His pathos is profound but kindly. No writer is less gloomy than Burns,

and yet none for the extent of his compositions has more pathos. No

writer within the same compass has grander thoughts or deeper beauty;

and, by some magic of the heart, grand thoughts and deep beauty are

always allied to melancholy. The canopy of the blue heavens, when not a

cloud swims in its brightness, makes our rapture sad: so it does when

the stars stud it with ten thousand lights: the mountain’s majesty and

the ocean’s vastness subdue our souls to thought, and in this world of

ours thought has ever something of the hue of grief. It would seem as if

a mysterious connection existed between great objects and pensive

feelings, between lofty sentiments and deep regrets, a kind of struggle

in our higher nature against the limits of its condition: a

disappointment at the long interval that separates our aspirations from

the ideal, tinges with sorrow all our sensations of the beautiful.

Pathos such as this imbues all the graver poetry of Burns. Scarcely is

there a wo which wrings the bosom between the cradle and the grave which

has not an expression in the solemn music of his verse, from the

gentlest whisper of feeling to the frenzies of every pain and the

agonies of every passion. But though deep, his melancholy is not morbid.

It is the melancholy of great capacities and of real suffering; of error

reacting on itself a just infliction; or glorious desires yearning for

their congenial objects. The muse of Burns was a rustic maiden; a maiden

healthful and hardy. Fits of vapors she might occasionally have, but the

heather of her native mountains soon restored the elasticity of her

step, and the breeze of her pleasant valleys quickly recalled the bloom

to her cheek and the lustre to her eye. At times she sought the

solitudes; but she returned ere long to human homes, and sang her wild

and simple songs to the friendly circle. She loved, it is true, to

meditate under the green shadow of the forest, and to look up in

raptured spirit to the lurid and darkened heavens; but she loved no less

the blessed sunshine on the harvest hill, and the cottage smoke that

floated in the evening sky. If occasionally she wept amidst the graves

of her heroes, she came from the places of the dead, more boldly to

proclaim liberty in the places of the living.

This pathos is neither maudlin nor misanthropic. It does not make the

head giddy with paradox; nor whirl the heart upon a wild and chaotic

tempest of doubt and selfishness; it does not dissect out the evils of

human nature, and gloat over them with a diseased voluptuousness; it

does not lead you to sit at the feast of despair, with the spectres and

skeletons around you of unsocial horrors. It is no mawkish pretence of

sentiment. Burns is true to what he feels; and, right or wrong, he

speaks it as it is. He maintains this course in his good and his evil.

It saved him from groveling and bombast; it saved him from intellectual

cant, and from literary quackery. No language is so eloquent as honest

language. Truth goes direct to its purpose, while affectation is

crawling around its petty circumlocutions; and, as the straight line is

the shortest, the most sincere words are the most resistless. As the

poet had honesty in himself, he had faith in others. His appeal was

weakened by no skepticism in the capacity of humble men to appreciate

the noble and the beautiful. He spoke to them as beings whose hearts

were of the same substance as his own; he spoke confident of the result,

and he was not disappointed. The first auditors of his verses were the

obscure dwellers among Scottish hills and hamlets, and to his words he

received as true a response as poetic enthusiasm could have desired. The

sons and daughters of toil proved to him, that he had not trusted them

in vain. He gave them his faith, and they paid back the trust with a

priceless love.

I have said that the pathos of Burns is not morbid—and I have said

truly. In its lowest depths, it is not dark—in the uttermost sadness,

it is not despairing. He grieves, but he never whines; and when he

utters forth tones the most plaintive, they are yet so vigorous and so

full, that, by the strong sound of them, you feel that they come out

from the stalwort struggle of a manly bosom. He has pathos, too, of

every variety. He has the pathos of sympathy—and this sympathy is often

so intense, as to amount to a passionate indignation. As thus, in the

poem—“_Man was made to Mourn_:”—

Many and sharp, the numerous ills—

Interwoven with our frame!

More pointed still we make ourselves,

Regret, remorse, and shame.

And Man, whose heaven-created face,

The smiles of love adorn,

Man’s inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn.

This is a large and noble eloquence, condensed into a soul-fraught

poetry; yet is it but one out of the many stanzas of which the whole

consists, of equal power. So, likewise, he has the pathos of pity, of

tenderness, in their finest modulations. The chords of his own heart

were most delicately attuned to “the soft, sad music of humanity;” and

the breathings of its sorrow were of that genuine humanity, to which

other hearts cannot but respond. How much of such pitiful gentleness

have we constantly in his poetry, often coming near to gusts of

anger—like the song of a mourner in a stormy midnight—or, the moan of

the tempest after its rush. But sometimes we have low and melancholy

plaints, without one tone of harshness, in such exquisite verses, as

those on “The Mouse,” and “The Mountain Daisy”—in “Poor Mailie’s

Elegy”—and “The Farmer’s Address to the Old Mare on New Year’s Day.”

Illustrations of this point are in all his writings, prose as well as

poetry; but I will only mention one other—his “Lines on a Wounded

Hare.” Burns has, in an eminent degree, the pathos which springs from

contemplation of our mortal life; and not less, that which comes from

those solemn questionings of the spirit, to which experience and the

Past, give only accusing answers. A man of genius may do wrong; he may

lose himself in the mazes of the passions; he may forget himself in the

excitement and turbulence of the senses—but all this is at a deadlier

cost than it is to any other man. Let no puny-copyist of genius only in

its errors and its wanderings, doubly deceive himself—first, by

supposing that he _has_ genius, and then, more fatally, deceive himself

by inferring that genius has impunity. True, it is, that genius, like

charity, covereth a multitude of sins—and for the delight and the

beauty which a great soul showers upon the world, the world does

abundantly forgive. But, genius does not forgive itself. A strong moral

sensibility—though, it may be, not strong moral principle—is mostly a

concomitant—if not an essential element—in the nature of a man of

genius, and, therefore, when such a man does violence to his higher

sentiments, his very genius becomes his punishment. The grandeur of his

ideal—the innate love that he must have to the good and to the

beautiful—the extent of his moral associations—the tenacity of his

moral memories—the vitality of his imagination, calling back again, and

back again, the thoughts which had only disappeared, but were not

dead—all conspire to chastise him, and to chastise him by the faculties

which enchant and move the world. The depth and the compass of his

sympathies afflict him; and, as the fountains of thought and feeling are

full within him, so much the greater are the agitations that shake him.

These remarks concern mainly those men of genius whose nature is that of

a comprehensive humanity. Men there have been, and are, that might be

adduced to contradict the position I have ventured here to take: for

they were capable of much that was unworthy—and yet they did not suffer

or repent. Some were deniers, and some were sensualists—the deniers had

fine art, and the sensualists had fine sentiments—and all were men of

genius. I have no reply to make, except that, in such men, their genius,

as their humanity, was of partial, though intense development; and that

such was a class to which Burns did not belong. He was neither a denier

nor a sentimentalist. He was a _man_—take him for all in all—and he

was a poet in the whole compass of the _man_. The man spoke through the

poet, not in gladness only, but, also, in every note of sorrow and

compunction. What sombre power in his Ode to Despondency.

Oppressed with grief, oppressed with care,

A burden more than I can bear,

I sit me down and sigh:

O life! thou art a galling load,

Along a rough, a weary road,

To wretches such as I!

Dim, backward, as I cast my view,

What sick’ning scenes appear!—

What sorrows yet may pierce me through,

Too justly, I may fear!

Still caring, despairing,

Must be my bitter doom;

My woes here, shall close ne’er,

But with the closing tomb.

See this again, in the affection with which he loved the sombre phases

of external nature, and the force with which he painted them. Thus he

meditates in Winter:

The sweeping blast—the sky o’ercast—

The joyless winter-day,

Let others fear, to me more dear

Than all the pride of May:

The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,

My griefs it seems to join;

The leafless trees my fancy please—

Their fate resembles mine.

Then passing from this low-breathing despondency, we have lyric tragedy

shouting down despair in a kind of reckless ecstacy. Bold and brave is

this “Song of Death:”

Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies,

Now gay with the bright setting sun;

Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties,

Our race of existence is run.

Thou grim King of Terrors—thou life’s gloomy foe—

Go, frighten the coward and slave;

Go, teach _them_ to tremble, fell tyrant! but know,

No terrors hast thou to the brave!

In the pathos of love Burns has no superior. What poet in ancient or

modern times, short of Shakspeare, has sung with more varied inspiration

than Burns, the agitations with which love convulses the heart of man,

and breaks the heart of woman? In a few compressed, but simple-meaning

lines, he reveals the passion in all its regrets and agony. And here

also, we can see the force, the simplicity—the vehement sincerity of

his poetry: and we can see exactly the same characteristics in his life.

Allan Cunningham, in his biography of Burns, tells a very affecting

anecdote, which I may here fairly adduce in illustration. Jean Armor was

lying ill in the house of her parents. Burns had arranged to quit the

country for ever, but wanted, once before he left, to see his Jean.

Burns attempted to go into the house, but her father stood in the door

to exclude him. Burns, maddened by his grief, pushed the old man aside,

rushed up to his daughter’s chamber, and throwing himself across the

bed, wept as if his heart would burst. And, with regard to his verses to

“Mary in Heaven,” if any thing could be more pathetic, than the verses

themselves, it was the circumstances in which he composed them. It is

now familiar to all who read the least of literary history, that this

sublimely pathetic ode, was composed on the anniversary of the maiden’s

death, while the poet lay abroad in the field during a bright harvest

night, recalling the images of past affections, and out from this dream

of the wakeful and troubled heart came that dirge of music which the

noblest humanity inspired, and which the rudest humanity must love. It

is so familiar to every one, that I will not dare to profane it, by

repetition. But here are a few lines of a song, lyrical with all the

melody of sadness.

Ae fond kiss and then we sever!

Ae farewell—alas, forever!

Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee—

Wailing sighs and groans I’ll wage thee—

Who shall say that fortune grieves him—

While the star of hope she leaves him?

Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me;

Dark despair around benights me.

. . . . .

Had we never loved sae kindly,

Had we never lovéd blindly,

Never met—or never parted,

We had ne’er been broken-hearted.

The humor of Burns, too, is full of humanity. It is affluent with all

the rich and laughing juices of the heart, and has only just so much of

acid as adds pungency to sweetness. Burns has the humor most

characteristic of his country; but beyond that, he has a humor belonging

to himself—a humor which, while it distinguishes the individual,

endears him to his kind. In common with his countrymen, he has the

cautious innuendo—the sly allusion—the insinuated sarcasm—the shrewd

but mocking suggestion—the implied irony—the dextrously concealed and

quiet fun—the sober joke—but he goes beyond all this—and has a

humor—which can make men of every nation shake their sides—a humor

that often unites the broadness of Rabelais with the sentiment of

Sterne. Such a humor demands not only extraordinary wealth of

imagination, but also, extraordinary force of intellect—a very uncommon

fancy and a very strong common sense. And, it was the union of these in

Burns which so well enabled him to be at once comic and satirical—which

enabled him so happily to combine the sarcastic and the ludicrous—and

he does this in such a way, that while his victims writhe before us, we

discern no malignity in their torturer. But, it is in jocund, queer,

joyous humor—humor reckless in its gladness, that Burns the most

excels. In this species of humor he has scarcely an equal. Few of the

greatest masters in humor come near him; and in what we may call the

comic-lyric, he stands almost alone. The humor that makes richest melody

in the heart; that sings for very joy; that by every note in which

laughter can sing out its ecstacy—swells the choruses of mirth and

merriment—the humor that is a jubilee in the bosom, that gives widest

liberty to fancy—a saturnalia, in which no thought of care or labor,

dares intrude—a carnival, in which all kindly oddities of conception

play their parts—a humor that combines imagination and feeling into

numberless bright varieties, to exhilarate our life—of this humor,

Burns in his laughing moods is the potent wizard—of this enlivening

magic his gayer songs are the resistless spells.

This humor, too, is generously and jovially human, and although Burns’

ridicule is often coarse, it is rarely cruel. He strikes, but it is with

the arm of a man, and not with the blasting of a fiend. Gall he does

sometimes mingle with the cup of satire, but never the deadly

night-shade; the barb he sharpens keenly, but he does not steep it in

poison. He painted, it is true, with a breadth and richness of coloring

that made men hold their sides and set the table in a roar, the

fooleries and absurdities of individuals; the pretensions of sects, and

the bitterness of factions; the vanities of professions; the motley

trivialities of presumptuous and stolid nonsense; but in the very storm

of his sarcasm, he spares our common nature. There is a ridicule which

properly may be called diabolical; which desecrates every thing endeared

and noble; which laughs not in festivity of spirit, but in bitterness of

heart; which like the witches in Macbeth, around the midnight cauldron,

shrieks in the irony of satanic mirth over the degradation of humanity.

This temper is realized in the writings of Swift, and affected in those

of Byron; but we discover no trace of it in the compositions of Burns.

Burns would give even to Satan himself the grace of repentance, and a

chance of heaven. Burns, like Byron, can pass rapidly from the grave to

the grotesque, but altogether in a different spirit. In the one it is

the prodigality of fun; in the other it is willfulness of scorn; in the

one, it is sport; in the other it is derision; the one as friend to

friend mocks humanity pleasantly; the other makes it a Sancho Panza,

tosses it in a blanket, and laughs the louder, the more it is

humiliated. I believe the spirit of Byron was naturally a fine one; but

it was spoiled, if not utterly ruined, as to all its higher capacities

and sympathies. I say not that his moral humanity was extinguished,

because that would be uncandid; but I do say, that he became fantastic

and capricious to such a degree as to fail in the charities which not

only soften life, but dignify literature.

