout gentlemen are generally no-wise active, not a second had elapsed before he reached the hearth, and scattering the embers in order to obtain more light, he looked carefully around, but no trace of the phantom could be seen. A few seconds more, and one of the candles was lighted, when the room was again subjected to a more rigid scrutiny; but all to no purpose; for the door remained locked, and the closet-doors were equally secure; nothing was under the bed, nor behind the table; the easy-chair could afford no shelter; in the front of every lower tier of pannels was some article of furniture, which effectually prevented their being used suddenly; beside, how could the furniture be reädjusted? The upper ones were too high to be at all likely to afford the means of such quick concealment. Hence he was completely mystified, amazed, perplexed. His mental powers were in a whirl; until at length he became perfectly bewildered, and concluded that he had been dreaming, or had been taking a short trot on a night-mare; and with this latter idea he returned, shivering like an ague, to his cold bed. The candle was now suffered to burn, and pillowing his head high, so as to see all around, the curtains having been previously withdrawn, he determined to keep vigilant watch. At length becoming composed and comfortably warm, he distinctly recalled the whole train of thought which had preceded the appearance of the strange phantom. Finally, he concluded that if it were all a dream, an illusion, never was a dream or an illusion so like reality. He must from henceforth doubt the evidence of his senses. Thus he reasoned and doubted, doubted and reasoned, until the candle’s light and all around had faded into dimness. Slumber gradually usurped its sway, and he slept till late next morning. On awaking, the whole affair was too vividly remembered, for him to settle down into a belief that he had dreamed. He was determined to satisfy himself. It was not long before his feet were in his slippers; and throwing on his dressing-gown, he went the round of another and still another examination, with no more satisfactory result than before; until at last, tired with conjecture, he dismissed it from his mind, and completed his toilet.

At the breakfast-table, he simply remarked, in reply to the inquiry if he had slept well, that he had dreamed the room was haunted by a dwarfish ghost, but he pretended to believe that it was only a dream.

‘There!’ rejoined the auditor; ‘others have dreamed the same thing!’

The discussion of the creature-comforts on the table was too interesting to permit a discussion of discomforts, and inquiry was silenced.

The morning sun was shining brightly, tempting the healthful to enjoy his cheerful beams. It was not long therefore before our traveller was seen taking the direction to the old abbey-church. The sight of such ancient buildings was always keenly relished by him, by reason of his antiquarian tastes; but in this instance, it led to the clearing up of the last night’s mystery; for in his rambles around this immense pile of architecture, he literally ‘stumbled upon’ an old friend, who was connected with the parish affairs, and was consequently enabled to give much interest to his descriptions of the place. The last night’s events were of course not forgotten; in fact it was all circumstantially detailed, even to a minute description of the dwarf.

‘Well, well,’ was the reply, ‘I think I can show you the living facsimile of your fancied dream; the only thing which puzzles me is to account for his entrance to your chamber. Let us step into the house adjoining the inn, and you shall judge for yourself.’

They accordingly adjourned to the place indicated; and there the very imp himself was actually felt and handled! It required some coaxing, not unmixed with threats, before he could be prevailed upon to unfold the secrets of his prison-house, but they were finally extorted. It seemed, that up stairs, on a level with the haunted chamber, was a closet, immediately back of the fire-place with the carved oaken mantelpiece, once side of which, it will be remembered, was at least two feet wide; and its curious carvings were so adroitly made as to conceal the cracks of that part which opened as a door: this, if even left ajar, would still be in shadow from the fire on the hearth, and consequently an instant of time was only necessary for the person near by to make his escape, and to effectually conceal the mode by which it was accomplished. The brick jam was of course hollow, and led to the back of the closet in the next house; which, being pannelled all around, and situated against a solid wall, as was supposed, had eluded discovery after the builders had passed away. How this misshapen piece of humanity had re-discovered it, I never knew; but I fancy that, accidentally being in the closet at the time when there had been a noise made in the fire-place, either from kindling a fire or cleaning it; and hearing this noise distinctly, might have suggested to him to try the back; which, opening inside of the secret passage, might have been forced from its spring-catch; while the holes in the carved work of the mantel enabled him to see if any one was in the room; and thus prevent an intrusion which would lead to his detection.

G. R. V.

RÊVES ET SOUVENIRS.

I.

I remember roaming lonely by the mournful forest streams,

The loveliness and melody of childhood’s happy dreams;

Pale flowers, the vermeil-tinted, lightly fanned by vernal breeze,

Whose fitful breath went sighingly among the solemn trees;

Sunny streamlets, gushing clearly in their fresh and tameless glee,

Sparkling onward, ever onward, toward a golden summer sea.

Fairy isles of green were sleeping on its softly-heaving breast,

Where the chime of waves low rippling forever lulled to rest.

The slanting sunbeams wandered through each quiet vale and dell,

Shaded glen, and gray old cavern, where the foamy cascade fell;

And birds, the starry-wing’d, flitting through the rich perfume,

Filled with their gladsome minstrelsy the depths of leafy gloom.

II.

I remember, I remember, in my musings sad and lone,

The beauty and the brightness, that have vanished, and are gone,

Rosy clouds at eve reposing in the crimson-curtained west,

Mocking with their tranquil splendor the human heart’s unrest.

They are gliding through my visions, as they used to do of yore,

Yet the gentle thoughts they wakened, shall they come back no more?

Oh! many an hour I lingered to watch their gorgeous dyes

In soft and shadowy outlines against the purple skies;

Through their regal halls, air-woven, the parting radiance streamed,

Ever varying like the opal’s hue: and often have I deemed

They were come with tender message, in the holy hush of even,

From the Loved of years departed, spirit-guardians in Heaven!

III.

To my memory come back darkly in the stilly midnight hour,

Dim and faded now, the pictures of Life’s early glow and power,

When the world was arched with halos of hopes unmixed with fears,

And I marvelled they should tell me but of sorrowing and tears!

When my spirit loved to revel in its palaces of dreams,

Lit with lightning-flash of fancy, rosy bloom and starry gleams;

Listening to the choral harmonies that filled each lofty dome,

Like the clear and liquid music in the Nereid’s azure home.

And it looked from its proud towers on the Future’s magic scene,

Till the Present grew all gladsome with the brightness of its sheen;

Far off-notes of triumph swelling, floated up from years to come,

Silver blast of clarion blending with the roll of stormy drum!

IV.

I remember, I remember, in my vigils cold and lone,

Brilliant reveries, burning fantasies, forever fled and gone!

Stately visions passed before me in the mystic realms of Mind,

Shapes of glory lightly wafted on the balmy summer wind;

Forms of pale and pensive loveliness, with eyes like pensile stars,

Such as never yet were beaming ’mid this world’s discordant jars.

And their whispers wild, unearthly, unutterable, fell

like a harp-string’s dying echo, or a fair young spirit’s knell,

On my soul amid the shadows of my native forest trees,

Rustling melancholy, lowly, in the wailing of the breeze,

Till, unknowing pain or agony, I’ve wept such blissful tears

As shall never, never flow again ’mid darker later years!

V.

I am dreaming, I am dreaming of the bright ones that are gone,

The gifted and the beautiful, from Time’s sad wasting flown,

Of those beings pure and gentle, like the passing glow of even,

Sent to teach us of a better, higher heritage in Heaven!

Sweet they were as first wild flowers that herald coming spring,

Or a mellow gleam of sunset through the storm-cloud’s raven wing.

Fragile as that opening flower, fleeting as that golden ray,

Like the snow-wreath of the morning, full soon they fled away!

And fit it is it should be so; their mission here was brief

’Mid the blighting and the bitterness of Earth’s unquiet grief;

So their hands were meekly folded, and closed their dreamful eyes,

And they passed in stainless innocence to dwell beyond the skies!

VI.

I am dreaming, I am dreaming of the lordly minds of old,

Whose ‘winged-words’ of power had once like glorious music rolled;

Lofty intellects that kindled as a far-off beacon flame,

Sending down the stream of ages the light of deathless fame;

Bursting through the rusty shackles of dark and spectral fears,

Leaving Freedom as a legacy to men of coming years.

And I’ve read in hoary records solemn story of the dead,

The mighty, the immortal, with their souls’ vast treasures fled.

The piercing eyes of Genius, lit with unearthly fire,

Seemed to thrill me as I listened to his wild and burning lyre;

And their spell was on my spirit in the starry cope above,

In the gush of morning sunlight, and the fervent glance of love.

VII.

I am lonely, I am lonely! In the palace of my soul,

As I walk its lofty corridors, I read a mystic scroll,

And it seemed a fearful warning, yet I knew not whence it came,

Writ in wild and wondrous characters of rosy-colored flame;

And a deep voice murmured: ‘Destiny, that wrought thy web of life,

Hath inwoven fierce unrest, brilliant dreams, and fiery strife.

And this solemn spell shall bind thee, be thy shrinking what it may,

Strength, and Faith, and earnest Suffering to thy latest earthly day!’

Ever since a dusky Presence seemeth phantom-like to brood,

Dim and shadowy and tearful, o’er my haunted solitude;

And a wind-harp waileth lowly ‘mid the swell of joyous song,

Breathing from the lips of beauty o’er the listening festal throng.

VIII.

I am weary, I am weary! Cometh not across my breast

Transient thought of that which shall be, presage of better rest?

And the sounds of early spring-time with an inner meaning fraught,

Seem the last notes of a requiem from some old minster brought;

Solemn mass for gentle spirits, the unsullied and the true,

Gone with all their bright aspirings, like the fragrant morning dew.

Yet the visions of their soulful glance, and the intellectual brow,

The memory of their poet words, is present with me now!

Oh! I would that I were slumbering where moaneth the sea-wave,

Where the setting sun might linger with a smile upon my grave!

Emblems fit of life’s dark heaving, and of that blessed shore

Where these weary Dreams and Memories shall sadden me no more!

A FIRST NIGHT OF RACINE.

FROM DE JOUY’S ‘HERMITE’ OF THE FOURTH OF JANUARY, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE.

Voilà de vos arrêts, Messieurs les Gens de Goût!

Prior La Metromaine.

Every-body has a hobby-horse, as the English say, on which he is mounted, even when sneering at the steeds of his neighbors. The wits themselves are not exempt from this mental preöccupation, which brings every taste to bear upon only one point. Some ruin themselves in books, some in pictures and statues, others in minerals, shells, or medals. The bibliomaniac, the picture-dealer, the naturalist, the numismatist, all appear to me equally absurd. I speak of course of those who have the collecting mania without the love of science. They play at science as we play at cards, and the ridiculous part of the matter is, the perfect seriousness with which they do it.

One of my friends has become infatuated with a taste which is much less common; one that he brought back with him from his travels, together with albums, mnemonics, and Kant’s Philosophy. It is a taste for autograph letters. It is well known that the English, who are always ready to confound what is rare with what is really admirable, are very successful in their curiosities of this kind. They collect them at a great expense, and employ skilful engravers to reproduce fac-similes for second-rate amateurs, whose whole fortune would not suffice for the acquisition of the originals.

Last week I came upon my friend the autographist, just as he was receiving a note of Boileau, of only four lines, in which he regrets that he cannot dine the next day with a Mr. Le Vasseur. This note, written in the most simple style, contained no anecdote, nor curious fact, and was only remarkable for a fault in its orthography. So that all the respect I have for our great critic did not prevent me from testifying some surprise, when I saw my friend pay ten Louis for a paper rag of no value at all.

‘I understand your astonishment,’ he said; ‘but to complete a collection, no matter of what kind, one must make sacrifices;’ and at the same time he placed his precious paper in a carton, labelled ‘Age of Louis XIV.’ ‘You see,’ he continued, pointing to a part of his library where several similar cartons were arranged, ‘you see the result of my collections for some years. I have sixty thousand francs’ worth of autographs in that corner.’

‘For which you cannot get ten from the grocer at the next corner, who is probably the only person to whom the rubbish would be of any use.’

‘Vandal!’ he exclaimed, with a mixture of indignation and contempt; ‘you talk like a man whom posterity will never mention. Look at the names you have insulted! Look at this letter from Montaigne to Boëtius, so illegible that it has never been printed; look at that billet of Henry IV. to the Duchesse de Verneuil; and that Sonnet of Malherbe, written entirely by Bacon’s own hand; that letter from Madame de Maintenon to Father Le Tellier; that order from the Prince the night before the battle of Senef—’

‘Even if I were wishing,’ I answered, ‘to share your veneration for some of these relics which excite so many historical recollections, I should not laugh the less at the zeal with which you preserve all that waste paper, which has nothing to recommend it. For instance, what is this letter worth which I have just taken up? It is signed by a Marquis d’Hernouville, whom no one ever heard of, and directed to a Comte de Monchevreuil, who is remembered only for one or two instances of gallantry in the field, and for having been, if I am not mistaken, the governor of the Duc de Maine.’

‘You could not have furnished me with a better opportunity of proving to you that we always run some risk in assertions upon subjects of which we know nothing. Oblige me by reading that letter, and then laugh, if you can, at the importance which I attach to similar papers.’

Never, I must own, was triumph more complete. Not only did I confess, after having perused it, that it was well worthy of the honor of the port-folio, but I begged him to let me copy it for publication. I had some difficulty in obtaining this favor, which was only granted me in exchange of a letter of Hyder Ali Khan to Suffren, which I promised to send him.

This is the letter of the Marquis, which I certify to be in every respect a true copy of the original:

‘Paris, the 30 December, 1669.

‘I seize the occasion, my dear Comte, afforded me by a cold which has kept me some days by the fire-side, to send you news from this part of the country. The most important, and what will give you the most pleasure is, that M. de Guise has obtained the favor of a cushion at the King’s mass; he did not fail to make use of it on Sunday, and between ourselves, with rather too much ostentation. Every one expects wonders from the Marquis de Chastet, who has boasted that he will soon bring the Algerians to terms, but I have no faith in his predictions. The Duc de Vermandois has been raised to the dignity of Admiral. Madame de la Valliere received this mark of the royal favor with the most perfect indifference. I am quite of your opinion: that woman is not in her proper place.

‘Did your brother write you that we went together to the first representation of Britannicus? Some admirers of Racine had praised the piece so much to me, that not being able to get a box, I sent my valet at ten o’clock to keep a place for me. I thought that I should never reach the Hôtel de Bourgogne, although I left my carriage at the corner of the Rue Mauconseil: without Chapelle and Mauvillain, who know all the actors in Paris, I should never have succeeded in getting a place. Do not mistake this eagerness of the public; there was much more malevolence than curiosity in it. I paid my respects to Madame de Sévigné in her box, where I found Mesdames de Villars, de Coulanges and de La Fayette, escorted by the little Abbé de Villars and de Grignau the Frondeur. You may imagine what treatment Britannicus received in that box. Madame de Sévigné said the other day at Madame de Villarceau’s that ‘Le Racine passerait comme le café.’ This speech made every one laugh; all agreed that it was as just as it was good. What I most like is the presumption of this tragedy student, who undertakes to make Romans talk for us after our great, our sublime Corneille; but some people think that they can do any thing. I never saw the Hôtel de Bourgogne so brilliant. Such a fashionable audience deserved a better piece. The people in the pit yawned, and those in the boxes went to sleep. Vilandry was snoring away in the box of the Commandeur de Louvré. Since he dines at that table, the best kept in Paris, he goes to the theatre to digest haciendo la siesta, wakes up when all is over, and pronounces the play detestable. I cannot understand what pleasure the brave and witty Commandeur can take in the society of a man who never opens his mouth but to eat. Despréaux, (Boileau,) beside whom I was sitting, was furious at the coldness of the pit. He protested that it was Racine’s chef d’œuvre; that the ancients had never written any thing finer; that neither Tacitus nor Corneille had ever produced any thing more forcible. He had like to have quarrelled with Subligny, because in the scene where Nero hides behind a curtain to listen to Junia, he could not restrain a burst of laughter, which was echoed all over the house. Perhaps this bad play will furnish him with the materials for another ‘Folle Querelle,’3 which will make us laugh as much as the first. Ninon and the Prince sided with Despréaux. They defended the ground inch by inch, but without being able to cover the retreat of Britannicus. I am curious to know how the little rival of the great Corneille will take this failure, for it certainly is one. The worst of the business for him is, that every one remarked some very clear and very audacious allusions. The King said nothing about them; but yesterday at his levee, he countermanded a ballet in which he was to have danced at St. Germain. This may put our poet somewhat out of favor at court; but what the devil have poets to do there?

‘Floridor was sublime. You would have sworn that he had wagered to make one of the worst parts he overplayed successful. I cannot tell you much of the plot of this tragedy. How could I hear it? I sat between your brother and the fat Vicomte. Nevertheless you may rely on me that it is bad, decidedly bad, whatever the satirist may say about it. I am quite of his opinion when he says, ‘That a work of that importance must be listened to with attention, and that it is unjust to pronounce upon a play in the midst of the clamors of theatre-factions, and the chattering of that crowd of women who are always eager to display themselves at a first representation.’ All this is very true, but not at all applicable in this instance. This time Racine is well judged. The dénouement is the most ridiculous I ever heard. Imagine that silly, conceited Junia turning vestal, as if Madame de Sennès were to enter the Ursuline Convent. Heaven forbid that I should play the scholar; but I have read in Ménage that it required other formalities to take the veil in the convent of ladies of the society of Vesta. I forgot the most essential. Your little Desœuillet played like an angel. I spoke to her about you in her box. I think that you had better come and speak about it yourself. She is a girl for whom constancy is only the interval that separates two fancies.

‘If you ever get the Nouvelles à la Main where you are, you will see Racine handled without gloves. The number which treats of his play has not yet appeared; but if Le Clerc does things as he should, and remembers the just resentment of d’Olonne and de Créqui,4 from whom he received two hundred pistoles, poor Britannicus will pay for Andromache.

‘Gourrilu has probably given you the perfumes you ordered for your pretty cousin; Martial would not receive the money. He said that he was in your debt. Dubroussin sends his love. We had such a charming supper at his house! You were the only one wanting. I was obliged to bring Chapelle home in my carriage, dead drunk: to pay for it, I left him the next day under the table at La Pomme de Pin, where he has passed more than one night.

‘I shall try to get to the levée next Sunday. My uncle is doing his best to make me rejoin my regiment. If he should succeed, I shall see you on my way. I should much prefer to have the meeting take place here; but whatever happens, believe me, etc.,

‘Hernouville.’

STANZAS TO MARY.

Thine eye is like the violet,

Thou hast the lily’s grace;

And the pure thoughts of a maiden’s heart

Are writ upon thy face.

And like a pleasant melody

To which memory hath clung,

Falls thy voice in the loved accent

Of mine own New-England tongue.

New-England—dear New-England!

All numberless they lie,

The green graves of my people,

Beneath her far blue sky;

And the same bright sun that shineth

On thy home at early morn,

Lights the dwellings of my kindred,

And the house where I was born.

Oh, fairest of her daughters!

That bid’st me so rejoice

’Neath the starlight of thy beauty

And the music of thy voice,

While Memory hath power

In my breast her joys to wake,

I will love thee, Mary, for thine own

And for New-England’s sake.

M. E. Hewitt.

ON RIVERS AND OTHER THINGS.

If I were as tedious as a King, I could find in my heart to bestow it all on your worship.

Shaks.

It is a comfort still remaining to me, to reflect, that after all the evil that the Tourists, the Reviewers and the Satirists of England together have said and done and imagined of America, they have never yet annihilated our Lakes; dispossessed us of our Rivers; disproved our Waterfalls; nor made bitter to us, our fountains and streams and brooks and water-courses. I thank God with a full heart that from whatever cause these still abide unchanged among us; still flow, still control the ear with the majesty of sound, and make glad the solitary places of the heart.

It is not often indeed that they admit the existence of these objects in set terms; nor introduce into their works a paragraph upon the subject: nor would any one who had never visited America be expressly informed perhaps by them, that our part of the world contained within its compass any thing at all comparable in the way of Rivers to the Thames or the Tweed; or to the ponds of Cumberland in the way of Lakes; or to the Pisse Vache in Switzerland in the way of a fall of water: but yet they have not deprived us of them; and, incidentally, when they sometimes mention their having been shockingly annoyed and incommoded by a scrub, who spat several times upon the floor of the steamer in their presence, during a trip of three hundred, five hundred or a thousand miles that they have had the mishap to make with him, (instead of using his stomach like a true born Englishman, or his parti-coloured flag of abomination like a continental personage,) they give the reader some idea of the scope of a River or of a Lake in America. Or, when they note down that a parcel of knaves, with sterling money of the realm of Great Britain, borrowed doubtless for the purpose and, as they verily believe, never repaid to this hour, bought a merchant ship; loaded her with every variety of live animals like an ark, and then cruelly and nefariously precipitated her over the Falls of Niagara, in order to gratify that national tendency for a great Splash, which exists universally in every form throughout the whole of that wretched experiment at self-government called the United States—they then give the untravelled reader some conception of an American Fall of Water. One may therefore with confidence write down in a grave Essay like this, and expect it to be believed even by those who have not Morse’s Geography before their eyes, that there still is, and long has been, a fall of Water by common courtesy distinguished as The Cataract of Niagara; and a river in the State of Connecticut, called, without any of our ‘usual’ cisatlantic inflation, Connecticut River.

I pass over all further preliminary matter, and proceed at once to state, that the steamer which leaves New-York in the course of the afternoon, enters, during the night, the long and tranquil expanse of water known by the name of the Connecticut; and that when the passengers, after a quiet night’s rest, assemble upon decks that are moist with dew in the bright, still, cheery morning of the early summer, they are gliding onward far up that river, cutting its glassy bosom in the direction of the rays of the rising Sun; the overpowering lustre of which is diminished by a soft and precious Claude-like haze that hangs like a gauze of gossamer on the borders of their way, a bridal veil just being lifted by the Sun; tempering while it enriches the gilding of the shores, the waters, the far-off spire, the contented farmer’s house and barns, the unfrequent trees, the cattle gazing at the approaching object, the sail you are overtaking or meeting, and often, the fisherman, seen in the distance, standing in his boat on the margin of the river, in his white shirt-sleeves, waiting the passage of the steamer.

For these shores very rarely form themselves into any picturesque acclivity. Hardly is there on the whole course of the river one bold bluff or headland to obstruct the sight; and the scenery might even be thought tame and uninteresting, but for a home-born feeling that comes over the kind heart as it approaches so close to the mowers on the meadow-field as to scent the fragrance of the hay; to hear the song of the Boblink, or the rhythmic whetting of the scythe; or passes the ends of those primitive, those pilgrim-fences of post and rail, that enter the brink of the river to mark the boundaries of the small, paternal, and though frequently sterile, the much loved fields into which this home of industry is divided.

The moment you have passed the fisherman, and the noise and movement of the steamer have frightened the fish toward the shore, he darts out in his boat with one end of a net of many roods in extent, takes a semi-circular sweep and frequently draws in again with very little delay fraught with a school of most luxurious Shad. It is of this fish that Basil Hall I think says it is worth crossing the Atlantic to taste them; and although I fear I may shock the prejudices of some of my friends who highly favour those of the Delaware when caught above Bordentown, I cannot but opine that the shad of the Connecticut is the best shad in the Union.

The opinion if incorrect may have arisen from the freshness with which I have beheld them taken and have partaken of them from these nets, brought without the least bruise or violence on board the steamer which lies ‘blowing off’ for a moment or two while it receives on the forward deck a rich supply for breakfast of these broad thick-backed fellows, all wet and spangling from the River, as stout at the dorsal fin as at the shoulder, leaping hither and thither astonished at the suddenness of the change, pausing at each instant to expand the deep pomegranate-coloured gills that decorate their small and beautiful heads, and puffing on the deck as if the air they inhaled could be nothing else but water; or else imagining and planning an escape into their proper element; and at each exhalation after a desperate leap, vying almost with the dolphin in the richness of the hues of purple green and gold upon the laughing scales!

Now, one fine fish lies extended at its length, wondering and appalled and tremulous with fear, as the cook’s assistant, for the first time that any human being has touched it, lays his hand upon the fullness of that line of beauty, the curved and satisfying swell that extends from the head to the graceful little swallow tail that flutters and pleads so eloquently for its wonted employment. ‘Heavens! is it possible,’ it says to itself—I mean that beautiful female shad on which the hand is just laid—‘can it be that this warm hand is that of man; that the tradition of our forefathers is indeed true; and that this fish-devouring monster is going to destroy me after a mystick fashion of his own, so different from that of the porpoise and the sturgeon, whom I have escaped so well! Is it for a fate like this, that, avoiding the Delaware river and the profound Hudson, I have returned to these scenes of my nativity and earliest youth! Is it for an end so cruel as this, that I have taken such care of myself upon the southern shores of this unworthy continent, feeding with a tasteful choice and epicurean delicacy amid the marine vegetation that adorns its milder latitudes, and plumping and beautifying myself into this admired shape, and all to gratify at last the cormorant appetite of this unfishlike animal, and decorate, with my remains and memory, a mere steam-boat breakfast! O Dickens! the Dickens! sworn enemy of the enemies of my race! thou Hannibal of my expiring hopes—’ Alas! her apostrophe is cut short at the moment by the ruthless knife that strips her of her coat of many colours, and in one fell stroke prepares her delicious belle-ship for the broil!

It forms no part within the scope of our intention in the present Essay, to dwell upon the various modes of cookery of this annual and precious accession to the riches of our waters; but it is not to be supposed that the arrival of the Shad in this beautiful river of Connecticut can be a slight advent to the inhabitants upon its borders, particularly in villages and towns too densely populated to admit the idea, that their occupants derive a livelihood, either from agriculture, fishing, or the commerce that can be maintained by the yearly launch of a square-rigged vessel or two, depending mainly on the profits of a freighting voyage: now that the trade with the West-Indies, (formerly a rich source of the wealth of this state,) has dwindled into insignificance and loss. On the contrary, the first appearance of the shad imparts an hilarious sensation of abundance all along the shores. The retired sea-captain, the small annuitant, the broken-down family, and the capitalist, are all alike interested in the welcome. The price falls immediately within the compass of the very poorest inhabitant, while the luxury of the regale it furnishes is one that the richest epicure might covet. The green lanes that lead toward the shore, and that at other seasons are hardly visited except by lovers on a moonlit evening, now grow lively with the morning movement of the householder and his flock of little ones.

