CHAPTER II.

Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the

Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

(This file was produced from images generously made

available by Cornell University Digital Collections.)

THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

Of Literature, Art, and Science.

Vol. IV. NEW-YORK, OCTOBER 1, 1851. No. III.

JOHN GODFREY SAXE.

[Illustration]

Every catalogue of English poets embraces the name of Butler, though he was

but the most unpoetical of satirists. If Hudibras is poetry there can be no

difficulty in admitting to this distinction Trumbull's Progress of Dulness

and McFingal, Snelling's Truth, a Gift for Scribblers, Halleck's Fanny,

Osborn's Vision of Rubeta, Lowell's Fable for Critics, and some dozen other

attempts in in this line, by Americans. The disease of the satiric muse in

this country has been the spleen, and the reason why we have had so little

of the healthful humorous rage, ideal and lyrical, of which the old masters

gave us immortal examples, is, that those among us who have attempted this

kind of composition have generally had far more to do with persons than

with manners, have been influenced more by envy and malice than by a

generous scorn of what is ludicrous and mean and criminal. The author of

"Progress" has fallen into none of the prevailing sins; he is of the school

of Horace, and has as little as he may to do with fools, while he holds up,

unfolds, and whips, the follies of the day.

John G. Saxe was born in Highgate, Franklin county, Vermont, on the second

day of June, 1816, His youth was passed in rural occupations until he was

seventeen years of age, when he determined to study one of the liberal

professions, and with this view entered the grammar school at St. Albans,

and, after the usual preliminary course, the college at Middlebury, where

he graduated bachelor of arts in the summer of 1839. He subsequently read

law at Lockport in New-York and at St. Albans, and was admitted to the bar

at the latter place in September, 1843, since which time he has been

practising in the courts with more than the average success of young

attorneys, and he is now a leading politician of the democratic party, the

conductor of its local organ, the Burlington Sentinel, and District

Attorney, by the grace of personal popularity--all other candidates on the

same ticket having been defeated.

Mr. Saxe became known as an occasional contributor to the _Knickerbocker

Magazine_, some eight or ten years ago. Among his pieces in that miscellany

is one characteristically remarkable for a sympathetic fitness of phrase,

entitled the Rhyme of the Rail, and beginning:

Singing through the forests,

Rattling over ridges,

Shooting under arches,

Rumbling over bridges,

Whizzing through the mountains,

Buzzing o'er the vale,--

Bless me! this is pleasant,

Riding on the Rail!

In this period he has thrown off scores of epigrams, &c., anonymously,

besides the more ambitious performances acknowledged in the collection of

his Poems, of which we have before us a third edition--showing that their

quality is well appreciated--from the press of Ticknor & Co. The longest of

these is Progress, first published in 1846. In skilful felicities of

language and rhythm, general clear and sharp expression, and alternating

touches of playful wit and vigorous sense, there is nothing so long that is

so well sustained in the hundred and one books of American satire. In the

beginning of it he says finely of our "glorious tongue:"

Let thoughts, too idle to be fitly dressed

In sturdy Saxon, be in French expressed;

Let lovers breathe Italian,--like, in sooth,

Its singers soft, emasculate, and smooth;

But for a tongue, whose ample powers embrace

Beauty and force, sublimity and grace,

Ornate or plain, harmonious, yet strong,

And formed alike for eloquence and song,

Give me the English,--aptest tongue to paint

A sage or dunce, a villain or a saint,

To spur the slothful, counsel the distressed,

To lash the oppressor, and to soothe the oppressed,

To lend fantastic Humor freest scope,

To marshal all his laughter-moving troop,

Give Pathos power, and Fancy lightest wings,

And Wit his merriest whims and keenest stings!

And then proceeds with a display of popular follies, and especially of

those most grotesque and offensive, the sham philosophies by which it is

attempted to regenerate society:

Hail, Social Progress! each new moon is rife

With some new theory of social life,

Some matchless scheme ingeniously designed

From half their miseries to free mankind;

On human wrongs triumphant war to wage,

And bring anew the glorious golden age.

"Association" is the magic word

From many a social "priest and prophet" heard;

"Attractive Labor" is the angel given,

To render earth a sublunary Heaven!

"Attractive Labor!" ring the changes round,

And labor grows attractive in the sound;

And many a youthful mind, where haply lurk

Unwelcome fancies at the name of "work,"

See pleasant pastime in its longing view

Of "toil made easy" and "attractive" too,

And, fancy-rapt, with joyful ardor, turns

Delightful grindstones, and seductive churns!

In the same vein we are treated with "novelties which disturb our peace,"

in literature, fashion, politics, religion, and morals; and every line is

faultless in finish and in wit. The Proud Miss McBride, and The New Rape of

the Lock, are in different veins, but abound in the same exquisite turns,

agreeable images, and comic displays of wisdom. In the New Rape of the

Lock:

The gossips whispered it through the town,

That "Captain Jones loved Susan Brown;"

But, speaking with due precision,

The gossips' tattle was out of joint,

For the lady's "blunt" was the only point

That dazzled the lover's vision!

And the Captain begged, in his smoothest tones,

Miss Susan Brown to be Mistress Jones,--

Flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones,

Till death the union should sever;

For these are the words employed, of course,

Though Death is cheated, sometimes by Divorce;

A fact which gives an equivocal force

To that beautiful phrase, "for ever!"

And Susan sighed the conventional "Nay"

In such a bewitching, affirmative way,

The Captain perceived 'twas the feminine "Ay,"

And sealed it in such commotion,

That no "lip-service" that ever was paid

To the ear of a god, or the cheek of a maid,

Looked more like real devotion!

At the wedding party all the aristocracy of the circle in which the Browns

and Joneses were acquainted came together, and Miss Susan--

To pique a group of laughing girls

Who stood admiring the Captain's curls,

She formed the resolution

To get a lock of her lover's hair,

In the gaze of the guests assembled there,

By some expedient, foul or fair,

Before the party's conclusion.

"Only a lock, dear Captain!--no more,

'A lock for Memory,' I implore!"

But Jones, the gayest of quizzers,

Replied, as he gave his eye a cock,

"'Tis a treacherous memory needs a lock,"

And dodg'd the envious scissors.

Alas! that Susan couldn't refrain,

In her zeal the precious lock to gain,

From laying her hand on the lion's mane!

To see the cruel mocking,

And hear the short, affected cough,

The general titter, and chuckle, and scoff,

_When the Captain's Patent Wig came off,_

Was really dreadfully shocking!

The Times, a poem read before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, in

1849, Carmen Laetum, recited last year at a meeting of the Alumni of

Middlebury College, and New England Men, delivered before the literary

societies of the New-York University a few weeks ago, are his other most

elaborate productions, and they are all carefully finished and alike in

their chief characteristics. His shorter pieces in a few instances have

touches of sentiment, but this is not his forte; by the definition which

limits poetry to rhythmical creations of beauty, Mr. Saxe can scarcely be

called a poet of great excellence; his distinction is, that he is a wit,

and that he has been eminently successful in giving to his wit a poetical

expression.

As a judicious critic has said of him, "he unquestionably an _artist_, of a

high order, in the narrow range which he has taken. His comical productions

are beautifully finished. As they stand, they are terse, smooth, and

fluent, and any one who has ever tried his hand at this species of

composition, will readily appreciate the time, labor, and taste, which must

have been expended, to jest so easily, in rhyme."

GLASS OF BOHEMIA.

[Illustration]

This beautiful article is manufactured in various places throughout

Germany--most largely amid the very mountainous districts of Bohemia; some

of the best, however, is made in Bavaria and sent to Bohemia, and thence

exported. The materials from which the glass is formed consist chiefly of

the same as those used in England; the manufacturers themselves seem to

believe that there is no difference except in the proportions of the

materials, and in the fuel, which is exclusively wood, and produces, by a

little attention, a more constant and intense heat than can be produced by

any coal; the feeding of the furnace with the latter material, they say,

always creates a change in the temperature detrimental to the fluid above,

and never sufficiently intense. The wooded mountains of Bohemia are

entirely inhabited by a population whose industry, morals, hospitality, and

kindliness of manners, do honor, not only to this rich and beautiful

kingdom, but to the whole human race. They are pure Germans, not of

Sclavish origin, and the German dialect alone is spoken. Unlike every other

manufacturing district I have ever visited, they retain unimpaired all

their rural and primitive virtues. Clean to a proverb, in their houses and

persons, hospitable and amiable in their manners, simple in their habits,

cheerful and devoted in their religion, they form perhaps, the happiest

community in the world. In passing through the country, a stranger would

never find out that he was in a manufacturing district, but might fancy

himself in the green valleys of a partly pastoral, partly agricultural

people. Thickly inhabited, the beautiful little cottages, clustered into

villages, or scattered along the glens, or sides of the hills, are

embowered with fruit trees, and encircled with shrubs and flowers, which

each cottager cultivates with a zeal peculiar to his race; on every side

rich fields of grain or pasture stretch out like a vast enamelled carpet

between the hills, which are clothed in dense forest of spruce, fir, pine,

and beech, filled with deer, roe, and capercalzie; they extend in every

direction, far beyond the reach of the eye, one vast cloud of verdure. The

fabriques or factories, are placed generally in the middle of one of these

villages, the extent of which can only be known by going from house to

house; so closely is each hid in its own fruit-bower, and so surrounded by

shrubs and flowers, that the eye can only pick up the buildings by their

blue smoke, or get a glimpse of them here and there as you advance; thus

some of the villages are elongated to three miles, forming the most

delicious walk along its grassy road, generally accompanied by a stream,

_always_ overhung by a profusion of wild flowers, the mountain-ash, and

weeping birch; many of the former only to be found in our gardens. It has a

very picturesque effect to see the inhabitants of these villages with their

simple costume; and if it rains, their umbrellas, often of rich colors like

their glass, scarlet, green, and deep crimson, with beautiful ruby,

emerald, or turquoise handles; not such as a stranger might suppose a gaudy

glass bauble, but rich and massive, and having all the appearance of the

solid, gold, and gem-studded handles of the oriental weapons.

The fabrique is built like the rest of the cottages, and only differs from

them in size, and the shape and height of its chimney, which emitting only

wood smoke, has none of the dense sulphuric cloud which blackens and

poisons the neighborhood of coal-fed factories: it is never that

ostentatious building for whose magnitude and embellishments the public are

obliged to pay, in the increased charges on its productions. The glass

fabriques of Bohemia are all small, in fact only one large apartment, in

the centre of which is the furnace, a circular structure divided into eight

compartments containing the melted metal for as many colors; one man and a

boy are stationed at the door of each compartment, the former to extract

the fluid with his pipe, the latter to hold the wooden mould[1] in which

the article is blown and shaped. The number of hands employed in an

ordinary fabrique, are:--Eight men who work in the metal, take it from the

fire, and blow it in the moulds; eight helps to hold the moulds, &c.; four

to stir the metal, &c.; two breakers; four day laborers.

The best men are sometimes paid from eighteen to twenty shillings a week,

and provide their own food, which is good; and as they require much

nourishment from the exhausting effects of the heat, it consists of meat,

vegetables, and a vast quantity of beer; those who are employed about the

furnace especially, drink from twelve to fifteen quarts a day; it is a

clear, bitter beverage, which they, in common with all the German race,

like beyond every thing else, but it is of little strength; intoxication is

almost unknown, and as a proof of their careful and excellent character, in

one of the above-mentioned villages, three miles in length, a fire had not

been known in the memory of the oldest inhabitants I questioned, though the

houses from the ground to the roof are made entirely of wood.

The materials of which the glass is composed, as far as can be ascertained,

and they seem to make no secret of it, appear to be the same as those in

use in England; they say, they derive their perfection from their mode of

mixing and burning the material. Thus the principal component parts

are:--Sand; chalk; potash; brimstone; arsenic, mixed with various colors,

regulated by the principal:--Uran oxide; cobalt oxide; coppre oxide; nickel

oxide; chrom oxide; minium; tin oxide.

The gold used in ornamenting the glass is from the purest ducats, dissolved

in strong acid (artz wasser), the oil with which the colors are mixed is of

turpentine (harz oehl).

Nothing is done in most of the blowing fabriques but mixing the material,

and coloring; and for cutting, polishing, &c., from three to six wheels are

used--all the finishing goes on in the little cottages by which the furnace

is surrounded, and with which the valleys and sides of the hills are

studded; here you find, within the contracted chambers of these small

block-houses, if on the ground-flat, standing on an earthen[2] floor like

our Highland cottages, an artist of the first ability, tracing the

exquisite scrolls and flowers which we see in these beautiful works of art;

and which are performed by men bearing all the appearance of simple

cotters; but whose hand sweeps free and careless over the glass with the

confidence and ease of an experienced artist; seldom being provided with

more than two very ordinary looking brushes, a small one and another a size

larger, and working frequently without any pattern, or indicating lines

upon the glass they are painting; but perfect from habitude, the scrolls,

and wreaths, and flowers, come out with the same facility as one traces a

name upon the dewy pane of a window. Often the whole family are brought up

from childhood in painting and in drawing on glass, and thus producing a

race of hereditary artists; boys from thirteen and upwards are employed in

the most delicate works in this genre of art. Each cottage where the

painting and gilding go on, is provided with a small oven, into which the

glass is put to bake in the colors, where it is kept for a day and allowed

to cool down; the white figures and flowers, when they go into the oven,

are of a dark chrome color, but come out pure white, as will be observed on

examining any glass on which flowers of this color are painted; the gold,

also, when laid on, is of a dead brown, and when burnt in, is polished,

generally by women of the family. The gold in many instances is left

unpolished, and only the stalks and fibres are burnished, which give an

excellent effect. It is most interesting to go from one cottage to another;

in one you are amazed by the exquisite paintings in gold, silver, and

colors; in another, the cutting out all those beautiful leaf-work, lily,

bell-flower, octagon, and star-shaped vases, which is done, not only by

men, but by their children, girls and boys. In one cottage, I was

particularly struck by a man, his two daughters, and son, sitting at as

many wheels, cutting the most elaborate, but delicate, figures; shaping

from the merely turned over bell vases, those beautiful varieties of lily

and flower-indented lamps for suspension, and vessels for holding bouquets,

tracing the scrolls, stalks, and fibres, with the same ease as the

bare-footed wife and mother prepared their supper in the wooden bowl on the

earth-floor behind them; for there was but one apartment for the fine arts,

the nursery, and the kitchen, yet all was neatness, perfect cleanliness,

and order; while on the long beam which formed the sill of the three

mullion windows, was arranged a number of glass objects in the glorious

colors of Bohemian art--ruby, emerald, topaz, chrysopras, turquoise; with

pure crystals, which, richly cut, reflected, like a rainbow, the gems by

which they are surrounded. In another cottage, in Steinchoenau, I was much

pleased with the designs which two young men were painting, both in gold,

and colors; of which the former were scrolls of a very superior character,

and the latter, flowers, butterflies, and insects. I questioned one of the

men respecting the forms and characteristics of those he was painting, and

which were beautiful illustrations of Natural History; when he brought me

in, from a little bed-room, or rather closet, two boxes full of exquisitely

preserved specimens of a great variety of native insects, which he had

collected in his leisure hours, and arranged himself, to assist him in his

painting. The copies were facsimiles of the originals, both as to colors

and character. Among these insects I observed a beautiful miniature

crawfish, not so large as a shrimp, a native, also, of the streams in his

neighborhood. So identified had these productions of nature become with his

imagination, that he was, at the moment I came in, painting some most

correctly, without any specimen before him. It is impossible to express the

feelings produced by these people, so simple, so industrious, and, above

all, _so_ modest. They could not refrain from surprise at the admiration

their every-day productions created in us; and these simple artisans would

with difficulty believe that their works were sought for, and thus valued,

in all powerful and wealthy England, where they believe nothing is unknown,

nothing imperfect, nothing impossible! One man whom I visited is an

extraordinary genius, rarely to be met with; he has been driven by the

force of that same genius, to seek abroad, in France and Bavaria (Munich),

food for his mind, and has brought back with him several folio works of

engravings from the best masters, from which he designs. Placing before him

one of these works, a Raphael or a Rubens, he either copies the group, or

composes from them to suit the form of his vase, which he thus embellishes

with the most exquisite figures; his name is Charles Antoin Guenther. He

lives in a little block-house, as humble as the commonest of those above

described, on the declivity of a brae, by a small stream, on which stand

the little scattered village of Steinschoenau. It is composed of only two

apartments below, of which his work-room is one, and which is not above ten

feet square, with just space enough to hold four little lathes for

engraving glass, at one of which he works himself, while the others are

occupied by three boys, the youngest twelve and a-half years old, the

eldest fifteen! They all engrave beautifully, pieces laid before them by

Guenther, and which they follow with a faithfulness and spirit only to be

believed on personal inspection. He was at work himself on a vase goblet,

of the shape of the usual green hock-glass, but which might contain a

bottle; it was lapis lazuli blue, enriched by a group of Bacchanalian

Cupids and vine-leaves of his own composition, and worked with a spirit and

freedom worthy of some of the masters by whose works he was surrounded.

What struck me most, was one of those exquisite little figures of

Raphael's, in his great picture of the "Madona del Sixto," in the Royal

Gallery at Dresden. The cherub leaning on the parapet, with his chin

resting on one hand, as he gazes on the Virgin; it is exquisitely drawn in

pencil, a fac-simile, and pinned on the wooden wall of the engraver's

cottage, immediately opposite his seat. I asked him how he first traced on

the glass the subjects which he was to cut; he replied by taking up a plain

glass without any figure or indication on its surface, and asking me what

subject I should like engraved. On my replying that, being an old

deer-stalker, I should be very well pleased with a stag; he immediately

applied the wheel to the glass, and in five minutes by my watch, produced

one of the most splendid, spirited animals I ever saw in the forest, and

really worthy of Landseer; the stag is making a spring over some broken

palings and rough foreground, and his action and parts can only be

appreciated by those who have lived with the deer on the hill and watched

them with the feelings of a hill-man, like Guenther, who has had

opportunities of seeing the deer in his own native woods, where they

abound. I brought this glass away with me, though in itself but an inferior

article; merely as a specimen of what I had seen done by this man in the

space of five minutes, without a copy or any thing to guide him on the

smooth surface of the goblet.

I send you sketches of the artist and his dwelling; and as the portrait

exhibits, at the same time, his native costume, it will be the more

interesting, and cannot fail to give a correct idea of the character of

this Bohemian mountaineer.

[Illustration: BOHEMIAN GLASS PAINTER.]

The sketch of Guenther's House will also afford an idea of these Bohemian

artisans' dwellings, more so than any written description could do. I send

you with it a drawing of another of these picturesque houses.

There are two classes of persons engaged, on a large scale, in the

exportation of Bohemian glass--the fabricant and the collector; generally

speaking, however, the latter is the direct exporter, and he also

superintends the cutting, painting, and packing. The fabricant is more

frequently engaged in furnishing the collector, and to a great extent, with

the glass in its original and more simple forms as it comes from the

furnace, and it is then cut and painted by the cottagers who surround the

dwelling of the collector; so that many of these villages are entirely

formed by the collector and his people. Others however, employed in the

same way, cluster round the fabrique; but even their productions for the

most part go to the collectors, who have their correspondents in America,

Spain, Turkey, Greece, England, &c.

[Illustration: HOME OF CHARLES ANTOINE GUNTHER.]

As might be expected, there is a considerable difference in the designs of

different houses; some are much superior to others, both as to color and

design. Those of Egermann, in Hyda, who has added many new and valuable

discoveries in the art of making and coloring the glass, and Hoffman, in

Prague, are the best I have visited, to which may be added Zahn, in

Steinschoenau, for whom Guenter engraves. Egerman's establishment in Hyda,

for cutting, painting, and engraving, is very considerable, and exhibits

first-rate talent, which can only be appreciated by a personal inspection

of his works; and the taste and judgment of Hoffman, in Prague, in his

selections, the designs he gives, and the artists he employs, cannot be

surpassed, if equalled, in Germany. He has entirely abandoned the modern

school, and returned to the first principles of art,[3] and produces, both

in form and decorations, subjects worthy of the ancient masters.

[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF A BOHEMIAN ARTISAN.]

The glass villages are scattered all through the mountainous districts,

whose ridges, and summits, and upper ranges are covered with a forest,

which extends forty or fifty miles in length, by thirty broad; the

fabriquants maintain that the finer glass cannot be brought to perfection

but by wood heat, and hence, the glass fabriques are only to be found in

these vast forests. One of the most interesting natural formations within

this circle is the volcanic rock, called "Spirlingstein," which shoots up

out of a little valley on the right bank of the Elbe crowned with a

shattered mass of natural towers and turrets which it is difficult to

believe, till closely examined, are not the ruins of one of those feudal

holds crowning the summits of so many of the hills in Bohemia. Every

village has its school, in which are to be found all the children too old

for the nursery, and too young to be employed. Several I visited contained

as many as three hundred; the specimens of their writing are beautiful,

some quite like engraving; the eldest child, whose specimen I saw, was only

thirteen; they sing most sweetly, and many accompanying themselves on the

guitar, the schoolmaster being almost always a musician, and capable of

playing two or three instruments. There is a church and good organ in each

village, and a very good choir entirely composed of these villagers, all of

whom play some instrument, and form the choir by turns, generally directed

by the schoolmaster. Some of these amateur bands play exquisitely, as an

idea may be formed by the families or communities who occasionally visit

England, and who are often from a district such as I have described, and

whose sole instruction has been that which they could pick up from each

other in their hours of recreation. At the fabrique of A. Kittls-Erben of

Kreibitz, while at dinner in the garden, and which was provided by the

hospitality of the fabriquant, and in great profusion, with a variety of

Hungarian and Bohemian wines, I observed a little girl of twelve years of

age, who came into the bower with a guitar, and while I was looking round

for the performer, the master of the fabrique lifted the little girl on a

chair, and laid a music book before her, from which she played and sang a

number of Bohemian songs with much taste and execution. All the instruction

she ever had was from the schoolmaster, who taught her during the leisure

hours of the scholars. She was an orphan, and brought up by the fabriquant.

After dinner we walked up the valley to visit a fabrique of Chichorie; in

the way I remarked a little cottage, like the rest, with its fruit-trees

and garden, but which had, in addition to its projecting roof and windows

filled with flowers, both in pots and _Bohemian glass_ vases, verandahs in

carved oak, the scroll-work of which was quite classic, and the execution

admirable. While I stopped to examine this, the fabriquant who accompanied

me remarked that the owners were makers of musical instruments. On

inquiring of what kind, he replied a variety,--violins, accordions, and

others. I was met at the door by a man whose appearance was that of a

simple cottager, and his manners indicated all the simplicity of rural

life. He was told that I wished to see some of his instruments, upon which

he bowed, slightly elevated his shoulders, and replied, that he had nothing

worth seeing, but would be happy to receive us, and showed us the way, with

that natural kindness and politeness, which distinguish the peasants of

this country. We followed him up a little carved-wood staircase, and he

ushered us into a small, yet clean apartment, where, to my surprise, I

found two rather large organs, sufficiently large for a moderate church;

one was a peculiar instrument, a pan-harmomicon, invented by himself, with

improvements and great facility and simplicity in tuning; it formed a

concert of the single organ, brass horns, and kettle drums, having a double

row of keys behind, so that the performer was masked by the instrument,

which had a handsome front; the face of it could be removed to show the

whole interior of the mechanical arrangement. A variety of other

instruments were packed in different parts of the room, some of which were

large and highly improved accordions, which, as well as the organ, are

beautifully played by the brothers,[4] of whom there are three; their

talent for music is extraordinary.

[Illustration: SPIRLINGSTEIN.]

The church in this country is still the great patron of the arts. In

_every_ little chapel, however remote or small, (and in some of the

_minute_ villages in the mountains, they are not larger than an ordinary

room,[5] though of a vast height in proportion to the length and breadth,)

is found a good organ, and always well played. There is also an amateur

choir attached to each. These chapels are decorated by paintings and

frescoes, some of which are of considerable merit. In the house of a

priest, who officiates in one of them, I observed a "Crucifixion," without

a frame, apparently quite newly painted, and, on inquiring, I found it was

the work of an artist in Antwerp; that it had been bought by the

glass-makers of the district, or rather obtained in exchange for some part

of a cargo sent to that city, from which they had brought and presented it

to their little chapel; it was valued at Antwerp, against the glass, at

seven hundred florins ($150).

The little chapels in the glass districts are also beautifully decorated

with colored glass, the rich ruby lamps suspended before the altars, with

their ever-burning lamps, the clusters of prisms in the great centre

chandelier, reflecting the ruby lights, and gold, and flowers, from the

altar, are always--independent of any other feeling--subjects worthy the

contemplation of the artist. All the vases for flowers which richly

decorate the country churches are of native manufacture--ruby, emerald,

topaz, chrysophras, turquoise, and crystal chalices, full of the rarest of

those flowers which form so much the delight and pastime of the inhabitants

to cultivate, shed their delicious perfume through their chapels, mingled

with the incense which, renewed daily, at morning and evening service,

fills the buildings with perpetual fragrance. Another great resource for

the arts in this country, which is offered by the Church, is the sculpture

of wood. I have often been surprised and confounded by seeing an exquisite

Virgin, or Crucifixion, or figure of a patron or local saint, in some far

out of the way chapel in the hills, or in some lonely shrine, and even in

the niches on the exterior of these buildings: but on inquiry I found that

these were often the works of the first artists! the foreman of some native

Canova, or Max, whose health, impaired by inhaling the fine dust of the

marble, was not obliged to work on till death put an end to his talent;

but, before the disease had become incurable, forsook _marble_ for _oak_,

and reproduced in that material all the beauties of the original; and under

the fostering wing of the Church recovered his health, and filled his

native village church with works of the highest order. It is the same with

artists, natives of larger towns; I do not speak of such works as are to be

seen in Antwerp, and other cities of note--wonderful productions of rare

art in carving, such as the figures which stand on each side of the

numerous confessionals in the north transept of the glorious cathedral of

the former, nearly as large as life, all emblematical of repentance and

forgiveness, and other attributes of contrition and mercy; with many others

of nearly, if not quite, the same merit, in the various churches with which

this town abounds. These are the works of great masters whose celebrity is

European; but to find in the wild and unknown districts of these mountains

such works of art--to know there is a sure and safe means for the suffering

artist to continue his work and regain his health, while he fills his

country with fine objects of art, carved in wood, and which could never be

obtained in any other way, is a blessed encouragement to talent, and a

field for the arts which can only be appreciated by those who are relieved

by it, or those who are dying for want of its protecting hand. Mr. Steel,

in Edinburgh, the last time I had the happiness of visiting him in his

studio, when he was engaged on that exquisite work the Scott statue, and

which has since been placed within the monument erected to that illustrious

man, told me he had, then, lately lost one or two of his best men from

pulmonary complaint, brought on by inhaling the marble dust; that he had

tried every means to counteract its effects, by providing the men with

veils and masks, but to no purpose. His best man then at work upon this

national masterpiece, was fast failing beneath the effects of the same

cause, and is now probably laid with all his talent in the dust, lost to

his country in the prime of life, when _here_ such a man would soon be

restored to health, while he reproduced his works in wood, and maintained

himself and family in a comfortable and illustrious independence, enriching

his country, and carrying the arts into the remote valleys of his native

home.

Thus far we make use of a letter to the Art Journal. In the Great

Exhibition we perceive that the glass of Bohemia has attracted much

attention, not more for the grace and beauty of its forms than for the

recent improvements which have been made in its colors. The principal agent

for the sale of Bohemian Glass in the United States is Mr. Collamore, of

447 Broadway, in whose extensive establishment may be seen in particular

all the varieties of those vases, and other mantel ornaments, of Bohemian

Glass, which, to a great extent, are taking the place of porcelain fabrics,

of the same description, in the more fashionably furnished houses. One of

these vases we copy here from the Art Journal Catalogue of the Hyde Park

Exhibition; others are of different forms, and of colors equalled in

richness only in other manufactures of the same country.

[Illustration]

Of other industrial pursuits in this class we shall give accounts

hereafter.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The moulds are made of beech-wood.

[2] These earthen floors are not, as might be supposed from their name,

dirty and untidy; they are made with wet clay, which, when dry, becomes

quite hard, and can be kept as clean as brick or stone.

[3] This excellence in the decoration of glass is, probably, only a branch

of the high proficiency of the art of engraving and carving, in Germany, on

all materials--the metal work of guns, seals engraved on steel and stone,

wood, ivory, up to the copper plates of landscape and history; with regard

to the second, seal engraving on steel, it cannot be surpassed, and

scarcely, if at all, equalled in any other part of Europe. It is wrought

with a delicacy unrivalled, and the impressions are equal to the best

cutting on stone; it is done, too, at a cost wholly unknown in England,

even among the lowest order of seal engravers, for initials on brass for

sealing wine or sauce bottles! It is not only in the depth and sharpness of

the cutting, that they excel, but in the beauty of the drawing of the

various subjects--figures of men, animals, birds, and the lambrequins and

mantlings with which the German heraldry abounds. The cheapness arises, no

doubt, from the great patronage enjoyed by the seal engravers. Every

nobleman has a large office-seal for each of his properties, and some have

a vast number, as, for instance, the Prince Schwartzenberg, who has upwards

of _forty_; the full coat of arms is engraved on the office-seal of each

lordship. Such, of old, was the case with us; and I remember, among others,

a beautiful gold seal, in the possession of the late Gordon of Fyvie, which

had a thin topaz, with the arms of Sealton (the ancient lords of Fyvie)

engraved upon it, with the colors enamelled on the gold beneath.

A comparison, however, between the prices of these works of art, here and

in England, will be more satisfactory and interesting; for an office-seal,

which would cost in the latter country, if cut on brass, from 5_l._ to

7_l._, costs here from 30_s._ to 2_l._ on _steel_! including a beautifully

ornamented base, and polished Bohemian granite, porphyry or agate handle,

three inches in length; and such coats of arms as would cost in England, on

stone, from 10_l._ to 20_l._, can be had here for a third of that sum, and

executed in the best style of the art.

Carving in ivory is equally good, and equally moderate. Pipes, also, of

that beautiful material erroneously called Meerschaum, and of large

dimensions, are carved either with a superb coat of arms or historical

subjects, the prices of which vary according to the size of the pipe and

number of figures, from 30_s._ to 2_l._!

[4] Their name is Lehmann; residence--Schonfeld, near Kreibitz.

[5] The ruins of similar little chapels are found all over the highlands

and isles of Scotland, however remote, with other sacred edifices, in some

of which may still be traced the remains of frescoes. In the ruins of

larger buildings the frescoes are more apparent: thus, in the abbey church

of Pluscardine, near Elgin, the four Evangelists were distinctly visible in

1826, after more than 500 years of ruin and decay.

THE SANDWICH ISLANDS TO-DAY.

[Illustration: VALLEYS AND MOUNTAINS OF WAILUKU, MAUI.]

Whatever may be said of the influence of European and American profligacy

in the Islands, they may be pointed to with perfect satisfaction for

illustrations of the benefits of Christian civilization, and the people of

this country are greatly indebted to the Rev. Henry T. Cheever, whose works

on the subject we have had frequent occasion to praise, for the eminently

judicious and interesting accounts he has given us of society, manners, and

religion, and of industrial resources, and every kind of natural phenomena,

throughout the "island world," especially in the Sandwich Islands, to which

his last work[6] is altogether devoted. Of the important question of the

political destiny of this group Mr. Cheever says:

"Perhaps it is in the providential plan of the world's great

Ruler, that the Sandwich Islands should yet be adopted into

the Great American Confederacy. Won as they have been from

the lowest barbarism by American missionaries,--having had

expended upon them in the process nearly a million and a

half of dollars from America, and the services of fifty

families now possessing there valuable

homesteads,--harboring a permanent American population,

foremost in energy and influence, now little short of one

thousand, besides a floating American population that touch

and recruit annually to the number of fifteen thousand, in

whaleships and merchantmen, and consuming yearly a million

of dollars' worth of American merchandise; on all these

grounds there would seem to be a propriety in their enjoying

an American Protectorate, if not an admission under the flag

of the American Republic.

"'American enterprise,' says a writer[7] who has been for

many years familiar with the history and progress of the

Hawaiian Islands, 'both commercial and philanthropic, has

invested the group with its present political

importance--bestowing upon the inhabitants laws, religion,

and civilization--and will soon add to these gifts language;

for the English tongue is rapidly superseding the Hawaiian.

The Islanders have thus a moral claim upon the American

nation for protection. In no way can this be more

efficiently bestowed than by receiving them into the family

of this great republic. The native population are as well

prepared to be American citizens as the multitude of

European emigrants. Unlike the generality of them, they can

read and write, and have already acquired democratic ideas

under the operation of their own liberal constitution of

government, which will readily enable them to incorporate

themselves under our institutions. They are destined to be

supplanted in numbers and power by a foreign race. They

desire us to be their successors and protectors. The present

revenues of the Islands are more than adequate to the

expenses of their government--time, opportunity, the

interests of the inhabitants and ourselves point to this

result.' Events will soon determine whether they are to

retain their independency, or to be merged in the nation

that has civilized them."

The work abounds in interesting details of Island Life, and we regret that

our limits will not permit us to enrich the _International_ with more

liberal extracts. We can at present add but the following paragraphs on a

sport for which the islanders have been celebrated ever since the days of

Cook:

"It is highly amusing to a stranger to go out into the south

part of this town, some day when the sea is rolling in

heavily over the reef, and to observe there the evolutions

and rapid career of a company of surf-players. The sport is

so attractive and full of wild excitement to Hawaiians, and

withal so healthful, that I cannot but hope it will be many

years before civilization shall look it out of countenance,

or make it disreputable to indulge in this manly though

dangerous exercise. Many a man from abroad who has witnessed

this exhilarating play, has no doubt only wished that he was

free and able to share in it himself. For my part, I should

like nothing better, if I could do it, than to get balanced

on a board just before a great rushing wave, and so be

hurried in half or a quarter of a mile landward with the

speed of a race-horse, all the time enveloped in foam and

spray, but without letting the roller break and tumble over

my head.

"In this consists the strength of muscle and sleight of

hand, to keep the head and shoulders just ahead and clear of

the great crested wall that is every moment impending over

one, and threatening to bury the bold surf-rider in its

watery ruin. The natives do this with admirable intrepidity

and skill, riding in, as it were, upon the neck and mane of

their furious charger; and when you look to see them, their

swift race run, dashed upon the rocks or sand, behold, they

have slipped under the belly of the wave they rode, and are

away outside, waiting for a cruise upon another. Both men

and women, girls and boys, have their times for this

diversion. Even the huge Premier (Auhea) has been known to

commit her bulky person to a surf-board; and the chiefs

generally, when they visit Lahaina, take a turn or two at

this invigorating sport with billows and board. For a more

accurate idea of it than can be conveyed by any description,

the reader is referred to the engraving.

"I have no doubt it would run away with dyspepsia from many

a bather at Rockaway or Easthampton, if they would learn,

and dare to use a surf-board on those great Atlantic

rollers, as the Hawaiians do on the waves of the Pacific.

But there is wanting on the Atlantic sea-board that

delicious, bland temperature of the water, which within the

tropics, while it makes sea-bathing equally a tonic, renders

it always safe.

"The missionaries at these islands, and foreigners

generally, are greatly at fault in that they do not avail

themselves more of this easy and unequalled means of

retaining health, or of restoring it when enfeebled. Bathing

in fresh water, in a close bath-house, is not to be compared

to it as an invigorating and remedial agent; and it is

unwise, not to say criminal, in such a climate, to neglect

so natural a way of preserving health, as washing and

swimming in the sea. In those who live close to the water,

and on the leeward side of the Islands, it is the more

inexcusable, for it could be enjoyed without exposure in the

dewless evenings; or in some places a small house might be

built on stone abutments over the water, and facilities so

contrived that both sexes could enjoy this great luxury of a

life within the tropics."

The volume has several spirited engravings, and is excellently printed.

[Illustration: HAWAIIAN SPORT OF SURF PLAYING]

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Life In the Sandwich Islands, or the Heart of the Pacific, as it was

and as it is. By Rev. Henry T. Cheever, author of "The Island World of the

Pacific," "The Whale and his Captors," &c. 1 vol. 12 mo. New-York. A. S.

Barnes & Co., 51 John-street.

[7] J. J. Jarves.

PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE.

[Illustration]

Among our pleasantest friends in many years was the author of the

_Froissart Ballads_. We think of him as a friend, but we never saw him; his

features are familiar to us only by this poor counterfeit, and all we know

of his voice is that it has been described to us as musically joyous,

sometimes varying to a sad sweetness, sometimes wild. For half a dozen

years visits to him were written of, and hoped for, and it was settled, we

thought, that we were to share with him a turkey-hunt in the Old Dominion,

in a few weeks, when suddenly the intelligence came that he was dead.

Philip Pendleton Cooke was born in Martinsburg, Berkeley county, Virginia,

on the twenty-sixth of October, 1816. His father, Mr. John R. Cooke, was

then and is now honorably distinguished at the bar, and his mother was of

that family of Pendletons which has furnished so many eminent names to that

part of the Union.

At fifteen he entered Princeton college, where he had a reputation for

parts, though he did not distinguish himself, or take an honor, and could

never tell how it happened that he obtained a degree, as he was not

examined with his class. He liked fishing and hunting better than the

books, and Chaucer and Spenser much more than the dull volumes in the

"course of study." He had already made rhymes before he became a freshman,

and the appearance of the early numbers of the _Knickerbocker Magazine_

prompted him to new efforts in this way; he wrote for the _Knickerbocker_,

in his seventeenth year, _The Song of the Sioux Lover_, and _The

Consumptive_, and in a village paper, about the same time, humorous and

sentimental verses.

When he left college his father was living at Winchester, and there he

himself pursued the study of the law. He wrote pieces in verse and prose

for the _Virginian_, and _The Southern Literary Messenger_ (then just

started), and projected novels and an extensive work in literary criticism.

Before he was twenty-one he was married, admitted to the bar, and had a

fair prospect of practice, in Frederick, Jefferson, and Berkeley counties.

"I am blessed by my fireside," he wrote, "here on the banks of the

Shenandoah in view and within a mile of the Blue Ridge; I go to county

towns, at the sessions of the courts, and hunt, and fish, and make myself

as happy with my companions as I can."

"So," he wrote to us in 1846, "have passed five, six, seven, eight years,

and now I am striving, after long disease of my literary veins, to get the

rubbish of idle habits away and work them again. My fruit-trees,

rose-bushes, poultry, guns, fishing-tackle, good, hard-riding friends, a

long-necked bottle on my sideboard, an occasional client, &c., &c., &c.,

make it a little difficult to get from the real into the clouds again. It

requires a resolute habit of self-concentration to enable a man to shut out

these and all such real concerns, and give himself warmly to the nobler or

more tender sort of writing--and I am slowly acquiring it."

The atmosphere in which he lived was not, it seems, altogether

congenial--so far as literature was concerned--and he wrote:

"What do you think of a good friend of mine, a most valuable

and worthy and hard-riding one, saying gravely to me a short

time ago, 'I would'nt waste time on a damned thing like

poetry; you might make yourself, with all your sense and

judgment, a useful man in settling neighborhood disputes and

difficulties.' You have as much chance with such people, as

a dolphin would have if in one of his darts he pitched in

amongst the machinery of a mill. "Philosophy would clip an

angel's wings," Keats says, and pompous dulness would do the

same. But these very persons I have been talking about, are

always ready, when the world generally has awarded the

honors of successful authorship to any of our mad tribe, to

come in and confirm the award, and _buy_, if not read, the

popular book. And so they are not wholly without their uses

in this world. But woe to him who seeks to _climb_ amongst

them. An author must avoid them until he is already mounted

on the platform, and can look down on them, and make them

ashamed to show their dulness by keeping their hands in

their breeches pockets, whilst the rest of the world are

taking theirs out to give money or to applaud with. I am

wasting my letter with these people, but for fear you may

think I am chagrined or cut by what I abuse them for, I must

say that they suit one half of my character, moods, and

pursuits, in being good kindly men, rare table companions,

many of them great in field sports, and most of them rather

deficient in letters than mind; and that, in an every-day

sense of the words, I love and am beloved by them."

Soon afterward he wrote:

"Mr. Kennedy's assurance that you would find a publisher for

my poems leaves me without any further excuse for not

collecting them. If not the most devoted, truly you are the

most serviceable, of my friends, but it is because Mr.

Kennedy has overpraised me to you. Your letter makes me feel

as if I had always known you intimately, and I have a

presentiment that you will counteract my idleness and

good-for-nothingness, and that, hoisted on your shoulders I

shall not be lost under the feet of the crowd, nor left

behind in a fence corner. I am profoundly grateful for the

kindness which dictated what you have done, and to show you

that I will avail myself of it, I inclose a proem to the

pieces of which I wrote you in my last."

The poem referred to was so beautiful that we asked and obtained permission

to put it in Graham's Magazine, of which we were at that time editor. The

author's name was not given, and it excited much curiosity, as but two or

three of our poets were thought capable of such a performance, and there

was no reason why one of them should print any thing anonymously. It was

most commonly, however, attributed to Mr. Willis, at which Mr. Cooke was

highly gratified. The piece, which was entitled "Emily," contained about

three hundred lines, and was a feigned history of the composition of tales

designed to follow it, exquisitely told, and sprinkled all along with gems

that could have come from only a mine of surpassing richness. For examples:

Young Emily has temples fair

Caress'd by locks of dark brown hair.

A thousand sweet humanities

Speak wisely from her hazel eyes.

Her speech is ignorant of command,

And yet can lead you like a hand.

Her white teeth sparkle, when the eclipse

Is laughter-moved, of her red lips.

She moves, all grace, with gliding limbs

As a white-breasted cygnet swims.

I know some wilds, where tulip trees,

Full of the singing toil of bees,

Depend their loving branches over

Great rocks, which honeysuckles cover

In rich and liberal overflow.

In the dear time of long ago

When I had woo'd young Emily,

And she had told her love to me,

I often found her in these bowers,

Quite rapt away in meditation,

Or giving earnest contemplation

To leaf, or bird, or wild-wood flowers;

And once I heard the maiden singing,

Until the very woods were ringing----

Singing an old song to the hours!

One jocund morn:

I found her where a flowering tree

Gave odors and cool shade. Her cheek

A little rested on her hand;

Her rustic skill had made a band

Of rare device which garlanded

The beauty of her bending head;

Some maiden thoughts most kind and wise

Were dimly burning in her eyes.

When I beheld her--form and face

So lithe, so fair--the spirit race,

Of whom the better poets dream'd,

Came to my thought, and I half deem'd

My earth-born mistress, pure and good,

Was some such lady of the wood,

As she who work'd at spell, and snare,

With Huon of the dusky hair,

And fled, in likeness of a doe,

Before the fleet youth Angelo.

But these infirm imaginings

Flew quite away on instant wings.

I call'd her name. A swift surprise

Came whitely to her face, but soon

It fled before some daintier dyes,

And, laughing like a brook in June,

With sweet accost she welcomed me.

It was a golden day to me,

And its great bliss is with me yet,

Warming like wine my inmost heart----

For memories of happy hours

Are like the cordials press'd from flowers,

And madden sweetly.

Then the poet recited ancient lays which tell some natural tales; and then:

Pity look'd lovely in the maiden;

Her eyes were softer, when so laden

With the bright dew of tears unshed.

But I was somewhat envious

That other bards should move her thus,

And oft within myself had said,

"Yea--I will strive to touch her heart

With some fair songs of mine own art"----

And many days before the day

Whereof I speak, I made essay

At this bold labor. In the wells

Of Froissart's life-like chronicles

I dipp'd for moving truths of old.

A thousand stories, soft and bold,

Of stately dames, and gentlemen,

Which good Lord Berners, with a pen

Pompous in its simplicity,

Yet tipt with charming courtesy,

Had put in English words, I learn'd;

And some of these I deftly turn'd

Into the forms of minstrel verse.

I know the good tales are the worse--

But, sooth to say, it seems to me

My verse has sense and melody----

Even that its measure sometimes flows

With the brave pomp of that old prose.

It was a good while before the promised contents of the book were sent to

us, and Cooke wrote of the delay to a friend:

"Procrastination is a poison of my very marrow. Moreover,

since 'the first wisping of the leaf,' my whole heart has

been in the woods and the waters--every rising sun that

could be seen, _I have seen_, and I never came in from my

sport until too much used up to do more than adopt this

epitaph of Sardanapalus: 'Eat, drink,' &c. Moreover (2d),

Mr. Kennedy and others were poking me in the ribs eternally

about my poems; and I was driven to the labor of finishing

them. I groaned and did it, and sent them to Griswold, and

have left the task of carrying them through the press to

him; and only lie passive, saying with Don Juan (in the

slave-market of Adrianople, or some other place), 'would to

God somebody would buy me.'"

At length through his cousin and friend, John P. Kennedy--(a name that

makes one in charity with all mankind)--the MS. of all the poems was sent

to us. It makes a book about the size of the printed volume, written with a

regular elegance to match that of the old copyists. In an accompanying

letter he says:

... "They are certainly not in the high key of a man warm

with his subject, and doing the thing finely; I wrote them

with the reluctance of a turkey-hunter kept from his

sport--only Mr. Kennedy's urgent entreaty and remonstrance

whipped me up to the labor. You will hardly perceive how

they should be called "Ballads." You are somewhat

responsible for the name. I designed (originally) to make

them short poems of the old understood ballad cast. I sent

you the proem, which you published as a preface to the

"Froissart Ballads." Words in print bore a look of

perpetuity (or rather of fixedness) about them, and what I

would have changed if only my pen and portfolio had been

concerned, your type deterred me from changing. The term

"Froissart Ballads," however, is after all correct, even

with the poems as they are. The Master of Bolton is as much

a _song_ as the Lay of the Last Minstrel, although I have no

prologue, interludes, &c., to show how it was sung; and as

for Orthone, &c. Sir John Froissart may as easily be

imagined chanting them as talking them."