Attributing humor to Burns, I do not estimate it as the slight matter

which many seem to think it. If we trust some persons, we should

conceive that length of face was length of wisdom, gravity of look, the

veil of oracles; thickness of skull the safeguard of knowledge; and

rigidity of muscle, the solemn surface of an unfathomable philosophy.

But humor in its higher form is the quality, not only of a liberal, but

of a cultivated spirit. It requires that the mental powers be vigorous

as well as genial. It requires imagination and intellect, as well as a

heart in the right place, and the juices of the body in a good

condition. Humor as well as pathos is the result of sympathy—of

sympathy that embraces man in the most brotherly cordiality—weeps with

those who weep, and rejoices with those who do rejoice. This is the

humor of Shakspeare; it is the humor of Hogarth; it is the humor of

Burns. And many a noble use has this honest faculty—often is it more

effective than sermons, to make life lambent, to clear the sky, that was

becoming too heavy around us, to warm social intercourse, to nurture our

socialities, to dissipate evil passions, and by its pleasant mockeries,

to shame us out of nonsensical miseries.

Time would now fail me to refer to the poetry of Burns with any special

detail; but for pages so well known, a few brief reminiscences will be

sufficient. How full of beauty is “The Vision,” the poem in which, with

a self-conscious greatness, almost Miltonic, he celebrates his own

consecration to the glory of his country; we read it in delight, in

wonder, and with sorrow, and with joy; we verily admit, that, “the light

which led astray was light from heaven.” With what solemn pleasure we

recall the “Cottar’s Saturday Night.” No other poem in the language

shows how much the eye of a poet can see, how much the heart of a poet

can feel, where another heart is dull, and another eye is blind. To the

prosaic nothing familiar is exciting, but to the inspired all existence

is full of glory. Here upon a cottage floor we have placed before us,

the most pure, and the most noble virtues; the piety that looks to

heaven; the patriotism that dignifies earth; here we have the father

returned from his toil, with his “wee things” circling his knees, his

clean hearth stone; his “thrifty wifie’s” smile; his soul made glad with

Sabbath hopes and with holy thoughts; here are brothers and sisters

gathered from the work-day world around the parents that shielded, and

that blessed their infancy; here are the pleasant face, and the heart’s

own smile; here the homely feast with a joy which luxury refuses, and a

gratitude which no luxury inspires; here is first love with maiden

blushes, shames and fears; here are all the sublimities of the

affections, all in the shades of unnoticed life. How noble is that

father and that peasant-priest, as he bares his “haffit locks,” and “let

us worship God he says with solemn air;”

Then kneeling down to Heaven’s eternal King—

The _saint_, the _father_, and the husband prays—

Hope “springs exultant on triumphant wings,”

That thus they all shall meet in future days:

Thus ever bask in uncreated rays—,

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,

Together hymning their _Creator’s_ praise,

In such society, yet still more dear;

While circling time moves round in on eternal sphere.

Compared with this, how poor! religion’s pride

In all the pomp of method and of art,

When men display to congregations wide,

Devotion’s every grace, except the _heart_!

The _Power_ incensed, the pageant will desert,

The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;

But haply, in some _Cottage_, far apart,

May hear well pleased the language of the soul,

And in his _Book of life_ the inmates poor enroll!

And how exalted that love of country which utters this fine

supplication:

O Scotia, my dear, my native soil,

For whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent,

Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil

Be blest with health, and pence, and sweet content.

And O, may heaven their simple lives prevent

From luxury’s contagion weak and vile,

Then, howe’er crowns end coronets be rent,

A virtuous populace will rise the while,

And stand a wall of fire round their much loved isle.

The spirit of hilarity has never been so admirably blended with the

gloomy and the tender, as in the tale of “Tam O’Shanter.” Heroic and

immortal Tam will stand his ground while the name of witch or warlock

has a place in language. This marvelous mixture of fun and fancy; this

chronicle of midnight revelry; this record of wit and waggery, of good

fellowship and ghosts, has now a lodgment in every mind that relishes

drollery and genius. Here we have the sublime with the ludicrous; images

most delicate with images most homely; subtle analogies with grotesque

incongruities; touches of sorrow with strokes of glee; all coming in

such rapid succession, that, while the broad grin is on the lip, the

tear is starting to the eye. “The Jolly Beggars” gives us the very

saturnalia of low life; jovial poverty frolics away in the full

abandonment of extravagance, dashed over, however, here and there, with

those shadings of regret which obtrude the sadness of life, when men try

to forget it most. The “Halloween,” pictures the poor man’s carnival,

such as it used to be in Scotland, with all its superstitions and its

sports. “The twa Dogs,” is a genial exposition of the poor man’s

philosophy. The dog of wealth, laying aside his master’s pride in his

master’s absence, meets the peasant dog with very kindly courtesy; and

both sitting tranquilly on their haunches, with nose to nose, and most

sagacious phizzes, discuss the comparative merits of riches and poverty,

pity the folly of their two-legged fellow creatures, congratulate each

other on their canine superiority, and bless their stars for being dogs

instead of men. Cæsar, the dog of high life, with an air of peculiar

respectability and most complacent compassion, wonders how poor folks

can live at all. Luath, his humble friend, knows that poor folks not

only live, but live with very many pleasures; and this Luath was a dog

of sympathy; he shared the cottage sorrow; he shared also the cottage

joy; he rattled away among the dancers; wagged his tail in the highest

glee of his honest heart, and gave his chorus to the merry sound. When

adversity was on the hearth, his face grew long; when better times

returned, it was broad again.

My heart hae been sae fain to see them

That I for joy hae barkit wi them.

The whole of this poem is fraught with the noblest and the most

endearing humanity—a humanity most varied and most musical in its

tones—running quickly along all the chords of sadness and of merriment,

throwing forth a harmony of charity and heart-breathing kindness, in

which grave sounds and gay mingle together, but not one vibration

ungenial or discordant. That Burns should give to dogs sentiments thus

characteristic of a sweet and generous temper, corresponds entirely to

the feelings with which he regarded that animal, as illustrated in a

passage which I have lately found, taken from a newspaper.

The following original anecdote of Burns is in a work entitled the

“Philosophy of the Seasons,” by Rev. Henry Duncan:

“I well remember with what delight I listened to an interesting

conversation which, while yet a school-boy, I enjoyed an opportunity of

hearing in my father’s manse, between the poet Burns and another poet,

my near relation, the amiable Blacklock. The subject was the fidelity of

the dog. Burns took up the question with all the ardor and kindly

feeling with which the conversation of that extraordinary man was so

remarkably embued. It was a subject well suited to call forth his

powers, and when handled, by such a man, not less suited to interest the

youthful fancy. The anecdotes by which it was illustrated have long

escaped my memory; but there was one sentiment expressed by Burns with

his characteristic enthusiasm which, as it threw a light into my mind, I

shall never forget. “Man,” said he, “is the God of the dog. He knows no

other; he can understand no other; and see how he worships him! With

what reverence he couches at his feet; with what love he fawns upon him,

with what dependence he looks up to him, and with what cheerful alacrity

he obeys him. His whole soul is wrapped up in his God; and the powers

and faculties of his nature are devoted to his service; and these powers

and faculties are exalted by the intercourse. It ought just to be so

with the Christian: but the dogs put the Christians to shame.”

It is thus, that the spirit of human love, the truest element of poetic

beauty, can ennoble and consecrate all it touches; it is thus that Burns

elevates the most lowly objects; the farmer’s mare, proud in her age and

services; the little cowering mouse, houseless and frightened; the dying

ewe; the wounded hare; the simple daisy; rustic sweethearts and rustic

beggars; all were endeared to his generous imagination, and over them,

while words have meaning, there will be laughing eyes, and serious

faces.

Burns has been great in whatever poetry he attempted, but in lyric

poetry, he is greatest of all. The songs of Burns, in every point of

view, are truly wonderful compositions. We are at a loss which most to

admire, their number and variety, or their individual perfection. The

lyre of Burns incessantly changes its tone, and in every change it

throws forth a flood of new inspiration. Great indeed is the task to

give poetic and condensed expression to those thousand impulses that

ever heave within us, and are evanescent as the ocean wave; to furnish

fitting words for the ideal and fervid longings which millions feel, but

cannot utter for themselves; to embody in lasting form, innumerable and

undefined desires; to touch chord after chord of memory and emotion, and

to awaken the divine music that slumbers in the soul; in a word, to give

melody and speech to the complicated heart of man: great is the task,

but Burns has accomplished it.

Burns—great in sadness and great in humor; so human in his melancholy,

so loving in his laughter. When we hear the pleasant peal of his hearty

mirth, our bosoms dilate, until we could embrace our species in

affection. When, changing his tone, we feel the breath of his

indignation or listen to his cry against oppression, our pulse beats

quicker and our blood flows faster. Burns, bard of the brave and fervent

soul, destined to move humanity as long as language shall endure; as

long as the love of liberty, of independence, of fearless honesty, or

patriotic courage, shall have a refuge in our world.

Burns is a nobleman of nature;—a man for the toilsmen of earth to look

upon and hope. In humble, rustic life, under the thatched roof, which

gave the peasant his shelter; in the field where the heir of labor in

the sweat of his brow fulfilled the original destiny of man, Burns fed

inspired thoughts, and laid the foundation of a deathless fame. True,

his life was short in years; but how passing long was it in emotions, in

capacious and crowded fancies. His spirit was goaded, no doubt, with the

vulgar cares of poverty, and the worse results of passion; but it was

glorified also with conscious genius; he could retreat from the

vexations of the world to the sanctuary of his enriched imagination, and

there, amidst all the evils of his outward condition, he could find in

poetry its own exceeding great reward. Through all the sorrows that

overspread his short but rapid course; amidst all the clouds that hung

heavily over his path, glimpses of joy were ever and anon bursting on

his enraptured eye, which it is given only to the favored ones to

behold. And who would not, if he could, have a soul so adorned with the

beautiful, rather than without it, be overburdened with the load of

external fortune? Had Burns been merely a man of title, he had been

forgotten as all titled dust since the days of Nimrod; as unknown as the

dukes of Edom; a pompous funeral and a lying epitaph would have given

him to oblivion. As it is, the recollection of him is garnered in the

choicest corners of the heart, and his name is linked forever to the

music of sweetest sounds.

I am now at the close of my task. I have gone through it lovingly, and

with reverence; sensible along the way of much goodness in my subject,

and not forgetful, either, of some evil also. That many faults are in

the compositions of Burns, I apprehend most clearly; and that sad

irregularities were in his life, it requires small trial of candor to

confess; but to have spread them out in ostentatious commentary would

have served no purpose of this article, and gratified no desire of the

reader. I am not blind to those errors; I propose no excuse; I deprecate

no just condemnation, and I have been forbearing from no moral

indifference, no moral insensibility. But dealing with the memory of

genius, I reflected that the _man_ was before his God, and the _poet_

had met the sentence of the world. For wisdom, or for warning, the

events of his life are sufficiently familiar—he that runs may read,

their moral meaning let him read and ponder—let him learn, and let him

be better. But I have no sympathy with that vampire-like spirit which

disentombs the faults of the illustrious dead to feed the nauseous

appetites of itself or others; I tread upon the grave with caution and

compassion; and while I do not regard genius as repealing the law of

virtue, neither do I regard it as beyond the law of mercy. We need, all

of us, great tenderness from those who surround us; we need much, too,

from those who survive us. If we require charity from men, who give them

nothing, let us grant it to those who have enriched us, and enriched the

ages. In the noble and eloquent verses of Halleck, we, too, say of

Burns:

His is the language of the heart,

In which the answering heart would speak;

Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start,

Or the smile light the cheek.

And his, the music, to whose tone

The common pulse of man keeps time,

In cot or castle’s mirth or moan,

In cold or sunny clime.

. . . . . .

Praise to the bard, his words are driven,

Like flower seed by the far wind sown,

Where’er beneath the sky of heaven

The birds of fame have flown.

Praise to the man! a nation stood

Beside his coffin with wet eyes,

Her brave, her beautiful, her good,

As when a loved one dies.

And still, as on his funeral day,

Men stand his cold earth-couch around,

With the mute homage that we pay

To consecrated ground.

And consecrated ground it is

The last, the hallowed home of one,

Who lives upon all memories,

Though with the buried gone.

Such graves as his, are pilgrim shrines,

Shrines to no creed or sect confined,

The Delphian vales, the Palestines,

The Meccas of the mind.

* * * * *

THE GAMBLER’S DAUGHTER.

BY HENRY C. MOORHEAD.

If the reader has ever passed along the banks of the Susquehanna, or

floated down its waters, he has not failed to admire the beautiful

_coves_ which are here and there formed by the bending hills on either

side. With a mountain border sweeping round in the shape of a half moon,

and the river flowing in a straight line in front, these terrestrial

crescents form a series of most charming landscapes. In one of the most

charming of them all lived an old gentleman whom we shall call Richard

Parkett.