The poor man’s cow now no longer browses there in a neglected and undisturbed possession; now no longer does the stiff and shackled plough-horse graze leisurely along the path, but is startled by some youthful shout into an attempt at what was once a leap; now half-ripe berries are furtively gathered in spite of all advice as to unwholesomeness; dogs move round as if upon a hunt and on the scent for game; the yoked goose, after more than one expression of its sense of dignity, retires a little out of the way; and now the ground sparrow, deeming his thistle or over-hanging Barberry-bush insecure against the incursions of all these comers and goers, regrets at a short and watchful distance, and with all the anxiety of a politician, that he had not built more wisely under covert of the other side of the hedge.

Boys and girls, young men and maidens, old men and widows, meet each other on the path of the green lane, like angels on the steps of Jacob’s Ladder in a Flemish picture that I have, where the ladder is represented by a broad stone stair-case; except that blessings are here all brought up instead of down, for a brace of Shad is in the hand of every family-man returning from the shore.

Cordial greetings are every where interchanged, and every where the question rises or is answered that determines the market value of the morning; that makes known the signal success of the great haul of Enoch Smith; the further fall of prices in the perspective; and the general promise of the season in the way of shad; and all agree that however large or small may be the supply, never, since the memory of man, have the shad been quite so good as they are this season; and that Connecticut River Shad are decidedly the best imaginable of all possible shad.

Having in my purse the ring of Gyges, which is too ponderous for ordinary wear, I placed it on my finger and accompanied home unseen a hale bandy-legged old gentleman with a florid complexion, a benevolent wart upon his nose, an alert step, drab-breeches with thin worsted stockings of pepper and salt, plated buckles worn to the brass in his shoes, and silver ones at the knees, and the heaviest pair of shad that had appeared in the lane during the morning. I saw him deposit the Fish safely in his kitchen which he entered through a side gate, giving some strict injunctions to the cook with the air of a person who had certainly made a good bargain and was speaking to one who best knew how to appreciate it.

We then wended our way together to a neighboring house where we were immediately admitted. A person older than the visitor, quite deaf, pale and suffering but without complaint, lay extended upon a couch in a soft chintz dressing-gown, afflicted with that sort of Will-o’-the-wisp gout, that takes the toe, the heel, the knee, the hip, the heart, the neck, the head, and hands, in turn: not in any graceful rotation, not in any quiet or systematic order; but that gratifies itself by darting with the quickness of the electrick fire to which it is allied, to the part least expecting or prepared to sustain the pang. Not an honest gentlemanly gout that will exhibit itself and meet one fairly toe to toe with the inflammation of undisguised passion; but an adder, a viper of the nerves that stings and flies; and darts and disappears before the flesh has even time to blush for its existence; so subtle yet so tormenting, so deep yet so evanescent, that the patient in his agony half wonders whether it be a malady of the body or of the soul; and only knows that it is a pain, aye marry ‘past all surgery!’

Our invalid was now enjoying a momentary interval of ease, and welcomed his guest very cheerfully, although without attempting to do more than extend his hand to him and beg him to sit near. Notwithstanding all deafness the compliments of the morning, the enquiries after different members of each other’s family, and the comments on the weather, were made and understood and interchanged with great facility, and the visit went off swimmingly; until the stout gentleman, probably actuated by his desire to speak of his successful purchase of the morning, ventured, at the first pause, to ask his acquaintance if he were fond of fish?

‘I thank you,’ said the latter, ‘the mare is decidedly better; that bleeding in the hoof did her business completely, and I don’t doubt that by autumn she will be as well as ever.’

‘I asked you,’ said the visitor, in a determined tone, and like a person who has something to say, ‘I asked you, whether you were fond of Fish?’—Alas! my masters! how many unnecessary, how many futile, how many absurd questions, among the idle words that are dignified with the title of conversation, are daily propounded in this grave world of ours! Fond of fish! Fond of Fish! and that fish, a Shad! and that shad, a Connecticut River Shad! and that Connecticut River Shad, a prime brace of shad! in the highest season, and the highest order, and the finest brace of shad in the entire haul of Enoch Smith, now yet quivering, without the loss of one radiant scale, upon the snow-white dresser of this man’s imagination! Ought I to call it, an imagination? Ought I to go on with the story, or abandon it as an impracticable thing? Fond of fish!

Oh commend me to a life of leisure in a small town upon the right bank of the River Connecticut, and let my lease begin at the beginning of the shad season! Give me Enoch Smith to draw the seine, a green lane to conduct me to the river shore, and a Claude Lorraine morning for my day of purchase! Fond of Fish! Why what an idea, to be conveyed upon the subject of this brace of shad, from one Christian Being to another Christian Being, who had both—as it is to be supposed—read and studied the lives of the apostles! Fond of Fish!!!

But the stout man, finding that he was not apprehended, reiterated the remarkable question; and in a still louder tone, exclaimed: I—asked—you—whether—you—are—fond—of—Fish?’ making a pause between each of these peculiar words, and shooting the last word of the singular interrogatory out of his mouth, by means of his fore-teeth and a most emphatic under-lip, as a boy does a marble with the bent fore-finger and thumb of the right hand.

‘I perceive,’ said the quiet person upon the couch, ‘that you are asking me a question; but really the rhumatis, (this is the way in which the quiet person upon the couch thought proper to pronounce it,) has, I think, quite got the better of my right ear. Would you do me the favour,’ continued he, turning the left side of his head toward his interlocutor with the suavity of a person already obliged, ‘would you do me the great favour to repeat your enquiry?’

‘I asked you,’ said the other, growing scarlet in the gills like the shad of his imagination, ‘I—merely—asked—you,’—for he began (I thought at the time) to grow vexed with the absurdity of his position in having given utterance to a conception at once so feeble and yet so eccentrick; and being a coarse man, could only get out by passionately going through what he had to say; ‘if—you—were—fond—of—Fish?’ And on this occasion each word seemed to me to have the force of a pistol-shot, and the last word that of a cannon ball; and he rose as he spoke like a man of might and purpose as he was, and clenched his hand, and quivered upon the stout bow legs that sustained him as he stood: ‘Fish,’ roared he! ‘Fish,’ shouted he! ‘I asked you if you were fond of FISH,’ thundered he!

‘I quite regret being so very deaf to-day, and yet I should be sorry,’ replied his imperturbable friend, fumbling in his pockets and looking about the couch, ‘to lose any observation of yours, and particularly one in which you seem so earnest; here is a piece of paper, and here is a pencil; be kind enough to write it down while I get on my glasses.’ By the time his eyes were reinforced the paper was ready, and glancing it over he answered at once, raising himself suddenly upward, as he exclaimed at the utmost reach of his voice and with deep and increasing energy, ‘Oh, Very!’ ‘Very!’ ‘Very!’

‘Good morning, Mr. Johnson,’ said his now blown and indignant visitor. ‘Are you off? Well, good morning, captain!’ replied the other; and as soon as the door was closed, ‘My neighbor Captain Tompkins, I am sorry to perceive, has grown quite as deaf as myself,’ said he in a musing manner. ‘If I had his legs—’tis there he has the advantage of me—if I had his legs, I could have collected all the news of the parish in the time that he has been prosing here about my mare! And I wanted too to know something this morning about shad. Here, Sally! tell Bob to run down the lane and find out whether Enoch Smith is going to draw soon; and if Bob meet any persons on the way with shad let him ask the price of the day before he says a word to Smith.’

Away flew the little flaxen-haired fairy with her eyes of sapphire, leaving her grandfather to relapse upon his couch in the posture in which we first saw him, and to moralize on the impatience with which his neighbour Captain Tompkins seemed to bear the approaching infirmities of age. And now, Dear Reader, do thou emulate the patience of the old Valetudinarian, while I relieve thee of my further presence; or, if thou wilt permit the thought to enter the charities of thine heart, vanish from thee like the blue-eyed girl.

John Waters.

TO A CERTAIN BOUQUET.

I.

In chill December’s month, sweet flowers!

Your brilliant eyes first saw the light;

And you, instead of sun and showers,

Had watering-pots and anthracite.

II.

Go ye to Mary then, and while

Ye cease to mourn for summer skies,

Bask in the sunbeam of her smile,

And the sweet heaven of her eyes.

Horace.

APOSTROPHE TO TIME.

Grave of the mighty past!

Ocean of time! whose surges breaking high,

Wash the dim shores of old Eternity,

Year after year has cast

Spoils of uncounted value unto thee,

And yet thou rollest on, unheeding, wild and free.

Within thy caverns wide,

The charnel-house of ages! gathered lie

Nations and empires, flung by destiny

Beneath thy flowing tide:

There rest alike the monarch and the slave;

There is no galling chain, no crown beneath thy wave.

The conqueror in his pride

Smiled a defiance, and the warrior stood

Firm as the rock that bides the raging flood;

The poet turned aside

And flung upon thy breast the wreath of Fame,

And thou hast swept away perchance his very name!

The craven and the brave,

The smile of blooming youth, and grey-haired age,

The ragged peasant and the learned sage,

Have found in thee a grave:

The vanquished land and despot on his ear,

Went down beneath thy wave, as falls the glancing star.

Thou hast the soaring thought,

The lofty visions of the daring soul;

The piercing eye, that bade the darkness roll

From Nature’s laws, and sought

For years to trace her mysteries divine:

Oh! who shall count the gems that glitter on thy shrine?

Yet more is thine, proud sea!

Thou hast the mighty spoils of human wo,

The bright hopes crushed, the dark and bitter flow

Of grief and agony;

Thou hast the burning tears of wild despair,

Thou the wrung spirit’s cry, the broken heart’s strong prayer.

Thou hast the deathless love,

That smiled upon the storm and warred with life,

And looked serene, unscathed by earthly strife,

To realms of light above:

Thy priceless gems! oh! dost thou treasure these,

The jewels of the heart, within thy trackless seas?

When the loud voice of God

Shall shake the earth, and like a gathered scroll

At His command the boundless skies shall roll;

When from the grassy sod

The living soul shall start to life sublime,

Wilt thou not render back thy spoils, insatiate Time?

M. G.

REMINISCENCES OF A DARTMOOR PRISONER.

NUMBER TWO.

It was my intention in closing my last number to have opened the next in the prison, and then to proceed with the narrative; but upon reflection, I thought it might be more acceptable to the reader if I were to relate all that took place; giving as it were a moving panorama of the events as they occurred: but if he should be in greater haste to get to the prison than I was, he has only to skip a few lines, to arrive there. But to proceed. Our vessel, with several others, anchored at Gravesend, where the crews received their pay. The amount coming to me, although small, was very acceptable. I now received from the captain what he ought to have given me on my joining his ship. I had stipulated with him, on signing his papers, that he should give me a written pledge, exonerating me from fighting against my country, should we fall in with any of our vessels. This he withheld until the end of the voyage; and then, when it could be of no possible use, he most magnanimously gave it to me. What the result would have been had we fallen in with any of our cruisers, is beyond conjecture.

All was now bustle and confusion on board. The ship was like a floating Babel. The decks were crowded with hucksters, boatmen, landlords, and women of undoubted character; all upon one errand, and actuated by one motive; united in purpose though divided by interest, they were bent upon fleecing poor Jack of his hard-earned money. No doubt they succeeded, for Jack is at best but a poor financier.

Amid the confusion, I managed to slip unobserved on board a Gravesend boat which was crowded with passengers, and in a few minutes was flying before a smart breeze, on my way to London. It was past sun-down, and the shades of evening were fast veiling surrounding objects as we approached this vast and mighty city, the heart’s-core as it were of the world. I cannot express my feelings, nor convey by words the ideas that swelled my mind until the sensation became intensely exciting, as the dusky spires of the Tower, St. Paul’s, etc., peered above the smoky atmosphere. All that I had read from early childhood of London, its bridges, towers and domes, came rushing and crowding upon my memory. It was lamp-light when we landed at Wapping, (gas was then unknown,) and I felt the full force of my lonely condition. Young and inexperienced; surrounded by vast multitudes, yet known to none; I was completely bewildered.

I was aroused from my reverie by a person touching my elbow, and inquiring if I wanted lodgings. He was a keeper of a boarding-house; and thinking I might as well be imposed upon by him as by any other of the fraternity, I accepted his offer to show me to his house. I went home with him, and agreed to pay him a guinea per week for such board and accommodations as might be had for half that price by any one but a stranger. I ate more fresh salmon during the short time I tarried with him, than I ever did before or since. I infer from this that it must have been very cheap, as his object was more to make money than to accommodate. I was in London about three weeks, and during that time made the best use of my poor means to learn all I could of a place I had longed but never hoped to see. As I traversed Tower Hill, my mind wandered back for centuries, and dwelt upon the strange events in history which had been enacted there; of the soil where I stood, that had been moistened by the blood of monarchs, soldiers and statesmen. As I gazed upon the massive gray walls of the Tower, the magic scenes of Shakspeare arose, and passed in review before me. I thought of Gloucester, Clarence, Hastings, Henry VI., his two murdered nephews: then came forth the unhappy Jane Shore, pale, exhausted, and starving; no one daring to offer a mouthful of food to save the poor wretch from death. But the scene changes. It is night; and I see Falstaff and his companions at the rising of the moon, ‘by whose light they steal.’ They go forth and are lost sight of in the misty shadows of those dark, time-worn buildings; and anon we hear him waging battle with the ‘ten men in buckram suits.’

Bartholomew Fair came on while I was in London. This I was desirous of witnessing; to see how far it would accord with the descriptions by ‘rare Ben Jonson,’ some centuries before. The weather proved remarkably fine, and I set out with my curiosity on tip-toe to see the sport. I had some distance to go; and as I turned up one street and down another, the throng of people increased, until my arrival at Smithfield, where the fair was held, and where the crowd became so dense as to be hardly passable. The spectators consisted of both sexes, of all ages and degrees. But how shall I describe the scene that presented itself? A large field of several acres was filled with tents, stages and booths, with Punch and Judys, quack doctors, mountebanks and monkeys, and cages containing wild animals of various kinds. The shouting of people, the cry of beasts, the beating of drums, the discord of the abortive attempts at music, producing such a triumph of discord as beggars description. ‘Verily,’ thought I, ‘time cannot have diminished the glories of Bartholomew Fair.’

Years have rolled on and passed by like the waves of the ocean, since I traversed the streets of London, but many a laugh have I had to myself as memory recalled a whimsical mistake which I stumbled upon in my peregrinations. In passing the streets I frequently saw fine portly-looking men dressed in blue coats, faced and trimmed with a profusion of broad gold lace; breeches and white stockings, and shoes with large buckles, and on their heads cocked hats or chapeaux, as large as coach-wheels. ‘Thinks I to myself,’ the continental wars are over, England has recalled her fleets, and the streets of London are swarming with admirals of the white and blue, off duty. What a blunder! They were a pack of fat, lazy footmen! My respect for what I supposed were the heroes of ‘England’s wooden walls’ was turned into contempt for men who could debase themselves by strutting about in the livery of those whom God created of the same materials as themselves. I sometimes (but very rarely) see such things in my own country; but when I do, my face burns with indignation at both master and man, to think that the one should require, and that the other should submit to such degradation.

I spent two or three weeks, as above stated, endeavoring in the mean time to get away as a hand on board some vessel bound to any port out of the jurisdiction of the British government. This I found more difficult than I had supposed; for London was at this time literally crowded with seamen dismissed from the China, Bengal and West-India fleets. I began to be anxious, as my money was getting rather low; and although I felt comparatively safe from being discovered among so great a multitude, still I thought it much the safest plan to get off if I could. It would have been well for me if I could have accomplished it, for notwithstanding my supposed security, I was suspected and watched. One day as I was seeking to obtain a situation on board a vessel bound to Marseilles, I was accosted by a suspicious individual. I was soon made acquainted with his business, and in a few hours I was on my way to prison. I did not much regret it. My money was all gone; and as the date of my first imprisonment was from an early period, I was in hopes of being among the first sent home, should a cartel be despatched with any of the prisoners. I was in a sad mistake, as it was only United States’ seamen and soldiers who were exchanged. Had I imagined half of the trouble and sorrow that awaited me, I should have acted with more caution; but it was too late, and I had to abide my fate.

It was a beautiful morning in autumn, and our journey was through a delightful country. The fields were enclosed in hedges instead of fences, which had a novel and pleasing effect, especially to me, as I was not accustomed to seeing the like; and I should have enjoyed it very much had I been on any other errand than going to prison. It was near sunset when we arrived at a bend in the river Medway, where lay moored several huge dark hulls, that were once the bulwark of the fast-anchored isle, but now used as receptacles for those who had the misfortune to become prisoners of war. We were soon swept alongside by one of the watermen in attendance, and in a few moments more were on board the ‘Irresistible.’ I was conducted below and introduced to my future associates.

It was several minutes before I could discern the objects around me. It was like going into a cellar. The only air and light were admitted through port-holes, few and far between, which were left open for the purpose, and secured by strong iron gratings to prevent escape. As soon as I regained the use of my sight, I began to look around me to ‘define my position;’ and I believe it would have puzzled the ingenuity of the most acute politician to know where he stood, had he been placed in the same ‘fix’ as myself. Casting a glance around, I found myself amidst a squalid, cadaverous throng of about six hundred, ranging from about fourteen to sixty years of age; and I never beheld a set of more wretched human beings. They were nearly starved and almost naked, and wholly unable to take exercise, from their crowded condition. It was too dark to read, and they yielded their minds up to corroding despondency, and became sullen and morose. Their features became rigid; and to see a smile upon a face was like a sunbeam illumining a thunder-cloud.

I must here record an unparalleled instance of self-denial, love and devotion in the female character, seldom to be met with. One of the prisoners in making frequent voyages to the English ports, (I believe Liverpool,) had become acquainted with and married a young English woman early in the war. He was taken and sent on board one of these ships. No sooner was this made known to his young and affectionate wife, than she resolved to partake of all the hardships, privations, and imprisonment with him; and never ceased her exertions until she had accomplished her purpose. In admiration and respect for her heroic virtues, and kind feelings toward her husband, the prisoners screened off a small space for them with old canvass, etc., although much to their inconvenience, owing to the crowded condition of the ship. It was amid these trials and privations that she became a mother, and was covered by the American flag. They are now living in Newark, New-Jersey, enjoying each other’s society in the down-hill of life, and surrounded by a numerous family.

The prisoners were divided into companies or messes of six each; the provisions, which were very coarse and scanty, were prepared in a cook-house erected on the forward part of the upper-deck, and when ready, passed to the prisoners down below. Hammocks were provided for them to sleep in, which were slung side by side, so close as hardly to admit a passage between them. They were three tiers deep, bringing the lower ones within three feet of the floor. No light was allowed, and of course all was in utter darkness. And it was quite a perilous undertaking to go on a necessary excursion across the deck at night. Many was the one who became so bewildered in his journey that he could not find his lodgings, and had to sit down and quietly wait until morning; at which time all hands must turn out, lash up the hammocks and pass them upon the upper deck to be stowed away until night came round again, in order to make more room below. Several guards with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets constantly paced the upper deck; and aft, on the quarter-deck, were two carronades loaded to the muzzle and pointed forward. Two or three of the prisoners were permitted to come on deck at a time; but at night none were allowed on deck for any purpose whatever; the entrance being secured by strong gratings, and sentries stationed by them continually.

Time passed wearily on. Days seemed months and months appeared to be lengthened into years; and even existence itself had become as it were paralyzed by the monotonous life we led. It was an interposition of Divine Providence, that in our destitute and helpless condition we were not afflicted with any pestilential disease; as in the crowded state we were in, it must have made rapid and fearful havoc in our midst. At length it was rumored that the prisoners were to be removed; but where to, none of them knew. Several weeks passed on, and they were relapsing into their ordinary indifference to the state of things around them, when one morning word was passed among us that a draft of one hundred was to be sent to Dartmoor prison, and those who thought proper might volunteer; but that that number must go at any rate. So seeing it was ‘Grumble you may, but go you must,’ was the order of the day, the number required soon availed themselves of the privilege, and were sent in barges on board the vessel which was to convey them to their future abode. Other drafts were sent from time to time, until the whole were removed. For myself, I remained until the last: I felt a reluctance to leave what I knew to be bad, for what I feared might be worse. It was to a ‘bourne whence no traveller returned’ to disclose the secrets of the prison-house.

At last the time had arrived when the remnant were to leave. We were all mustered upon deck, numbering about one hundred and fifty. Our baggage, poor and scant as it was, we had need to take the utmost care of, as winter was advancing, and we knew of no means of procuring more. We were then conveyed in barges and put on board the ‘Leyden,’ an old sixty-four gun ship, taken from the Dutch in by-gone days, and now used for a transport for troops, prisoners, etc. In due course of time we were landed in Plymouth. It was early on a bleak, cloudy morning, late in the autumn, that we disembarked, and were placed in immediate line of march, under a guard of a sufficient number of soldiers with loaded muskets, who had orders to shoot down the first who evinced a disposition to leave the line. The whole was under the command of a captain, lieutenant, etc., who were on horseback. We had been on the road scarcely an hour, when the rain, which had been threatening all the morning, now came down with sweeping fury; and although not sufficiently cold to freeze, yet it possessed a keenness that appeared to penetrate the skin. The roads being of a clayey soil soon became of the consistency of mortar by the tramping of so many feet, and our march might have been traced for several miles by the old boots, shoes, and stockings, which were left sticking in the mud in the hurry of the march. I have no doubt that we made a very grotesque appearance, and raised many a smile from some of the passers-by. Our march continued throughout the day without interruption, save occasional short halts to bring up those who lagged behind; for many began to be exhausted from cold, fatigue and hunger. We had not tasted a morsel of food since the day before.

As we advanced, the scene became more gloomy. Habitations became fewer, and the hedged and cultivated fields gave place to moors and ‘blasted heaths;’ and the sombre hue of the sky imparted the same tone to our feelings. Night had now overtaken us, and the rain was still pouring down in torrents. Way-worn and hungry, we hailed our gloomy prison, which now presented itself, and we looked upon it almost with joy. From the darkness of the night we could scarcely discern the dim outline of its lofty walls and ponderous gates, as they swung open, grating upon their hinges, to engulf a fresh supply of misery within that sepulchre of the living. We were now thrust into a building, reeking wet and benumbed with cold. All was in total darkness, and we were in dread of breaking some of our limbs, should we undertake to explore the limits or condition of our prison. As it was, we were fain to lie down upon the stone pavement which formed the floor of our abode. In this state we passed a long and weary night, without bedding or covering of any kind, as our baggage had not yet arrived. A description of the prison of Dartmoor, and of the scenes and occurrences which took place within its walls, I shall defer to a subsequent number, as it would occupy too much space to be embodied in this.

FRAGMENTS FROM THE GREEK.

I.

‘TELL ME, ZEPHYR.’

Tell me, Zephyr, swiftly winging,

Ne’er before such fragrance bringing,

From what rose-bed comest thou?

‘Underneath a hawthorn creeping,

I beheld a maiden, sleeping,

And her breath I bear thee now!’

II.

FOUR MAIDENS DRINKING.

Streamlet! at thy mossy brink

Maidens four once stooped to drink:

Crag and wild rock tumbling o’er,

Wert thou e’er so blest before?

III.

Δὲδυκε μὲν ἁ Σέλανα.

Gone the Pleiades and moon,

Lo! of night it is the noon!

See! the Hours their watch are keeping;

Lovely lieth Sappho sleeping!

G. H. H.

AN ALLIGATORICAL SKETCH.

NUMBER TWO OF LIFE IN FLORIDA.

How thoughtful in you, my kind Editor, to have inquired of me touching alligators! Think of my getting a summer’s day and a more than summer’s-day delight out of this March month and latitude of forty-two, and all by way of a thought alligatorical! Having taken that thought to bed with me last night, I awoke about sun-rise, at the first burst of a morning-hymn from the tree-tops at Picolata! The windows and doors were all open, and as I glanced here and there, with what unspeakable joy did I recognize the small cosy parlor with its comfortable lounges, the garden, the river, the hammock, and the barracks; and with what a feeling of delirium did I launch into the warm air to shout my delight!

Breakfasted upon hominy and syrup, fresh-made from H——’s plantation, with alternate mouthfuls of—you can’t think, Sir—straw-berries and cream! Large, ripe straw-berries, just gathered by a pretty girl and some one to help her, from the garden of Father Williams. Had a pleasant sail on the St. John’s after breakfast, and took the cool of the morning for a ride through the barrens to Augustine, where I have been all day running about town, half out of breath, dropping broken and hurried words on the familiar thresholds, with ejaculations of ‘Oh Lord!’ and ‘God bless you!’ and some things quite inarticulate and impossible to write; inspirations, so to speak; after all which I am just now returned, freighted with pleasant thoughts, to my closed windows, coal-fires, and other northerly necessities. But for this, Sir, I thought to have done with these ‘Sketches,’ as I like not that ambitious heading. ‘Gossip’ would have been better, Sir, and more appropriate; and under that modest title you would not have used the unintelligible stars that blaze to so little purpose in my last paper. Ah! Sir, you should have considered how difficult it is to gape—shocking word!—to gape gracefully!

And now to your queries: ‘Is the alligator fond of his grandmother? Does he devour his children? Does he hanker after little niggers? Is he wholly depraved and given up to the sins of the flesh, or hath he some social and playful qualities? And, lastly, what are his habits of life?’ You have given me quite too long a text, Sir: the more especially as I think, that upon most of these points the animal is decidedly non-committal; but not to hesitate for a single moment in answering your implied slanders, I declare, in short, that if the alligator affect his grandmother, it is not made public; and if he grieveth after little niggers, there are no leavings of evidence; as I take it, he hath no partialities, no mincing of morsels, no preference of parts.

I wish you to observe, Sir, at the start, that I have no resentments to gratify, no vengeance to wreak, no sins to compare, allegatorically. I am not rejoiced at being able to say, after some miserable deed, ‘So does the alligator.’ Nor do I think it necessary to impute evil from the difficulty of proving it. Such, to be sure, is the way of the world. The loftier, the more unimpeachable the character, the greater is the probability that it contain some hidden vice, some reach of horror quite worthy of concealment; and so it is, that after much sinning ourselves, (not before,) we attain to the relish of gossip, the deliciousness of scandal. A scandal proved, the excitement is over; but to imagine, to wonder, to embellish, to hover with a sneer, or a tear, as the humor happens, over a probable enormity, is the devil’s own pleasure, and to a taste properly matured, said to be very delectable. It is in this manner that unthinking fathers have amused themselves and their children with stories of an animal which on close acquaintance they would treat with far more respect.

