CHAPTER VIII.

When the news of Fadrique’s death reached the castle of Estuniga, a

profound grief visited its inmates. This last act of perfidious cruelty

destroyed all the hopes that Blanche had founded upon Pedro’s better

nature. To invite Fadrique to the capital, and then to meet him with

death, was so infamous that she no longer even wished for a reunion with

her husband. Her heart now told her that the throne of Spain was not the

home for her, and she once more yearned for the land she had forsaken

for a fate like hers, and a husband such as Pedro.

At this time Estuniga and the Lady Leonora were seriously disquieted, in

consequence of a command which Pedro had sent to the knight, to treat

his queenly guest as he himself had treated Fadrique, in other words, to

put her to death. To execute such a command was for him impossible.

Every principle and every feeling of his nature revolted from the

slightest injustice, much more from a deed as fiendish as this. He sent

back an indignant refusal, and saw the necessity of some energetic

movement in order to secure Blanche’s safety.

Hearing that Alburquerque was at or near Toledo, still unpardoned by the

king, he resolved to meet him, and with him concert, if possible, some

feasible scheme for the escape of the queen. Leaving Blanche in care of

his lady, to whom he gave command of the castle in his absence, he set

forth with a promise to return within six days. Blanche knew not of the

king’s message, nor of the purpose of the knight’s sudden journey.

But unfortunately Pedro’s distrustful and uneasy spirit could not rely

on Estuniga’s fealty, and long ere his evil messenger had returned to

Seville, he ordered Reboledo to add another to his list of crimes, and

sent him with a force of troops to take Queen Blanche and murder her.

This remorseless satellite, whose life reflected his master’s, was not

apt to fail in the distasteful task.

On the second morning after the departure of the Knight of Estuniga, a

goodly train was at the castle gate, and their herald claimed admittance

for the troop. The Lady Leonora’s lieutenant, an aged warrior, who had

been knighted by her father, recognized the pennon of Reboledo and

advised her not to admit them, until she knew the object of the

cold-blooded Diego. Accordingly he went down to the wicket, but soon

returned to inform her that the purpose of the visit was to gain

possession of the queen. Further information he could not gain, but

Reboledo’s character and her well-founded suspicion that he had been an

instrument of Fadrique’s death induced her to refuse admittance, and if

he attacked the castle to defend it if possible until the return of her

lord.

To her old knight, Roberto, she gave the necessary authority over all

the force within the walls. Fortunately Estuniga had left the castle in

the best state of defense of which it was capable, and though not

adapted to a regular siege, could, it was thought, be defended against

the light force of Reboledo.

Lady Leonora and the queen were not kept long in suspense, for Reboledo

soon prepared for the attack. He had ascertained that the knight was

absent, and not knowing when he might return, resolved to accomplish his

purpose without delay. Roberto had divided his force between the only

two points which were assailable by the enemy, the draw and the postern.

The best marksmen were stationed at the draw, while above the postern he

soon had a supply of melted lead and pitch, which were almost the only

weapons there available. Several slight attacks were made during the

morning, more for the purpose of ascertaining the force of the defenders

than with the expectation of penetrating into the castle.

At noon Roberto observed preparations which satisfied him that the

struggle was about to commence in earnest. A furious assault was made

upon the draw, and while flights of arrows passed between the besiegers

and the besieged, a band of sturdy axe-men endeavored to get at the

drawbridge for the purpose of cutting it down. The vigilance of

Roberto’s bow-men prevented their success, and they were repeatedly

forced to retire. In the meantime, Reboledo supposing that the principal

force was diverted from the postern, attacked that part of the castle.

Having during the morning ascertained the means of defense in that

quarter, he had hastily constructed a large shield capable of protecting

several men from the arrows, lead, and pitch. Under the shield several

axe-men advanced to the charge, while a party of bow-men strove to

prevent the besieged from molesting them. Roberto was not so easily

entrapped, and the assailants after a fruitless battering at the postern

gate, were driven back with the loss of several men and their shield.