Again he wrote:

"You will find them beneath your sanguine prognostic. They

are mere narrative poems, designed for the crowd. Poetic

speculation, bold inroads upon the debatable land--"the wild

weird clime, out of space out of time"--I have not here

attempted. I _will_ hereafter merge myself in the nobler

atmosphere; in the mean time I have stuck to the ordinary

level, and endeavored to write interesting stories in verse,

with grace and spirit. I repeat my fear that in writing for

the cold, I have failed to touch the quick and warm--in

writing for a dozen hunting comrades, who have been in the

habit of making my verse a _post prandium_ entertainment,

and never endured an audacity of thought or word, I have

tamed myself out of your approbation."

The book was at length published, but though reviewed very favorably by the

late Judge Beverly Tucker, in the Southern Literary Messenger, and by Mr.

Poe, in the American Review, and much quoted and praised elsewhere, it was,

on the whole, not received according to its merits or our expectations. Yet

the result aroused the author's ambition, and after a few weeks he remarked

in a letter:

"My literary life opens now. If the world manifest any

disposition to hear my 'utterances,' it will be abundantly

gratified. I am thirty: until forty literature shall be my

calling--avoiding however to rely upon it pecuniarily--then

(after forty) politics will be a _sequitur_.

"It has occurred to me to turn my passion for hunting, and

'my crowding experiences' (gathered in fifteen or sixteen

years of life in the merriest Virginia country society) of

hunting, fishing, country races, character and want of

character, woods, mountains, fields, waters, and the devil

knows what, into a rambling book. Years ago I used to devour

the 'Spirit of the Times.' Indeed, much of my passion for

sports of all kinds grew out of reading the 'Spirit.' Like

Albert Pike's poet, in 'Fantasms,' I

'Had not known the bent of my own mind,

Until the mighty spell of 'Porter' woke

Its hidden passions.'

Only Albert Pike, says 'Coleridge' and 'Powers' for 'Porter'

and 'passions.' Then, I have a half-written novel in my MS.

piles, with poems, tales, sketches, histories, commenced, or

arranged in my mind ready to be put in writing, _to order_.

In a word, I am cocked and primed for authorship. My life

here invites me urgently to literary employments. My house,

servants, &c. &c.,--all that a country gentleman, really

wants of the goods of life,--are in sure possession to me

and mine. I want honors, and some little more money. Be good

enough, my dear sir, to let me know how I am to go about

acquiring them."

We wrote with frankness what we thought as true, of possible pecuniary

advantages from the course he proposed, and were answered:

"What you say about the returns in money for an author's

labors is dispiriting enough,--and I at once give over an

earnest purpose, which I had formed, of writing _books_.

Thank God, I am not dependent on the booksellers, but have a

moderate and sure support for my family, apart from the

crowding hopes and fears which dependence on them, would no

doubt generate. But I must add (or forego some

gratifications) two or three hundred dollars per annum to my

ordinary means. I might easily make this by my profession,

which I have deserted and neglected, but it would be as bad

as the tread-mill to me; I detest the law. On the other

hand, I love the fever-fits of composition. The music of

rhythm, coming from God knows where, like the airy melody in

the Tempest, tingles pleasantly in my veins and fingers; I

like to build the verse cautiously, but with the excitement

of a rapid writer, which I rein in and check; and then, we

both know how glorious it is to make the gallant dash, and

round off the stanza with the sonorous couplet, or with some

rhyme as natural to its place as a leaf on a tree, but

separated from its mate that peeps down to it over the inky

ends of many intervening lines.... That unepistolary

sentence has considerably fatigued me. I was saying, or

about to say, that I would be obliged to you for information

as to the profitableness of writing for periodicals."

From this time Mr. Cooke wrote much, but in a desultory way, and seemed, in

a growing devotion to a few friends, and in the happiness that was in his

home, to forget almost the dreams of ambition. He had commenced an

historical novel to be called "Lutzen," in which that great battle was to

end the adventures of his hero; this he threw aside, and his love for that

age appeared in "The Chevalier Merlin," suggested by the beautiful story

of Charles the Twelfth, as given by Voltaire, several chapters of which

appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger. In the same magazine he

printed "John Carpe," "The Two Country Houses," and other tales, parts of a

series in which he intended to dramatize the whole life and manners of

Virginia. As for any applause that these might win for him, he wrote to his

friend John R. Thompson:

"I look upon these matters serenely, and will treat renown

as Sir Thomas More advises concerning guests; welcome its

coming when it cometh, hinder not with oppressive eagerness

its going, when it goeth. Furthermore, I am of the temper to

look placidly upon the profile of this same renown, if,

instead of stopping, it went by to take up with another;

therefore it would not ruffle me to see you win the honors

of southern letters away from me."

The chivalric poetry had filled his mind early and long, and he was only

banishing it for the more independent and beautiful growth of his nature,

when his untimely death destroyed hopes of fruits which the productions of

his youth seemed to precede as blossoms. He died suddenly, at his home, on

Sunday, the 20th of January, 1850, at the age of thirty-three.

At the time of his death he was writing "The Women of Shakspeare," "The

Chariot Race," and a political and literary satire.

Undoubtedly Philip Pendleton Cooke was one of the truest poets of our day,

and what he has left us was full of promise that he would become one of the

most famous. Of his love poems, this little song, written when he was

scarcely more than twenty, is perhaps the finest:

FLORENCE VANE.

I loved thee long and dearly,

Florence Vane;

My life's bright dream, and early

Hath come again;

I renew, in my fond vision,

My heart's dear pain,

My hopes, and thy derision,

Florence Vane.

The ruin lone and hoary,

The ruin old,

Where thou didst hark my story,

At even told,----

That spot--the hues Elysian

Of sky and plain----

I treasure in my vision,

Florence Vane.

Thou wast lovelier than the roses,

In their prime;

Thy voice excelled the closes

Of sweetest rhyme;

Thy heart was as a river

Without a main;

Would I had loved thee never,

Florence Vane.

But fairest, coldest wonder!

Thy glorious clay

Lieth the green sod under----

Alas the day!

And it boots not to remember

Thy disdain----

To quicken love's pale ember,

Florence Vane.

The lilies of the valley

By young graves weep,

The pansies love to dally

Where maidens sleep;

May their bloom, in beauty vying,

Never wane

Where thine earthly part is lying,

Florence Vane!

We cannot quote others; in the lines "To my Daughter Lilly," may be

discovered the tenderness and warmth of his affections; in his Ballads, the

fiery and chivalrous phase of his intelligence; in "Ugolino," his pathos;

in "Life in the Autumn Woods," his love of nature; and in all his writings,

the thoroughly healthy character of his mind.

As a boy and as a young man, we understand, his life was always

poetical--apart, original, and commanding affectionate respect. As he grew

older, and married, he became practical in his views, reaching that point

in the life of genius in which its beautiful ideals take the forms of duty

or become the strength of wise resolves. Toward his family, including his

father, mother, brothers, and sisters, he cherished a deep and unfaltering

devotion. A short time before his last illness he introduced into his

household morning and evening prayers. He died, as he had lived, a

pure-minded gentleman and humble Christian.

Of his personal appearance a just impression is given by the portrait at

the beginning of this article. His carriage was graceful and upright; his

frame vigorous and elastic, trained as he was by constant hunting in the

Blue Ridge; his hair was black and curling; his eye dark and bright; his

expression calm and thoughtful; his manner impressed with dignity.

----"Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,

Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer."

DR. HUNTINGTON ON COPYRIGHT.

The author of _Alice_ and _Alban_ has written the following piquant letter

on the important subject of INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.

_To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle._

As an American deeply interested in the subject of international copyright,

and much struck by the fallacies of some of the speakers at a meeting of

authors and publishers, recently reported in the London journals, may I, as

the subject is fresh so long as it is undecided, beg of your courtesy a

little space to point them out.

Let me begin by admitting the force of most that was said by the

distinguished chairman on that occasion, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. No man

living, perhaps, has a better right than he to complain of my countrymen,

to whose intellectual pleasures and moral instruction he has contributed

ever since I was a boy, out of the hard labor of his brains--helping to

enrich our publishers and booksellers, and to stimulate all the trade

connected with bookmaking, and vivifying the circulation of magazines and

newspapers--for all which he has never received a penny. The same may be

said of Dickens, whose works are of course as familiar to us as to you, and

whose characters have become a part of our stock of ideas, more precious

than the gold from our new-discovered mines. It is true that neither of

these great men has benefited us so much as he might have done if we had

paid for our pleasure honorably, for the influence of genius is like that

of grace--the fertilizing shower falls in vain on the arid, stony places of

selfish and unjust enjoyment. Charles Dickens has never received a penny

from us, although we insulted our unpaid creditor when he came among us by

asking him to Boz balls and dinners, given on a scale of splendor which

showed how well we could have afforded to pay our debt if we had been

honest enough to have admitted it. How degrading--how incongruous--for a

great nation, such as we boast of being, to be thus the literary

pensioners, the intellectual beggars of England, meanly enjoying what we

won't pay for? An American would scorn to be fed or clothed gratis; he

would "stand treat" with the world; yet he lets an Englishman (of all men!)

gratuitously amuse his leisure, satisfy his thirst for knowledge, and

clothe the nakedness of his mind. If Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, or Mr.

Dickens, were to offer to pay for a pair of trousers for Brother Jonathan,

he would knock him down; or if Miss Bell, or whatever is the name of the

lady who wrote "Jane Eyre," and her sisters, pretended to make him up a

dozen fine shirts as a charity, I think he would go out of his senses. He

would rather go bare to the end of his days than owe such an obligation to

any he or she Briton in existence; but what are such favors to those which

he unblushingly accepts, year after year, from Sir Edward Bulwer and Miss

Bell?

But I think, sir, with submission, that an injury has been done to the

cause of copyright by resting it on false abstract grounds, which cannot

be, and never have been, carried out. If a man has a rightful monopoly in

his book, merely because he has produced it, your law is unjust and

piratical in fixing a term to copyright--for why should you take away a

man's property after he has enjoyed it a certain number of years? On the

contrary, one would suppose that the longer he has enjoyed it the more

perfect his right, and the greater the wrong to deprive him of it. Time

converts even what is unjustly acquired into a legitimate possession--how

much more that which the owner has actually created? I would put the matter

on simple, concrete grounds, which all men can appreciate. The production

of books is an element of civilization, by the common consent of nations.

Books cannot be produced unless in some way they procure the authors a

subsistence. And whoever produces by his labor a beneficial thing, is

entitled to a reasonable compensation from those who are thereby benefited.

In former times, when readers were scarce, as copies were costly, the rich,

or sovereigns, supported authors directly, by pensions or otherwise. It is

now conceded that the best mode of rewarding them is by allowing them an

exclusive copyright in their works, and all civilized nations do so. But

this mode of remuneration being once established, a foreign author, coming

personally, or in his work, into a country, "has as much moral right to his

book as he has to his baggage," and it is as barbarous to plunder him of

the one as of the other. Why, when was there a time in Europe, or even in

Asia or the antique world, that princes and states did not receive and

cherish, and nobly reward, foreign men of letters? Are they to be more

ignobly treated now that the people have become patrons? But, if deaf to

the voice of honor, hear that of justice. Those who enjoy their works are

bound to remunerate them for what they have produced at a great expenditure

of time, money, and soul-wearing labor. That "the laborer is worthy of his

hire," is a divine sentence which sooner or later will judge all those by

whom that hire is by fraud "kept back." A country which refuses a fair

copyright to authors, whether native or foreign, condemns itself to

barbarism. It cultivates in itself a spirit of violence, aggravated by

ingratitude to benefactors. There is, too, a sort of indelicacy in this

injury, which even the law of reprisal cannot excuse. The benefit which the

author of genius confers is something personal. You might as well, if some

savage tribe ravished your women, condemn its females, when captured, to

insult and dishonor.

Moreover, to refuse copyright to any class of authors (and here, again, I

agree with Sir Bulwer), is to refuse it, in part, to all. The native author

is robbed of his just hire by such a law, as much as the foreigner. I am

compelled by the existing law of American copyright to part with my books

for a sum which is under their natural price, and which is not a

remunerating price, because I am undersold by reprints for which the

authors are paid nothing. Look the fact in the face, ye readers of cheap

reprints, who are unwilling to abandon an unjust privilege, which affords

you so much pleasure at so low a rate. I have written a book. I have spent

years in writing or learning to write it. Perhaps I could do nothing else.

The influence of the literary atmosphere in which all who read the English

language are forced to live, acting on my special organization, has made

literary production a necessary resource. It is the same as if I were a

poor shirt-maker, over whose sorrows a Hood has taught you to weep and be

indignant. At all events, you approve of my writing, or you would not have

read my book so extensively. And yet, because you can refuse to pay foreign

authors for books of the same kind, you oblige me to take a nominal price

for mine--a price for which it could not be produced by any man living, and

less than it would command if you honestly paid for such labor in other

instances. You have beaten me down most unfairly. I consider it so; and if

every one of the 10 or 12,000 buyers of the cheap edition of "Lady Alice"

were to send me a "quarter" (1_s._) by mail, I should regard it as a simple

restitution; nor would the sum total cover my expenses while writing it.

So far, then, Sir Edward Lytton and myself (if it is not too great

presumption in me to join myself with him) cordially agree. And further, it

is a most nonsensical and absurd policy for a country thus to swamp its

native literature, and to depress and degrade the whole class of native

writers. No nation can afford to let foreigners write for it; it would be

as unwise as to let them fight its battles. I may add that no nation can

afford to embitter its own writers against itself by producing in their

minds a sense of injustice. Strong as our feeling of nationality

undoubtedly is, it will not stand this for ever. It has seemed strange to

some that an American should have written such a book as "Lady Alice," the

author of which appears, at first sight, to have expatriated his mind, if

not his heart. His being an episcopal clergyman accounts for it in

part--for the Church is essentially of Old England, and its clergy and more

devoted members are morally domiciled in England, with whose institutions

and social system they have a stronger sympathy than with those of their

own country. Moreover, for years, he lived only among Englishmen of that

class which is most intensely attached to things as they are--a part of the

time in England itself. These circumstances made the thing possible. But

despair of obtaining any thing like a fair copyright for an American book

made it actual--led him to lay aside a projected American story, and try

his hand at an English novel, with a bent less serious: at first, indeed,

not without some idea of caricature, in a gay, lawless, audacious spirit,

in defiance of cant of every kind: but the calm, methodical, somewhat

mechanical [Greek: ethos] of actual English life, when he saw it and felt

its restraints, tamed down these peculiarities somewhat. The result was a

book which truly excited more surprise than sympathy in England--but which,

in America, proved its real nationality by bursting in a trice all the

bonds of clique, and, in spite of its acknowledged faults, securing near a

hundred thousand readers in a few months. If copyright had been protected

as it ought, I should have been reimbursed by so large a sale; but, as it

was, even this successful book paid me less than a day laborer could have

earned in the time I was writing it, in any part of the States.

But now I want Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton and Mr. Colburn to tell me what

good it will do English authors and publishers for you to imitate in this

respect the injustice and folly of your transatlantic cousins. Because

"literature is in a depressed state," which Sir Edward asserts to be a

fact--and because Mr. Colburn cannot afford to give one hundred pounds for

a book for which once he would have given L1000--they propose, if I

understand them, to have recourse to an unlimited pirating of American

literature. I should think (if your British pride will tolerate the

expression of my opinion) that the true remedy would be to give a stringent

copyright to American authors. Pray which injured the English book-market

most--Mr. Colburn's issue of a few hundreds of "Lady Alice" at a guinea and

a half, or Mr. Bohn's issue of as many thousands of Mayo's "Kaloolah" at a

shilling? Or do they think, as Sir E. Bulwer Lytton seems to imply, that,

except Cooper and Irving, we have no authors whose works are readable in

Britain? "Typee," and "The Scarlet Letter," and "The Reveries of a

Bachelor," and the two works above mentioned, tell a different story. Who

can deny the genius and artistic power of Hawthorne, or the clear English

simplicity of his style? And if Ik Marvel falls much behind Geoffrey

Crayon, we, their countrymen, are no judges--although it is true that the

former has fallen upon an affected age. I admit our deterioration. Or is it

supposed that we shall cease producing if the possibility of English

copyright is taken away? That would be a great mistake. Men who have a

vocation for it will write, well or ill, even if they starve, as London

garrets can testify. And there is no danger of our starving absolutely.

Successful books pay their authors, not adequately, but enough to keep soul

and body together. In light literature (so-called, perhaps, because it

demands entire devotion and unceasing toil to arrive at excellence in

it)--in light literature, which pays best here as well as elsewhere, there

is a distinct demand for native works, which all the competition of the

cheap pamphlet novels of the Harpers cannot wholly extinguish, and it is by

the feeble, but real aid of this national taste that we exist. For my part,

I feel a sort of Coriolanus pride in having got nothing, as I may say, for

a book which had an unprecedented run; and if my countrymen object, as some

of them do, to its principles, I tell them fairly that beggars cannot be

choosers. I can live, thank Heaven, in many ways. I could not, indeed, keep

school--as my countrymen, I believe, think every literary man should, the

better to amuse them at his own expense. Two such drains on the

cerebro-nervous system would soon lay me beneath the sod. But I can invest

what remains of my patrimony in wild land, till it for my bread, and write

a tale every winter, in defiance of the buccaneers.

But suppose that we continue to write (as we shall, depend on it), and that

our impracticable Congress--from the difficulty of getting it to look at

any question not bearing upon "Who is to be the next President?" or from

the general apathy in regard to the injuries of authors, and want of

perception as to the important interests of the heart--will not or does not

pass an international copyright law, what sense or what honesty will there

be in your strangling yourselves meanwhile by permitting Mr. Bohn his

black-flag reprisals? Whom do you injure by this species of retaliation?

First, and chiefly, your own authors and publishers, and your own

literature (and, therefore, you must abandon such a policy sooner or

later); and next, your friends on this side the water. For what does our

government care if our native authors, even of the highest ability, earn

less than common stevedores? Not a rush. Do the people enjoy our works with

a less magnanimous gusto, because we have coined our brains and hearts in

composing them for bread and patched elbows? Will they be less, in their

own estimation, the greatest, the freest, the wisest, and the most

enlightened nation upon earth? You retaliate, gentlemen, by injuring those

whose sufferings (greater than yours) are already disregarded by the power

you would influence; and if you ruined them, you would not ruffle one

self-complacent feather of the American eagle. You but do what you can to

depress and extinguish the only class of Americans who have a direct

interest in getting you what you want, and who are already as eager to

obtain it as men usually are to protect themselves from ruinous

competition. I do not know what you expect from such a method, unless you

think that our government, which has no pity on its native men of letters,

will be touched by the distresses of yours.

Believe me, further, that it is the most unlikely way to succeed with the

American people, to offer them an international copyright as a matter of

bargain. They immediately suspect a design of obtaining an advantage for

you, without any real equivalent to themselves. Show them, by granting a

free and perfect copyright to all the world, on the same terms as your own

subjects, that you regard such a course as the true policy of every state

(which it is), and you will be much more likely to gain a hearing. I see

nothing in this movement against foreigners getting a copyright, but

selfishness overreaching itself.

The Americans are sometimes obtuse to appeals to their sense of justice,

when they have an immediate interest in repudiating the claim. I admit it

with regret, but it cannot be denied. They do not know how to relinquish

the present advantages of a cheap pirated literature--forgetting that the

endless reading of cheap books is a vice, and that this deluge of foreign

under-priced novels and magazines, good, bad, and indifferent, is washing

away every manly national taste. But on the other hand you are too

grasping. It is undignified and unbecoming. Why should you so eagerly

clutch at a foreign sale for your works, as to sacrifice what you can

secure--freedom from injurious competition at home? For my own part (and I

am sure I speak the sentiments of every American writer of respectability),

give me on this side of the Atlantic, what you may have on yours at

pleasure--a fair chance, without being under-bid by pirates--and I ask no

more. I will cheerfully relinquish all the advantage to be drawn from an

English sale. Without vanity, justly as we are charged with it, or boasting

(our national infirmity--heaven knows we came honestly by it), all we want

is "a fair field" at home, "and no favor," and we will write books, if not

intrinsically so good as those of English authors, yet more congenial to

the tastes, and better adapted to supply the intellectual wants, of our

countrymen.

To conclude: although the American people appear at times obtuse, as I have

said, on the question of justice, and take, as in this instance, a "mighty

narrow" view of expediency, they are very open to an appeal to their

generosity. Present a bill--above all, an unusual bill--to Brother

Jonathan, and he may dispute it, or turn his back on you with all the

coolness imaginable; but offer to contribute your sovereign for those poor

devils of authors, and he is up to the gentlemanly thing--he will cover

your subscription with an eagle. I should be glad to persuade him to do

justice under the idea that it was a sort of charity, convinced as I am

that, as soon as he had done it, he would see the true nature of the

transaction, and blush to have ever stood out about so plain a thing. You

Englishmen pretend, even in your national capacity, to believe the Bible (I

wish it were true of either us or you). There is one passage which I

commend to your consideration, as bearing directly on the practical

solution of this question, and sustaining my view of it by a sentence which

cannot fail: "Give and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed

down, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same

measure that ye mete withal shall it be measured to you again." And there

is another maxim more universal still, which among us is thus familiarly

expressed: "Do as you would be done by." By reversing Lord Campbell's

decision, you will act ungenerously, that's certain, and I think, unjustly,

you will injure your own writers more than ours, and rob us of one of our

strongest arguments.

I remain, sir, very respectfully yours,

THE AUTHOR OF "LADY ALICE."

New-York, July 26.

"THE SCIENCE OF DECEPTION."

This is the title of a chapter in "The Age of Veneer," a series of papers

appearing from month to month in _Fraser's Magazine_. At the beginning of

it a certain preeminence is claimed for England which some have thought

belonged to our own country, but we are not unwilling to yield the

distinction:

"The science of deception has of late years attained an

immense importance in this good realm of Britain. In other

lands,--as, for example, in France or in America,--it is

practiced with more or less of success and perfection; but

the inherent superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race has

asserted itself even in this sinister and questionable

pursuit, so that we may fairly claim as decided a

preeminence in the arts by which fools are gulled and ruled,

as in those more honorable and useful ones by which we have

attained a moral dominion over the opinions and tastes of

mankind. There may be more _finesse_ in the system of the

French deceivers, or the American 'humbug' may, like the

other indigenous productions of that remarkable land, be a

very monster in the grandeur of his conceptions, and the

enormous force brought to bear on their development; but for

real, sound, profitable, business-like work in this peculiar

line, we back the Britishers against all the world. Like

every thing done in the country, their operations in the art

of deception are steady, systematic and sure.

"We conceive that we have a right to speak of the 'science'

of deception, for it has all the dignity, symmetry, and

order of the nobler sciences. It has its mysteries, which

are utterly unknown to the uninitiated; it has also its

professors, who are men very often raised by the admiration

of their own dupes to positions of high honor and great

profit. The organization and regulation of its minor

ministrants are also complete, and ere a man can hope to

reach the high places and carry off the rich prizes, he must

go through many grades, and master many secrets, both in

theory and practice. Once initiated, he is able to effect

results, by comparison with which the glory and the honors

reaped by successful soldiers or great discoverers sink into

insignificance.

"In a former number an attempt was made to explain some of

the means resorted to for the manufacture of public opinion

in England, through the journals and other agents, by which

the public ear is monopolized. We showed that almost any

desired 'public opinion' might be made to order; that there

were great contractors, who would not only undertake the

duty, but who would also fulfil their undertakings. That

similar processes exist in other countries cannot admit of a

doubt, but it is questionable whether the corresponding

effects in France or America are not produced upon a much

lower and more ignorant class of the community, and whether

there are in those countries such masses of wealthy,

intelligent, and educated persons willing to be cajoled,

fleeced, and laughed at, as those we find in our own dearly

beloved country. It might, perhaps, be proved that the arts

of which we speak succeed with the superior classes of our

countrymen in a much larger proportion than with similar

classes elsewhere. This science of deception has, of course,

for its basis, the production of particular 'opinions,' and

the creation of peculiar preferences in the public mind; but

although the great contractors for political opinion are, of

all the practitioners, the most perfect adepts, their _modus

operandi_ is far more difficult, and the secret of their

power far more occult than in the case of the general

professors or the charlatans.

"Except for the lower class of Frenchmen or Americans such

tactics as these are unavailing; all the rest have enough

penetration to see through the whole scheme; but in England

it is possible to lead by the nose persons who not only

ought to know better, but who in all other transactions of

life evince the utmost shrewdness and aptitude."

In this series of papers on the _Age of Veneer_, a general confession of

national sins and weaknesses is made by John Bull, and he is shown to have

as discerning an apprehension for his own character as he ever had for that

of any of his neighbors. The "Age of Veneer" is a happy title, and it gives

alone a better idea of English society and manners than can be derived from

some hundreds of volumes on the subject that have been printed within our

recollection.

ARTS AMONG THE AZTECS AND INDIANS.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

BY THOMAS EWBANK

_United States Commissioner of Patents, author of "Treatise on Hydraulics",

&c._

To the antiquary and student of ethnology on this continent there are few

subjects more interesting than those early industrial arts, which, better

than any thing else, illustrate the civilization of the Aztecs, and their

rude neighbors, the aborigines of the more northern parts of the country.

An attempt is made in the following pages to define, in certain respects,

the extent, and justly to represent the character, of those efforts, made

before the Discovery, and repeated, with more or less uniformity, by

portions of the American races until the present time. I have copied from

the great work of Lord Kingsborough on Mexican Antiquities, four uncouth

figures, of which the originals are native drawings sent to Spain by

Antonio de Mendoza, the successor of Cortes, and first viceroy of New

Spain. It will be confessed that few things could give us a more correct

impression of the condition and character of the peoples subdued by Cortes

and Pizarro than we may derive from these pictures.

[Illustration: Aztec Goldsmith at work. From Mendoza's Collection.]

In this drawing the artist has represented a workman in the act of

soldering or annealing a piece of plate. Except the rude style in which the

native limners portrayed the human figure, the cut is a fac-simile of

Pharaonic profiles of the same class of workmen, and of modern goldsmiths

of Africa, Hindustan, Java, Sumatra, Ceylon, and Asia generally. The small

portable furnace, the blowpipe, the position of the operator, the

scantiness of his apparel, and the absence of any bench, are common to all;

the only observable difference is in the apron (suspended by long

shoulder-straps) of the American, who, in this respect, seems to have

advanced beyond his brethren of the other hemisphere. Had the draughtsman

possessed the skill of a modern artist, and painted the tools and processes

used, in fusing the metal, in spreading it out into plates, working it into

shape, and chasing in the ornaments, in drawing wire, and fabricating the

famous old Panama chains, &c., many other problems of Aztec economy and art

would have been solved. The smiths of Mexico, Central America, and Peru,

were expert in the use of the blowpipe; and this is not to be wondered at,

if, as early Spanish writers report, the bellows was unknown among them. In

specimens of their industry which are extant the soldering rivals any thing

executed in modern workshops, and seams often challenge and sometimes defy

the keenest scrutiny to detect them. Native smiths still use the pipe.

Every enlightened worker in metals must feel interested in thus beholding

an ancient red man in the actual use of the blowpipe, to say nothing of the

illustration the figure affords of the state of the arts in ante-Columbian

epochs, and of ancient life in this part of the world. The use of the

blowpipe has been inferred from metalline remains discovered in sepulchral

tumuli of the Mississippi valley. In Caleb Atwater's _Antiquities of the

West_, (Columbus, 1833, pages 92-3,) mention is made of sixty copper beads,

found in one of the mounds at Grave Creek, near Wheeling. "They were made

of a coarse wire, which appeared to have been hammered out, not drawn, and

were cut off at unequal lengths; _they were soldered together_ in an

awkward manner, the centres of some of them uniting with the edges of

others; they were incrusted with verdigris, but the inside of them was pure

copper; which fact shows that the ancient inhabitants were not wholly

unacquainted with the use of metals." As it is admitted that _brass_ was

not known to the mound-builders, an analysis of the alloy that constituted

the brazen solder here alluded to would be a positive addition to the

little knowledge we have gleaned of these early native workers and of their

arts.

No matter how far man is separated from his fellows, either on the earth's

surface or by time, the general uniformity of his nature is stamped on all

his normal devices. Primitive inventions are universally similar. Under

agreeing circumstances and conditions, the same means are hit upon to

produce the same ends. Kindred trains of thought, of resources and results,

characterize the origin and early progress of the arts every where. They

begin in the same wants, and suggest the same ideas, which are carried out

in substantially the same ways. Still, when a primitive people is found

shut from communion with others--isolated from the rest of the world and

deriving no suggestions from it--some shades of difference, more or less

strongly defined, often mark means they discover, in common with others,

and this whether occupiers of small islands or of widespread continents.

But after all, this is only what may be called a variety of _expression_,

the same general idea being differently brought out, just as in speech the

same thoughts are displayed in various idioms. All arts and all machines

are but dialects of one language--reasonings and conclusions in tangible

forms and figures--a universal speech, understood by all men.

Of the diverse exhibitions of a primitive and common suggestion, a more

interesting example cannot well be adduced than the processes for the

fabrication of thread, which have been disclosed on this half of the globe.

They appear so different from others, and so remarkable, if not unique,

that it may safely be said, if the first spinsters were foreigners, their

mode of spinning was indigenous, however difficult, if not impossible, it

may be to reconcile one suggestion with the other.

Spinning lies at the threshold of human culture. It was the first or among

the first born of the arts, and was doubtless the offspring of woman's

ingenuity. Through all the past ages it was within the peculiar province of

the sex. In it queens and even goddesses sought to excel; one of the

earliest of useful efforts, it was one of the best; till it was introduced,

man was a houseless wanderer, and where it is unknown, he is still a

vagabond, roaming the forest. Home and its softening and soothing

influences had no existence, till woman began to twirl the spindle. Till

then the fount of the arts was unopened, unthought of, undreamt of. A

universal acquirement, it is one in which little variation in details could

be looked for among uncultivated tribes. It is, however, singular, that the

thread-making idea has been less skilfully developed by the red race than

perhaps any other of their mechanical conceptions. This is a striking fact,

in peoples so far advanced as were the Mexicans, Peruvians, and others.

The distaff has been identified with spinning in the eastern world from the

earliest times. It dates far behind historic and was a common thing in

heroic epochs. It pervades the most ancient legends, and plays a part in

the remotest myths. No other instrument of domestic economy is seen through

the semi-historic clouds that are about the infancy of human progress; few

others could be named as belonging to lower strata of time. Common in the

other hemisphere through unknown periods, it was utterly a stranger in

this.

Of the offices assigned to the fates, that of Clotho was to hold the

distaff, while Lachesis twirled the spindle, and Atropos determined the

length of the thread. Then there was Hercules, who was playfully rapped

over the head by Omphale, for his awkwardness in this service.

Sardanapalus, too, endeavored to rival the son of Jupiter, by spinning

among his maids. Ancient Egyptian spindles and distaffs have been recovered

from the tombs; and how common they both were among the Hebrews appears in

Solomon's portrait of a virtuous woman: "She seeketh wool and flax--she

layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff." Both

spindle and distaff were frequently dedicated to Minerva, the patroness of

spinning and of the arts connected with it. The goddess was herself rudely

sculptured with them in the Trojan Palladium.

A glance at these classic implements, before introducing the primitive

American apparatus, will better enable us to perceive the differences

existing between them, more correctly to appreciate both, and to judge how

far one is allied to or could have been derived from the other.

[Illustration: Distaff and Spindle--Ancient Greek and Roman.]

This figure is from a series of bas-reliefs representing the arts of

Minerva, upon a frieze of the Forum Palladium at Rome. It exhibits the

process of spinning, at the moment when the spinner has drawn out a

sufficient length of thread from the distaff, and just previous to the act

of taking it out of the slit on the top of the spindle, to wind it on that

instrument. It is said by classic writers that the spindle was always, when

in use, accompanied by the distaff, as "an indispensable part of the

apparatus." The following particulars are gathered from Homer, Herodotus,

Ovid, Horace, Catullus, Pliny, and others: The spindle was a stick, ten or

twelve inches long, having at the top a slit or notch, by which to fix the

thread at the commencement; the lower end was passed through and attached

to a small but heavy disc or whirl, made of wood, stone, or metal. The

weight of this and of the spindle, kept the thread at a proper tension, and

the momentum while turning round kept the yarn or thread twisting in the

interval of repeating the operation with the fingers. When, from the length

of the thread, the spindle approached the ground, or descended below the

reach of the fingers, the thread was wound on the spindle, except a short

piece left for insertion in the slit, preparatory to the formation of

another length. The distaff was about three times as long as the spindle,

and commonly made of a reed, with an expansion near the top, over which the

prepared flax or wool was placed, and secured by a ribbon or tape; the

fibres being left sufficiently loose to be easily drawn out by the fingers

and thumb of the spinner. Distaffs as well as spindles of gold and of ivory

were ascribed to goddesses, and were presented to distinguished women.

It was quite common for ancient females to keep their spindles whirling

while on their way to the fountain for water, or in making short visits,

&c. Some striking examples have been recorded by historians, and among them

the following, by Herodotus: "As Darius, king of Persia, was sitting

publicly in one of the streets of Sardis, he observed a young woman of

great elegance and beauty, bearing a vessel on her head, leading a horse by

a bridle fastened round her arm, and at the same time spinning some thread.

Darius viewed her as she passed, with intense curiosity, observing that her

employments were not those of a Persian, Lydian, nor indeed of any Asiatic

female. Prompted by what he had seen, he sent some of his attendants to

observe what she did with the horse. They accordingly followed her. When

she came to the river, she gave the horse some water, and then filled her

pitcher, and having done this, she returned by the way she came, with the

pitcher of water on her head, the horse fastened by a bridle to her arm,

and, as before, employed in spinning."

[Illustration: Distaff and Spindle--Modern Asiatic and European.]

In the rural districts of old Rome, women were forbidden to spin while

travelling on foot. The prohibition arose from superstitious feelings; but

the practice has come down to our times, being found more or less common in

Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Italy, Greece, and other parts of Europe, as also

over the greater part of Asia. The shank of the distaff on such occasions

was secured by a sheath or strap to the person; or, as in the preceding

figure of a modern spinner, was held under the left arm.

How differently the idea has been worked out by the ancient inhabitants of

this hemisphere, will appear in the two next illustrations. They are coarse

and uncouth, yet of unusual interest and value in an historical survey of a

people who at the Conquest stood at the head of the aborigines, but whose

nationality and power have been broken, and whose arts have all but

vanished before those introduced by the whites.

[Illustration: Aztec Girl Spinning. From Mendoza's Collection.]

The figure represents a girl, six years old, learning to spin, in the

presence of her mother, whose portrait is omitted. She is in the act of

winding on the spindle the length of thread just spun. The spindle differs

but little from those of the eastern races, its lower end being furnished

with a conical weight or fly, to promote rotation, and, as it would seem,

for its pointed extremity to rest like a pivot in some small cavity while

revolving; for the spindle, when in use, was not raised from the ground:

the reverse of the eastern practice, in which the motion ceased the moment

the ground was touched by the spindle. The basket-like base on which the

fly rests, is the Mexican symbol of the ground, though possibly it may here

represent an implement or utensil also. The bunch of cotton to be spun,

after being suitably prepared, was held in the left hand, and the length of

thread formed at one operation was determined by the distance the bunch

could be drawn away from the spindle, this being also the converse of the

Asiatic and European practices, in which the distaff, and cotton on it, are

at rest--the length of thread depending on the descent of the spindle from

them. We know that domestic industry was strictly enforced by the Mexicans,

particularly on girls; and of this, these cuts are remarkable

illustrations.

In the next, a female adult (as the headdress shows) is portrayed at the

moment when a full length of thread has been twisted, or she is in the act

of finishing it. To this spindle _two_ conical weights were attached,

unless the under one was fixed and had a cavity on the top to admit the

point of the upper one to play in it. The process differs but little from

that of the present Pimos and Maricopas tribes, as mentioned hereafter,

except in the hollow in which the spindle turns. It is obvious that this

practice is incompatible with walking; locomotion can only be associated

with a spindle suspended by the thread, and whirling free above the ground.

In this absence of the distaff, and especially in twirling the spindle like

a top _on the floor_, the process can never be viewed as one derived from

abroad; but rather as a result solely of primitive ingenuity. No people,

civilized or savage, of the eastern hemisphere, are known to have thus

embarrassed the movements of the spindle. The idea and the practice appear

to be purely American. No ancient American spinner is represented at work

either when seated or standing--much less when walking.

[Illustration: Aztec Woman Spinning. From Mendoza's Collection.]

For the following illustration and description the patent office is

indebted to Mr. Squier, late United States Charge to Nicaragua. It is

interesting as showing how little the old native process has been changed.

The common foot-wheel is extensively used in spinning cotton in Nicaragua;

but the simple contrivance in use before the Conquest is not yet entirely

supplanted. It consists of a spindle of hard wood, sixteen or eighteen

inches in length, which passes through and is fixed to a disc of heavy wood

that serves as a fly, by adding momentum to the whirling spindle. The lower

end of the spindle is rounded or rudely pointed, and when in use the

instrument is placed in a calabash or clean iron kettle.

The mode of operation is as follows: The spinster is seated on a stool,

with a bunch of loose cotton already prepared, in her lap. From this she

twists a thread with her finger, and attaches the end to the spindle at the

top, giving it an energetic twirl that keeps it going for some time.

Meanwhile she disengages and draws out the cotton, from her lap, with both

hands. The length of thread spun (from two to three feet) is then wound

around the spindle, which is again set in motion, and another length added

in the same manner.

In the accompanying sketch, _b_ is the spindle, _c_ the thread already

twisted, _d_ the disc or fly, and _f_ the calabash. When the spindle is not

in motion, the calabash prevents it from falling over, the fly resting

against the sides.

[Illustration: Modern Spinning Apparatus of the Central American Indians.]

In the regions of the Gila and Colorado the natives have been little

disturbed by Europeans. The Spaniards never extended their iron sway over

them, and, like the Araucanians of Peru, they have been supposed to retain

many of the customs and arts of their ancestors. This is to some extent

true. The country soon after the Conquest was reported to be occupied by a

civilized people, who followed agriculture and dwelt in stone houses.

Colonel Emory, in his _Notes of a Military Reconnaissance, from Fort

Leavenworth in Missouri to San Diego in California, including part of the

Arkansas, Del Norte, and Gila Rivers_, (Washington, 1848,) met with remains

of stone and adobe houses, scattered over extensive tracts of

country--sometimes continued over ten, fifteen, and even twenty miles. The

Pecos tribe, he remarks, have preserved alive, till within a few years, the

sacred fire that glowed on the ancient altars; nor is it certain that it is

not yet preserved, for a few Indians took it with them to the Pueblos of

Zuni. The name of Montezuma is said to be as familiar to those Indians, to

the Apaches, Navajos, and others, as that of Washington is to us.

"Turning from some old ruins towards the Pimos village," says Colonel

Emory, "we urged our guide to go fast, as we wished to see as much of his

people as the day would permit. We were at once impressed with the beauty

and order of the arrangements for irrigating and draining the land. Corn,

wheat, and cotton are the crops of this peaceful and intelligent people.

All the crops have been gathered in, and the stubbles show that they have

been luxuriant. The cotton has been picked and stacked for drying on the

tops of the sheds. The fields are subdivided by ridges of earth into

rectangles of about 200 x 100 feet for the convenience of irrigating. The

fences are stakes wattled with willow and mezquite, and in this particular

set an example of economy in agriculture worthy to be followed by the

Mexicans, who never use fences at all." The thatched houses of the Pimos

are dome-shaped, and of wicker work, about six feet high, and from twenty

to fifty feet in diameter. In front is usually a large arbor, on the top of

which cotton in the pod is piled for drying.

A Pimos spinster was observed at work. Her apparatus was more simple than

that in the preceding figures, but closely allied to them; in fact the

same, with the exception of the calabash or basket, for which a more ready

substitute, one always ready, was adopted. "A woman was seated on the

ground under the shade of one of the cotton-sheds; her left leg was tucked

under her, and her foot was turned sole upwards; between her big toe and

the next was a spindle about eighteen inches long, with a single fly of

four or six inches; now and then she gave it a twist in a dexterous manner,

and at its end was drawn a coarse cotton thread. Such was their spinning

jenny." This application of the toes is like that practised by the wives

and daughters of the Hindoo weavers: the axles of their light cane reels

are thus held when winding off the thread. The foot however is in front of

its owner, and in a natural position, nor does the stick grasped by the

toes revolve.

The Pimos and Maricopas are in their habits, agriculture, religion, and

manufactures, the same.

[Illustration: Indians Spinning Coarse Thread.]

A process of undoubted antiquity, and occasionally followed by modern

Indians, is shown in the above engraving. The spinner holds in the left

hand, horizontally, a short piece of hollow reed or cane, within which the

spindle is twirled by the fingers and thumb of the right hand. Sometimes a

cross stick or handle is attached, as represented in the figure. A second

person performs the part of a distaff, which, as the thread lengthens,

recedes from the spinner, or the spinner from it. A section of this

primitive apparatus is separately portrayed.

Mr. Van--a delegate now in Washington from the Cherokee nation, to obtain a

settlement of claims on the United States for their lands in Georgia,

Alabama, &c.--states that the large old spinning-wheel has, to his

knowledge, been in the possession of the Cherokees nearly fifty years. His

mother, a Creek, and over a hundred years of age, he believes, used to spin

with it in her youth. Mr. Van has seen Indians twist coarse thread with

apparatus like that here represented, and which in all probability formed

one of the contrivances that slowly led to the whirling spindle, in both

hemispheres.

For the next two illustrations of spinning, by the Navajoes, Camanches, and

other tribes of New Mexico, the Patent Office is indebted to Judge Peters,

of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

We have here another instance in which the thread-making idea has

manifested itself among the red race, and a very interesting one. The

spinner has a small stick, which she holds horizontally in one hand, and on

it winds the thread, as on a spindle, as fast as it is spun. The bunch of

cotton is itself twirled round by means of a short and small rod, passed

through the lower part, with its ends projecting. A pebble is commonly

fastened to the middle of this stick (_d_), and serves as a fly to keep up

the motion, and assist, by its weight, in drawing out the thread. To keep

the stone and stick in their places, a piece of yarn is wound loosely round

the bunch. The length of thread is seldom over six or eight inches, before

it is wound on the stick. In this singular process, the classical mode is

completely reversed--the spindle, or that which corresponds to it, is held

at rest, and the distaff put in motion, in which respect the operation is

unique. The idea of increasing the momentum of the whirling mass by the

introduction of a weight into its centre is here realized.

[Illustration: A Comanche Spinning.]

[Illustration: Navajoes Spinning.]

In the case illustrated below, two pieces of board or shingle are pinned to

opposite sides of the fork of a small tree or stump. A spindle (a smooth

rod ten or twelve inches in length) is passed through, and made to turn in

them, as in two journals. See the section S, where _a_, _a_ is the spindle

and _b_, _b_, the boards, and _c_ a pin to keep the spindle in its place.

To whirl the spindle, a cross stick, _d_, is tied to the large end.

Sometimes a stone is folded in a piece of cloth, and fastened to each end

of the cross stick, which answers the purpose of a rude flywheel. When a

suitable stick, having a branch at right angles, can be procured, the cross

stick and spindle are of one piece, as at S. A notch is made at the small

end of the spindle, where the thread unites to it, and thus, while one girl

turns the spindle, another, with a bunch of loose cotton, supplies it, and,

as the thread lengthens, gradually recedes from it. As soon as a full

length is twisted, it is wound round the spindle, another length is added,

and so on, till the spindle is fully charged. The thread is then wound off

into a hank, and the spindle set again for working.

These illustrations of primitive art possess a deeper and a more extensive

interest than that of their relation to a few Indian tribes; they are types

of thought, more or less common to the species, to barbarous and

semi-civilized people of all times; such as we ourselves would adopt, were

we thrown on our own resources, without any knowledge or recollection on

the subject.

[Illustration: Aztec Girl Weaving. From Mendoza's Collection.]

It is difficult to determine from this figure whether the shuttle was

developed in ancient Mexico. It is not represented, and appears not to have

existed any more than the distaff. The loom is like those now used by

American Indians. Colonel Emory, after speaking of the Pimos spinning,

says, "Led on by this primitive display, I asked for their loom, by

pointing to the thread and then to the blanket girded about the woman's

loins. A fellow stretched in the dust, sunning himself, rose up leisurely,

and untied a bundle, which I had supposed to be a bow and arrow. This

little package with four stakes in the ground, was his loom, and he

stretched his cloth and commenced the process of weaving. He had no

shuttle, the warp being passed across the woof, a thread at a time, by a

long wooden needle. One of the rods in the preceding figure is doubtless

designed to represent a needle, and was used in the same way." If the

figures here introduced truly indicate the progress made by the Aztecs in

spinning and weaving, their advance was very moderate; and though very

creditable work might be made with this weaving apparatus, by individual

skill and patience, it would seem that few or no attempts had been made to

render it more facile and efficient. The same remark is, however,

applicable to the looms of Asia and Africa. It is worth noting, that the

dress of females, pictured above, indicates a decided improvement on that

of less civilized tribes. Aztec women and girls wore pantalettes, and a

species of tunic, with short sleeves and ornamental borders, not unlike the

Chinese female costume, except in the shortness of the sleeves. Amulets or

keepsakes, suspended over the neck and resting on the bosom, seem also to

have been common.

Modern Peruvian Indians spin without the distaff, and their loom is

precisely like the ancient one just represented--the shuttle, or what

answers the purpose of one, being a long thorn needle, which is passed

through the woof, thread by thread. Every piece is woven of the precise

width wanted, whether for garments, cocoa-bags, or any thing else, with no

waste by cutting. Ancient specimens of cloth, of excellent execution, have

been found in their tombs. The length of the needles varies with the width

of the piece to be woven.

That very fine fabrics were produced in Old Mexico, and by implements

little if at all better than those here figured, is doubtless true. The

highly colored accounts by the conquerors are believed to have been fully

warranted by the fineness of the goods which they saw. Indeed, some of the

richest of modern shawls and dresses, turned out of the looms of Persia,

Egypt, and Hindostan, are but a degree superior to those of the Aztecs.