Many years before the period of the following incidents, the wife of Mr.

Parkett had died, committing to his care with her dying words, an infant

daughter. They called her, after her mother, Lucy; she grew up like a

wild flower in her sequestered home, and, at the time we speak of, was

just budding into womanhood. And surely no opening rose could be more

lovely. The bloom of health was on her cheek; her step was free and

elastic as that of the fawn on the neighboring mountain, and her spirits

as bounding and joyous as those of the birds which “warbled their native

wood-notes wild” around her dwelling.

“My child,” said Mr. Parkett, to her one day, “there is to be an

arbitration in the neighborhood to-morrow, to settle some matters in

dispute between myself and a neighbor, and we will need you for a

witness.”

“For a witness—what does that mean?”

“Why they will make you swear a terrible oath to tell the truth,” said

the old gentleman, smiling affectionately; “and then two or three

lawyers will endeavor to puzzle you so as to prevent your doing it.”

“And who are these puzzling lawyers?”

“One of them, whose particular business it will be to puzzle you if he

can, is a young man named Burton.”

“Burton?—Sidney Burton? He is the young gentleman who called here last

winter to see you on business, is he not?”

“Really, you seem to have an excellent memory for young gentlemen’s

names.”

Lucy blushed slightly, but made no answer. However, she was much more

sober and thoughtful than usual all that day.

The arbitration came on, and Lucy was sworn as a witness. Her story was

short and simple, and referred merely to a conversation which she had

heard, and about which the parties could not now agree. As Burton was

counsel on the other side, he then proceeded to cross-examine her. It

was of great importance to his cause that he should shake her confidence

in what she had said; and he therefore proceeded (with great delicacy,

however) to ply her with an infinite variety of perplexing questions.

But, although she was artless as a child, her quick apprehension, and

her clear, ready answers filled him with admiration; which was not at

all diminished by an occasional volley of mischievous satire which

raised a smile at his expense. He even continued the examination for

some time after he saw that it was useless, for the pleasure it afforded

him. At length, all parties being satisfied, the dispute was amicably

settled, and Mr. Parkett invited the company to his house.

Nothing could have pleased Burton better than such an invitation; he

wished to see more of this charming witness, and to present himself

before her under more favorable circumstances than in a

cross-examination. Lucy, on her part, was equally pleased with this

arrangement, for Burton’s image had never ceased to haunt her

imagination since the day she had first casually seen him at her

father’s house some months before. She could not explain the mystery to

herself, but she felt an indefinable interest in every thing that

concerned him, and her heart beat warm and quick at the sound of his

voice.

On the following morning Burton was urged to stay a day longer, and join

a fishing excursion which had been projected. He readily consented; the

necessary “tacklings” were soon collected; the party embarked in two

canoes, and Burton found himself in one of these small and crazy vessels

with Lucy, a young gentleman, her cousin, being in one end to direct its

course. Some distance above was one of those “falls” which in so many

places obstruct the navigation of that beautiful river, but which

furnish among their rocks the most excellent of fishing grounds. Hugging

the shore until they had passed above the rapids, they proceeded to drop

their boats down upon those rocks which were known to furnish the finest

eddies. The current was rapid, and the young man who was steering the

boat in which we are chiefly interested, in attempting suddenly to

change its course, lost his balance, and fell headlong into the water.

The boat swung rapidly round, and, being borne sideways among the

breakers, soon capsized. Lucy and Burton both disappeared beneath the

foaming torrent; but our hero quickly rose, and, being an expert

swimmer, watched eagerly for the appearance of Lucy; then grasping her

dress, he buffeted the waves with a strong arm, and succeeded in landing

her safely on a rock which projected above the water. To his

inexpressible alarm, she seemed to be entirely helpless and inanimate.

He commenced chafing her forehead, when in a few minutes she opened her

eyes, and the crimson tide of life bounded into her face, neck, and

bosom. She stood up and looked anxiously round for her father. In a few

minutes the other canoe approached, (having first picked up the young

man who had occasioned the accident,) and the whole party immediately

returned home.

What more could be wanting to bring these two young hearts together.

This romantic little incident sealed their fate; and although their

tongues were yet silent, their eyes spoke eloquently of love. On the

following morning Burton departed, but he soon returned; and at length

the good people of the neighborhood began to wonder whether it was

arbitrations that brought the young lawyer so often amongst them.

In a village some miles from Mr. Parkett’s residence, lived a young man

of great wealth and little principle, named Lander, who had been

fascinated by Lucy’s beauty, and exasperated on finding that her

affections were bestowed upon another; Mr. Parkett had been much in the

habit of visiting this village of late, for the purpose of indulging an

unfortunate passion for gambling, which had almost ruined him in his

youth, but which for many years he had entirely restrained. This

passion, however, had been lulled, not extinguished; a slight indulgence

was sufficient to rekindle it, and it soon raged more fiercely than

ever; and he became an easy prey to a brace of gamblers who were the

intimate associates of Lander.

“How now,” said Lander, to one of these gamblers, one morning, “what

success had you last night.”

“Better than ever. The old man is completely infatuated, and grows more

desperate every day. If his daughter is as easily won as her father’s

money, your siege will be a short one—she will soon surrender.”

“She will not surrender while she can help it,” said Lander; “but go on

as you have begun, and I will have her yet. I will have her, or I will

crush the whole family to the earth; they shall learn that the hand of

Charles Lander is not to be spurned with impunity. But how do his

accounts stand now?”

“We have won all the money he could raise, and he has commenced giving

us his notes.”

“Good! bring me the notes and I will cash them for you. But have you

followed my instructions, and let him win occasionally, to keep up his

courage? Remember, you have no claim on me until you have brought him to

the brink of ruin.”

“We have taken care of that, and he has the most unbounded confidence in

his own skill. He attributes all his losses to ill-luck, when the silly

old fool could not win a dollar if we chose to prevent him.”

Thus was this unfortunate man led on from one stage of ruin to another,

by the constant hope of retrieving his past losses until his obligations

to pay were no longer worth receiving. Lander, in the meantime, had been

lifting these notes, and so disposing of them that he could use them for

the accomplishment of his purposes. Without appearing as a party

himself, he caused Mr. Parkett to be urgently pressed for payment.

Harassed and threatened with exposure, the old man endeavored to borrow

money to pay off the most urgent of these claimants; but rumors had got

abroad of secret embarrassments and doubtful titles, which made it

impossible for him to obtain a loan on any terms.

During all this time Lander had been assiduous in his attentions to

Lucy, and employed every artifice to make a favorable impression upon

her and upon her father. But Mr. Parkett was far from admiring his

character, and above all he knew that Lucy’s heart was wholly devoted to

Burton. Having brought affairs to this crisis, Lander one day said to

Mr. Parkett, in a tone of great delicacy,

“I understand, sir, that you have been endeavoring to negotiate a loan;

and I have been sorry to learn that you were not successful. Now, sir, I

have means under my control which are entirely at your disposal.”

“You are very kind, sir,” said Mr. Parkett; “but you must excuse me for

saying that it would not be proper for me to accept of such a favor at

your hands.”

“I hope, sir,” said Lander, biting his lip, “that you do not consider me

unworthy of the privilege of doing you a kindness.”

“It is painful for me to explain,” replied Mr. Parkett, “but after what

has passed between you and my daughter, although we shall both always

take pleasure in treating you as a friend, common delicacy forbids that

we allow you to place us under any obligation.”

“But there is now a weight of obligation on the other side; and you must

allow me to make some return for the many acts of kindness I have

received under your roof. You have heretofore treated me as a friend;

treat me so still, and allow me to serve you.”

Mr. Parkett felt that in honor he could not accept this offer; but ruin

stared him full in the face, and he saw no other means of escaping the

exposure which he dreaded—for when his bankruptcy became known, the

cause could not be long concealed. He therefore no longer absolutely

refused, but took time to consider. This Lander felt confident would

lead to acceptance; and he returned home triumphing in the successful

progress of his plot, and sanguine of final success. But Burton came

again to mar his prospects. He, too, had heard of Mr. Parkett’s

difficulties, and tendered his services. It was finally agreed that he

should raise several thousand dollars, to be secured by mortgage; and

that in the following autumn, when he and Lucy were to be married, the

establishment should be delivered over to them. Burton, by turning his

means (which were not great) into cash, and borrowing on the credit of

his future prospects, succeeded in raising the necessary sum, and placed

it in Mr. Parkett’s hands. Lander’s offer was, of course, declined.

With this money in his possession the old gentleman went to the village

to make arrangements for the payment of the most importunate of his

creditors. As he walked along the street, he came in front of the house

which had been the scene of his ruinous losses. An irresistible

temptation seized him to make one more effort to retrieve his fortunes.

He would try his luck; if fortune smiled, all would yet be well; if she

frowned, after losing a small sum, he would abandon the gambling-table

forever. With this resolution, he entered, and was soon wholly absorbed

in the chances of the game. Fortune _did_ smile, and, with unwonted

success, he became bold and desperate. The stakes grew heavy, and he

fearlessly increased them. His wily competitor marked his time, and made

them still higher; Parkett again increased them. His competitor doubled

them. Parkett, now mad with excitement, threw down all that he had

brought, and all that he had won. There was a breathless pause. The

result was announced—and he had lost! For several minutes he stared

vacantly around him, then, pulling his hat over his brows, he rushed

from the house.

His ruin was now complete; but what explanation could he give to Burton?

and, what would become of his darling child? He returned home, and going

directly to his private room, sent for Burton, who, observing his

extraordinary emotion, remained a wondering and anxious listener.

“You asked me for my daughter’s hand,” said he, “and I gave it to you,

because I thought you worthy of her. You then supposed me to be an

honest man, and the owner of valuable possessions. It is my duty now to

inform you, that I am a villain and a beggar.”

“I beg you will compose yourself,” said Burton, believing that his mind

had become disordered; “you allow your pecuniary difficulties to affect

you too deeply. However they may result, they cannot affect either your

honor, or my affection for your daughter. She has given me her heart,

and I ask nothing from you but her hand.”

“My honor, it is true, is beyond the reach of circumstances,” said

Parkett, bitterly. “You this morning loaned me five thousand dollars, to

pay the most pressing claims against my property. That money is gone—no

matter how—and the claims are not staid. I have not only brought ruin

upon myself, but upon you also. My property will be sacrificed, and your

money lost; What say you now? Am I not a villain?”

“I must again entreat you to compose yourself,” replied Burton; “and, I

repeat, that I love your daughter for herself alone; and, if all that

you have said were true, I would not the less claim her for my wife.”

“Young man,” said Parkett, seizing Burton eagerly by the hand, “she is

yours; and may God Almighty bless your union. The dread of bringing

sorrow and wretchedness upon my innocent lamb wrung my heart most of

all. You have relieved me from that care, and the grave will soon hide

my shame.”

To prevent the property from being sacrificed, it was thought best to

advertise it for private sale. Lander came forward and became the

purchaser, at a price which, after paying off the prior claims, left a

very small balance to reimburse Burton; who, however, soon became rich

in the possession of Lucy. Mr. Parkett lived to see his daughter

married, and soon after went down to a peaceful but melancholy grave.

“This is an humble dwelling, Lucy,” said Burton, when they had moved

into their new home, “but, it is said, that happiness is oftener found

in the cottage than in the palace. So philosophers teach, but I believe

women generally think differently.”

“You shall represent the philosopher, and I the woman,” said Lucy, “and

we’ll see.”

“In spite of philosophy,” continued Burton, “I confess that I would

prefer a somewhat larger house, and furniture of a better quality than

this.”

“And I confess,” said Lucy, “that in spite of your opinion of women, I

shall be happier as it is.”

“Alas! my sweet wife,” said Burton, “you have never known what care or

trouble was; you have lived all your life amongst happy friends, and

been the gayest of them all; every wish of your heart has been gratified

as soon as formed. Heaven grant it may be as you now think!”

“But you doubt it. Really, for a philosopher, you know but little of

woman’s heart. To have all her frivolous wishes gratified, to live in

the midst of gayety and idleness, and be free from care, and, I suppose,

from all reflection, seems to be your opinion of her highest state. But

you do her injustice; her heart throbs with ambition as well as man’s,

though its object may be different.”

“Ambition is not formed of such habitations as this,” said Burton,

sadly.

“Woman’s ambition may be,” said Lucy. “Suppose she were able to make

this humble cottage a more delightful dwelling than the most luxurious

mansion, to smooth her husband’s brow, and cause him to forget poverty

and toil? Would not this be an object worthy of ambition?”

“It is,” said Burton, kissing her affectionately, “and you have gained

that object already. When I spoke of women, I should not have included

_all_ women, and you shall prove that there are exceptions.”

At this moment there was a knock at the door, one of the sheriff’s

officers entered and handed Burton a paper. The latter read it, then

calmly folded it, and put it in his pocket. But his wife’s eye had been

on him, and when the officer had withdrawn, she said:

“This is some new calamity; do not conceal it from me, Sydney; your

cheek grew pale as you read that paper—let them take all we have, for

whilst you are spared I shall be happy.”

“My matchless wife,” said Burton, “you have borne our past trials so

bravely, that I am not afraid of your sinking under this new misfortune:

but summon up all your fortitude, for you will need it. Our persecutor,

Lander, has not exhausted his arts yet, but is determined to humble us

still more. He has power over us now, and employs it to gratify his

cowardly malice. But let him beware! That power may one day change

hands, and then, so help me Heaven! I will bruise his serpent head

beneath this heel;” and he stamped his foot fiercely on the floor.