Pardon my gossipry, ah! kindest of Editors! while I ask if you believe in the lastingness of primary impressions? And furthermore, is a countenance pleasant or otherwise from the humor with which you regard it? Is a place forever associated with the rain or sun that falls upon it at your first acquaintance? In running over the brightest of my pleasant days at St. Augustine, and there are few links wanting in that brilliant chain, I am just now reminded of lounging one morning at the market, with mind and waistcoat thrown open to all sunny impressions, when I observed afar off a small colored gentleman, who was coming toward me with a directness of motion quite unusual to people of his class.

As the morning was a little breezy and he had but one simple garment, rudiment, so to speak, between him and the outer world, I attributed his precision and firmness of step to a sense of delicacy as commendable as it is rare in those parts, and immediately resolved that I would look with a kind regard upon that individual: I would parley with him, detain him with some idle thought, while, all unknown to him, I could seize that moment to pry into his dark and mysterious nature, and if he proved modest and upright, as no doubt he would, how would I astound him with a gratuitous half-bit! Or if he resented that, (it might be,) I would have him at nine-pins; I would send him of errands; make up objectless and boot-less employment, if necessary, and so contrive to benefit him unawares; to cherish and sustain his high moral tone, and at some future day, (it was not impossible,) raise him to the dignity of trowsers! I would do this without casting a single shadow upon his unsophisticated nature; I would not deepen his complexion with a single blush!

On coming nearer, I discovered that he was carrying suspended in one hand what appeared to be specimens of some rare and curious vegetable; strange roots, medicinal perhaps; bulbous, yet elongated, and beet-like at the lower extremity, but dark and rough like an artichoke; which, on close examination, proved to be young alligators. The little nigger had them by the tail, and they were moaning like kittens in the blindness of their first days. I afterward discovered that they were not in good voice, from the circumstance of being carried so long in that unnatural manner. But what was my surprise, my delight, that an animal so Egyptian in association, so hieroglyphical, so suggestive of dragons and monsters, could be so delicately small, so infantile, so perfectly harmless! There were three of them, each about six inches long, counting the tail; but how long they had been that long, or whether they had ever been shorter, it was impossible to say. One could not but ask, were they weaned, or were they just ‘out?’ but no one could divine. We may be tolerably certain, however, that their mother was not aware they were out, otherwise small Bob would doubtless have had no farther rolling of marbles in those parts; no riding of my little gray all over town ‘just to air him’ as he said; no running for Massalini, the triangle and the tambourine, for our evening dances. They were not very lively, being, as I have stated, almost gone with grief or pain, one could hardly tell which, not being acquainted with their manner of expression. Placed upon the ground, they were quite still and speechless; no throbbings of fright; no extraordinary circulation, as far as I could discover. It was at this time, however, that on looking closer, I observed a strange expression of countenance; a wild look in the eye; a kind of mute horror there expressed; wondering at which, the popular belief flashed upon me at once, and I gave small Bob a look which puzzled him exceedingly. ‘Can it be then,’ said I, chasing this thought about in a distracted manner, ‘can it be possible that their mother would not have defended them from small Bob?—but that, on the contrary, (it is a horrible thought,) she would—would have anticipated that nigger? Were they born with an instinctive dread of that mother? Did they look shudderingly from some pin-hole in their shells before venturing into a wet and miserable world, where their first and last thought must forever be to avoid, as death and destruction, those who should have brought them their first morsels; who should have warned them of the rattlesnake; who should have preserved them from the cat-fish? Alas! here was the bitterness of that knowledge of evil at the first breath of life!

But waiving all this: how readily you will anticipate, Mr. Editor, that I at once said to myself, I would possess those alligators. I did. They were put up at auction, and the whole lot came down to me at half-a-bit each, the smallest coin of the country, but a fortune to small Bob. Bob and I went home with a new sensation! Apples and marbles to Bob; to me, something to study, to fuss over, to care for. How refreshing, after the excitement of balls and late suppers, to retire, and still better to rise, upon alligators! How primitive, how scriptural, how pyramidal in suggestion! A large tub with sufficient water to cover them well, was placed in the yard, and tilted a little, so that they could crawl out into the sun; a choice of vegetables and meats thrown in for supper; and the whole family of blacks, by virtue of half-bits, were put in special charge of the contents. As additional security, the old dog was shown, and disliked them; cats were banished; the bear’s chain made stronger; and, not unimportant, my room looked out upon the tub. The next morning they were inspected and found to be a trifle better in condition; but I was mortified more than I care to express, that they had wholly refused the dainties we had given them. And this they continued to do, so that for more than a week thereafter, no one had seen them eating. If they had manifested any dislike to any thing we offered, it would have been something to build, to speculate upon; and with my after experience, I should have had my suspicions; but all our relishes, and different solutions, salt water and fresh, and half-and-half, were received with the same indifference. Notwithstanding this, they grew livelier every day, and as I thought, in better spirits. Held up by the tail, they would bark something like a puppy when he first begins to think himself a dog; a quick bark, with a brusque abruptness, and wondering intonation, as though equally surprised and delighted at being able to speak so well. From this circumstance, Mrs. ——, who roomed next door, and had a great variety of lizards, as pets, very early exhibited a decided repugnance to mine, which I found it impossible to remove. She thought they were vicious. I maintained the contrary; insisted that they were a species of enlarged lizard; and that to take any thing by the tail was always a severe trial of temper. ‘Not to inquire,’ said I, ‘as to the affinity in the words cauda and chordis, (the heart and tail of all things,) I beg to remind you, Madam, how irresistible is the wag of the dog’s tail when he is pleased; how graceful the curl of the cat’s; and how earnestly the calf, that model of innocence, laboreth to raise his what little he can; and as to being held by the tail, what are the facts? The dog is indignant, the cat is furious; in short, all animals resent it as an impertinence; and I submit, could an alligator do less?’ But Mrs. —— refused to like them. I was one day taking my half dozen puffs at a cigar, (quite enough in that climate if you would avoid the siesta,) looking down from the balcony with an air of abstraction upon that tub, and puzzling myself as to what could be the particular whim, the acceptable morsel to the palate, of a young alligator, when the thought of fiddlers, the frisking, tempting inimitable fiddlers, came to my mind so easily, that I was vexed so evident a thing could have been overlooked. At that moment Bob was stirring up the bear with a long pole. ‘Bob,’ said I, shouting across the yard, ‘Bob! fiddlers!’ ‘Eh?’ said Bob. ‘Fiddlers, Sir, fiddlers, you rogue; run and get a bucket, a whole bucket full.’ The fiddlers were soon brought, and a handful of them thrown into the tub, when to my utter astonishment the alligators sidled off to high-water mark, and wholly declined their acquaintance. But here was an excitement at all events. They were not indifferent. And now, were they disgusted, or did they affect that? It was difficult to say; but the next morning the fiddlers had disappeared! If fiddlers had not been abundant in that country they would now have been at a premium, for they continued to disappear as often as they were furnished; and as evidence that they did not escape from the tub, the ‘pets’ now grew sensibly, barked louder and with more firmness, and were in some degree playful. I do not mean that they had any of that silly affectation which we see in most young animals; such as the kittenish grasping at imaginary mice, or the dog’s shaking of a stick, with the idea that it is something very vicious; fallacies all, which seriously considered are so pitiable and lamentable; I could detect nothing of that credulous nature; but sometimes, on coming suddenly upon them, I would find them lying side by side, their fore-feet put forward, and their three noses laid together on the sunny side of the tub, with an air of confidence and trust that was very interesting to witness. Indeed, there was something kindlier in it than you would think of an alligator.

As to my object in keeping them, there were various rumors afloat about town, in the utterance of which, libellous as some of them were, Mrs. —— was perhaps the loudest and most malicious; she having hinted, among other scandalous conjectures, that the soup from alligator-tail being very palatable and delicate, a speculation was afoot contemplating the supply of the northern market with that article. About this time, also, some of her lizards were missing, and thought to have found their way to the tub; but all surmises were soon cut short by the first cold night of that winter, (one of them in February,) which chilled the water so that the ‘pets’ next morning were quite stiff, and apparently dead. By careful nursing, however, two of them were thoroughly revived, and made to articulate distinctly; but having no thought of a second cold night in the same winter, the waters closed over them again, a thin ice shut out the air, (they had not presence of mind, I suspect, to come to the surface,) and on the morning of the second day they were quite gone. And now, in closing this history, I do not want to be uncharitable, but I suspect Mrs. —— was privately rejoiced at their death; indeed, the whole community, otherwise very sensible and not devoid of sentiment, seemed to regret the circumstance much less than would have been expected.

It will be seen, Mr. Editor, from this account of the alligator, that I can say nothing as to what habits he may form in after-life; what evil he may learn, what original sins he may develope and mature; what temptations his power and bloody instincts may present to him; what evil resorts he may be driven to, in an ungrateful world, when he has become case-hardened and impenetrable to outward impressions; or, in short, what contempt he may acquire for the fiddlers and cabbage-leaves of his early days. And what he may do in those vast lagoons where he is undoubtedly master, or in the black depths of the St. Johns, where the water hides the blood he may shed, and the long moss screens him from the tiger; what orgies he may celebrate, what abominations he may practice, when there is none to call him to account; all this I can only conjecture; but I conjecture on the charitable side. In the upper waters of the St. Johns I have seen them in their death-throes; huge animals, at least fifteen feet long; seen them in scores at a time, some swimming about, some tumbling in clumsily, some sprawled on shore, apparently asleep, and some raising their black claws as if to call down vengeance upon us, gnashing their teeth, and lashing the water in their death-agony; but the howlings and smothered thunder that others tell of, came not to my ears; and the exhibition, so furious to others, was to me only the involuntary muscular action of pain and dissolution. Extravagant stories are told of their great strength and tenacity of life, and wonderful exploits are recounted by the great mass who have lived since Agamemnon. While staying over night, not in Egypt, but at the plantation of Doctor W——, a short time before his place was despoiled by the Indians, he related an encounter, which though not so remarkable, is undoubtedly true to the letter.

The doctor in his earlier days had been in some sharp battles against Napoleon, having been a staff-officer to one of the smaller kings of Europe; and although an exceedingly kind and benevolent man, his skirmishing faculties were still lively and unimpaired. In this fight, which came off at Indian River, he of course commanded the engagement, but as it proved, not with his usual success. The alligator, one of enormous size, was so far from the river when discovered, that the doctor had time to call in his gang of men, and make a general attack. Seizing an axe in one hand, and shouting ‘Charge!’ to his men, all who could get a footing mounted the back of the animal, with a view to stay proceedings till the doctor could despatch him; but to their surprise, the old fellow walked off with his burden with apparent ease. The doctor then waived off his men, and mounting himself, drove the bit of the axe through his hide, probably at the fore-shoulder; but from wrenching, or some other cause, it was found impossible to remove it. The doctor hinted that the heart clasped the bit by strong muscular exertion, with a view to his own private use; but this being speculative merely, I only mention the fact. As he was now nearing the water rapidly, a rope was slipped round the butt of the helm, a quick turn made around a stiff sapling on the bank of the river, and all hands made fast to the rope. At this moment, just as they were all braced, the alligator made his plunge into the water, and the sapling, I don’t remember how large, very large however, came up by the roots, and they all went to the bottom together! Some of the negroes, however, came back.

Another Doctor W——, who, unlike his venerated namesake, still lives to relate the marvels of a life unusually varied, has a remarkable store of incidents, encounters, and other matters, quite alligatorical. The doctor will forgive me, if I mistake, but I think he told me that the monsters in the neighborhood of his plantation had in several instances stolen his butcher-knives and chopping instruments; a fact which he made quite certain, by seeing them use the knives in a family way on the other side of the lagoon; and that on one occasion, he was quite astounded at seeing a large alligator making tracks for the water on three legs, with a pitch-fork and crow-bar in his jaws, and a hand-saw erect and glittering from his right arm! Upon these last, however, I do not pronounce.

And now to sum up my opinion of the animal. I believe that notwithstanding these astounding tales, he is rather peaceful and well-disposed, when properly trained, but hath very strangely fixed upon him an idea, not entirely original with him, that the world owes him a living; that he makes drafts that way to an advanced age; that he is non-committal, except upon such matters as he can commit to his private keeping; that his stomach in that respect has great capacity; that he is not over-nice in his diet; is plain and unassuming; is not puffed up, seeing that his hide will not much admit of it; and if he resemble himself to a log adrift, he considereth not what foolish creatures may alight upon his back, or swim within his jaws; he barks no invitation, nor does he flourish with his tail to excite their curiosity; and if they happen in his way when he has done yawning, it is their business, not his.

Lastly, what do I say to the prevalent notion that the waters of the St. Johns, which resemble brandy and water, half-and-half, are colored by the blood of his victims? Answer—it is not so. I have drank of those waters for weeks together (stopping occasionally) and even deepened the color, in a manner peculiar to those who travel in those parts, without feeling half as sanguinary as I do at this moment, from the bare thought of that foul and malicious slander.

These are the matters of faith; the facts, I give you are but two, and perhaps only true of his younger days; that he eateth fiddlers in secret, and dies in a temperature of twenty-six Fahrenheit.

AN EPITAPH.

This shell of stone within it keepeth

One who died not, but sleepeth;

And in her quiet slumber seemeth

As if of heaven alone she dreameth.

Her form it was so fair in seeming,

Her eyes so heavenly in their beaming,

So pure her heart in every feeling,

So high her mind in each revealing,

A band of angels thought that she

Was one of their bright company;

And on some homeward errand driven,

Hurried her too away to Heaven.

THE CHURCH BELL.

I.

That old church bell is dear to me,

When from its ancient tower

Its silvery tones sound solemnly,

To tell the service-hour;

It seems as if it almost spoke

The words of trustful prayer,

And promised to the spirit broke

With sin, a pardon there.

II.

I love it when it sadly tolls

The knell of life departed,

And gently murmurs sympathy

To mourners broken-hearted;

It whispers of a spirit passed

From doubt and pain and care,

And tells of heaven, and bids them hope

To meet the lost one there.

III.

I love it when its merry peal

Welcomes the coming day,

And rouses me from peaceful sleep

My gratitude to pay;

It bids me pray for strength to do

My daily duty given;

To hope that each successive morn

May find me nearer heaven.

VI.

Then dear is that old bell to me,

And dear its merry peal;

For ’tis a voice of sympathy

With human woe and weal;

Whether my heart with sadness sink,

Or light with pleasure dance,

It speaks to me in every tone

Of Life’s significance.

J. O. W.

THE QUOD CORRESPONDENCE.

Harry Harson.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Harry Harson strode into his own house, with his jolly face brimful of cheerfulness. It shone out of his eyes; out of the corners of his half-closed mouth; and even out of his full, round double chin. Every part of him seemed glowing with it; and no sooner had he got in his parlor, than he flung his hat on the table; snapped his fingers over his head in perfect ecstacy; made the hazardous experiment of a slow pirouette around the table, and concluded his performances by making two or three passes with his cane at the nose of Spite, who had been watching his conduct with an air of extreme surprise, not unmingled with disapprobation. The attack upon himself was carrying the joke too far; and after several ineffectual attempts to avoid the point of the cane, with a discontented grumble, between a whine and a growl, he retreated under an old side-board, sadly troubled with misgivings as to the state of his master’s intellect.

‘Ha, ha! old pup! you don’t understand the science of fence; but don’t take it hard. I’ve got a drop of comfort in store for you; for we’re to have a blow-out, Spite—a real, regular, out-and-out blow-out—ha! ha! And you shall be under the table during the whole of it,’ exclaimed Harson, rubbing his hands together, and chuckling with indescribable glee. ‘I’ll speak about it at once.’ He opened the door and bawled out, in a voice that made the old house shake: ‘Hallo! there, Martha, Martha, come here, quick!’

A frantic rush across the kitchen was heard, succeeded by a violent clatter of slip-shod shoes through the entry; for Martha, since the late burglary, being haunted in idea by shabby looking gentlemen with pistols in their pockets, and dark lanterns under their arms, even in broad daylight, was on the look-out for emergencies, and had every thing ready for speedy egress to the street, either through the front door or the cellar window; and the tone of Harson’s voice being that of a man in extremity, had such an effect upon her, that when she reached the door, she could only gasp out:

‘Lor’ me! is they here ag’in?’

‘Who?’ demanded Harson, not a little surprised at the pale face of his housekeeper.

‘The robbers.’

‘Poh, poh, nonsense!’ replied he, perhaps not a little annoyed by the reflection that his own manner had contributed to her mistake. ‘There are no greater thieves here than our two selves. Perhaps I did speak rather loud; but I was not thinking of what I was about. I shall have some friends to dine with me to-morrow, and you must get things ready for them. There may be six, or eight, or a dozen; damme! I don’t know how many; but have enough for twenty; d’ye hear?’

Martha curtseyed, at the same time intimating in a faint tone, that she did hear; for she had not entirely recovered from the embarrassment attendant on the precipitancy of her advent into his presence.

‘And hark ye!’ continued Harson, warming as he went on; ‘Frank’s the very devil and all; we’ll tap the cask in the corner of the cellar. It’s prime stuff, which I’ve kept for some great occasion; and this is a glorious one. And there’s the fat saddle of mutton, hanging in the store room: we’ll have that. It’ll be the very thing for the half-starved boy we’ve found; and bring down a bottle or two of the red-seal wine; that of 1812. It’ll wake up old Dick Holmes, and make him ten years younger. There’s no fear of giving him the gout. Ha, ha! Dick Holmes with the gout! I’d like to see that!’ exclaimed he, bursting out into a broad laugh at the bare idea of such a catastrophe. ‘Well, well,’ added he, after a minute’s consideration, ‘you may go, Martha. Upon the whole, I think I’ll get the things myself, and go to market too. There, that’s all.’

Harson’s spirits however were too exuberant to permit him to remain quiet; for after he had returned to the room, drawn a chair to the fire, thrown on a few sticks of wood, seated himself with a foot on each andiron, folded his hands complacently over his abdomen, and fixed his eyes upon the clock, as if it were a settled thing that he was to retain this attitude for at least an hour, or perhaps a year, he suddenly started up, thrust his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, and walked up and down the room, whistling with all his might; but even by whistling, he was unable to work off his surplus of buoyancy. It was evidently gaining ground upon him, do what he would. He had reached his present state by rapid stages. From a feeling of complacency he had passed to one of high satisfaction; from that to one of mirthfulness; thence he advanced rapidly to one of joviality; and he was now fast verging upon one of uproariousness. Something must be done! Excessive steam bursts a boiler; why should not a similar surplus of delight burst a man? He wouldn’t risk it! He must find some vent for it. Ha! ha! It just occurred to him that the widow hadn’t heard the news. He clapped on his hat, seized his cane, and sallied out into the street, in his haste shutting in Spite, who had started to follow him, and who yelped mournfully for an hour afterward, to the great edification of a thin maiden lady, who resided next door, and was indulging herself with a nervous head-ache.

There must have been something in the expression of Harson’s face which bore the stamp of his feelings; for as he trudged along, with a free independent air, striding as lustily as if only twenty instead of sixty years had passed over his head, and as if every sinew were as well strung, and every muscle as firm as ever; not a few turned to take a second look at his hearty, honest face; for such an one was not often met with; and as they did so, observed: ‘There goes a jolly old cock.’

Rap! rap! rap! went the head of his cane against the door of Mrs. Chowles’s blinking old house; but he was too much at home to think of waiting for a reply, and had gone through the ceremony only for the purpose of removing from his entrance all appearance of being underhanded or surreptitious; for no sooner had he knocked with one hand, than with the other he raised the latch and walked without hesitation toward the widow’s little parlor.

‘Ah, ha! my visit will be a surprise to her!’ thought he, as he took the knob of the door in his hand. He was a true prophet. A faint scream escaped the lady, for she was opening the door to come out at the very moment he was doing the same to enter; and as the movements of both were rapid, the lady precipitated herself into his arms, which in a most unexpected manner closed about her, while three hearty smacks were deposited on her forehead before she well knew where she was.

‘Mr. Harson!’ exclaimed she, extricating herself, though without any appearance of anger; ‘is it you?’

‘By Jove, I believe it is!’ replied Harson. ‘If it isn’t, it’s some gay fellow of twenty or thereabout, for I haven’t been so young for thirty years as I am to-day.’

Mrs. Chowles saw from his manner, and knew from the unusual hour of his visit, that there was something on his mind which he had come to communicate; and as she was not of that class who take pleasure in keeping others in suspense, especially when she was liable to be a fellow-sufferer, she drew an easy chair to the fire, and taking a seat in another, said: ‘Sit down, Harry. Now, what is it? what ails you?’

‘What ails me?’ exclaimed her visitor, turning his round joyous countenance to her; ‘look at me. Don’t you see what a boy I’ve grown; how the wrinkles have gone from my cheeks, and how clear and bright my eye is! Look at me, from top to toe. See how jolly I am, and hear how loud and lusty my laugh is: Ha! ha! ha!’

The lady did look at him; and did observe all the peculiarities to which he called her attention; and did listen to his loud ringing laugh; and then, not knowing what to make of him, drew away.

‘Aha! widow, you’re frightened at finding yourself alone with such a gay fellow!’ said he, laughing still more merrily. ‘Well, well, don’t be alarmed, for I’m not in the least dangerous; and to tell the truth, I am so overjoyed to-day that I may be indulged in a little foolery. But I’ll keep you no longer in suspense. You recollect little Annie, the little child who fled to my house for protection?’

‘Yes; well?’

‘And you remember too, how often I told you that that poor starved, cast-off little thing looked to me like one born for a better destiny, and like one who had seen brighter times; and how often you ridiculed me, when I spoke of the faint recollections which still flitted through her mind of sunnier hours; and how you said that they were merely dreams, and that I was almost as great a child as she was, to attach any weight to them; though you admitted—I’ll give you credit for that—you did admit that she was a beautiful, good little thing, and worthy to belong to the best in the land. And when I said that Providence never would have sent such a frail being as that into the world as a beggar’s brat, you told me, on the contrary, that He might have cast the lot of that child, frail, feeble, sickly as she was, amid the very outcasts of the earth for wise purposes, which we never could fathom; and that I had no right to reason in that way on the subject, or to comment on His doings. And there, widow,’ added he solemnly, ‘you were right, and I was very wrong. But I was correct in my surmises as to the child. She was born for a brighter destiny, even than my humble roof; although,’ added he, his voice somewhat choked, ‘she’ll never be where they’ll love her more. But it’s all right, and she must go; for her parents are discovered. They are of the best in the land; she is not a beggar’s brat. Her brother too, is found; a miserably, thin hollow-eyed fellow; but we’ll put flesh on him. This is not all,’ added he, ‘every body seems in luck to-day. Old Jacob Rhoneland has escaped scathless out of Rust’s clutches. Rust himself is on his way to the devil post-haste, and there is nothing left to be done but to heal the breach between Jacob and Ned. This matter settled, I hope to see Kate’s cheeks once more plump and round and rosy. I hope not only to see them, but to kiss them too. I’m not too old to fancy such things, I can tell you; and now, widow, hadn’t I a right to be a little boisterous? Ah! I see that you think me excusable; but bring me a pipe, and I’ll give you all the particulars over that. I’m a little thirsty, too; for I’ve already told a long story, and have yet a longer one to tell.’

The pipe was produced; the small three-legged table was placed at his side, to support his elbow; and Harson, having carefully lighted his pipe, suffered the smoke to eddy about his nose, while he arranged his ideas, and cleared his throat; and then he entered into a full and faithful detail of the proceedings which had been taken to unmask the villany of Rust; and the various steps and precautions which had finally led to success.

It was a pleasant sight to see two such persons as Harson and his crony, both in the autumn of life, but with the charities of the heart yet green and unwithered, talking and gossipping together, with eyes bright and beaming with mutual admiration; each fully aware of the foibles of the other, but carefully indulgent to them; for each knew that the heart of the other was an odd casket, encasing a gem of the noblest kind, from which radiated love, charity, and benevolence to man. Oh! Harry, Harry! how joyously and yet mildly you looked into that widow’s dark liquid eyes; and how gently and confidingly she returned that look! What a risk you both ran! Had you and she been but a few years younger, had either of you cherished a whit less tenderly the memory of those who had once been all in all to you, and whose forms were slumbering under the green sod, that widow might have been a wife, and Harry Harson no longer a stout, sturdy old bachelor; for it cannot be denied, that he did become a little animated as he proceeded; and that he did take the widow’s hand in his, and did squeeze it, perhaps with a little too much freedom, and did look into her eyes, as if he loved her with his whole soul and body into the bargain; nor can it be denied that she was pleased with these tokens of esteem, or love, or friendship, or whatever else she might have thought them; for she did not withdraw her hand, and she smiled when he smiled; and there certainly was a strong sympathy apparent in their looks; and even when in the fervor of his feelings he held his pipe between his teeth to free the hand which held it, and deliberately squeezed both of her hands in his, still she did not appear embarrassed, nor vexed; and when he had released it, quietly went on with her sewing, as composedly as if what he had just done was quite usual, and a matter of course.

‘And now, Mrs. Chowles,’ said Harson, as he concluded his narrative; ‘upon the strength of our success we are to have a jollification to-morrow at my house; and we’ll have Dick Holmes there, and Kate, and Ned Somers, and Kate’s father. He must make up with Ned then, if not before. He knows he was wrong, and he must give up.’

‘But will he?’ inquired the widow, anxiously. ‘You know Jacob’s a wrong-headed old man, in some things. Will he?’