Personal tact and skill are every thing with semi-civilized artisans. The

ancient spindle and loom of the East, singularly enough, are still

preserved and used for special purposes in modern Rome, just as they were

thirty or forty centuries ago. A recent writer on the Pallium (an

ecclesiastical robe of lamb's wool) says, there stands about a mile outside

the Porta Pia, on the road to Tivoli, an old convent of nuns, attached to

the still more ancient church of St. Agnes; that these nuns are poor, and

rarely receive any of Rome's high-born damsels to their lonely and

neglected cloister; but that they have a small paddock appendant to the

monastery, and therein keep a couple of sacred lambs, (not necessarily of

the Merino breed,) and are proud and happy ministrants of their wool for

the texture of this noble decoration, spinning it, not by any new-fangled

jennies, but on the old patriarchal spindle, and weaving it in a loom of

which the pattern might date from the days of Penelope.

In conclusion, we may remark, of this subject, that to the substitution of

circular for straight motions, and of continuous for alternating ones, may

be attributed nearly all the conveniences and elegances of civilized life.

It is not too much to assert that the present advanced state of science and

the arts is due to revolving mechanism. We may speak of the wonders

effected by steam and other motive agents, but of what value would they

have been without this means of their employment? The applications of

rotary in place of other movements are conspicuous in modern history, from

those which propel steamships through the water and locomotives over land,

to those which are employed in the manufacture of pins and the pointing of

needles. It is by this principle that the irregular motion of the ancient

flail and the primeval sieve, has become uniform, in threshing, bolting,

and winnowing machines; and hence our circular saws, shears, and slitting

mills; the abolition of the mode of spreading out metal into sheets with

the hammer, for the more expeditious one of passing it through rollers or

flatting mills; and the revolving oars, or paddle wheels, for the

propulsion of vessels--the process of inking type with rollers in place of

balls, the rotary printing presses, and revolving machines for planing iron

and other metals, instead of the ancient process of chipping off

superfluous portions with chisels, and that still more tedious of smoothing

the surfaces with files. But in few things is the effect of this change of

motion more conspicuous than in the modern apparatus for preparing,

spinning, and weaving vegetable and other fibres into fabrics for clothing.

The simple application of rotary motion to these processes has changed the

domestic economy of the world, and increased the general comforts of our

race a hundred fold.

The birth of the arts here, and not least among them that of the humble one

of spinning, has relation to a problem in American ethnology of great and

increasing interest--_the early occupancy or first peopling of this

hemisphere_. Were there through countless ages no eyes or hearts here to

respond to the smiling heaven, none to taste the teeming fruits or inhale

the aroma of flowers? Was the placid atmosphere never moved by the prattle

and laughter of children, the songs of birds, or the sudden start of

quadrupeds arrested by the presence of the race ordained to rule over them,

until a few straggling members of that race arrived (perhaps driven hither

by tempests) from abroad, to claim the splendid heritage? If the red man

was not indigenous to the soil, if the first settlers were aliens, how

natural the desire to know who they were, whence they came, and how, and

when, and over what regions extended the first rights of preemption! to ask

whether they left no memorials in the languages that have come down to us,

in legends, manners, customs, traditions, religious observances and rites,

no signs in arts, utensils, arms, or other relics extant? whether they left

no marks in earth-works--those most lasting of records--in quarries and

entrenchments, in mines, tumuli, and mounds?

It is reasonable to suppose--and difficult to suppose otherwise--that if no

human form was ever reflected from the surfaces of these lakes and rivers,

no human voice heard in these forests, the imprint of no human foot left on

these sands, until colonized from another continent, the arts of that

continent must have been considerably advanced before the means of

transport, or inducements to emigrate, were evolved; and under any

circumstances, a knowledge of the most essential, would be brought over. Of

these, such as related to domestic habits and the occupations of women,

would be prominent, and among these spinning most of all. When once

introduced, this art could not have been lost, indispensable as it is to

the savage and demi-savage condition, and the original process or

processes, whencesoever derived, unless superseded by better, would have

been continued by every generation.

Now, if the mothers of the American race came from any of the early

advanced sections or outskirts of Eastern civilization, they brought the

distaff and spindle with them, yet nothing of the kind was found at the

conquest. It cannot of course be imagined that they, or their descendants,

could have been induced to throw the former away, and to embarrass the

movements of the latter in a calabash or basket. Efficient previous

practice, and acquired habits and expertness, could never have been laid

aside for such rude, and laborious, and unproductive substitutes. We know

that the distaff and spindle have never been lost where once known, in the

old world. Neither civil commotions or revolutions, nor duration of time,

affected them, in Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Italy, Carthage, Persia, Scythia,

Asia-Minor, or any of the great or small theatres of past history. The

laws, learning, science, arts, and races, which once flourished in those

countries, have mostly vanished, but women still spin there as they did

thirty or forty centuries ago; and so it is here also. The principal

mechanical devices of the old Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Peruvians, Chilians,

&c., are no longer known; the means by which the stone architecture, the

basaltic and porphyritic sculptures of Cusco, Uxmal, Copan, Palenque, and

other Aztec remains scattered over the continent, were achieved, are a

puzzle; yet the household labors of Indian women in those lands remain

unchanged, they spin and weave with the same apparatus, and embroider, as

did their kindred in and before the times of Atahualpa and Montezuma.

Admitting that repeated emigrations took place at periods remote as that of

the Iliad, and up to the twelfth century of our era, that arrivals,

designed or fortuitous, thus occurred, on either the Atlantic or the

Pacific, or both coasts--we might still more confidently expect to find the

distaff and spindle of the other hemisphere domiciled in this. If they were

brought at all, it was in hands practiced in their use, and tenacious of

their worth. But from the Cape of Storms in the south, to the limits of

human abodes in the north, instead of these the most awkward contrivances

prevailed when the whites came, and such still are found to prevail. The

inference therefore seems inevitable that the first colonists, and their

successors for many ages, came before spinning was known in their native

places, or at least before the distaff had been added to the spindle; and

that the art, as practised by the Aztecs and their successors in Central

America at the present day, is purely of aboriginal development, and of

remote antiquity, and had not before the Conquest come in contact with the

better processes of the other hemisphere.

Of the three epochs of human condition indicated by the materials of which

economical implements and weapons have been made--stone, bronze, and

iron--it is uncertain whether the distaff was ever developed under the

first. The probabilities are that it was not. In the remote periods in

which it is mentioned, some of those who possessed it had advanced far into

the second, and some had entered on the third. The great mass of the

occupants of this hemisphere at the time of the Conquest were toiling in

the cycle of stone; while the Mexicans and Peruvians, the most advanced of

the red nations, had discovered and applied the properties of copper and

some of its alloys: had entered on the second, but had not progressed far

into it. Had they possessed bronze weapons equal to those of the heroic

ages, they might yet have preserved, in a measure, their independence and

nationality.

Clothing is second only to food, and the clothing of nations in any degree

civilized is of woven thread. The all but paramount importance of the

manufacture of thread materials--including that made of flax, silk, cotton,

worsted, and other fibrous materials--affords matter for great surprise.

Compare the products of the distaff and spindle of old with that of our

mills, and how difficult to realize the change which modern mechanism has

wrought! The yearly amount, the lineal extent, of thread now made--who can

measure it? It would reach from our planet to the planets in the farthest

regions of space, and almost suffice for a net-work to include the whole

system. Turn from the wood-cut illustrations here given of ancient and not

yet obsolete processes, to modern manufactures, and it would seem that

while in the space of time which it took Grecian Helens, Syrian Naahmahs,

or Mexican Penelopes, to prepare an annual supply of clews for their

families, the myriads of spindles now twirling, by steam and water, produce

enough to use the Asteroids as balls on which to wind it and as bobbins

from which to reel it. Even a century ago, a single mill, driven by water,

is said to have spun or reeled 73,726 yards of silk--_i.e._, between forty

and fifty miles--at each revolution of the motive axle.

Patent Office, Washington, September, 1851.

ORIGINAL POEMS BY BARRY CORNWALL AND W. C. BENNETT.[8]

TO THE AUTHOR OF EOTHEN.

If I may choose (out of our travelled bands)

Friend or companion to make bright, the way;

Or draw the grandeur out from Orient lands,

Where Libanus mounts up and meets the day;

Or face, midst trackless, boundless, burning sands,

The Desert Silence--as it pants for prey;

Be thou (oh Author of Eothen), mine;

Who show'st whate'er the region, stern or gay,

Whate'er the scene--life, death, sublime decay,

For all fine things, and apprehension fine.

'Tis well to ride abroad on the untamed waves;

To shoot the desert with the camel's speed;

To muse o'er discrowned Egypt's wondrous graves,

And trace her story downwards, deed by deed;

Yet, half the lustre of our life were hid,

Our travel idle, meditation nought,

Without such friend in give back thought for thought,

From waste and sea, mountain and pyramid.

BARRY CORNWALL.

ARIADNE.

Morn rose on Naxos,--golden dewy morn,

Climbing its eastern cliffs with gleaming light,

Purpling each inland peak and dusky gorge

Of the gray distance,--morn, on lowland slopes,

Of olive-ground and vines and yellowing corn,

Orchard and flowery pasture, white with kine,

On forest, hillside cot, and rounding sea,

And the still tent of Theseus by the shore.

Morn rose on Naxos--chill and freshening morn,

Nor yet the unbreathing air a twitter heard

From eave or bough,--nor yet a blue smoke rose

From glade or misty vale, or far-off town;

One only sign of life, a dusky sail,

Stole afar across the distant sea,

Flying; all else unmoved in stillness lay

Beneath the silence of the brightening heavens,

Nor sound was heard to break the slumbrous calm,

Save the soft lapse of waves along the strand.

A white form from the tent,--a glance,--a cry.

Where art thou, Theseus?--Theseus! Theseus! where?

Why hast thou stolen thus with earliest dawn,

Forth from thy couch--forth from these faithless arms,

That even in slumber should have clasped thee still!

Truant! ah me! and hast thou learnt to fly

So early from thy Ariadne's love!

Where art thou? Is it well to fright me thus,----

To scare me for a moment with the dread

Of one abandoned! Art thou in the woods

With all that could have told me where thou art!

Cruel! and couldst thou not have left me one,

Ere this to have laughed away my idle fears!

He could have told thee all--the start--the shriek----

The pallid face, with which I found thee gone,

And furnished laughter for thy glad return;

But thus! to leave me, cruel! thus alone!

There is no sound of horns among the hills,

No shouts that tell they track or bay the boar.

O fearful stillness! O that one would speak!

O would that I were fronting wolf or pard

But by thy side this moment! so strange fear

Possesses me, O love! apart from thee;

The galley? gone? Ye Gods! is it not gone?

Here, by this rock it lay but yesternight.

Gone! through this track its keel slid down by the shore;

And I slept calmly as it cleft the sea.

Gone? gone? where gone?--that sail! 'tis his! 'tis his!

Return, O Theseus! Theseus! love! return!

Thou wilt return. Thou dost but try my love?

Thou wilt return to make my foolish fears

Thy jest. Return, and I will laugh with thee!

Return! return! and canst thou hear my shrieks,

Nor heed my cry! And wouldst thou have me weep,

Weep! I that wept--white with wild fear--the while

Thou slew'st the abhorred monster! If it be

Thou takest pleasure in these bitter tears,

Come back, and I will weep myself away----

A streaming Niobe--to win thy smiles!

O stony heart! why wilt thou wring me thus!

O heart more cold unto my shrilling cries

Than these wild hills that wail to thee, return,

Than all these island rocks that shriek, return.

Come back! Thou seest me rend this blinding hair;

Hast thou not sworn each tress thou didst so prize,

That sight of home, and thy gray father's face,

Were less a joy to thee, and lightlier held!

Thy sail! thy sail! O do my watery eyes

Take part with thee, so loved! to crush me down!

Gone! Gone! and wilt thou--wilt thou not return?

Heartless, unfearing the just Gods, wilt thou,

Theseus! my lord! my love! desert me thus!

Thus leave me, stranger in this strange wild land,

Friendless, afar from all I left for thee,

Crete, my old home, and my ancestral halls,

My father's love, and the remembered haunts

Of childhood,--all that knew me--all I knew----

All--all--woe! woe! that I shall know no more.

Why didst thou lure me, craftiest, from my home?

There if, thy love grown cold, thou thus hadst fled,

I had found comfort in fond word and smiles

Familiar, and the pity of my kin,

Tears wept with mine--tears wept by loving eyes,

That had washed out thy traces from my heart,

Perchance, in years, had given me back to joy.

O that thy steps had never trodden Crete!

O that these eyes had never on thee fed!

O that, weak heart! I ne'er had looked my love.

Or looking, thou hadst thrust it back with hate!

Did I not save thee? I? was it for this,

Despite Crete's hate--despite my father's wrath,

Perchance to slay me, that I ventured all

For thee--for thee--forgetting all for thee!

Thou know'st it all,--who knows it if not thou,

Save the just Gods--the Gods who hear my cry,

And mutter vengeance o'er thy flying head,

Forsworn! And, lo! on thy accused track

Rush the dread furies; lo! afar I see

The hoary AEgeus, watching for his son,

His son that nears him still with hastening oars,

Unknown, that nears him but to dash him down,

Moaning, to darkness and the dreadful shades

The while, thy grief wails after him in vain:

And, lo, again the good Gods glad my sight

With vengeance; blood again, thy blood, I see

Streaming;--who bids Hippolytus depart

But thou--thou, sword of lustful Phaedra's hate

Against thy boy--thy son--thy fair-haired boy;

I see the ivory chariot whirl him on----

The maddened horses down the rocky way

Dashing--the roaring monster in their path;

And plates and ivory splinters of the car,

And blood and limbs, sprung from thee, crushed and torn,

Poseidon scatters down the shrieking shores;

And thou too late--too late, bewail'st in vain.

Thy blindness and thy hapless darling's fate.

And think'st of me, abandoned, and my woe;

Thou who didst show no pity, to the Gods

Shrieking for pity, that my vengeful cries

Drag thee not down unto the nether gloom,

To endless tortures and undying woe.

Dread Gods! I know these things shall surely be!

But other, wilder whispers throng my ears,

And in my thought a fountain of sweet hope

Mingles its gladness with my lorn despair.

Lo! wild flushed faces reel before mine eyes.

And furious revels, dances, and fierce glee,

Are round me,--tossing arms and leaping forms.

Skin-clad and horny-hoofed, and hands that clash

Shrill cymbals, and the stormy joy of flutes

And horns, and blare of trumpets, and all hues

Of Iris' watery bow, on bounding nymphs,

Vine-crowned and thyrsus-sceptred, and one form,

God of the roaring triumph, on a car

Golden and jewel-lustred, carved and bossed,

As by Hephaestus, shouting, rolls, along,

Jocund and panther-drawn, and through the sun,

Down, through the glaring splendor, with wild bound,

Leaps, as he nears me, and a mighty cup,

Dripping, with odorous nectar, to my lips

Is raised, and mad sweet mirth--frenzy divine

Is in my veins--hot love burns through mine eyes,

And o'er the roar and rout I roll along,

Throned by the God, and lifted by his love

Unto forgetfulness of mortal pains,

Up to the prayers and praise and awe of earth.

W. C. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] By the kindness of a friend these fine poems are printed for the first

time in _The International Magazine_.

A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.[9]

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.

CHAPTER XLII.

Mrs. Hazleton was an observer of all small particulars. On the present

occasion she had been kept alone fully ten minutes in the drawing-room, and

she was not at all pleased with this want of alacrity. Though her face was

as smooth as ever when she entered the sick room, she saw that a change of

feeling, or at least a change of purpose, had taken place, and that Lady

Hastings felt embarrassed by a consciousness which she might not choose to

communicate. But success had made her bold, and she loved to steer her

course through agitated waters.

"Well, my dear friend," she said, with the sweet tones of her voice falling

from her lips like drops of liquid honey, "you do not seem quite so well

to-day. I hope this business which you were to undertake has not agitated

you. Or perhaps you have not executed your intention. It could be very well

put off until you are better."

This was intended to lead to confession; she suspected some shame at a want

of resolution. But Lady Hastings remained silent, playing with her rings,

and Mrs. Hazleton, a little angry--but very little--gave her one of those

delightful little scratches which she was practised in administering,

saying, "No one knew any thing about your intentions but myself; so no one

can accuse you of weakness or vacillation."

"I care very little," said Lady Hastings, most untruly, "of what people

accuse me. I shall of course form my own resolutions from what I know, and

execute them or not, dear Mrs. Hazleton, according to circumstances--which

are ever changing. What is inexpedient one day may be quite expedient the

next."

Now, no one was more fully aware than Mrs. Hazleton that expediency is

always the argument of weak minds, and that changing circumstances afford

every day fair excuses to men and to multitudes for every kind of weakness

under the sun. Her belief was strengthened that Lady Hastings had not acted

as she had promised her to act, and she replied, with an easy, quiet,

half-pitying smile, "Well, it is not of the slightest consequence whether

you do it now, or a week hence, or not at all. The worst that could come

would be Emily's marriage with Marlow, and if you do not care about it, who

should? I take it for granted, of course, that you have not acted in the

matter so boldly and decidedly as we proposed."

There was an implied superiority in Mrs. Hazleton's words and manner which

Lady Hastings did not like. It roused and elevated her, and she replied,

somewhat sharply, "You are quite mistaken, my dear friend; I did all that

was ever intended. I sent for Emily and my husband, told them that I

believed I should not live long, and made it my last request that the

engagement with Marlow should be broken off."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Hazleton, with even too much eagerness. "What did

they say? Did they consent?"

"Far from it," answered Lady Hastings. "My husband said he had made a

promise which he could not violate on any account or consideration

whatever, and Emily was much in the same story."

"That shows that your decision was not strongly enough expressed," replied

her visitor. "I do not believe that any man or woman could be heartless

enough to refuse a wife or mother's last request, if made in so solemn a

manner."

"They did refuse, point-blank, however," said Lady Hastings. "But do you

know, Mrs. Hazleton," she continued, seeing a provokingly bitter smile on

Mrs. Hazleton's face, "do you know, strange to say, I am very glad they did

refuse. Upon after consideration, when all anger and irritation was gone, I

began to think it was hardly right or fair, or Christian either, to oppose

this marriage so strongly, without some better reason than I have to

assign. Marlow is a gentleman in all respects, of very good family too, I

believe. He is a good and excellent young man. His fortune, too, is not

inconsiderable, his prospects good, and his conduct under the deprivations

which we have lately suffered, and the loss of at least two-thirds of the

fortune he had a right to expect with Emily, has been all that is kind, and

amiable, and generous."

Mrs. Hazleton sat by the bedside, fixing her eyes full upon the countenance

of the invalid, and betraying not in the least the rage and disappointment

that were at her heart. They were not a whit the less bitter, however, or

fierce, or malignant; but rather the more so from the effort to smother

them. No one for a moment could have imagined that she was angry, even in

the least degree; and yet no disappointed demon ever felt greater fury at

being frustrated by the weakness or vacillation of a tool.

After staying for a moment to take breath, Lady Hastings proceeded, saying,

"All these considerations, dear Mrs. Hazleton, have made me resolve to make

amends for what I have said--to withdraw the opposition I have hitherto

shown--and consent to the marriage."

Mrs. Hazleton retired for a moment into herself. For a minute or two she

was as silent as death--her cheek grew a little paler--her eyes lost their

lustre, and became dead and cold--they seemed looking at nothing, seeing

nothing--there was no speculation in them. The only thing that indicated

life and emotion was a slight quivering of the beautifully-chiselled lip.

There was a word echoing in the dark chambers of her heart in replying to

Lady Hastings. It was "Never!" but it was not spoken; and after a short and

thoughtful pause she recovered herself fully, and set about her work again.

"My dear friend," she said, in a sweet tone, "you have doubtless good

reasons for what you do. Far be it from me to say one word against your

doing what you think fit; only I should like to know what has made such a

change in your views, because I think perhaps you may be deceived."

"Oh, no, I am not deceived," replied Lady Hastings, "but really I cannot

enter into explanations. I have heard a great deal lately about many

things--especially this morning; but I--I--in fact, I promised not to tell

you."

Lady Hastings thought that in making this distinct declaration she was

performing a very magnanimous feat; but her little speech, short as it was,

contained three separate clauses or propositions, with each of which Mrs.

Hazleton proposed to deal separately. First, she asserted that she was not

deceived, and to this her companion replied, with a slight incredulous

smile, "Are you quite sure, my friend? Here you are lying on a bed of

sickness, with no power of obtaining accurate information; while those who

are combined to win you to their wishes have every opportunity of conveying

hints to you, both directly and indirectly, which may not be altogether

false, but yet bear with them a false impression."

"Oh, but there can be no possible doubt," said Lady Hastings, "that Marlow

is the heir of the Earl of Launceston."

Mrs. Hazleton's brow contracted, and a quick flush passed over her cheek.

She had never before given attention to the fact--she had never thought of

it at all--but the moment it was mentioned, her knowledge of the families

of the nobility, and Mr. Marlow's connections, showed her that the

assertion was probably true. "It may be so," she said, "but I am very

doubtful. However, I will inquire, and let you know the truth, to-morrow.

And now, my dear friend, let us turn to something else. You say you have

heard a great deal to-day, and that you have promised not to tell

_me_--me--for you marked that word particularly. Now here I have a right to

demand some explanation; for your very words show that some person or

persons endeavor to prejudice your mind against me. What you have heard

must be some false charge. Otherwise the one who has been your friend for

years, who has been faithful, constant, attentive, kind, to the utmost

limit of her poor abilities, would not be selected for exclusion from your

confidence. They seek, in fact, by some false rumor, or ridiculous tale,

which you have not the means of investigating yourself, to deprive you of

advice and support. I charge no one in particular; but some one has done

this--if they had nothing to fear from frankness, they would not inculcate

a want of candor towards one who loves you, as they well know."

"Why the fact is Emily said," replied Lady Hastings, "that could only be

for a short time, and----"

"Emily!" cried Mrs. Hazleton with a laugh, "Emily indeed! Oh, then the

matter is easily understood--but pray what did Emily say? Dear Emily, she

is a charming girl--rather wayward--rather wilful--not always quite so

candid to her friends as I could wish; but these are all thoughts which,

will pass away with more knowledge of the world. She will learn to

discriminate between true friends and false ones--to trust and confide

entirely and without hesitation in those who really love her, and not to

repose her confidence in the dark and mysterious. Now I will undertake to

say that Emily has thrown out hints and inuendoes, without giving you very

clear and explicit information. She has asked you to wait patiently for a

time. It is always the dear child's way; but I did not think she would

practice it upon her own mother."

Now most people would have imagined, as Lady Hastings did imagine, that

Mrs. Hazleton's words proceeded from spite--mere spite; but such was not

the case: it was all art. She sought to pique Lady Hastings, knowing very

well that when once heated or angry, she lost all caution; and her great

object at that moment was to ascertain what Emily knew, and what Emily had

said. She was successful to a certain degree. She did pique Lady Hastings,

who replied at once, and somewhat sharply, though with the ordinary forms

of courtesy. "I do not think you altogether do Emily justice, dear Mrs.

Hazleton, although you have in some degree divined the course she has

pursued. She did not exactly throw out inuendoes; but she made bold and

distinct charges, and though she did not proceed to the proofs, because

there was no time to do so, and also because there were particular reasons

for not doing so, yet she promised within a very few hours to establish

every assertion that she made beyond the possibility of doubt.

"I thought so," said Mrs. Hazleton, in a somewhat abstracted tone, casting

her eyes round the room and taking up, apparently unconcerned, the vial of

medicine which stood by Lady Hastings' bedside. "Pray, my dear friend, when

the revelation is made--if it ever be made--inform me of the particulars."

"If it ever be made," exclaimed Lady Hastings. "No revelation needs to be

made, Mrs. Hazleton--nothing is wanting but the proofs. Emily was explicit

enough as to the facts. She said that you had aided and assisted in

depriving my husband of his property, that in that and many other

particulars you had acted any thing but a friendly part, that you were

moved by a spirit of hatred against us all, and that very seldom had there

been any communications between our house and yours without some evil

following it--which is true enough."

She spoke with a good deal of vehemence, and raised herself somewhat on her

elbow, as if to utter her words more freely. In the mean while Mrs.

Hazleton sat silent and calm--as far as the exterior went at least--with

her eyes fixed upon a particular spot in the quilt from which they never

moved till Lady Hastings had done.

"Grave charges," she said at length, "very grave charges to bring against

one whom she has known from her infancy, and for whom she has professed

some regard--but no less false than grave, my dear friend. Now either one

of two things has happened: the first, which I mention merely as a

possibility, but without at all believing that such is the case--the first

is, I say, that Emily, judging your opposition to her proposed unequal

marriage to be abetted by myself, has devised these charges out of her own

head, in order to withdraw your confidence from me and gain her own

objects: the second is--and this is much more likely--that she has been

informed by some one, either maliciously or mistakenly, of some suspicions

and doubts such as are always more or less current in a country place, and

has perhaps embellished them a little in their transmission to you.--The

latter is certainly the most probable.--I suppose she did not tell you from

whom she received the information."

"Not exactly," answered Lady Hastings, "but one thing I know, which is,

that Mr. Dixwell the rector has all the same information, and if I

understood her rightly, has got it down in writing."

Mrs. Hazleton's cheek grew a shade paler; but she answered at once "I am

glad to hear that; for now we come to something definite. All these charges

must be substantiated, dear friend--that is, if they can be

substantiated--" she added with a smile.

"You can easily understand that, attached to you by the bonds of a long

friendship, I cannot suffer my name to be traduced, or my conduct

impeached, even by your own daughter, without insisting upon a full

explanation, and clear, satisfactory proofs, or a recantation of the

charges. Emily must establish what she has said, if she can.--I am in no

haste about it; it maybe to-morrow, or the next day, or the day

after--whenever it suits you and her in short; but it must be done.

Conscious that I am innocent of such great offences, I can wait patiently;

and I do not think, my dear friend, that although I see you have been a

little startled by these strange tales, you will give any credence to them

in your heart till they are proved. Dear Emily is evidently very much in

love with Mr. Marlow, and is anxious to remove all opposition to her

marriage with him. But I think she must take some other means; for these

will certainly break down beneath her."

She spoke so calmly, and in so quiet and gentle a tone--her whole look and

manner as so tranquilly confident--that lady Hastings could hardly believe

that she was in any degree guilty.

"Well, I cannot tell," she said, "how this may turn out, but I do not think

her marriage with Mr. Marlow can have any thing to do with it. I have fully

and entirely resolved to cease all opposition to her union; on which I see

my daughter's happiness is staked, and I shall certainly immediately

signify my consent both to Emily and to my husband."

"Wait a little--wait a little" said Mrs. Hazleton with a significant nod of

the head. "I have no mysteries, my dear friend. I have nothing to conceal

or to hold back. You are going, however, to act upon information which is

very doubtful. I believe that you have been deceived, whoever has told you

that Mr. Marlow is the heir to the Earl of Launceston, and it is but an act

of friendship on my part to procure you more certain intelligence. You

shall have it I promise you, before four and twenty hours are over, and all

I ask is that you will not commit yourself by giving your consent till that

intelligence has been obtained. You cannot say that you consent if Mr.

Marlow proves to be the heir of that nobleman, but will not consent if such

be not the case.--That would never do, and therefore your consent would be

irrevocable. But on the other hand there can be no great harm in waiting

four and twenty hours at the utmost. I have plenty of books of heraldry and

genealogy, which will soon let me into the facts, and you shall know them

plainly and straightforwardly at once. You can then decide and state your

decision firmly and calmly, with just reason and upon good grounds."

Lady Hastings was silent. She saw that Mrs. Hazleton had detected the

motives of her sudden change of views, and she did not much like being

detected. She had fully made up her mind, too, that Marlow was to become

Earl and her daughter Countess of Launceston, and the very thought of such

not being the result was a sort of half disappointment to her. Now Lady

Hastings did not like being disappointed at all, and moreover she had made

up her mind to have a scene of reconciliation, and tenderness, and

gratitude with her husband and her daughter, from which--being of a truly

affectionate disposition--she thought she should derive great pleasure.

Thus she hesitated for a moment as to what she should answer, and Mrs.

Hazleton, determined not to let the effect of what she had said subside

before she had bound her more firmly, added, after waiting a short time for

a reply, "you will promise me, will you not, that you will not distinctly

recall your injunction, and give your consent to the marriage till you have

seen me again; provided I do not keep you in suspense more than four and

twenty hours? It is but reasonable too, and just, and you would, I am sure,

repent bitterly if you were to find afterwards that your consent to this

very unequal marriage had been obtained by deceit, and that you had been

made a mere fool of--Really at the very first sight, even if I had not good

reason to believe that this story of the heirship is either a mistake or a

misrepresentation, it seems so like a stage trick--the cunning plot of some

knavish servant or convenient friend in a drama--that I should be very

doubtful. Will you not promise me then?"

"Well, there can be no great harm in waiting that length of time," said

Lady Hastings. "I do not mind promising that; but of course you will let me

know within four and twenty hours."

"I will," replied Mrs. Hazleton firmly; "earlier if it be possible; but the

fact is, I have some business to settle to-morrow of great importance. My

lawyer, Mr. Shanks--whom I believe to be a great rogue--persuaded me to

lend some money upon security which he pronounced himself to be good. I

knew not what it was for; as we women of course can be no judges of such

things; but I have just discovered that it was to pay off some debts of

this young man who calls himself Sir John Hastings. Now I don't know

whether the papers have been signed, or any thing about it; and I hear that

the young man himself is absent, no one knows where. It makes me very

uneasy; and I have sent for Shanks to come to me to-morrow morning. It may

therefore be the middle of the day before I can get here; but I will not

delay a moment, you may be perfectly sure."

She had risen as she spoke, and after pressing the hand of Lady Hastings

tenderly in her own, she glided calmly out of the room with her usual

graceful movement, and entering her carriage with a face as serene as a

summer sky, ordered the coachman to drive home in a voice that wavered not

in its lightest tone.

CHAPTER XLIII.

Mrs. Hazelton entered the carriage, I have said, at the end of the last

chapter, without the slightest appearance of agitation or excitement.

Although now and then a flush, and now and then a paleness, had spread over

her face during the conversation with Lady Hastings, though her eye had

emitted an occasional flash, and at other times had seemed fixed and

meaningless, such indications of internal warfare were all banished when

she left the room, the fair smooth cheek had its natural color, the eye was

as tranquil as that of indifferent old age.

The coachman cracked his long whip, before four magnificent large horses

heaved the ponderous vehicle from its resting place, and Mrs. Hazleton sank

back in the carriage and gave herself up to thought--but not to thought

only. Then all the smothered agitation; then all the strong contending

passions broke forth in fierce and fiery warfare. It is impossible to

disentangle them and lay them out, as on a map, before the reader's mind.

It is impossible to say which at first predominated, rage, or fear, or

disappointment, or the thirst of vengeance. One passion it is true--the one

which might be called the master passion of her nature--soon soared

towering above the rest, like one of those mighty spirits which rise to the

dizzy and dangerous pinnacle of power in the midst of the turbulence and

tempest which accompany great social earthquakes. But at first all was

confusion.

"Never," she repeated to herself--"never!--it shall never be. If I slay her

with my own hand it shall never be--foiled--frustrated in every thing; and

by this mere empty, moody child, who has been my stumbling block, my enemy,

my obstruction, in all my paths. No, no, it shall never be!"

A new strain of thought seemed to strike her; her head leaned forward; her

eyes closed, and her lips quivered.

There are many kinds of conscience, and every one has some sort, such as it

is. What I mean is, that there is almost in every heart a voice of warning

and reproof which counsels us to regret certain actions, and which speaks

in different tones to different men. To the worldly--those who are

habitually of the earth earthly--it holds out the menace of earthly shame

and misfortune and sorrow. It recapitulates the mistakes we have committed,

points to the evil consequences of evil deeds, shows how the insincerities

and falsehoods of our former course have proved fruitless, and how the

cunning devices, and skilful contrivances, and artful stratagems, have

ended in mortification and reproach and contempt; while still the gloomy

prospects of detection and exposure and public contumely and personal

punishment, are held up before our eyes as the grim portrait of the future.

I need not pause here to show how conscience affects those who, however

guilty, have a higher sense--those who have a cloudy belief in a future

state--who acknowledge in their own hearts a God of justice--who look to

judgment, and feel that there must be an immortality of weal or woe. Mrs.

Hazleton was of the former class. The grave was a barrier to her sight,

beyond which there was no seeing. She had been brought up for this world,

lived in this world, thought, devised, schemed, plotted for this world. She

never thought of another world at all. She went to church regularly every

Sunday, read the prayers with every appearance of devotion, even listened

to the sermon if the preacher preached well, and went home more practically

atheist than many who have professed themselves so.

What were her thoughts, then, now? They were all earthly still. Even

conscience spoke to her in earthly language, as if there were no other

means of reaching her heart but that. Its very menaces were all earthly.

She reviewed her conduct for the last two or three years, and bitterly

reproached herself for several faults she discovered therein--faults of

contrivance, of design, of execution. She had made mistakes; and for a time

she gave herself up to bitter repentance for that great crime.

"Caught in my own trap," she said; "frustrated by a girl--a child!--ay! and

with exposure, perhaps punishment, before me. How she triumphs, doubtless,

in that little malignant heart. How she will triumph when she brings

forward her proofs, and overwhelms me with them--if she has them. Oh, yes,

she has them! She is mighty careful never to say any thing of which she is

not certain. I have remarked that in her from a child. She has them beyond

doubt, and now she is sitting anticipating the pleasure of crushing

me--enjoying the retrospect of my frustrated endeavors--thinking how she

and Marlow will laugh together over a whole list of attempts that have

failed, and purposes that I have not been able to execute. Yes, yes, they

will laugh loud and gaily, and at the very altar, perhaps, will think with

triumph that they are filling for me the last drop of scorn and

disappointment. Never, never, never! It shall never be. That is the only

way, methinks;" and she fell into dark and silent thought again.

The fit lasted some time, and then she spoke again, muttering the words

between her teeth as she had previously done. "They will never marry with a

mother's curse upon their union! Oh, no, no, I know her too well. She will

not do that. That weak poppet may die before she recalls her

opposition--must die--and then they will live on loving and wretched. But

it must be made as bitter as possible. It must not stop there."

Again she paused and thought, and then said to herself, "That drug which

the Italian monk sold me would do well enough if I did but fully know its

effects. There are things which leave terrible signs behind them--besides

it is old, and may have lost its virtue. I must run no risk of that--and it

must be speedy as well as sure. I have but four and twenty hours--the time

is very short;" and relapsing into silence again, she continued in deep and

silent meditation till the carriage stopped at her own gates.

Mrs. Hazleton sat in the library that night for two or three hours, and

studied diligently a large folio volume which she had taken down herself.

She read, and she seemed puzzled. A servant entered to ask some unimportant

question, and she waved him away impatiently. Then leaning her head upon

her hand she thought profoundly. She calculated in her own mind what Emily

knew--how much--how intimately, and how she had learned it. Such a thing as

remorse she know not; but she had some fear, though very little--a sort of

shrinking from the commission of acts more daring and terrible than any she

had yet performed. There was something appalling--there is always something

appalling--in the commission of a great new crime, and the turning back, as

it were, of the mind of Mrs. Hazleton from the search for means to

accomplish a deed determined, in order to calculate the necessity of that

deed, proceeded from this sort of awe at the next highest step of evil to

those which she had already committed.

"She must know all," said Mrs. Hazleton to herself, after having considered

the matter for some moments deeply. "And she must have learned it

accurately. I know her caution well. From whom can she have learned it?"

"From that young villain Ayliffe," was the prompt reply. "I was too harsh

with him, and in his fit of rage he has gone away at once to tell this

girl--or perhaps that old fool Dixwell. Most likely he has furnished her

with evidence too, before he fled the country. Without that I could have

set Marlow's discoveries at naught. Yet I doubt his having gone to Dixwell;

he always despised him. Mean as he was himself, he looked upon him as a

meaner. He would not go to him to whine and cant over him. He would go to

the girl herself. Her he always loved, even in the midst of his violence

and his rage. He would go to her or write to her beyond all doubt. She must

be silenced. But I must deal with another first. Come what will, this

marriage shall not take place. Besides, she is the most dangerous of the

two. The girl might be frightened or awed into secresy, and it will take

longer time to reach her, but nothing will keep that weak woman's tongue

from babbling, and in four and twenty hours her consent will be given to

this marriage. If I can but contrive it rightly, that at least may be

stopped, and a part of my revenge obtained at all events. It must be so--it

must be so."

She turned to the leaves of the book again, but nothing in the contents

seemed to give her satisfaction. "That will be too long," she said, after

having read about a third of a page. "Three or four days to operate! Who

could wait three or four days when the object is security, tranquility, or

revenge? Besides the case admits of no delay. Before three or four days all

will be over."

She read again, and was discontented with what she read. "That will leave

traces," she said. "It must be the Italian's dose, I believe, after all.

Those monks are very skilful men, and perhaps it may not have lost its

efficiency. It is easily tried," she exclaimed suddenly, and ascending

quietly to her own dressing-room, she sought out from the drawer of an old

cabinet a small packet of white powder, which she concealed in the palm of

her hand. Then descending to the library again, she sat for a few minutes

in dull, heavy thought, and then rang a hand-bell which stood upon her

table.

"Bring me a small quantity of meat cut fine for the dog," she said, as soon

as her servant appeared. "He seems ill; what has been the matter with him?"

"Nothing, madam," said the man, looking under the table where lay a

beautiful small spaniel sound asleep. "He has been quite well all day."

"He has had something like a fit," said Mrs. Hazleton.

"Dear me, perhaps he is going mad," replied the man. "Had I not better kill

him?"

"Kill him!" exclaimed Mrs. Hazleton; "on no account whatever. Bring me a

small plate of meat."

The man did as he was ordered, and on his return found the dog sitting at

his mistress's feet, looking up in her face.

"Ah, Dorset," she said, speaking to the animal in a kindly tone, "you are

better now, are you?"

The man seemed inclined to linger to see whether the dog would eat: but

Mrs. Hazleton took the plate from him, and threw the poor beast a small

piece, which he devoured eagerly.

"There that will do," said Mrs. Hazleton. "You may leave the room."

When she was alone again, she paused for a moment or two, then deliberately

unfolded the packet, and put a very small quantity of the powder it

contained upon a piece of the meat. This morsel she threw to the poor

animal, who swallowed it at once, and then she set down the plate upon the

ground, which he cleared in a moment. After that Mrs. Hazleton turned to

her reading again, and looked round once at the end of about two minutes.

The dog had resumed his sleeping attitude, and she read on. Hardly a minute

more had passed ere the poor brute started up, ran round once or twice, as

if seized with violent convulsions, staggered for an instant to and fro,

and fell over on its side. Mrs. Hazleton rang the bell violently, and two

servants ran in at once. "He is dying," she cried; "he is dying."

"Keep out of his way, madam," exclaimed one of the men, evidently in great

fear himself, "there is no knowing what he may do."

The next instant the poor dog started once more upon his feet, uttered a

loud and terrific yell, and fell dead upon the floor.

"Poor thing," said Mrs. Hazleton, "Poor Dorset! He is dead; take him away."

The two men seemed unwilling to touch him, but when quite satisfied that

there was no more life left in him, they carried him away, and Mrs.

Hazleton remained alone.

"Speedy enough," said the lady, replacing the large volume on the shelf.

"We need no distillations and compoundings. This is as efficacious as ever.

Now let me see. I must try and remember the size of the bottle, and the

color of the stuff that was in it." She thought of these matters for some

minutes, and then retired to rest.

Did she sleep well or ill that night? God knows. But if she slept well, the

friends of hell must sometimes have repose.

The next morning very early, Mrs. Hazleton walked out. As the reader knows,

she lived at no great distance from the little town, even by the high-road,

and that was shortened considerably by a path through the park. There was

a poor man in the place, an apothecary, who had came down there in the hope

of carrying away some of the practice of good Mr. Short. He had not been

very successful, and his stock of medicines was not very great: but he had

all that Mrs. Hazleton wanted. Her demands indeed were simple

enough--merely a little logwood, a little saffron, and a little madder.

Having obtained these she asked to see some vials, and selected one

containing somewhat less than half a pint.

The good man packed all these up with zealous care, saying that he would

send them up to the house in a few minutes. Mrs. Hazleton, however, said

she would carry them herself; but the very idea of the great lady carrying

home a parcel, even through her own park, shocked the little apothecary

extremely, and he pressed hard to be permitted to send his own boy, till

Mrs. Hazleton replied in a rather peremptory tone, "I always say what I

mean, sir. Be so good as to give me the parcel."

When she reached her own house, she ordered her carriage to be at the door

at half past twelve in order to convey her to the dwelling of Sir Philip

Hastings. Upon a very nice calculation the drive, commenced at that hour,

would bring her to the place of her destination shortly after that precise

period of the day when Lady Hastings was accustomed to take an hour's

sleep. But Mrs. Hazleton had laid out her plan, and did not thus act by

accident.

Almost every lady in those days acted the part of a Lady Bountiful in her

neighborhood, and gave, not alone assistance in food and money to the

cottagers and poor people about her, but medicine and sometimes medical

advice. Both the latter were very simple indeed; but the preparation of

these simple medicines entailed the necessity of what was called a

still-room in each great house. In fact to be a Lady Bountiful, and to have

a still-room, were two of the conventionalities of the day, from which no

lady, having more than a very moderate fortune, could then hope to escape.

Mrs. Hazleton was in the still-room, then, when her dear friend, who had

already on one occasion given the death blow to her schemes upon Mr.

Marlow's heart, drove up to the door and asked to see her.

The servant replied that his mistress was busy in the still-room, but that

he would go and call her in a moment.

"Oh, dear, no," replied the lady, entering the house with an elastic step;

"I will go and join her there, and surprise her in her charitable works. I

know the way quite well--you needn't come--you needn't come;" and on she

went to the still-room, which she entered without ceremony.

Mrs. Hazleton was, at that moment, in the act of pouring a purpleish sort

of fluid, out of a glass dish with a lip to it, into an apothecary's vial.

She turned round sharply at the sound of the opening door, thinking that it

was produced by a servant intruding upon her uncalled. When she saw her

friend, however, whose indiscreet advice she had neither forgotten nor

forgiven, her face for a moment turned burning red, and then as pale as

death; and she had nearly let the glass fall from her hand.

What was said on either part matters very little. Mrs. Hazleton was too

wise to speak as sharply as she felt, and led the way from the still-room

as fast as possible; but her dear friend had in one momentary glance seen

every thing--the glass bowl, the vial, the fluid, and--more particularly

than all--Mrs. Hazleton's sudden changes of complexion on her entrance.

CHAPTER XLIV.

Sir Philip Hastings sat at breakfast with his daughter the morning of the

same day on which Mrs. Hazleton in the still-room was subjected to her dear

friend's unpleasant intrusion. He was calmer than he had been since his

return; but it was a gloomy, thoughtful sort of calmness--that sort of

superficial tranquility which is sometimes displayed under the influence of

overpowering feelings, as the sea, so sailors tell us, is sometimes

actually beaten down by the force of the winds that sweep over it. His brow

was contracted with a deep frown, but it was by no means varied. It was

stern, fixed, immoveable. To his daughter he spoke not a word, except when

she bade him good morning, and asked after his health; and then he only

replied "Well."

When breakfast was nearly over, a servant brought in some letters, and

handed two to his master and one to Emily. Sir Philip's were soon read; but

Emily's was longer, and she was still perusing it, with apparently much

emotion, when the servant returned to the room. Sir Philip, during the half

hour they had been previously together, had abstained from turning his eyes

towards her. He had looked at the table cloth, or straight at the wall; but

now he was gazing at her so intently, with a strange, eager, haggard

expression of countenance that he did not even notice the entrance of the

servant till the man spoke to him.

"Please your worship" said the servant "Master Atkinson of the Hill farm,

near Hartwell, wishes to speak to you on some justice business."

Sir Philip started, and murmured between his teeth "Justice--ay,

justice!--who did you say?"

The man repeated what he had said before, and his master replied, "shew him

in."

He then remained for a moment or two with his head leaning on his hand, and

seemingly making an effort to recall his thoughts from some distant point;

and when Mr. Atkinson entered, he spoke to him tranquilly enough.

"Pray be seated, Mr. Atkinson," he said, "what is it you want? I have

meddled little with magisterial affairs lately."

"I want a warrant, sir," replied Mr. Atkinson. "And against a near neighbor

and relation of yours; so I am sure you are not a man to refuse me

justice."

"Not if it were my nearest and my dearest," replied Sir Philip, in a deep

and hollow tone. "Who is the person?"

"A young man calling himself Sir John Hastings," said Mr. Atkinson. "We are

afraid of his getting out of the country. He knows he has been found out,

and he is hiding somewhere not very far off; but I and a constable will

find him."

Emily had lain down her letter by her side, and was listening attentively.

It was clear she was greatly moved by what she heard. Her face turned white

and red. Her lip quivered as if she would fain have spoken; but she

hesitated and remained silent for a moment. She thought of the unhappy

young man lying on his death bed; for she had as yet received no intimation

of his death from Mr. Dixwell, and of his seeing himself seized upon by the

officers of justice, his last thoughts disturbed, all his anxious strivings

after penitence, all his communings with his own heart, all his efforts to

prepare for meeting with death, and God, and judgment, scattered by worldly

shame and earthly anguish--she felt for him--she would fain have petitioned

for him; but she was misunderstood, and, what was worse, she knew it--she

felt it--she could not speak--she dare not say any thing, though her heart

seemed as if it would break, and her only consolation was that all would be

explained, that her motives, her conduct, would all be clear and

comprehended in a very few short hours. She knew, however, that she could

not bear much more without weeping; for the letter which she had received

from Marlow, telling her that he had arrived in London, and would set off

to see her, as soon as some needful business, in the capital had been

transacted, had agitated her much, and even pleasureable emotions will

often shake the unnervous so as to weaken rather than strengthen us when

called upon to contend with others of a different kind.