“Now you distress me, indeed,” said Lucy; “but, oh, Sydney! you will not

forget your promise, that there shall be no violence between you and

that wicked man.”

“Forgive me,” said Burton, “I forgot myself; that promise is sacred, and

never will I grieve your gentle heart by breaking it. But see what this

villain has done! He has managed, by some artifice, to get possession of

claims against me, which I never dreamed would be pressed, until I

should be able to pay them without inconvenience. He has brought suit,

and we must prepare to surrender up even the poor remnants that are left

us.”

“I understand it all,” said Lucy. “Oh, my poor father!”

“Let him rest in peace,” said Burton; “if he acted unwisely he paid the

penalty of a broken heart: let us not disturb his ashes.”

Lucy threw her arms around her husband’s neck, and wept like a child.

“You forgive him then,” she said, “for the sake of his daughter’s love

and duty. Oh, Heaven will bless you for your generosity.”

“Heaven has blessed me,” said he, fondly embracing her; “and I would not

give one throb of this loving heart for all the gold Lander ever owned.”

But the sad reality at length came, and their relentless creditor

advertised the poor furniture of their cottage for sale. Burton found,

as is usual under such circumstances, that his friends had grown

remarkably polite and formal; but they kept at a distance, and no one

offered him assistance; nor could he ask it, as the claims were much

greater than he could possibly pay, and his income from his profession

little more than afforded him a subsistence. He was, therefore, “sold

out,” all but the scanty articles which the law allows the poor.

But although the world had grown cold, his own fire-side was still as

bright as ever; and when he thought of Lucy, as he had first seen her—a

gay, mischievous girl, raised in the lap of luxury, and then looked upon

her as his wife—serene and cheerful in the midst of poverty and worldly

disgrace, he admired and reverenced the depths of woman’s affection. And

this deep, pure fountain of love flowed only for him! Well might he

prize it above rivers of gold!

* * * * *

Some time after, Burton was one day searching among the old records in

one of the public offices, when his eye fell upon a time-worn, mutilated

will, which bore the name of Thomas Parkett inscribed on the back.

Knowing that Lucy’s grandfather had borne that name, his curiosity led

him to open the paper, and examine its contents. After reading on for

some time, deciphering the words with great difficulty, he suddenly

started back, as if he had seen the ghost of his wife’s ancestor. Then

returning to the paper, he eagerly read it over again, pausing and

reflecting long upon each sentence. Then carefully making a copy of it,

he returned the papers to their place, and went directly home with a

rapid step and a beating heart.

Whilst Burton was reading the paper which produced so strange an effect

on him, there sat near him one of those wretched men who disgrace an

honorable profession by hanging upon its outskirts, gaining an infamous

livelihood by stirring up litigation, and practising schemes of fraud

and villany. Dissipated and unprincipled, Witherman was equally reckless

in his means of getting money, and prodigal in spending it. He was

consequently at times reduced almost to starvation, and ready for any

desperate enterprise. Happening to look up at the moment, he observed

Burton’s emotion, and watched his subsequent movements until he left the

room. Then taking down the same bundle of papers, he began to look

through them to see if he could find what had so much interested Burton.

The name of Parkett soon attracted his attention, for he knew that that

had been the name of Burton’s father-in-law. Opening the will,

therefore, he read on until he came to the part which had startled

Burton:

“Aha!” he exclaimed to himself, “I see the game now, and I’ll find some

means to have a hand in it. So much for reading men’s looks and motives;

I shall make a good day’s work of this.”

* * * * *

“Lucy, my dear,” said Burton, after he reached home, “how would you like

to become mistress again of the old homestead?”

“Ah, Sydney, why do you ask me such a question? you know that I am

reconciled to living here, but then I don’t like to think of my old

home.”

“It is certainly a delightful place, especially at this season of the

year, with its green fields and blooming orchards. Suppose we go and

spend the summer there?”

“I have no wish ever to see it again.”

“Suppose you could call it your own, would it have none of its former

attraction?”

“As that can never be, it is hardly worth while to answer your question.

But what is the matter with you? You seem to be strangely excited; tell

me what it is, I can bear it.”

“Prepare yourself then, for startling news; you _are_ the mistress and

owner of the old homestead.”

“Oh, why do you mock me with such a tale,” said Lucy, tears starting

into her eyes; “do let me forget that ever I lived there.”

“I should be sorry to trifle with you on so tender a subject,” said

Burton, “but I mean what I say. You have borne adversity like a heroine;

let us now see what effect prosperity will have. Here is copy of your

grandfather’s will, which I have just seen for the first time. By it his

property is _entailed_, as lawyers call it; that is, it is settled upon

your father and his immediate descendants, to pass from one generation

to another, according to the English rule of primogeniture. Your father

could not sell it in the way he did, (of which he was no doubt

ignorant,) and you, being his only child, have a full and perfect right

to it under the will.”

“But if it was sold and paid for, would it be right for me to claim it

from the purchaser?”

“It will be right, at all events, to defend yourself from persecution.

The property is yours by the law of the land, and if Lander obtained it,

as we have good reason to believe he did, he ought not to be allowed to

keep it. I will advise you to nothing that is not becoming in a dutiful

child. Better this poverty than the consciousness of having acted

unjustly: but we will consult with some discreet friend, and then do

what we may conclude to be right.”

Lucy was grave and thoughtful; she had long been accustomed to suppress

her feelings of vanity and pride, and had become entirely reconciled to

her humble fortunes; but her heart fluttered at the thought of being the

owner of ample possessions, and of those scenes, too, from which she had

never been able entirely to wean her affections. But then came other

reflections. Was it possible that her father had practiced a fraud for

her benefit? And, if so, would it be right for her to take advantage of

it? The law might give her the property, but would truth and justice

allow her to take it?

After careful inquiry, it was deemed proper that suit should be brought;

and Burton, remembering the maxim that “the lawyer who pleads his own

cause has a fool for his client,” employed counsel to conduct it for

him.

No sooner had this suit been brought, than Witherman hastened to Lander:

“I see, sir,” said he, “that Burton has brought suit in the name of his

wife for the recovery of the property you purchased from her father.”

“He has; and what can it mean? The claims which I had against him were

notes given at the gambling table, but they had been put in circulation,

and I understood you, that he couldn’t dispute them in my hands. Or has

he discovered that I knew for what they were given?”

“He has made a worse discovery than that.”

“What! do you really think he has the means of supporting his claim?”

“I am sure of it, unless you choose to employ my skill to baffle him. If

you had entrusted the investigation of the title and the papers to me, I

might have saved you from this difficulty; but you preferred a bungler,

who gave you a title that expired with Parkett himself. For this want of

confidence you must now either lose the property or pay me my own price

for saving it.”

“You know that I never scrupled to pay you well when an emergency

required your services; but what is the defect in this title?”

“By the will of Parkett’s father, which Burton has recently discovered

among the old papers in the office—for it has never been recorded—and

which I have seen, it appears that Parkett himself merely held the

property as tenant in tail. A particular kind of deed was therefore

necessary, under our laws, to convey a complete title. Your deed is in

the common form, and conveyed only a life interest; and the instant

Parkett died the property became vested in his daughter.”

“In his daughter! Oh, miserable blunderers! then all my schemes of

vengeance recoil on my own head. But stay; you say that your skill can

provide a remedy; if you can save me from the humiliation of this

defeat, you _shall_ have your own price. What is your plan?”

“Among the modes of barring an entail is a deed of warranty with assets;

that is, if Parkett gave you a deed warranting the title for himself and

his heirs, and on his death left to his daughter other property equal in

value to that which he sold you, then her claim cannot be sustained, but

your title is good.”

“This is excellent consolation! He gave me a deed of warranty, it is

true, but you know that he left his daughter and her husband only the

privilege of paying some thousands of dollars which Burton had borrowed

for him a few months before.”

“I know all that; and if he had left them the necessary property you

would not need my services to enable you to baffle them.” Then taking up

a pen, and writing a few lines, Witherman continued: “There, sign that,

and I pledge myself to make your title good.”

“When I promised that you should have your own price,” said Lander, “I

did not expect such a demand as this; but I will stand to what I have

said, and see that you keep your pledge;” and he signed a note for an

exorbitant sum.

* * * * *

The day of trial at length came; and Burton repaired to the Court with

the confidence of a man who knows that his cause is good, and his

evidence conclusive. The _law_ was well settled, and the _fact_, a

matter of record. His cause was, therefore, quickly and triumphantly

made out, by simply reading the will in evidence. Nothing could be more

satisfactory: the court, the jury, the by-standers, all saw at a glance

that the question was settled; and nothing was now wanting but the

formality of a verdict.

“Gentlemen,” said the judge to Lander’s counsel, “I suppose it is hardly

necessary to pursue this matter any further.”

“I beg your honor’s pardon,” said one of the leading members of the bar,

whose services Witherman had secured, and who acted under his

instructions, and in perfect good faith; “our defense shall be brief,

but I hope decisive.”

He then proceeded, to Burton’s utter amazement, to declare that he was

prepared to prove, that Mr. Parkett, on his daughter’s marriage, had

settled property on her far exceeding in value that which was now in

controversy. That the settlement had been drawn by a member of the bar,

now dead, and was recently found among his papers, duly signed, sealed

and witnessed; that Mr. Parkett had been reputed a man of wealth, and

yet, to the surprise of every body, died poor. Here, then, was the

explanation of this great wonder. He and the present plaintiff alone

knew that the property now in controversy was entailed. He might,

therefore, sell it for its full value, and yet, on his death, it would

pass by descent to his daughter. It was necessary, however, that he

should leave no property behind him; for if his daughter should receive

_other_ property of equal value from him, it would bar her claim to

this. His other property was, therefore, clandestinely conveyed to her,

and he died apparently without possessing any.

Fully believing this statement, as he did, the learned counsel followed

it up with a stream of burning invective. Turning upon Burton, he

scourged him with a whip of scorpions. He represented him as the

contriver and adviser of the infamous project, and the recipient of all

the benefits, if it should be successfully accomplished. Being perfectly

honest and sincere, he believed that in covering Burton with infamy, he

was only vindicating the honor of his profession. The evidence which

Witherman had put into his hands was then produced. The hand-writings of

Parkett and of the subscribing witness, were satisfactorily proved by

several unexceptionable witnesses, who, as is usual in such cases, were

as positive as if they had seen the names written. The manner in which

the paper had been found, and many other circumstances, so strongly

corroborated this view of the subject, that the opinions of all present

were soon reversed; and Burton, whom they had lately considered a

wronged and persecuted man, now stood before them a sordid villain,

baffled and unmasked. The judge indulged in some sharp reflections on

the iniquity of the plaintiff’s claim, and the jury promptly and

indignantly rejected it. Witherman had kept his promise, and Lander was

again triumphant.

Burton was almost stupefied by this new and unexpected blow, and sat for

some time gazing vacantly at the clerk who announced the verdict; then,

quietly leaving the court house, and avoiding all observation, with a

heavy heart and a gloomy brow he hastened homewards. His wife had been

impatiently awaiting his arrival, and hastened to receive him and

congratulate him on his victory—for she never had dreamed of any other

result. But a single glance of his eye was enough to fill her heart with

dismay, and cause her to turn from him in tears. She read there the

emotions of a soul in torture, and knew that his strong mind and

regulated passions could not be _thus_ moved by any thing else than what

he deemed a signal calamity. Burton silently threw himself into a chair,

and struggled hard to recover his usual serenity of mind and

countenance. But all in vain. The anguish of his spirit was

insupportable. At length he groaned out,

“Lucy, I am a ruined man.”

“Alas! Sydney, why do you speak thus? Why do you look thus? If your

hopes of wealth are defeated, surely there are other sources of

happiness left to us, far more precious than this. Have we not been

happy in this little cottage? and if we lose it, we shall be happy in

one that is humbler still. If they have robbed us of our property, they

cannot at least deprive us of our good name. Whilst you continue to be

loved and respected by the whole community you are more than rich. Your

talents and known integrity will soon bring you riches and honors. Oh,”

continued she, unconscious that her words went like poisoned arrows to

his heart, “if you could have heard the language of praise that has so

often made my heart beat high with pride, you would feel that a

reputation for truth, honor, and a high and noble spirit, does not need

the ornament of wealth to make it honorable.”

Burton covered his face with his hands, as Lucy continued her loving but

torturing exhortation:

“Suppose,” said she, “that instead of a paltry loss of money, your

reputation had been stained, your character blackened, your name

dishonored; how trifling would then have seemed such a loss as that you

have now suffered? Think, then, of what you still possess, rather than

of what you have lost or failed to gain; and let us be grateful to a

kind Providence for having spared you at least an unsullied reputation.”

“Ay,” said he, mechanically pursuing her train of reflection, “you are

right. Reputation, reputation, reputation! all the rest is dross

compared with that. I would not have exchanged the good opinion of one

honest man for all the property I have been contending for; I would not

have forfeited the esteem of the community in which I live, for millions

of acres. Disappointment has been my portion from childhood; I have

often groaned and wept in sorrow; to-day, for the first time, I have

blushed and hung my head in shame. Reputation! it has been the balm of

my wounded spirit; the light of my life, the star of my hope. This

morning it was mine by the agreement of all the world; but where is it

now?”