The attack in front was now continued with nearly the entire force with

but little better success. A number of the enemy were wounded, and

several were killed, while but a few of Roberto’s men were injured.

In the wane of the afternoon another shield was constructed, and

Reboledo, incensed to a fiendish bitterness by the unexpected vigor of

the defense, after a desperate assault succeeded in injuring the postern

gate ere being again driven off. A new attack was at once commenced in

order to complete the work, and was supported by a heavy force of

bow-men and mailed soldiers. In a few minutes the gate was open, and a

fierce hand-to-hand fight took place in the archway. Roberto headed the

defenders, who forced the assailants to give way, till Reboledo himself

entered the vaulted passage, and with his herculean strength bore down

all opposition. Roberto fell while gallantly stemming the torrent of

success, and his men after a brave defense were overwhelmed. The castle

was soon entirely in the power of the assailants, and Reboledo at once

made all the necessary dispositions for defense, in case it should prove

necessary.

After ordering the butler to furnish supper in the dining-hall, he sent

the seneschal to deliver to the ladies a courteous and knightly

invitation to appear at the evening repast.

During the siege the Lady Leonora had informed Blanche of Pedro’s

intention and of the cause of Estuniga’s absence. Shocked at the fate

which seemed to impend over her, and confident that Reboledo was the

tool of the king, she at first resolved to refuse her presence in the

hall; but her hostess showed the futility of the refusal, and the

necessity of appearing to be friendly to the victor. They were indeed

completely in his power, for though they had contrived to send two

messengers away at the moment of defeat, there was no chance for them to

escape. Leonora’s policy was to endeavor to retain Diego in his present

position till her messengers should have apprised Estuniga of the aspect

of affairs and he could recover the castle and the prisoners.

“Fair ladies,” said Reboledo, as the queen and her hostess entered the

hall, “I am well aware that in ordinary courtesy I should have been the

guest at this table, and therefore beg that you may so consider me.”

The Lady Leonora, though incensed at the covert sarcasm of this speech,

true to her policy, answered it with a polite courtesy which surprised

both her “guest” and the queen. No further reference was made to the

events of the day, and Reboledo, who was in manners an accomplished

cavalier, entertained the ladies with such gossip as was interesting and

customary. Their own seneschal was in the hall but did not approach the

table, and they observed that the two pages who attended them were

strangers. As they were about to leave the table, the knight turned to

the Lady Blanche, whom he had addressed by the title of “your grace,”

and inquired when she would be ready to rejoin her royal consort.

Surprised at such an unexpected question, she did not reply for a

moment, but promised to answer him in the morning, “for,” she added, “I

am not well to-night, and cannot say but I may be too ill to go

to-morrow.”

Apparently satisfied with the answer, he gracefully escorted the ladies

to the door.

“I am ill, Lady Leonora, very ill,” said Blanche, breathing shortly and

throwing herself upon a couch.

“Oh! a consuming fire flies through my veins. Give me some drink. How I

thirst!”

The Lady Leonora, though skilled in the leech-craft of the time, was

utterly at a loss, and what to do for Blanche she did not know. There

was no leech or friar in the castle. For a few minutes she gave her wine

and water to assuage her raging thirst, and bathed her burning temples.

Suddenly Blanche raised herself to a sitting position, and while her

face was convulsed with agony, exclaimed—

“Beware Leonora, I am poisoned by——”

This world and all its sorrows had passed away from her, and her pure

spirit, freed from the material fetters of this earthly life, had

reached its eyrie, basked in the pure light, far above the storm and

darkness of the valley.

* * * * *

LINES TO A BIRD,

WHICH SUNG AT MY WINDOW ONE MORNING IN LONDON.

BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

Whence comest thou, oh wandering soul of song?

Round the celestial gates hast thou been winging,

And hearkening to the angels all night long

To brighten earth with somewhat of their singing?

Thou child of sunshine, spirit of the flowers!

Nature, through thee, with loving tongue rejoices,

Until these walls dissolve themselves to bowers,

And all the air is full of woodland voices.

The winds that slumbered in the fields of dew,

Float round me now with music on their pinions,

Such as I heard while yet my years were few,

By native streams, in boyhood’s lost dominions.