She rose then and left the room with a sad look and wavering step, and Sir

Philip gazed at her as she passed with a look impossible to describe,

saying to himself, "So--is it so?"

The next instant, however, he turned to the farmer, who was a man of a

superior class to the ordinary yeomen of that day, saying, "What is your

charge, sir?"

"Oh, plenty of charges, sir," replied the man; "fraud, conspiracy, perjury,

forgery, in regard to all which I am ready to give information on my oath."

Sir Philip leaned his head upon his hand, and thought bitterly for two or

three minutes. Then raising his eyes full to Atkinson's face, he said,

"Were this young man my own child, were he my son, or were he my brother,

were he a very dear friend, I should not have the slightest hesitation, Mr.

Atkinson. I would take the information, and grant you a warrant at

once--nay, I will do so still, if you insist upon it; for it shall never be

said that any consideration made me refuse justice. But I would have you

remember that Sir John Hastings is my enemy; that he has, justly or

unjustly, deprived me of fortune and station, and throughout the only

transactions we have had together, has shown a spirit of malignity against

me which might well make men believe that I must entertain similar feelings

towards him. To sign a warrant against him, therefore, would be very

painful to me, although I believe him to be capable of the crimes with

which you charge him, and know you to be too honest a man to make such an

accusation without a reasonable confidence in its truth. But I would have

you consider whether it may not bring suspicion upon all your proceedings,

if your very first step therein is to obtain a warrant against this man

from his known and open enemy."

"But what am I to do. Sir Philip?" asked the farmer. "I am afraid he will

escape. I know that he is hiding in this very neighborhood, in this very

parish, within half a mile of this house."

A groan burst from the heart of Sir Philip Hastings. He had spoken his

remonstrance clearly, slowly, and deliberately, forcibly bending his

thoughts altogether to the subject before him; but he had been deeply and

terribly moved all the time, and this direct allusion to the hiding place

of John Ayliffe, to the very house which his daughter had visited on the

previous day, roused all the terrible feelings, the jealous anger, the

indignation, the horror, the contempt which had been stirred up in him, by

what he thought her indecent, if not criminal act. It was too much for his

self-command, and that groan burst forth in the struggle against himself.

He recovered himself speedily, however, and he replied, "Apply to Mr.

Dixwell: he is a magistrate, and lives hardly a stone's throw from this

house. You will lose but little time, save me from great pain, and both you

and me from unjust imputations."

"Oh, I am not afraid of any imputations," said Mr. Atkinson. "I have

personally no interest in the matter. You have, Sir, a great interest in

it, and if you would just hear what the case is, you would see that no one

should look more sharply than you to the matter, in order that no time may

be lost."

"I would rather not hear the case at all," replied Sir Philip, "If I have a

personal interest in it, as you say, it would ill befit me to meddle. Go to

Mr. Dixwell, my good friend. Explain the whole to him, and although

perhaps he is not the brightest man that ever lived, yet he is a good man,

and an honest man, who will do justice in this matter."

"Very well, sir, very well," replied the farmer, a little mortified; for to

say the truth, he had anticipated some little accession of importance from

lending a helping hand to restore Sir Philip Hastings to the rights of

which he had been unjustly deprived, and taking his leave he went away,

thinking the worthy baronet the most impracticable man he had ever met with

in his life. "I always knew that he was crotchety," he said to himself,

"and carried his notions of right and wrong to a desperate great length;

but I did not know that he went so far as this. I don't believe that if he

saw a man running away with his own apples, he would stop him without a

warrant from another justice. Yet he can be severe enough when he is not

concerned himself, as we all know. He'd hang every poacher in the land for

that matter, saying, as I have heard him many a time, that it is much worse

to steal any thing that is unprotected, than if it is protected."

With these thoughts he rode straight away to the house of Mr. Dixwell, but

to his mortification he found that the worthy clergyman was out. "Can you

tell me where he is?" he asked of the servant, "I want him on business of

the greatest importance."

The woman hesitated for a moment, but the expression of perplexity and

anxiety on the good farmer's face overcame her scruples, and she replied,

"I did not exactly hear him say where he was going, but I saw him take the

foot-path down to Jenny Best's."

Atkinson turned his horse's head at once, and rode along the road till he

reached the cottage. There he fastened his horse to a tree, and went in.

The outer room was vacant; but through the partition he heard a voice

speaking in a slow, measured tone, as if in prayer; and after waiting and

hesitating for a moment or two, he struck upon the table with his knuckles

to call attention to his presence.

The moment after, the door opened slowly and quietly, and Jenny Best

herself first put out her head, and then came into the room with a curtsy,

closing the door behind her.

"Good day, Jenny," said the farmer; "is Mr. Dixwell here?"

"Yes, Master Atkinson," replied the good dame; "he is in there, praying

with a sick person."

"Why how is that?" asked Mr. Atkinson. "Best is not ill, I hope, nor your

son."

"No, sir," answered the old woman; "it is a young man who broke his leg

close by our door the other day;" and seeing him about to ask further

questions, which she might have had difficulty in parrying, she added, "I

will call the parson, to you, sir."

Thus saying, she retreated again into the inner room, and in a few moments

Mr. Dixwell himself appeared.

"God day, Atkinson," he said; "you have been absent on a journey, I hear."

"Yes, your Reverence," replied the farmer, "and it is in consequence of

that journey that I come to you now. I want a warrant from you, Mr.

Dixwell; and that as quick as possible."

"Why, I cannot give you a warrant here," said the clergyman, hesitating. "I

have no clerk with me, nor any forms of warrants, and I cannot very well go

home just now. It can do no harm waiting an hour or two, I suppose."

"It may do a great deal of harm," replied the farmer, "for as great a rogue

and as bad a fellow as ever lived may escape from justice if it is not

granted immediately."

"Can't you go to Mr. Hastings?" said the clergyman. "He would give you one

directly, if the case justifies it."

"He sent me to your Reverence," replied the farmer. "In one word, the case

is this, Mr. Dixwell. I have to charge a man, whom, I suppose, I must call

a gentleman, upon oath, with fraud, perjury, and forgery. Shanks, one of

the conspirators we have got already. But this man--this fellow who calls

himself Sir John Hastings, I mean, is hiding away here--in this very

cottage, sir, I am told--and may make his escape at any minute. Now that I

am here, and a magistrate with me, I tell you fairly, sir, I will not quit

the place till I have him in custody."

He spoke in a very sharp and decided tone; for to say the truth he had a

vague suspicion that Mr. Dixwell, whose good-nature was well known, knew

very well where John Ayliffe was, and might be trying to convert him, with

the full intention of afterwards aiding him to escape. The clergyman

answered at once, however, "he is here, Master Atkinson, but he is very

ill, and will soon be in sterner custody than yours."

There was a good deal of the bull-dog spirit of the English yeoman in the

good farmer's character, and he replied tartly, "I don't care for that. He

shall be in my custody first."

Mr. Dixwell looked pained and offended. His brow contracted a good deal,

and laying his hand upon the farmer's wrist, he led him towards the door of

the inner room, saying, "You are hard and incredulous, sir. But come with

me, and you shall see his state with your own eyes."

The farmer suffered himself to be led along, and Mr. Dixwell opened the

door, and entered the room with a quiet and reverent step. The sunshine was

streaming through the little window upon the floor, and by its cheerful

light, contrasting strangely with the gray darkness of the face which lay

upon the bed of death. There was not a sound, but the footfalls of the two

persons who entered; for the old woman had seated herself by the bedside,

and was gazing silently at the face of the sick man.

At first, Mr. Atkinson thought that he was dead; and life indeed lingered

on with but the very faintest spark. He seemed utterly unconscious; for the

eyes even did not move at the sound of the opening door, and the farmer was

a good deal shocked at the hardness of his judgment. He was not one,

however, to give up his purpose easily, and when Mr. Dixwell said, "you can

now see and judge for yourself--is he likely to escape, do you think?"

Atkinson answered in a low but determined tone, "No, but I do not think I

ought to leave him as long as there is any life in him."

"You can do as you please," said Mr. Dixwell, in a tone of much

displeasure, "Only be silent. There is a seat;" and leaving him, he took

his place again by the dying man's side.

Though shocked, and feeling perhaps a little ashamed, Mr. Atkinson, with

that dogged sort of resolution which I have before spoken of, resisted his

own feelings, and would not give up the field. He thought he was doing his

duty, and that is generally quite sufficient for an Englishman. Nothing

could move him, so long as breath was in the body of the unhappy young man.

He remained seated there, perfectly still and silent, as hour after hour

slipped away, with his head bent down, and his arms crossed upon his chest.

The approach of death was very slow with John Ayliffe: he lingered long

after all the powers of the body seemed extinct. Hand or foot he could not

move--his sunken eyes remained half closed--the hue of death was upon his

face, but yet the chest heaved, the breath came and went, sometimes

rapidly, sometimes very slowly; and for a long time Mr. Dixwell could not

tell whether he was conscious at all or not. At the end of two hours,

however, life seemed to make an effort against the great enemy, though it

was a very feeble one, and intellect had no share in it. He began to mutter

a few words from time to time, but they were wild and incoherent, and the

faint sounds referred to dogs and horses, to wine and money. He seemed to

think himself talking to his servants, gave orders, and asked questions,

and told them to light a fire, he was so cold. This went on till the shades

of evening began to fall, and then Mr. Short, the surgeon, came in and felt

his pulse.

"It is very strange," said the surgeon, "that this has lasted so long. But

it must be over in a few minutes now. I can hardly feel a pulsation."

Mr. Dixwell did not reply, and the surgeon remained gazing on the dying

man's face till it was necessary to ask for a light. Jenny Best brought in

a solitary candle, and whether it was the effect of the sudden though

feeble glare, I cannot tell, John Ayliffe opened his eyes, and said, more

distinctly than before, "I am going--I am going--this is death--yes, this

is death! Pray for me, Mr. Dixwell--pray for me--I do repent--yes, I have

hope."

The jaw quivered a little as he uttered the last words, but at the same

moment John Best, the good woman's husband, entered the room with a hurried

step, drew Mr. Short, the surgeon, aside, and whispered something in his

ear.

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed the surgeon. "Impossible, Best! Has the man got a

horse? mine's at the farm."

"Yes, sir, yes!" replied the man, eagerly. "He has got a horse; but you had

better make haste."

Mr. Short dashed out of the room; but before he left it, John Ayliffe was a

corpse.

CHAPTER XLV.

Mrs. Hazleton found the inconvenience of having a dear friend. It was in

vain that she tried to get rid of her visitor. The visitor would not be got

rid of. She was deaf to hints; she paid no attention to any kind of

inuendoes; and she looked so knowing, so full of important secrets, so

quietly mischievous, that Mrs. Hazleton was cowed by that most unnerving of

all things, the consciousness of meditated crime. She could not help

thinking that the fair widow saw into her thoughts and purposes--she could

not help doubting the impenetrability of the veil behind which hypocrisy

hides the hideous features of unruly passion--she could not help thinking

that the keen-sighted and astute must perceive some of the movements at

least of the rude movers of the painted puppets of the face--the smile, the

gay looks, the sparkling eyes, the calm placid brow, the dignified

serenity, which act their part in the glittering scene of the world, too

often worked by the most harsh, foul, and brutal of all the motives of the

human heart. But she was irritated too, as well as fearful; and there was a

sort of combat went on between impatience and apprehension. Had she given

way to inclination she would have ordered one of her servants to take the

intruder by the shoulders and put her out of doors; but for more than an

hour after the time she had fixed for setting out, vague fears--however

groundless and absurd--were sufficiently powerful to restrain her temper.

She was not of a character, however, to be long cowed by any thing. She had

great confidence in herself--in her own resources--in her own conduct and

good fortune likewise. That confidence might have been a little shaken

indeed by events which had lately occurred; but anger soon rallied it, and

brought it back to her aid. She asked herself if she were a fool to dread

that woman--what it was she had discovered--what it was that she could

testify. She had merely seen her doing what almost every lady did a hundred

times in the year in those day--preparing some simples in the still-room;

and gradually as she found that gentle hints proved unsuccessful, she

resumed her natural dignity of demeanor. That again gave way to a chilling

silence, and then to a somewhat irritable imperiousness, and rising from

her chair, she begged her visitor to excuse her, alledging that she had

business of importance to transact which would occupy her during the whole

day.

Not one of all the variation of conduct--not one sign, however slight, of

impatience, doubt, or anger--escaped the keen eye that was fixed upon her.

Mrs. Hazleton, under the influence of conscience, did not exactly betray

the dark secrets of her own heart, but she raised into importance, an act

in itself the most trifling, which would have passed without any notice had

she not been anxious to conceal it.

As soon as her visitor, taking a hint that could not be mistaken, had

quitted the room and the house, with an air of pique and ill-humor, Mrs.

Hazleton returned to the still-room and recommenced her operations there;

but she found her hand shaking and her whole frame agitated.

"Am I a fool," she asked herself, "to be thus moved by an empty gossip like

that? I must conquer this, or I shall be unfit for my task."

She sat down at a table, leaned her head upon her hand, gazed forth out of

the little window, forced her mind away from the present, thought of birds

and flowers, and pictures and statues, and of the two sunshiny worlds of

art and nature--of every thing in short but the dark, dark cares of her own

passions. It was a trick she had learned to play with herself--one of those

pieces of internal policy by which she had contrived so often and so long,

to rule and master with despotic sway the frequent rebellions of the body

against the tyranny of the mind.

She had not sat there two minutes, however, ere there was a tap at the

door, and she started with a quick and jarring thrill, as if that knock had

been a summons of fate. The next instant she looked quickly around,

however, and was satisfied that whoever entered could find no cause for

suspicion. She was there seated quietly at the table. The vial was out of

sight, the fatal powder hidden in the palm of her hand, and she said aloud,

"Come in."

The butler entered, bowing profoundly and saying, "The carriage is at the

door, madam, and Wilson has just come back from the house of Mr. Shanks,

but he could not find him."

The man hesitated a little as if he wished to add something more, and Mrs.

Hazleton replied in a somewhat sharp tone, "I told you when I sent it away

just now that I would tell you when I was ready. I shall not be so for half

an hour; but let it wait, and do not admit any one. Mr. Shanks must be

found, and informed that I want to see him early to-morrow, as I shall go

to London on the following day."

"I am sorry to say, madam," replied the butler, "that if the talk of the

town is true, he will not be able to come. They say he has been apprehended

on a charge of perjury and forgery in regard to that business of Sir Philip

Hastings, and has been sent off to the county jail."

Mrs. Hazleton looked certainly a little aghast, and merely saying "Indeed!"

she waved her hand for the man to withdraw.

She then sat silent and motionless for at least five minutes. What passed

within her I cannot tell; but when she rose, though pale as marble, she was

firm, calm, and self-possessed as ever. She turned the key in the lock; she

drew a curtain which covered the lower half of the window, farther across,

so that no eye from without, except the eye of God, could see what she was

doing there within. She then drew forth the vial from its nook, opened out

the small packet of powder, and poured part of it into a glass. She seemed

as if she were going to pour the whole, but she paused in doing so, and

folded up the rest again, saying, "That must be fully enough; I will keep

the rest; it may be serviceable, and I can get no more."

She gazed down upon the ground near her feet with a look of cold, stern,

but awful resolution, as if there had been an open grave before her; and

then she placed the packet in her glove, poured a little distilled water

into the glass, shook it, and held the mixture up to the light. The powder

had in great part dissolved, but not entirely, and she added a small

quantity more of the distilled water, and poured the whole into the vial,

which was already about one-third full of a dark colored liquid.

"Now I will go," she said, concealing the bottle. But when she reached the

door, and had her hand upon the lock, she paused and remained in very deep

thought for an instant, with her brow slightly contracted and her lip

quivering. Heaven knows what she thought of then,--whether it was doubt, or

fear, or pity, or remorse--but she said in a low tone, "Down, fool! it

shall be done," and she passed out of the room.

She paused suddenly in the little passage which led to the still-room, by a

pair of double doors, into the principal part of the house, perceiving with

some degree of consternation that she had been unconsciously carrying the

vial with its dark colored contents in her hand, exposed to the view of all

observers. Her eye ran round the passage with a quick and eager glance; but

there was no one in sight, and she felt reassured. Even at that moment she

could smile at her own heedlessness, and she did smile as she placed the

bottle in her pocket, saying to herself, "How foolish! I must not suffer

such fits of absence to come upon me, or I shall spoil all."

She then walked quietly to her dressing-room, arranged her dress for the

little journey before her, and descended again to the hall, where the

servants were waiting for her coming. After she had entered the carriage,

however, she again fell into a fit of deep thought, closed her eyes, and

remained as if half asleep for nearly an hour. Perhaps it would be too much

to scrutinize the state or changes of her feelings during that long,

painful lapse of thought. That there was a struggle--a terrible

struggle--can hardly be doubted--that opportunity was given her for

repentance, for desistance, between the purpose and the deed, we know; and

there can be little doubt that the small, still voice--which is ever the

voice of God--spoke to her from the spirit-depth within, and warned her to

forbear. But she was of an unconquerable nature; nothing could turn her;

nothing could overpower her, when she had once resolved on any act. There

was no persuasion had effect; no remonstrance was powerful. Reason,

conscience, habit itself, were but dust in the balance in the face of one

of her determinations.

She roused herself suddenly from her fit of moody abstraction, when the

carriage was still more than a mile from the house of Sir Philip Hastings.

She looked at the watch which hung by her side, and gazed at the sky; and

then she said to herself, "That woman's impertinent intrusion was

intolerable. However, I shall get there an hour before the twenty-four

hours have passed, and doubtless she will have kept her word and refrained

from speaking till she has seen me; but I am afraid I shall find her woke

up from her mid-day doze, and that may make the matter somewhat difficult.

Difficult! why I have seen jugglers do tricks a thousand times to which

this is a mere trifle. My sleight of hand will not fail me, I think;" and

then she set her mind to work to plan out every step of her proceedings.

All was clearly and definitely arranged by the time she arrived at the door

of Sir Philip Hastings' house. Her face was cleared of every cloud, her

whole demeanor under perfect control. She was the Mrs. Hazleton, the calm,

dignified, graceful Mrs. Hazleton, which the world knew; and when she

descended from the carriage with a slow but easy step, and spoke to the

coachman about one of the springs which had creaked and made a noise on the

way, not one of Sir Philip Hastings' servants could have believed that her

mind was occupied with any thing more grave than the idle frivolous

thoughts of an every-day society.

* * * * *

The shrewdest and most successful of politicians has given us the secret of

his policy in the words, Follow the public so closely that you shall seem

to lead it.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Continued from page 201

MUSIC.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY H. W. PARKER.

The singing spheres

Entranced the very time they measured out;

And memory drew me back to one sweet year,

When, born anew to thought and love, the earth

Was new, and music--fancy's dancing light

Till then--became a dazzling revelation.

'Twas in a city, midway from the hymns

Of Trenton and Niagra. 'Twas an eve

When a whole nation sighed, as hour by hour,

The news electric ran that he was dying,

The Palo Alto hero. Then and there,

I hear the orchestra that once had winged

The festal hours when first the hero stood,

A nation's chief. To me, the hall, the crowd,

Were not; I watched a window-square of sky

Deepen from tender blue to night profound;

And, as it deepened, heard the voice of Time,

All Time, all joy and sorrow, madness, woe,

And saw a thousand forms of light and gloom,

From music born. Distorted faces glared;

Long lines of star-browed angels circled down,

And ages dead were summoned back to earth.

The horn rang out the joy of happy souls;

The viol screamed and laughed in scorn, and groans

Rose dread and deep from under gulfs of night.

The past, the future life of self, of all.

Before me crowded, wailed, entreated, warned,

Battled, triumphed, or struggled wildly past,

A long procession.

Good for me the hour

When music, erst a sylph or monster form,

Assumed the glory that immortals wear,

And sang to me the messages of Heaven.

It nerved me newly for the war of life,

Of truth, humanity. Now, a naked soul,

I dwelt within the central court of space--

No globe immense, but the aye changing point,

Where centred, hangs the whole creation's weight,

Light as a snow-flake, on the hand of God.

The trill of myriad stars, the heavy boom

Of giant suns that slowly came and went,

The whistlings, sweet and clear, of lesser orbs,

And the low thunder of more distant deeps,

Ever commingling, grew to eloquence

No earthly brain may bear. The universe

Had found a voice: the countless souls that fill

The countless earths, were calling each to each,

In tones as high as heaven, as deep as hell,

And many as the many words. I felt

What is existence, what the vast extent,

The mystery, and the far result....

THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE:

OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.[10]

TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF H. DE

ST. GEORGES.

III. THE DUEL

It was a morning of December, but one of those fitful days when, the sun

shining and the sky cloudless, the weather might lead one to suppose it to

be spring, were the temperature not so cold and sharp, or if the flowers

would only open, and the sun were as warm as it was bright. The young

Marquise de Maulear sat over her painting, with Scorpione at her feet, when

the Count Monte-Leone was announced.

"Show him in," said Aminta.

The Count entered. He was very pale, and there was a secret emotion on his

countenance which Aminta discovered at once.

"What is the matter?" said she; "why have you come so early to see me? I do

not reproach you for this; but if you intend by what you do now to stay

away this evening, I object to it. I protest against this, Monsieur."

"How beautiful you are!" said Monte-Leone, "and how I love to hear you thus

calculate your moments of happiness."

"Ah, Monsieur, I am very exacting, I have already told you. I will,

however, grant you one hour, especially as time passes so rapidly in your

company." Then she said, sadly, "Life is so short!"

"Yes, very short," said the Count; "especially when the career you promise

me is pleasant--enough so to make one wish it would never end."

"I should so wish it, but you, perhaps, would think it tedious."

"It should be eternal," said Monte-Leone, "and eternity itself would not

suffice for me to prove my tenderness. Besides, my purgatory here has been

long enough. Have I not suffered all the tortures of hell since the day I

renounced you? Ah!" said he, passionately, "you will never know how I

loved, and how I now love you."

"Yes, yes," said Aminta, with a smile, "a heart like yours, I think, can

love but once. I speak seriously--do you hear, sir? This word means

much--so much that I tremble to think of it. You love me, and always will.

I have faith in you."

"The future," said the Count, with an expression of sorrow which he could

not conquer, "is your own--at least, if such is God's will, for mine is in

your hands."

"What mean you?" said the Marquise, fearfully, and looking again with

anxiety at the Count. "What trouble now menaces you? Would you leave Paris

and myself? Well, that is a small affair. The country you dwell in shall be

my country--the climate you select shall be mine. I will love the climate

you love, even if it be as sombre and icy as our Italy is warm and

glorious. The true country is where we find happiness."

"Dear Aminta," said the Count, with a delight he could not repress, "it

would be terrible to die now."

Scorpione drew near the Count, and looked at him with a strange expression.

One might have fancied that like the idiots of northern lands, who, we are

assured, have a strange prescience of the future, this poor being was

seized on by an unfortunate presentiment.

The words she had heard echoed sadly in Aminta's heart. "My friend," said

she "for some time I have seen that you suffered. You are no longer happy

in my presence. For pity's sake conceal nothing from me. Something terrible

and unknown exists in your heart. To whom else but me would you confide it?

Who would you permit to share my torments? Who should suffer with you? Tell

me, I beseech you, for doubt is worse even than misery."

The Count felt his very soul expand as he heard this expression of Aminta's

interest. He was about to speak to her. Could he, however, reveal to a

young and tender woman the fate which menaced him--the duel which as was

said was to be merciless? Could he tell her of the prospect of death in the

midst of his dreams of happiness. All this was barbarous and impossible,

and the Count sought to lull the storm he had excited, to soften her fears,

and to efface her suspicions.

"My noble and dear Aminta, no violent and arbitrary power forces me to

leave you. Perhaps, however, I am about to undertake a journey--a long

journey," he said, with feelings he sought in vain to repress. "An

important and imperious duty forces me to do so, and you see that I am sad

on account of the farewell I am about to bid you."

"Farewell!" said Aminta, growing pale; "a journey, a departure! Wait but a

few months, and we will go together."

This thought, so full of love, seemed sad to the Count, and at once he

said,

"No, no; I must make this journey alone. But," said he, "I will return, and

thenceforth leave you no more. This will be my last separation and

absence." The Count pronounced these words with such earnestness that a

smile of joy flitted across Aminta's countenance.

"Well," said she, "at least I know what danger menaces. I know now the

secret of your distress, and the cause of the melancholy which I could not

before penetrate. Count," continued she, "you have sometimes seen me brave

and courageous. Judge then of my affection by the tears which I cannot

repress."

Monte-Leone took the young woman's hand, and covered it with kisses. In the

interim, leaning against a wall, and with his features contracted by grief,

the idiot shed tears, because he saw Aminta do so. A servant appeared, and

told the Count that Taddeo Rovero asked to see him. Monte-Leone looked up,

and glancing at the clock, thought it was one. Aminta stopped him as he was

about to go. "Shall I see you again?" said she.

"Yes, yes," said the Count--"to-night--to-morrow."

"One word more," said she; "travel has its danger, and now I know you will

take care of yourself; for henceforth your life does not belong to you

alone. Every day I will pray for you. I should not, however, be an Italian

woman if my heart had no tender superstition. Yours, my brother has told

me, is not exempt from this feeling. You have one family superstition in

particular," said she. "This is an heir-loom. Take it again," said she, and

she placed on the Count's finger the ring of Benvenuto, which Monte-Leone

long before had sent her through Taddeo. "They tell me it has always

brought you good fortune. Do not part with it again, for my sake, as I once

received it for yours."

"Aminta," said the Count, "again you restore confidence to me. I expected

to leave you full of love--but you can yet once more make me happy."

"How so?" said she.

"Let this be our wedding-ring."

"So be it," said Aminta.

"Countess di Monte-Leone," said the Count, regaining his energy, and

speaking with a transport of joy. "We will meet again--I swear we will."

He left, and the idiot followed the Count. Monte-Leone's brow became

bright. He had made up his mind, and regained his firmness.

The countless indistinct voices of nature alone interrupted the silence of

this solitude, the echoes of which had so often resounded with the cry of

grief, or the last sighs of a dying man. It was two o'clock when

Monte-Leone and his companions appeared at the _rendezvous_. The place was

as yet solitary, but in the course of a few minutes the distant sound of

wheels reached their ears, and informed them that ere long their

adversaries would be present. The latter, in fact, descended as they had

themselves done at the round point which led to the ruins, and before many

minutes had passed the two parties had met. Two officers, one of the navy

and the other of the general's regiment, accompanied the Lieutenant. The

Count and the Lieutenant stood aside. The witnesses approached each other.

"Gentlemen," said Von Apsberg, "the Count Monte-Leone, as well as

ourselves, is ignorant what could have given rise to the atrocious insult

your friend has uttered, the latter having refused to explain it. Perhaps

you will think it your duty to do so."

The naval officer said, "Monsieur, we are sorrow to say, that we know

nothing more of the matter than you do. Lieutenant A---- is one of the most

gallant officers of the royal navy. He has requested us to attend him here

to-day, swearing that his cause was just and honorable, but that he would

unfold its cause only _in articulo mortis_, or in case his adversary fell.

We have such confidence in our comrade's honor and prudence, that we

determined to do as he wished us."

"You, as well as we, gentlemen," said the other second, "have read the

letter sent by Lieutenant A---- to Count Monte-Leone, and are aware that it

was placed out of the power of the latter to refuse the challenge, even if

he thought he had as yet received insufficient provocation."

"This is enough, Messieurs," said Von Apsberg. "I have made an appeal to

you, and I see with sorrow that you disagree with me. I have hitherto

considered the seconds in a duel as being charged with the soul of their

friend. Without however pronouncing on the reasons which seem to have

influenced Lieutenant A---- in his bearing towards such a man as

Monte-Leone, we agree with you that he has given more than sufficient

provocation for bloodshed. Let us therefore cut short this conversation,

and proceed. We claim the choice of arms."

"Very well," said the officers.

"We select pistols," said Taddeo, "and rigorously using all our rights,

claim the first fire; or that his adversary object by maintaining that he

has received the first insult."

"Lieutenant A---- will maintain no such thing," said the naval officer.

"Then, gentlemen," said Von Apsberg, "we will not hesitate to take

advantage of the benefit allowed us by the laws of duelling."

The seconds of A---- consented, and the weapons were loaded. When the terms

were explained to Monte-Leone he said, "I wish that in this unfortunate and

mysterious affair the right may be on my side. I insist, therefore, that

the terms be equal, and that this gentleman and myself fire together, or

when we please, advancing from a distance of twenty paces on each side. I

take particular care, also, to say, not from bravado merely, but because I

think proper to do so, that I am an extremely good shot."

"Were I not resolved to kill you," said the Lieutenant, "I would refuse

this insolent generosity. I think I have such rights over your life, and my

vengeance is of so sacred character, that I accept it without hesitation."

All then were silent--the ground measured and the pistols loaded. All this

passed beneath a wall of the old monastery of Longchamps. The two enemies

were placed opposite. The signal was given, and each lifted his arm.

Without advancing towards his enemy, who walked rapidly towards him, Count

Monte-Leone fired and his ball took effect on the body of the Lieutenant,

who sank on the ground before him. He did not utter a complaint, did not

close his eyes, but supporting himself on his elbow he fired on

Monte-Leone. The ball would have struck the Count in the breast had not a

man rushed rapidly as lightning from the thicket, and covering the Count

with his body, received the ball in his own heart.

Four persons cried out at once. The seconds rushed towards the victim, who

was Scorpione. The poor idiot thus died for Aminta, for he rescued one she

loved. When they lifted up the unfortunate lad he was dead. It was

afterwards learned from the people of the house that when he saw Taddeo

with the pistol case, he had gotten into a hackney coach and followed the

three friends. He beyond doubt remembered the box which he had seen in the

hands of the Count at the time of the difficulty with the Marquis de

Maulear. He had gone thus to the rendezvous and sprang from his concealment

only to receive the mortal wound.

While Von Apsberg, Monte-Leone, and Taddeo sought to reanimate Tonio, the

seconds of A---- supported him, and made useless efforts to staunch the

blood which poured from his wound. Von Apsberg being satisfied that

Scorpione was dead, offered his services to the Lieutenant. He, however,

had fainted. Von Apsberg took out his case and cut two long straps of

adhesive plaster for the purpose of healing the wound. He soon saw that his

efforts would be useless. He said the ball is in the pylorus, and that

noble organ being injured, death, unless a miracle ensue, must supervene.

The seconds looked on with amazement. Just then the sound of the feet of

several horses was heard, one of the officers said, "It is the forest

keepers."

"Hurry away," said Von Apsberg to Monte-Leone, who yet held the hand of

Scorpione and looked at him with great pity. "Hurry away. They will arrest

you as the murderer of this man and what then will become of the

association?"

The Count yet hesitated, for this sudden flight might seem injurious to his

character. He was unwilling to shake off the responsibility of any act of

his life.

"For Aminta's sake," said Taddeo, in a low voice; and the Count, rushing

into the thicket, disappeared.

A few minutes passed and they waited for the horsemen, whose uniforms were

seen in the distance. This was idle, for they passed within a few paces of

the dead body without noticing it.

And another, too, in spite of all Von Apsberg's efforts, was dying. A

convulsive whistle began to escape from the breast of the Lieutenant, his

eyes rolled in his head, and his sight began to grow dim. The blood ceased

to flow, and only a few black drops escaped from time to time. Suddenly the

body which had become contracted, expanded, and by a last effort the eyes

of the dying man began to expand and glittered strangely.

"Listen all," said he sharply and distinctly; "do not loose one word I say.

These are the last words I shall ever pronounce. May God grant me power to

unmask a traitor and prevent him from making new victims." All drew near,

and paid attention to the words of one about to appear before his Creator.

The respirations of the three auditors were distinct. "I said that I would

reveal my secret only _in articulo mortis_, or in case my adversary fell, I

will keep my promise. I did not tell you," and he turned with pain towards

his seconds, "why I insulted this man who has killed me. The reason was

that if I had spoken you would not have suffered me to meet him as being

unworthy of the arm of an honest man. I wished to kill him first and unmask

him afterwards. This brilliant Count Monte-Leone is a miserable hanger-on

of the police. The people call such things _eaves-droppers_, but men of

higher rank give them another name: Monte-Leone is a SPY IN SOCIETY."

"Horror! it is a slander," said Von Apsberg and Taddeo.

"By all that is dearest to me," said the Lieutenant, whose voice became

every moment weaker and weaker, "by my father's life, by my own soul, this

is true. Monte-Leone denounced the General, and my father himself gave me

evidence of the fact, which is beyond a doubt. He will also satisfy

you--men do not lie at the hour of death, and I am dying with these words

on my lips."

He closed his eyes and died.

IV--THE ANONYMOUS NOTE.

Nothing could describe the stupefaction of the four seconds of the duel at

what A----said. Von Apsberg was the first to divest himself of the mute

terror which seemed to have taken possession of all. "Gentlemen," said he,

"I appeal to your honor. The truth of a dying man's assertions cannot be

suspected. I am sure he was convinced of the truth of his assertion. This

alone can palliate his statements. M. A---- would have soon recovered from

his unfortunate impression in relation to the count, and it is a pity that

he did not sooner impart it to us. We are able to furnish such evidence of

Monte Leone's truth that he would have himself confessed that he was wrong.

We will see at all risks the unfortunate young man's father and will

attempt to discover the origin of this strange imputation. We will ask one

favor of you, such as may be between people of honor, to suspend your

judgments in relation to Monte-Leone until we are able to satisfy you this

originated in some terrible mistake."

The naval officer then said: "We have no reason to be hostile to Count

Monte-Leone, and his conduct in relation to the preliminaries of the duel

rather inspire us with respect. We will, then, await your communications

and say nothing of the circumstances."

"I thank you, sirs--all here has occurred as should between men of honor

and courage. Let us now take care of the victims. Each take care of his own

friend," pointing to the son of the General and to Scorpione.

A quarter of an hour afterwards there remained only a few drops of dried-up

blood on the withered leaves and on the moss. When Taddeo returned with the

body of Tonio, Monte-Leone was already with the Marquise. When the latter

saw him, she thought in obedience to his promise he had come to bid her

adieu. Then the Count told her what had happened, and the circumstances of

Scorpione's death. Aminta wept.

All the self-denial of the poor lad appeared before her; his torture and

suffering which began and ended his life. The arrival of Taddeo, therefore,

distressed her. The Count, however, was there, and she had discovered the

direction of his pretended voyage. The Count, perhaps, regretted Tonio's

death as much as she did, for he had been its involuntary cause and could

not console himself for it.

A few hours after, Von Apsberg and Taddeo met at the bedside of the

Vicomte, who was yet sick. They told him all the incidents of the duel, and

they concurred in thinking the statements of the dying Lieutenant most

atrocious. They determined not to speak of it to the Count whose anger and

exasperation, they feared at such a statement. As Von Apsberg had said to

the Lieutenant's seconds, they determined at all hazards to reach the

General's cell, and thus explain the mystery. Three days passed in useless

efforts to induce the authorities to accede to their request. At last the

Procureur du roi relaxed in favor of Doctor Matheus who was introduced into

the cell of General A---- whom he found completely overcome by the death of

his son. To this grief, which was intense and terrific, was joined the most

violent anger against the Count, whom he called the murderer and assassin

of his son. "Yes," said the unfortunate father, "he is a villain, and

coward, and has denounced the father and killed the son. What have I done

to this man? why is he so enraged against me? why against mine?"

"General," said Von Apsberg, "I can understand how bitter a despair like

yours must be: it should not, though, make you unjust towards a man of

honor who was your associate and is ours." This was said in a low tone.

"Count Monte-Leone fought honorably against your son, and but for an

unforseen accident would have been killed by him. Resume, then, your

coolness. Time is precious, and I beg you to tell me why you have accused

Monte-Leone."

"Would to God I had kept that terrible secret to myself! would to God my

son had never heard that charge! He would not then have been forced to meet

him to avenge me; he would have been living now."

The sobs of the General increased. Von Apsberg suffered his grief to pass

away, and asked, "Is this note yours, General?"

"What note?" asked he, and looking through his tears at a piece of paper

which the Doctor gave him.

Von Apsberg whispered almost in his ear. "This note was given a few days

after your arrest."

The General read it, and said: "Yes, an old servant who accompanied me to

the prison, and who was afterwards taken away, was my messenger."

"And you say that you saw in the hands of the Prefect, as the basis of the

charge against you, the list of the members of your _vente_ signed by you

and given by you to Count Monte-Leone."

"I do."

"Well," said the Doctor, "repel this error, and do justice to the innocent

name you have aspersed, for the Count gave me that very list, and here it

is." The General took the document and looked minutely at the signature. He

then said, "This is not the list I gave Monte-Leone. My signature is

forged. Both the list and signatures have been imitated by a forger,

skilfully indeed, but the true list, the one which beyond doubt will take

me to the scaffold, this list, as I say and as my blood will prove, is in

the hands of the Prefect of police."

Von Apsberg grew pale and leaned against the wall. An icy paleness ran

through his veins and a cloud stood before his eyes. He shuddered at this

distinct statement. The fact was this list must have been taken from his

own papers and imitated in his own room which hitherto he had looked on as

inviolable, or the Count was a traitor, and the General right. The

unfortunate Lieutenant was not mistaken, he had proved all he said, and was

correct in all he did. "General," said Von Apsberg, "for the sake of the

honor of a man who is dear to me, for the sake of an association the

dominant idea of which you have sustained so nobly and for which you now

suffer, think well--make an appeal to your memory; let not chagrin lead you

astray, I beg you; by your thirty glorious years of service, I ask you if

that is not your signature?"

"On my conscience, and by the memory of my son, I vow that list is an

imitation, a copy of mine, and that the original was given to Angles on the

day of my arrest."

"It is a strange and incredible mystery," said Von Apsberg, who continued

to repel with horror the idea of treason in Monte Leone. Some enemy must

have taken this paper from the Count and copied it.

"Do not look so far for this traitor. I have pointed him out to you. The

man you call your friend has denounced and betrayed me by means of that

fatal document. I tell you, Doctor, he is a coward, and has betrayed the

father and son." The old soldier wept. They came to tell the Doctor that

the time allotted for his visit was past. He was about to leave when the

General seized him and said, "Do prompt justice to that man, _or the day of

Carbonarism is gone_." Von Apsberg could not restrain an expression of

terror when he heard these words and saw the look with which they were

accompanied. He clasped the General's hand and followed the turnkey who

accompanied him to the outer gate of the conciergerie....

Two days before this scene, MM. Ober and professor C., the two other chiefs

of the central _ventes_, who were yet at liberty, placed in the hands of

Count Monte-Leone their lists certified to as those of General A----,

F----, B----, and the Count de Ch----, had been. Monte-Leone at once took

those important papers to Matheus, who shut them up with the others in a

secret drawer of the old bureau, a print of the lock of which we saw Mlle.

Crepineau's lover take. Von Apsberg, when he returned home, found Taddeo

and the Vicompte waiting for him. The latter was much changed, being pale

and weak. He was so anxious, however, to learn the result of the Doctor's

visit to A---- that he went to his house. Von Apsberg was struck by the

agitation of his friends and the desperation of their countenances. Taddeo

said: "We are betrayed and lost, and Carbonarism in France is dead. Ober

and C---- were last night arrested and taken to prison." Von Apsberg sank

on his chair without speaking. He then arose and rushed out of the room.

"What is the matter with him?" said both Taddeo and the Vicomte. Von

Apsberg went to his laboratory, opened the door and then the secretary. He

took out a mass of papers, and descended again with rapidity. He said to

the Vicomte, "you know the signature of Ober, having corresponded with him

on business," and handed him the letter.

D'Harcourt took it, and went to the window, the curtains of which he threw

aside. He looked carefully at the signature; and then, after a minute

examination of every letter, said, "It is forged." He then took a letter

from his pocket and added, "I can prove it by this." He then laid the

letter which was written by Ober side by side with the roll and said, "This

is but a coarse imitation."

Von Apsberg beat his breast and exclaimed: "As you said, my friends,

_Cabonarism is dead in France_, and one of its sons, or rather its chief,

who should have defended it with his body and mind, with his blood and

life, has basely slain it."

"Do you mean Monte-Leone?" asked d'Harcourt and Taddeo.

"I mean Monte-Leone," and he told all that had passed between the General

and himself.

"No!" said Taddeo. "I do not and can not think so. I will not. I will not

think one I have esteemed honorable to a proverb, so debased. No! Count

Monte-Leone is neither a spy nor a traitor. No! he shall be slandered by

none; not even by you shall such a slander be uttered against a friend,

countryman, and brother."

"Why," added he, with great vehemence, "why do you not ask for another

version than that which condemns him? why may not these lists have been

taken and copied while in his possession? why may they not have been thus

treated, so that he gave you but counterfeits when he fancied he gave you

originals? Indeed," said the noble-hearted young man, "you forget too

easily the qualities of those you love, and are oblivious of years of

courage consecrated to the cause we sustain, and for which he has periled

his life. Truly your friendship turns now into hatred and contempt."

"Taddeo," said d'Harcourt, "We too, suffer--our hearts also repel what our

reason tells us is true. As you do we seek to satisfy ourselves that hate

not design had produced our ruin. We, like you, are unwilling to think our

friend a villain; and God grant we may not be mistaken."

Von Apsberg added that his faith in Monte-Leone had been revived by

Taddeo's energetic defence. Every thing must have a cause, a reason, a

motive. Why then should Monte-Leone betray us.

"Well, well, my friends," said Taddeo, clasping their hands, "if you do not

suspect you are not sure of what you say; you will soon be satisfied, and

in a short time will deplore your unworthy suspicion. But I who repelled it

will now fathom what it means. Our safety and a brother's honor depend on

our doing so."

"Gentlemen," said Von Apsberg, "we should be guilty if we concealed any

longer from Monte-Leone what we intended. Certainly a determined will is

required to enable one to inflict such a blow on him. He alone can enable

us to trace the traitors and criminals. He can give us light--otherwise we

are in darkness."

Taddeo said, "Ask me to brave death, to risk my liberty for our cause, and

I will not hesitate. Do not, though, ask me to say to a man whom I think

honorable, 'you are accused of having sold your brothers, of having basely

denounced their secrets--you are called a traitor and a spy--that I cannot

do.'"

D'Harcourt said, like Taddeo, "I feel myself incompetent to make this

revelation. My lips would quiver, and in spite of my efforts, my strength

would fail when I looked into his lofty brow and frank countenance. On that

brow fear and shame have never spread a blush."

"Then I will speak," said Von Apsberg, "I love the Count as well as you do,

and accused him just now with deep regret, my heart refuting the imputation

which my mouth uttered. I will see him, I will tell him of all, and will in

my devotion accomplish the most cruel task ever imposed on me."

Just then several blows were struck on the pannel of the book-case through

which we have seen S. Pignana enter, and also Signor Salvatori and M.

H----. "This is some important information from Pignana," said Von Apsberg,

and he touched the spring. The panel opened, but behind it was Monte-Leone

instead of Pignana. All experienced great emotion when they saw him. Von

Apsberg was the most agitated, for he was to speak, and had thus the most

painful task to perform.

"I am just now come," said Monte-Leone, "but I did not think I should enter

Frederick's house openly. Prudence is now more needed than ever. You have

heard," said he, "of the arrests of the chiefs of the two other central

_ventes?_"

"Yes," said Von Apsberg, "and we were seeking to discover who is our secret

enemy."

"This misfortune," said the Count, "is to be attributed rather to our

friends than our enemies. One piece of indiscretion may have produced all

this."

"Imprudence," said Matheus, "in a conspiracy, is a crime. It endangers all

who participate in it."

"My friends," said the Count, "our association is menaced from all

quarters. The journals of every day reveal to all Europe the misfortunes of

the secret societies of Germany and Italy--the sisters of Carbonarism in

France. The latter, attacked in the person of the chiefs of our central

_ventes_, mortally wounded by the discouragement of a great number of our

brothers, has now but one of two alternatives to take."

"Revolt?" said Von Apsberg.

"Violence?" said Taddeo.

"No, my friend, prudence and inaction."

All looked at him with surprise, and Von Apsberg felt again the strange

feeling which the facts we have recounted had produced.

The Count resumed. "What I say, it is evident, astonishes you. Burdened,

though, with a heavy responsibility by the _ventes_ of Europe, which await,

as a signal for action, only my word, I can give it to this immense secret

association, which is beneath the surface of society, only when force and

number are aided by opportunity. Opportunity now is wanting; for the uneasy

eye of government penetrates our ranks, and the iron hand of despotism

decimates us. Force and numbers now are paralysed by fear, and I am sorry

to say all our future hope is found in prudence and inactivity."

"This language is indeed strange in the month of Monte-Leone," said

d'Harcourt.

"Far different," said Taddeo, "from that you used yesterday."

"Calm and cold," said Von Apsberg, "when we take into consideration the

storm which howls around us--the shipwrecks which menace every day our

vessels."

"Because the heavens are in a blaze--because the tempests howls around us,

I would have you for the time seek a shelter."

"Once, though," said Apsberg, "you advised us to brave danger, to meet it

face to face, to parry it with arms in our hands, to conquer or to die."

"Gentlemen," said the Count with dignity, "am I called on to rehearse again

the offensive scene which took place at the abbey de San Paolo? Am I, as

one in the supreme _vente_ of Naples, the chief of which I was, an object

of distrust to my brethren? Have I again lost the confidence of my dearest

associates? If such be the case, if the pledges I have given to our cause

are now valueless, if forgetfulness and ingratitude go together, say so,

plainly and distinctly. I am willing to abandon the office, title, and

rank, you have conceded to me. I will write to all the _ventes_ of Europe

and will henceforth become the most humble but not the least devoted

brother of the association."

The suspicions of the three friends at once passed away when they heard

this energetic and loyal discourse. Von Apsberg gave his hand to the Count.