At this moment an officer of the court entered and handed him a slip of

paper. He glanced at it for a moment, and then handed it to his wife,

repeating, “Ay, where is my reputation now?” It was an order of court,

directing him to appear and show cause why his name should not be

stricken from the roll of attorneys for dishonorable and fraudulent

conduct. Lucy had no sooner read it, than, with a sharp cry, she sunk

insensible on the floor. Burton flew to her assistance, reproaching

himself with want of consideration in subjecting her to so sudden a

shock, and feeling a new sense of desolation come over him at the

prospect of losing his dearest, best, only remaining friend. He began to

fear, too, that his conduct had caused even her to conceive suspicions

of his integrity; and this reflection was the bitterest drop in all the

cup. She presently revived, and he hastened to assure her of his

innocence. He explained to her all that had happened. The signature

which had been produced in court as her father’s, was so much like it

that, under other circumstances, he would himself have sworn to it

without hesitation. He could not tell how it was, but he was entangled

in a net from which he saw no hope of escape. Every thing was against

him; the testimony of respectable witnesses, all appearances, and all

opinions.

“Sydney,” said Lucy, at length smiling through her tears, “there are two

great subjects on which I have often heard you discourse with more

enthusiasm than on any other—the one was faith, and the other moral

courage. In such moments I sometimes thought that your eye pierced

through the mists of time, and realized the glories of eternal truth and

justice; and I believed, (for such was your language,) that your heart

would never quail before the presence of men, so long as you possessed

an approving conscience. Have you forgotten these principles, or were

they mere flights of imagination?”

“They were great truths; but, alas! the clouds of adversity have

darkened even my moral perceptions.”

“Oh, Sydney,” she continued, “I have heard you maintain, that adversity

was the chief agent in developing the human soul; that virtue was not

worthy of the name, until it had been tried in the furnace of

affliction; and how often have I heard you say, that the highest and

truest courage, was that which calmly and firmly sustains itself against

the current of popular opinion.”

“Very true! very true!” said Burton, his countenance almost relaxing

into a smile.

“Why,” continued Lucy, “there have been times when I almost wished to

see you under such circumstances, that I might apply your glorious

pictures to yourself; that I might behold in you the hero, the

philosopher, the man whose faith never wavered, though friends betrayed;

whose heart never failed, though all the world opposed him. I dreamed

that you were all these; and, oh! how my heart swelled with love and

admiration. Nay, it was not a dream; you were, you _are_ all these, my

own brave and true-hearted Sydney.”

Burton’s eye recovered its wonted fire, and, as he paced the room with a

firm and energetic step, he felt his spirit return unto him.

“Sweet monitor,” he said, “you have recalled me to myself. Alas! that I

should have forgotten my philosophy, the moment an opportunity occurred

for putting it in practice. This is my first practical lesson. It is a

stern one; but, (thanks to your cheering voice,) I am now prepared to

receive it and to profit by it. Whilst all continues right here, (laying

his hand upon his heart,) I am prepared for any extremity of fortune.

When the sky is curtained with clouds, men say that the stars have gone

out, because they can no longer see them; but, in truth, they shine on

with the same calm, steady light, whether seen or unseen by mortal eyes.

And so it is with virtue; though calumny may render it invisible from

without, it never ceases to warm and illuminate the heart in which it

dwells.”

* * * * *

When the time came for Burton to appear before the court and answer the

charge of fraudulent and dishonorable conduct, he found himself wholly

unable to combat the array of arguments that were brought against him.

It was manifest, too, that every body looked on him as a fallen and

ruined man. His former friends saluted him with cold civility; as he

passed along the way closed before him; wherever he went he found

himself alone. He had nothing to oppose to the charge but his own solemn

declaration; and that, of course, in a case so clear, could avail him

nothing. The forms proper to the occasion were gone through with as an

appointed ceremony; and the judge proceeded to pronounce the sentence,

which he had written out beforehand. After dwelling on the importance of

the legal profession; on the necessity of unsullied integrity in those

who practice it; on the infamous character of Burton’s offence, and the

indisputable certainty of his guilt, he was about to pronounce sentence

of expulsion from the Bar, when he was interrupted by the confusion

created by some one forcing his way in great haste through the crowd. It

proved to be the venerable clergyman of the village, who begged that the

judge, before proceeding further, would allow him to say a few words.

“I come,” said he, “from the death-bed of a member of this bar, Mr.

Witherman, and I bring to your honor a message of grave importance.

Though fearfully tortured with the pangs of a guilty conscience, I

believe that he was perfectly sane; and with his dying voice he implored

me to hasten hither and assure your honor, on the word of a dying

penitent, that the charge you are this morning trying against Sydney

Burton is wholly false; that being skillful in the imitation of

hand-writing, he had himself forged the papers which bore the name of

Richard Parkett, and contrived all the other circumstances which seemed

so conclusive of Burton’s guilt. He then bade me hand your honor this

paper, which he said would enable you to unravel the whole conspiracy;

and these were his last words. I have thus discharged my mission; and I

hope its urgency will excuse my unceremonious interruption of your

proceedings.”

The cause was immediately adjourned for further consideration.

* * * * *

“I have just been thinking of it, Lucy,” said Burton, one bright spring

morning, as they walked together in the garden at the old homestead,

“to-morrow is the anniversary of our first fishing excursion. It is an

epoch in our lives worth commemorating. Let us, therefore, get up

another, as much like it as possible; except, indeed, the upsetting of

the canoe—which answered a very good purpose, then, but there would be

no occasion for it now. With a little stretch of imagination we can

easily go back some years and fancy it to be the same day and the same

occasion. You are again the mistress of this beautiful home; troops of

friends will again come at our bidding; nature is clad in the same green

mantle; the birds sing the same songs; and the waters murmur the same

tunes. A kind Providence has also turned our darkness into light. One

short hour ago, and yonder mountain was robed in mist to its very base;

see, now, how it sparkles in the sunshine! But, Lucy, why are you

plucking all those beautiful flowers?” Lucy pointed in silence to a

distant enclosure, which contained her father’s grave. A feeling of

sadness passed like a shadow over their hearts, reminding them that life

is a checkered scene of joy and sorrow. And here we shall leave them, to

the indulgence of those contending emotions of regret, gratitude, and

bright anticipation.

* * * * *

A REQUIEM BY THE SEA.

BY HELEN IRVING.

I hear the sea-waves dashing

And roaring on the shore

But a voice is in their chorus

That I never heard before;

A voice whose sound hath power to fill

My listening soul with dread—

A voice that moans unceasingly,

A wail above my dead.

Moans of a summer midnight

Beneath a foreign sky,

When in the hush of murmuring winds,

Was heard a last, low sigh—

And a noble soul—a soul I loved,

Took flight for the starlit heaven,

And a noble form—a form I loved,

To the starlit deep was given.

Cold is the sea, but colder yet

Is the brow that its waters lave,

And the tide is still in the breast that heaves

To the rock of the restless wave:

The bloom is gone from his glowing cheek

And the love from his pleasant eye,

And none there heed on his pallid lips

_The smile that could never die_.

Oh, I pine, beloved, to hear once more

Thy cheerful loving tone,

And I pine to feel thy living heart

Throb once against mine own!

I pine for all thy brother-love,

The noble, fond and true—

And my soul is weary for the rest

That in thy heart it knew.

Ah! “nevermore and nevermore”

I hear the sea-waves moan,

And evermore, oh, evermore,

My heart repeats the tone—

And sorrow’s surges rise and fall,

And ebb to flow again,

And each returning billow sounds

Anew the wild refrain.

Oh, Thou, who wept at Bethany,

And in that anguished hour,

Drew near to heal the broken heart

With thy celestial power;

Above the moaning waves of wo

Let me not list in vain,

To hear Thy voice of love divine,

Say “He shall rise again!”

* * * * *

WOODCOCK AND WOODCOCK SHOOTING.

BY FRANK FORESTER.

[Illustration]

The American Woodcock, _Scolopax minor_, or, as it has been

subdistinguished by some naturalists, from the peculiar form of its

short, rounded wing, the fourth and fifth quills of which are the

longest, _Microptera Americana_, is, as the latter title indicates,

exclusively confined to this hemisphere and continent. It is much

smaller than its European namesake, being very rarely killed exceeding

eight or nine ounces in weight, and sixteen inches in extent from tip to

tip of the expanded wings; whereas the European cock averages full

twelve ounces, being often found up to fifteen, and measures twenty-five

or twenty-six inches.

In general appearance and color they bear a considerable affinity each

to the other; the upper plumage of both being beautifully variegated,

like the finest tortoise-shell, with wavy black lines on a rich brown

ground, mottled in places with bright fawn color and ash-gray; but the

breast and belly of the American bird are of a deep fulvous yellow,

darkest on upper part and fading to a yellowish white at the vent, while

its European congener has all the lower parts of a dull cream color,

barred with faint dusky waved lines, like the breast feathers of some of

the falcons.

It has generally been believed that the large cock of the Eastern

continent is _never_ found in America; and all analogy would go to

strengthen that belief, for neither of the birds range on their

respective continents very far to the northward, whereas it is those

species only which extend into the Arctic regions, and by no means all

of them, that are common to the two hemispheres. Some circumstances

have, however, come recently to my knowledge which lead me to doubt

whether the large woodcock of the Eastern hemisphere does not

occasionally find its way to this continent, although it is difficult to

conceive how it should do so, since it must necessarily wing its way

across the whole width of the Atlantic, from the shores of Ireland or

the Azores, which are, so far as is ascertained, its extreme western

limit.

A very good English sportsman resident in Philadelphia, who is perfectly

familiar with both the species and their distinctions, assures me that

during the past winter a friend brought for his inspection an undoubted

English woodcock, which he had purchased in the market; it weighed

twelve ounces, measured twenty-five inches from wing to wing, and had

the cream-colored barred breast which I have described. The keeper of

the stall at which this bird was purchased did not know where it had

been killed, but averred that several birds had previously been in his

possession, precisely similar to this in every respect. It is not a

little remarkable that the same gentleman who saw this bird, and

unhesitatingly pronounced it an European cock, was informed by a

sporting friend that he had seen in Susquehanna county a cock, which he

was satisfied must have measured twenty-five inches in extent, but which

he unfortunately missed. There is likewise, at this time, in the city a

skull and bill of a woodcock of very unusual dimensions, of which I am

promised a sight, and which, from the description, I am well nigh

convinced is of the European species.

It is possible that these birds may have been brought over and kept in

confinement, and subsequently escaped, and so become naturalized in

America; and yet it is difficult to conceive that persons should have

taken the trouble of preserving so stupid and uninteresting a bird as

the woodcock in a cage, unless for the purpose of transporting them from

one country to another in order to the introduction of new species.

This might be done very easily with regard to some species, and with

undoubted success; and it has greatly surprised me that it has never

been attempted with regard to our American woodcock, which might

unquestionably be naturalized in England with the greatest facility;

where it would, I have no doubt, multiply extraordinarily, and become

one of the most numerous and valuable species of game, as the mildness

of the winters in ordinary seasons would permit the bird to remain

perennially in the island, without resorting to migration in order to

obtain food.

The woodcock and snipe can both be very readily domesticated, and can be

easily induced to feed on bread and milk reduced to the consistency of

pulp, of which they ultimately become extremely fond. This is done at

first by throwing a few small red worms into the bread and milk, for

which the birds bore and bill, as if it were in their natural muddy

soil.

In all countries in which any species of the woodcock is found, it is a

bird essentially of moderate climates, abhorring and shunning all

extremes of temperature, whether of heat or of cold.

With us, it winters in the Southern States from Virginia, in parts of

which, I believe, it is found at all seasons of the year, through the

Carolinas, Georgia and Florida to Louisiana and Mississippi, in the

almost impenetrable cane-brakes and deep morasses of which it finds a

secure retreat and abundance of its favorite food, during the inclement

season, which binds up every stream and boggy swamp of the Middle and

New England States in icy fetters.

So soon, however, as the first indications of spring commence, in those

regions of almost tropical heat, the woodcock wings its way with the

unerring certainty of instinct which guides him back, as surely as the

magnet points to the pole, to the very wood and the very brake of the

wood in which he was hatched, and commences the duties of nidification.

I am inclined to believe that the woodcock are already paired when they

come on to the northward; if not, they do so without the slightest

delay, for they unquestionably begin to lay within a week or two after

their arrival, sometimes even before the snow has melted from the

upland. Sometimes they have been known to lay so early as February, but

March and the beginning of April are their more general season. Their

nest is very inartificially made of dry leaves and stalks of grass. The

female lays from four to five eggs, about an inch and a half long, by an

inch in diameter, of a dull clay color, marked with a few blotches of

dark brown interspersed with splashes of faint purple. It is a little

doubtful whether the woodcock does or does not rear a second brood of

young, unless the first hatching is destroyed, as is very frequently the

case, by spring floods, which are very fatal to them. In this case, they

do unquestionably breed a second time, for I have myself found the young

birds, skulking about like young mice in the long grass, unable to fly,

and covered with short blackish down, the most uncouth and

comical-looking little wretches imaginable, during early July shooting;

but it is on the whole my opinion that, at least on early seasons, they

generally raise two broods; and this, among others, is one cause of my

very strong desire to see summer woodcock shooting entirely abolished.