‘Wont he?’ ejaculated Harson, with a peculiar wink and nod of satisfaction, as if he and himself were on excellent terms, and understood what they were about perfectly well. ‘I tell you what it is,’ added he, in a more grave tone; ‘Jacob has had his own way, or rather Michael Rust’s way, in this matter, too long. He shall have it no longer. He shall not break his child’s heart. I will not permit it.’ He took his pipe from his mouth, and slapped his knee emphatically. ‘Have you observed no change in the girl, since then? If you have not, I have. She is still the same devoted, affectionate child to that warped old man that she always was; but look at her face and form, and listen to her voice. She was once the gayest, merriest little creature that ever lived. It threw sunshine into one’s heart only to look at her; and when she spoke, did you ever hear a bird whose voice was half so joyous? Poor thing! when she laughs now, it makes my heart ache. It’s like the smile of one dying, when he is trying to whisper hope to those who are weeping over his death-bed. God bless her! and how should it be otherwise? But no matter; the worst is past. And now,’ said he, ‘I must be gone. I came here to tell you the story, and to ask you to dine with us; and between you and me, perhaps you had better come early in the day, and keep an eye over Martha; for the idea of a dinner party has quite frightened her; and there are so many little things to be done, which I know nothing about, and which you understand, and without which we should have every thing helter-skelter, that you must come, or I’ll never forgive you.’ Harry made this last menace with so fierce an air, and his mouth pursed up in so ferocious a manner, although his eyes were dancing with fun, that the lady consented at once.

‘It’s well for you that you did,’ said Harson, rising and putting on his hat; ‘if you hadn’t, I don’t know what I should have done; but it would have been something dreadful. I’m a terrible fellow when fairly roused.’ Then shaking the lady’s hand, as if he intended to dislocate her shoulders, he put his cane under his arm and went out.

‘Ha! ha! old Jacob! you and I must have a tussle. Ha! ha!’ exclaimed he, still carrying his cane under his arm, and his hands under his coat tails, ‘you must hear a little of what I think. A few words of wholesome advice will do you no harm, and will rub off the rust that old age has fastened upon you.’

With this hostile resolution upon his tongue, the old man made the best of his way to Rhoneland’s house. Jacob was there, dozing in his chair, with his white locks hanging loosely over his shoulders; and Kate was sitting at his side engaged in sewing. She was paler than usual; and there was a nervous restlessness in her manner, which did not escape the quick glance of Harson. He thought too that she seemed somewhat thinner than she was wont to be. It might be mere suspicion, but still he thought so.

‘It’s too bad,’ muttered he; ‘but I’ll set matters right, or my name’s not Harry Harson.’

There was something in the hearty greeting of the old fellow, as he took her hands in his and called her his bright-eyed girl, so full of happiness that it was impossible not to catch the same feeling as he spoke; and even Jacob, as he felt the cordial grasp of his hand, assured himself, and assumed something like a cheerful smile.

‘Well, Kate,’ said Harson, drawing a chair between her and her father; ‘I’ve news for you; and for you too, my old fellow,’ said he, turning to Rhoneland; ‘we’ve used Rust up.’

Jacob stared at him, smiled faintly and half doubtfully, and then sank back in his chair without speaking.

‘Do you hear me?’ exclaimed Harson, seizing him by the collar and shaking him; ‘do you hear me? Why don’t you jump up and hurrah at the downfall of such a scoundrel? Ha! ha! We’ve been on his track for months; but we’ve run him down at last; and then he made a virtue of necessity, and told all—all about the children, and about you, and about Ned; all lies, all lies—every word of them: Ned he swore was as honest a fellow as ever lived, or something to that effect. You, he admitted, had committed no forgery; not a word of truth in it; but all invented, to force you to consent to his marriage with my own little sweet-heart, Kate. God bless me! how near I was to losing her! Perhaps you don’t know that I intend marrying her myself? Why don’t you get up now, and hurrah? Confound it, I never saw such people in all my life. Halloh! by Jove! Kate, quick! some water! I swear, the old fellow has fainted!’

As he spoke, Rhoneland’s head fell back, and the color forsook his cheeks. Harson caught him, while Kate ran for water and brandy, a small quantity of which being poured into his mouth, soon brought him to himself. Having waited until he was sufficiently composed to listen, Harson commenced from the beginning of his story, and detailed to both of his listeners much that they already knew, and not a little which they had never dreamed of; the causes which had first led to the enmity between Grosket and Rust, and then, step by step, what they had done to detect and bring to light his villany. ‘Rust manœuvred well and skilfully,’ said he, ‘for he was a bold, reckless man, who stuck at nothing, and fought to the last. It is doubtful whether he would not have got the better of us in the end, had not a sudden misfortune fallen upon him, which prostrated his energies and broke his hard heart. After that, he was no longer the same man; but confessed every thing, and among other things, that it had been his intention to become the husband of Kate, and finding that you were opposed to it, he tried the effect of a display of wealth upon you. This failed. Then he resolved to see what fear could do; and threatened to have you indicted for forgery; and admitting that you were innocent, he yet showed so clearly how he could support his charge, and succeed in blasting your character, that you shrunk from collision with him: still you would not consent to sacrifice your child, although you dared not give him such an answer as would shut out all hope. There was another obstacle in his way. This was a certain young fellow, who as well as Rust, had an eye on Kate, and whom perhaps Kate did not think the worst man in the world. Rust determined to be rid of him; so he basely slandered him to you; and you, not suspecting Rust’s veracity, as the knowledge which you already had of his character should have induced you to do, rashly forbade his rival the house; and I am sorry to say, added harsh words to the wrong which you were already committing. I need not tell you who that young man was. He came to me shortly afterward and told me what had occurred. He’s a noble fellow, for not one hard word or epithet did he breathe against you. He said he was aware that for a long time back some person had been endeavoring to poison your mind against him. He had observed it in the gradual change of your manner, and in your avoiding his society. He had hoped, he said, that in time, when you found out that his character was fair and irreproachable, that these hard feelings would wear off, and you could again meet as heretofore. But this was not to be. Instead of diminishing, your hostility to him increased, until one day when he was in your own house, you used language to him which left him no alternative but to quit it forever. The charges which you made against him were very grave, Jacob, and very vile; and when you made them you had no right to withhold the name of the person on whose authority you accused him; but you did; and although Ned might and did suspect one person, Michael Rust, to be the kind friend to whom he owed your ill will, yet he had no proof of it that would justify him in calling him to account. Ned had a hard task before him; for the charge you made against him was that of harboring evil thoughts and of cherishing unfair designs against your child. It was a serious charge, and one that he could not refute; for a man’s thoughts are not susceptible of proof; all that he can do in justification, is to point to his past life and say: ‘Judge by that;’ and unless Ned could impeach the character of his traducer, of whom he was then ignorant, but who now stands revealed in the person of Michael Rust, as great a scoundrel as ever lived, he had no alternative but to submit, and to hope that time would exculpate him. Now Jacob, even supposing Rust had not confessed that the tales which he had told you respecting Ned were calumnies, is there any thing in Ned’s past life to justify the suspicion you have cherished against him? Answer candidly, and you will answer ‘No.’ Rust’s motive was clear enough; he feared Somers, and wished to drive from you one who might be a friend in time of need, and who might one day stand as a shield between you and his dark purposes. Come, Jacob, Rust has confessed all; what he did, what his motives were; and now, tell me, whether you cannot say, from the bottom of your heart, ‘Ned Somers, I have wronged you?’’

He paused, and looked earnestly at Rhoneland, while every feature glowed with the fervor of his feelings. ‘Come, Jacob, what do you say?’

There was one other person too who leaned forward to catch the reply; but Rhoneland answered:

‘She’s my only child, and she’s very dear to me. It was a cruel suspicion, and perhaps I did act hastily. I will not say that I did not, for I was greatly excited, and said many things that I have since forgotten. But it was better that he should go. Wasn’t it, Kate?’

He turned to his daughter, took her hand, and repeated his question. ‘Wasn’t it better that he should keep away Kate?’

Kate’s voice trembled as she asked: ‘What harm did he do, father, in coming here? If his character is fair, why should he not come?’

Her father eyed her with an uneasy look. In truth, he feared Ned’s presence; for he knew that he loved Kate, and that she reciprocated the feeling; and with the selfishness which old age sometimes brings with it, he was unwilling that she should care for another than himself, or that another should have a claim upon her. At last, he replied rather sharply: ‘The reason why he should not come, is because I don’t want him.’

Kate drew back, and said not another word; but Harson saw from her compressed lip that the reply had cut deeply; and catching her eye, he made a sign to her to leave them. Kate took the hint, and went out; and Harson, after looking Rhoneland steadily in the face for some time, said, ‘Jacob, you have given your reason why Ned Somers should not come here. It’s a very poor one, and not such as I expected. Now I’ll give you mine why he should: Kate loves him, and he loves her.’

Jacob knit his brows, but made no reply.

‘And let me tell you, too, that unless you do consent, your child will die. I’m in earnest. There are some who fall in love, as they call it, a hundred times; bestowing their affections, such as they are, sometimes on one, sometimes on another; until at last perhaps the owner of a handsome face offers his hand and gets in return the tattered thing they call their heart. God help me! this is called love. But thank God, for the credit of human nature, there are others who love as they should—purely, nobly, with their whole soul. These love once, and only once; and wo to the man who unwisely, or for his own selfish ends, crosses them! The sin of a broken heart too often lies at his door. Jacob, you’re an old man; but you are not too old to have forgotten the wife who once was yours. You loved her well, my dear old fellow, I know it,’ said he, taking his hand. ‘She deserved it too. Kate is very like her. What would have been your feelings had any one stepped in between you and her?’

Rhoneland grew very pale, and the tears came in his eyes.

‘Come, come, Jacob, I’ll not press the matter now; but you must reflect on what I’ve said; and you must not forget how much Kate has at stake. Ned’s a glorious fellow, and will make your house very cheery.’

‘Well, I’ll think of it,’ replied Rhoneland, after a short pause.

‘Do; that’s a good fellow. I’ll consider it a personal favor; and I do think you owe me something for the pains I’ve taken in aiding to rid you of that rascal, Rust.’

‘I do indeed owe you much,’ replied Rhoneland, earnestly, ‘and I am sincerely grateful.’

‘Well, well, we wont speak of that; only reflect on what I have just said; and by the way,’ added he, rising to go, ‘you must oblige me in another matter. Two or three friends are to dine with me to-morrow; you and Kate must be of the party.’

‘We will,’ was the reply.

‘Good! Now go up stairs and comfort Kate.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

A bright glowing day was the following one, the day of the dinner party; and right gladly did the golden sun beam out from the deep fathomless sky, as if from his lofty look-out he were aware of what was going on in this world below, and rejoiced in the failure of the evil machinations which had been so long disturbing the tranquillity of the worthy individuals who have figured in this history. And fortunate it was that neither clouds nor rain obscured his face, for had the latter been added to the cares which the approaching dinner-party had already accumulated upon the culinary department of Harson’s household, the house-keeper in the tall cap with stiff ribbons would have gone stark-mad. Miserable woman! how she worked and fumed, and panted and tugged, and kneaded and rolled, and stuffed and seasoned, and skewered and basted, and beat, on that day! From soup to dessert and from dessert to soup, over and over again, she toiled; fish, flesh, fowl, vegetables, gravies, were all mingled in her head helter-skelter. She had dreamed of nothing else during the whole of the previous night, excepting a short interlude in the aforesaid dream, when she was night-mared by a fat pig, bestrode by a half-starved boy, who was all eyes. And now, as the day waned and the hour of the dinner approached, her ferment increased, until, to use a metaphor, she had worked herself up into a mental lather. Her voice was in every quarter, and so was her quick, hurried step. She was in the entry, up stairs, in the pantry, in the kitchen and in the cellar; at the street-door giving orders to the grocer’s dirty boy to bring the cinnamon and allspice, and not to forget the sugar and butter, and to be sure to recollect the anchovies and pickles. The next moment she was scolding the butcher, because he had been late with the chops and cutlets; and every five minutes she thrust her head into the room to look at the clock, lest Time should steal a march upon her. Eleven, twelve, one, two o’clock. The tumult increased. Mrs. Chowles, punctual to her promise, made her appearance; forthwith dived into the kitchen, and did not emerge until dinner-time. The only person utterly unmoved was Harson, who had attended to his part of the business by looking after the wine, and who now sat with his feet to the fire, resolved to trouble his head about nothing, and apparently more asleep than awake. At times, however, he rose and went to one corner of the room, where a small boy who seemed to be worn down by suffering, lay coiled up and sound asleep on a chair-cushion. The old man bent over him, gently parted the hair from his forehead, and then rising up, somewhat red in the face from the exertion, rubbed his hands one over the other by way of indicating that all was as it should be; stole back to his seat on tiptoe, lest he should awaken him, and forthwith relapsed into his former state of dreamy abstraction. Nothing could arouse him; not even the house-keeper when she dashed into the room with a face at roasting heat, and demanded the key of the wine-cellar. It was handed to her mechanically, and mechanically pocketed when she brought it back.

But the hour of dinner drew near; and a smell began to pervade the house which aroused Harson at last. He sat up in his chair and smacked his lips; and Spite, who for an undue curiosity as to the contents of a small pasty, exhibited early in the day, had been escorted into the room by the house-keeper aided by a broomstick, sat under the same chair licking his lips and slavering profusely.

Again the red face of the house-keeper was projected in the room, and as instantly withdrawn. It wanted half an hour to the time. In and out again; it wanted twenty-five minutes. In and out again; twenty minutes. The matter was growing serious, and there was something frantic in her looks. But this time Harson caught her, and told her that it was time to put an end to that performance, as he expected his friends every minute; that she must guess as to the time; and that he would ring when she was to serve the dinner.

A rap at the door! and before it could be answered, a heavy step crossed the ante-chamber.

‘There’s Frank,’ said Harson, rising and facing the door; and in came the doctor. But he was not alone; for close behind him followed Ned Somers, dressed in his best. Harry shook hands with them; but before he had time to do more than that, Jacob Rhoneland entered with Kate on his arm, looking very rosy from her walk.

What could it be that caused Ned’s heart to flounce and dance about as wildly as a caged bird; and his cheek to grow at first pale, and then burning hot; and his lips to quiver, and his voice to tremble so that he could scarcely speak; and for a moment was unable even to tell Kate that he was glad to see her? Whatever the complaint was, it was infectious; for Kate’s heart certainly did beat very rapidly; and her color went and came, until it settled into a deep burning blush, as she turned and saw Ned there, looking at her as if he had eyes for nothing else.

‘Good morning Mr. Somers,’ said she, at last, in a tone that was neither firm nor clear.

‘Call me Ned, Kate,’ said he in a low voice; ‘don’t say Mr. Somers. Wont you shake hands with me? There can be no harm in that.’ He extended his hand; she placed hers in it, and at the same time whispered in his ear, (for Harry, seeing that there was some by-play going on, kept Jacob busy,) ‘Speak to father as if nothing had happened. I think he’s inclined to make up. Do, Ned.’

Turning from him, she commenced talking to the Doctor, while Somers, after a moment’s hesitation, went up to the old man and offered his hand.

Rhoneland hesitated, for he experienced the reluctance which old age always evinces to succumb to those younger in years; and it was not very pleasant to admit that his conduct toward Ned had been wrong. But there was something in the expression of Ned’s face, and even in the way in which he offered his hand, which showed that the past was forgiven; and beside that, what had already happened could not be mended by holding out; so Jacob grasped his hand, and said frankly:

‘Ned, my young friend, I wronged thee sadly. I hope you will pardon it.’

‘That’s right, Jacob! Spoken like a whole-hearted old fellow, as you are!’ exclaimed Harson, patting him on the shoulder. ‘To be sure he will forgive you, and thank you for the chance. If he doesn’t he’s not what I take him to be. Don’t you pardon him?’ demanded he, turning to Somers, and at the same time casting a quizzical look in the direction of Kate.

Ned laughed; said something about pardon being unnecessary, where no offence had been taken; and then commenced talking about indifferent matters.

Presently Holmes came in; and after him Grosket; and one or two cronies of Harson’s; and then the little girl; so that the room became quite full. The boy too, aroused by the noise of talking, awoke; stared wildly around him, and though a boy of genteel lineage, evinced a great distaste to mingling in society; and fought manfully to retain his position in the corner, when Harson attempted to lead him out. His sister endeavored, in an undertone, to impress upon him the propriety of adapting his manners to the change in his situation; but it must be confessed that her success was but indifferent; and it is a matter of some doubt whether he would ever have emerged, had not a tall, awkward boy, (a second cousin of the housekeeper, and apprenticed to a tailor,) who had been borrowed to officiate as waiter on this eventful occasion, thrust his head in the door and remarked, ‘Cousin Martha says you may come to dinner just as quick as you like,’ and forthwith disappeared, slamming the door after him, and clattering across the entry as if shod with paving-stones.

This aroused the company; and this too emboldened the small boy, who being restrained by his sister from rushing in the room before any one else, nevertheless crowded in, and secured a seat at the table, opposite the best dish.

What a sight! A table loaded with fish and flesh and fowl; glittering and glowing with cleanliness; linen as white as snow, and plates and dishes that glistened and shone until you could see your face in them, while the steam alone, which arose from each of them, might have made a lean man fat; and then there were the decanters too, in which the ruby wine sparkled, until it made even Dick Holmes smack his lips.

‘Aha!’ ejaculated one of the neighbors, a thin, hungry fellow, with large eyes; ‘aha!’ And he snuffed up the dinner as if he intended to appropriate it all, and as if, mistaking the table and its contents for a snuff-box, he supposed his nose to be the only member destined to play a part there.

Harry paused at the head of his table, and said a short grace; and then seizing a carving knife, he plunged it forthwith into the fat saddle: right merrily the red gravy spirted out; and as he drew the knife along the bone, and cut out the long strips, the steam and savor filling the room, it was to be feared that the thin neighbor would have gone beside himself, lest his pet piece should be given to some one else before his turn came. But such a dinner as graced that table is a thing to be eaten, not spoken of; and so thought the small boy, who notwithstanding his genteel extraction, brought with him the appetite which he had acquired by education. A dreadful havoc he made in that fat saddle! It was labor lost for his sister to kick and pinch him under the table, in hopes of checking his course. He kicked backed again, but could not pinch; his hands were too busy. What eyes he had for the meats and gravies! what a deaf ear he turned to all invitations to waste his energies on bread and vegetables, or trifles of that sort! His appetite, though belonging to a child, was full grown, and needed no assistance. All that he required was quantity—and he got it.

‘Help yourself, my son,’ said Harson, actually growing hungry by seeing the child eat. ‘Don’t spare any thing.’

The boy looked up at him, and said nothing. He was a fellow of few words, but of great action; and for one of six years of age, he was a phenomenon; and displayed a capacity which would have done credit to a man or a barrel.

The first course went off, and so did a second and third. Martha had excelled herself; a cooking-stove was nothing to her. Everything was praised; and at every fresh eulogy, the tall boy was missing from his attendance on the table. He had darted to the kitchen, to communicate the intelligence to his aunt. How he enjoyed that party! how he skimmed his fingers round the plates, as he took them through the entry; sucking the ends of them so loudly, that his aunt thought that corks were flying out of the porter-bottles! He was perfectly happy. One thing alone puzzled him; that was the knotty question why people couldn’t eat every thing off the same plate.

It was remarked, that when the dinner was over, some of the guests were uncommonly mellow; and it is credibly asserted, that Dick Holmes, who had spent his life among parchment and cobwebs, had during the meal buried his mouth in the bosom of his own waistcoat, and had there been heard confidentially singing to himself a short song of an Anacreontic character. But be that as it may, when he rose from the table, his eye certainly was a little lively, and his spirits were high. Nor was there any flagging among the rest; for whether the jests were good or bad, or the songs poor, or the conversation common-place, certain it is, that a more jovial set had never met. Every one seemed to have been placed beside the person who suited him; Harry sat with Jacob on one side of him, and the widow at the head of the table, with the Doctor at her right hand; and Dick Holmes and Grosket together; and Ned and Kate, so close that their elbows touched; and Annie beside her brother; and her brother, although somewhat incommoded by his sister, directly opposite the fattest part of the saddle of mutton! And then the one or two neighbors, who knew no one except each other, seated in a knot, contrived to grow moist and merry, because the others did, and laughed because Harry did. Choice spirits! who could split their very sides, without a joke to abet them in it; weren’t they the fellows to help out a dinner party?

When they separated, it was late at night. The doctor gallantly volunteered to escort the widow to her abode, which offer was accepted without hesitation. Harry remarked that as it was a fine night, he thought he would walk too.

‘Come, Jacob, you and I will go together,’ said he, taking the old man by the arm; ‘and Ned, you look after Kate. No grumbling, but make yourself useful.’ Saying this, he trudged rapidly on, dragging the old man with him.

What passed between him and Jacob, or what took place between Ned and Kate, I cannot say; but they certainly were the two tardiest people that ever walked; for long after Harson and Rhoneland had reached the end of their journey, and stood waiting in front of Rhoneland’s door, they were not in sight; and when they did at last appear, it seemed a perfect eternity before they were within calling distance; and then even longer before they reached to the door. And although from the pace at which they had come, it might have been argued that one or the other of them was laboring under extreme debility or fatigue, yet it was a remarkable fact, that the looks of neither justified such a conclusion; for Kate appeared uncommonly lively and buoyant, and Ned seemed as if he only required two fiddlers and a tambourine to perform his part in an imaginary quadrille in the street.

‘What idlers you are!’ exclaimed Harry, as they came up! ‘As for you,’ said he, turning to Ned, ‘such a loiterer should be trusted to escort no one unless it were his grandmother or a rheumatic old lady of seventy.’

Ned Somers laughed, as he answered: ‘We don’t all walk as rapidly as you do.’

‘The more shame for you,’ exclaimed Harson. ‘Upon my life! I believe I’m younger than any of you. Look to yourself, my lad, or I may take it into my head to cut you out of a wife; and if you lose her, you won’t require the snug little legacy which I intend to leave you when I’m under ground. Come; shake hands with the girl, and bid her good night: you’ve kept her in the street long enough. Good night, Jacob—Good night, Kate.’

He took her hand, and whispered, ‘Be of good heart; your father is coming round.’

His mouth was very near her ear; and as he whispered, Ned happened to be looking at them, and thought that the communication did not stop with the whisper; and Harson himself looked very wickedly up at him, as much as to say: ‘Do you see that?—you had better have a sharp eye to your interests!’

Long and earnest was the conversation which ensued between Harson and Somers on their way home; and nobly did the character of that old man shine out, as he detailed his future views for his young friend’s welfare.

‘You need not thank me,’ said he, in reply to Ned’s warm acknowledgments. ‘The best return that I can have will be, to find you always in word and deed such that I may be proud of you; and hereafter, when I see others looking up to you, and hear you spoken of as one whose character is above all reproach, that I may say to myself: ‘Thank God, I helped to make him what he is.’ This is all that I want, Ned; and your future life will be your best acknowledgment, or will prove your heartless ingratitude. Let neither success nor failure tempt you to swerve from what your own heart tells you to be right and fair. Turn out as your schemes may, never forget to keep your motives pure; and believe me, that come what will, you’ll find an easy conscience a great comforter in the hour of trial. Your father was one of my oldest friends; a noble upright man he was; and it would have wounded him deeply that any one belonging to him should have been otherwise; and it would give me many a heavy hour if his only child did not turn out all that I expect him to be. I am right glad to learn that you are getting bravely on in your business; and as for this matter with Kate,’ said he, pausing, for they had come to where their routes separated, ‘it can easily be made right. I love her as my own child; and I would not have her thwarted for the world. I’ll see Jacob again to-morrow; and have no doubt that he will give his consent at last. Perhaps it would be better for you not to present yourself at his house too soon. Work your way back to where you were, cautiously, and say nothing to him about marrying Kate, until you and he are on your old terms of good fellowship. It wont be long, depend on it: and now, recollect what I told you a few moments ago. If you want any assistance in your business, or if a loan of a thousand or two dollars, or a good word from me, will push you on, you shall have it. Good night!’ And Harson had not gone a hundred yards, before he was whistling so loud that he might have been heard half a mile.

‘God help you, Harry!’ muttered Somers, looking after the stout, burly figure of his friend; ‘God bless your warm old heart! What a glorious world this would be, if there were more in it like you!’

LITERARY NOTICES.

Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition: Comprising a description of a Tour through Texas, and across the great South-western prairies, the Camanche and Caygüa Hunting-grounds, with an account of the suffering from want of food, losses from hostile Indians, and final capture of the Texans, and their march as prisoners to the city of Mexico. By George Wilkins Kendall. In two volumes. New-York: Harper and Brothers.

This is by far the most racy and interesting book of travels we have read for a long time. Every body is of course acquainted with the general history of the expedition; its romantic projects, its speedy defeat, and the calamitous sufferings which its members were forced to undergo. But ill-fated as it was, the rich and most amusing personal incident with which every step of its progress appears from this book to have been crowded, commends it most forcibly to our admiration. We cannot say that we should have been quite willing to accompany our friend Kendall through all the severities of his adventurous journey; nor can we refuse our sincere sympathy with him and his brave companions, in the terrible scenes through which they passed. But he has told all these adventures in so pleasing and interesting a manner, and has so sprinkled through the narrative sketches of personal incident, abounding with wit and humor, that the volumes must be read with a delight as keen as the sufferings recorded were real and severe. Mr. Kendall writes in a style admirably adapted to the narration of just such a history as he has given; it is simple and clear, aiming at nothing more than to give a plain statement of actual occurrences; and yet it is remarkably spirited, and distinguished at times by great felicity of expression. He is a capital traveller, never shrinking from any danger or difficulty, close in his observation, and gifted with a love of fun, and a ‘touch’ of humor which no extremity, however terrible or threatening, can wholly repress. The reader of the work must be continually surprised at the repeated instances which occur where this disposition is strongly manifested; and while it must have relieved to a considerable degree the sufferings which he was forced to undergo, it gives to the book increased and attractive interest. We should be glad to follow Mr. Kendall through his journey, and present copious extracts from the account he has given of its progress and incidents; but this our limits will not allow; and we can only glance at the general history of the expedition, and copy a tithe of the passages we have marked in reading the two excellent volumes he has given us.