"Excuse us," said he, "misfortune embitters even the best men. The

misfortunes of our brethen, the mysterious enemy who denounces and seems

anxious to effect our ruin, overwhelm and distress us. Look," added he,

with the haste with which men often discharge a painful duty, "here are the

lists of the six chiefs of the central _ventes_. Are these the papers given

you by the imprisoned chiefs A----, Ch----, B----, C----, F----, and Ober?

Are these the papers you gave me?"

"They are."

"Are these their signatures?" said Von Apsberg.

"They are."

"You are mistaken," said d'Harcourt, "at least in relation to that of Ober,

for here is his true signature to this letter, written the day previous to

his arrest. You can yourself see how poor the imitation is."

The Count grew pale, and the other conspirators watched him as if to read

his thoughts.

"Do you think the other lists also forgeries?" said the Count.

"We do."

"Then," said the Count, "all is lost."

"All _is_ lost," said Von Apsberg, "and we wish to ascertain from you who

had charge of these papers; how is it that they have been copied, and how

came the originals in the hands of the police?"

"If such be the case," said Taddeo, who suffered visibly from this species

of examination.

"But," said Monte-Leone, who became more and more excited, "you ask me a

question I cannot answer--which God alone can explain. All this is a

mystery beyond my powers."

"Well," said Von Apsberg, growing every moment more nervous, for he saw the

approach of the necessity of this terrible explanation; "well, in the

absence of proof, our brethren indulge in conjectures." As he spoke, the

words seemed riveted to his lips, and to break from them with difficulty.

"What are those conjectures?" said Monte-Leone, resuming his _sang-froid;_

for the idea that there was a suspicion in relation to his honor, was not

within the compass of his thought. He began to seek a remedy almost before

he knew what was the evil which menaced him.

"THEY SAY," said Von Apsberg, with hesitation, "that some traitor has

insinuated himself among us and betrayed us to the secret police--that he

has sold us to our enemies, and that the arrests of our brothers are the

fruits of his treason."

"Who is that man?" said Monte-Leone.

"Who is he?" said Von Apsberg, and his very heart grew cold.

"Yes! who? who is he?" said Monte-Leone.

Von Apsberg was about to speak; the bolt was about to fall. His two friends

ceased almost to breathe, when the door of the room was rung violently.

"Who can it be at this hour?" said d'Harcourt.

"I cannot tell," said the Doctor, "I expect no one."

The bell was rung again.

"Some patient, perhaps," said Monte-Leone. "Go at once. A doctor should

always be prompt to attend such calls."

"But," said d'Harcourt, "what if it be an officer?"

"Then there is an additional reason for answering the bell," said

Monte-Leone.

Von Apsberg left the room, closing the door after him and hurrying into the

anteroom, saw before him Mlle. Celestine Crepineau. The three friends

listened at the door Von Apsberg had closed, to ascertain who called.

"Excuse me, Doctor," said Mlle. Crepineau, "but the matter was so urgent."

"What?"

"This note, which a very pleasant person, fair as you are, but not so

handsome, asked me to deliver at once."

"Very well," said the Doctor, who took the note and shut the door in

Mlle.'s face.

"Now that is not polite," said she. "After all, though, he may have been

engaged in some operation when I rang, and he may have been very much

annoyed by the interruption."

Von Apsberg read the letter which had been given him hurriedly and uttered

an exclamation of joy. When he rejoined his friends, he said, "God has come

to our assistance."

"What is the matter?" asked all of them.

"Nothing that concerns us," said the Doctor, seeking to disguise his

trouble; "I have an appointment which is strictly private."

"Tell me, then," said Monte-Leone, "who is accused of having betrayed us."

"I do not know," said Von Apsberg, at once changing his tone. "No one can

say who he is."

D'Harcourt and Taddeo looked at him with surprise. The Count said, "I

thought our secret enemy, or the person pointed out as such, was known to

you."

"He is not," said the Doctor, looking significantly at his friends. "None

know who he is."

"Then," said Monte-Leone, "we must seek him out and reach him wherever he

is."

"If we discover him," said Von Apsberg, "what shall be his fate."

"Our statutes provide for that case," said Monte-Leone; "he shall share his

victim's fate. If our brethren die, so shall he."

"He shall die," said the _Carbonari_.

"Listen," said Monte-Leone, "the signature of Ober is false, but perhaps it

is the only one which has been counterfeited. We must ascertain whether the

others are. This point must be cleared up, and I will see to it. Gold and

influence will open the dungeons of our friends, and I will see them.

Besides, the papers were not out of my possession. Ah!" said he, as if he

were utterly discouraged, "this is enough to make a man mad. To-morrow I

shall have penetrated it, and then you will see me." He went out through

the secret pannel.

When it had closed, Apsberg arose and repeating his last words, said, "Yes,

my friends, to-morrow you shall know all." Taking from his bosom the letter

Mlle. Crepineau had given him, he read as follows:

"TO DOCTOR MATHEUS--If you would ascertain who has denounced your brethren,

the miserable spy whose reports have ruined them and given to your enemies

the original rolls, be to-night at 11 o'clock, p. m., at the back door of

the Prefecture of Police, opening on the _quai des Orfevres_. You will

there find the person you need. This is the hour of his _rendezvous_. Stand

in the angle of the door, and without being seen, you may recognize the

informer.

"A BROTHER _of the third_ CENTRAL VENTE."

V.--A TERRIBLE NIGHT.

The night of January 5th, 1820, was one of the coldest of the winter. The

snow fell heavily, and the Seine was covered with large crystallized flakes

which, uniting together and lodging on each bank, narrowed the current and

caused it to flow more rapidly.

The steps of the patrols, or of the benighted travellers, were unheard. The

light of the lamps shone redly but indistinctly amid the snowy cloak which

hung around them. They seemed like eyes of fire in the long solitary

streets. All was sad and gloomy in this paradise of pleasure and festival.

One might have fancied a vast white shroud to be extended over a city

without souls.

A man walked rapidly down the port St. Nicholas, before that part of the

old Louvre which had once witnessed such joy, love, crime, and splendor.

His steps seemed, from their length, to testify great impatience and an

anxiety to reach his destination.

"What can they be about?" said he. "All is lost if they do not come. The

anonymous note is formal and the terms are precise, "_Eleven o'clock and

the quai des Orfevres_." This secret enemy, whose name and features we are

about to know, had only to hasten to the Prefecture of Police to deprive us

of the only means of unmasking a scoundrel. Yet heaven protects us, for

just as I was about to reveal to Monte-Leone the villainy imputed to him,

this note closed my lips and veiled the indignation my words could not but

have created in his noble soul."

The man stopped. The silence of the _quai_ was broken, and he heard the

sound of persons approaching him. Soon two shadows were seen by the light

of the lamps which hung from the walls of the Louvre, and a voice was

heard. "It is he: it is Matheus. He waits for us in the _chiaro oscuro_ of

the door." This was followed by a short dry cough, produced by the intense

cold of the evening. The speaker was the Vicomte d'Harcourt, scarcely

recovered from his illness. A few seconds passed and d'Harcourt and Taddeo

stood by the side of Von Apsberg. The three friends had determined not to

consult Monte-Leone, nor to inform him of what had taken place until they

knew who had denounced them and who was to be punished.

"I came hither," said Von Apsberg, "alone, because three men together are

greater subjects of remark than two; for the same reason two are more

subject to comment than one; therefore, let us separate, and walking down

the quai meet at the place appointed."

The clock of the Hotel de Ville struck eleven, when the three friends met

in rear of the Prefecture of Police. They followed strictly the directions

of the anonymous letter. They discovered the back door and stood in its

shadow, being concealed by an angle in the wall. They waited there.

Carriage after carriage passed, and their hearts beat violently as each

approached. The carriages crossed the _quai_ but did not stop. At about a

quarter after eleven came a carriage driven rapidly, but which relaxed its

speed as it reached the _quai de Orfevres_; it then paused a few feet only

from the angle of the wall where the Carbonari were concealed. The steps

were let down and the person in the carriage descended and walked rapidly

to the back door of the Prefecture. In spite, though, of his haste, the

Carbonari could not but remark the stature, tournure, cloak, and bearing of

the stranger. The door was opened. The three friends followed and were able

to hear him say, "Count Monte-Leone."

"He--he--" said they.

"The scoundrel!" said Von Apsberg.

"The villain!" said D'Harcourt.

Taddeo hurried to the carriage which was on the point of leaving.

"All doubt is gone," said Taddeo. "The carriage is his."

"They are _his_ horses," said d'Harcourt.

"It is his driver," said Von Apsberg. Then speaking to the man who, while

surrounded by the three men, began to tremble, "Who is the person who came

in the carriage?" said he.

"My master," said the automaton, more dead than alive. "The Count

Monte-Leone."

"Whence did your master come hither?"

"How?" said the driver, who did not understand the question.

"I wish to know, did you drive him from his hotel, or some other place?"

"My master was to-night at the Neapolitan embassy. I waited for him in the

courtyard which was black as a fair on days when there is no reception.

After having remained an hour there he got into the carriage and bade me

drive to the _quai des Orfevres, near the Prefecture of Police_. Here I am,

Monsieur, and so are you. Good night, then."

Whipping up his horses at the risk of driving over two of the young men who

stood at their heads, he went away at a gallop.

Von Apsberg, d'Harcourt, and Rovero, were all as white as the snow, which

had again begun to fall with violence, and looked at each other with that

sympathy of a thousand sentiments which might have been expected in persons

so terribly situated as they were. Terror, shame, and despair were all

united in their glance. Then by one of those sudden and sublime emotions,

they clasped each other's hands as if to say, that, henceforth they could

rely on no others. Von Apsberg and the Vicomte, were about to speak, when

Taddeo made them wait, and said, "No complaints, no insults. _If it be he_,

contempt and death." As he spoke the last word his voice quivered.

"'_If it be he?_' what doubt can there be?" said Von Apsberg. "Have not our

eyes seen? Have not our ears heard? Are we not satisfied?"

"Did you not hear the name?"

"May he not have used the name surreptitiously?"

"Was it not his form, dress, and air?"

"Did you see his face?" asked Taddeo, who was himself struck with the

poverty of his reasons, and contended against his convictions.

"But, are not the driver and carriage his?"

"The driver may have been bribed," said Taddeo, who, like many others,

became enthusiastic in favor of a bad cause. "I need something more, I must

be certain, and will be. In two hours I will see you at Matheus's." He

entered a hackney-coach and drove away; bidding the coachman go to the

Neapolitan embassy.

"I know his plan," said Von Apsberg, "for if Monte-Leone was not at the

embassy, the driver was mistaken, and it was not Monte-Leone we saw."

"What now shall we do?" asked the Vicomte, whose cough became more violent,

and more frequent.

"Go home," said Von Apsberg, "for both your body and mind suffer. You

remember I am accountable to your father, and to--your sister, for your

health."

"But what will you do?" said the Vicomte.

"I will wait."

"Where--here? at this door?"

"Yes; at this door, deserted as it is. I will wait here, for the phantom or

the reality. I will wait and tear off the hat which covers his brow, and

read with my own eyes the shame there, and thus throw from my soul the

last remnant of faith in the honor of my friend."

"But if he resist?"

"So much the better: I will then kill him."

"And if he kill you?"

"His work will be complete; for, like Judas, he will have slain one he said

he loved."

"I will stay," said d'Harcourt; and, despite of the entreaties of his

friend and the orders of his physician, he wrapped himself more closely in

his cloak, leaned against the wall, and waited. Von Apsberg followed his

example....

Taddeo went to the embassy. Few persons had been there during the evening,

but the rooms were brilliant with light, and contrasted with the darkness

of the vast courtyard of which Monte-Leone's driver had spoken. It was

almost midnight, but like most Italians the Duchess lived as much by night

as day. The hour, too, at which Taddeo came was not unusually late, for at

this hour he was in the habit of visiting the Duchess. Therefore, she was

not surprised to see him. She lay negligently on an ottoman in that boudoir

where we have already seen her receive Count Monte-Leone. There too she had

probably received company during the evening, for the chairs were in a kind

of ring around the ottoman. She said:

"Ah, Signor Rovero, you are welcome. I have been kept long waiting this

evening for you and for one of your best friends, who expected to find you

here."

"Who, Signora, is that friend?" asked Taddeo, with deep curiosity.

"Can you not guess?" said the Duchess. "Whom should we call Pylades' friend

but Orestes?"

"Is it the Count you mean?"

"Yes."

"Has he been here?"

"Certainly," said La Felina.

"Certainly," repeated Taddeo, "you kept him a long time with you."

"Taddeo," said La Felina, "you are indulging in that villanous habit of

jealousy. Ah!" said she, "I am learned in that." She did not give him time

to reply. "It is a pity you yet love a poor woman that chagrin and

suffering overwhelm, and whose heart is now as withered as her face."

"To me you are what you always were, and what you will ever be," said

Taddeo. "Deign, though, to tell me, I beg you, when did the Count go?"

"The Count, again. Did you come hither to speak of him alone?"

"Not so; but an imperious reason forces me to know when he left the hotel."

"About an hour ago," said the Duchess, looking at Taddeo.

Taddeo grew pale and his fingers grasped the back of the ottoman

convulsively. His head fell on his bosom, and his eyes became motionless

and fixed upon the carpet. He was convinced, and in despair. From this

dreary state he was aroused by the pressure of a soft hand.

"Taddeo," said a voice musical as the song of the angels, "you suffer."

"Yes," said the young man.

"I see you do. Can friendship do nothing to soothe you?"

"Nothing!"

"Thus it is with men," said La Felina; "they think of us in their pleasure

and happiness, but never in their sorrow."

Taddeo looked towards the Duchess, whose features expressed so much

sympathy and devotion that he felt his heart give way, and he was about to

give vent to his secret--an innate and noble sentiment of generosity

restrained him. It seemed to him that La Felina might fancy he took a base

revenge, should he dishonor one she had loved so passionately, and,

perhaps, was yet devoted to.

"Signor Rovero," said the ambassadress, after a long silence, "since you

think me unworthy to share your secret, let us have done with it. Skilful

physicians lull pains they cannot soothe. Let me then do as they do, and

divert your mind from such bitter thoughts to present it a more pleasant

prospect--that of your sister's happiness."

"What say you?" asked Taddeo, as if he were aroused from a dream.

"You understand me certainly--the approaching marriage of your sister with

Count Monte-Leone is everywhere understood to be a fact."

"Never!" said Taddeo, losing his _sang-froid_.

A smile of triumph, which Taddeo did not observe, flitted across La

Felina's face. She said, "What say you?--do you oppose the union?"

"It is no longer possible, signora," said Taddeo, giving way to his

emotion--"it cannot be. Vice and virtue--the serpent and the dove--heaven

and hell--may be mingled, but not Aminta and Monte-Leone. He is unworthy of

her."

"Unworthy?" said La Felina--"your heroic friend unworthy of her?"

"My friend! I deny him. He was my friend, as Judas was Christ's. For he has

sold his, as the recreant sold our Saviour."

"Taddeo! is it you who speak thus?"

"It is. I, whose soul has been crushed by his cruel deception--I, whose

holy faith in his truth has perished--I, who must detest him whom I loved

and honored!" Unable any longer to conceal the odious secret within his

breast, he opened his bleeding heart to La Felina.

When the Duchess had heard him, she said, "No, it is

impossible!--Monte-Leone is not a traitor, a coward, the basest of men."

"Ah! you say so; so did I. I repelled the charge with horror; yet I was

forced to yield to reason and evidence."

"It is evident either that you saw or did not see _him_."

"But the departure from your hotel," said Taddeo, "coincides so fatally

with his arrival at the prefecture of police--the very answer of the driver

proves all."

"All this is presumptive, yet terrible; but if you yield--if your faith in

his honor is not great enough to triumph over it, do you believe that a

true passion, that a deep love, such as he inspires, will also do so?"

"Ah, signora!" said Taddeo, with pain, "you have been generous long enough;

you have had pity or time long enough to allow me at least to remain in

doubt about your sentiments. It is cruel to choose such a time as this to

own them."

"How know you what I feel?" said La Felina to Taddeo, who was about to go.

"Think you the profound passion of which you speak can resist indifference

and forgetfulness?--I spoke only of your sister."

"Is it true?" said the young man, forgetting all in his joy at this

confession--"of my sister?"

"Yes; and her heart will not suffer her to be convinced as easily as you

have been of the baseness of a man whose name and hand she was about to

receive. To break the bonds which unite them, to change her love into

contempt, the Marquise de Manlear will require evidence beyond dispute of a

crime of which, as yet, you have only suspicions, and which my respect for

Monte-Leone forces me to repudiate."

As she spoke, the Duchess, who sat on the ottoman yet, reached forth her

arm to pick up a paper which lay on the carpet. Taddeo, following her

motions, picked up the paper and handed it to her.

"What is that?" said she; "some letter I have dropped or which one of my

visitors has lost."

"Count Monte-Leone sat there," and she pointed to a particular chair. She

opened it mechanically, but scarcely had she done so than she uttered a cry

of grief. Taddeo hurried to La Felina with a bottle of salts. She had let

the paper fall, and it met his glance as it lay open. He saw a seal. Moved

by a feeling of curiosity, which he could not repress, and hoping to

discover the cause of La Felina's emotion, made confident also by the

authentic character of the paper, Taddeo took and read it carefully.

Scarcely had he done so than his strength gave way and he became pale as

death. Sinking back in a chair he was crushed, as it were, by terror. The

Duchess had recovered, and their countenances exhibited to each other the

terrible feelings which filled their minds.

"Did you read?" said La Felina.

"I did," said Rovero. "Here it is."

"I recognize as an _attache_ of the Police Count Monte-Leone, who acts by

my authority."

"This is awful," said she.

"Do you yet doubt?" said Taddeo, quivering with grief.

"What will you do with that paper?" said La Felina, also trembling.

"What people do with a decree which holds a man to public infamy--fasten it

to the scaffold, that all may know who is the wretch society expels from

its bosom. I will nail it to his brow."

"No, no! you will not do so; you will not be hard-hearted and cruel enough

to act thus."

"I will do my duty," said Taddeo, sternly.

"And I," said Signora de la Palma, taking possession of the paper, "will

not suffer you to do so." Then, quicker than thought, she crushed the paper

in her hands, and threw it in the fire.

"What have you done?" said Taddeo. "You have destroyed the irrefragable

proof of his guilt."

"You read it, that is enough _for you_--it is too much for _him_." Then

rushing from the room where she was alone, she said aloud--"It is enough,

too, for me, for now _she will never marry him_."

VI.--THE ACCUSATION.

What had occurred was a sufficient reason for the Duchess not to return to

the room. Taddeo hurried to Von Apsberg's. D'Harcourt and the Doctor did

not come until two o'clock. The door they watched did not open, and he they

were so anxiously waiting for prudently left by some other egress.

"Well," said the Doctor to Taddeo, "was he at the Duchess's?--did he go out

as his driver said?"

"May we yet doubt?" said D'Harcourt.

Taddeo was silent, and seemed not even to have heard them. With his head on

his hands, he sat before a table in the centre of the room. His eyes were

red with tears and watching, and he had written a few lines rapidly; at

last he said:

"Read that, which is my answer."

They did so, and a painful sigh escaped their breasts.

He continued--"I, who defended, accuse him; I do so because I saw the proof

of his infamy. I know not its object and motive, which confounds my reason;

I cannot, however, doubt it, for I have read the letter, and devote this

man to the hatred and vengeance of the brethren he has betrayed." He then

told all that had passed.

Von Apsberg took the pen and wrote his name below Taddeo's. D'Harcourt did

the same. This act, simple as it was, had a lugubrious and solemn

character, for which it was indebted to the physiognomy and emotion of the

three men whose hearts beat under the same emotion, and who shed tears

together. At last it seemed that they had evidence which lighted up their

future path of vengeance.

"My friends," said the Doctor, "Carbonarism in France is dead. The arrests

of the chiefs of the central ventes tell you plainly enough what fate is

reserved for us. We are free men only because our liberty contributed to

the plans of our enemies. We cannot dissemble that we are sold and betrayed

by a spy. Our retreats and plans also are revealed, and the dungeon, exile,

or death, is the fate of our brethren and ourselves. I propose to you,

therefore, no isolated vengeance, but one for all affiliated with us. By

the terms of our association, a sentence has been passed on the traitor,

and been signed." He pointed to the paper to which they had affixed their

names. "Who will execute it? The supreme annual _vente_ will assemble in a

few days at the Masonic lodge of the _Friends of Truth_. The supreme vente

will decide."

"No, gentlemen," said the Vicomte D'Harcourt, "my mind and education object

to nocturnal vengeance. I prefer daylight and the sword to obscurity and

the dagger. His sword is not worthy to be crossed with mine, but better

thus than murder."

"So be it. But not your sword, but those of all of us will be directed to

his heart. To-morrow, like three shadowy avengers, we will tell him of his

crime and punish it."

"To-morrow be it," said D'Harcourt and Taddeo. Then, clasping each other's

hand with a mingled feeling of anger, sorrow, and despair, they separated.

On the morning of the night after these scenes, Monte-Leone, immersed in

reflection, sat in his hotel. It might be about ten o'clock. The snow,

which had been falling since the evening before, intercepted the faint

light of day, and added to the sadness of the vast room. By means of his

anxious research and skilful investigations, Monte-Leone, since the

previous evening, had ascertained beyond doubt that the true lists of

members of the central _ventes_ were in the hands of the police.

Thenceforth all seemed an impenetrable mystery to the Count, which his

intelligence and the fertile resources of his mind could not fathom. "How

had originals been replaced by copies?--how had the police obtained the

originals?" This impenetrable enigma appeared to the Count as a new

evidence of his evil genius, which had been for a long time apparently

growing darker and darker before him, and seemed to hurry him to ruin and

destruction. The defection of the world had become more and more

sensible--the coldness every day became more marked and decided. The

incredible and brutal challenge of Lieutenant A----, the causeless duel,

and the death he had been forced to inflict on one who, for his father's

sake, he almost loved, appeared before him. The embarrassment which he saw

with sorrow supervene in the intercourse of his friends with him, caused a

vague torment in his usually energetic and decided mind. The tenderness of

Aminta, the esteem and affection of the Prince, opposed these impressions,

but could not dispel them entirely. The Count was thus disturbed by this

overwhelming trouble and fatigue, produced by painful and distressing

reflection, when Giacomo appeared before him. He entered with such calmness

and silence, that the Count did not perceive his intendent until he stood

at his side, and said:

"A person is waiting to speak to your excellency in the cabinet."

"I am at home for no one."

"That is bad," said Giacomo, "for I have said you were in, and even bade

the person wait in the next room. Really I think it was time to do so, for

the poor woman trembled so she could scarcely stand."

"Who is she?" asked the Count.

"That I cannot give your excellency; in the first place, because she did

not tell me her name, and, in the second place, because she wears a veil,

which her little hand holds fast. This, too, is always the case: ladies

never come at this hour to see a bachelor without a veil--this is the

uniform of the sex."

"Who can it be?" thought he. The idea occurred to him that it might be the

Duchess. The recollection of La Felina's disinterested kindness pleaded in

her favor. Monte-Leone bade Giacomo show her in. The intendent left and

soon returned, preceded by a veiled lady of an elegant and distinguished

air. Scarcely had the old man retired, when the visitor lifted up her veil,

and exhibited the features of Aminta. He was rejoiced indeed, and said:

"You here--at my house!" and Monte-Leone fell at her feet. "I never would

have dared to ask you to grant me such a favor. I never would have hoped,

you would concede such."

"Count," said Aminta, trembling as much, as possible, "I took this step for

a reason which is imperious to me. Are we alone?" said she, looking timidly

around her.

"We are alone," said the Count. "Speak to me, and tell me to what I am

indebted for your presence here?"

"To my sorrow and despair," said the Marquise.

"What then is the matter?" asked the Count with terror.

"I do not know, but some danger menaces us.... The Prince, my second

father, who, as you know, always treated me as a daughter--who hitherto

always has received you with such kindness, and has acted so that our

proposed marriage is no longer a secret, came yesterday to see me. His

countenance expressed the greatest trouble, and his eyes sparkled with

rage. He said, 'My daughter, I am about to grieve you greatly, and you must

arm yourself with all your courage and resolution. Your marriage with Count

Monte-Leone is now impossible, and I beg you, in the name of my love of

you, to abandon him for ever.'"

"What do I hear?" said Monte-Leone, almost beside himself. "What does this

mean?--why this change?--whence did he obtain a right thus to ruin and

crush me?"

"He did not pause there, that is but half of my sacrifice. He said, 'You

must not again receive Count Monte-Leone's visits. The doors of this house

henceforth are closed to him.'"

Monte-Leone said with vehemence, "Is it not enough to separate us?--would

he add insult to cruelty? What is my crime? Of what am I accused? Why was I

worthy of you yesterday, and am so base to-day?"

"My prayers and tears," said the Marquise, "could not induce the Prince to

reveal this strange secret to me. He said, 'The Count has no longer a right

to your hand, for he has deceived us. If he insists again on speaking of

his passion, say to him, that I know all, and have heard it from one who

cannot lie, and whom it is the duty of every Frenchman to have faith in

next to God--from the King!'"

The Count stood silent and amazed. It seemed to him that an invisible net

surrounded him, and that the iron threads perpetually closed around him.

All grew darker and deeper; the mysteries amid which he walked seemed more

intense, and his reason began to give way beneath the heavy hand which

weighed on his brow. Aminta looked at him with deep distress. The silence

of the Count appeared to acknowledge the Prince's words. He seemed

stupified by an accusation, of the justice of which he was aware. Aminta

trembled at the idea that she had loved a criminal. He, however, at last

looked up, and his eyes bore only the expression of deep sadness. He said,

"Aminta, by all that is most holy, by our own life, I swear that I know not

the meaning of this. From the language, though, that the Prince has used,

and from the King's name being, I know not why, involved in my affairs, it

is clear that my honor has been doubted by the Prince. This I have hitherto

allowed no one to do. However, one has been found bold enough to do this."

"The Prince is almost my father," said Aminta, timidly.

"He is my mortal foe, for he seeks to separate us."

"Listen," continued he, in a more gentle tone, and he sat beside her; "my

love is so great, I dread so to bring any cloud across your brow, that

hitherto I have concealed my sufferings."

"You have been unhappy and I ignorant of it!"

"I am in that terrible condition in which a man feels that his reason is

about to escape from him. I hear my voice--I see my face, and seek to

discover in their expression if there be any symptom of folly or not--I am

not myself--I am not what I was--I am like the leper in the Bible, for all

flee from me--I am repelled everywhere, as if death and disease followed in

my train. French society, across which I strode like a king once, now seeks

to make me atone for my fleeting triumph. To public esteem and universal

consideration have succeeded distrust and coldness. I see hatred and fear

in eyes that once shone with admiration and respect; and, when I look into

my life, when I examine my most secret acts, I find no cause for this

repulsion, and can not but ask myself if my fancy be not diseased, and

calls not up the chimeras which distress me."

"No, no," said Aminta, with that womanly pride which always actuated her in

relation to him she loved, "your reason and mind are yet the same. Some

dark and odious calumny may perhaps have been circulated to your

disadvantage."

"Who will tell me what it is?" said the Count; "who will exhibit it to my

eyes? who will show me the phantom which robs me of name and fame, and

secretly immolates my honor?"

Just then the bell of the hotel rang. The Count hurried to the door to

exclude any one. He was, however, too late; for rapid steps were heard in

the anteroom.

"Who is it?" said he to Giacomo.

"The three persons to whom these doors are never closed, M. Von Apsberg,

d'Harcourt, and Rovero."

The Marquise uttered a cry of terror.

"They will come hither," said he, "in spite of both Giacomo and myself, and

this room has no other egress."

The voices of the Carbonari fell on the ears of the Marquise.

"Go in there," said Monte-Leone to the Marquise; and he opened an elegant

closet. "In a few moments I will dismiss them."

The young woman did so--and scarcely had the door been closed than the

three young men entered the room. Their brows were stern and severe, and

bore the impress of their feelings.

"What is the matter now?" asked Monte-Leone.

Not a sound was heard, but six eyes glared at him with disdain and

arrogance. Von Apsberg took a paper from his breast, and without speaking,

gave it to Monte-Leone.

"What means this?" said he. He read----

"STATUTES OF FRENCH CABONARISM.

"_Article 1._--Whosoever shall denounce or betray his brethren, confesses

that he deserves death, and sentences himself for the crime at the time of

its commission."

"Well," said the Count, looking at his friends, "I know all that. I signed

that article as well as you."

"Go on," said Taddeo. The Count continued:

"We, chiefs of the central ventes, supreme judges of the members of the

association, we to whom our brethren have confided the sacred right of life

and death, declare, swear, and affirm, that a base traitor and informer is

among us. Each of us therefore demands on this man the punishment which he

has made himself liable to, which is death."

"His name? his name?" asked Monte-Leone.

"His name," said Von Apsberg, "we hesitated to tell you the other day, but

do so no longer. His name is Count Monte-Leone!"

Monte-Leone stood mute at this reply, and cast glances of surprise and

terror on his companions. His blood ran as if it would burst the arteries.

His eyes became fiery, and the nails of his fingers drew blood from his

palms. He was silent. One might have fancied him the animating spirit of a

cloud charged with thunder. After the reading of the sentence, the silence

was broken by Von Apsberg, who said:

"He who was our chief, who was our dearest friend"--his voice trembled at

this sentence--"should not die like a common Carbonaro. We have therefore

forgotten our aversion to his crime, and offer to risk our lives against

his in strife."

The Count let the Doctor conclude, and then said, "I was right! I saw what

I fancied I did. This is no dream--no hallucination. A man has dared to

couple my name and the reproach of a denunciator together."

"There are three who dare, and their names are Rovero, D'Harcourt, and Von

Apsberg."

"Gentlemen," said he, "sometimes one is forced to condescend to be

affronted when dealing with people too low to reach their mark. I, however,

cannot condescend to stoop to the gutters where such epithets are gathered

up as you throw on me."

"These epithets," said D'Harcourt, "are not addressed merely by three men

to Count Monte-Leone. All Paris does so."

"Public rumor," interrupted Von Apsberg, "accuses you of having betrayed

A----, Ober, B----, and our other friends."

"Public rumor!" exclaimed the Count, whose eyes seemed ready to spring from

his head.

"Public rumor says that Count Monte-Leone, ruined and desperate, obtains

the money he now spends, most disgracefully. He has sold his brethren to

enable him to continue his luxury."

The Count uttered an exclamation of horror.

"Count Monte-Leone, proscribed two months ago in France, owes the right of

remaining in the realm to the fact that he is in communication with the

French police, whose agent he is."

"Are you done?" said Monte-Leone, sarcastically.

"Count Monte-Leone has sold the secrets of his brethren in every land, and

filled the prisons of France, Spain, and Italy, with his victims."

"Then," said Monte-Leone, with a far different accent from what might have

been expected from an injured man or discovered criminal, for his tone was

almost joyous, "this is the explanation of the obscurity amid which I have

wandered. No, it is impossible! Paris may speak thus, but you do not! You

do not think me such a being?"

"On our honor we do," said the three.

The ball which reaches the soldier's heart, the bolt which falls on the

traveller, have not a more sudden effect than these words on Monte-Leone.

"They, too!" said he, "they, too!"

"Yes," said Von Apsberg, "we accuse you more distinctly even than the rest

of the world. We have horrible proof."

"What is it?"

"General A---- swore on the soul of his son that you betrayed him; and that

he saw the list he gave you in the hands of the Prefect of Police." "This

one you gave me," said the Doctor, handing the document to him. "Here are

the lists of the five other ventes, all of which are false and counterfeit.

You alone had these lists, and could give them up."

"Horrible!" said Monte-Leone.

"A man," said D'Harcourt, "went yesterday, at eleven o'clock at night, into

the Prefecture of Police. This man got out of a carriage which was your

own. The man gave your name to the keeper of the gate. He did not however

know that two of his brethren overheard him. Those who overheard him are

now before you. Will you deny it?

"The carriage and name mine?" said Monte-Leone, beside himself.

"Finally," said Taddeo, "I saw the disgraceful brevet you received from the

police. I saw the name of Monte-Leone linked with the infamous word 'SPY.'"

Taddeo had no sooner finished reading this letter than Monte-Leone hurried

towards a press, and took out pistols, one of which he threw at Taddeo's

feet.

"Take it," said he, "kill me before I shoot you; for I will not survive

this insult one moment, or live with him who has pronounced it."

At that moment, a cry was heard in the next room. The door was thrown open,

and the Marquise of Maulear fell between her brother and Count Monte-Leone.

VII.--DESCENT OF THE POLICE.

When the Marquise de Maulear regained consciousness her attention was

directed to a woman who knelt before the sofa. This person was the

confidential female servant of the Count Monte-Leone, who rendered to the

Marquise cares he could not extend himself. Having retired into the next

room he anxiously waited for an opportunity to see her again. Doctor Von

Apsberg having become satisfied that the young woman had merely fainted,

and that there was nothing serious in her condition, joined D'Harcourt in

his efforts to hurry Taddeo from the hotel; and Monte-Leone's ideas having

been suddenly changed by the apparition of the lady, which had effaced all

his sufferings, scarcely perceived their sudden departure. The Marquise,

when she recovered, remembered this terrible scene.

"My brother!--Taddeo!--Monte-Leone! where are they? For God's sake hide

nothing from me--take me to them--let me terminate that terrible combat,

the very idea of which makes me mad."

"Here is the Count, madame," said the woman, pointing to Monte-Leone, who

drew near.

"One word--tell me where my brother is."

Count Monte-Leone bade the servant leave him; and when he was alone with

her, he said bitterly, "Your brother is gone, madame, with his friends,

after having overwhelmed me with insults."

"By your love to me," said Aminta, "falling on her knees, I ask his life."

"But you did not hear this terrible scene," said he.

"I did. Every word fell on my heart as if it would crush it. They were,

though, the results of error and anger. The honor of Monte-Leone is above

such imputations."

"Aminta," said the Count, "they are only the echoes of the world. My fury

cannot reach the thousand mouths which dishonor me. I can speak only

through their interpreters. Blood alone can wash out the insults they have

subjected me to--ask me, then, for my own life, but not for the life of

those who have thus insulted me."

"One of them is my brother,--is your friend."

"My dearest friend," said the Count, "one who knows my very inmost life,

and has had a thousand opportunities to judge me. He was bold enough to

repeat that odious calumny to me. Ah!" continued he, with sombre vehemence,

"that this corrupt world, which knows me not, should have been able thus to

heap suspicion on me! The world has judged me by itself; but Taddeo is the

very reflection of my own soul. The name of friend seemed too little for

him. I loved him as I would have loved my mother's son. He was the object

of my second love on earth. Aminta, Taddeo has leagued himself with my

enemies, and came hither to affront me mortally. This is too much for my

heart and physical endurance." Count Monte-Leone, who in danger was so

firm, wept at the idea that his friends had so misconceived him.

"My friend," said the Marquise, sobbing, and pressing the face of

Monte-Leone to her bosom, "Taddeo would shed tears of despair and regret

could he only see how you grieve. Certainly he is wrong to doubt your

honor, but he will repair his wrongs, and expiate all by repentance. He

will defend you, will convince and confound your enemies and will again be

your friend."

"He has suspected me," said Monte-Leone, sadly, "and cannot be my friend

again, even if he confessed his injustice on his knees before me. He is

your brother, though, Aminta, and that imposes a sacrifice on me which my

love for you alone can inspire. I will either not avenge the insult, or

demand satisfaction for it from another. God grant that other may kill me,

for then Taddeo will live without being called on to expiate this outrage."

"Ah!" said Aminta, "that misfortune was absent, but now he wishes to die."

"Yes, Aminta," said the Count, "I wish to die rather than drag out a

disgraceful life, without the power of effacing from my brow the stigma

placed there, rather than read suspicion in every eye, rather than see

myself despised. All parts--all Europe--all the world, perhaps, will repeat

this awful charge."

"I do not believe it," said the young woman; "I am sure there is no heart

on earth more worthy than yours, and that you may challenge the esteem of

all. What I know, though, all others must.----In eight days, Count

Monte-Leone, you must marry me. I _will_ be Countess Monte-Leone."

"What!" said the Count, to whom that idea gave a glimpse of heaven amid the

hell around him, "you Countess Monte-Leone!"

"Who then will dare to say that I married a disgraced man?"

"Aminta," said the Count, falling at the feet of the noble-hearted woman,

"God knows my gratitude is equal to your love, but I cannot marry you. You

know that I love you, that I would give my life for your hand, but my

father's name I cannot confer on you, dishonored as it now is. Hear then my

oath," said the Count. Aminta trembled, but he said, "I swear by the sacred

soul of my father, not to accept your hand until my enemies are confounded,

until the infernal imposture of which I am the victim be recognized as the

basest and foulest of calumnies."

"So be it," said Aminta. "We will not wait long for that day, and my

prayers will appeal to heaven for it. Let Taddeo's life, though, be sacred

to you. I confide him to your love of me...." "No,--no," said she, seeing

he was about to reply, and perhaps resist her; "do not speak, but remember

that Taddeo is my brother, and that his death will separate us for ever."

A few moments after this scene, a carriage, which was standing at the end

of the _quai_, bore the Marquise rapidly to her hotel. We need not say that

she was completely overcome by the incidents of the day....

At about ten o'clock the next day, the Duke d'Harcourt, was at the

breakfast table with all his family. The eyes of the old man were suddenly

struck with the following passage in the _Journal des Debats_, which he was

glancing over. He read it aloud:--

"The terrible secret association, on the track of which the police has very

long been, has been discovered--even its name is known--the whimsical one

of 'Carbonarism!' We are assured that every rank of life has

representatives in this vast affiliation. Even young men of the most noble

families of France have been found on its rolls, and they have been already

pointed out to the attention of the government."

The Viscount d'Harcourt grew visibly pale as he heard his father read, and

Marie called the Duke's attention to the fact. She hurried to his side.

"It is nothing," said he, "but a sudden spasm of pain. It will soon pass

away, and in a few minutes I shall be better."

The Duke d'Harcourt had finished his paper, and looked sternly on his son.

His glance was like that of the judge on the criminal, a mute appeal to

conscience, which the young man could not be insensible of. "Rene," said

the Duke, in his most penetrating tone, "if I did not know that you have

overcome the influence of those political chimeras which produced your

expulsion from Italy, the agitation caused by what you have heard read

would make me think the cause of those conspirators your own." The Count's

trouble increased. The old noble continued to speak in this tone,

extolling, also, the advantages of a monarchical government, and pointing

out the evils likely to result from the possible realization of the plans

of the Carbonari. He, however, heard the sounds of many feet in the

anteroom of the saloon, where he sat with his children. The secretary of

the Duke, the brave D'Arbel, an old officer of the army of Conde, who had

emigrated with the Duke, and never left him, appeared at the door. His

features expressed the greatest agitation. He said:--

"The Duke does not know what is going on."

"What _is_ the matter, my dear D'Arbel?" said the Duke, taking a seat in

the chair the old man handed to him.

"The door of our hotel has been broken open in the King's name, and is now

in possession of the police. The chief has placed all the household under

surveillance and is about to come hither."

"What means this?" said the Duke. "Why is my house thus invaded?"

"Ah, my God!" said Marie, trembling, "what do these people want?"

"What do they want?" said the Vicomte, completely beside himself. "They

want vengeance on me."

"To arrest you! For heaven's sake, sir, tell me what you have been doing."

"What you censured so violently just now. Father, I have sought to overturn

a government of which my opinions do not approve. I am now to experience

the penalty of having failed. In such matters success makes great men, and

failure criminals."

"Criminal or not, they shall not take away my son. I will defend him."

"Brother, brother," cried Marie, wildly, and embracing the Vicomte.

"Monsieur," said D'Arbel, "a few moments yet remain for you to attempt to

enable the Vicomte to escape."

"Whither? how?" said the Duke, who was overcome with terror and distress.

"Through the garden. The gate on _la rue_ Baylonne perhaps is yet

practicable."

"D'Arbel is right," said the Duke, "come, come;" and he took his son's

hand, and led him to the end of the room where he opened the window

fronting on the portico.

"Here," said the secretary, "is a cloak and hat with a broad brim which

will somewhat conceal the features of the Vicomte." He placed his own hat

and cloak on Rene's head and hurried him towards the outer door.

"Remain here, my daughter," said the Duke to Marie, "to detain them as long

as possible, and enable us to escape."

"This way--this way, Duke," said the secretary to M. d'Harcourt and his

son. "The principal alley is too much exposed for us to escape unseen." He

led them close to the wall where the foliage was very thick, and thence to

the gate. The Duke's eyes were so filled with tears, that he stumbled at

every step, and his son was forced to guide him to the goal of all their

hopes. At last they stood at the gate. The Secretary took a pass-key from

his pocket, put it in the lock and opened the door. Here, though, were six

officers of police. The Duke uttered a painful cry, and to keep from

falling leaned against the wall.

"I am your prisoner," said D'Harcourt to these men. "I am the Vicomte."

"We know you well enough. You have long been pointed out to us, and we have

had our eyes on you."

The Duke, when he heard these words, felt as if his heart would break, for

a cruel idea occurred to him. His son had long been under surveillance, and

had also for a long time deceived his father.

"Come, then," said the Vicomte, "I am ready to accompany you."

"You are acting correctly, M. le Vicomte," said the agent. "You submit

without difficulty. Let us go, but not in this direction; if you please, we

will go through the garden to the hotel."

"And why?"

"Because such are our orders. The chief intends to examine your papers and

draw up the _proces verbal_ in your presence. M. H---- never puts himself

out except on great occasions like this."

Without replying, the Vicomte took his father's arm, and followed by the

old secretary, and surrounded by the police agents, went to the house. The

Duke, during the whole route, did not speak, but sobbed audibly. From time

to time, he clasped the arm of his son as if he would have retained

possession of him. When they returned home, Marie, who thought her brother

safe, uttered a cry of terror, and fainted. The Duke hurried to her side

and sent for her women to take care of her. The Vicomte, in the interim,

was taken to his room by M. H----, to be present at the examination of his

papers. A few minutes after, the door was thrown open, and Count

Monte-Leone entered. Faithful to the promise he had made to the Marquise to

ask no explanation from Taddeo of the outrage he had received, he had come

to obtain satisfaction from Rene. The appearance of the police in the

vestibule of the house, the terrified air of the servants, made Monte-Leone

apprehend some new disaster. He entered the room without being impeded, for

the guards had orders to keep persons from going out, not from entering.

"Ah, Count," said the Duke, when he saw Monte-Leone, "you are come to share

our trouble. My son is arrested and lost."

"Arrested?"

"Yes; as an accomplice in one of those awful plots in which you were

yourself once involved. What sorrow to my house!"

"Where is he now--has he left the hotel?" asked the Count.

"No, sir," said the secretary, "the police is now examining his papers."

"His papers seized! You were right, sir, in what you said--your son is

lost."

The Duke, with an activity and vehemence due entirely to the

over-excitement caused by his misfortune, said, "And how, Monsieur, do you

know any thing about my son's papers?"

"I know but too well," said the Count in despair; "for I shall doubtless

ere long share his fate and captivity, as I have his hopes and

anticipations."

"Alas!" said the Duke, "your antecedents, your exalted opinions, a powerful

instinct which cannot deceive a father's heart, all tell me that you have

led my son astray. You have ruined him."

Before the Count could reply, the Vicomte returned, followed by M. H----,

chief of the political police, and his officers.

"My father," said the Vicomte, "I was unwilling to leave the hotel without

imploring your pardon for the wrong I have done you." He knelt before the

Duke, who could scarcely stand. "I forgive you, my son, for having thus

wrung from me the only tears I ever shed on your account. They are bitter,

though, indeed, and cannot but shorten my life."

Marie had recovered, and embraced her brother.

What the Duke said to his son, the tender and touching embrace of the young

girl, appeared not to be observed by Rene. His glance was fixed, and stern,

and full of horror. His features were discomposed by violent rage, and,

pointing to Count Monte-Leone, he exclaimed:

"Ah! why look for the informer?--there he is. Father, father, that

scoundrel has sold me to the persons who tear me from your arms. There is

the man whose name henceforth is Judas."

The Duke and Marie shrank from the Count as from a reptile.

"Rene," said the Count, "thank God that my hand has no dagger to reach your

heart for this new insult!"

"Ah! I believe you. One more crime would have cost you nothing. You would

then slay the body as you did the soul. A coward is but a coward--a spy is

but an assassin."

"A spy!" said Monte-Leone, rushing towards the Vicomte.

He then paused as if he had been seized by a new idea, and, turning towards

the chief of police, said, pointing to Rene, "Tell this man that I am not

one of your creatures. Tell him that I do not know you. If he needs proof,

arrest _me_, for I am far more criminal than he is."

"We have no orders to arrest Count Monte-Leone," said M. H----, with a

smile.

"Well," the Count said, "if you have no orders, I will give you reason to

do so. Instead of being an agent of police, I am the head of the secret

association you seek after. I am the leader of those who seek to ruin you,

the soul of the invisible world which conspires against the throne of your

king and hated government. Now, far from avoiding, I call on you to act.

Earn your rewards, and arrest the most implacable enemy of your master--the

chief of Carbonarism--arrest me!"

The Duke, the Vicomte, and the witnesses of this scene, looked with

amazement at Monte-Leone, who, as it were, rushed to the block. Rene

d'Harcourt felt something of remorse at what he had said. M. H----, piqued

at the defiance, as it were, cast in his face, said to Monte-Leone,

"Instead of admitting you guilty of the crimes with which you charge

yourself, we protest against your statement: were you as guilty as you say,

you would not dare thus to speak. Besides, this bravado is useless. We know

to what your conduct is to be attributed, and that you have pursued a very

different course from what you say. If you suffer, it is because you have

forced me thus publicly to make an explanation." The Count was stricken

down by this overwhelming statement, and by the attempt to establish

complicity between himself and the police. His sight, his very thoughts

became dim, and his lips, contracted by fury, gave vent only to indistinct

mutterings. Before he recovered his _sang-froid_, before he could repel

this disgraceful imputation, Rene, in obedience to a signal from M. H----,

disengaged himself from his sister's arm, and, clasping his father to his

bosom, went from the room. Pausing at the door, he pointed to H----, and

said to Monte-Leone, "the words of this man tear away my last doubt; I

maintain all I have said. May an old man and young woman's tears, may my

blood rest on your head." The Vicomte left. When the old man saw his son

depart, he went to Monte-Leone, and with a gesture of anger and contempt

said to him: "Away! you have betrayed my son to the executioner; away, you

will also kill me." He then sank in the arms of his servant.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Continued from page 216.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by Stringer &

Townsend, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States

for the Southern District of New-York.