Unless this is done, I am convinced beyond doubt, that before twenty

years have elapsed the woodcock will be as rare an animal as a wolf

between the great lakes and the Atlantic sea-board, so ruthlessly are

they persecuted and hunted down by pot-hunters and poachers, for the

benefit of restaurateurs and of the lazy, greedy cockneys who support

them. There is, however, I fear little hope of any legislative enactment

toward this highly desirable end; for too many even of those who call

themselves, and who ought to be, true sportsmen, are selfish and

obstinate on this point, and the name of the pot-hunters is veritably

legion. Moreover, it is to be doubted whether, even if such a statute

were added to our game-laws, it could be enforced; so vehemently opposed

do all the rural classes, who ought to be the best friends of the game,

show themselves on all occasions to any attempt toward preserving them,

partly from a mistaken idea that game-laws are of feudal origin and of

aristocratic tendency; and so averse are they to enforce the penalties

of the law on offenders, from a servile apprehension of giving offense

to their neighbors.

At present, in almost all the States of which the woodcock is a summer

visitant, either by law or by prescription July is the month

appropriated to the commencement of their slaughter; in New York the

first is the day, in New Jersey the fifth, and in all the Middle States,

with the single exception of Delaware, where it is deferred until

August, some day of the same month is fixed as the termination of close

time. Even in Delaware the exception is rendered nugatory, by a

provision permitting every person to shoot on his own grounds, whether

in or out of season, in consequence of which the birds are all killed

off early in June.

It may now be set down almost as a rule, that in all the Atlantic

seaboard counties, and, indeed, every where in the vicinity of the large

cities and great thoroughfares, the whole of the summer hatching is

killed off before the end of July, with the exception of a few scattered

stragglers, which have escaped pursuit in some impenetrable brake or

oozy quagmire which defies the foot of the sportsman; that few survive

to moult, and that the diminished numbers, which we now find on our

autumn shooting-grounds, are supplied exclusively by the northern and

Canadian broods, which keep successively flying before the advancing

cold of winter, and sojourning among us for a longer or a shorter

period, ere they wing their way to the rice-fields of the Savannah, or

the cane-brakes of the Mississippi.

If my method could be generally adopted, of letting the fifteenth day of

September, after the moulting season is passed, and when the birds are

beginning again to congregate on their favorite feeding-grounds, be the

commencement of every sort of upland shooting, without any exception,

the sport would be enormous; the birds at that season are in full vigor,

in complete plumage, in the perfection of condition for the table, and

are so strong on the wing, so active and so swift, that no one could for

a moment imagine them to be the same with the miserable, puny,

half-fledged younglings, which any bungling boy can butcher as he

pleases, with the most miserable apparatus, and without almost as well

as with a dog, during the dog-days of July.

The weather is, moreover, cool and pleasant, and in every way

well-suited to the sport at this season; dogs have a chance to do their

work handsomely and well, and the sportsman can do his work, too, as he

ought to do it, like a man, walking at his proper rate, unmolested by

mosquitoes, and without feeling the _salt_ perspiration streaming into

his eyes, until he can hardly brook the pain.

But no such hope existing as that state legislatures, dependent, not on

rational but on brute opinion, should condescend to hear or listen to

common sense, on matters such as game laws, are we, or are we not, to

abandon our plan, to sacrifice our knowledge and enlightened views on

this subject to obstinate ignorance; or shall we not take the better

part, and decide, according to Minerva’s lesson in Tennyson’s

magnificent Ænone,

. . . For that right is right to follow right

Where wisdom is the scorn of consequence.

We shall resist and persist; at least I shall—I, Frank Forester, who

never in my life have killed a bird out of season intentionally, and who

never will—who am compelled by sham sportsmen, cockney and pot-gunners

to shoot woodcock in July; who have been invited, times out and over

again, to shoot cock _on men’s own ground_, and therefore within the

letter of the law, in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland,

before the season; who have ever refused to take the advantages, which

every one takes over me; and who still intend to persist, though not to

hope, that there may be sense enough, if not integrity, among the

legislatures of the free states, to prevent the destruction of all game

within their several jurisdictions.

As the thing stands—and by the thing I mean the law—woodcock are to be

shot on or about the first day of July; and if, dear reader, you try to

shoot any where within fifty miles of New York, or twenty-five of

Philadelphia, much later than the tenth of June, I am inclined to think

that you will find wonderfully little sport; before the season, do not

fire a shot, if you will take my advice, if poachers will violate the

law, and the law will not enforce itself against poachers, abstain from

becoming a poacher yourself, and do not shoot before the season fairly

commences.

At this period of the year woodcock are almost invariably found in the

lowlands; sometimes, as, for instance, at Salem, in New Jersey, and many

other similar localities along the low and level shores of the Delaware,

in the wide, open meadows, where there is not a bush or brake to be seen

for miles; but more generally in low, swampy woods, particularly in

maple woods, which have an undergrowth of alder; along the margin of

oozy streamlets, creeping through moist meadows, among willow thickets;

and in wet pastures trampled by cattle, and set here and there with

little brakes, which afford them shade and shelter during the heat of

the day.

Of the latter description is the ground, once so famous for its summer

cock-shooting, known as “the drowned lands,” in Orange County, New York,

extending for miles and miles along the margins of the Wallkill and its

tributaries, the Black Creek, the Quaker Creek, and the beautiful

Wawayanda. Many a day of glorious sport have I had on those sweet level

meadows, enjoyed with friends long since dispersed and scattered, some

dead, untimely, some in far distant lands, some false, and some

forgetful, and thou, true-hearted, honest, merry, brave, Tom Draw; thou

whilom king of hosts and emperor of sportsmen, thou, saddest fate of

all, smitten, or ere thy prime was passed away, by the most fearful

visitation that awaits mankind—the awful doom of blindness! never again

shall I draw trigger on those once loved levels—the rail-road now

thunders and whistles close beside them, and every man and boy and fool,

now sports his fowling-piece; and not a woodcock on the meadows but,

after running the gauntlet of a hundred shots, a hundred volleys, is

consigned to the care of some conductor, by him to be delivered to

Delmonico or Florence, for the benefit of fat, greasy merchant-princes;

and if it were not so, if birds, swarmed as of yore in every reedy

slank, by every alder-brake, in every willow tuft, the ground is haunted

by too many recollections, rife with too many thick-succeeding memories

to render it a fitting place, to me at least, for pleasurable or gay

pursuits.

But, as I have said before, summer cock-shooting on the Drowned Lands of

Orange County, is among the things that have been—one of the stars that

has set, never to be relumed, in the nineteenth century; and the glory

of “the Warwick Woodlands” has departed.

In Connecticut, in some parts, there is very good summer cock-shooting

yet; and also in many places in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, in the

rich alluvial levels around the Delaware, the Schuylkill, and their

tributary rivers; but the sportsman, who really thirsts for fine

shooting—shooting such as it does the heart good to hear of—must mount

the iron-horse, whose breath is the hissing steam, and away, fleeter

even than the wings of the morning, for Michigan and Illinois and

Indiana, for the willow-brakes of Alganac, and the rice-marshes of Lake

St. Clair; and there he may shoot cock till his gun-barrels are red-hot,

and his heart is satiate of bird-slaughter.

It is usual at this season to shoot cock over pointers or setters,

according to individual preference of this or that race of dogs; for

myself, of the two, I prefer the setter, as in cock-shooting there is

always abundance of water to be had, and this rough-coated, high-strung

dog can face brakes and penetrate coverts, which play the mischief with

the smooth satiny skin of the high-blooded pointer.

In truth, however, neither of these, but the short-legged, bony, red and

white cocking-spaniel, is the true dog over which to shoot summer

woodcock; and no one, I will answer for it, who has ever hunted a good

cry of these, will ever again resort either to setter or pointer for

this, to them, inappropriate service.

The true place for these dogs is the open plain, the golden stubble, the

wide-stretching prairie, the highland moor, where they can find full

scope for their heady courage, their wonderful fleetness, their

unwearied industry, and display their miracles of staunchness,

steadiness, and nose.

In order to hunt these dogs on cock, you must unteach them some of their

noblest faculties, you must tame down their spirits, shackle their fiery

speed, reduce them, in fact, to the functions of the spaniel, which is

much what it would be to train a battle-charger to bear a pack-saddle,

or manage an Eclipse into a lady’s ambling palfrey.

The cocking-spaniel, on the contrary, is here in his very vocation. Ever

industrious, ever busy, never ranging above twenty paces from his

master, bustling round every stump, prying into every fern-bush, worming

his long, stout body, propped on its short, bony legs, into the densest

and most matted cover, no cock can escape him.

See! one of them has struck a trail; how he flourishes his stump of a

tail. Now he snuffs the tainted ground; what a rapture fills his dark,

expressive eye. Now he is certain; he pauses for a moment, looks back to

see if his master is at hand; “Yaff! yaff!” the brakes ring with his

merry clamor, his comrade rushes to his aid like lightning, yet pauses

ever, obedient to the whistle, nor presses the game too rashly, so that

it rise out of distance. Up steps the master, with his thumb upon the

dexter hammer, and his fore-finger on the trigger-guard. Now they are

close upon the quarry; “yaff! yaff! yaff! yaff!” Flip flap! up springs

the cock, with a shrill whistle, on a soaring wing. Flip flap!

again—there are a couple. Deliberately prompt, up goes the fatal

tube—even as the butt presses the shoulder, trigger is drawn after

trigger. Bang! bang! the eye of faith and the finger of instinct have

done their work, duly, truly. The thud of one bird, as he strikes the

moist soil, tells that he has fallen; the long stream of feathers

floating in the still air through yonder open glade, announces the fate

of the second; and, before the butt of the gun, dropped to load, has

touched the ground, without a word or question, down charged at the

report, the busy little babblers are couched silent in the soft,

succulent young grass. Loaded once more, “Hie! fetch!” and what a race

of emulation—mouthing their birds gently, yet rapturously, to inhale

best the delicate aroma, not biting them, each cocker has brought in his

bird, and they and you, gentle reader, if you be the happy sportsman who

possesses such a brace of beauties, are rewarded adequately and enough.

For the rest, a short, wide-bored, double-barrel, an ounce of No. 8

shot, and an equal measure of Brough’s diamond-grain, will do the

business of friend _microptera_, as effectually, at this season, as a

huge, long, old fashioned nine-pounder, with its two ounce charge; and

it will give you this advantage, that it shall weigh less by three

pounds, and enable you to dispense with a superfluous weight of shot,

which, on a hot July day, especially if you be at all inclined to what

our friend Willis calls _pinguitude_, will of a necessity produce much

exudation, and some lassitude.

By the time these lucubrations shall be in thy hands, kind and gentle

sportsman, the dog-days will be, and July cock-shooting; and that, where

thou shootest soever, thou mayest find the woodcock lying as thick and

as lazy as in the cut above, is the worst wish in thy behalf, of thy

friend and servant at command,

Frank Forester.

* * * * *

THE SHARK.

A NEW PAGE OF NATURAL HISTORY.

BY L. A. WILMER.

[Illustration]

Of all marine animals (except midshipmen and second-lieutenants in the

navy) the shark is, perhaps, one of the most unpopular. In general, it

is difficult to give reason for the unpopularity or popularity of any

thing, but with reference to the shark, there is much reason to suppose

that he has, by cruel misrepresentation, been exposed to unmerited

dislike. Had he been altogether bad, it is most likely that he would

have found a zealous advocate long ago; whereas, we are the first, we

believe, who ever undertook to say a word in his defense. As a shark is

thought to have many counterparts among the human species, we must be

extremely careful how we launch our invectives at him, lest by direct

implication we should abuse some of our most respectable

fellow-citizens. But, without affectation, we have always felt a high

degree of respect for this inhabitant of the deep, to whom we may justly

ascribe some very estimable and admirable qualities. In the first place,

he is the great controversialist of the watery world. “If he cannot

always convince,” as some one said of a renowned American orator, “he

never failed to silence his opponent;” and this, in the tactics of

disputation, is almost as grand an achievement as convincing itself. We

read that Tycho Brahe had his nose bitten off in a controversy with

another distinguished mathematician. But, although the shark—provided

as he is with a jaw as effective as a broad-axe—is well qualified to

“chop logic,” we doubt if he would be satisfied with such a paltry

exploit as that which has been accredited to Tycho’s snappish adversary;

and, indeed, we see no use in mincing the matter when it becomes

necessary to “use up” an opponent. The best advice we can give in such a

case is to “go the whole hog” at once. But it is not with the

controversial abilities of the shark that we have to deal at present. It

was the chief design of this sketch to speak chiefly of his business

habits—on which we intend to found a certain comparison that we have in

our eye—and so (as Bottom, the weaver, says) “to grow to a conclusion.”

The shark is a great speculator in his way. He follows in the wake of

the ship for days and weeks together, looking out for “a good chance.”

His industry and perseverance are rewarded at last, if a poor Jack Tar

happen to fall overboard; but if disappointed in his expectations of

such an auspicious event, he is obliged to console himself with Jacob

Faithful’s excellent maxim, “better luck next time.” If, in pursuit of

his object, instead of catching a jolly fat sailor, he should be hooked

or harpooned himself, he philosophically considers it as a fair business

transaction; for, in every speculation, somebody must suffer—the great

object of all speculating skill being to decide _who_ is to be

victimized. Speculation, therefore, is pretty much the same thing in

substance, whether it be terrene or aquatic.