At the opening of his book, Mr. Kendall gives us a statement of the motives which induced him to join the expedition, and an introduction to the persons of whom it was composed. His purposes, of course, were entirely pacific, growing out of a desire to recruit his health, a wish to procure new materials for writing, and a love of adventure in general. He took care to provide himself with passports from the Mexican authorities, which he naturally supposed would protect him, as an American citizen, from molestation and injury. The first part of their journey led them over the vast prairies and hunting grounds of Western Texas; and their adventurous progress is admirably sketched in his flowing narrative. Their exploits in hunting buffalo; their frights from, and encounters with, the wild Indians; their serenades from the wolves, and all the incidents by which a journey of so large a troop over ground before almost untrodden, would naturally be distinguished, are most graphically and humorously described. We copy the following interesting description of a stampede, or flight of terror, with which great numbers of horses or oxen are sometimes seized, with a humorous sketch of the exploits in this line, of one of the nags of the expedition:

‘Nothing can exceed the grandeur of the scene when a large cavallada, or drove of horses, takes a ‘scare.’ Old, weather-beaten, time-worn, and broken-down steeds—horses that have nearly given out from hard work and old age—will at once be transformed into wild and prancing colts. When first seized with that indescribable terror which induces them to fly, they seem to have been suddenly endowed with all the attributes of their original wild nature. With heads erect, tails and manes streaming in air, eyes lit up and darting beams of fright, old and jaded hacks will be seen prancing and careering about with all the buoyancy of action which characterizes the antics of young colts; then some one of the drove, more frightened than the rest, will dash off in a straight line, the rest scampering after him, and apparently gaining fresh fears at every jump. The throng will then sweep along the plain with a noise which may be likened to something between a tornado and an earthquake, and as well might feeble man attempt to arrest either of the latter.

‘Were the earth rending and cleaving beneath their feet, horses, when under the terryfying influence of a stampede, could not bound away with greater velocity or more majestic beauty of movement. I have seen many an interesting race, but never any thing half so exciting as the flight of a drove of frightened horses. The spectator, who may possibly have a nag among them which he has been unable to get into a canter by dint of spur and whip, sees his property fairly flying away at a pace that a thorough-bred racer might envy. Better ‘time,’ to all appearance, he has never seen made, and were it not that he himself is as much astounded as the horses, there might be very pretty betting upon the race.

‘On one occasion, when a closely-hobbled horse was rushing madly along the prairie under the influence of fright, his owner coolly remarked: ‘I wish I could make that critter go as fast on my own account without hobbles, as he can on his own with them—I’d gamble on him sure.’ And so it is. No simile can give the reader a fair conception of the grandeur of the spectacle, and the most graphic arrangement of words must fall far short in describing the startling and imposing effect of a regular stampede!

‘While upon this subject, I should not, perhaps, neglect to notice one of the little private stampedes my friend Falconer’s horse was in the habit of occasionally getting up, principally on his own individual account and to gratify his own peculiar tastes and desires, entirely regardless, all the while, of his master’s convenience as well as of the public safety.

‘He was a short, thick-set, scrubby, wiry nag, tough as a pine knot, and self-willed as a pig. He was moreover exceedingly lazy, as well as prone to have his own way, and take his own jog—preferring a walk or gentle trot to a canter; and so deep-rooted were his prejudices in favor of the former methods of getting over the ground, that neither whip nor spur could drive him from them. He possessed a commendable faculty of taking most especial good care of himself, which he manifested by being always found where water was nearest and the grass best, and on the whole might be termed, in the language of those who consider themselves judges of horse flesh, a ‘tolerable chunk of a pony’ for a long journey.

‘He had one bad quality however, which was continually putting his master to serious inconvenience, and on more than one occasion came near resulting seriously to all. One day we stopped to ‘noon’ close by a spring of water, and had simply taken the bridles from our horses to give them a chance to graze, when he improved the occasion to show off one of his eccentricities. Falconer had a way, as I have before stated, of packing all his scientific, cooking, and other instruments upon his horse, and on the occasion to which I have alluded, some one of them chanced to chafe or gall the pony, inducing him to give a kick up with his hinder limbs. The rattling of the pots and pans started him off immediately, and the faster he ran the more they rattled. We immediately secured our horses by catching up the lariats, and then watched the fanciful antics of the animal that had raised all the commotion.

‘He would run about ten jumps and then stop and kick up about as many times; then he would shake himself violently, and then start off again on a gallop. Every now and then a culinary or scientific instrument would be detached from its fastenings, when the infuriated pony would manage to give it a kick before it struck the ground and send it aloft again. The quadrant took the direction toward the sun without taking it; the saucepan was kicked into a stew; the thermometer was up to an hundred—inches above the ground, and fell to—worth nothing. To sum it all up, what with rearing, pitching, kicking, and galloping about, the pony was soon rid of saddle and all other incumbrances, and then went quietly to feeding, apparently well satisfied with all the trouble he had given his owner.

‘The whole affair was ludicrous in the extreme, defying description. The rattling of the tin, earthen, and other ware, as the pony snorted, kicked, and pranced about, made a noise resembling that produced at a charivari. His antics were of the most unseemly nature, too—and the cool philosophy of Mr. Falconer, as he quietly followed in the wake of the vicious animal, picking up the fragments scattered along, completed a picture which would have made the fortune of Cruikshank, had he been on the spot to take it down. Some time after this adventure the Indians stole the horse, but they made a bad bargain of it.’

There are scores of passages, describing the burning of a prairie, hunting buffaloes, fighting the Indians, camping out at night under a deluge of rain, and other scenes by which their journey was marked; but we must pass to the following account of the feelings which attend starvation, which we copy for its intrinsic interest, and as an instance of the fearful extremities to which the expedition was sometimes reduced:

‘I have never yet seen a treatise on dissertation upon starving to death; I can speak feelingly of nearly every stage except the last. For the first two days through which a strong and healthy man is doomed to exist upon nothing, his sufferings are, perhaps, more acute than in the remaining stages; he feels an inordinate, unappeasable craving at the stomach, night and day. The mind runs upon beef, bread, and other substantials; but still, in a great measure, the body retains its strength. On the third and fourth days, but especially on the fourth, this incessant craving gives place to a sinking and weakness of the stomach, accompanied by nausea. The unfortunate sufferer still desires food, but with loss of strength he loses that eager craving which is felt in the earlier stages. Should he chance to obtain a morsel or two of food, as was occasionally the case with us, he swallows it with a wolfish avidity; but five minutes afterward his sufferings are more intense than ever. He feels as if he had swallowed a living lobster, which is clawing and feeding upon the very foundation of his existence. On the fifth day his cheeks suddenly appear hollow and sunken, his body attenuated, his color an ashy pale, and his eye wild, glassy, cannibalish. The different parts of the system now war with each other. The stomach calls upon the legs to go with it in quest of food: the legs, from very weakness, refuse. The sixth day brings with it increased suffering, although the pangs of hunger are lost in an overpowering languor and sickness. The head becomes giddy; the ghosts of well-remembered dinners pass in hideous procession through the mind. The seventh day comes, bringing increased lassitude and farther prostration of strength. The arms hang listlessly, the legs drag heavily. The desire for food is still left, to a degree, but it must be brought, not sought. The miserable remnant of life which still hangs to the sufferer is a burden almost too grievous to be borne; yet his inherent love of existence induces a desire still to preserve it, if it can be saved without a tax upon bodily exertion. The mind wanders. At one moment he thinks his weary limbs cannot sustain him a mile—the next, he is endowed with unnatural strength, and if there he a certainty of relief before him, dashes bravely and strongly onward, wondering whence proceeds this new and sudden impulse.

‘Farther than this, my experience runneth not. The reader may think I have drawn a fancy sketch—that I have colored the picture too highly: now, while I sincerely trust he may never be in a situation to test its truth from actual experience, I would in all sober seriousness say to him, that many of the sensations I have just described I have myself experienced, and so did the ninety-and-eight persons who were with me from the time when we first entered the grand prairie until we reached the flock of sheep, to which more pleasing subject I will now return.’

The history of the base betrayal of the party to the Mexicans by one of their members named Lewis, gives us a picture of Mexican duplicity most vivid and striking: but it is only the prelude to cruelties more barbarous and revolting than have recently stained the acts of any but the most savage and uncultivated natives. After being disarmed, under pretence that it was only a formality, and then promised that their arms would be at once restored, they were seized and ordered to be shot; but from this they were saved by the interference of one of the Mexican officers less blood-thirsty than the rest. They were immediately started off for Santa Fé, half-starving and worn down by fatigue, and heard the bloody order given to the armed guard which attended them: ‘If any one of them pretends to be sick or tired on the road, ‘Shoot him down and bring back his ears.’’ The following extracts describe some of the scenes they were forced to witness:

‘A walk, or rather a hobble of two hours, for we were so stiff and foot-sore that we could not walk, brought us once more to the plaza or public square of San Miguel. The place was now literally filled with armed men—a few regular troops being stationed immediately about the person of Armijo, while more than nine-tenths of the so-called soldiers were miserably deficient in every military appointment. A sergeant’s guard of the regular troops was immediately detailed to take charge of our little party, and after bidding adieu to Don Jesus, as we hoped forever, we were marched to a small room adjoining the soldiers’ quarter. This room fronted on the plaza, and had a small window looking out in that direction; but the only entrance was from a door on the side. Sentinels were immediately placed at the little window and door, leading us to suppose that this was to be our regular prison-house; but we had scarcely been there ten minutes before a young priest entered at the door, and said that one of our party was to be immediately shot! While gazing at each other with looks of eager inquiry, wondering that one was to be shot and not all, and while each one of us was earnestly and painfully speculating on the question which of his fellows Armijo had singled out for a victim, the young priest raised himself on tiptoe, and looking over our heads, pointed through the windows of our close and narrow prison. We hurriedly turned our eyes in that direction, and were shocked at seeing one of our men, his hands tied behind his back, while a bandage covered his eyes, led across the plaza by a small guard of soldiers. Who the man was we could not ascertain at the time, but that he was one of the Texans was evident enough from his dress. The priest said that he had first been taken prisoner, that while attempting to escape he had been retaken, and was now to suffer death. A horrible death it was, too! His cowardly executioners led him to a house near the same corner of the square we were in, not twenty yards from us, and after heartlessly pushing him upon his knees, with his head against the wall, six of the guard stepped back about three paces, and at the order of the corporal shot the poor fellow in the back! Even at that distance the executioners but half did their barbarous work; for the man was only wounded, and lay writhing upon the ground in great agony. The corporal stepped up, and with a pistol ended his sufferings by shooting him through the heart. So close was the pistol that the man’s shirt was set on fire, and continued to burn until it was extinguished by his blood!

‘Howland’s hands were tied closely behind him, and as he approached us we could plainly see that his left ear and cheek had been cut entirely off, and that his left arm was also much hacked, apparently by a sword. The guard conducted their doomed prisoner directly by us on the left, and when within three yards of us the appearance of his scarred cheek was ghastly; but as he turned his head to speak, a placid smile, as of heroic resignation to his fate, lit up the other side of his face, forming a contrast almost unearthly. We eagerly stepped forward to address him, but the miscreants who had charge of us pushed us back with their muskets, refusing even the small boon of exchanging a few words with an old companion now about to suffer an ignominious death. Howland saw and felt the movement on our part. He turned upon us another look, a look full of brave resolution as well as resignation, and, in a low but distinct tone, uttered: ‘Good-bye, boys; I’ve got to suffer. You must——’ But the rest of the sentence died on his lips, for he was now some yards in the rear of us, and out of hearing.

‘The guard who had charge of us now wheeled us round, and marched us in the same route taken by our unfortunate guide, and within ten yards of him. A more gloomy procession cannot be imagined. With Howland in advance, we were now conducted to the plaza, and halted close by the spot where, in plain sight, lay the body of our recently-murdered companion. A bandage was placed over the eyes of the new victim, but not until he had seen the corpse of his dead comrade. Worlds would we have given could we be permitted to exchange one word with our unoffending friend—to receive his last, dying request—yet even this poor privilege was denied us. After the cords which confined his arms had been tightened, and the bandage pulled down so as to conceal the greater part of his face, Howland was again ordered to march. With a firm, undaunted step he walked up to the place of execution, and there, by the side of his companion, was compelled to fall upon his knees with his face towards the wall. Six of the guard then stepped back a yard or two, took deliberate aim at his back, and before the report of their muskets died away poor Howland was in eternity! Thus fell as noble, as generous, and as brave a man as ever walked the earth.’

The following passage narrates another barbarity of the same character:

‘Just as we were starting, a man named John McAllister, a native of Tennessee and of excellent family, complained that one of his ankles was badly sprained, and that it was utterly impossible for him to walk. The unfortunate man was naturally lame in the other ankle, and could never walk but with difficulty and with a limp. On starting, he was now allowed to enter a rude Mexican cart, which had been procured by the Alcalde of Valencia for the purpose of transporting some of the sick and lame prisoners; but before it had proceeded a mile upon the road it either broke down or was found to be too heavily loaded. At all events, McAllister was ordered by Salazar to hobble along as best he might, and to overtake the main body of prisoners, now some quarter of a mile in advance. The wretch had frequently told those who, from inability or weakness, had fallen behind, that he would shoot them rather than have the march delayed; not that there was any necessity for the hot haste with which we were driven, but to gratify his brutal disposition did he make these threats. Although he had struck, and in several cases severely beaten, many of the sick and lame prisoners, we could not believe that he was so utterly destitute of feeling, so brutal, as to murder a man in cold blood whose only fault was that he was crippled and unable to walk. He could easily have procured transportation for all if he had wished, and that he would do so rather than shoot down any of the more unfortunate we felt confident: how much we mistook the man!

‘On being driven from the cart, McAllister declared his inability to proceed on foot. Salazar drew his sword and peremptorily ordered him to hurry on, and this when he had half a dozen led mules, upon either of which he could have placed the unfortunate man. Again McAllister, pointing to his swollen and inflamed ankle, declared himself unable to walk. Some half a dozen of his comrades were standing around him, with feelings painfully wrought up, waiting the dénouement of an affair which, from the angry appearance of Salazar, they now feared would be tragical. Once more the bloodthirsty savage, pointing to the main body of prisoners, ordered the cripple to hurry forward and overtake them—he could not! ‘Forward!’ said Salazar, now wrought up to a pitch of phrenzy. ‘Forward, or I’ll shoot you on the spot!’ ‘Then shoot!’ replied McAllister, throwing off his blanket and exposing his manly breast, ‘and the quicker the better!’ Salazar took him at his word, and a single ball sent as brave a man as ever trod the earth to eternity! His ears were then cut off, his shirt and pantaloons stripped from him, and his body thrown by the roadside as food for wolves!’

In the following extract, of a different description, we have a sketch of a real ‘character:’

‘Entering an estanquillo, or shop licensed to sell cigars, we met two or three faces so decidedly Anglo-Saxon in complexion and feature that we at once accosted them in English, and were answered by one of the party with a drawl and twang so peculiarly ‘Down East,’ that Marble, Hackett, or Yankee Hill, might have taken lessons from him. We soon ascertained that they belonged to the American circus company then performing at San Luis, and on telling them who we were, they at once invited us to their meson to supper. The first speaker, who proved to be a regular Vermonter, was not a little surprised to see us out without a guard, and asked if we had received permission to that effect. His astonishment was removed when we told him that we were allowed to leave our quarters on parole.

‘In five minutes after our arrival at the hotel of the equestrians, I found that our Vermont acquaintance was one of the quaintest specimens of the Yankee race I had ever seen, and not a few examples had I met previous to my encounter with him. He had a droll impediment in his speech which gave to his actions and gestures a turn irresistibly comic, and then he told an excellent story, played the trombone, triangle, and bass viol, spoke Spanish well, drove one of the circus wagons, translated the bills, turned an occasional somerset in the ring, cracked jokes in Spanish with the Mexican clown, took the tickets at the entrance with one hand, while with the other he beat an accompaniment to the orchestra inside on the bass-drum, and, in short, made himself ‘generally useful.’ After partaking of an excellent supper, we spent an agreeable hour in his room, listening to story after story of his adventures. He ‘come out’ to Mexico, to use his own words, by way of Chihuahua, accompanying the traders from Jonesborough, on Red River, in the first and only expedition across the immense prairies. They were some six or eight months on the road, and suffered incredible hardships for want of water and provisions. Our Yankee was a stout man when we saw him, but he told us that he was a perfect transparency when he first arrived at the Mexican settlements—so poor, in fact, that according to his own account, ‘a person might have read the New-England Primer through him without specs.’

‘When ten o’clock came we rose to depart; but the droll genius insisted that we should first partake of a glass of egg-nog with him, and then help him to sing ‘Old Hundred’ in remembrance of old times. There are few persons in the New-England States who cannot go through this ancient and well-known psalm-tune after some fashion; and although neither time nor place was exactly befitting, we all happened to be from that quarter, and could not resist complying with his comico-serious request. He really had a good voice, and, for aught I know, may have led the singing in his native village church. After humming a little, apparently to get the right pitch, he started off with a full, rich tone; but suddenly checking himself in the middle of the first line, said that the thing was not yet complete. Taking a double-bass from its resting-place in one corner of the room, he soon had the instrument tuned, and then recommenced with this accompaniment. Never have I heard a performance so strangely mingling the grave and the comic. It was odd enough to see one of his vocation in a strange land thus engaged; and then the solemnity and zeal with which he sawed and sang away were perfectly irresistible. I did not laugh; but thoughts arose in my mind very little accordant with the earnest and devotional spirit with which our strange companion went through his share of the performance. This curious scene over, a scene which is probably without a parallel in the history of San Luis Potosi, we took leave of our singular acquaintance, who promised to call at the convent early the next morning, and do every thing in his power to assist those among the Texans who were the most destitute.’

But we have space only for one more extract, an account of certain ‘extra observances,’ which, in the order of their devotion, the prisoners while in Puebla, introduced into the service of the Catholic church:

‘Every Sunday morning, the prisoners confined at Puebla were compelled to attend mass, in chains, at one of the churches. The floors of all the religious establishments of note in Mexico are of stone or marble, without seats of any kind, and those in attendance must either kneel or stand during the ceremonies. In the present instance, the Texans were paraded in rows before the altar, and compelled to fall upon their knees while mass was said; but they were not obliged to go through all the little forms and ceremonies which the Catholic Church in Mexico exacts of its votaries, such as crossing themselves, smiting their breasts, and other outward observances. Well drilled, however, were they in all the minutiæ of these demonstrations; and in addition, one of the jokers, who had acted as the prosecuting attorney at San Cristobal, and who was a great mimic, taught them a few original ‘extras’ and ‘fancy touches,’ which he had ingrafted upon the regular Catholic ceremonials. So well had he disciplined his brother prisoners, that they could go through all his ritual with as much promptness and precision as could the best military company in existence go through its simplest manœuvres.

‘On arriving at the church, and after kneeling in front of the altar, the well-drilled Texans awaited the usual signal from the officiating priest to commence. There probably was not a Catholic among them; yet the assumed air of grave devotion to be seen in their faces would have done credit to the most rigid of that creed. At the given signal, and at the proper time, the chained prisoners would cross themselves with all seeming humility, closely imitating every motion of the priest and of the Mexicans around them; but instead of stopping with their Catholic neighbors, they wound up by placing the right thumb to the tip of their noses, and then, with a mock gravity which might have drawn a smile from an Egyptian mummy, circled the fingers about, and all this directly in the face of the officiating priest, and without a smile upon their countenances. When the proper time came for again crossing themselves, the mischievous leader of the Texans would pass the word for his men to ‘come the double compound action,’ as he called it. This resembled the first movement, with the exception that it was more complicated and more mysterious to the surrounding Mexicans. After the right hand had gone its usual round, from forehead to breast and from shoulder to shoulder, the thumb again settled on the tip of the nose; but this time the left thumb was joined to the little finger of the right hand, and then commenced a series of fancy gyrations with all the fingers, the like of which was probably never before seen in a Catholic church. Sam Weller, I believe, or if not he, some modern philosopher of his school, defines the movement I have just described as meaning something like ‘This may be all very true, but we don’t believe a word of it.’ What the Mexicans thought of it, or whether they noticed it or not, I am unable to say: it may be that they considered it as simply ‘a way’ the Texans had, and thought no more of it. Such is the story told of the pranks played by the prisoners confined in Puebla.’

We must here end our notice of this amusing book. It will be found highly entertaining, and to contain also much information concerning the character of the country through which Mr. Kendall passed. It will attain a wide popularity, for it is decidedly the best and most readable book of the season. ••• Since the foregoing was placed in type, we learn from Mr. Kendall’s journal, the well known New-Orleans ‘Picayune,’ that the tyrant Salazar, whose cruelties are recorded in preceding extracts, met recently with an awful death. He escaped from prison at Santa Fé, and fled to the woods, where he was killed and scalped by the Indians, and his body left a prey to wild beasts. Just retribution!

Address and Poem, delivered before the Mechanic Apprentice’s Library Association on the twenty-second of February. By Frederick W. Lincoln, Jr., and George Coolidge. Boston: The Association.

The inculcations of both these performances are excellent; and in a literary point of view, they are also highly creditable to their authors. Mr. Lincoln supports the necessity and dignity of labor with unanswerable argument and felicitous illustrations. Much, says he, in a few segregated sentences, ‘has been written, with truth and eloquence, by great minds, upon the dignity of labor; but it is the dignity of the laborer which is the vital point that demands attention. Labor or industry needs no apology, no advocates; it is the very instinct of our being, and one of the first to develop itself; it is only when performed in a peculiar way, or associated with a particular class, that it is considered disreputable. How is this evil to be remedied? Not by assuming a superiority, but by attaining to it. You have it in your power to make the profession of a mechanic as honorable as any avocation in life. The dignity of a profession depends upon the character of those who are in its ranks. If the individual is low or mean, no occupation can confer upon him respectability or regard. On the other hand, no useful employment, however trivial, in the social state, can degrade him who faithfully performs its duties. It is not always the men of genius, those gifted with extraordinary natural endowments, who are the greatest benefactors of our race, or who enjoy in a greater degree personal happiness themselves. Washington and Franklin were not men of genius, as the world understands that term. It was by probity, industry, perseverance, a well-strung nerve, and an iron will, that they conquered the obstacles before them, and acquired that true greatness which has made their names preëminent among the famous of earth, and their example the inspiration of American youth. Circumstances may do something for us; we can do more for ourselves. We must have faith, we must be in earnest.’ The healthful American spirit which pervades the ‘Address,’ characterizes not less prominently the poem of Mr. Coolidge. A passage from this performance, commencing ‘List to the Psalm of Labor!’ speaks of what we intended our readers should have had an opportunity to ‘hearken to;’ but the tyranny of space is despotic.

Drawings and Tintings. By Alfred B. Street. pp. 48. Albany: W. C. Little. New-York: Burgess, Stringer and Company and M. Y. Beach.

We cannot aver that we greatly affect the title given by Mr. Street to the collection of Sketches from Nature which we find upon our table; but for the sketches themselves, as our readers well know, we have a cordial affection. Many of them have already been encountered in our pages; and after winning cordial admiration in the journals of the day, they have been arrested as ‘fugitives’ by their author, brought home, and bound together, preparatory to receiving sentence at the hands of that many-headed monster, the Public. As a careful and minute observer of nature, in every phase of season and change of the hours; from the wide and comprehensive general view, to the most delicate scanning of the aspect of the lowliest shrub or flower; we scarcely know our author’s superior, after Bryant. Our readers, however, are so well acquainted with the marked peculiarities of Mr. Street’s style, that we shall content ourselves with a single Daguerreotype sketch from ‘The School-house:’

‘A picture of soft beauty is the scene

When painted by the sinking summer sun

In tints of light and shade; but winter’s gloom

Shows nothing but a waste, with one broad track

Stamp’d to the humble door-post from the lane;

The snow-capp’d wood-pile stretching near the walls;

And the half severed log with axe that leans

Within the gaping notch.

‘The room displays

Long rows of desk and bench; the former stain’d

And streak’d with blots and trickles of dried ink,

Lumbered with maps and slates and well-thumb’d books,

And carved with rude initials; while the knife

Has hack’d and sliced the latter. In the midst

Stands the dread throne whence breathes supreme command,

And in a lock’d recess well known, is laid

The dread regalia, gifted with a charm

Potent to the rebellious. When the bell

Tinkles the school hour, inward streams the crowd,

And bending heads proclaim the task commenc’d.

Upon his throne with magisterial brow

The teacher sits, round casting frowning looks

As the low giggle and the shuffling foot

Betray the covert jest, or idleness.

Oft does he call with deep and pompous voice,

The class before him, and shrill chattering tones

In pert or blundering answers, break the soft

And dreamy hum of study, heretofore

Like beehive sounds prevailing.’

We could wish to have seen this volume make a more forcible appeal to the eye than it will be likely to do in the pamphlet form; but then it would not have been so widely diffused; and that is a ‘compensating’ feature, to the producer, which must not be forgotten by writers who would be read; and Mr. Street will be.

Mr. Cheever’s Lectures on the Pilgrim’s Progress, and on the Life and Times of John Bunyan. To Number Four, inclusive. New-York: Wiley and Putnam.

We have perused these Lectures, as far as they have advanced, not only with unabated but with increasing interest. For many years the Pilgrim’s Progress of Bunyan has been one of our ‘standard’ take-downable books from our library-shelf; and now that we have ‘a new lease’ of the imaginations of our early years, in the eager perusal of a second generation, the old feeling of admiration and delight, in following the narrative which records the trials and triumphs of Christian, Hopeful and Faithful, Christiana, Mr. Greatheart and Mercy, comes back upon us in all the freshness of its prime. With a quick eye to all the pictorial beauties, so to speak, of Bunyan’s matchless limnings, Mr. Cheever adds a thorough knowledge and appreciation of all their high spiritual teachings. Moreover, his own doctrinal views have given him a keen scent for the intolerant evils against which Bunyan warred, and of which he was the victim. We had marked for insertion three or four striking and characteristic passages, in the colloquy between Bunyan, the Justice who committed him to his twelve years’ imprisonment, and the Clerk of the Peace who came to remonstrate with him for his conscientious ‘obstinacy;’ but are compelled to omit them for the present. These passages, however, like his entire life, illustrate this eloquent sketch of Mr. Cheever:

‘He kept on his course, turning neither to the right hand nor the left, in his Master’s service, but he made all ready for the tempest, and familiarized himself to the worst that might come, be it the prison, the pillory, or banishment, or death. With a magnanimity and grandeur of philosophy which none of the princes or philosophers or sufferers of this world ever dreamed of, he concluded that ‘the best way to go through suffering, is to trust in God through Christ as touching the world to come; and as touching this world to be dead to it, to give up all interest in it, to have the sentence of death in ourselves and admit it, to count the grave my house, to make my bed in darkness, and to say to corruption, thou art my father; and to the worm, thou art my mother and sister; that is, to familiarize these things to me.’ With this preparation, when the storm suddenly fell, though the ship at first bowed and labored heavily under it, yet how like a bird did she afterward flee before it! It reminds me of those two lines of Wesley:

‘The tempests that rise.