From Fraser's Magazine.

CHAMOIS HUNTING.

I had been staying at Fend (one of the highest inhabited spots in Europe)

for some days, existing on a light and wholesome regimen of hard-boiled

eggs, harder baked rye bread, and corn brandy, exploring the magnificent

scenery round me, and had returned the way I came, to a collection of brown

packing-boxes, by courtesy called a village, which rejoiced in the

euphonious name of Dumpfen, nestling cozily under the grand belt of pines

that feathered the flanks of the mountains, which rose high and clear

behind. In front roared, rattled, and grated, a wide glacier torrent, the

color of ill-made gruel, and on the opposite side stretched, some quarter

of a mile, a flat plain of gravel and worn boulders, here and there gemmed

with patches of short sweet turf, till it reached the base of a noble range

of cliffs, which rose gray and steep into the clear blue sky, so lofty,

that the fringe of world-old pines along their summits could scarcely be

distinguished.

On the narrow patch of turf between the village and the torrent I found--it

being a fine Sunday afternoon--much mirth and conviviality. The rifle-butts

were pitched on the opposite side of the torrent, with a small hut close to

them to shelter the marker, a fellow of infinite fun, attired in bright

scarlet, and a fantastic cap, who placed marked pegs into the bullet-holes,

and pantomimed with insane gestures of admiration, contempt, astonishment,

or derision, the good or bad success of the marksmen. And splendid

specimens of men they were--firm, proud, yet courteous and gentle, well

dressed in their handsome and handy costume, strong as lions, which, in

fact, they "needed to be" to support the weight of those young eighteen

pounders which they called rifles, with brass enough in the stocks to

manufacture faces for a dynasty of railroad kings. Never did I see finer

fellows. And the women! How lovely are those Tyrolese damsels, with their

dark brown glossy hair braided under the green hat, with a brilliant

carnation stuck over their left ear in a pretty coquettish fashion, enough

to send an unfortunate bachelor raving. And their complexions! the very

flower in their hair paling, looking dull beside their blooming cheeks; and

their clear soft hazel eyes, with such a soul of kindness, gentleness and

purity peeping through them, as one scarcely sees, even in one and another

elsewhere.

The shooting was at last over, the winner crowned with flowers, and, the

targets borne in triumph before them, the whole party retired to the wooden

hut with a mystic triangle in a circle over the door, to eat, drink, and be

merry; and very merry we were, albeit the only tipple strongly resembled

very indifferent red ink, both in taste and color. Talk of the _dura

messorum ilia!_ what insides those fellows must have had!

We were sitting listening to interminable stories of Berg-geister, and

Gemsen Koenige, and rifle practice at French live targets, when two herd

lads came in from some of the higher mountain pastures, and reported three

chamois, seen that morning low down on the cliffs.

Hereupon up rose a vast clatter among the yaegers as to the fortunate man

who was to go after them, for chamois hunting, gentle reader, requires

rather less retinue and greater quiet than pheasant shooting in October.

The lot fell upon one Joseph something or another; I never could make out

his surname, if he had one--which I rather doubt. He was a fine, handsome,

jaunty fellow, with "nut-brown hair" curling round his open forehead, and a

moustache for which a guardsman would have given his little finger.

Now, as it fell out, _I_ also got excited; _I_ too thirsted after chamois'

blood; but how to get it? How could I, small five foot seven, and rather

light in the build, persuade that Hercules to let me accompany him, unless

he put me in his pocket, which would have been derogatory? It is true that

I, being light myself, was perfectly convinced that weight was rather an

incumbrance than otherwise in the mountains; but how could I persuade the

"heavy," whose opinions, of course, ran the other way, to agree with me?

However, as the men thinned off, and the place became quieter, I determined

to make the attempt, at least, and commenced the attack by "standing"

Joseph a chopine of the aforesaid red ink, and then, fearing the

consequences, followed it up by an infinity of "gouttes" of infamous corn

brandy, all the while raving about the Tyrol, Andreas Hofer, and the Monk,

and abusing the French, till I quite won his heart; he, innocent soul,

never imagining the trap I had set for him. At last I glided into chamois

hunting, the darling theme of a Tyroler, making him tell me all sorts of

wild stories, and telling him some in return, (every whit as true, I have

no doubt, as his own,) till at last I boldly demanded to be allowed to

accompany him the next morning.

Joseph humm'd and ha'ed for some time; but gratitude for the tipple, my

admiration for Hofer, and, perhaps, the knowledge that I had been over

some of the stiffest bits of the surrounding ranges _solus_, and had been

after the gems, though unsuccessfully, before, made him relent, and it was

finally settled that I should go. He went home to get comfortably steady

for the next morning, and I laid violent hands on every thing eatable to

stuff into my knapsack; whilst the others, after vainly trying to persuade

me out of my determination, retired, shaking hands with me as if I was

ordered for execution at eight precisely the next morning. Whereupon I

vanished into the wooden box, which it is _de regle_ to get into in that

part of the world when one wants to sleep, and slumbered incontinently.

I had been asleep about five minutes, according to my own computation,

though, in fact, it was as many hours, when I suddenly awoke to a full

perception of the fact that I was "in for it." Alas, those treacherous

fumes of "Slibowitz" no longer deluded me into the idea that I was fully up

to any existing mountain in the known world; that jumping a ten-foot

crevasse was as easy as taking a hurdle; or that climbing hand over hand up

rocks "so perpendicular" that one's nose scraped against their stony

bosoms, was rather safer, if any thing, than taking sparrows' nests from

the top of a stable ladder! However, the honor of England was at stake. Go

I must. So I resigned myself to the certainty of breaking my only neck, and

jumped up, thereby nearly dashing in the roof of my brain-pan against the

top of my box, adding, most unnecessarily, another headache to the one I

already possessed--and turned out.

Unfortunately, there was no one awake to see my magnanimity; and it was too

dark to see if there had been; so I groped my way down, with my upper

garments on my arm. After "barking" my shins against stools and trestles,

and being nearly eaten up by a big dog in the dark, I sallied out,

preferring to make my morning ablutions in the clear but cold brunnen that

plashed and sparkled on the little green before the door, to dipping the

tip of my nose and the ends of my fingers into the pie-dish which had been

considerately placed for my private use.

How intensely beautiful that dawn was! with the pine-woods steeped in the

deepest purple--here and there a faint, gauzy mist, looking self-luminous,

marking the course of some mountain brook through the forest. The gray

cliffs stood dark and silent on the opposite side of the stream, and one

far-off snow-peak, just catching the faint reflected light of dawn, gleamed

ghost-like and faint, like some spirit lingering on the forbidden confines

of day.

How intense was that silence!--broken only by the harsh rattle of the

torrent and the occasional faint tinkle of a cow-bell in the distance, or

now and then by a spirit-like whispering sigh amongst the pines, that

scarcely moved their long arms before the cold breath of the dying night.

I had finished my toilet, and was just beginning to hug myself in the idea

that I had escaped, and had a very good excuse to slip into bed again, when

I heard the clang of a pair of iron-soled shoes advancing down the torrent

bed that did duty for a road, and to my unmitigated disgust saw Joseph

looming through the darkness, like an own brother to the Erl King, a

"shooting-iron" under each arm, and a mighty wallet on his back. There was

no escape--I was in for it!

Setting our faces to the mountains, we entered the pine-forest, and toiled

up and up through the dark, silent trees, turning neither to the right hand

nor to the left, till the day began to break, some three-quarters of an

hour after our start, when we stopped with one accord, _of course_ only to

look back and see the sunrise, though I doubt if either of us could have

kept up that steady tread-mill pace much longer, with any degree of

comfort.

Well, we halted to look, perhaps for the last time, at the valley and the

village now far below us. We had got to the height of the cliffs on the

opposite side, and could look over their summits at the tumbled alp-billows

that tossed their white crests for many a league beyond; the sun steeping

the snow-peaks in tints of purple, pink, and crimson, and here and there a

rock-peak shone with the brightest silver and the reddest gold,--enough to

send one "clean wud" with their exquisite beauty. Down below in the valley,

the sun had not yet risen, though man had; the little columns of blue smoke

wreathed gracefully upwards in the calm morning air, and the lowing of the

cows, and the faint tinkle of their bells, as they were being driven to

their morning pasture, floated up ever and anon in strangely diminished

tones, that seemed to come from some fairy world far down in the

Alp-caverns.

Having rested, we turned our faces again to the mountains, and toiled anew

through the pine-forest, now no longer dark and gloomy, but fleckered with

gleams of yellow morning light, and sparkling with a thousand dew-diamonds.

Up, up! still up! across the little sparkling runlets, tumbling head over

heels in their hurry to see what sort of a world the valley below might

be;--up! over masses of rock, ankle-deep in rich brown moss, bejewelled

with strawberries and cowberries, garlanded with raspberries, twisting and

straggling out of their crevices, covered with rich ripe fruit;--up! over

bits of open turf, green as emeralds, set in pure white gravel, sparkling

like a thousand diamonds;--up! through tangled masses of fallen pines,

their bleaching stumps standing out like the masts of great

wrecks--terrible marks of the course of the avalanche wind!--up! through

one short bit more of pine-wood, over the split fir fence, and into the

little mountain meadow, smiling in the level sunlight, with its bright

stream tinkling merrily through it, its scattering boulders, and wooden

sennhutt, with the cows and goats clustered round it, standing ready to be

milked,--one of the latter, by the bye, instantly charges me, and has to be

repelled by my alpenstock, bayonet fashion,--while all around, the sweet

breath of the cows mingles deliciously with the aromatic fragrance of the

pine forest, and the rich scent of the black orchis and wild thyme.

Seat yourself on that wooden milking-stool by the door--(beware! it has but

one leg, and is "kittle to guide")--after a hearty shake of the hand from

that grey old giant of a herdsman, and enjoy yourself.

"Joseph, what's i' the fardel? Turn out your traps, and let us see what

'provaunt' you have got." A mighty mass of cold boiled mutton, an infinity

of little drabs of rye-bread, the size of one's hand, and as hard as

flints; and--what is that thou art extracting with such a grin on thy manly

countenance, as if thou hadst found the best joke in Europe, tied up in the

corner of the bag?

A quart bottle of corn-brandy!--I simper, the grey herdsman simpers, and

Joseph simpers most of all, as if he was conscious of having done a

monstrous clever thing, but was modest. "Schnaps at six in the

morning!--hardly correct," say I.

Joseph thinks that it _is_ apt to make one thirsty (it certainly always

appears to have that effect upon him); and the grey herdsman shakes his

head, and smacks his lips dubiously, as if he were not quite certain, but

would rather like to try.

"Well, just one thimbleful, Joseph, 'just to kill the larvae, ye ken.' Ah!

you don't understand, it is a mountain excuse, too. Never mind--hand us the

becher."

Here we breakfasted luxuriously, eking out our store with sour milk and

crumbly new white cheese from the sennhutt. The grey herdsman eyes me

intently, and longs to know what manner of man I am. I take pity on his

thirst for knowledge. "Ein Englander?"--I am his friend for life! He has

heard of the 30,000_l._ sent over in the French war-time, and his nephew

has seen _the_ letter in a glass-case at Innspruck. "And I want to shoot

chamois?" He looks almost sorrowfully at me, but I have gone too far to

retreat, and am very valiant. "Yes, there are three up about the Wildgrad

Koegle." That is enough, Ade Andre! Pack up, Joseph, Forward!

Stop a bit, let us load here; we may stumble on something shootable. I am

soon ready; but loading with Joseph is a very solemn affair, not to be

undertaken lightly, or finished in a hurry.

First, he takes a dose of stuff out of a cow's horn, which I, in my

ignorance, suppose to be very badly made No. 7 shot. A small quantity of

this he places in the pan of his rifle, and crushes with the handle of his

knife, the rest he pours down the barrel, and I perceive that it is powder;

then he looks up and down, round and about--what the deuce _is_ he after?

Is he cockney enough to be going to flash off his rifle, and afraid of some

one hearing him? No, there he has it--a bunch of grey moss, "baum haar," as

he calls it, from that blasted pine. Wonder again; what in the name of

goodness is he going to do with that? Use it as a pocket-handkerchief? I do

not believe he carries one; at any rate, if he does, he only uses that

pattern said by the Fliegende Blaetter to be so popular amongst the

Gallician deputies of the Paul's-Kirche Parliament. No,--wrong again; he

carefully pulls it to pieces, and making it into a round ball, rams it down

upon the powder; and a most excellent dodge it is. Colonel Hawker has only

re-discovered an old secret, or, more likely, learnt it on the shores of

the Bodensee; then the greased patch and the ball, and all is ready. On we

go!

After leaving the meadow, we entered again into the pine forest, which

gradually became more open, the trees more stunted and fantastic, and their

long straggling arms clothed more and more as we ascended with the ash-grey

baumhaar; dead trees and thunder-riven stumps became frequent, rotting in

and into the black bog mould, which gives a scanty root-hold to the

blushing alpen-rose. Soon we leave the trees behind us altogether; nothing

but wild chaotic masses of gravel and stones, tossed and heaped one on the

other, by the fierce avalanche--the very rocks grey and crumbling with age;

here and there patches of black bog, with little oases of emerald green

turf perched in their centre, the black orchis growing thick upon them, and

perfuming the air yards around.

Ere long, even these traces of vegetation became more scarce, and the

appearance of every thing around us wilder and more steril. Still the

brilliant peaks of the Wildgrad Koegle gleamed brightly before us, and

beckoned us on.

Our path lay now, steep and rugged, along the edge of a ravine, at the

bottom of which we heard the torrent chafing and roaring many a yard below

us. There was a precipitous bank of rocks and screes to our right, quite

unclimbable, which seemed only to want the will--they certainly had the

way--to topple us into the abyss. Just as we were turning an abrupt angle

very gingerly, with our eyes fixed on our slippery path, and longing for an

elephant's trunk, to try the sound bits from the rotten ones, we suddenly

heard a rushing "sough," like the falling of a moist snow avalanche, and a

cloud passed across the sun. Glancing hastily upwards, I--yes I, in the

body at this present, inditing this faithful description of my chase,--saw,

not a hundred paces from me, an enormous vulture! Any thing so fiercely, so

terribly grand, as this great bird, saw I never before, and can scarcely

hope to see again. He was so near that we could distinctly see the glare of

his fierce eye, and the hard bitter grip of his clenched talons. The sweep

of his vast wings was enormous--I dare not guess how broad from tip to tip;

and their rushing noise, as he beat the air in his first labored strokes,

sounded strangely wild and spirit-like in the mountain stillness. A dozen

strange strokes, and he took a wild swoop round to our right, and away,

like a cloud before the blast, till a neighboring peak hid him from our

sight, followed by a wild shout of astonishment from Joseph. I opened not

my mouth, or if I did--left it open.

Nothing ever gave me such a feeling of _reality_ as the sight of this vast

vulture so near me. Often and often had I seen them, both in Switzerland

and the Tyrol, sailing so high that, although well up the mountain flank

myself, I almost doubted whether they were realities, or mere _muscae

volitantes_, produced by staring up in to the clear bright sky, with one's

head thrown back. This fellow there was no doubt of--we saw his very beard!

We were really then chamois-hunting--we had penetrated into the very den of

the mountain tyrant. No fear of gigs and green parasols _here;_ we were

above the world!

Soon after our friend had departed, and we had recovered from the

astonishment into which his unexpected visit had thrown us, we reached the

end of our _mauvais pas_, and found ourselves at the foot of a wild valley,

entirely shut in by ranges of lofty cliffs, with here and there patches of

snow lying on the least inclined spots. In front, still far above us,

towered the wild rock masses of the Wildgrad Koegle. The Koegle itself ran up

into one sharp peak, that seemed from where we were, to terminate in a

point. Great part of its base was concealed by a range of precipices, with

broad sheets of snow here and there, resting at an extraordinary high

angle, as we soon found to our cost, and having their crests notched, and

pillared, and serrated in the wildest manner. The floor of the valley was

covered with masses of rock and boulder, hurled from the surrounding

cliffs, and heaps and sheets of rough gravel, ground and crushed by the

avalanches, and fissured by the torrents of melted snow. The silence of the

Alp-spirit, as silent as death itself, was in it; only at intervals was

heard the whispering 'sough' of some slip of snow, dislodged by the warmth

of the mid-day sun.

We advanced stealthily, concealing ourselves behind the boulders, and

searched valley and cliff in vain for our prey. Joseph was the proud

possessor of a telescope, mysteriously fashioned out of paper and

cardboard; a pretty good one, nevertheless, brought from Italy by some

travelling pedlar, and an object of great veneration, but one which failed

in discovering a single chamois. Our only chance now was that they might be

feeding in some of the smaller valleys, between the cliffs at the head of

the basin in which we were and the Koegle itself.

"Feeding! what could they be feeding on, when you say yourself that you

left all kinds of 'green stuff' behind you long ago."

So _I_ thought, too, doubtless, by this time, most impatient reader; but on

the screes at the head of the valley, Joseph showed me, for the first time,

the plant on which these extraordinary animals in a great measure live. It

has a thick green, trilobate leaf, and a flower so delicate and gauze-like,

that one wonders how it can bear for a moment the harsh storms to which it

is exposed. Its petals have a most curious crumpled appearance, and are of

the softest pink imaginable--almost transparent. As for its class and

order, you must go elsewhere for them; I know them not; nor the name either

which the Latins would have called it if they had been aware of its

existence. Joseph called it "gemsenkraut," or chamois herb, and that was

enough for me.

Having finished our botanical investigations, we pushed on to the upper end

of the valley, and found that the cliffs, and screes, and snow-patches

looked uglier and steeper the nearer we approached them. However, there was

no retreat--onward we must go, or be declared "nidding" through the length

and breadth of the Tyrol.

Oh! those screes--those screes! lying at an angle of goodness knows how

much with the horizon--sharp, slaty, angular pieces of stone, like savage

hatchets, slippery as glass, glancing from under our feet, and casting us

down sideways on their abominable edges, "sliddering" down by the ton,

carrying our unfortunate persons yards below where we wanted to go,

crashing and clattering, and then dancing and bounding far down into the

valley, like mischievous gnomes, delighted with the bumpings and bruisings

they had treated us to! How Joseph did anathematize! For my part, mine was

a grief "too deep for swears!"

After crossing, still ascending, two or three beds of screes, we came to

the edge of the first snow-field; not very broad, it is true, but lying at

a higher angle than I ever thought possible, and frozen as hard as marble

on the surface--one sheet of ice, with an agreeable fall of some hundred

feet at its lower edge. We were in despair! We had now got excited and

confident--our "blood was up;" and here came "the impossible to stop us."

"But what is it that Joseph has picked up from the snow, and is examining

so carefully?"

"No matter--'twas not what we sought," but it _was_ something closely

connected with it.

"Yes, there is no doubt of it; they have been here, and lately too! See the

sharp hoof-prints just above! They must have crossed this morning! Go it,

ye cripples (_in prospectu_), we must cross this, come what may."

We got along steadily, without any slides, though with many slips, always

sticking our staves convulsively into the snow the moment our heels seemed

to have the slightest disposition to assume the altitude of our heads. It

was nervous work--one slip, one moment too late in thrusting our staff

perpendicularly in the snow, as an anchor, and away we should have shot

like a meteor over the glittering surface for a hundred terrible yards, and

then with a wild bound have been launched into the abyss below. However, we

could not have turned back if we had wished it, and at last, to our intense

satisfaction, we grasped the rough rock that bounded the further side of

the field. Grasped it!--we embraced it!--we clung to its rough surface as

if we had been six months at sea, and had landed in the Hesperides!

At length on the summit of the ridge, we were able to crouch down and look

through a crack in the rock into the next valley. Round and about, above

and below, we examined every hole and corner; half-a-dozen times some

villanous stone made our hearts leap to our mouths. But alas! "it was no

go;" there was not a living thing in sight--barrenness, barrenness, and

desolation.

Our chance of chamois was utterly over for the day. _N'importe._ Better

luck to-morrow. Who can feel out of spirits in that brisk mountain

atmosphere? There is the highest peak of the Wildgrad Koegle right before

us--and hang him, we'll dine on his head.

The ridge on which we found ourselves was but a few feet broad, and about a

hundred and fifty feet above the snow on each side. It was composed of

innumerable irregular pillar-like masses of rock, of different heights and

distances, impossible to descend at the point where we found ourselves, but

as it ran at the same general level, we fancied that we could get on the

sloping mass of snow which lay on the side of the peak at some distance on.

Jumping from one small table of rock to another--now only saved from

"immortal smash" by Joseph's strong arm, and now swaying doubtfully on a

_plateau_ the size of a small dumb-waiter top, uncertain whether we should

be off or not--we hopped along, wishing we were kangaroos, till we found a

crevice which seemed practicable, and down which I went with a run--or

rather a slide, much quicker than was agreeable, being only brought up by

my feet coming on Joseph's broad shoulders, he taking, as I must confess he

generally did, the first place, whereby he always came in for a double

allowance of stones and gravel, but about which he seemed utterly

indifferent.

On reaching the bottom, we found that, as usual, the snow had melted some

distance from the rock, leaving a mighty pretty crack to receive us.

However, a lucky jump landed us safely, and for a moment erect, on the

snow, and then head over heels, rolling, and bumping, and kicking, we spun

over the slippery surface till we managed to bring ourselves up about fifty

yards below where we had started. But in spite of tumbles we were in high

spirits: there were no gems to frighten, and no more tottering avalanches,

ready to fall on our heads if we as much as ventured to use our

pocket-handkerchiefs.

We toiled up the terribly steep snow-patch merrily enough, not without

retracing our path several times in a manner at once undignified and

unexpected--though it certainly was not to be complained of as far as speed

went--and reached, at last, utterly blown and sick with exertion, the base

of the rock forming the summit of the mountain. Hardly giving ourselves

time to recover, we climbed up the last sixty or seventy feet of cliff, and

I found myself--first this time, for a wonder--on a small platform, the

summit of the Wildgrad Koegle.

The platform was some ten or twelve feet square, and the only approach to

it was on the side we had ascended; on every other the cliff ran down in a

sheer wall, how deep I know not, for I never could judge of distances from

above.

As for describing what we saw from our elevated dining-table, it is clean

out of the question; we saw nothing but mountains--or rather the tops of

mountains, for we were far above the general level of their crests; one

wide sea of rock and snow surged around us; shoreless, no bounding range,

no sweet glimpses of broad green valleys and glistening rivers in the

distance; no pretty villages nestling cosily under the pine forest--nothing

but peak on peak, ridge on ridge; bright pinnacles and clusters of

pinnacles shooting up here and there far above the rest into the calm blue

sky--deep grooves marking the course of distant valleys, like tide-marks on

the sea. But no trace of man or beast, herb or tree; the very wind that

whistled past us brought no sound or scent from the valleys it had passed,

but sounded harsh, and dry, and dead. Vain, indeed would be the effort to

convey the slightest idea of the solemn grandeur of that scene! Manfred?

Manfred gives the finest and truest picture ever perhaps painted of _Swiss_

Alpine scenery, as seen looking towards the mountains, or from the cliffs

bordering some rich pastoral valley; but we had passed all that long

ago--we were in the very heart of the range. Alp was still piled on Alp,

but we had reached the summit of the pile. The only valleys _we_ saw were

fearful scars in the mountain flank, half filled with eternal snow, and the

crumbling skeletons of dead Alps. No sound--no herdsman's joedle--no

cowbell's tinkle ever reached to half way up our rocky perch: we were far

above the vulture and the chamois. We were alone with the rock, and snow,

and sky! It seemed profanity to whisper--and yet there was Joseph, after a

glance round, and a short "schoene panorama!" whistling and fishing up the

eatables and drinkables from the bottom of his wallet, as coolly as if he

was seated in his own smoky, half-lighted cabin. He had been born in it,

and was used to it. I doubt whether I myself felt the grandeur of the scene

as much then as I have often done since, on recalling it bit by bit to my

recollection. The really grand gives one at first a sort of painful feeling

that is indescribable. One cannot _think_--one only _feels_ with that

strange undescribed sense, that strives, almost to heart-breaking, to bring

itself forth, and yet stays voiceless.

We sat long, drinking in alternate draughts of sublimity and Slibowitz (as

Joseph called the brandy), till the Berg-geist kindly put an end to our

exstasies by drawing a dark gray veil over the whole picture, and pelting

us with snow-flakes, as a gentle hint to be off and leave him to his

cogitations. It began, indeed, to snow in real earnest, and the weather

looked mighty dark and unpromising, so we scrambled hastily down the way we

came, and leaning well back on our alpenstocks with our feet stretched out

before us, shot down the long sheet of snow, at a considerably quicker rate

than we had ascended; and gliding scornfully past our columnar friends,

whose fantastic capitals had given us so much trouble in the morning, we

reached, with many a tumble and much laughter, the stony ravine at its

foot.

Scorning to finish the day without drawing blood from something besides

ourselves, we determined to commit slaughter on whatever came across us. We

soon heard the shrill signal-whistle of the marmot, and for want of better

game, determined to bag at least one of these exceedingly wide-awake

gentlemen. Creeping to the top of a neighboring ridge, we peeped cautiously

over into a little valley floored with a confused mass of mossy stones and

straggling alpen-rosen. Here several of these quaint little beasts, half

rat, half rabbit, were frisking in and out of their burrows, cutting all

sorts of what Joseph called, 'Burzelbaume,' Anglice, capers; little

suspecting that the all-destroying monster, man, had his eye upon them. One

fellow, the sentinel, took my particular fancy as he sat up on his nether

end on a large stone. There was an expression of unutterable self-conceit

and conscious wide-awakefulness about his blunt muzzle and exposed incisors

that was perfectly delicious. Him I determined to bring to bag, and

cautiously raising my carbine--crack! Over he rolled, I have no doubt, too

astonished to feel any pain, his friends tumbling madly head over heels

into their burrows, whilst the astonished echoes repeated crack! crack!

again and again, in all sorts of tones and modulations, till warned to

silence by the harsh rattle of an old mountain a mile off. We bagged our

friend, who looked every wit as conceited in death as he did when alive,

and recommenced our descent. On our way we shot a brace of "schnee huhner,"

a species of ptarmigan, a pack of which very _slow_ birds were running

stupidly in and out amongst the rocks--and hurried on. It was growing very

dark, the snow fell heavily, and the wind began rushing and eddying round

us, depositing the largest and coldest of the snow-flakes in our ears and

eyes, till we were half-blinded and wholly deaf. Joseph began to look

serious, and hunted about for a small torrent he knew of, to serve as a

guide, and after some trouble and anxiety, we found it, and stumbled down

its rocky banks till we came to a solitary sennhutt, which was to be our

resting-place for the night.

After some trouble, we got the door open, and found that the hut was

fortunately not entirely filled with hay; a space about six or eight feet

broad had been boarded off between it and the outer wall for the use of the

wild-hauer. This was to serve us as parlor and kitchen and all, except

bed-room, which was to be sought for in the hay-stack itself. Our floor was

the bare earth; the logs which formed the wall were badly jointed, and the

wind whistled through the gaping cracks in the most uncomfortable manner;

one could almost fancy that it was trying to articulate the dreaded word,

rheu--matism.

However, the ever-active Joseph, bustling about, found some dry wood, and

we made a blazing fire on the floor at the imminent risk of burning our

beds, and slightly thawed ourselves; we continued our researches, and found

a shallow wooden pail, carefully covered over, holding some two gallons of

sour milk, left by the charitable hay-man some fortnight before, for the

use of any benighted hunter who might have the luck to stumble on the hut,

and one of those abominable one-legged milking-stools, so common in that

part of the world, which, having vainly endeavored to sit on, and having

tumbled into the fire in consequence, to Joseph's intense amusement, I

hurled madly over the hay out into the storm.

As the clatter made amongst the shingles of the roof by its hasty exist

subsided, we heard a noise which struck terror into both our hearts, and

would doubtless have chilled our very marrow, if it had not been below

freezing-point already. Devils! Berg-geister! Fly! out into the black

storm! over the precipice! into the torrent! before some fearful mopping

and mowing face, too ghastly horrible for human eye-ball to see without

bursting, or human brain to conceive without madness, gibber out upon us

from that dark corner! Listen: there it is again! And--mew-w-w-w-w! down

tumbled between us a miserable, half-grown, gray kitten, nearly dead with

cold and starvation, doubtless absent on some poaching expedition when the

hut was deserted, and not thought worth the going back for. Oh! the joy of

that unfortunate little beast at seeing man and fire once more! How she

staggered about with tail erect, vainly trying to mew and purr at the same

time! having to be perpetually pulled out of the fire, and "put out," to

prevent her playing the part of one of Samson's foxes with our beds,

filling the cabin with unspeakable smells of singed hair! And now she would

persist in walking up our backs, and tickling us to madness with her

scorched tail!

Having disposed of "Catchins," as she was immediately named, as well as we

could, by tossing her by the tail to the top of the hay, whenever she

descended to thank us, which happened about three times in every two

minutes, we "fixed" our suppers, broiling the schnee-huhner over the bright

fire, and enjoyed ourselves mightily. After a smoke and a short

cross-examination from Joseph as to our friends, family, and expectations,

and particular inquiries for the shortest overland route to England, and

the number of years required for the journey, we climbed up into the hay,

and grubbed and wormed our way for two or three feet below its surface,

and, making unto ourselves each a "spiracle" or blow-hole over our

respective noses, tried to slumber.

Now, a bed of short, sweet Alpine grass, fragrant with the spirits of a

thousand departed flowers, is as warm, cozy, and elastic as a bed can be,

but it has one unfortunate drawback,--the small straws and dust falling

down the before-mentioned spiracle, tickle and titilate one's unfortunate

face and nose in a most distracting manner; and as you utterly destroy the

snug economy of your couch, and let in a rush of cold mountain air, as

often as you raise your hand to brush away the annoyance, some fastidious

persons might possibly prefer a modest mattress, with a fair allowance of

sheets and blankets.

At last, however, I was dozing off, tired of hearing Joseph muttering what

certainly were not his prayers, rustling fretfully, and sneezing

trumpet-like at intervals, as some straw, more inquisitive than usual, made

a tour of inspection up his nostril, when I suddenly heard a round Tyrolese

oath rapped out with great fervor, and something whirled over my head and

plumped against the timbers of the roof. Dreamily supposing that it was the

aforesaid cumbrous Tyrolese execration, which Joseph had jerked out with

such energy as to send it clean back into oblivion, when something with an

evil smell, and making a noise like a miniature stocking-machine, tumbled

down my spiracle, plump into my face. Waking fully, I at once perceived

that it was the cat, not the oath, I had heard fly over me shortly before,

she, in the excess of her gratitude, being determined to stick as closely

to us as possible. Following Joseph's example, I seized her by the tail,

and whirled her, purring uninterruptedly, as far as I could. Ere many

minutes had elapsed, she was again launched forth by the infuriated Joseph,

and backwards and forwards she flew at least half-a-dozen times between us,

without appearing in the least disconcerted, perhaps, indeed, finding the

exercise conducive to the assimilation of the sour milk, till Nature could

stand no more, and we fell fast asleep.

Whether she spent the night on our faces, in alternate watches, I know not,

but I had ghastly dreams, and when I woke in the morning, I found my hand

and arm thrust forth from the hay, reposing on a cool and clean counterpane

of snow, which had drifted in during the night, as if I had been repelling

her advances even in my sleep.

Feeling very cold and damp, we turned out as soon as we woke, and blowing

up the embers of the fire, warmed ourselves as well as we could, and took a

peep out into the night. The storm had passed away, leaving everything

covered with a veil of snow, that gleamed faintly under the intense

black-blue sky. The stars were beginning to assume that peculiar sleepy,

twinkling appearance which shows that their night-watch is drawing to a

close, and everything lay in still, calm rest around us.

We breakfasted sparingly, as our provisions were beginning to run short,

thanks to the keen mountain air and our hard work the day before, and just

as the first cold chill of the approaching dawn began to be felt, we left

the cabin, shutting up Catchins, and hanging the marmot on a peg out of her

reach, till our return.

Our day's route lay more round to the left of the Wildgrad Koegle. The scene

was for some time a repetition of that of the day before, but the cliffs

were still more precipitous and the ravines narrower and more difficult to

traverse. Many a tumble we got for the first hour amongst the boulders

covered with treacherous moss and cowberry plants, but before sunrise we

had left all vegetation behind us again, and were up amongst the crags and

the snow.

As we ascended, we saw a valley to our left, filled to the brim with dense

mist, which, as soon as the sun began to tinge the highest peaks, rose in

swirling columns, and shut out every thing that was not in our immediate

vicinity. This was advantageous, as, although it prevented our _seeing_, it

at the same time prevented our being _seen_, from the cliffs before we

reached our best ground. We toiled on steadily, crossing vast beds of snow,

and occasionally the roots of some glacier, that threw itself into the

valleys to our left, climbing, scrambling, and slipping, but still steadily

ascending, till we got to where Joseph expected to fall in with chamois,

when we called a halt, and sheltering ourselves behind a mass of rock from

the keen morning wind, waited for the clearing of the mist.

The Alp-spirit seemed to be amusing himself mightily with this same mist!

at one moment, catching it up in huge masses, he piled it on the sharp

peaks, as if to make himself a comfortable cushion; and then, sitting

suddenly down to try its efficacy, drove it in all directions by his

"lubber weight." Enraged, he tossed and tumbled it about for some time, and

at last spread it into one broad level plain, with the higher peaks

standing out clear and sharp, like rocks from a calm sea. Now and then the

mist would disappear entirely for a few moments, leaving everything clear

and bright; then a small cloud, "like a man's hand," would form on the side

of some distant peak, and spreading out with inconceivable rapidity, would

envelope us in its boiling wreaths, while the wind, ever and anon rushing

down some unexpected gully, cut a tunnel right through it, giving us

glimpses of distant mountains and snow-fields, looking near and strange as

if seen through a telescope.

At last the sun began to shine out cheerily and steadily, and the breeze

gave a freshness and buoyance to our spirits never to be felt except on

high mountains. The heavy atmosphere of the valley squeezes one's soul into

its case, and sits on the lid like an incubus. That blessed mountain-spirit

is the only power who takes the lid off altogether, and lets the soul out

of its larva-case to revel in the strange beauties of his domain without

restraint!

After a time, we found ourselves in a region of snow-fields, filling up

broad valleys, lying calm and shadowless in the bright sunshine. Here and

there, they were marked by delicate blue lines, where the crevasses allowed

the substratum of ice to be seen, showing that these apparently eternal and

immovable plains of snow were slowly but steadily flowing downwards, to

appear as splintered glaciers in the valley far below; and here and there

again, dark ridges, standing sharply up from the snow-bed, marked the

course of buried mountain ranges, and gave some idea of the vast depth of

the deposit.

But wonderfully beautiful as these plains were, and strange and wild as

they appeared to an English eye, with a brilliant August sun pouring his

whole flood of light and warmth upon them, they were not the great points

of interest to us. Those mighty ranges of cliff, rising tier above tier to

our right, fretted with a pure white lace-work of fresh fallen snow, with

here and there vast beds of screes shot from above, giving promise of

gemsenkraut, were the bits we scanned with the greatest eagerness. We had

come for chamois, and I am afraid, looked upon the rest as of very

secondary importance.

We were advancing along the base of the lowest tier of cliff, which had a

sort of step of snow running along it about half-way up for some

half-a-mile, bounded at one end by an immense mass of screes and precipice,

and at the other by a sudden turn of the rock, when Joseph suddenly dashing

off his hat and throwing himself prostrate behind a stone, dragged me down

beside him, with a vice-like grasp, that left its mark on my arm for many a

day after. Utterly taken aback at the suddenness of my prostration, I lay

beside him, wondering at the change that had come over his face; he was as

white as marble, his moustache worked with intense excitement, and his

eyeballs seemed starting from their sockets as he glared at the cliff.

Following his line of sight, I glanced upwards, and my eye was instantly

arrested by something--it moved--again--and again! With shaking hand I

directed the telescope to the point, and there, at the end of it, hopping

fearlessly on the shivered mountain side, scratching its ear with its hind

foot, and nibbling daintily the scattered bits of gemsenkraut that spring

up between the stones, stood fearless and free--a chamois!

After watching him with intense interest for some moments, we drew back,

scarcely daring to breathe, and sheltering ourselves behind a large stone,

held a council of war. It was evidently impossible to approach him from

where we were: we could not have moved ten steps towards him without the

certainty of being discovered; our only chance was to get above him and so

cut him off from the higher ranges. Crawling backwards, we managed to place

a low range of rock between ourselves and the cliffs, and then making a

wide sweep, we reached their base at some distance from where the chamois

was feeding.

After examining the precipice for some time, we found that the only mode of

access to its summit, here some three or four hundred feet above us, was by

a sort of ravine, what would be called in the Swiss Alps, a _cheminee_ a

species of fracture in the strata the broken edges of which would give us

some foot and hand hold: at its upper termination we could see the end of a

small glacier, slightly overhanging the cliff, from which a small stream

leapt from ledge to ledge, only alive in the last hour or two of

sun-warmth, giving promises, which certainly were faithfully fulfilled, of

additional slipperiness and discomfort. But we had no choice; we had

already spent nearly an hour in our cautious circuit. Our scramble,

wherever it took place, would cost us nearly another before we got above

our expected prey, and if we hesitated much longer, he might take a fancy

to march off altogether in search of the rest of the herd. So up we went,

dragging ourselves and each other up the wet slippery rocks, getting a

shivering "swish" of ice-cold water in our faces every now and then, till

we got about half-way up, when, just as we were resting for a moment to

take breath, we heard a tremendous roar, followed by a splintering crash

just above our heads, and had the pleasure of seeing the fragments of some

half-a-ton of ice, which had fallen from the glacier above, fly out from

the shelf of rock under which we were resting, and spin down the rugged

path we had just ascended.

Thinking that this was quite near enough to be pleasant, and "calculating"

that by every doctrine of chances the same thing would not happen twice in

the same half-hour, we scrambled up as fast as we could before the next

instalment became due, and at last reached safely the top of the precipice.

We certainly had not much to boast of as far as walking went, when we got

there, for the snow and rocks were tumbled about in a very wild manner. If

we slipped off a rock, we tumbled waist-deep into the soft, melting

snow-drifts, and when we tumbled on the snow, there was always some lurking

rock ready to remind us of his presence by a hearty thump; however, as we

were fairly above the chamois, our excitement carried us on. I do not think

that Joseph swore once; we found afterwards indeed, to our cost, that in

one of his involuntary summersets, he had broken _the_ bottle, and narrowly

escaped being bayoneted by the fragments: however, we did not know it then,

and so scrambled on in contented ignorance, until we reached the spot on

the cliffs to our right, which we had marked as being above our prey. Here,

however, we found that it was impossible to get near enough to the edge to

look over, as the fresh-fallen snow threatened to part company from the

rock and carry us with it, on the slightest indiscretion on our parts.

Crouching down in the snow, we listened for some hint of our friend's

whereabouts, and had not waited more than a minute, when the faint clatter

of a stone far below convinced us that he was on the move: keeping low, we

wallowed along till we came to where the crest of the cliff showing a

little above the snow, gave us a tolerable shelter; carefully crawling to

the edge, we peeped over, and saw, as we expected, that the gems had

shifted his quarters, and as luck would have it, was standing on the

snow-bed half-way up the cliff, immediately below us.

Trembling, partly with excitement, and partly from the under-waistcoat of

half-melted snow we had unconsciously assumed in our serpentine wrigglings,

we lay and watched the graceful animal below us. He evidently had a

presentiment that there was something "no canny" about the mountain-side;

some eddy had perhaps reached his delicate nostrils, laden with the taint

of an intruder. With his head high in the air, and his ears pointed

forwards, he stood examining--as wiser brutes than he sometimes do--every

point of the compass but the right. One foot was advanced; one moment more,

and he would have gone; when crack! close to my ear, jut as I was screwing

up my nerves for a long shot, went Joseph's heavy rifle. With a sinking

heart I saw the brute take a tremendous bound, all four hoofs together, and

then, like a rifle-ball glancing over the bosom of a calm lake, bound after

bound carried him away and away over the snow-field, and round the corner

to our right, before I had recovered my senses sufficiently to take a

desperate snap at him.

What we said, or felt, or how we got over the face of that cliff, I know

not. A dim recollection of falling stones and dust showering round

us--pieces of treacherous rock giving way in our hands and under our feet,

bruising slides, and one desperate jump over the chasm between the cliff

and the snow,--and there we were both, standing pale and breathless,

straining our eyes for some scarcely expected trace of blood to give us

hope.

Not a drop tinged the unsullied snow at the place where he had made his

first mad bound, nor at the second, nor at the third; but a few paces

further on, one ruby-tinged hole showed where the hot blood had sunk

through the melting snow.

Too excited to feel any uprising of envy, hatred, or malice against my more

fortunate companion, I raced along the white incline, leaving him behind

reloading his rifle,--which was always a sort of solemn rite with him,--and

following, without difficulty, the deep indentations of the animal's hoofs,

I came to where the cliff receded into a sort of small bay, with its patch

of snow on the same plane with the one I was on, but separated from it by a

rugged promontory of cliff and broken rock. Cautiously I scrambled round

the point, removing many a stone that seemed inclined to fall and give the

alarm to the watchful chamois, and peeping cautiously round the last mass

of rock that separated me from the snow-patch, I saw the poor brute,

standing not more than sixty yards from me, his hoofs drawn close together

under him, ready for a desperate rush at the cliff at the first sound that

reached him; his neck stretched out, and his muzzle nearly touching the

snow, straining every sense to catch some inkling of the whereabouts of the

mischief he felt was near him.

With my face glowing as if it had been freshly blistered, a dryness and

lumping in my throat, as if I had just escaped from an unsuccessful display

of Mr. Calcraft's professional powers, and my heart thud-thudding against

my ribs at such a rate that I really thought the gems must hear it in the

stillness, I raised my carbine. Once, at the neck just behind the ear, I

saw the brown hide clear at the end of the barrel, but I dared not risk

such a chance; and so, straining my nerves, I shifted my aim to just behind

the shoulder,--one touch of the cold trigger, and as the thin gases

streamed off, rejoicing at their liberation, I saw the chamois shrink

convulsively when the ball struck him, and then fall heavily on the snow,

shot right through the heart. With a who-whoop! that might have been heard

half-way to Innspruck, I rushed up to him;--one sweep of the knife--the red

blood bubbled out on to the snow that shrunk and wasted before its hot

touch, as if it felt itself polluted, and there lay stretched out in all

its beauty before me the first gems I ever killed--just as Joseph came up,

panting, yelling, and joedling, and rejoicing at my success, without a shade

of envy in his honest heart.

Now I believe, in all propriety, we ought to have been melancholy, and

moralized over the slain. That rich, soft black eye, filming over with the

frosty breath of death, and that last convulsive kick of the hind legs,

ought perhaps to have made us feel that we had done rather a brutal and

selfish thing; but they did not. This is a truthful narrative, and I must

confess that our only feeling was one of unmixed rejoicing.

I have occasionally moralized over a trout, flopping about amongst the

daisies and buttercups, and dying that horrible suffocation death of my

causing; but it was never, if I remember right, the _first_ trout I had

killed that day. My feelings always get finer as my pannier gets fuller,

particularly if it be a warm afternoon, and I have _lunched_.

But as for the unfortunate gems, we rejoiced over him exceedingly; we shook

hands over him; we sat beside him, and on him; we examined him, carefully,

minutely, scientifically, from stem to stem. I firmly believe that I could

pick him out at this moment from the thousand ghosts that attend the

silver-horned Gemsen Koenig, if I had but the good luck to fall in with his

majesty and his charmed suite.

Joseph's ball had struck him high up on the neck, but had not inflicted any

thing like a severe wound. Had we fired on him from below, he would have

scaled the cliffs in a moment, and been no more seen, at least by us; but

as he knew that the mischief was above him, he dared not ascend--to descend

was impossible; and so, getting to a certain extent pounded, he gave me the

rare chance of a second shot.

Long we sat and gazed at the chamois; and the wild scene before us--never

shall I forget it!--shut in on three sides by steep and frowning cliffs, in

front the precipice, and far, far down, the wild rocky valleys, divided by

shivered ridges, rising higher and higher till they mounted up into the

calm, pure snow range, set in the frame of the jutting promontories on each

side of us--looking the brighter and the "holier" from the comparative

shade in which we were. Not a sound but the occasional faint "swish" of the

waterfall that drained from the snow-bed,--not a living thing _now_ but our

two selves standing side by side on the snow. We had killed the third, and

there he lay stiffening between us!

But, hillo! Joseph! we are nearly getting sentimental, after all, over this

brute, (that I should say so!) who has all but broken our necks already,

and who in all human probability will do so entirely before we have done

with him. Fish up the decanter, and let us have a schnaps over our quarry;

my throat and lips are burning, as if I had lunched off quicklime. Well,

what are you fumbling at? Oh, horror! Joseph's hand returns empty from the

bag, with a large cut on one of the fingers--weeping tears of blood! The

bottle is smashed!--smashed to atoms! and the unconscious Joseph has had

the celestial liquor trickling down his back--how long he know not, and

care not; it is "gone, and for ever!"

Like the summer-dried fountain,

When our need is the sorest!

But it is of no use blaspheming in that manner, Joseph; not one of those

ten hundred and fifty millions of bad spirits you are invoking so freely,

will bring us back one drop of our good ones; so we must e'en "girn and

bide." But still it is as bad as bad can be,--not a drop of water for hours

to come, perhaps.

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink.