Shakspeare, with his customary acuteness of observation, declares that

there are “both land-rats and water-rats.” Some other immortal genius

has made the startling discovery that there are both water-sharks and

land-sharks; and we find that in each of these generic divisions there

is more specific arrangement than we have leisure or inclination to

discuss. The engraver has supplied us with a specimen of one variety of

the land-shark, which may be distinguished at a glance by the globular

symbols at the end of the tail—the use or meaning of which has never

been clearly explained, though the world has been favored with many

ingenious hypotheses in relation to the subject. The common opinion is

that the three balls are significative of the fact, that should the

animal get possession of any of your property, it is _two to one_ that

you will never recover it. Others say that as balls have a remarkable

facility in going down hill, they significantly point out the route you

are likely to take should you venture to have any dealings with this

formidable creature.

The least observation of the picture will convince you that there is

speculation in the eye of this land-shark. Mark the eager expression! so

much like that you may have observed in the glance of his maritime

brother, as he ogled you from his billowy alcove. See the open mouth,

and teeth displayed, as if prepared for a “bite.” Judging from the

“valence” (as Hamlet calls it,) at the bottom of the visage, we opine

that this animal does not shave _himself_—though he is said to shave

his victims rather closely. The beard, by the way, is regarded as a

hereditary characteristic of this devouring race—the origin of which is

traced to Lombardy. The ancient inhabitants of that country were called

_Longobardi_, which name some etymologists derive from Latin words,

signifying long-beards. Among these unshaven gentry, it appears,

pawn-broking, the most remorseless kind of shaving, was first

established. From this seminary of shavers, the whole world was supplied

with professors—fellows remarkable for great latitude of conscience as

well as longitude of beard; benevolent fellows, too, always ready to

accommodate the needy with a loan, “on the most agreeable terms”—as

some of them promise to do, _per_ advertisement, at the present day; the

phrase, “most agreeable terms,” being understood to signify one hundred

and fifty per cent. per annum! This moderate rate of interest is

continued down to our own times, showing that the pawn-broker is piously

attached to the usages of his ancestors, while others, in the race for

improvement, are constantly trampling, with profane feet, on the ashes

of the venerable dead.

“My Uncle,” as the pawn-broker is affectionately called by his

customers, honors the assumed relationship by loaning out his dollars to

every applicant who can comply with his stipulations. In this

particular, some gay, frolicksome nephew would propose him as a model

for uncles in general; especially because he never requires an exact

account of how the cash loaned is to be expended, nor does he seem to

take it for granted that you are on the direct road to ruin because you

happen to stand in need of pecuniary assistance. On the contrary, he

speaks of money-borrowing as one of the finest strokes of policy, and

professes his willingness to lend any imaginable sum—if you are

prepared to deposit some “collateral” worth about four times the amount.

This being done, your generous creditor never harasses you for

repayment, you may abscond, if you choose, and proceed to California, or

any other remote region celebrated for gold, or brimstone—assuring

yourself that your kind “uncle” will not interfere with your departure

or inquire after you when you are gone.

With all this liberality and generous forbearance, the pawn-broker is

regarded as one of the most voracious of predatory animals; but be it

understood that there are land-sharks compared with which he is a mere

minnow, inasmuch as his operations are all on a small scale, and the

figure he makes among the speculating leviathans of the day is

comparatively insignificant.

* * * * *

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

_The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey. Edited by his

Son, Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, M. A. To be completed in Six

Parts. New York. Harper & Brothers._

The Harpers are printing this entertaining work as fast as the volumes

are received from England. The English price is about three dollars and

a half a volume; the American twenty-five cents. As a record of

Southey’s life, character, and opinions, and as conducting us into the

workshop of the greatest of book-makers, the work has great value, apart

from its attractive qualities of literary and personal gossip. The

impression it leaves of Southey is, on the whole, a favorable one. It

makes him appear as an honest, just, active, persistent, independent

man,—one who can “toil terribly,”—a staunch friend, a direct and open

opponent,—with a good deal of bigotry but no deviltry,—and altogether

a person with few of the vices which most commonly beset writers by

profession. His letters are admirable, both in themselves and as true

specimens of epistolary composition. They show Southey just as he was,

quick in forming opinions, confident in expressing them, thoroughly

convinced that he had no intellectual superior in England, freed from

envy by self-esteem, and ready to settle every question that is started,

by a few dogmatic sentences, which sparkle “like salt in fire.” The

singular perfection of his character, considered in respect to its

capacity for active intellectual labor, came from his almost miraculous

confidence in his faculties and content with himself. He has so high an

opinion of Robert Southey as to be unconcerned about any thing which

lies beyond the grasp of his powers, and, accordingly, however much we

may find reason to doubt or deny many of his statements, they ever have

a joyous raciness which tingles pleasantly on our perceptions.

The present work commences with a delightful autobiography, which

Southey carried down to the age of fifteen. His son then takes up the

narrative. This, however, is little more than arranging the

correspondence, and explaining allusions in it. The great charm of

Southey’s style is its stimulating simplicity; and this is felt

throughout the present “Life.” We have marked, in reading the work, a

number of passages, which seem to us especially characteristic, and

cannot refrain from quoting a few of them. He tells us, in his

autobiography, that his elder brother was very beautiful; “so much so,

that, when I made my appearance on the 12th of August, 1774, I was sadly

disparaged by comparison with him. My mother, asking if it was a boy,

was answered by her nurse, in a tone as little favorable to me as it was

flattering, ‘Ay, a great ugly boy!’ and she added, when she told me

this, ‘God forgive me! when I saw what a great red creature it was,

covered with rolls of fat, I thought I should never be able to love

him.’” This is the most perfectly dramatic statement of the most

important event which can happen to a person, ever given in a biography;

and it conciliates the reader at once.

The record of his early life is given with much amusing details. His

parents were rather illiterate, and he depended on chance to gratify his

thirst for books, with nobody to select what were proper to his age. He

read Beaumont and Fletcher through before he was eight years old,—a

most curious book for a child, when we consider the obscenity,

licentiousness, and slang which mingle with the romantic beauty of those

dramatists. He says they did him no harm, for the reason that he was so

young. In Mrs. Rowe’s Letters he read her version of the stories of

Olendo and Sophronia, and the Enchanted Forest, from Tasso, and

despaired at the time of ever reading more of the poem until he was man,

“from a whimsical notion that, as the subject related to Jerusalem, the

original must be in Hebrew;” and there was not learning enough in his

father’s house to set him right on the point.

Perhaps the most interesting peculiarity of books like the present, is

their expression of the private opinions which their subjects

entertained of contemporary men and events. This certainly is the

raciest element in the Correspondence of Southey, and his letters are

next in attractiveness to a cosy chat with himself. Of Bentham, he

remarks—“It has pleased the

metaphysico-critico-politico-patriotico-phoolo-philosopher Jeremy

Bentham, to designate me, in one of his opaque works, by the appellation

of St. Southey, for which I humbly thank his Jeremy Benthamship, and

have in part requited him.” His hatred of Jeffrey, and contempt of

Reviews, provoke many a sardonic remark, replete with his peculiar

humor. “Turner,” he writes to Rickman, “complained heavily of Scotch

criticism, which he seems to feel too much. Such things only provoke me

to interject Fool! and Booby! _seasoned with the participle damnatory_;

but as for being vexed at a review—I should as soon be fevered by a

flea-bite! . . . I look upon the invention of reviews to be the worst

injury which literature has received since its revival.” Of Coleridge he

says—“His mind is in a perfect St. Vitus’s dance—eternal activity

without action.” Jeffrey, according to Southey, is a bad politician, a

worse moralist, and a critic, in matters of taste, equally incompetent

and unjust. It is unfortunate that his criticism on himself and on

others, in these letters, is not of a kind to entitle him to condemn the

editor of the Edinburgh Review. “Cowper,” he asserts, “owed his

popularity to his piety, not to his poetry, and that piety was

craziness.” His opinion was altered, of course, when he afterward edited

an edition of Cowper’s works. Of Walter Savage Lander’s poem of Gebir,

he says—“I look upon Gebir, as I do upon Dante’s long poem in the

Italian, not as a good poem, _but as containing the finest poetry in the

language_.” His power of appreciating Wordsworth may be estimated by his

remark, in a letter to Scott, on the “Ode on the Intimations of

Immortality from the Recollections of Childhood.” “The Ode on

Pre-existence,” he says, “is a dark subject darkly handled. Coleridge is

the only man who could make such a subject luminous. The Leech Gatherer

is one of my favorites.” We might quote many other critical judgments,

“equally incompetent and unjust,” but if the last does not satisfy the

reader, it is impossible to quote any thing that will.

The following passage, from a letter written in 1812, gives so vivid an

impression of Shelley in his enthusiastic youth, that we cannot refrain

from extracting it. The style is very characteristic of Southey’s manner

throughout the letters.

“Here is a man in Keswick, who acts upon me as my own ghost would do. He

is just what I was in 1794. His name is Shelley, son to the member for

Shoreham, with £6000 a year entailed upon him, and as much more in his

father’s power to cut off. Beginning with romances of ghosts and murder,

and with poetry at Eton, he passed, at Oxford, into metaphysics; printed

half-a-dozen pages, which he entitled “The Necessity of Atheism;” sent

one anonymously to Coplestone, in expectation, I suppose, of converting

him; was expelled in consequence; married a girl of seventeen, after

being turned out of doors by his father; and here they both are, in

lodgings, living upon £200 a year, which her father allows them. He is

come to the fittest physician in the world. At present he has got to the

Pantheistic stage of philosophy, and, in the course of a week, I expect

he will be a Berkleyan, for I have put him upon a course of Berkley. It

has surprised him a good deal to meet, for the first time in his life, a

man who perfectly understands him, and does him full justice. I tell him

that all the difference between us is that he is nineteen and I am

thirty-seven; and I dare say it will not be very long before I shall

succeed in convincing him that he may be a true philosopher, and do a

great deal of good with £6000 a year; the thought of which troubles him

a great deal more at present than ever the want of sixpence (for I have

known such a want) did me. God help us! the world wants mending, though

he did not set about it exactly in the right way.”

This Life of Southey promises to be an important addition to the

biographical treasures of English literature, and we look with great

expectation for the remaining volumes, which will record his quarrels

with Byron, his coldness to Coleridge, and the publication of his most

important works.

* * * * *

_Historic View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic

Nations: with a Sketch of their Popular Poetry. By Taloi. With a

Preface by Edward Robinson, D. D., LL.D. 1 vol. 12mo._

This work is a real addition to English literature, containing a

succinct view of a subject which has heretofore been treated by those

English scholars, who have treated of it at all, in a fragmentary and

unsatisfactory manner. The Slavic nations contain a population of

seventy millions, and it is strange that a work like the present has not

been produced before, the subject being rich in matter both to interest

and instruct the better class of readers.

“Taloi,” as we presume is well known, is the name assumed by Mrs.

Robinson, the learned wife of the learned gentleman who prefaces the

present history. Few living women can be said to excel her in the rare

combination of erudition with heartiness. This volume owes much of its

attractiveness to the feminine qualities which sometimes guide and

sometimes relieve her erudite researches. Her selection of anecdotes,

illustrative of national character, is very happy. In speaking of the

submission with which the Slavic Nations received Christianity, the

people readily following their superiors, she remarks, that “Vladimir

the Great, to whom the Gospel and the Koran were offered at the same

time, was long undecided which to choose; and was at last induced to

embrace the former, because ‘his Russians could not live without the

pleasure of drinking.’”

There are many poetical translations in the volume of much excellence,

some of them having such a marked peculiarity that, without knowing the

originals, a critic might pronounce them to be true versions. Two or

three poems, relating to the desolate condition of motherless orphans,

are introduced by a reference to a Danish ballad, which we trust that

Longfellow will search after and translate. “The Danes,” says Taloi,

“have a beautiful ballad, in which the ghost of a mother is roused by

the wailings and sufferings of her deserted offspring, to break with

supernatural power the gravestone, and to re-enter, in the stillness of

the night, the neglected nursery, in order to cheer, to nurse, to comb

and wash the dear little ones whom God once entrusted to her care.” The

following translation of a ballad, written in the Upper Lusatian

language, we extract:

THE ORPHAN’S LAMENT.

Far more unhappy in the world am I,

Than on the meadow the bird that doth fly.

Little bird merrily flits to and fro,

Sings its sweet carol upon the green bough.

I, alas, wander wherever I will,

Everywhere I am desolate still!

No one befriends me wherever I go,

But my own heart full of sorrow and wo!

Cease thy grief, oh my heart, full of grief,

Soon will a time come that giveth thee relief.

Never misfortune has struck me so hard,

But I, ere long, again better have fared.

God of all else in the world has enough;

Why not then widows and orphans enough?

The _naïveté_ of this is similar to a little quotation which the author

gives from a Servian elegy. A poor girl sings: “Our Lord has of every

thing his fill; but of poor people he seems to have greater plenty than

of anything else!”