Shall gloriously hurry our souls to the skies!’

So Bunyan’s bark sped onward, amidst howling gales, with rattling hail and thunder, but onward, still onward, and upward, still upward, to heaven!’

EDITOR’S TABLE.

The Inner Life of Man.—We are indebted to the kindness of an esteemed friend who was present at the recent delivery of a lecture before the ‘Young Men’s Society’ of Newark, New-Jersey, by Mr. Charles Hoover, upon ‘The Inner Life of Man,’ for a few passages from that admirable performance, which may be relied upon as very nearly identical with the language that fell from the lips of the speaker. We cannot but hope, on behalf of our citizens, that Mr. Hoover may be invited to repeat his lecture in this city. Surely, its enlarged views, its benign inculcations, its tender remonstrances, are needed among us; nor will the good seed fall altogether upon stony ground, nor be utterly choked by the tares that abound in our field of bustling and busy existence. ‘But what,’ the reader may ask, ‘is this inner, higher life, concerning which we hear so much in these latter days?’ Let Mr. Hoover make answer: ‘It is that ethereal, spiritual nature, which by an incarnation only less mysterious than that of the Son of God, is in present temporary alliance and partnership with our animal nature; which, itself imperishable and immortal, measures the cycle of its probation burthened with a dead body. It is that in man which loves the beautiful and the good, which expands and warms to the breathing and the voice of love; which, like the child listening to the murmuring sea-shell, catches the far-off sound of the solemn future, and hears celestial harmonies in silentest hours. It is that which in infancy gathers in its first excursion the stuff that infant dreams are made of; which in childhood makes the welkin ring with joy and laughter, crowns itself with flowers, and arches life and the world, and all inaccessible things and places, with airy bridges; which sees angel-forms in flitting clouds, and in the gorgeous glory of setting suns beholds the vestibule and drapery of other worlds: which holds communion with flowers as things of life, and with birds as beautiful and gentle friends; which rebounds like a liberated bow from the touch of grief to the freedom of joy, and sees in its own tear-drop a perfect rainbow. To the inner life of man, in its gradual and successive unfoldings, belong those deep musings of the heart, which suggested perhaps by trifles light as air, become mighty, like pent-up fires in a mountain’s bosom, and tossing off the superincumbent pressure, burst forth in a flame of patriotism to unyoke a nation, or in heroic religious love to bless a world. In the inner life of man are born and nurtured those deep and intense affections which make a man willing to die for his country, his faith, and his friends; which purified, lift him up an angel; which poisoned, burn to hell, and turn him into a fiend; there rise the fountains of generous sensibility; there dawn hope and love, and reverence and faith; there yearn the immortal desires of continued existence and eternal joy; there is the chamber of prophetic visions and poetic fires; there conscience holds its court, and in God’s stead utters its solemn decision. There too the acutest of our sensibilities to suffering reside. ••• And this inner, spiritual nature of man is his distinguishing glory, the priceless, inalienable treasure which he carries with him amid all the changes of time, and all the disasters of the universe. It is his all. It is his proper self. Other things are circumstances of his being. This is his being, subsisting independently of every other thing and being except the Deity. It invests all external objects with its own character and coloring; paints its own image on the sky, the floods, the fields, and faces of men, and turns the world into a thousand-faced mirror, and every face flings back upon the soul its own likeness, and all its flitting, changeful phases of mood and feeling. Is it guilty? ‘The fiends of its own bosom people air with kindred fiends that hunt it to despair.’ Is it sad? The sighing of the softest breeze is heard as a requiem, and the natural beatings of its own heart sound like ‘funeral marches and muffled drums.’ Is it glad, innocent, and happy? All nature smiles and puts on the garments of beauty; the stars sing together, the trees of the forest rejoice, and the floods clap their hands. Thus the visible universe becomes a mere reproduction of the spirit of man that beholds it. Create a mind, and it creates for its residence an external world of its own hue and character. Make that mind happy, and its external world, from pole to pole and from the zenith to its centre, is resplendent with light and beauty; balm-like airs, soft and fragrant as those of uncursed Eden, breathe upon it, and all its life is love. Dreaming, it sees a ladder reaching to heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending on errands of mercy, and waking, exclaims with reverential joy, ‘Surely God is in this place.’ Make a mind miserable, and you darken its universe. The stars fall from its heaven, the golden fruitage of its paradise decays, and winter winds wail around it, and night and storm mingle their pitiless elements on its unsheltered head. Intertwined and involved in the inner life, are occurring at all times the great things of human history. In the sanctuary of unrevealed bosoms, in the ‘silent, secret sessions’ of thought, and in the glow of individual feeling, in the field, at the fire-side, in the closet, or on the sleepless bed, there is man’s history: there, unfolding to act, or infolding itself to die, the soul is in its greatness, is in labor with itself, and struggling with big, burning thoughts, and ‘truths that wake to perish never;’ decreeing with solemn form and force what is to be done, and what endured. Let no man despise what is revolved in the private mind.’

We scarcely know which most to admire, the nervous thoughts embodied in the following passage, or the fervent and beautiful language in which a just reproof is conveyed:

‘In all our wanderings round this world of care, we have been deeply moved and amazed at the fact, that down into the world of troubled, sorrowing mind and tortured sensibilities, the professors and light-bearers of the religion of Jesus have thrown so few of its melting beams. Of transcendent mysteries this is not the least, that of those who hold to a religion that is comprehended in one burning word, one transforming principle, Love; which is not a theory, but a divine passion, and whose hopes all rest on the doctrine of forgiveness; so few practically and heartily pity, forgive, and love the erring and the wretched of the family of man. Oh! it was not thus when Pity, eighteen hundred years ago, habited as a man, and leaning upon a pilgrim’s staff, set out from the brow of Nazareth to the hill of Calvary, tracing with tearful eye and weary foot the roads of Judea and the streets of Jerusalem! ••• In an age which, in sorrow not in anger, in heart-felt regret, not in bitterness, we are compelled to regard as extensively pseudo-philanthropic; when a vaunting benevolence is current, which hovers every where and alights no where; which loves all men in general and no man in particular; profuse of pity to the heathen, while bloated with poisonous hate to its neighbor; it is refreshing to see occasional instances of practical brotherhood with poor, down-trodden, benumbed and forsaken humanity. That is true benevolence, which with mingled faith, reverence, and love, descends in quest of the inner life beneath repulsive appearances, and tainted name, and shattered fortune, and from the depths brings up a bleeding heart, a scathed soul, and speaks to it of hope and consolation, and cheers it up to the purpose of self-recovery, and the recommencement of a virtuous life, and the reconstruction of a broken, blasted fame; that rekindles with vestal care its dying fires, and like a pious mother, nurses it through weakness, infirmity, irresolution, and despondency, back to hale strength and vigor; that by a generous confidence in its earliest repentings, and a generous forgiveness of its gravest faults, lends strength to its purposes and permanence to its reform. Oh! there are such hearts all around us, still warm and beating, though pierced through with many sorrows, goaded it may be at once by a sense of guilt and the horrors of abandonment, yet not dead to virtue, nay, sensitively alive to it; ‘for as certain flowers open only in the night, so often in the dark hours of a great sorrow the human soul first opens to the light of the eternal stars.’ There are such hearts buried all around us; and from their unquiet graves come up the low wail, the stifled sob, the muttered curse, the anguished prayer, appealing to the thoughtless brotherhood above them for a ray of light, and a breath of the free air of heaven! Hearken, and ye shall hear the tones of an eternal miserére, mingling and swelling like distant organ-peals, drowned by the din of day-light, but re-heard in all hours of thought and stillness, in all places of meditative retirement. Listen, and ye shall hear soliloquies of the heart with itself, revealing pleasant memories and hopes, and tendernesses and joys, that come up from the past in shadowy troops, with lights and garlands—and vanish, making the darkness more visible and solitude more hideous. Blessed, we say, for Heaven has said it, blessed are they whose ministry of love is in that unquiet inner world; whose sympathies intertwine themselves with its strained, snapped fibres and ligaments; whose hand gently withdraws the barbed arrows of outrageous fortune, and into the ragged wound pours the oil of consolation and the balm of joy! Select, sacred, and heaven-ordained and anointed priests and priestesses they, of a God of love in a world of sorrow. Not their commission is it to declare to cowering criminals a God wrathful, vindictive, and scarcely less bloody than the Druid’s deity, hating with infinite venom the unhappy violator of his laws; not theirs to deal out curious metaphysics and cold abstractions, giving a stone for bread and an adder for an egg to the sons of sorrow and the daughters of misfortune; but to inspire hope in the desponding and peace in the troubled bosom; to give light for darkness, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; to bring back the lost to their Father’s house, and raise the dead to life again.’

A brace of Pellets from ‘Julian.’—Not one of our readers, we will venture to say, has forgotten the spiritual Julian, whose ‘Top of New-York,’ and the inquiry concerning ‘the law’ between man and wife, in regard to getting up first in the morning, attracted so much attention and remark two or three months since. We annex two late paper-pellets of his brain; and must ask the reader to admire with us the fervent feeling of new paternity wreaked upon expression in the first, and the ease and simplicity of style which mark the unstudied sketch that succeeds it: ‘Have you ever any nervous days, my kind Editor? Nervous, beyond publishing days, or the want of copy; beyond excesses, the reaction of excitement, fast-days, and the giving of thanks?—for these last are animal only, and for such, doctors are made and abound every where. The cure for them you may get in a brown-paper parcel; it is buyable; and of late it is eatable; you may take it in a lozenge. But the days of which I speak are such as you must endure patiently unto the end. ‘They come like shadows, so depart,’ but the cloud that gives the shadow is beyond your reach. A new doubt or apprehension, or an old one with an uglier face than usual; a hideousness not before seen, a devilishness of malice flashing upon you for the first time, or even an unkind word, added to your previous gathering of matériel, may tip the balance of your pleasant thoughts, and then, all colors changing into one, the black cloud rolls over you, and dark thoughts, wholly foreign to your nature, throng round and stab at you, till at last, by that old snakish sympathy of excitement, your own dark passions rise and embrace them, and the sensitive guardians of the brain, mingling in the fray, give you up, one by one, captive to the devil. In the lighter hours of the day, the dead hopes of the Past, the beauties of other days, throng round you, and shake their dry bones; and oh, what efforts at sprightliness! what ravishing of graces! what whirling and rattling of bare bones, as they waltz round to that music of other days! And now, born of these, comes another group, with the laughing eye of young years and a full heart; and ah! the tempting lip, the heaving bosom, the light step of the perfect form; ha! ha! there is life, there is beauty in the world again! But then will they betray you? Will they grow old and ugly? Will they live to mock at you? And now the words, ‘No you don’t, you can’t come it,’ tremble upon your lips; but then, oh! the delight of giving up to it; going the whole, the entire, the unclipt, the blind-folded, the universal; ‘ha! ha! come to my heart, my beauties!’ and with open arms you stagger to their embraces. But in that long, long, kiss, with the hot breath of passion, and the bounding blood and brain reeling to madness, there is the bitterness of death. Dust and ashes!—take them away. ••• The drop too much in all this is, that you get no sympathy from others; it is quite too personal, too exclusive for that. Whereas, in the solemnities of New-Year’s, and in all the concernments of that day, the whole world beareth company. Not but that we have occasion for all our bravery, our greetings and rejoicings; it is well to affect that, for there is a strange man about town, all that day, and a disci mori whispered about the streets; and although we pretend not to know, or to hear him, there is one at our house who hath let him in; and all day long is he parleying and protesting and offering refreshments, forsooth, to that unwelcome visitor. But there is a pleasure in the assurance that the cunning of our neighbors shall not avail more than ours with his impertinence; that he shall be stabbed under the fifth rib, that he shall wince under his hits, his jokes, his stinging rebuke! There is also something companionable in the thought, that we are not alone in this onward movement of years, this stern necessity of motion, this tread-mill step! No one can defalcate in this particular; no one can Texas-ize and be quit of his transgressions and his onward travel. But millions of our own kith and kin travel the same way; England goes with us; Europe goes with us; and let not the indolent Turk dream that he is becalmed the while; let not the exclusives of the rising sun imagine that they in their nearness to Heaven do not, nevertheless, whirl on in the general motion, even as the outer barbarians! Decidedly, they do; their somersets avail not, and the edicts of the great Ching-poo are astounded at their non-effect. This is one pleasant reflection born of New-Year’s; beside, it would be amusing, if one could laugh at any thing so sad, to observe the humors of the few who think upon the bearings of that solemn time. In the year to be, there are many to come, many to go, and but few to tarry; yet all have their ambitions of a life-time; those even, to whom the stars have grown dim, and life become almost a mockery under Heaven, dashing into the coming day with something of the old zest; while the many, the oi polloi, who have not yet made their grand move, are now ready, and think that therefore the earth is to take a new route in creation; forgetting that the old round must be the round for ever. Nights sleepless with joy, nights sleepless with pain, nights long with watching, feverish thought; crime that stings like an adder, and nights short with perfect rest; days long and weary, days bright and dashing, hot and cold, wet and dry, and days and nights with all of these—as hath been in the time that’s past, and will be in the time to come.

‘There is something very pitiable in these humors, Mr. Editor; indeed very laughable, if your mouth is shaped to that effect; but as it happens with me to-night, my mouth refuses to twitch except in one direction. Its corners have what Prof. P—— used to call the ‘downward tendencies.’ Perhaps it is because this is with me the anniversary of a day upon the events of which are hanging the movements of all after-life; it may be this, and there may be thereto added the coloring of a winter’s day. The wind howls about the house-tops, and the air pierces like needles; even the stars, when they look down in thousands, as the rack goes by, seem to shiver in their high places; yet perhaps there is nothing so personal in all that, considering that just so the wind howled last night, and may for a month to come; but oh! as I am a nervous man, and look back upon the circling months, and feel the sting here and the stab there, in that galvanic battery; and as I look forward with eager eye, and ear open to the faintest whisper of the dim to-morrow, it is not as the stars shiver from excess of light, but with a shudder at the heart from the cooler blood of——Good night, my kind Editor; that sentence is quite too long already, and there are some things too personal to tell.

‘P. S.—Whoop! hurrah! Light upon the world again! Where are you, my fine Editor? I say Sir, I was an ass—do you hear?—an ass, premature, wise before my time, a brute, a blockhead! Did I talk of dust and ashes? Oh! Sir, I lied multitudinously. Every nerve, every muscle that didn’t try to strangle me in that utterance, lied. No, Sir; let me tell you it’s a great world; glorious—magnificent; a world that can’t be beat! Talk of the stars and a better world, but don’t invite me there yet. Make my regrets, my apology to Death, but say that I can’t come; ‘positive engagement; happy some other time, but not now.’ Oh, no; this morning is quite too beautiful to leave; and beside, I would rather stay, if only to thank God a little longer for this glorious light, this pure air that can echo back my loudest hurrah. And then, my boy——But haven’t I told you? Why Sir, I’ve got a boy!—a boy—ha, ha! I shout it out to you—a Boy; fourteen pounds, and the mother a great deal better than could be expected! And I say, Mr. Editor, it’s mine! hurrah and hallelujah forever! Oh, Sir! such legs, and such arms, and such a head!—and Oh my God! he has his mother’s lips! I can kiss them forever! And then, Sir, look at his feet, his hands, his chin, his eyes, his every thing, in fact—so ‘perfectly O. K.!’ Give me joy, Sir; no you needn’t either. I am full now; I run over; and they say that I ran over a number of old women, half killed the mother, pulled the doctor by the nose, and upset a ’pothecary-shop in the corner; and then didn’t I ring the tea-bell? Didn’t I blow the horn? Didn’t I dance, shout, laugh, and cry altogether? The women say they had to tie me up. I don’t believe that; but who is going to shut his mouth when he has a live baby? You should have heard his lungs, Sir, at the first mouthful of fresh air—such a burst! A little tone in his voice, but not pain; excess of joy, Sir, from too great sensation. The air-bath was so sudden, you know. Think of all his beautiful machinery starting off at once in full motion; all his thousand outside feelers answering to the touch of the cool air; the flutter and crash at the ear; and that curious contrivance the eye, looking out wonderingly and bewildered upon the great world, so glorious and dazzling to his unworn perceptions; his net-work of nerves, his wheels and pulleys, his air-pumps and valves, his engines and reservoirs; and within all, that beautiful fountain, with its jets and running streams dashing and coursing through the whole length and breadth, without stint, or pause—making altogether, Sir, exactly fourteen pounds!

‘Did I ever talk brown to you, Sir, or blue, or any other of the devil’s colors? You say I have. Beg your pardon, Sir, but you—are mistaken in the individual. I am this day, Sir, multiplied by two. I am duplicate. I am number one of an indefinite series, and there’s my continuation. And you observe, it is not a block, nor a block-head, nor a painting, nor a bust, nor a fragment of any thing, however beautiful; but a combination of all the arts and sciences in one; painting, sculpture, music (hear him cry,) mineralogy, chemistry, mechanics (see him kick,) geography, and the use of the globes (see him nurse;) and withal, he is a perpetual motion—a time-piece that will never run down! And who wound it up? But words, Sir, are but a mouthing and a mockery. ••• When a man is nearly crushed under obligations, it is presumed that he is unable to speak; but he may bend over very carefully, for fear of falling, nod in a small way, and say nothing; and then, if he have sufficient presence of mind to lay a hand upon his heart, and look down at an angle of forty-five degrees, with a motion of the lips—unuttered poetry—showing the wish and inability, it will be (well done) very gracefully expressive. With my boy in his first integuments, I assume that position, make the small nod aforesaid, and leave you the poetry unuttered.’

‘Odd-zounds!’ thought we, on glancing at the subject of the ensuing piscatory epistle, ‘what can all this outcry mean?’ But that exclamatory query we shall permit Julian himself to answer, in his own peculiar way:

‘Gammon!’ said Harry. ‘Wait a moment,’ said I; ‘I shall throw sixes;’ and to be sure down came the sixes, striking him on the ‘seize’ point, and then rebounding to my own, swept every man from the table. The board was put up, and after a little closing chat with Mrs. H——, I was taking leave, when Harry called me back. ‘Julian,’ said he, ‘Come and breakfast to-morrow upon ‘Zounds and Sounds.’’ ‘Zounds and Sounds!’ said I, ‘I shall be delighted! What a charming dish! I remember of——’ ‘And Jule,’ said Harry, interrupting me, ‘perhaps Fanny would come?’ ‘Oh, impossible! you know she is delicate yet, and the mornings are quite chilly.’ ‘Well, good night; and don’t forget that we breakfast early.’ ‘My dear Sir,’ said I, ‘I could rise at cock-crow for Zounds and Sounds.’ ••• Now, I had never even heard the words before; but I pique myself on knowing strange and choice dishes; not the far-fetched things of the French, but things good per se, and without a sea of condiments; the delicate, the rare subtleties which our own women know so well to compound. Of course, I ought to know Zounds and Sounds, and of course, I should not hurry to disclaim that knowledge. Harry might have known, and then again he might not; but he remembered, as I have since ascertained, of having eaten something of the kind some thirty years since; something he had perhaps cloyed of, and so forgotten, but something very delectable; something that would perhaps touch his palate again like the maple-sugar and other dainties of his boyhood. Having found the article that day, he had secured a large quantity without asking what they were, and had them taken privately to his house, with a view of making up the dish himself. I came home, rolling the magic words ‘as a sweet morsel under my tongue,’ and immediately sought out a curious dictionary, in which various strange things are expounded; and failing in that, looked into Crabbe’s Synonymes, (by the rule of contraries, I suppose, for there certainly could be nothing like Zounds and Sounds,) but as Longfellow says, ‘All in vain!’ Fanny having retired, I got into my slippers and sat down by the fire to ruminate a little. ‘Zounds and Sounds!’ said I. ‘What an incomparable phrase! What a sweet suffusion of the z! What vibratory tingling upon the tympanum! How pleasantly percussive to the brain; and how even the teeth partake of the sensation! I declare! I must write a song upon Zounds and Sounds! I will. I will write an invitatory song to the Editor. Let me see. Zounds, rounds, bounds and hounds. Exactly! Now then:

Are you weary Sir, of the ups and downs

The fame, the fun, the blues the browns,

The heat, the haste, the sights the sounds

Of your never-ending monthly rounds?

Oh! come and dine on Zounds and Sounds!

Zounds and Sounds!

Glorious sounds!

The music, alone,

With only a bone,

Is a dinner, Sir, with Zounds and Sounds.

Don’t ask me, Sir, upon what grounds

I promise that these rare compounds

Exactly as the song propounds,

(The music alone,

With only a bone,)

Shall drive your troubles past all bounds,

Or mad thoughts chasing you like hounds;

Don’t ask me how it drives and drowns,

But come and dine on Zounds and Sounds.

Finishing the song, I looked about for my flute to find a tune for it, but reflecting that I should wake the house, put it by again for another time. ‘After all,’ said I, ‘a flute couldn’t touch that z sound. Indeed what can? What is there like it? Has a church-bell any tone approximating it even? Has a violin? Has a hautboy? Has a French horn? Has a jew’s-harp? Ay, that’s the thing! A Jew’s-harp has something like it; and so—so has a bumble-bee. A thought strikes me! It is possible that Zounds and Sounds are—Yes,’ said I, rising and shouting with the excitement, ‘Zounds and Sounds are bumble-bees!—bumble-bees curiously prepared; gathered in some warm climate where they abound, and pickled! Henceforth let no man call that bee ‘humble;’ he is bumble, most decidedly!’ And with this thought I hurried off to bed. ••• It may have been an hour afterward, while I was in the maze between sleeping and waking, that the words ‘Zounds and Sounds’ escaped me, unawares. ‘What’s that?’ said Fanny, starting up. ‘Are you sure that I spoke?’ said I. ‘Indeed, I am; you said something about going down town.’ ‘Did I? Well, I forgot to tell you. I am going down town; so you must not be surprised at my rising early to-morrow. I think of breakfasting out.’ ‘You think! I should think you did; thinking aloud, and asleep too! Don’t think so again, dear; you woke me out of a sound sleep.’ ••• At an early hour the next morning, I was at my friend’s house. How I got there, I do not now remember; but I have a distinct recollection of a ringing sensation in my head, and of not being quite sure that I was awake, till the romping of a dozen children, and a buzzing sound every where of Zounds and Sounds aroused me to a full sense of the great treat that was coming. Then it was that I sang the last night’s song, and it took immensely, especially with the children. Harry was not there to hear it, and lost that pleasure, (as I have never repeated it,) unless he heard it in the kitchen, where he was superintending the burden of the song. Shortly after, came the call of ‘breakfast,’ and we all walked in, at least fifteen of us, and took seats at the table before the Zounds and Sounds were brought in. Harry was already seated at the head. Presently the Zounds came in, piping hot; but before they had reached the table, Harry turned to me and asked if I had any preference. ‘Have you taken the stingers out?’ said I, thinking of bumble-bees. ‘Stingers!’ said Harry. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ said I; ‘only a joke;’ and making a bold guess at some white things that now appeared on the table, added, ‘A little of the breast.’ Harry smiled, but said nothing. Plates were now served all around. Breakfast went on, and Zounds and Sounds went down, and every body appeared to be perfectly charmed with the dish. One might say, to be sure, that they were a little saltish, and then again, with that exception, there was no remarkable flavor; but that might be the rarity, not to have any flavor. No one, however, thought aloud in this manner. On the contrary, there was a manifest inclination to detect resemblances of taste and flavor to those of very many rare and delicate cookeries; but after awhile there came a pause. It was during this pause, that my friend turned to his wife and inquired if she was quite sure they were seasoned properly. ‘I think they are a little salt,’ said Mrs. H——; but, my dear, you know you prepared them yourself.’ Harry looked thunder-clouds, and called one of the servants. ‘Mary,’ said he, ‘take the key and bring me a raw Zound. You will find two buckets-full in the wine-cellar.’ Wondering at this, we wondered still more at finding our coffee-cups all empty at the same time. Each one was waiting for drink. The raw Zound was now brought, and Harry, plunging his fork into it, while all eyes were fixed upon him, turned it over and over, examining it on all sides, and then, with his arm at a right angle, raised it deliberately to his nose. Almost instantaneously, and while still some distance off, there came a very wise expression about his nostrils, which, as the Zound came nearer, dilated still more and more, deepening the expression to a frightful extent, till, all doubts removed, he shouted out: ‘Codfish! by thunder!’

We had actually taken within us, and bepraised, the unfreshened tongues and bladders of codfish!

It is now more than a week, O Editor! since this breakfast came off, or rather since it went down, for it isn’t off yet; even now, that taste——Do you know what it is, Sir, to have your jaws hang?—to be always on the eve of a gape?—to be afraid of the tongs or the snuffers, or a tall man, especially in tights, lest the next yawn may wholly tear up your spinous process, your spheroid cartilage?—hang the doctors!—do you understand? Well; I am in that way; and it’s all from those confounded Zounds and Sounds!