Munching snow only chars one's lips like hot cinders, and the cool "swish"

of the waterfall there below us only makes one the more thirsty. Let us be

off out of ear-shot of it, at any rate. Take up the gems, and let us dream

of cool, bubbling runlets and iced sour milk as we go.

Dream! quotha! we must dream of how we are to go at all, first, and a very

nightmarey sort of dream it promises to be; we are regularly pounded; not a

vestige of a crack or crevice up which to worm ourselves in the whole face

of the semicircular range of cliffs beneath which we stand; and moreover,

they are all of that upside down, overhanging style, that precludes all

climbing. We must retrace our steps as we best can, and try where we

descended.

"Well, Joseph, where did we come down--eh?" Not there!

Nonsense!--impossible! Yes! too true; there it was; there are our tracks in

the snow, and the dust and stones that were so obliging as to accompany us

to the bottom, and be hanged to them! But the cliff has surely grown since

then. It looks as high as Gallantry Bower, in dear old North Devon.--I wish

I were at the top or bottom either of _that_, instead of where I am! There

is not a hundred feet difference between them. Three hundred feet, the

cliff is, if an inch! We can never do it! Let us make a cast round by the

screes, and see if we cannot get down that way.

We did so, but found that they were quite impassable. What looked like a

continuous shoot when seen from below, we found to be divided by two or

three ledges of rock, and the angle at which they lay, rendered it

impossible for any thing heavier footed than a gems to pass them. We must

up the cliff! We had no choice.

Now, to begin, it was no easy thing to get at the cliff at all. That

confounded gap between the snow and the rock was bad enough to get across

from above; but to jump up from the sloping snow slap against the face of

the rock was ten times worse. However, Joseph having uncoiled a few yards

of line from his waist, and made it fast to the gems, tightened his belt,

and took the crack gallantly, lighting on a narrow ledge, with his nose

almost touching the rock, to which he stuck like a limpet for a moment, and

then, having steadied himself, turned round and seated himself, with his

legs dangling over the chasm. Now came my turn. Having thrown the end of

the line to Joseph--after vainly looking for a promising ledge to land on,

I yielded to his entreaties, and swung myself right _at_ him. We grasped

each other pretty tight, you may be assured, gentle reader; and after

swaying for a moment or two over the abyss, I climbed up him, and getting

my feet on his shoulders, I managed to draw myself up to a ledge a few feet

higher. Now came my turn to turn, and a most unpleasant piece of gymnastics

it was. The ledge was not an inch too broad, and the rock below only rough

enough to _scratch_ against, not to give any firm foot-hold. However, I at

last got my back against the rock pretty firmly; and Joseph, who had

dragged the gems up from the snow, threw me the end of the line, which,

after one or two unsuccessful grabs, that nearly toppled me over from my

"bad eminence," I caught, and with his assistance, got the gems up to me,

and rested it across my knees. Joseph now turned his face to the rock, and

getting up to me, placed one of his iron-soled shoes on my thigh, and the

other on my shoulder, and climbed over and past me. As soon as he was

firmly fixed, I threw him up the end of the line, and, felt much relieved

of the weight of the chamois, whose rough hide rubbed lovingly over my face

as it passed me, and turning round, and standing upon my ledge, laid hold

of Joseph by the ankle, and again climbed up him and past him, to be

climbed up and over in my turn. Over and over we had to repeat the same

manoeuvre, varied occasionally by our being unable to turn or to sit down

from the narrowness of the ledges, and then the strain was terrible. If we

had not come sometimes to a broader ledge than usual, which allowed us to

lie down and get an easier hold of the line, as it dangled like a plummet

over the cliff, we, or at least I, could never have reached the top of the

cliff _with_ the gems, and I very much doubt whether either of us would

have cared much to have done so _without_ it. What was before me I hardly

knew. Imitating as well as I could the happy _insouciance_ of a snail

"sliming" up the side of the Parthenon, I tried to restrict my range of

vision to points immediately near me. I never felt giddy in my life; but I

felt that it would be running a terrible risk to look into the immensity

that lay stretched out below me, like another world.

However, every thing in this world must have at least one end, even an

Alpine cliff. And at last, as I drew myself up, I found myself face to face

with the snow. The last step was by no means the easiest or safest; but in

a few moments all three of us, Joseph, the chamois, and myself, were lying

on the snow-bed, one hardly more alive than the other.

As soon as we had recovered a little, we stumbled back amongst the sloppy

snow, and the half-hidden rocks, one of which had doubtless caused the

untimely emptying of our spirit bottle, till we arrived at the _cheminee_

up which we had scrambled in the morning. Now scrambling _up_ is one thing,

and scrambling _down_ is another--decidedly more difficult, particularly

with the addition of a "beastie" twice as large as a well-grown fawn. So we

decided to return over the small glacier which had so nearly knocked our

brains out in our ascent, not without a lurking hope of finding some water

in its delicate green chalices.

The small ice-stream on which we pursued our thirsty search, flowed down

from the upper snow-beds through a chasm in the cliffs, and lay right

across our path. The crevasses were small and easy to traverse, though had

they been ten times the breadth, we should have welcomed them for the

prospect of water they held out. We soon discovered what we wanted, and

throwing ourselves on the ice, from which the sun had long since melted the

last night's snow, leaving nothing but the pure water crystal, revelled in

long draughts of ice-cold water, regardless of the consequences.

We lay there resting ourselves, and peering down the crevasses for some

time. How deliciously refreshing was that cool green light, filtered

through the translucent ice, to our eyes, wearied by the eternal glare of

the snow-fields! I have often wondered why no poet had ever chosen one of

these same crevasses, with its tinkling stream, and fairy bridges and

battlements of pure green ice, bathing in a strange unearthly

phosphorescent light, for the home of some glacier Undine. Where could one

find a fitter palace for some delicate Ariel than such places as the

moulins of the Mer de Glace, the ice-grottoes of the Grindenwald, or the

Rhone glacier, or even the commonest crack in the most insignificant sheet

of frozen snow. How exquisitely beautiful are those little emerald basins,

fit baths for Titania, filled with water so pure and clear that one almost

doubts its presence, till its exquisite coolness touches one's parched

lips! I never wondered at the excitement of that enthusiastic Frenchman,

who being held by the legs to prevent him throwing himself into the arms of

the ice-nymph, whom he doubtless saw beckoning to him from below, hurled

his hat into the moulin, and then raced down to the source of the Arveiron

to see it appear, hoping, doubtless, that it would bring him some tidings

of fairyland. But the nymph answered not: perhaps she was cold, and

retained the chapeau for her own private wearing. At all events, M. le

Baron never got it again, as far as I could learn.

Our labor was now nearly over; we quickly traversed two or three small

snow-fields, and after a little trouble in hauling ourselves and the gems

up and down the ridges that separated them, we reached a smooth declivity

of snow, down which we shot merrily, getting many a roll, it is true, but

merely laughing thereat, as every tumble carried us all the faster

downwards, and at last reached safe and sound the region of rocks and

gravel we had left so long.

How deliciously refreshing to the wearied eye was the first patch of green

turf!--how brightly glowed the alpen-rosen amongst the rocks! And--yes!

there is actually a honey-bee droning about that orchis, singing his

welcome song of home, and fire-sides, and kindly greetings!

Happy as two school-boys, we marched on, carrying our quarry alternately,

yodling, and shouting, and playing all sorts of practical jokes on each

other, rejoicing at the success of our expedition, caring nothing now for

the frowns of the grim old giants around us, caring nothing for the bitter

blasts and swirling snow-squalls that swept past us; and at last, as night

closed in, we found ourselves once more in the little cabin, that seemed

quite home-like to us, and which we had fancied more than once in the

course of the day that we should never see again, with Catchins gyrating

pound us, "making a tail" at the chamois, and welcoming us as old friends.

We did not dawdle long over our supper, which consisted principally of the

rat-like marmot, broiled on the embers, and a draught from the neighboring

torrent, and turned into our hay beds, wet and wearied enough, with our

brains in a whirl from the strange excitements of the day, and slept, too

done up to care for tickling straws or feline impertinences.

When I woke in the morning, I lay for some time trying to collect my

thoughts, half fearing that all was but a dream, and that we had still our

work before us; but on scrambling down, the sight of the gems reassured me,

and was an agreeable balm for the intolerable aching I felt from head to

heel. Joseph I must say groaned quite as much as myself, and we hobbled

about in the dark to find bits of wood for our fire, like a couple of

unfortunates just escaped from the rack. The skin of our faces and necks

was peeling off, as if we had been washing them in oil of vitriol, and

using sand-paper for a towel; but we were used to that, and had been as

badly burnt many a time before; but we ached!--ye gods, how we did ache! It

took a long warming and some mutually administered friction, to get us at

all in walking trim. As soon as we become "lissom" again, having nothing to

detain us, and very little to eat, we wended on our way, one bearing

Catchins in the now empty bag, and the other with the gems, down towards

the pines, covered with last night's snow, and following the course of the

torrent, strode on as merrily, or perchance more so, as the first morning

we started. The sun soon shone out bright and warm, the snow began to drip

from the boughs, and every step we took showed the black mould and the

decaying needle leaves of the pines. We heard the rustling of several

black-cock, and it being my turn to carry Catchins' light weight, I shot

one villanously, as he sat on a pine branch, and stuck his tail in my hat,

after the fashion of all true yaegers.

Soon we left the melting snow and dripping woods behind us, and reached the

bright meadows glowing beneath an Italian sky. Strange sounded the shrill

chirping of the red and green grasshoppers in our ears, kindly each

herdsman's yodle and maiden's laugh rang to our hearts, and palace-like

seemed the little cabin that received us after our sojourn amongst the ice

and snow, now seeming more like uneasy dreams than realities which we had

undergone but a day before. Bright smiles greeted us, bright brown eyes

laughed a welcome to us, and many a sturdy hand was clasped in ours as we

sat resting ourselves on the bench before the door.

But we tarried not long; we burned to show our trophy "at home;" and we

sped down the Oetzthal, and reached Dumpfen early in the afternoon, to be

cheered and complimented, and welcomed back with all the warmth of the

honest Tyrolese heart. The people had been in great distress about

us--about me, at least--as they supposed that I must, of necessity, have

broken my neck. I suspect, indeed, that they never thought that I would

really go, and were rather astonished when they woke, and found me gone. As

for Joseph, it was his certain fate--if not now, another time. But they

rejoiced in their mistake, and with my hat crowned with flowers by many a

rosy finger, and my hands tingling from many a giant squeeze, and perhaps

my heart, too, a little, from more than one gentle one, I hung my gems on a

nail outside the door for inspection, and seated myself once again in the

little chamber, looking out upon the torrent and the cliff.

I cannot linger over the simple pleasures of that evening; as Shallow says,

"the heart is all." "Jenkins of the _Post_" may love to record his

reminiscences of a ball at Almack's, or an "aesthetic tea" at the Comtesse

of Cruche Casse's; but such remembrances always bring as much pain as

pleasure to me, making me yearn for those free days spent amongst the

mountains, and the torrents, and the happy single-hearted mountaineers, far

from the cares, troubles, and tribulations of "our highly civilized

society."

And now, most patient reader,--are you there still? Farewell! I have tried

to give you some faint description of the indescribable, and have, of

course, failed. But take at least my advice, and a knapsack, and a thick

pair of shoes, and eschewing hackneyed Switzerland, leave for once the old

bellwether, and try one summer in the Norischer Alpen; and if you _are_

disappointed--I can only say, that you richly deserve to be!

From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.

VISIT TO THE ABERDEEN COMBWORKS.

Within our recollection, comb-making was considered one of the most

miserable of trades, and as destitute of any thing like an organized _modus

operandi_ as that of the perambulating artisans who possessed a certain

skill in the fashioning of rams' horns into spoons and rejoiced in the

expressive designation of Horners. On a late visit to Aberdeen, however, we

found the manufacture of combs carried on there not only to an extent far

exceeding our preconceived notions, but flourishing in a state of skilful

organisation; and we hastened to visit the comb-works of by far the largest

comb-maker in this country or in the world. We have no room to follow the

steps by which Aberdeen came to be the seat of this particular branch of

industry; but before describing the system of comb-making there, we shall

take a short retrospective glance at the general history of the comb, in

order to illustrate the various changes it has passed through, and its

gradual elevation to a respectable position in the manufactures of the

country.

It is impossible to state with any degree of accuracy the time when it

first became an indispensable requisite of the toilet; but by what we can

glean from the ancient writers it would appear to have been of Egyptian

origin. The Greeks and Romans used combs made of boxwood, which they

obtained as we do, from the shores of the Euxine Sea, and the

mountain-ridge of Cytorus, in Galatia. According to Guasco, a modern

Italian author, combs were also formed of silver, iron, bronze, but in no

instance do we find the modern material, shell or horn. In addition to the

wooden combs found in their tombs, it has been proved that the Egyptians

had ivory combs, toothed on one side, which gradually came into use among

the Greeks and Romans; but from specimens of the remains found at Pompeii,

with representations on the Amyclaean tables, it would seem that the Greeks,

who were remarkably studious and careful in arranging their hair, used

them, with teeth on both sides, exactly similar to our small-tooth-combs.

The mediaeval progress of the comb exhibits, like that of every thing else

of its class, much curious elaboration with but little improvement in

utility. In the fifteenth volume of the _Archaeologia_ there is a

representation of an ivory comb found in the ruins of Inkleton Nunnery,

Cambridgeshire, containing some Anglo-Saxon design exquisitely carved in

relief, but with such teeth as a common boor in our day would treat with

contempt. We find Chaucer commenting on the many absurd articles of female

attire, at a time when both sexes tied up their hair in a "licorous

fashion" with ivory pins; and one of the earliest specimens of English

combs extant, was dug up in 1764 from beneath the lowest of the three paved

streets, which lie--memorials of their several ages--under the present

Shiprow Street of Aberdeen; and it was supposed to have lain there ever

since Edward III. burned and ruined the city in 1336.

In modern days the comb probably reached its most costly and ornamental

state at the court of Louis XIV., where hair-dressing was an art more

appreciated and often better paid than the higher efforts of genius. Combs

of ivory and of tortoise-shell, richly inlaid with gold and pearl, formed

an essential adjunct of the toilet of the court beauties. In Great Britain

the fabrication of horn into combs was a very ancient process, chiefly in

Yorkshire and the midland counties. But towards the end of the last century

the increased demand for combs caused makers to establish themselves all

over the country; and in Scotland there were one or two houses of some

eminence in the trade at the period--some twenty-five years back--at which

we have now arrived. It was, however, one of those trades that, as its

artificers were concerned, would not stand investigation. Making combs on

nearly the same principles as those pursued by their forefathers--that is,

by simply cutting out the interspace between the teeth, with various sorts

and sizes of saws--its followers, barely entitled to the name of skilled

workmen, were dissipated, unsettled, and irregular in their habits.

We come now to treat of the grand era in the comb trade--of the time when

it was destined, like the great staple manufactures of our country, to

undergo a revolution. The introduction of machinery and steam-power, with

the division of labor, is suggestive of an important stride in the progress

of the trade. About the year 1828 Mr. Lynn invented a machine of a

singularly ingenious design, having for its principal object that of

cutting two combs out of one plate of horn or shell; and two years

afterwards Stewart, Rowell & Co. commenced the manufacture in Aberdeen. To

the first of these circumstances the trade was indebted for the successful

idea of a machine, which affected at the same time a saving of half the

material, and an increase of produce almost inconceivable. To the latter it

is still more indebted for the first application of steam-power to the

machinery; and, what we think of infinitely greater importance, the

introduction of those true principles in the philosophy of production

contended for by Adam Smith--a philosophy which, in its legitimate

application, has the invariable effect of elevating alike the character of

the produce and the producers.

We shall most appropriately represent the combined effect of these

improvements on the trade by taking the reader along with us in a cursory

view of the principal departments of the Aberdeen Combworks. Provided with

an intelligent cicerone in the person of one of the clerks of the office,

we began our investigations, and as an essential preliminary, were first

shown specimens of the various kinds of raw material. In the order of its

intrinsic value, this consists of tortoise-shells, horns, and hoofs. Ivory,

in our day, is reserved almost exclusively for the manufacture of

small-tooth combs, which form a branch of the ivory trade distinct from the

one before us. Of the first of these materials, tortoise-shell, that best

adapted to manufacturing purposes is the shell, or scales of a horny

contexture which inclose the sea-tortoise, _Testudo imbricata_. It is found

in all warm latitudes; but the best species are indigenous to Hindostan,

the Indian Archipelago, and the shores of the Red Sea. The price we are apt

to think excessive. At present it is thirty-five shillings per pound, and

ten years ago it was nearly double that price. It forms however a valuable

article of importation. There are two chief divisions in horn, buffalo and

ox horns, both of which are imported from various parts of the globe.

Buffalo horn is for the most part used in the manufacture of knife-handles,

and such articles, in the cutlery trade. In comb-making it is chiefly used

for dressing-combs, and, generally speaking, all combs of a deep black

color are formed of this material. The best buffalo-horns are obtained from

the East Indies, and the finest are those of the Indian buffalo from Siam.

We were shown a beautiful specimen of Siamese horns, which, on account of

their extraordinary dimensions, had been preserved and polished. One of

them measured five feet from tip to base, eighteen and a half inches in

circumference at the widest part, and weighed fourteen pounds. Some

conception may be formed of the size of an animal which can support such a

weight on the frontal-bone, if we recollect that an English ox-horn weighs

only a single pound.

Ox-horns, the staple of comb-makers, are imported with hides from South

America, the Cape of Good Hope, and New South Wales. The imports, however,

are chiefly from the enormous herds of South American black-cattle, which

have multiplied to such an extent in the Brazilian territories, that they

are now slaughtered for the sake of their hides and horns, and their

carcasses left to be devoured by the innumerable carnivorous animals which

infest the jungles. The ox-horns entered for consumption in Great Britain

in 1850 numbered 1,250,000, and the average price is about fifty pounds per

ton.

Hoofs are from the German and home markets, and are worth about twelve

pounds per ton. They are used generally in the cheapest description of

combs, but although the least valuable material, are subject to the most

costly and ingenious processes of manufacture.

At the time of our visit the quantity of horns and hoofs in stock amounted

to upwards of one hundred tons of each. Enormous piles of different

varieties--from the delicate curvature of the small Highland ox to the

equally beautiful but enormous _cornu_ of the ferocious buffalo of the

Cape; from the Smithfield horns to those of the gigantic buffalo of Thibet

and Siam--all lay piled in inextricable confusion.

After a glance at the steam-engine, fifty horse-power, and the largest of

the horizontal kind in Scotland, we proceeded to see the first stage of the

manufacture, where horns are cut into assorted sizes by a circular saw. A

horn is twice cut transversely, and afterwards, if a large one,

longitudinally. The tips or extremities here cut off are sent to Sheffield,

where they are converted into table-knife and umbrella handles; and for

this purpose sixteen thousand horns can be cut up in a week. Instead of

being divided in this manner, the hoofs are, after being boiled a certain

time, to render the fibre soft, cut into two pieces; or rather the sole is

stamped out by vertical punching-machines of the same irregular

conformation.

The horns and hoofs thus cut are then brought in pieces into the pressing

department. The first thing that strikes the visitor on entering is the

peculiar and easily distinguishable odor of burnt horn, which indeed is

predominant throughout the works. This arises from the high temperature

necessary to the fabrication of horn, which to a greater or less extent

effects decomposition of the material, and is invariably accompanied with

the disengagement of the peculiar gases which create the odor. Along the

floor of this department are thirty-six furnaces of a peculiar

construction, and at each of these a man and boy were busily engaged in

shaping the cut horns into flat plates, by heating the pieces, and then

cutting them to the required shape with knives. They were then inserted

between screw-blocks, and pressed flat. If, however, the plates are

required for stained combs, as the greater part of them are, a different

mode of pressing is pursued. Into a rectangular cast-iron trough about two

and a half feet long by twelve inches wide and deep, a number of iron

hot-plates are put; they are then oiled on their surface, and the plates of

horn inserted between them; a wedge is next driven into the press by the

percussion-force of a weight falling eight feet, producing a force of about

one hundred and twenty tons. This pressure on the horn in the iron plates

has the effect of breaking the fibre to a certain degree, and forcing it to

expand in a lateral direction. Whatever may have been the original color of

the horn, it is now of a uniform dark green color, and perfectly soft. This

treatment renders the tissues more pervious to the action of acids, and

will be better understood when we arrive at the operation of staining.

But there are other means of pressure. Around the apartment were arranged

one hundred and twenty iron screw-presses--levers of the second order, and

differing only from a common vice in pressing under the screw after the

manner of nut-crackers. They are fitted with steel dies, with a variety of

engraved designs, and in these braid-combs, the outside coverings of

pocket-combs and side-combs are pressed. We were shown a new impression on

pocket-combs of the Crystal Palace. A man exerting his strength on one of

these presses can produce a force of upwards of fifty tons. But however

great, the pressure is still insufficient. The enormous demand for the

cheap side-combs of hoof led to the application of hydraulic pressure. The

two portions of the hoof, after being boiled a second time in a number of

little troughs, with a steam-jet in each of them to preserve the necessary

temperature, the excrescences still adhering are pared off. They are then

transferred to an adjoining room, where sixteen hydraulic presses, are in

operation; and here are subjected to a pressure of three hundred tons, with

a degree of speed and precision that is astonishing. They come out of the

press in the form of small, semi-transparent, rectangular plates, having on

each side the rounded projection or beading observable on most side-combs.

To illustrate the resistless force of this pressure, we were informed that

the very steel dies which give shape to the hoof are soon crushed and worn

out; and it was not without some nice calculation and experiment that the

application of hydraulic pressure to the purpose was successfully attained.

After having received the necessary formation by the various modes of

pressing, the plates are laid aside to dry in a room where a high

temperature is preserved by means of steam-pipes, and where they are also

assorted into different sizes, and the edges squared with circular saws.

The number of such plates, of shell, horn, and hoof, in stock at the time

of our visit, was somewhere about four millions and a half.

From this they are distributed to the different processes in order--the

first of which is cutting the teeth. Certain classes of horn-plates,

however, are subjected to a farther process of planing on the surface

preliminary to this operation; but in all plates which have been

hot-pressed, and are intended to be stained, this is unnecessary, and

therefore they are taken when perfectly dry to the cutting department. On

entering this department the visitor is sometimes bewildered. The incessant

and peculiar clatter of the machinery, the heat of the place, and apparent

confusion, produce together a curious effect. A little observation,

however, shows that we have arrived at the basis of all the modern

improvements in comb-making. On benches around the apartment, in close

proximity to each other, were twenty-four "twinning-machines"--the

invention, with its subsequent improvements, to which we have referred.

Each of these is worked by a man, with an attendant who keeps up a supply

of hot plates from the fires arranged for that purpose in the centre of the

room. It is impossible without diagrams to explain the principles and

construction of this apparatus; but there can be no mistaking its effect. A

plate of horn, after being heated, is placed on a small carriage within the

cast-iron frame of the machine, which travels by means of a particular

arrangement of gearing on parallel slides. Immediately over this are two

angular-shaped chisel-like cutters, which, on the application of motive

power, descend on the horn with an alternating motion, and an inconceivable

degree of rapidity and force. Before we could well see, far less

understand, the rationale of the process, we were shown the horn cut in two

pieces--_one half literally taken out of the other_, and each presenting

the well-defined outline of a comb. In this cutting department resides the

perfection of that beautiful mechanism that revolutionized the trade and

reduced it to mathematical precision. To appreciate this we have only to

look at the increase it has effected in the production. A comb-maker of the

old school could not perhaps, with all his skill, cut more than eighty or a

hundred combs per day; while with this machinery a man and boy will cut

upwards of _two thousand_ of the same kind, and with a consumption of only

half the material. The finer dressing-combs, and all small-tooth combs, are

still cut by circular saws in the next department. Here, however, a

moderately curious visitor will not linger. A dense atmosphere of horn dust

fills the large apartment, and gives to every thing within its influence

the white appearance that distinguishes a flour-mill, to which indeed at

first sight it bears a striking resemblance. From the notes we took, we

learn that here there are wheels on the fine self-acting machinery, in

connection with the cutting and pointing of combs, that revolve 5000 times

in a minute, and saws so delicately fine as to cut forty teeth within the

space of an inch.

We inquired as to the effect on the operatives of this animalized

atmosphere, and were informed that it was not known to be injurious. On

the contrary, it was stated as a singular fact, in connection with the late

visitation of cholera in Aberdeen, that not a single comb-maker had been

affected by the disease, at least fatally; whence it may be inferred,

although we do not pretend to assign the reason, that the fabrication of

horn must be attended with considerable anti-miasmatic effects. At all

events it is certain that horn-dust cannot exercise that injurious action

on the air-passages and the lungs which is experienced in many trades, such

as that of the steel-grinders of Sheffield.

Passing over one or two intermediate stages after the combs are thus cut

and twinned--such as "thinning" on the outer edge by means of grindstones,

and "pointing," by means of peculiarly-shaped bevel-saws--we arrive at the

next department, where the finishing is given by the hand. Here we meet

with artificers who, with a pertinacious reverence for ancient usages,

preserve among themselves the appellation of comb-makers _par excellence_,

forgetting that the very boys and girls in their respective departments

play as important a part in the aggregate production. And yet, in their

province, they are deserving of commendation. The specimens of elaborate

and skilful decoration displayed here, especially on ladies' braid-combs,

were admirable, and one pattern was shown us wherein there was a species of

chain, formed of beautifully stained horn, woven with the head of the comb,

which, although we examined it minutely, and knew there must have been a

joint in each alternate link, we nevertheless failed to discover. It is in

this department that the teeth are smoothed and rounded--an operation

technically termed "grailling"--which is effected by different sorts of

cutting rasps. So far as the making or formation is concerned, the combs

are now finished.

At the opposite side of the buildings we were taken to the department where

the staining is carried on. This will be better understood if described as

the imitation on the various classes of combs of the natural diversity of

tint in tortoise-shell. The horn, whether in plates, as in the side-combs,

or after being "twinned," as in dressing-combs, is immersed in diluted

nitric acid, which, with its characteristic action on all organized

tissues, creates a deep and permanent yellow stain. This resembles the

ground color of tortoise-shell; and to produce the variegation, the horns

are then treated with a particular composition of red oxide of lead, with

certain alkaline compounds, which has the effect of neutralizing the action

of the acid, and imprinting a stain of a deep orange color. After being

carefully washed, dried, and polished, the surface of the combs presents

the beautiful and natural appearance desired. Indeed, the imitation is so

perfect in the best classes of stained combs, that a practised observer can

only detect it. We were shown, for example, two specimens of braid-combs,

one of real tortoise-shell and another of stained horn; and so much alike

were they in color and configuration, that we could not tell which was

which, and yet the one comb was worth about ten times as much as the other.

This operation of staining, which is somewhat artistic, is performed by

women.

There are still some minor departments, which we need not describe in

detail. "Buffing" consists in smoothing the rough surfaces of the horn by

means of wheels covered with walrus skin. Side-combs and braids are bent to

their peculiar curve by being first heated and then fastened to wooden

blocks--an operation that lasts only a few minutes. Pocket-combs have of

course a different and peculiar treatment in some stages; such as the

formation of the joint, and the putting together of the handles. And there

is a department exclusively devoted to the fabrication of horn-spoons,

which becomes chiefly remarkable from the circumstance of there being no

modern application of machinery to the manufacture. The last process,

however, to which all combs are subjected, is that of polishing, which is

effected by wheels, covered with leather of different degrees of softness.

After this they are despatched to the warehouse, to be assorted the last

time--the side-combs being stitched to cards, or packed in fancy boxes,

which affords constant work to about twenty women.

We were finally shown the patterns of the different kinds of combs, many of

them exceedingly beautiful; but we can only notice them in regard to

number. Of dressing-combs (counting the different sizes of all the

patterns), there were 605; ladies' braid-combs, 612; ladies' side-combs,

525; pocket, small-tooth, horse combs, and sundry articles, 186: in all,

1928 different varieties.

The aggregate number produced of all these different sorts averages upwards

of 1200 gross weekly, or about 9,000,000 annually. The annual consumption

of ox-horns is about 730,000, being considerably more than half the imports

of 1850; the consumption of hoofs amounts to 4,000,000; the consumption of

tortoise-shell and buffalo-horn, although not so large, is correspondingly

valuable: even the waste, composed of horn-shavings and parings of hoof,

which, from its nitrogenized composition, becomes valuable in the

manufacture of prussiate of potash, amounts to 350 tons in the year; the

broken combs in the various stages of manufacture average 50 or 60 gross in

a week; and as the crowning illustration of the enormous extent of these

comb-works, the very paper for packing costs L.600 a year.

There are so many beautiful instances of the division of labor that the

task of selecting is not easy. But let us take the cheapest article in the

trade; namely, the side-combs, sold retail at 1d. per pair: in its

progress from the hoof to the comb--finished, carded, and labelled "German

shell"--it undergoes eleven distinct operations. This comb, which twenty

years ago was sold to the trade at 3s. 6d. per dozen, can now be purchased

in the same way for _two shillings and sixpence per gross!_ thus effecting

a reduction in price of about 1600 per cent. As an illustration of the

value of labor, we give the following comparative estimate of the produce

of the three materials:----

1 cwt. shell, val. L.200, produces combs, val. 275, inc. 37-1/2 per cent.

1 ton horns, " 56, " " " 150, " 168 " "

1 ton hoofs, " 12, " " " 36, " 200 " "

Regarded in this aspect, in the relation of labor to material, we find that

hoofs--intrinsically the least valuable of the materials--become, with the

application of labor, the _most valuable_--that is, proportionably: and the

converse is true in the case of tortoise-shell.

At the time of our visit there were employed 456 men and boys, and 164

women--in all, 620 persons--exactly four times the number employed in the

comb-trade in all Scotland when the house commenced business.

From the National Era.

A REMINISCENCE.

BY ALICE CAREY.

Some four or five years ago, there came to reside in the neighborhood in

which I then lived a family consisting of three persons--an old lady, a

young man, and a child of some fourteen years. The cottage they took was

divided by a little strip of woods from my own home; and I well remember

how rejoiced I was on first seeing the blue smoke curling up from the high

red chimneys, for the house had been a long time vacant, and the prospect

of having near neighbors gave me delight. Perhaps, too, I was not the less

pleased that they were new neighbors. We are likely to under-estimate

persons and things we have continually about us; but let separation come,

and we learn what they were to us. _Apropos_ of this--in the little grove I

have spoken of I remember there was an oak tree, taller by a great deal

than its fellows; and a thousand times I have felt as though its mates must

be oppressed with a painful sense of degradation, and really wished the axe

were laid at its root. At last, one day I heard the ringing strokes of that

fatal instrument, and, on inquiry, was told that the woodman had received

orders no longer to _spare that tree_. Eagerly I listened at first--every

stroke was like the song of victory; then the gladness subsided, and I

began to marvel how the woods would look with the monarch fallen; then I

thought, the glory will have departed, and began to reflect on myself as

having sealed its death warrant, so that when the crash, telling that the

mighty was fallen, woke the sleeping echoes from the hills, I cannot tell

how sad an echo it waked also in my heart. If I could see it standing once

more, just once more! but I could not, and till this day I feel a twinge

when I think of the tall oak.

But the new neighbors. Some curiosity mingled with my pleasure, I confess,

and so, as soon as I thought they were settled, and feeling at home, I made

my toilet with unusual care for the first call.

The cottage was somewhat back from the main road, and access to it was had

by a narrow grass-grown lane, bordered on one side by a green belt of

meadow land, and on the other by the grove, sloping upward and backward to

a clayey hill, where, with children and children's children, about them,

"The rude forefathers of the hamlet slept."

A little farther on, but in full view of its stunted cypresses and white

headstones, was the cottage. Of burial grounds generally I have no dread,

but from this particular one I was accustomed, even from a child, to turn

away with something of superstitious horror. I could never forget how Laura

Hastings saw a light burning there all one winter night, after the death of

John Hine, a wild, roving fellow, who never did any real harm in his life

to any one but himself, hastening his own death by foolish excesses.

Nevertheless, his ghost had been seen more than once, sitting on the cold

clay mound beneath which the soul's expression was fading and crumbling

into dust--so, at least, said some of the oldest and most pious inhabitants

of our village. There, too, Mary Wildermings, a fair young girl who died,

more sinned against than sinning, had been heard to sing sad lullabies

under the waning moon sometimes, and at other times had been sitting by her

sunken grave, and braiding roses, as for a bridal, in her hair. True, I

never saw any of these wonderful things; but a spot more likely to be

haunted by the unresting spirits of the bad could not readily be imagined.

The woods, thick and full of birds, along the roadside, thinned away toward

the desolate ridge, where briers grew over the grave-mounds, and about and

through the fallen palings, as they would, with here and there a little

clearing among weeds and thistles and high matted grass, for the making of

a new bed.

It was the twilight of a beautiful summer day as I walked down the grassy

lane and past the lonesome graveyard to make my first call at the cottage,

feeling, I scarcely knew why, strangely sad. By an old broken bridge in the

hollow between the cottage and the graveyard I remember that I sat down,

and for a long time listened to the trickling of the water over the

pebbles, and watched the golden patches of sunlight till they quite faded

out as "came still evening on, and twilight gray, that in her sober livery

all things clad."

So quietly I sat that the mole, beginning its blind work at sunset,

loosened and stirred the ground beneath my feet, and the white,

thick-winged moths, coming from beneath the dusty weeds, fluttered about

me, and lighted in my lap, and the dull, flabby beating of the bat came

almost in my face.

The first complaint of the owl sounded along the hollow and died over the

next hill, warning me to proceed, when I heard, as it were the echo of my

own thought, repeated in a low, melancholy voice, the conclusion of that

beautiful stanza of the elegy in reference to that moping bird. I

distinctly caught the lines----

"Of such as wandering near her sacred bower,

Molest her ancient solitary reign."

Looking up, I saw approaching slowly, with arms folded and eyes upon the

ground, a young and seemingly exceeding handsome man. He passed without

noticing me at all, and I think without seeing me. As he did not observe

me, I had the better opportunity of observing him, though I would fain have

foregone that privilege to have won one glance. He interested me, and I

felt humiliated that he should pass me as though I were a stick or a stone.

His face was pale and very sad, and his forehead shaded with a mass of

black, heavy hair, pushed away from one temple, and falling neglectedly

over the other.

"Well!" said I, as I watched him ascending the opposite hill, feeling very

much as though he had wantonly slighted some claim I had upon him, though I

could not possibly have the slightest, and, turning ill-humoredly away, I

walked with a quick step toward the cottage.

A golden-haired young girl sat in the window reading, and on my approach

arose and received me with easy gracefulness and well-bred courtesy, but

during my stay her manner did not once border upon cordiality. She was very

beautiful, but her beauty was like that of statuary. The mother I did not

see. She was, as I was told, slightly indisposed, and, on begging that she

might not be disturbed, the daughter readily acquiesced. Every thing about

the place indicated people accustomed to refined and elegant habits, but

whence they came, how long they proposed to remain, and what relation the

young man sustained to the other members of the family I confess I would

gladly have known.

Seeing a flute on the table, I spoke of music, for I conceived it to belong

to the absent gentleman. I received no enlightenment, however; and as the

twilight was already falling deeply, I felt obliged to take leave, without

obtaining even a glimpse of the person whom I had pictured in imagination

as young and fair, and of course agreeable.

The sun had been set some time, but the moon had risen full and bright, so

that I felt no fear even in passing the graveyard, but walked more slowly

than I had done before, till, reaching the gate, I paused to think of the

awful mystery of life and death and immortality.

This is not a very desolate spot after all, thought I, as leaning over the

gate, something of the quiet of the place infused itself into my spirits.

Here, I felt, the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.

Here the long train of evils that attach themselves to the best phases of

humanity fade to silent dust. Here the thorn-crown of pain is loosened from

the brow of sorrow by the white hand of peace, and the hearts that were all

their lifetime bowed under the shadow of a great and haply unpitied

affliction, never ache any more. And here, oh, best of all, the frailties

of the unresisting tempted are folded away beneath the shroud from the

humiliating glances of pity--from the cold eyes of pride. We have need to

be thankful that when man brought upon his primal nature the mildew of sin,

God did not cast us utterly from him, but in the unsearchable riches of his

mercy struck open the refuge of the grave. If there were no fountain where

our sins of scarlet might be washed as white as wool--if the black night of

death were not bordered by the golden shadows of the morning of

immortality--if deep in the darkness were not sunken the foundations of the

white bastions of peace--it were yet an inestimable privilege to lay aside

the burden of life, for life becomes--sooner or later, a burden, an echo

among ruins.

In the corner of the burial ground, where the trees are thickest, a little

apart from the rest, was the grave of Mary Wildermings, and year after year

the blue thistles bloomed and faded in its sunken sod.

The train of my reflections naturally suggested her, and, turning my eyes

in the direction of her resting place, I saw, or thought I saw, the outline

of a human figure. I remembered the story of her unresting ghost, and at

first little doubted that I beheld it, and felt, I own, a tumult of strange

feeling on finding myself thus alone so near a questionable shape.

Then, I said, this is some delusion of the senses; and I passed my hand

over my eyes, for an uncertain glimmer had followed my intensity of gaze. I

looked towards the cottage to reassure myself by the light of a human

habitation, but all there was dark--a cloud had passed over the moon, and,

without venturing to look towards the haunted grave, I withdrew from the

gate, very lightly; nevertheless, it creaked as I did so. Any sound save

the beating of my own heart gave me courage; and when I had walked a little

way, I turned and looked again, but the dense shadow would have prevented

my seeing any thing, if any thing had been there. Certain it is, I saw

nothing.

On returning home, I asked the housekeeper, a garrulous person usually, if

she remembered Mary Wildermings, and if she was not buried in the graveyard

across the wood.

"Yes, I remember her, and she is buried in the corner of the ground on the

hill. They come to my house, I know, to get a cup, or something of the

sort, with which to dip the water from her grave, for it rained terribly

all the day of her funeral. But," she added, "what do you want to talk of

the dead and gone for, when there are living folks enough to talk about?"

Truth is, she wanted me to say something of our new neighbors, and was

vexed that I did not, though I probably should have done so had they not

been quite driven from my thoughts by the more absorbing event of the

evening; so, as much vexed and disappointed as herself, I retired. The

night was haunted with some troublous dreams, but a day of sunshine

succeeded, and my thoughts flowed back to a more cheerful channel.

Days and weeks went by, and we neither saw nor heard anything of our new

neighbors, for my call was not returned, nor did I make any further

overtures towards an acquaintance.

Often, as I sat under the apple tree by the door, of twilights, I heard the

sweet mellow music of the flute.

"Is that at the cottage?" said the housekeeper to me, one night: "it sounds

to me as though it were in the corner of the graveyard."

I smiled as she turned her head a little to one side, and, encircling the

right ear with her hand, listened for some minutes eagerly, and then

proceeded to express her conviction that the music was the result of no

mortal agency.

"Did you ever hear of a ghost playing the flute?" said I.

"A flute!" she answered, indignantly, "it's a flute, just as much as you

are a flute; and for the sake of enlightening your blind understanding,

I'll go to the graveyard, night as it is, if you will go with me."

"Very well," I said. "Come on."

So, under the faint light of the crescent moon, we took our way together.

Gradually the notes became lower and sadder, and quite died away. I urged

my trembling companion to walk faster, lest the ghost should vanish too;

and she acceded to my wish with silent alacrity, that convinced me at once

of the sincerity of her expressed belief.

Just as we began to ascend the hill, she stopped suddenly, saying,

"There! did you hear that?"

I answered that I heard a noise, but that it was no unusual thing to hear

sounds of the sort in an inhabited neighborhood at so early an hour.

It was the latching of the gate at the graveyard. She answered, solemnly.

"As you value your immortal soul, go no further."

In vain I argued, that a ghost would have no need to unlatch the gate. She

positively refused to go farther, and with a courage not very habitual to

me, I confess, I walked on alone.

"Do you think I don't know that sound?" she called after me. "I would know

if I had forgotten everything else. Oh, stop till I tell you! The night

Mary Wildermings died," I heard her say; but I knew the sound of the gate

as well as she, and would not wait even for a ghost story. I have since

wished I had, for I could never afterwards persuade her to reveal it.

Gaining the summit of the hill, I perceived, a little way before me, a dark

figure, receding slowly; but so intent was I on the superhuman, that I paid

little attention to the human; though afterward, in recalling the

circumstance, the individual previously seen while I sat on the bridge

became in some way associated with this.

How hushed and solemn the graveyard seemed! I was half afraid, as I looked

in--quite startled, in fact, when latching and unlatching the gate, to

determine whether the sound I had heard were that or not, a rabbit, roused

from its light sleep, under the fallen grass, sped fleetly across the still

mounds to the safer shelter of the woods. I saw nothing else, save that the

grass was trampled to a narrow path leading towards Mary's grave.

During the summer, I sometimes saw the young girl in the woods, and I

noticed that she neither gathered flowers nor sang with the birds; but

would sit for hours in some deep shadow, without moving her position in the

least, not even to push away the light curls which the wind blew over her

cheeks and forehead, as they would. She seemed to neither love nor seek

human companionship. Once only I noticed, and it was the last time she ever

walked in the woods, that he whom I supposed to be her brother was with

her. She did not sit in the shade, as usual, but walked languidly, and

leaning heavily on the arm of her attendant, who several times swept off

the curls from her forehead, and bent down, as if kissing her.

A few days afterwards, being slightly indisposed, I called in the village

doctor. Our conversation, naturally enough, was of who was sick and who was

dead.

"Among my patients," he said, "there is none that interests me so deeply as

a little girl at the cottage--indeed, I have scarcely thought of anything

else, since I knew that she must die. A strange child," he continued; "she

seems to feel neither love of life nor fear of death--nor does she either

weep or smile; and though I have been with her much of late, I have never

seen her sleep. She suffers no pain--her face wears the same calm

expression, but her large, melancholy eyes are wide open all the time."

The second evening after this, though not quite recovered myself, I called

at the cottage, in the hope of being of some service to the sick girl. The

snowy curtain was dropped over the window of her chamber--the sash partly

raised, and all within still--very still. The door was a little open, and,

pausing, I heard from within a low, stifled moan, which I could not

misunderstand, and pushing open the door, I entered without rapping.

In the white sheet, drawn straight over the head and the feet, I recognised

at once the fearful truth--the little girl was dead. By the head of the

bed, and still as one stricken into stone, sat the personage I so often

wished to see. The room was shadowy, and his face buried in his

hands--nevertheless, I knew him--it was he who had passed me on the bridge.

Presently the housekeeper, or one that I took to be she, entered, and

whispering to him, he arose and left the room, so that I but imperfectly

saw him. When he was gone, the woman folded the covering away from the

face, and to my horror I saw that the eyes were still unclosed. Seeing my

surprise, she said, as she folded a napkin, and pinned it close over the

shut lids----

"It is strange, but the child would never in life close her eyes--her

mother, they say, died in watching for one who never came, and the baby was

watchful and sleepless from the first."

The next day, and the next, it was dull and rainy--excitement and premature

exposure had induced a return of my first indisposition, so that I was not

at the funeral. I saw, however, from my window, preparations for the

burial--to my surprise, in the lonesome little graveyard by the woods.

In the course of a fortnight, I prepared for a visit of condolence to the

cottage, but, on reaching it, found the inhabitants gone--the place still

and empty.

On my return, I stopped at the haunted burial ground--close by the grave of

Mary Wildermings was that of the stranger child. The briers and thistles

had been carefully cut away, there was no slab and no name over either, but

the blue and white violets were planted thickly about both. That they slept

well, was all I knew.

From Household Words.

THE SHADOW OF MARGERY PASTON.

A suggestive book, "The Paston Letters; Original Letters, written during

the reigns of Henry the Sixth, Edward the Fourth, and Richard the Third:"

the private history of a family of rank, some four centuries ago. In this

collection of ancient memorials of domestic life, we trace the nature of

the contests between themselves of a poor, ambitious, and turbulant

aristocracy, when the right of the strong arm was paramount over law; we

see the growth of that power which was derived from the profitable exercise

of industry; and view the middle classes, amidst the partial oppression and

general contempt of the high-born, securing for themselves a firm position

and a strong hold, whilst the exclusive claims of feudality were crumbling

around them. Here we learn how harsh were many of the domestic relations of

parent and child--how public oppression had its counterpart in private

tyranny. The love passages of the book are singularly interesting. A humble

friend of the Paston family has won the affections of one of its daughters.

They are betrothed. The mother insults the "Factor." The brothers despise

him. The power of the Church is opposed to the union. Yet the ardent girl

is constant--and she triumphs. How she finally emerged from her

persecutions is not recorded. But the last letter of the angry mother,

which describes these struggles, is thus endorsed:--"A letter to Sir John

Paston from his mother, touching the good-will between her daughter Margery

P. and Ric. Calle, who were after married together."

The shadows of the young lady and her lover arise before us, and we try to

piece out their dim history.