The following description, from a Servian lyric, we commend to

contributors to Albums. It will keep them in comparisons for a

life-time:

Never since the world had a beginning,

Never did a lovelier flow’ret blossom,

Than the flow’ret in our own days blooming;

Haikuna, the lovely maiden flower.

She was lovely, nothing e’er was lovelier!

She was tall and slender as the pine-tree;

White her cheeks, but tinged with rosy blushes,

As if morning’s beam had shone upon them,

Till that beam had reached its high meridian.

And her eyes, they were two precious jewels,

And her eyebrows, _leeches from the ocean_,

And her eyelids, they were wings of swallows;

And her flaxen braids were silken tassels;

And her sweet mouth was a sugar casket,

And her teeth were pearls arrayed in order;

White her bosom, like two snowy dovelets,

And her voice was like the dovelet’s cooing;

And her smiles were like the glowing sunshine;

And her fame, the story of her beauty,

Spread through Bosnia, and through Herz’govina.

The simplicity of the ballads which Mrs. Robinson has so copiously

translated, will win many readers who take but little interest in

intellectual history. But it is as a history of literature that the book

is deserving of most attention, and as a historian the author displays

great learning, gracefully managed. The criticism is conducted on

enlarged principles of taste, and the diction is uniformly clear,

condensed, and elegant. The publisher has done his part towards making

the volume attractive, by printing it in large type on good paper.

* * * * *

_Indiana. By George Sand. Translated by one of the Best French

Scholars in this Country, a member of the Philadelphia Bar.

Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson. 1 vol. 12mo._

We cannot divine the publisher’s object in engaging the services of “one

of the best French Scholars in this Country,” and moreover “a member of

the Philadelphia Bar,” to translate this miserable trash into bad

English. Some of the later works of George Sand, undoubtedly evince

genius, but the novel under consideration, one of the first products of

her unregulated passions and speculative profligacy, has nothing in

plot, character, incident, or style, to give piquancy to its coarseness.

It is licentious, but then it is so stupid, that its perusal would be a

penance to a _roué_. Its immorality and falsehood might have a charm to

some minds, but the raciness of these qualities is spoiled by the

detestable and yawn-provoking sentimentality by which they are pervaded.

The publication of such books is an offence equally to taste and morals,

and tends to corrupt the intellect as well as the conscience of such

readers as are foolish enough to buy them, and bad enough to read them.

One of the worst signs of the times is the systematic degradation of

literature into a mere handmaid of profligacy, as exhibited in the

numberless manufactories of cheap damnation spread all over the

land—manufactories which send out an incessant stream of ugly looking

pamphlet novels, whose leading claim to notice is their brazen

brainlessness and stupid indecency. We have been informed that these

things are read, but on what principles of human nature the assertion is

made is a mystery to us. They are so absolutely unreadable, according to

the worse view ever taken of the human mind by misanthrope or

metaphysician, that we must be allowed to doubt the fact, and to

congratulate the philanthropist that the devil, in this case, has

underrated the taste even of our blackguards and flats. We do hope for

the credit of the species, that if the popular heart and conscience are

doomed to be corrupted by a cheap literature, it will not be done by

such wretched stuff as forms the staple of George Sand’s “Indiana.”

* * * * *

_Women in America: her Work and her Reward. By Maria J.

McIntosh. Author of “To Seem and To be,” etc. New York: D.

Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

The author of this volume has already distinguished herself as the

writer of two popular novels, in which a distinct moral purpose is

connected with well drawn characters and interesting events. In the

present work she makes woman the reformer of social evils, and views her

as she appears at the North, the South, and the West. There are many

opinions expressed for which Miss McIntosh can only give what logicians

call “the lady’s reason,” but, as a whole, the book is calculated to do

good, and can be safely commended to the attention of “Women in

America.”

* * * * *

JENNY LIND’S AMERICAN POLKA.

COMPOSED BY

N. STEENCKEN,

AND RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO

MRS. A. WATSON.

Presented by Lee & Walker, 162 Chestnut Street.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

* * * * *

DETAILS OF THE NEW FASHIONS IN SACQUES AND MANTELETS.

[Illustration: NO. 1.—ESMERALDA.]

[6]_Pardessus_ of silk fitting closely to the shape, open before,

trimmed with lace, which is held by a trimming of the sleeve and skirt.

* * * * *

[Illustration: NO. 2.—RIMINI.]

Little Spring Cloak of _taffetas_ trimmed with a double ruche of the

same.

* * * * *

[Illustration: NO 3.—FORNARINA.]

Tight fitting _pardessus_, bordered with gimp, and trimmed with a thin,

loose fringe, twisted at the end. The sleeve is formed by the stuff

folded on itself; but it is not separate from the body.

* * * * *

[Illustration: NO. 4.—FALIERO.]

Spring Cloak, half open, trimmed with galloon and twisted fringe.

* * * * *

[Illustration: NO. 5.—OPHELIA.]

_Mantelet of taffetas_, with _ruches_ of quilled ribbon separated in the

middle by a little puffing. Trimmed with white _blonde_.

* * * * *

[Illustration: NO. 6.—HERMIONE.]

Shawl-shaped _Mantelet of taffetas_ with fringe.

* * * * *

[Illustration: NO. 7.—MIRANDELLA.]

_Mantelet of taffetas_, trimmed with black lace and figured ribbon.

* * * * *

[Illustration: NO. 8.—STELLA.]

_Pardessus_ for the house, of _taffetas_ trimmed with _ruches_ and

pinked or scalloped trimmings.

-----

[6] _Pardessus_—a sort of sacque or little silk coat.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Anaïs Toudouze LE FOLLET Paris, Boulevart S^{t}. Martin,

69. _Coiffures de_ Ferdinand Hamelin—_Robes_ Camille—_Lingeries_

Schreiber _Style of Goods at_ Stewart's _New York and_ L.J. Levy &

C^{o.} _Philadelphia_ Graham’s Magazine 134 Chestnut Street]

* * * * *

EDITOR’S TABLE.

_Cruising in the Last War. By Charles J. Peterson, Author of the

Reefer of ’76, etc. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson._

Many thousands of the readers of Graham’s Magazine, will be glad to

welcome in this form this admirable sea novel, which was published in

this Magazine in 1840. It was one of the most popular articles that ever

appeared in this country, and now that the author avows himself, he will

justly be placed among the foremost writers of the age for directness

and energy of style, graphic force of description and skillful

delineation of character. Cooper, in his palmiest days, never excelled

the splendor of some of the descriptive passages of this writer. Many of

the incidents we learn, for the first time, are taken from events that

occurred during the war, and the whole story is drawn from the original

log-book of a privateer of 1812, now in the possession of the author.

It is refreshing to turn to the natural, patriotic tone of this work,

after wading through the sea of indifferent books, which now-a-days make

up the marketable cheap literature; and we thank Mr. Peterson, on this

account, for allowing the Cruisings to appear. It will find a welcome

and a response in the hearts of all pure men; and purchasers wherever a

spark of patriotism lingers. It is sold at the cheap rate of twenty-five

cents, and by the hundred at a still lower price.

* * * * *

Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts.—We had hoped to be able to notice

the Spring Exhibition of this Society, but cannot do justice to the

splendid array of home and foreign talent on the walls of its Galleries,

in the present number; our comments must, therefore, be delayed until

next month. A large number of paintings have been received from Europe,

in competition for the prizes offered by the Academy. Among these, we

may enumerate the following: “Ahasuerus, King of the Medea and Persians,

exalting Mordecai,” by P. Van Schendel, of Brussels; “Wrecking and

Succour,” and “The Schelde in a fresh gale,” by P. T. Schotel, of

Mendembled, Holland; “The Auspicious Moment,” and “The Recovery,” by

Carl Hubner, of Dusseldorf; “An Auction Scene,” by A. W. Wedeking, of

Bremen; two “Views in the High Alps,” by G. F. Diday, of Bremen;

“Amphitrite and Diana,” after Moreto’s Spanish comedy, “El desden con el

desden,” by J. Schoppe, of Berlin; “Ruins of Castle Teck on the Suabian

Alps,” by H. Herdtle, of Stuttgard; “Judith and Holofernes,” by E.

Jacobs, of Gotha; “The Marseillaise first song by Rouget de Lisle,” by

Godefri Gaffens, of Antwerp; “A Lake Scene,” by Ildephonse Stoequart, of

Antwerp; “Abraham receiving the Divine Promise,” by J. A. Kruseman;

“Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife,” by François Vinck, of Anvers, Belgium;

“Tobias Receiving his Wife,” and an “Italian Peasant Girl,” by Edward

Ihlee, of Cassel; “The Judgment of Solomon,” by Jh. Van Severdonck, of

Brussels; three panels, “Adam and Eve finding the dead body of Abel,”

“Abel carried to Heaven by an Angel,” and “Cain in the power of Satan,”

by Edward du Jardin, of Antwerp; “The Penny of Cæsar,” by Joseph

Belleman, of Antwerp; “A Roman Aqueduct at Alcala-la-Real in Spain, with

a Caravan of Muleteers,” by F. Bossuet, of Brussels; and several others.

The productions of our own artists are numerous, and will challenge a

favorable comparison with these. Rothermel’s latest work will add

greatly to his reputation.

* * * * *

Chromo Xylography.—The very beautiful title-page, for the July volume,

which we furnish our readers in this number, is the work of Mr.

Devereux, an accomplished artist of this city. This style of art is

known as “Chromo Xylography,” and Mr. Devereux has certainly, thus far

excelled all other artists in the beauty and delicacy of his pictures.

The Lake of Como—the central design of our picture—is printed in eight

different tints; and the blending of colors has all the purity of

painting. When it is considered that this effect is produced by

_printing_ from eight different blocks, we may consider this picture an

achievement, and highly creditable to its designer.

* * * * *

True Paris Fashions.—We resume with this number, our Paris Fashions,

which our subscribers will at once see are far superior in beauty of

design and coloring to any that have appeared in Graham for a long time.

The order for this plate we sent to Paris the moment we ascertained that

we should again become the exclusive conductor of “Graham,” and our

agent is instructed to forward _one each month_, from the best houses

there, to appear _simultaneously_ with the same designs in Paris. We

thus furnish our colored plate—_one month_ in advance of even wood-cut

fashion plates—and at least _two months_ earlier than those which are

re-engraved and colored in this country. This single feature of “Graham”

renders it superior to any work in this country, in regard to

embellishments.

* * * * *

OURSELF.

If blushes were transferable, our face in the magazine for this month,

should, we suppose, be like a maiden’s before the ardor of her first

lover—but steel is as unsusceptible as brass, we find; so, with a very

unconscious air, we shall brave the battery of bright eyes, impervious

to a frown.

As to our Memoir, by Mr. Peterson—the veritable Jeremy Short—it is

done in his most amiable vein; and though not exactly the history of the

Wandering Jew—being rather that of Barnaby Rudge’s Raven, crying

continually, “Never say die”—our readers may take it with the grains of

allowance which should be given to a vigorous writer with a fine

imagination, who is determined to make a hero.

We had written a long article, commemorative of other days, but have

since thought it better to let by-gones be by-gones. That we feel proud

of our reinstation in this Magazine—the child of our happier days—we

shall not deny. The gold that bought it for us—if estimated by the

happiness it has diffused—must have dropped from heaven, baptized for

good. The dark shadows—the regrets and heart-burnings of the past are

over. A bright future is before us, high hopes and determined resolves

are ours now—light leaps over the mountain-tops, and the “good time” so

long a coming, rushes joyfully to meet us—is here.

“Graham.”

Our thanks are due to our brethren of the quill throughout the entire

Union, for the very general, and very generous welcome we have received

on coming back to the profession. While we shall never forget their

kindness, and have small hopes of ever being able to repay a tythe of

it, we shall endeavor so to act as not to dishonor their endorsement, or

to forfeit their good opinion.

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained as well as some

spellings peculiar to Graham’s. Punctuation has been corrected without

note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. For

illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to

condition of the originals used for preparation of the ebook.

page iii, Strength. Hy Mrs. ==> Strength. By Mrs.

page 4, as the real _savan_ ==> as the real _savant_

page 5, mere experimentors, surprised ==> mere experimenters, surprised

page 8, up. You hav n’t ==> up. You haven’t

page 8, of the the lads did ==> of the lads did

page 13, weather-side of the bark ==> weather-side of the barque

page 17, singers was diposed ==> singers was disposed

page 19, symphonies of Beethooven ==> symphonies of Beethoven

page 24, same instincts leads her ==> same instincts lead her

page 27, services, Captain Dundas ==> services, Captain Dunbar

page 33, these succint narrations ==> these succinct narrations

page 38, whisper a requium ==> whisper a requiem

page 45, a country guager ==> a country gauger

page 45, was harrassed with cares ==> was harassed with cares

page 46, no more deficile, ==> no more difficile,

Page 50, the cautious inuendo ==> the cautious innuendo

page 52, the amiable Blocklock ==> the amiable Blacklock

page 55, payment. Harrassed and ==> payment. Harassed and

page 56, to smoothe her ==> to smooth her

page 58, an exhorbitant sum ==> an exorbitant sum

page 65, ready to accomodate ==> ready to accommodate

page 67, The _naïvete_ of ==> The _naïveté_ of

page 67, Than the flowret ==> Than the flow’ret

page 67, degradation of literarature ==> degradation of literature

page 72, Herdtle, of Suttgard ==> Herdtle, of Stuttgard