Gossip with Readers and Correspondents.—Coming home lateish to-night from the opera, we found the following, written in what Mrs. Malaprop would term ‘rather ineligible characters,’ as if hastily reduced to paper. Howbeit, we knew it at once for the ‘hand-write’ of our favorite, facile and felicitous historian of Tinnecum. He is one of your persons now who thinks, and not a member of that hum-drum class who only think they think; moreover, he knows ‘how to observe’ better even than Miss Martineau. It was an every-day thing which struck him, in the aspect of our winter-sleighs, as he rode up in one of them a day or two ago; but this sketch of ‘The Snow-Omnibus’ is not so common: ‘Past midnight! The embers are dying. The thunder of the city becomes a dull roar, the roar a murmur: then comes a dead pause, interrupted sometimes by the watchman’s club as it rings on the pavement, or the shrill, solitary whistler executing the threadbare airs of the opera, or ‘Life on the Ocean Wave.’ The door opens without noise. I lift up my nodding head and see Dr. Bartolo, his hat like a miller’s, and his whiskers fringed with white. With tread soft as a mouse or an apparition, he illumes his candle, turns on his heel, and says in a whisper very appropriate to the time, the place, and the fact conveyed: ‘It snows!’ Such is the only intimation to break the magic and the mystery of the early morning, unless it be the small tinkling of bells like frogs in a brook; a complete shifting or rather change of scene noiselessly wrought; a foul city purified, whitened, sparkling, and glorious, like a Scarlet Lady who emerges with her meretricious charms in chaste robes, chaste as Diana. She taketh the veil. The virgin-snow is unsullied upon her bosom, just as it dropped softly out of heaven, undefiled by footsteps, dazzling only to conceal. ’Tis but the momentary semblance of purity. The sun is up. Hark! the tumult and excitement is begun. The crowds throng and jostle through the pure element; the horses prance to the gay and perpetual chimes, and Broadway is the paradise of belles. Underneath all is the obscenity of filth! What attracts our attention, however, is your snow-omnibus, very different in looks, spirit and animation from the same lumbering carriage upon wheels. What do you see in the latter? A set of cross, hungry-looking men, going up town to dinner, packed together in a magnetizing attitude, with knees jammed against knees, and eyes wherever they can find a place to put them; women crushed between stout fellows, and indecently nudged at every apology of a jolt; in short, a penthouse of ill-humour; twelve ‘all full’ people; whiskerandi, gentle maidens, wives, and ‘live widders,’ ranged with solemn regularity like coffins in a vault. All fix their eyes where their minds are, on vacuity, and try to be for the time present, what they seem to be, as stupid as the devil, as if they dreaded some sympathetic contact, revealing bank-frauds and transactions in stocks. Who ever saw a smile in an omnibus, even when court-plasters have changed places? You might as well look into a slow-driven hearse for something sunshiny! Your broker dares not even chuckle. Your exquisite cannot resort for consolation to the suction of his cane, but all look grim and virtuous as Seneca, until they pull the leather, pass up six-pence through the port-hole, and as they open the door, their faces begin to expand, but only with the animal anticipation of dinner. Compare this with the grouping and animation of the Sleigh-omnibus; heads piled upon heads, as in a picture; black hats, feathers, plumage, barrel-caps, etc., bobbing about in a lively manner to the music of bells. Down they go into the gullies, through thick and thin, with a ludicrous contrast and juxtaposition of faces; all forced in spite of themselves to give expression to their several humors, mirth, deviltry, or spleen. Cheeks glow, eyes shine, spectacles sparkle, glances fly impudently to the windows where the face of beauty presses against the cold pane. The runner sinks into a ‘rut,’ and that makes the company bow to each other, and gives that old rascal of a sexegenarian an excuse to bring his gray whiskers very near to the blooming visage of a girl whose charming modesty is shrined in colors more delicate than the blush on the cheek of a magnum-bonum plum. Sixty must not aspire after such fruitage; but in an omnibus, where’s the harm? But we have a remark to make on nosology, or the noses of the group. So spicy a variety of folk cheek-by-jowl (Parthians and Elamites, Medes, Jews and Persians,) begets contrast. Nose-bridges of all styles show their peculiar architecture, Roman or Grecian; while straight, crooked, bottle, snub, pug; some flat and with no bridge at all, others very much abridged; are brought together in an amicable jostling, ‘comparing themselves by themselves,’ and setting off one another as a rose sets off a geranium. While I point out these peculiarities to my friend Phiz, a coral shriek rends the air, and by heavens! the whole load is upset!’ ••• We hear from all quarters ‘good exclamation’ on the Directions for Sonnet-Making, from the popular pen of our friend ‘T. W. P.’ in our last number. An eastern correspondent, however, questions the correctness of one assumption of the writer: ‘It would be well to avoid coupling such words as moon and spoon; breeze and cheese and sneeze; Jove and stove; hope and soap; all of which it might be difficult to bring together harmoniously.’ Our correspondent thinks that this decree was issued without due reflection; and he proceeds to substantiate his position by ‘the ocular proof:’

SONNET.

Through hazy clouds, scarce ruffled by the breeze,

Methought, last night, I saw the man i’ th’ moon;

As in the hollow bowl of silver spoon

A broad reflected face the gazer sees;

(Who trifling, dinner done, with bread and cheese,

Abstractly lifts the spoon aforesaid up;)

Or the same thing beholds in polished cup,

Or concave snuff-box, whence the vocal sneeze!

Sight of the man suggested Hotspur’s boast;

But the night froze; and to express such hope

Sounded far softer than the softest soap

To me, who rather chose my heels to toast

In the warm vicinage of glowing stove,

Than pluck the moon’s-man’s nose, beneath the frigid Jove!5

If there be not a fruitful lesson in the subjoined, which we venture to separate from its context in a recent letter from an esteemed friend and contributor, then we—are mistaken: ‘Apropos of ‘American Ptyalism,’ in your March number: a friend was telling me the other day of the agonies he had suffered from dispensing with the use of tobacco. He had used it in various ways for thirty years, but finding that he was breaking down under it, he broke off abruptly, about a year ago. ‘Let a tobacco-chewer,’ said he, ‘who wishes to know what nerves are, abstain for only one day, and if he has a wife who is delicate and nervous, he will forever after look upon her with a sympathy that he never felt before. Why, Sir, for months after I had forsworn tobacco, my mouth and jaws were any thing but flesh and bone. They were fire, ice, and prussic-acid, alternately. The roof of my mouth would at one moment have the feeling of blistering, and the next of freezing; and in addition to that, needles would occasionally pierce my face in every imaginable way. My head, for the most part, was a large hogshead with a bumble-bee in it, and the bung stopped up. You know that I am not imaginative; but my teeth, Sir, would suddenly grow to the length of a mastodon’s, and perhaps five minutes after, (if at the table,) a narcotic deadness would take the place of the previous excitement, and I would seem to be mumbling my food like people whose teeth are gone. But in the street, I always seemed to be grinning at every body, like some horrible beast who couldn’t get his mouth shut. If you have ever stayed agape for an hour or so, while the doctor was on his way to reset your jaws, you can imagine how distressingly public that feeling is. One bitter cold night I woke on the cellar-stairs, having got that far in search of tobacco, in my night-dress. Did you ever do so? You may think it trifling; but whenever from any cause you have become nervous, the first night that you wake on the cellar-stairs in the dark will be something to remember. At another time I dreamed of dying. I had been long sick and had wasted to a mere nothing; but having had abundant time to prepare for death, I flattered myself that I was quite ready to go; and indeed, my hold upon life was so feeble, (a slight change in the weather would have snapped it, so it seemed,) my very breath was so fluttering and unsatisfactory, that I thought it would be as well perhaps to have done with it. The faces of friends, and the out-door world, with all its many goings-on, were pleasant to behold, but faintly so—indistinctly; my pulsations had gone down to such extreme tenuity, that the effort of getting at a pleasure killed it. But I was mistaken; for just before dying, the thought of my cigars came to me like a blessing; and although my physician told me I had but a few moments to live, I would not be refused. A cigar was brought; I seized it in my bony fingers, held it up to the light, smelt of it, and fondled it till the light was brought; and then, with what little grace my strength would allow, I inhaled that divine tobacco! How complacently, as far as I was able, did I then look around upon my surviving friends! My eyes, however, closed very soon from languor, and my breath now coming only at rather long intervals, the puffs were far between; notwithstanding which, I lived it through to the last inspiration; but in the closing draught, the fire from the cigar burnt my mouth so badly that I—awoke, and found I had actually bitten my lip in a most shocking manner! Well, Sir, you may think it was pleasant not to be dying, and so it was; but as I then felt, I think I would sooner have gone, if I could have taken with me the fragrance of that incomparable regalia.” ••• Our new friend, the writer of the ‘Lines to an Early Robin,’ who desires us to send him six numbers of the Knickerbocker containing his article, inquires ‘which kind of his writing we should prefer, prose or poetry?’ We hardly know what to say, in answer to this categorical query. It will not perhaps be amiss, however, to adopt the in medio tutissimus ibis style of the traveller, who, upon calling for a cup of tea at breakfast, handed it back to the servant, after tasting it, with the remark: ‘If this is tea, bring me coffee—if it is coffee, bring me tea; I want a change.’ If what ‘M.’ sends us is poetry, let him send us prose; if it is prose, (and it certainly ‘has that look,’) let him send us poetry, by all means. ••• Judges and other legal functionaries, though ostensibly ‘sage, grave men,’ are oftentimes sad wags, and fond of fun and frolic. From one of this class we derive the annexed: ‘A few months since, in a neighboring town, a knight of the yard-stick was paying his addresses to a Miss Inches, who, beside some personal attraction, was reputed to be mistress of a snug fortune. At first, the lady encouraged his addresses, but afterward jilted him. Rendered desperate by his double loss, the young man went home and deliberately shot himself; and the coroner’s jury next morning brought in a verdict of ‘Died by Inches!” ••• How very beautiful are these lines upon the death of a young and lovely girl, the bloom of whose fair cheek refused to wither at the blighting touch of the Destroyer:

‘Her eye-lids as in sleep were closed,

Her brow was white like snow;

A smile still lingered on her cheek,

As if ’twas loth to go!

‘And it may be a smile so sweet,

So quiet and serene,

Was never on the healthy brow

Of living maiden seen.

‘Perchance the wondrous bliss which burst

Upon her raptured mind,

When first she woke in glory’s courts,

Now left its trace behind.

‘Her end was peace. I thought that they

Who loved her, should not grieve;

For these last words they heard her say,

‘My spirit, Lord, receive!’

‘And when they laid her in the earth,

Her cheek still held the bloom;

That smile so sweet, the gentle maid

Bore with her to the tomb.

‘Think it not strange that brighter tints

Upon the blossoms crept,

Which grew above the sacred spot

Where that meek maiden slept.’

We scarcely know when we have been more amused, than in reading lately a satirical sketch, entitled ‘The House of Mourning: a Farce.’ Squire Hamper and his lady, personages rather of the rustic order, who have come up to London from the family seat in the country, in the progress of shopping in a street at the west end of the metropolis, stop at a dry-goods undertakers, with a hatchment, and ‘Maison de Deuil,’ or House of Mourning, by way of a sign over the door. ‘Mason de Dool!’ exclaims the Squire, responding to his wife’s translation; ‘some foreign haberdasher’s, I ’spose.’ The lady, however, coaxes him to go in; for although she has lost no friends, she longs to see the ‘improvements in mourning,’ which she can do by ‘cheapening a few articles, and buying a penny-worth of black pins.’ The worthy pair enter, take an ebony chair at the counter, while a clerk in a suit of sables addresses the lady, and in sepulchral tones inquires if he ‘can have the melancholy pleasure of serving her.’ ‘How deep would you choose to go, Ma’am? Do you wish to be very poignant? We have a very extensive assortment of family and complimentary mourning. Here is one, Ma’am, just imported; a widow’s silk, watered, as you perceive, to match the sentiment. It is called the ‘Inconsolable,’ and is very much in vogue in Paris for matrimonial bereavements.’ ‘Looks rather flimsy, though,’ interposes the Squire; ‘not likely to last long, eh, Sir?’ ‘A little slight, praps,’ replies the shopman; ‘rather a delicate texture; but mourning ought not to last forever, Sir.’ ‘No,’ grumbles the Squire; ‘it seldom does, ’specially the violent sorts.’ ‘As to mourning, Ma’am,’ continues the shopman, addressing the lady, ‘there has been a great deal, a very great deal indeed, this season; and several new fabrics have been introduced, to meet the demand for fashionable tribulation, and all in the French style; they of France excel in the funèbre. Here for instance is an article for the deeply-afflicted; a black crape, expressly adapted to the profound style of mourning; makes up very sombre and interesting. Or, if you prefer to mourn in velvet, here’s a very rich one; real Genoa, and a splendid black; we call it the ‘Luxury of Woe.’ It’s only eighteen shillings a yard, and a superb quality; fit, in short, for the handsomest style of domestic calamity.’ Here the Squire wants to know ‘whether sorrow gets more superfine as it goes upward in life.’ ‘Certainly—yes, Sir—by all means,’ responds the clerk; ‘at least, a finer texture. The mourning of poor people is very coarse, very; quite different from that of persons of quality. Canvass to crape, Sir.’ The lady next asks if he has a variety of half-mourning; to which he replies: ‘O, infinite—the largest stock in town; full, and half, and quarter, and half-quarter mourning, shaded off from a grief prononcé to the slightest nuance of regret.’ The lady is directed to another counter, and introduced to ‘the gent. who superintends the Intermediate Sorrow Department;’ who inquires: ‘You wish to inspect some half-mourning, Madam? the second stage of distress? As such Ma’am, allow me to recommend this satin—intended for grief when it has subsided; alleviated, you see, Ma’am, from a dead black to a dull lead color. It’s a Parisian novelty, Ma’am, called ‘Settled Grief,’ and is very much worn by ladies of a certain age, who do not intend to embrace Hymen a second time.’ (‘Old women, mayhap, about seventy,’ mutters the Squire.) ‘Exactly so, Sir; or thereabout. Not but what some ladies, Ma’am, set in for sorrow much earlier; indeed, in the prime of life; and for such cases it is a very durable wear; but praps it’s too lugubre: now here’s another—not exactly black, but shot with a warmish tint, to suit a woe moderated by time. The French call it a ‘Gleam of Comfort.’ We’ve sold several pieces of it; it’s very attractive; we consider it the happiest pattern of the season.’ ‘Yes,’ once more interposes the Squire; ‘some people are very happy in it no doubt.’ ‘No doubt, Sir. There’s a charm in melancholy, Sir. I’m fond of the pensive myself. Praps, Madam, you would prefer something still more in the transition state, as we call it, from grave to gay. In that case, I would recommend this lavender Ducape, with only just a souvenir of sorrow in it; the slightest tinge of mourning, to distinguish it from the garb of pleasure. But possibly you desire to see an appropriate style of costume for the juvenile branches, when sorrow their young days has shaded? Of course, a milder degree of mourning than for adults. Black would be precocious. This, Ma’am, for instance—a dark pattern on gray; an interesting dress, Ma’am, for a little girl, just initiated in the vale of tears; only eighteen-pence a yard Ma’am, and warranted to wash.’ The ‘Intermediate Sorrow Department,’ however, derives no patronage from the ‘hard customer;’ and we next find her in the ‘Coiffure Department,’ looking at caps, and interrogating a show-woman in deep mourning, who is in attendance, and enlarging upon the beauty of her fabrics: ‘This is the newest style, Ma’am. Affliction is very much modernized, and admits of more gout than formerly. Some ladies indeed for their morning grief wear rather a plainer cap; but for evening sorrow, this is not at all too ornée. French taste has introduced very considerable alleviations.’ Failing however, in ‘setting her caps’ for the new customer, the show-woman ‘tries the handkerchief’ enticement; exhibiting one with a fringe of artificial tears worked on the border—‘the ‘Larmoyante,’ a sweet-pretty idea.’ The Squire intimates that as a handkerchief to be used, it would most likely be found ‘rather scrubby for the eyes.’ But the show-woman removes this objection: ‘O dear, no, Sir—if you mean wiping. The wet style of grief is quite gone out—quite! The dry cry is decidedly the genteel thing.’ No wonder that the Squire, as he left the establishment with his ‘better half,’ was fain to exclaim: ‘Humph! And so that’s a Mason de Dool! Well! if it’s all the same to you, Ma’am, I’d rather die in the country, and be universally lamented after the old fashion; for, as to London, what with the new French modes of mourning, and the ‘Try Warren’ style of blacking the premises, it do seem to me that before long all sorrow will be sham Abram, and the House of Mourning a regular Farce!’ ••• A Canadian Correspondent, in a few ‘free and easy’ couplets, advises us how much we have lost by declining a MS. drama of his, which he is hammering out on the anvil of his brain. We subjoin a few lines of ‘The Angry Poet:’

‘The damper, the draft of my drama you’ve checked;

You’ve stunted my laurels—my rich cargo wrecked!

That cargo! O! never was galleon of Spain

Thus freighted, by winds wafted over the Main!

There were stuffs, and brocades, and rich laces and blonde;

There were Damascene blades, and thy silks Trebisond;

There was armor from Milan, both cuirass and helm,

Abelards, Eloïsas, and Father Anselm:

There were jewels, and gold, and the amulet’s power,

A hero to spout, and to rant by the hour;

A lady to love, and be loved, and to faint,

As a matter of course, turning pale through her paint!

There were clowns who the grave-digger clown could outvie,

And princes who on the stage strutted so high

That Prince Hamlet they’d cut; who could pick up a scull,

Vote his morals a bore, and his wit mighty dull!

There were spirits that roam in the caves of the deep,

Coming back to our earth, as ghosts will do, to peep!

A king of the Cannibals—warriors, a host;

And a city with domes, mid the dim waters lost:

There was some one descended from Brian Boru;

For Pleasaunce a hunchback, in French ‘Un Tortu;’

Every scene was an episode—tragic each act;

Winding up with swords clashing, or pistols well cracked.’

We have just received the following from an esteemed correspondent, who transcribes it verbatim from the familiar letter of a friend. If we have a solitary reader who can peruse it without emotion, let him confine his indifference within his own cold bosom:

‘I have just returned from the funeral of poor Emma G——, a little girl to whom I had been for years most tenderly attached. As there was something very touching in the circumstances connected with her death, I will relate them to you. She was the daughter of a widow, a near neighbor of mine. When I first knew her, she was a sprightly child of about four years of age, perfect in form and feature. The bloom of health was on her cheek; her eye was the brightest I ever saw; while in her bosom there glowed a generous affection that seemed to embrace all with whom she came in contact. But when she reached her seventh year, her health began to decline. The rose suddenly paled on her cheek, and her eye had acquired prematurely that sad, thoughtful expression which gives so melancholy a charm to the features of wasting beauty. Her mother looked on with an anxious heart and at an utter loss to account for so sudden a change in her health. But soon a new source of anxiety appeared. While dressing her one day, she observed on Emma’s back, just between the shoulders, a small swelling, of about the size of a walnut. As she watched this spot, and observed that it grew larger from day to day, the mother began to have sad misgivings. These however she kept to herself for a time. Soon afterward, a slight stoop in her gait became visible. The family physician was now called in, and the worst forebodings of the mother were confirmed. Her idolized child was fast becoming a hump-back!

‘I will not attempt to describe the feelings of the mother, who was thus doomed to witness from day to day the slow growth of that which was to make one so dear to her a cripple and a dwarf. Suffice it to say, her love as well as care seemed to be redoubled, and Emma became more than ever the child of her affections. Nor did her little companions neglect her when she could no longer join in their out-door sports, and her own sprightly step had given place to a slow, stooping-gait, and the sweet ringing voice to a sad or querulous tone, that sometimes made the very heart ache. On the contrary, all vied with each other in administering to her amusements. Among them, none clung to her with more assiduity than her brother William, who was the nearest to her own age. He gave up all his own out-door play, in order to be with her, and seemed never so happy as when he could draw a smile, sad though it was, from her thoughtful features. But after a while, Emma grew wayward under her affliction; and unfortunately, though generally good-natured, William had a quick temper, to check which required more self-command than commonly falls to one so young. Sometimes, therefore, when he found plan after plan, which he had projected for her amusement, rejected with peevish contempt, he could hardly conceal from her his own wounded feelings. Yet, though at times apparently ungrateful, Emma was perhaps not so in fact; and she loved her brother better than any one else, save her mother. It was only in moments when her too sensitive nature had been chafed perhaps by her own reflections—for like the majority of children in her circumstances, she was thoughtful beyond her years—that her conduct seemed unkind. And then, when she marked the clouded expression of her brother’s face, she would ask forgiveness in so meek a spirit, and kiss his cheek so affectionately, that he forgave her almost as soon as offended.

‘Years thus passed on, when one day, after she had been more than usually perverse and fretful, William, who had been reading to her, on receiving some slight rebuff, started suddenly from his seat by her side, called her ‘a little hunch-back,’ and left the room. In a moment, however, his passion subsided, and returning, he found his sister in tears. He attempted to put his arm around her neck, but she repulsed him, and slipping away, retired to her own chamber. Her mother soon after learned what had happened, and going to Emma, found her upon the bed in a paroxysm of grief. She endeavored to soothe her feelings, but in vain; she refused to be comforted. ‘I want to die, mother,’ she replied to all her endearments; ‘I have long felt that I was a burden to you all.’ She cried herself to sleep that night, and on the morrow was too ill to rise. The doctor was called in, and warned the mother against an approaching fever. For three days she remained in an uncertain state; but on the fourth, the fever came in earnest, and thenceforth she was confined to her pillow.

‘In the mean time, the grief of William had been more poignant even than that of his sister. Thrice he had been to her bedside to ask her forgiveness, and kiss once more her pallid cheek; but she turned her face resolutely away, and refused to recognize him. After these repulses he would slowly leave the room, and going to his own chamber, sit brooding for hours over the melancholy consequences of his rashness. Owing to the previous enfeebled health of Emma, the fever made rapid progress, and it soon became apparent that she must die. William, in consequence of the violent aversion of his sister, had latterly been denied admittance to the chamber, though he lingered all day about the door, eagerly catching the least word in regard to her state, and apparently unmindful of all other existence.

‘One morning there was evidently a crisis approaching; for the mother and attendants, hurrying softly in and out the sufferer’s chamber, in quick whispered words gave orders or imparted intelligence to others. William saw it all, and with the quick instinct of affection, seemed to know what it foreboded. Taking his little stool, therefore, he sat down beside the chamber-door, and waited in silence. In the mean time, the mother stood over the dying child, watching while a short unquiet slumber held her back for a little while longer. Several times a sweet smile trembled round the sufferer’s lips, and her arms moved as if pressing something to her bosom. Then she awoke, and fixing her eyes upon her mother, whispered faintly, ‘I thought William was here.’ A stifled sob was heard at the door, which stood partly open. Mrs. G—— stepped softly out, and leading William to the bed-side, pointed to his dying sister. He threw himself upon her bosom, and pressing his lips to her pale cheek, prayed for forgiveness. Emma did not heed him; but looking again in her mother’s face, and pointing upward, said softly: ‘I shant be so there!—shall I, mother?’

‘No, my poor child!’ replied the weeping parent; ‘I hope not. But don’t talk so, Emma. Forgive your poor brother, or you’ll break his heart.’

‘Emma tried to gasp something; but whatever it was, whether of love or hate, it never reached a mortal ear. In a few moments she was no more.’

We take your amiable hint, good ‘P.’ of S——, and shall venture the forfeit. That our own ‘humor is no great shakes,’ we very cheerfully admit—so that there is an end to that ‘difference of opinion.’ ‘P.’ reminds us of an anecdote which we had not long since from a friend. ‘There, take that!’ said a would-be facetious doctor to a patient, whom he had been boring almost to extinction with what he fancied to be humor; ‘take it; ’t will do you good, though it is nauseous.’ ‘Don’t say a word about that,’ said the patient, swallowing the revolting potion; ‘the man who has endured your wit, has nothing to fear from your physic!’ ••• ‘C. M. P.’s parody on ‘Oh no, I never mention Him,’ is a very indifferent affair, compared with Hood’s transcript of that well-known song. We remember a stanza or two of it:

‘Oh, no, I never mentioned it,

I never said a word;

But lent my friend a five-pound note,

Of which I’ve never heard.

He said he merely borrowed it

To pay another debt;

And since I’ve never mention’d it,

He thinks that I forget!

‘Whene’er we ride, I pays the ’pike;

I settles every treat;

He rides my horse, he drives my cab,

But cuts me when we meet.

My new umbrell’ I lent him too,

One night—’twas very wet;

Though he forgets it ne’er came back,

Ah, me! I don’t forget!’