* * * * *

Margery Paston is sitting in the accustomed solitude of the Brown chamber

in her mother's dowry house at Norwich. Dame Margaret Paston, her mother,

has just returned from spending the Easter of 1469 in her son's ruinous

castle of Caister. He holds this castle under a disputed will; and the

great duke of Norfolk is preparing to dispossess him of it, not by the

feeble writs of the King's Court at Westminster, but by gun and scaling

ladder. On the return of the lady she receives unwelcome intelligence. Her

chaplin, Sir James Gloys, has intercepted a letter addressed to her

daughter. The young lady is the object of constant anxiety and

suspicion--watched--persecuted. Up to the age of twelve or fourteen she had

seen little of her parents, but had been a welcome inmate in the family of

Sir John Fastolf, at Caister; who, in his caresses of the fair girl,

indulged the strong affection which old men generally feel towards a

playful and endearing child. He had no children of his own, and little

Margery was, therefore, a real solace to the ancient warrior. There was

another child, a few years older than Margery, who was admitted to play,

and to learn out of the same book, with the daughter of the Pastons. This

was Richard Calle, the only son of an honest and painstaking man, who acted

in the capacity of a steward for Sir John Fastolf, and conducted many of

the complicated affairs with which the old knight amused himself in the

evening of a busy life--his friends complaining of "the yearly great damage

he beareth in disbursing his money about shipping and boats, keeping a

house up at Yarmouth to his great harm, and receiveth but chaffer and ware

for his corns and his wools, and then must abide a long day to make

money."[11]

Richard Calle has now grown into manhood. He is reputed to have received a

goodly inheritance from his father, which he has increased by provident

enterprises in trade. When the Pastons wanted money, he was once always to

be applied to. But he has presumed to address his play-fellow Margery with

the language of affection; and though Sir John Paston had once said that,

for his part, Richard Calle might have his dowerless sister and welcome,

for he had always been a warm friend of the Pastons; his mother is

indignant that a trader should think of marrying into a gentle family; and

John of Gelston, the second son, in an hour when the fortunes of the house

seemed in the ascendant, has vowed that Richard Calle "should never have my

good-will for to make my sister to sell candles and mustard, at

Framlingham."[12]

Margery Paston sits in the Brown chamber, with her bright blue eyes dimmed

with tears. She is endeavouring to forget her own sorrows by reading a tale

of imaginary griefs, which for four hundred years has never been read with

a tearless eye. She is at that passage of "The Clerk's Tale" of Chaucer,

where Grisildis has her infant daughter taken from her, under pretence that

it is to be put to death:----

"But, at the last, to speaken she began,

And meekly she to the serjeant pray'd

(So as he was a worthy gentleman)

That she might kiss her child ere that it deid [died];

And in her barne [lap] this little child she laid

With full sad face, and 'gan the child to bliss,

And lulled it, and after 'gan it kiss."

The door of the chamber is hastily opened, and an old servant stands before

Margery with a face of affright. All in that household love the gentle

maiden; and so the old man, seeing the tear in her eye, bids her be of good

cheer, for though his worshipful mistress is now in a somewhat impatient

humor, and demands her instant attendance in the Oaken parlor, she is a

good lady at heart, and would soon forgive any slight cause of offence.

Dame Paston has called in two allies to constitute, with herself, the

tribunal that is about to sit in judgment on Margery Paston. Dame Agnes

Paston, the aged mother of the late heir of Caister, sits at the table with

her daughter-in-law and the priest.

Margery enters; and, in a moment, is kneeling at the feet of her mother,

with the accustomed reverence of child to parent. "Oh, minion," says the

mother, "rise, I beseech you; it is not for such as you to kneel to a poor

forlorn widow, left with few worldly goods. Mistress Calle has

plenteousness all around her, and has nothing to ask of the world's gear.

She has her good house at Framlingham, and her full store at Norwich.

Mistress, know you the price of salted hams at this present? Are pickled

herrings plenteous? We have some wool in loft, which we should not be

unwilling to exchange for worsteds. How say you, Mistress Dry-goods; will

you deal, will you chaffer?"

"My mother, what mean you?"

"Oh, minion, you know full well my meaning. You are an alien from your

family. You are betrothed to a low trader, with no gentle blood in his

veins."

"The good Sir William Paston, Knight, and whilom Judge of His Majesty's

Court of the Common Pleas, would rise from his grave to save a

granddaughter of his from inter-marrying with mustard and candle," quoth

the ancient lady. "Faugh! a factor!"

"And one whom I shrewdly suspect to be a heretic," says the priest, looking

earnestly at Mistress Margaret Paston.

"Oh, my mother, why am I thus persecuted?"

"Persecuted, foosooth!" responds the elder dame; "I took other rule with my

daughters; and well do I remember that when Elizabeth Clere, my niece,

tried to intercede with me for her wilful cousin Mary, forasmuch as she had

been 'beaten once in the week or twice, and sometimes twice in a day, and

had her head broken in several places,'[13] I told her that it was for

warning and ensample to all forward maidens who dared to think of love or

marriage without their parents' guidance. And with the help of my worthy

lord, the good Sir William Paston, Knight, and Judge of His Majesty's Court

of the Common Pleas--His Majesty Henry the Sixth gave him two robes and a

hundred marks yearly; and may God him preserve upon his throne----"

The priest and Mistress Margaret drown the good old lady's somewhat

disloyal gratitude (seeing that the House of York is in the ascendant) by

judicious clearings of the voice, as they prepare to read the intercepted

letter of Richard Calle, with sundry glosses.

"Minion," says the mother, "know you this superscription?"

"It is a letter from my own Richard," cries the delighted girl; "will you

give it me?"

"Assuredly not. It convicts you of being a false liar,--or it lies itself.

Did you not, with the fear of close custody, and bread and water, and maybe

some healing stripes, before your eyes, affirm that there was no contract

between the dry-goodsman and yourself?"

"Mother, I own my sin; I did affirm it, but I was wrong, and I am

penitent."

"Vile brethel!" exclaims the mother.

"She mentioned it not, even under the seal of confession," adds the priest.

"Yes, once in the week or twice, and sometimes twice a day, and she made an

excellent wife, by reason of the frequent beatings, and brought up her

children accordant," soliloquises the old lady.

"Daughter, I conjure you to hear what this vile Richard Calle sayeth to

you. Tell me that it is false--tell me that he is a bold liar, when he

affirmeth that you are contracted, and you shall at once have all freedom

and reasonable pleasure; but if not----"

"Mother, I listen."

"Hear, then, what this abominable bill imports. Sir James, please to read."

"'To Mistress Margery Paston:

"'Mine own lady and mistress, and before God very true wife, I, with heart

full, very sorrowfully recommend me unto you, as he that cannot be merry,

nor nought shall be, till it be otherwise with us than it is yet; for this

life that we lead now is neither pleasure to God nor to the world,

considering the great band of matrimony that is made betwixt us, and also

the great love that hath been, and as I trust yet is, betwixt us, and as on

my part never greater. Wherefore I beseech Almighty God comfort us as soon

as it pleaseth Him; for us that ought of very right to be most together,

are most asunder. Meseemeth it is a thousand years ago that I spake with

you----"

Margery here bursts into a passion of tears; and her mother, almost weeping

too, ejaculates, "My poor child!" The priest looks at the lady somewhat

spitefully, and proceeds:----

"'I had liever than all the good in the world I might be with you. Alas!

alas! good lady full little remember they what they do that keep us thus

asunder. Four times in the year are they accursed that let matrimony----'"

"Accursed are they?" exclaims the priest. "Ban and anathema against us, my

worshipful lady! But there are others, I wot, that the Church holds

accursed; and this base mechanical be one of them, if I mistake not. Did I

not once hear him say--for the varlet ever had privilege to speak in this

house, when his betters held their peace--did I not hear him once say that

his father had told him that he had seen the heretic priest, John Waddon,

burnt at Framlingham, and that he (shame that such an unbeliever might

presume to speak upon matters of the Church!) thought that the knowledge of

the truth was not advanced by such terrors, and that those who lit the

fires for the Lollards had no sanction in the Gospel of Christ. For mine

own part, I well believe that he has seduced our daughter from her

obedience by his false and damnable opinions. Mistress Margery, did he

never open in your presence the book of that arch heretic, John Wiclif,

which is called, 'The Book of the New Law'--the book which, in the

Constitution of Archbishop Arundel, was forbidden to be read, under pain of

the greater excommunication?"

The maiden answers not. The priest, looking earnestly at Mistress Margaret

Paston, asks her if she did not think that there was a possibility of such

a devilish corruption having gone forward; and Mistress Margaret, her cheek

coloring a deep red, and then having an ashy paleness, speaks no more for

good or evil to her daughter, but quails before the priest. He has her

secret. There is a treasured volume in that house, which has been carefully

locked up for half a century, to be looked upon in the secret hour, when

prying eyes are sleeping, and in the hour of tribulation, when careful eyes

are waking. With Richard Calle, Mistress Margaret had often spoken of this

book; although even to possess it was to risk a charge of "Lollardie," with

all its penalties. The priest sees his triumph; and proceeds to make an end

of as much of the letter as he chooses to read:----

"'I understand, lady, ye have had as much sorrow for me as any gentlewoman

hath had in the world, as would God all that sorrow that ye have had had

rested upon me, and that ye had been discharged of it; for I wis, lady, it

is to me a death to hear that ye be entreated otherwise than ye ought to

be; this is a painful life that we lead. I cannot live thus without it be a

great displeasure to God.'"

"He thought not of God's displeasure when he presumed to speak of love to a

daughter of the Pastons," says the priest. "A granddaughter of Sir William

Paston, one of his Majesty's Justices," mutters the ancient lady. Sir James

continues to read the missive:----

"'I suppose they deem we be not ensured together and if they do so I

marvel, for then they are not well advised, remembering the plainness that

I brake to my mistress at the beginning, and I suppose by you, both; and ye

did as ye ought to do of very right; and if ye have done the contrary, as I

have been informed ye have done, ye did neither consciencely, nor to the

pleasure of God, without ye did it for fear, and for the time, to please

such as were at that time about you; and if ye did it for this cause, it

was a reasonable cause, considering the great and importable calling upon

ye that ye had; and many an untrue tale was made to you of me, which, God

know it, I was never guilty of."[14]

"And now, pretty Mistress Margery," says Sir James, "will you affirm that

this man sayeth untruly, when he sayeth that you are ensured together? You

have before said that you are not so ensured. Will you cast off your mother

and your brothers to be the wife of a low factor, and a companion for idle

queans and the wives of fat burgesses, instead of wedding some noble

knight, who will give you a castle to dwell in, with all worship and

authority? Deny the contract; there is guilt in affirming it even if it had

been made in a moment of imprudence."

"Sir James Gloys, and you, my honored mother," answers the maiden, "Richard

Calle says truly, that I did not consciencely, nor to the pleasure of God,

when I concealed our contract for fear, and for the time. We are betrothed;

and I rejoice at the handfasting. No pain, no fear, shall ever again lead

me to deny it. He is my true husband, and may I ever be to him a reverent

and loving wife. For who can I love as I have loved, and do love, Richard

Calle,--the companion of my childhood, the instructor of my girlhood: a

true man, as brave as if he were the sturdiest of belted knights--as wise

as if he were the clerkliest of learned scholars. He has abundance; he is

generous. When did a Paston ask Richard Calle for aid that his hand was not

open? We may not want his help just now; but if the time arrive, and

assuredly it may be not far off, that hand would be again stretched out for

succour. Come Richard Calle of gentle or simple, I heed not; he is my own

true man, and to him is my faith plighted, for ever and aye."

"Twice in a day, and had her head broke in several places," grumbles the

ancient dame.

"Mistress Margery," responds the priest, "you must take your own course.

But this is not now a matter for daughter and mother to settle between

them. It must before the Lord Bishop. In the name of Holy Church, I

prohibit all intercourse by message or letter between Richard Calle and

yourself. You must be in strict durance for a short season; and then a

higher than us shall decide, contract or no contract. Heaven forfend that

I, or any servant of the altar, should let matrimony."

"My child, go to your chamber," whispers the subdued mother.

We see the shadow of Margery Paston, before she quits the Oaken parlor,

kneeling for her mother's blessing.

* * * * *

The Michaelmas of 1469 is nearly come. Margery Paston is still in durance

at her mother's house. Every art has been tried to make her deny the

betrothal. The priest has worked upon the fears of the mother--the daughter

has been studiously kept from her presence. But this state of things cannot

abide. Dame Margaret thus writes to Sir John Paston: "I greet you well, and

send you God's blessing and mine; letting you weet that on Thursday last

was, my mother and I were with my Lord of Norwich, and desired him that he

would no more do in the matter touching your sister till that ye, and my

brother, and others, that were executors to your father, might be here

together, for they had the rule of her as well as I; and he said plainly

that he had been required so often to examine her, that he might not, nor

would, no longer delay it: and charged me, in pain of cursing, that she

should not be deferred, but that she should appear before him the next day.

And I said plainly that I would neither bring her nor send her. And then he

said that he would send for her himself, and charged that she should be at

her liberty to come when he sent for her."

On the next day--it is a Friday--Margery Paston is brought into the

Bishop's Court. There, surrounded with the panoply of the Church, sits old

Walter Lyhart--he that built the roof of the nave, and the screen, of

Norwich Cathedral. The maiden trembles, but her spirit remains unbroken.

The bishop puts her in remembrance how she was born,--what kin and friends

she has--"And ye shall have more, young lady, if ye will be ruled and

guided after them. But if ye will not, what rebuke, and loss, and shame

will be yours? They will evermore forsake you, for any good, or help, or

comfort that ye shall have of them. Be well advised. I have heard say that

ye love one that your friends are not well pleased that ye should love. Be

advised--be right well advised."

"I am the betrothed wife of Richard Calle. I must cleave to him for better

for worse."

"Rehearse to me what you said to him. Let me understand if it makes

matrimony?"

"We have plighted our troth--we are handfasted. How can I repeat the words?

Richard said----Oh, my lord! spare me, I am bound in my conscience,

whatsoever the words were. If the very words make not sure, make it, I

beseech you, surer ere I go hence."

And then the bishop dismisses the maiden with many frowns.

Richard Calle is summoned. He briefly tells the time and place where the

vows were exchanged. The bishop is bewildered. He scarcely dare hesitate to

confirm the marriage. But the subtle priest is at his side, and he whispers

the fearful word of "Lollardie." Then the bishop hastily breaks up the

court, and says, "That he supposed there should be found other things

against him that might cause the letting the marriage; and therefore he

would not be too hasty to give sentence."

Margery Paston stands again upon her mother's threshold. The aged servant

is weeping as he opens the door: "Oh, my dear young mistress! I am

commanded to shut this gate against you." The figure of Sir James Gloys

looms darkly in the hall. "Begone, mistress!" he exclaims. "I will go to my

grandmother," sobs out the poor girl. "Your grandmother banishes you for

ever from her presence," retorts the churlish priest.

It is night. The pride and the purity of the unhappy Margery forbid her to

seek the protection of her Richard. She has been watched. Exhausted and

heart-broken, she gladly accepts the shelter which Roger Best offers her.

That shelter becomes her prison.

Here closes the record. But what a succession of Shadows is called up by

the endorsement of the letter which tells of these sorrows: "_They were

after married together._" The contract could not be dissolved.

At one time we see the shadows of Richard and Margery Calle sitting

cheerily together in their peaceful home at Framlingham. The intrigues that

are carrying on in the Duke of Norfolk's castle, under whose walls they

abide, touch them not. They are not called upon to declare either for York

or Lancaster.

At another time we fancy John of Gelston, Margery's younger brother, a

wandering fugitive after the battle of Barnet, throwing himself upon the

despised Factor for refuge and succor. The fortunes of the Pastons are now

at the lowest ebb. Norfolk holds Caister. Edward the Fourth has pardoned

their revolt--but he will not trust them, or employ them. At length Norfolk

dies. Caister is restored to the Pastons--but they are penniless.

We see the shadow of a great feast within those half-ruinous walls. The

Factor has procured the means from his friends the Lombards. He now sits

upon the dais. Sir John Paston calls him brother. Dame Paston greets him as

son. John of Gelston says, "I would that my sister should not sell mustard

and candles at Framlingham--and assuredly she shall not. Richard Calle has

managed his substance better than we; he can win broad lands enow. Kiss me,

sister."

There is one shadow of Margery which rests upon our mind. She sits with her

mother in the Oaken parlor at Norwich, reading from a volume, now opened

without fear, "Blessed are the peace-makers."

FOOTNOTES:

[11] "Paston Letters;" edited by A. Ramsay.

[12] "Paston Letters."

[13] "Paston Letters."

[14] This and the preceding passages are given literally from Calle's

letter in the Paston Collection.

From the London Times.

CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE.

But a few years ago, the imperishable records of the Assyrian empire were

discovered amidst the sands of the Euphrates by the intelligence and

enterprise of a single English traveller. What is the value of the ruins of

Pompeii by the side of these awful records of the genius and power of a

mighty nation, which had passed from the earth apparently as a wave passes

away on the surface of the sea? The official persons charged with the

direction of such matters would, of course, satisfy themselves in the first

instance that there was no trickery, no spice of adventure or imposition,

about the project of removing the Assyrian marbles to England. When this

was done, was it not natural to suppose that they would have clutched at

the opportunity of adding yet another trophy to the relics of the

Parthenon? The history of Mr. Layard is there to show how weak is the

character of that enthusiasm which must work out its effects at a

distance--in what driblets any assistance from the public purse is

vouchsafed to an enterprise which is not recommended to notice by the

untiring zeal of a projector! Consider the money fooled away on the basin

at Keyham on the one hand, and the inefficient aid afforded to Mr. Layard

for the removal of the Assyrian marbles on the other, and our meaning will

be at once evident. We desire to-day to call attention to another public

shortcoming of the like nature.

Englishmen who travel from their native country to the British Indian

empire, as they pass through Alexandria, take occasion to visit two tall

obelisks of red Thebaic granite on the south side of the Great Harbour.

These relics of the remotest periods of Egyptian history are covered with

inscriptions which possess great interest for the antiquarian,

independently of the value which attaches to the shafts or pillars

themselves. In our columns yesterday will be found a long and particular

account of the traditions which must ennoble these mute interpreters of the

past in the eyes of the latest posterity; we do not, therefore, deem it

necessary to repeat the tale in this place. One of the two obelisks remains

erect in its original site; the other lies prostrate on the sand, with

which it is partly covered. A portion of its pedestal has been built into

the wall which at that spot constitutes the fortification of the town. The

one which yet remains upright on the spot where once stood the temple of

the Caesars is the property of the Egyptian Government; the other, which

lies neglected on the earth, belongs to the English nation. It is ours by

conquest--it is ours by gift. It is a trophy won by our arms when the

gallant Abercromby fell at the head of his victorious troops. As though

this title were not sufficient, in 1820 Mehemet Ali, then Pasha of Egypt

set at rest any doubt which might have existed as to our title to this

trophy by its long abandonment on the field of battle. He solemnly

presented it to George IV. Nor has a shadow of doubt ever been cast upon

our right to this memorial of past times and of our own military glory,

save by a modest inuendo of the French consul in 1830, when the French were

busy removing the obelisk of Luxor. That worthy and intelligent functionary

suggested that, "as the English had so long neglected the Pasha's present,

they might be considered to have relinquished it, and therefore it might as

well be taken away in the French vessel which had come for the other

obelisk." To this modest proposition the English government demurred, and

accordingly Cleopatra's Needle has been left upon the sand in the harbour

of Alexandria, until it may suit the English to take some efficient steps

for its removal. All authoritative reports from the spot inform us that the

inscription is partly defaced upon one side, but in no other respect. The

sand from the desert has in great measure preserved the monument which has

been so long abandoned to its fate. Truth, however, compels us to call

attention to the language of our report, which adds, that if the obelisk

"be not removed at once, it will doubtless, ere long, become utterly ruined

and worthless." This result will not be attributable to the ravages of

time, but to the injuries inflicted by idle or mischievous persons on this

valuable record and monument of by-gone days.

A correspondent furnishes the _Times_ with the following interesting

historical notices of this celebrated monument:

"Travellers who visit Alexandria cannot fail to observe, on

the south side of the great harbor, now called the New Port,

a beautiful obelisk of red Thebaic granite, or Syenite,

covered with hieroglyphics, standing erect where was once

the Caesarium, or Temple of Caesar, while near it another

similar monument lies prostrate, and partly covered by the

sand. To these relics of a remote antiquity the Arabs give

the name of Mesellet Faraun, or _Pharaoh's Packing Needle_,

a term which is, indeed, applied by them to all obelisks.

The traditions of the later periods of the Roman Empire, and

of a subsequent time, seem to have attributed many objects

at Alexandria to Cleopatra, and the obelisks in question are

accordingly best known to Europeans as _Cleopatra's

Needles_, a trivial designation, possessing as little

historical value as that of "Queen Elizabeth's Pocket

Pistol," which is given to the great gun at Dover. The

classical term _obelisk_ is, in its origin, not less

trivial, if it be true that it is derived from the Latin

_obeliscus_, a diminutive of the Greek word [Greek: obelos],

which means, literally, a spit, as indicative of the

peculiar form of this species of monument.

"As far as the true history of these obelisks is concerned,

which is principally to be deduced from the monarchs' names

sculptured on them, they appear to have been originally cut

at the granite quarries of Syene, at the first cataract in

Upper Egypt, 750 miles from their present site, by

Thothmosis III. This monarch was one of the most celebrated

rulers of that remarkable country. We find remains of him in

Nubia, at Samneh, at Premmis, and at Amada, proving that his

sway extended even beyond the third cataract. He added also

largely to the great temple of Karnak; and on the sculptures

in one of its rooms he is represented as presenting

offerings to his ancestors or predecessors of eight several

dynasties, namely: the kings of Thebes, of Abydos, of

Memphis, of Ethiopia, and of four other divisions of Egypt.

In one of the tombs near Thebes is a painting of a grand

procession of men of the several nations bordering on the

Nile, who are bringing their costly gifts in token of homage

to this king. Under Thothmosis III., who held Upper and

Lower Egypt and Ethiopia, the kingdom of Thebes had reached

its full size. Several later kings may have been more

wealthy, and more powerful, and their conquests may have

extended further, but those conquests were only temporary;

and the glories of those later kings never threw the reign

of Thothmosis III. into the shade.

"The central inscriptions on the four faces of these

obelisks were sculptured by the monarch whom we have just

described. The lateral inscriptions were added by a king who

was, if possible, even more celebrated, namely, Amunmai

Rameses II., commonly known by the name of Sesostris, the

monarch under whom Upper Egypt rose to its greatest height

in arms, in art, and in wealth. It is unnecessary to do more

than allude to the fabled history of this monarch; but

confining ourselves to the particulars recorded on

imperishable monuments of stone, we find that he finished

the palace of the Memnonium or Mamunei at Abydos, and also

the temple of Osiris, in the same city; and on one of the

walls of the latter he carved that list of his forefathers

now in the British Museum, which is known by the name of the

Tablet of Abydos. At Thebes, besides adding to the buildings

of his predecessors, he erected a new palace, which, like

that at Abydos, was by the Greeks called the Memnonium. In

the first courtyard was a colossal statue of himself, larger

than any other in Egypt, and in the second yard were two

smaller ones, from one of which was taken the colossal head

now in the British Museum.

"The two obelisks of Alexandria likewise have the names and

titles of some Pharaoh of later times, by whom they may

probably have been removed to Memphis; but subsequently the

Ptolemies, to embellish their Greco-Egyptian capital,

transferred them to Alexandria. In the reign of the Emperor

Tiberius, when the Alexandrians completed the beautiful

temple to his honor named the Sebaste, or Caesar's Temple,

which stood by the side of the harbor, and was surrounded by

a sacred grove, ornamented with porticoes, and fitted up

with libraries, paintings, and statues,--it being the most

lofty building in the city,--they set up in front of this

temple the two obelisks of Thothmosis and Rameses, which,

like the other monuments of the Theban kings, have outlived

all the temples and palaces of their Greek and Roman

successors.

"These beautiful memorials of two of the most powerful and

celebrated rulers of Egypt appear not to have suffered any

material injury from the vicissitudes to which the dominions

of those kings have during so many ages been subjected.[15]

From a very early period one of them has been thrown down

from the pedestal on which it stood; but this seeming

calamity has probably preserved its sculptures better than

if it had remained on its pedestal, for its still erect

companion, though well preserved on the sides exposed to the

sea, has suffered a good deal from the beating against it of

the land-wind, which blows with violence and is charged with

sand. With the exception of the four corners of the base,

where, like the obelisk in the Hippodrome at Constantinople,

it would seem to have formerly been held to its pedestal by

four cubes of bronze, the fallen obelisk is perfect, and its

sculptures are in comparatively good preservation. Its

length is 64 feet, and at its base it is about 8 feet

square; its weight being estimated at about 240 tons.[16]

The obelisk is of great value from its antiquity, its

proportions, and, moreover, as an imperishable memorial of

British valor.

"After the English were in possession of Alexandria (as we

find it recorded by Dr. Clarke in his _Travels_) a

subscription was opened among the officers of the army and

navy for the purpose of removing the prostrate obelisk to

Great Britain. With the money thus raised they purchased one

of the vessels that Menou had sunk in the old port of

Alexandria. This they raised, and prepared for its

reception. The work went on rapidly, the obelisk was turned,

and its lower surface was found to be in a high state of

preservation. It was then moved, by means of machinery

constructed for the purpose, towards the vessel prepared to

receive it. Lord Cavan presided at this undertaking. A naval

officer, who was present upon the occasion, brought over to

England the plans projected for conveying this splendid

trophy of the success of our arms to the metropolis of this

country; and there is every reason to believe the design

would have been accomplished. Its interruption took place in

consequence of an order preventing the sailors from

assisting at the work. An eye-witness, who is still living,

states that about 5,000L. were subscribed by the army, that

300 Sepoys worked for three or four months in constructing a

jetty, whence the obelisk was to have been embarked; but

that the General who then commanded at Malta wrote to the

military authorities in Egypt, objecting to the employment

of the troops in such a work, and ordering them to suspend

their operations. This was accordingly done, and the money

unexpended was returned to the subscribers.

"Though the obelisk was thus left behind when the British

forces quitted Egypt, the idea of bringing it to England was

never abandoned; and whatever doubts might have existed as

to our right to the possession of a trophy which had been

taken, but afterwards (as it were) abandoned on the field of

battle, were set at rest by the gift of it made in the year

1820 by the late Mehemet Ali Pasha to King George IV.

"Notwithstanding this gift, the obelisk still remained

without any definitive steps being taken for its removal to

England.[17] In 1830, when the French sent a vessel to

Alexandria to transport to France the obelisk of Luxor,

which is now standing in the Place de la Concorde at Paris,

and also, as it was talked of at the time, the one of

'Cleopatra's needles' which is yet standing, the French

Consul in Egypt is said to have made the modest suggestion

that, 'as the English had so long neglected the Pasha's

present, they might be considered to have relinquished it,

and therefore it might as well be taken away in the French

vessel which had come for the other obelisk.'

"This, however, was not allowed to take place. Neither have

the English taken any steps to acquire possession of a

monument which is the indisputable property of the British

nation, and which, if not removed, will doubtless ere long

become utterly ruined and worthless. The stones of the

pedestal on which it stood have been carried away for

building purposes; the obelisk itself has been exposed to

many marks inflicted by the curious and idlers of

Alexandria, and as a last indignity one end of it has

actually been built into the wall surrounding the port,

forming part of the new fortifications of the city.

"The subject of the removal of this obelisk has often been

before Parliament. On the 2d of June last, in the House of

Peers, the Marquis of Westmeath, at the request of several

military and naval officers, inquired what steps had been

taken for obtaining possession of or for removing it. He

stated that the opinion of the late Sir R. Peel, expressed

to himself, was, that it was a monument which ought to be

brought to London and erected as a memorial of Sir Ralph

Abercromby and others who had fought and died in Egypt. The

late Sir George Murray had also stated that he joined with

all his military and naval friends, who desired that the

obelisk should be brought to this country. In reply to Lord

Westmeath's inquiry the Earl of Carlisle admitted the

importance which attached to the obelisk, not merely as a

memorial of the ancient art of Egypt, but also as a monument

of British heroism; but said that he apprehended there were

some mechanical difficulties. This, however, can hardly be

the case, inasmuch as the obelisk would unquestionably have

been removed in 1801, had it not been for the reasons

already stated.

"As a relic of ancient art, as a memorial of two of the most

renowned monarchs of Egypt, and as a trophy of British

valor, this obelisk is without price. If allowed to remain

in its present state, it will inevitably be destroyed, and

there cannot exist the slightest doubt that it was the

bounden duty of the British nation to see to its

preservation, which can only be secured by carrying out the

intention of our valiant troops half-a-century ago--namely,

by transplanting it to England. The appropriate site for it

might either be the courtyard of the British Museum, where

it would form a noble addition to the peerless collection of

Egyptian monuments, of which the famed 'Rosetta Stone,' that

other trophy of our occupation of Egypt, forms a part; or it

might, perhaps, be more appropriately set up in St. James's

Park, at the back of the Horse Guards. The expense of its

removal could not be great; but, whatever might be its

amount, it is certain, when even Mr. Hume has expressed an

interest in the subject, that the nation would cheerfully

incur it. An offer has indeed been made to Government to

bring it to England by contract for a comparatively trifling

sum."

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Mr. Gould, in the "Builder" of August 2, says, from certain

authorities, it would appear that both were standing at the close of the

12th century.

[16] On the 15th of April, 1832, when a proposition for its removal was

made in the House of commons, it was stated that it weighed 284 tons.

Captain Smyth, R.N., supposes it to be 230 tons.

[17] In 1822 Captain Smyth, R.N., was prepared, with the consent of Mehemet

Ali, to attempt its removal, but could not procure the authority of our

Government. The Pasha offered to build a pier for the embarkation of the

obelisk, and to render Captain Smyth every assistance for its removal.

From the London Times

HISTORY AND CONDITION OF THE CHEAP POSTAGE SYSTEM.

A traveller sauntering through the Lake districts of England, some years

ago, arrived at a small public-house just as the postman stopped to deliver

a letter. A young girl came out to receive it. She took it in her hand,

turned it over and over, and asked the charge. It was a large sum--no less

than a shilling. Sighing heavily she observed that it came from her

brother, but that she was too poor to take it in, and she returned it to

the postman accordingly. The traveller was a man of kindness as well as of

observation; he offered to pay the postage himself, and in spite of more

reluctance on the girl's part than he could well understand he did pay it,

and gave her the letter. No sooner, however, was the postman's back turned

than she confessed that the proceeding had been concerted between her

brother and herself, that the letter was empty, that certain signs on the

direction conveyed all that she wanted to know, and that as neither of them

could afford to pay postage they had devised this method of franking the

intelligence desired. The traveller pursued his journey, and as he plodded

over the Cumberland fells he mused upon the badness of a system which drove

people to such straits for means of correspondence, and defeated its own

objects all the time. With most men such musings would have ended before

the hour, but this man's name was Rowland Hill, and it was from this

incident and these reflections that the whole scheme of penny postage was

derived.

The value of this reform is felt in every household throughout the kingdom,

but its extent will be well shown by the extraction of some figures from a

return which has just been made to the House of Commons. The first general

reduction of postage took place on the 5th of December, 1839--a fourpenny

rate being interposed for a short time before the universal charge of a

penny. At this time the number of letters delivered annually in the united

kingdom was about 75 millions, the actual estimate for 1839 being

75,907,572. The gross amount of the tax levied upon this delivery was no

less than 2,339,737_l._, of which, as the cost of management was only

687,000_l._, there was 1,652,424_l._ carried to the account of profit. Last

year the number of letters delivered in the united kingdom was estimated at

upwards of _three hundred and forty-seven millions_, while the penny tax

upon the same amounted to no more than 2,264,684_l._, so that while our

payments to the Exchequer have been actually lessened, the service rendered

to the public has been multiplied fivefold--in other words, we pay less for

five letters than we formerly paid for one.

It is worth remark that the correspondence in the three kingdoms has

increased almost equally. In 1839 the deliveries were 59,982,520;

8,301,904; and 7,623,148, in England, Ireland, and Scotland, respectively;

while last year they were 276,252,642; 35,388,895; and 35,427,534. The rate

of increase has been continuous, though not quite constant, ever since the

reduction. The first effect of the reform was to double the deliveries at

once, and turn the 75 millions into upwards of 160 millions. From that time

to this the increase has proceeded at the rate of 10 or 20 millions a year,

the smallest augmentation being in the famous year of 1848, when the

delivery exceeded only by 6 millions that of 1847; and the largest in the

equally famous times of 1845, when railway speculations added 28 millions

of epistles to correspondence of the year preceding. The return before us

includes, we hardly know with what view, a weekly account taken once a

month for 1850, and from this curious table it would seem that during the

month in which ladies talk least they write most; at any rate the largest

number of letters yet counted was for the week ending February the 21st.

The cost of management has, of course, been swelled considerably under the

new system, though by no means in proportion to the increased service, for

whereas the deliveries, as we have said, are multiplied fivefold, the

expenses are only multiplied about twice and a half, being 1,460,785_l._ in

1850, against 686,768_l._ in 1839. The return does not comprise the items

out of which this sum is made up, though it specifies the amounts paid in

each year for the conveyance of mails by railway. These amounts fluctuate

rather curiously from 12,623_l._ in 1839, to 206,357_l._ in this present

year of 1851--not increasing gradually or even constantly, but rising or

falling occasionally, though with an ultimate tendency to rise. We should

have rather liked to see the expenses of management and conveyance stated

separately, and some means of comparison given between the cost of railway

carriage and that of the old mail coaches. About 10,000_l._ per annum of

the total disbursements is devoted, we are told, to pensions, and must

therefore be distinguished from the direct expenses of the Post-office

service. All things considered, perhaps, this "non-effective" charge is not

heavy; in fact, we believe that Post-office servants are by no means

extravagantly paid either for their work or at their retirement.

The Money Order office forms a distinct establishment of itself, and a

curious institution it is. The amount of orders issued in 1840, the first

year of the system, was 240,063_l_. for England and Wales, 47,295_l._ for

Ireland, and 25,765_l._ for Scotland. In the year 1850 these amounts had

increased in England to no less a sum than 7,173,622_l._, in Ireland to

623,732_l._, and in Scotland to 697,143_l._ The total sum was

8,494,498_l._, and the number of orders of which it was composed 4,439,713,

showing an average of some shillings less than 2_l._ per order. The

proportion between the number and the amount of the orders does not vary

greatly in the three kingdoms, though the average amount of each order is

somewhat larger in Scotland than Ireland, and in England than Scotland.

The Scotch transactions fell off considerably in the year 1849, but the

English and Irish offices have steadily increased their business, nor is

any effect perceptible in the latter country, either from the famine or the

rebellion. The return of "money orders issued" is distinguished from that

of "money orders paid," and the difference between these gross amounts is

no less than 11,000_l._ in favor of the Post-office for the year ending the

31st of last December. Some of these orders will no doubt have come in for

payment during the current year, but we suspect that ignorance, negligence,

or accident must be leaving an appreciable balance to accumulate on the

side of the office. Country bankers, we believe, used to reckon upon a gain

of 5l. per cent. on the score of notes lost, mislaid, hoarded, destroyed,

or otherwise not presented for payment. Money orders are doubtless more

rigorously exchanged for cash, but there must still, we imagine, be a

profit from this source, especially as the Post-office circumscribes the

term of its liability, which bankers did not. The total expenses of the

Money Order offices, both in London and the country, are returned at

70,577_l._ and the total amount of commission received at 73,813_l._--a

fair balance of charge and service.

The actual benefits, however, of this prodigious reform extend far beyond

those immediately represented in the figures we have given. It is not the

mere saving of 4d. or 5d. on a letter by which the country has so

enormously gained. The facilitation of business, the diffusion of

information, the correspondence of friends, and the maintenance of family

connexions, which in old days were severed for ever, are the real and

inestimable advantages of Mr. ROWLAND HILL'S invention. Like most

reformers, he had to contend with violent and not always sincere

opposition. The system, indeed, was long deprived of a fair trial by the

obstinate resistance of those who should have aided him, and it is mainly

owing to this concerted hostility that the results are not as favorable to

the revenue as they are to the welfare of the country. But the principle is

now established, and of all the reductions which a Chancellor of the

Exchequer has ever made there has been none attended with such universal

relief, convenience, and benefit as this sacrifice of 800,000_l._ for the

sake of the letter writers.

OCTOBER.

BY MISS ALICE CAREY.

Not the light of the long blue summer,

Nor the flowery huntress, Spring,

Nor the chilly and moaning Winter,

Doth peace to my bosom bring,

Like the hazy and red October,

When the woods stand bare and brown,

And into the lap of the south land,

The flowers are blowing down;

When all night long, in the moonlight,

The boughs of the roof tree chafe,

And the wind, like a wandering poet,

Is singing a mournful waif;

And all day through the cloud-armies,

The sunbeams coquettishly rove--

For then in my path first unfolded

The sweet passion-flower of love.

With bosom as pale as the sea-shell,

And soft as the flax unspun,

And locks like the nut-brown shadows

In the light of the sunken sun,

Came the maiden whose wonderful beauty

Enchanted my soul from pain,

And gladdened my heart, that can never,

No, never be happy again.

Far away from life's pain and passion,

And our Eden of love, she went,

Like a pale star fading softly

From the morning's golden tent.

But oft, when the bosom of Autumn

Is warm with the summer beams,

We meet in the pallid shadows

That border the land of dreams,

For seeing my woe through the splendor

That hovers about her above,

She puts from her forehead the glory,

And listens again to my love.

MY NOVEL:

OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.[18]

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.

BOOK VII.--INITIAL CHAPTER.

"What is courage?" said my uncle Roland, rousing himself from a reverie

into which he had fallen after the Sixth Book in this history had been read

to our family circle.

"What is courage?" he repeated more earnestly. "Is it insensibility to

fear? _That_ may be the mere accident of constitution; and, if so, there is

no more merit in being courageous than in being this table."

"I am very glad to hear you speak thus," observed Mr. Caxton, "for I should

not like to consider myself a coward; yet I am very sensible to fear in all

dangers, bodily and moral."

"La, Austin, how can you say so?" cried my mother, firing up; "was it not

only last week that you faced the great bull that was rushing after Blanche

and the children?"

Blanche at that recollection stole to my father's chair, and hanging over

his shoulder, kissed his forehead.

_Mr. Caxton_, (sublimely unmoved by these flatteries.)--"I don't deny that

I faced the bull, but I assert that I was horribly frightened."

_Roland._--"The sense of honor which conquers fear is the true courage of

chivalry: you could not run away when others were looking on--no gentleman

could."

_Mr. Caxton._--"Fiddledee! It was not on my gentility that I stood,

Captain, I should have run fast enough, if it had done any good. I stood

upon my understanding. As the bull could run faster than I could, the only

chance of escape was to make the brute as frightened as myself."

_Blanche._--"Ah, you did not think of that, your only thought was to save

me and the children."

_Mr. Caxton._--"Possibly, my dear--very possibly I might have been afraid

for you too--but I was very much afraid for myself. However, luckily, I had

the umbrella, and I sprang it up and spread it forth in the animal's stupid

eyes, hurling at him simultaneously the biggest lines I could think of in

the First Chorus of the 'Seven against Thebes.' I began with ELEDEMNAS

PEDIOPLOKTUPOS; and when I came to the grand howl of [Greek: Io, io, io,

io],--the beast stood appalled as at the roar of a lion. I shall never

forget his amazed snort at the Greek. Then he kicked up his hind legs, and

went bolt through the gap in the hedge. Thus, armed with AEschylus and the

umbrella, I remained master of the field; but (continued Mr. Caxton,

ingenuously) I should not like to go through that half minute again."

"No man would," said the Captain kindly. "I should be very sorry to face a

bull myself, even with a bigger umbrella than yours, and even though I had

AEschylus, and Homer to boot, at my fingers' ends."

_Mr. Caxton._--"You would not have minded if it had been a Frenchman with a

sword in his hand?"

_Captain._--"Of course not. Rather liked it than otherwise," he added

grimly.

_Mr. Caxton._--"Yet many a Spanish matador, who doesn't care a button for a

bull, would take to his heels at the first lunge en carte from a Frenchman.

Therefore, in fact, if courage be a matter of constitution, it is also a

matter of custom. We face calmly the dangers we are habituated to, and

recoil from those of which we have no familiar experience. I doubt if

Marshal Turenne himself would have been quite at his ease on the

tight-rope; and a rope-dancer, who seems disposed to scale the heavens with

Titanic temerity, might possibly object to charge on a cannon."

_Captain Roland._--"Still, either this is not the courage I mean, or there

is another kind of it. I mean by courage that which is the especial force

and dignity of the human character, without which there is no reliance on

principle, no constancy in virtue--a something," continued my uncle,

gallantly, and with a half bow towards my mother, "which your sex shares

with our own. When the lover, for instance, clasps the hand of his

betrothed, and says, 'Wilt thou be true to me, in spite of absence and

time, in spite of hazard and fortune, though my foes malign me, though thy

friends may dissuade thee, and our lot in life may be rough and rude?' and

when the betrothed answers, 'I will be true,' does not the lover trust to

her courage as well as her love?"

"Admirably put, Roland," said my father. "But _apropos_ of what do you

puzzle us with these queries on courage?"

_Captain Roland_, (with a slight blush.)--"I was led to the inquiry

(though, perhaps, it may be frivolous to take so much thought of what, no

doubt, costs Pisistratus so little) by the last chapters in my nephew's

story. I see this poor boy, Leonard, alone with his fallen hopes, (though

very irrational they were,) and his sense of shame. And I read his heart, I

dare say, better than Pisistratus does, for I could feel like that boy if I

had been in the same position; and, conjecturing what he and thousands like

him must go through, I asked myself, 'What can save him and them?' I

answered, as a soldier would answer, 'Courage!' Very well. But pray,

Austin, what is courage?"

_Mr. Caxton._ (prudently backing out of a reply.)--"_Papoe!_ Brother,

since you have just complimented the ladies on that quality, you had better

address your question to them."

Blanche here leant both hands on my father's chair, and said, looking down

at first bashfully, but afterwards warming with the subject, "Do you not

think, sir, that little Helen has already suggested, if not what is

courage, what at least is the real essence of all courage that endures and

conquers, that ennobles, and hallows, and redeems? Is it not Patience,

father?--and that is why we women have a courage of our own. Patience does

not affect to be superior to fear, but at least it never admits despair."

_Pisistratus._--"Kiss me, my Blanche, for you have come near to the truth

which perplexed the soldier and puzzled the sage."

_Mr. Caxton_, (tartly.)--"If you mean me by the sage, I was not puzzled at

all. Heaven knows you do right to inculcate patience--it is a virtue very

much required in your readers. Nevertheless," added my father, softening

with the enjoyment of his joke--"nevertheless, Blanche and Helen are quite

right. Patience is the courage of the conqueror; it is the virtue, _par

excellence_, of Man against Destiny--of the One against the World, and of

the Soul against Matter. Therefore this is the courage of the Gospel; and

its importance, in a social view--its importance to races and

institutions--cannot be too earnestly inculcated. What is it that

distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon from all other branches of the human family,

peoples deserts with his children, and consigns to them the heritage of

rising worlds? What but his faculty to brave, to suffer, to endure--the

patience that resists firmly, and innovates slowly? Compare him with the

Frenchman. The Frenchman has plenty of valor--that there is no denying; but

as for fortitude, he has not enough to cover the point of a pin. He is

ready to rush out of the world if he is bit by a flea."

_Captain Roland._--"There was a case in the papers the other day, Austin,

of a Frenchman who actually did destroy himself because he was so teased by

the little creatures you speak of. He left a paper on his table, saying

that 'life was not worth having at the price of such torments.'"[19]

_Mr. Caxton_, (solemnly.)--"Sir, their whole political history, since the

great meeting of the Tiers Etat, has been the history of men who would

rather go to the devil than be bit by a flea. It is the record of human

impatience, that seeks to force time, and expects to grow forests from the

spawn of a mushroom. Wherefore, running through all extremes of

constitutional experiment, when they are nearest to democracy they are next

door to a despot; and all they have really done is to destroy whatever

constitutes the foundation of every tolerable government. A constitutional

monarchy cannot exist without aristocracy, nor a healthful republic endure

with corruption of manners. The cry of equality is incompatible with

Civilization, which, of necessity, contrasts poverty with wealth--and, in

short, whether it be an emperor or a mob that is to rule, Force is the sole

hope of order, and the government is but an army.

"Impress, O Pisistratus! impress the value of patience as regards man and

men. You touch there on the kernel of the social system--the secret that

fortifies the individual and disciplines the million. I care not, for my

part, if you are tedious so long as you are earnest. Be minute and

detailed. Let the real human life, in its war with Circumstance, stand out.

Never mind if one can read you but slowly--better chance of being less

quickly forgotten. Patience, patience! By the soul of Epictetus, your

readers shall set you an example!"

CHAPTER II.

Leonard had written twice to Mrs. Fairfield, twice to Riccabocca, and once

to Mr. Dale; and the poor, proud boy could not bear to betray his

humiliation. He wrote as with cheerful spirits--as if perfectly satisfied

with his prospects. He said that he was well employed, in the midst of

books, and that he had found kind friends. Then he turned from himself to

write about those whom he addressed, and the affairs and interests of the

quiet world wherein they lived. He did not give his own address, nor that

of Mr. Prickett. He dated his letters from a small coffee-house near the

bookseller, to which he occasionally went for his simple meals. He had a

motive in this. He did not desire to be found out. Mr. Dale replied for

himself and for Mrs. Fairfield, to the epistles addressed to these two.

Riccabocca wrote also. Nothing could be more kind than the replies of both.

They came to Leonard in a very dark period in his life, and they

strengthened him in the noiseless battle with despair.

If there be a good in the world that we do without knowing it, without

conjecturing the effect it may have upon a human soul, it is when we show

kindness to the young in the first barren foot-path up the mountain of

life.

Leonard's face resumed its serenity in his intercourse with his employer;

but he did not recover his boyish ingenuous frankness. The under-currents

flowed again pure from the turbid soil, and the splintered fragments uptorn

from the deep; but they were still too strong and too rapid to allow

transparency to the surface. And now he stood in the sublime world of

books, still and earnest as a seer who invokes the dead. And thus, face to

face with knowledge, hourly he discovered how little he knew. Mr. Prickett

lent him such works as he selected and asked to take home with him. He

spent whole nights in reading; and no longer desultorily. He read no more

poetry, no more Lives of Poets. He read what poets must read if they desire

to be--_Sapere principium et fons_--strict reasonings on the human mind;

the relations between motive and conduct, thought and action; the grave and

solemn truths of the past world; antiquities, history, philosophy. He was

taken out of himself. He was carried along the ocean of the universe. In

that ocean, O seeker, study the law of the tides; and seeing Chance

nowhere--thought presiding over all--Fate, that dread phantom, shall vanish

from creation, and Providence alone be visible in heaven and on earth!