The kite-season has opened with great activity. Did you ever remark, reader, when Nature begins to waken from her winter-sleep; when the woods ‘beyond the swelling floods’ of the rivers begin to redden; when the first airs of spring assume their natural blandness; when ladies are out with their ‘spring hats’ and carmen with their spring-carts; when the snow has left us, and the city-trees are about leave-ing; how innumerous kites begin to thicken in the air? Yonder a big unwieldy fellow rises with calm dignity, trailing his long tail with great propriety behind him; here a little bustling creature ducks and dives, coquetting first on this side, then on that; until finally turning two or three somersets, it almost reaches the earth; but soon rises at a tangent, and sails far up into the bright blue firmament. Look! the air is full of them! It is a charming amusement, this kite-flying of the boys. We greatly affect it, even now, although we are ‘out of our ’teens!’ There is something ethereal in it; some thing that lifts up the young admiration

‘To that blue vault and sapphire wall

That overhangs and circles all,’

and the mysterious realm that lies beyond its visible confines. ••• We select from the ‘Random Reminiscences of a Retired Merchant’ a single passage; the entire article being quite too short for any other department of our work: ‘There once flourished in one of our commercial cities a little French merchant, who was very well known to every man and boy by the fact of his being always followed by a curly-haired yellow dog with his tail ‘cut a little too short by a d——d sight!’ During the last war, our little Frenchman was doing a very thriving business in the dry-goods line, and was supposed to be a little sharper at a bargain than any of his fellow-tradesmen. There also flourished at the same time, in the same city, an importing merchant of Yankee origin, who was noted as a long-headed, close-fisted dealer. It is well known that during the war English goods were sold at enormous prices. The Yankee merchant was in that line of trade; and a few days before the arrival in this country of the news of peace, he received private advices from the Continent which led him to anticipate it. As he had a large supply of English goods on hand at the time, the prices of which would of course instantly fall, he set about disposing of them as soon as possible to his less informed and unsuspecting customers. The little Frenchman was one of his victims. After much haggling, and the offer of a long credit, the importer effected a bill of sale of goods to him, to the amount of something like twenty thousand dollars, taking his notes on long time in payment. These he considered perfectly good, of course, as his customer’s reputation in the money-market was unsullied. The bargain being consummated, the two friends parted, each in a capital humor with himself; the Yankee to deposit the notes in his strong box, and the Frenchman to his store, where, receiving his newly-purchased goods, he immediately commenced marking them one hundred per cent. above cost, thus making before midnight, to use his own boast, a profit of twenty thousand dollars on his purchase! Three days afterward the official news of peace came; English goods instantly fell one half, and our little Frenchman awoke in horror from his dream of cent. per cent. Nine persons out of every ten under such circumstances would have failed at once. But nil desperandum was the motto of our Frenchman. He saw that he had been ‘bit’ by his commercial friend, and he immediately set his wits at work to turn the tables upon him. So, late in the evening of the next day he repaired to the dwelling of the importer, and told a long and pitiful story of his embarrassments. He said his conscience already smote him for making so heavy a purchase while in failing circumstances, and that he had come to make the only reparation in his power; namely, to yield up the goods obtained of the importer, on the latter’s cancelling the notes given therefor. The Yankee at first demurred; but on the Frenchman insisting that he was a bankrupt, and that he feared the moment he opened in the morning the sheriff would pounce upon him with a writ that would swallow up every thing, he finally agreed to the proposition. ‘Half a loaf was better than no bread,’ he thought; and so the notes and the bill of sale were accordingly cancelled. By daylight in the morning the Yankee was at the Frenchman’s store, with his teams, as had been agreed upon the night before, and every package of his goods was soon removed. The two merchants again parted, the Frenchman with a mind relieved of a heavy load, and the Yankee rather down in the mouth at the result of his trade. Two or three days afterward, as the importer was passing the Frenchman’s store, he observed his sign still up, and every thing apparently as flourishing as ever. He stepped in to see what it all meant. ‘Hallo! Mr. S——,’ said he, ‘I thought you had failed!’ ‘Failed!’ repeated the Frenchman, thrusting his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, and sliding his legs apart from counter to counter, till he resembled a small Colossus of Rhodes: ‘Failed? No, be gar! Firmer than ever, Mr. H——, but I should have failed, almosht, if I hadn’t got rid of dem tamn’d English goods at cost!’ Straitway the out-witted Yankee ‘departed the presence!’’ ••• It has been generally supposed that the oratorical efforts of ‘Major Pogram,’ as described by Mr. Dickens in a late number of his ‘Chuzzlewit,’ rather carricatured even the worst specimens of western eloquence; but the subjoined passage from the speech of a Mr. Maupin in the Indiana legislature, upon the subject of establishing a tobacco warehouse and inspection at Paducah, seems to militate against the validity of this ‘flattering function:’

‘Mr. Speaker: I feel incompetent to measure this comprehensive subject. Were my thoughts as deep as the Mississippi, and as clear as the Ohio, I could not grasp its whole magnitude. It requires a mighty mind; one that can look beyond the landscape; he must be able to look even beyond the ocean; to grapple with all the intricacies and winding convolutions of the subject, and to map in his mind the whole length and breadth of its territories. Here, Sir, is a river, whose broad and deep stream meanders from Paducah through one of the most fertile tobacco countries in the world, to Ross’s landing, and at the terminus of the great Charleston railroad, and possessing a steam navigation of eight hundred miles, and giving commercial facilities to the briny ocean. Behold this vast channel of commerce; this magnificent thoroughfare of trade; one grand, unbroken chain of inter-communication, like to a prodigious sarpent, with his head resting upon the shores of Europe, and his lengthened form stretching over the ocean and curling along this great winding stream in serpentine grandeur, proudly flaps his tail at Paducah! ••• Sir, the ball is in motion; it is rolling down in noise of thunder from the mountain heights, and comes booming in its majesty over the wide-spread plain. Yes, Sir, and it will continue to roll on, and on, gathering strength and bulk in its onward progress, until it sweeps its ponderous power to the town of Paducah, and there stand a towering monument of patriotic glory and sublime grandeur, with the noble American eagle proudly perched upon its cloud-capped summit, and gazing with swelling pride and admiration down upon the magnificent spectacle of the greatness of human wisdom and power!’

Every-body has heard of the good old lady who purchased a family Bible at a bookstore, and soon after returned it, being desirous to exchange it for one of larger print. ‘We have at present no Bible,’ said the clerk, ‘of a larger-sized type than the one you have.’ ‘Well,’ replied the lady, ‘I wish you would print me one, and I’ll call in a day or two and get it!’ She thought a request so reasonable could readily be complied with. One of our most prominent publishers mentions a clever anecdote of a poetess, who in reading the proofs of her forthcoming volume, found passages of a page or more in length enclosed in parenthetical pen-marks in the margin, with ‘Thomson,’ ‘Gray,’ ‘Moore,’ ‘Burns,’ ‘Wilson,’ etc., inscribed at the end. One day a letter accompanied the return-proofs, in which the lady remarked, that ‘she had endured the repeated insinuations of the publisher long enough; she was no plagiarist, whatever her other literary faults might be; she had on each occasion looked over the works of Moore, Thomson, Burns, Gray, etc., but with the exception perhaps of a passage in Wilson’s ‘Isle of Palms,’ there was not even the slightest pretext for a charge of plagiarism. She would thank the publisher, therefore, to discontinue in future his groundless hints upon the margins of the proof-sheets.’ The initiated will understand that the ‘insinuations’ of which the poetess complained, were simply the names of the different compositors, indicating the lines at which they severally began to place her effusions in type! ••• Many a reader will recall, as he peruses the subjoined unpretending sketch, a kindred scene in his own experience, ‘when life and hope were new:’

OUR OLD MEETING-HOUSE.

Lord, ’tis not ours to make the sea

And earth and sky a home for Thee;

But in Thy sight our off’ring stands,

A humble temple, ‘made with hands.’

‘Many years ago, when ‘the dew of the morning was fresh upon me,’ there stood, just in the edge of the village where I was born, an old church edifice. The graves of many an early settler were round about it; and often as the shadows of evening were settling upon the valley, with half-averted face and hurried steps have I stole noiselessly by to our rural home. O, how many associations crowd upon the memory, in connection with that rude old meeting-house! It was an old-fashioned, square building, without portico, or steeple, or belfry. The winter’s hail and summer’s rain had beaten against it for half a century. Its numerous small windows, without curtain or blind, let in floods of light. Its small pulpit, perched high upon one side, and close to the wall, concealed the preacher’s body, while the heads of the congregation were just seen rising above the square high-backed pews. Hardly a cushion was to be seen; and the interior furnishing was of the simplest and plainest character. I have said that it had associations of great interest. It is now more than an hundred years since a small band of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians settled in that valley. Though but few in number, and braving the elements and the savages, they determined to carry with them into the wilderness not only the Christian’s hope, but the Christian’s ordinances. A small building of logs arose soon after the settlement, in which for many years an educated and regularly-ordained minister preached the gospel to a little flock. The inquiry had already commenced; ‘The prophets, where are they?’ The larger part of the pioneers had sunk into peaceful graves, when the war of the revolution commenced. It was still a frontier hamlet, and was soon swallowed up and lost in that terrible whirlwind of death which year after year swept over the settlements of Central New-York. When peace was restored, the remnant of the inhabitants whom war and disease had spared, returned to their former homes. But though war and disease had impoverished them, they had not forgotten the God of their fathers. Having no house for assembling together, the inhabitants met in what they termed ‘the meeting-house yard;’ and there organized anew that church which has continued thence to this day, and determined upon the erection of the old meeting-house of which I have spoken. Under the open heavens, with their feet upon their fathers’ graves, they dedicated themselves anew to the service of Him who was Lord overall, and whom they acknowledged as their only Sovereign. I have looked over the records of that meeting with emotions never to be forgotten. The gray-haired patriarch, loaning on his staff with one hand, and with the other guiding our youthful footsteps to the house of prayer on every Sabbath morning, was one of that small number, and took an active part in that solemn ceremony. The stillness of a Sabbath morning in the country has often been remarked. How often, amid the din and bustle of the great city, does the heart of him who has been accustomed to the holy quietness of the day of rest in some secluded valley, pant for a return to the home of his youth! Such has been my own experience; in the far-off past I see again the gathering of the quiet, orderly congregation; I hear the voice of the good old father who ministered in holy things; I sit by the open window and look out upon the green graves thick strown round the old meeting-house; the warbling of the feathered songsters in the grove near by falls softly upon the ear. The voice of prayer is hushed, and the voice of praise ascends. Alas! the voices of most of those which were then attuned on earth, are now attuned to more celestial music in another world!

‘But our old meeting-house, where is it? It has gone with those who, in the midst of trials, and in the plenitude of their poverty, with their own hands hewed out its massive timbers; and the place that knew it knows it no more! It was in the fall of the year that a traveller on horseback rode up to the principal hotel, and as he dismounted and handed the reins to his host, he inquired what building that was in the southern part of the village? On being informed that it was the meeting-house, he remarked, with a dogged air, that ‘he had often seen the Lord’s house, but had never seen the Lord’s barn before!’ The comical remark of the traveller produced an immediate action. The good old house soon disappeared. A more ambitious edifice was built in another part of the village. The land-marks are now entirely effaced, and the spot where it stood has been added to the ‘meeting-house yard.’ The monuments of the young and the aged who sleep there dot over the place where the first Presbyterian congregation, ay, the first congregation of Evangelical Christians of any denomination, in Central New-York, assembled to worship the living God.’

We are promised by an esteemed friend some interesting extracts from the original American correspondence of Mrs. Grant of Laggan, whose ‘Memoir and Correspondence,’ edited by her son, has recently attracted so much attention and remark in Great-Britain. Mrs. Grant appears to have been a woman of very remarkable powers, and of the most admirable common sense. Her observations upon the ‘amusive talents’ of Theodore Hook, and his entire devotion to their cultivation, are replete with the soundest wisdom. The distinction between living to amuse the public merely, and the exertion of one’s intellectual powers for one’s own benefit, and with an eye to the claims of riper years, is admirably discriminated and set forth. There is not perhaps a more instructive lesson than that conveyed by professional wits, who are ‘first applauded and then endured, when people see that it is all they have.’ As auxiliaries, as contrasts, with reflection and thoughtful exercitations of the mind, wit and humor are felicitous matters; as an intellectual main-stay, however, they have been weighed in the balance by a hundred brilliant examples, and have always been ‘found wanting.’ ••• Punch, at this present writing, save three or four numbers, in February, is among the missing. Late issues however, furnish some valuable contributions to academical statistics; as for example, Mr. Boys, who in his report upon the metropolitan school-visitation, writes as follows:

‘The use of sponge for cleaning slates he found confined to 17¼ per cent.; of whom 5½ used the sponge wet with water, and 11¾ with saliva; the remaining 82¾ made use of the latter liquid and the cuffs of their jackets instead of sponges, with an occasional recourse to the pocket-handkerchief. The author found, in schools in which the Latin language was not taught, a lamentable deficiency in the knowledge of the meaning of ‘meum’ and ‘tuum;’ he pointed out how the great extent of juvenile crime might thus be accounted for, as being caused by the absence of all instruction in the Latin language, and hoped that teaching it would soon be made obligatory upon all school-masters.’

There is a humorous sketch of an examination of law-students, from which we select an ‘exercise’ or two:

‘Ques: Have you attended any and what law lectures? Ans: I have attended to many legal lectures, when I have been admonished by police magistrates for kicking up rows in the streets, pulling off knockers, etc.

Ques: What is a real action? Ans: An action brought in earnest, and not by way of a joke.

Ques: What are a bill and answer? Ans: Ask my tailor.

Ques: How would you file a bill? Ans: I don’t know, but would lay the case before a blacksmith.

Ques: What steps would you take to dissolve an injunction? Ans: I should put it into some very hot water, and let it remain there until it was melted.

Ques: What are post-nuptial articles? Ans: Children.

Ques: What is simple larceny? Ans: Picking a pocket of a handkerchief, and leaving a purse of money behind.’

We have had books on etiquette, of various kinds, lately, but a work of this sort for prisons will be found, one would think, to supply an important desideratum. George Selwyn, when a servant was sent to Newgate, for stealing articles from the club-house of which Selwyn was a member, was very much shocked: ‘What a horrid report,’ said he, ‘the fellow will give of us to the gentlemen in Newgate!’ This feeling will doubtless be more general by and by:

‘In consequence of complaints that have been made by persons committed to prison before trial, who object to their not being allowed to mix with other prisoners, it has been thought necessary to frame a Book of Etiquette for prison purposes. Of course a superior delinquent, like a forger, could not be on visiting terms with a mere pick-pocket, nor could a man charged with stealing a hundred pounds, feel at his ease in the society of one whose alleged theft might be mean and insignificant. It is, we believe, intended to introduce the prisoners to each other formally, not by name, but by the offence with which they are charged. Thus, the Governor of Newgate would say to Felony: ‘Allow me to introduce you to Aggravated Larceny. You ought to know each other—indeed you ought. Aggravated Larceny, Felony; Felony, Aggravated Larceny.’ By a nice adjustment and proper application of the rules of etiquette, a very admirable system of social intercourse might be established in all our prisons, and the present complaint of a want of ‘good society,’ which falls so severely on superior scoundrels, would at once be got rid of.’

Deafness, although sometimes rather annoying—as for example in the case mentioned in preceding pages by John Waters—is yet not without its advantages. Your conversational ‘‘Deaf Burke,’ who can endure any amount of ‘punishment’ without being the worse for it,’ enjoys not unfrequently a great deal of negative felicity. We envied the condition of such an one the other day, while sitting with a friend at the ‘Globe,’ over such potables and edibles as that matchless establishment can alone set before its guests. At a table in near proximity, sat two Englishmen, whose comments upon ‘matters and things’ in America were embodied in such ‘voluble speech’ that we could scarcely hear ourselves speak. ‘They may talk about their hinstitutions as much as they please,’ said one of the speakers, ‘but honly look at ’em—see their heffect, from the ’ead of the government, down. Yesterday I perused in the ‘Courier’ newspaper an account of a negro’s skin, hentire, that was found with the ’ead attached, in the Mississippi river!’ ‘’Orid, isn’t it! Think o’ such a thing as that picked up in the Tems! And last week. I read in the ’Erald of a man near the Canada lines, who was found dead by the side of a fallen tree, half eaten up by wild hogs or panthers. He ’ad a flask of whiskey by his side, which he had taken ‘neat,’ till it had killed him; and in his pocket was a dirty pack o’ cards, wrapped up in a copy of the Declaration of Hindependence! That’s your liberty for ye!’ ☞ See if these very absurdities be not found embodied within a twelve-month in some new work by a travelling Englishman, upon that ‘miserable experiment at self-government, the United States of America!’ ••• Here are some scraps of ‘Parisian Gossip’ which will not be altogether uninteresting to American readers. One of our Paris letters states that at a splendid party given by Lady Cowley, there occurred a rather curious incident. ‘Among the guests was a Mr. L——, (one of the snobiculi, most likely,) who, believing that none but a friend whom he addressed was within hearing, said, ‘And they call this a party? Why, I never saw any thing so dull in all my life. It is not worth the trouble of dressing for such an affair; and then the rooms are so intolerably hot.’ Unfortunately, the noble hostess was standing near, and overheard him, and immediately said: ‘Mr. L——, there (pointing to the ante-room,) is a cooler room, and beyond it is the hall, still cooler.’ This prompt and significant hint was felt, understood, and taken.’ ‘Every body in Paris knows or has heard of Halevy the composer, and his brother, the author. A bon mot of a pretty and sarcastic lady, at the expense of both of them, is now going the round of the gossipping circles. ‘Do you like Halevy, the author?’ inquired a friend. ‘Pas du tout, pas du tout!’ answered the lady; ‘He is as dull as if his brother had composed him!’ Eugene Sue has hatched a large brood of ‘Mysteries.’ The Journal des Debats having published ‘Mysteries of Paris,’ the Courier Français is now publishing the ‘Mysteries of London.’ At Berlin no less than four different authors have published its ‘Mysteries.’ The ‘Mysteries of Brussels’ are being detailed in one of its journals. The ‘Mysteries of Hamburg’ have been exposed in print. At Vienna they are giving the ‘Mysteries of Constantinople;’ and a Paris newspaper promises in a short time the ‘Mysteries of St. Petersburg.’ Going on at this rate, there will soon be no ‘Mysteries’ in the world, and even the very word will become obsolete.’ ••• ‘The God of our Idolatry’ contains some home-thrusts at the national love of money, and not a few just animadversions upon the standard of respectability which obtains, in certain quarters, among us. Hamilton and Basil Hall’s experience in this regard seems also to have been that of our correspondent. The tendency of this standard, in a social and intellectual point of view, is very far from elevating. ‘You are going to the dinner at ——’s to-day, of course,’ said a lady with ‘an eye to the main chance’ to a friend of ours, the other day; ‘the company will be composed of some of our most ’fore-handed citizens—all heavy men,’ Our friend did go to the dinner; and he found the guests as ‘heavy’ as their best friends could have wished them to be. ••• Reading, in presence of a travelled friend, the proof of the admirable paper which opens the present number, we came to the passage which records the opinion of Kepler, that ‘the world is a vast animal, that breathes and reasons;’ whereupon our listener remarked: ‘No doubt of it; it is an animal; I’ve seen its four-quarters myself!’ It was a pun worthy of a butcher. ••• We are not so certain that the moral of ‘The Independent Man’ is ‘an unexceptionable one.’ The ‘Charcoal-sketcher’ expresses the general opinion, we fear, in this regard: ‘There’s a double set of principles in this world, one of which is to talk about and the other to act upon; one is preached and the other is practised. You’ve got hold, somehow, of the wrong set; the set invented by the knowing ones to check competition and to secure all the good things for themselves. That’s the reason people are always praising modest merit, while they are pushing along without either the one or the other. You always let go when any body’s going to take your place at table; you always hold back when another person’s wanting the last of the nice things on the dish. That’s not the way; bow and nod, and show your teeth with a fascination, but take what you want for all that. This is manners—knowing the world. To be polite is to have your own way gracefully; other people are delighted at your style—you have the profit.’ ••• The reader will not overlook the ‘Alligatorical Sketch’ in preceding pages. We begin to perceive how much the alligator has been slandered. It yawns merely, it would seem; and the only care requisite is, to be absent when its jaws close! ‘The ’gator isn’t what you may call a han’some critter, but there’s a great deal of openness when he smiles!’ The smile of an alligator!! ••• ‘Cleanliness,’ says Fuller, ‘is godliness;’ and he is not far out of the way; for no man, we think, can be a dirty Christian. In a moral and religious point of view, then, we are doing good service in calling public attention to the spacious baths of Mr. Charles Rabineau, at the Astor-House, and at his new establishment at Number 123 Broadway, Albany. Go wash in them and be clean, reader, and thank us for the joy which you will experience, when you shall have come out of the water and gone your ways. ••• One of the late London pictorial publications contains a portrait of Sir Hudson Lowe, the notorious keeper of Napoleon, the Emperor of the French, at St. Helena. It is in perfect keeping with the generally received estimate of the character of that functionary. The wretched thatch that disfigures without concealing the intellectual poverty of his narrow skull; the scowling features; the ragged penthouse brows; are ‘close denotements’ of the truth of ‘Common Report.’ In short, judging from the much-bepraised ‘likeness’ to which we allude, if Sir Hudson Lowe was not a tyrant, and a small-minded one withal, God doesn’t write a legible hand. ••• Some clever wag in the last Blackwood has an article, written in a hurry, upon the hurriedness of literary matters in these our ‘go-ahead’ days. ‘People,’ he says, ‘have not only ceased to purchase those old-fashioned things called books, but even to read them. Instead of cutting new works page by page, they cut them altogether:

‘When England luxuriated in the novels of Richardson, in eight volumes, it drove in coaches and four, at the rate of five miles an hour. A journey was then esteemed a family calamity; and people abided all the year round in their cedar parlors, thankful to be diverted by the arrival of the Spectator, or a few pages of the Pilgrim’s Progress, or a new sermon. To their incidental lives, a book was an event. Those were the days worth writing for! The fate of Richardson’s heroines was made a national affair; and people interceded with him by letter to ‘spare Clarissa,’ as they would not now intercede with her Majesty to spare a new Effie Deans. The successive volumes of Pope’s Iliad were looked for with what is called ‘breathless’ interest, while such political sheets as the Drapier’s Letters, or Junius, set the whole kingdom in an uproar. And now, if Pope, or Swift, or Fielding, or Johnson, or Sterne, were to rise from the grave, MS. in hand, the most adventurous publisher would pass a sleepless night before he undertook the risk of paper and print; would advise a small edition, and exact a sum down in ready money, to be laid out in puffs and advertisements! ‘Even then, though we may get rid of a few copies to the circulating libraries,’ he would observe, ‘do not expect, Sir, to obtain readers. A few old maids in the county towns, and a few gouty old gentlemen at the clubs, are the only persons of the present day who ever open a book!’ And who can wonder? Who has leisure to read? Who cares to sit down and spell out accounts of travels which he can make at less cost than the cost of the narrative? Who wants to peruse fictitious adventures, when rail-roads and steam-boats woo him to adventures of his own? People are busy ballooning or driving; shooting like stars along rail-roads, or migrating like swallows or wild-geese.’

In allusion to the illustrated newspapers, now vieing with each other in enterprise and expense, in the British metropolis, the writer says: ‘The pictorial printing press is now your only wear! Every thing is communicated by delineation. We are not told but shown how the world is wagging. Views of the Holy Land are superseding even the Holy Scriptures, and a pictorial Blackstone is teaching the ideas of sucking lawyers how to shoot. Libels are veiled in carricature. Instead of writing slander and flat blasphemy, the modern method is to draw it, and not to ‘draw it mild’ either. The columns of certain papers bear a striking likeness to a child’s alphabet, such as ‘A was an Archer, and shot at a frog.’ All the world is now instructed by symbols, as formerly the deaf and dumb. We have little doubt of shortly seeing announcements, standing like tomb-stones in those literary cemeteries, the Saturday papers, of ‘A new work upon America, from the graver of George Cruikshank;’ or ‘A new fashionable novel, (diamond edition,) from the accomplished pencil of ‘H. B.’’ ••• We have a ‘Query’ from a Philadelphia correspondent, as to whether Mr. and Mrs. Wood would not be likely to come over here, if invited, and in company with Brough, and other artists, establish English opera among us. Touching the disposition of the Woods in this matter, we know nothing; but Brough is too busily employed to admit of such a consummation. What with his agency for the new sporting gun-powder, (which Daniel Webster declares to be superior in strength and cleanliness to any other thing of the kind in the world,) and for the ‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘Old Parr’s Life-pills’ etc., he has scarcely leisure to achieve his private calls, and execute occasionally, for the gratification of his friends, those charming airs which are indissolubly associated with his name. ••• Messrs. Snelling and Tisdale’s ‘Metropolitan Library and Reading-Room,’ at 599 Broadway, near Houston-street, supplies an important desideratum in that quarter of the metropolis. In addition to a well-stocked library and reading-room, there are coffee, conversation, chess, and cigar-apartments, and all the belongings of a first establishment after its kind. ••• We had clipped for insertion, from a Baltimore journal, a poem in honor of Ole Bull, entitled ‘The Bewitched Fiddle,’ which we have unluckily mislaid or lost. It was by Mr. Hewitt, a popular song-writer and musical composer, and was one of the most fanciful and felicitous things we have seen in a month of Sundays. As it is at this moment out of our power to print it, we can only counsel our readers, if they encounter it any where, not to fail of its perusal. ••• We have a pleasant metropolitan story to tell one of these days, (at least we think so,) of which we have been reminded by the following from a late English magazine:

‘The vulgar genteel are nervously cautious concerning every thing they say or do; they are ever alive to the dread of compromising their ‘gentility.’ At a ball—it was a charity-ball!—given at a fashionable watering-place, a pretty young woman, who was sitting by her mother, was invited by a gentleman to dance. He led her to a set; when, instantly, two ‘young ladies’ who were of it, haughtily, withdrew to their seats. ‘They had no notion of dancing in such company’—and with good reason. The young person was nothing more than the daughter of a wealthy and respectable tradesman of the place; while they—the two Misses Knibbs—were members of its resident small ‘aristocracy.’ The places they had vacated were good-naturedly filled by two ladies who had witnessed the proceeding, one of whom was the daughter, the other, the niece, of a nobleman. Their position was too well established to be compromised by dancing for a quarter of an hour in the same set with a respectable tradesman’s daughter; but the two Misses Knibbs were the daughters of a retired soap-boiler.’

⁂ We have numerous communications in prose and verse, several of them from favorite contributors, of which we shall make more particular mention in our next. Three pages of ‘Literary Record,’ although in type, are unavoidably omitted.

Footnotes

Return to textThis route leads, among other villages, through that of Sevenoaks, famous as the place where Jack Cade and his rabble overthrew the forces of Stafford, in the very same year, (1450,) when Faust and Gutenberg set up the first press in Germany, and long, therefore, before Cade could have justly complained, as Shakspeare has made him do, that the Lord Say had ‘caused printing to be used’ in England, and ‘built a paper-mill.’ But who taxes the sun for his spots or Shakspeare for anachronisms? He who was born to exhaust and imagine worlds, cannot of course be denied some innocent liberties with chronology. The village in question, however, is more interesting to travellers from being in the vicinity of Knole, the fine old seat of the dukes of Dorset. The stranger is led here through long galleries garnished with furniture of the time of Elizabeth and hung with portraits which at every step recall names of the deepest historical interest. Who can ever forget that which hangs or hung over the door of Lady Betty Germaine’s chamber? It is Milton in the bloom of manhood, and the immortal epic seems to be just dawning on those mild and pensive features. One chamber, of sumptuous appointments remains, (so runs the legend,) as it was last tenanted by James I., no head less sapient or august having been since permitted to press the pillow. In another every thing stands as it was arranged for the reception of the second James, who forfeited, it seems, a luxurious lodging at Knole at the same time that he forfeited his crown. The name of Lady Betty Germaine, Swift’s friend and correspondent, connects the place with all the celebrities of the reign of Queen Anne. On emerging from the building we view the magnificent groves of the park, fit haunt for nightingales, though Becket is said to have driven them by an anathema from the neighborhood, because their songs interrupted his nocturnal meditations. But the memory of Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, (once proprietor of Knole,) the best poet of his time, and ‘the immediate father-in-verse of Spenser,’ sufficiently redresses the stigma of so churlish a proscription, and the nightingales may well claim perpetual franchise under sanction of a name to which the ancient inscription would apply:

Λί δὲ τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀηδονες, ἡσιν ὁ παντων

ἁρπακτὴρ Αὶδης ουκ επὶ χεῖρα βαλεὶ.

Yet live thy nightingales of song: on those

Forgetfulness her hand shall ne’er impose.

Return to textDunum or Duna, sigifieth a hill or higher ground, whence Downs, which cometh of the old French word dun. Coke Lit. 235.

Return to textParody of ‘Andromache:’ Racine’s first tragedy of any note.

Return to textAlluding to an epigram of Racine on d’Olonne and de Crequi, written to revenge himself for their attacks on ‘Andromache.’

Return to textSub dio.—Hor.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KNICKERBOCKER, OR NEW-YORK MONTHLY MAGAZINE, APRIL 1844 ***

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