And with the breath of morning on my brow,

I hear the accents of the few who love me;

Sing on full heart! I am no exile now—

This is no foreign sky that smiles above me.

I hear the happy sounds of household glee,

The heart’s own music, floating here to bless me,

And little ones who smiled upon my knee

Now clap the dimpled hands that would caress me.

Oh! music sweeter than the sweetest chime

Of magic bells by fairies set a-swinging;

I am no pilgrim in a foreign clime,

With these blest visions ever round me clinging.

I hear a voice no melody can reach;

Dear lips, speak on in your accustomed measure,

And teach my heart what you so well can teach,

How only love is earth’s enduring pleasure.

Oh! music sweeter than the Arcadian’s tune,

Wooing the dryads from the woodlands haunted;

Or than beneath the mellow harvest moon,

Trembles at midnight over lakes enchanted!

Oh! sweeter than the herald of the morn,

The clarion lark, that wakes the drowsy peasant,

Is this which thrills my breast, so else forlorn,

And with the Past and distant fills the Present.

Thus, with the music ringing in my heart,

I may awhile forget an exile’s sorrow,

And, armed with courage, rise—and so depart;

But what sweet bird shall sing to me to-morrow?

* * * * *

CHATEAUBRIAND AND HIS CAREER.

BY FAYETTE ROBINSON.

François Auguste, Vicomte de Chateaubriand, was born in 1768, in the

midst of that epoch which produced so many great men, Napoleon, Soult,

Wellington and Walter Scott. Educated at the castle of Combourg near

Saint-Malo, beyond all doubt as he wandered over the arid lands and

desolate shores of Armorica, young Chateaubriand felt the development in

his soul of that inclination and solitude which never abandoned him even

in the turmoil of business and amid the gravest political affairs.

Intended originally for the church, it was subsequently purposed to

devote him to the army; he began at Dol and terminated at Rennes, an

arduous course of study, which though it left his intense sensitiveness

and that creative imagination which are the chief characteristics of his

mind unaltered, enabled him to publish serious works on critical

history, at an age when persons usually possess but vague notions of

life and the principles which regulate the organization of society. In

1787, for the first time, young Chateaubriand went to Paris. He was at

that time a second lieutenant in the regiment of Navarre, but so as to

be enabled to ride in the king’s coaches, an honor to which from his old

nobility, he was entitled, the rank of captain was necessary, he

obtained by a fiction, not unusual at that time, the brevet of captain

of cavalry; notwithstanding this however, he continued to do duty in the

regiment of foot to which he belonged. The magnificence of the court of

Versailles could not at all satisfy the vague desire, which, though he

did not then understand its nature, tormented his soul. Adventure was a

condition of his being; his life could not be objectless, and with

delight he hailed the commencement of a career. One day as he looked

over a map of the New World, he was struck with the possibility of

discovering a passage to the northern Pole. From that hour sleep and

repose were gone. Like Columbus, he went from door to door, to solicit

means to realize the idea which animated him, and was compelled to

submit to the ridicule of some, and the indifference of others. This

idea, which then was esteemed insoluble, but a short time after was

realized. It may be, had the government of Louis XVI, paid any attention

to a question which had great significance in the points of view of

commerce, politics and science, that passage, now known as McKenzie’s,

would have borne the name Chateaubriand. Let this however, be as it may,

the young second lieutenant, by ridicule and discouragement, resolved to

accomplish his gigantic project without assistance, and in the spring of

1791, set out for America, with no other baggage than a letter of

introduction to Washington. Yet imbued with the ideas of the old world,

Chateaubriand had imagined the President of the United States, a king,

surrounded by a brilliant court, with guards and chamberlains, crowding

the portals of a palace of marble and gold. How great must his surprise

have been, when he knocked at the door of a modest dwelling, which, in

France, would have been esteemed scarcely fit for a private gentleman,

and when a female opened the door, and without parade let him into the

presence of one who had created a nation and declined a crown.

Washington received him with cordiality and kindness, but terrified

beyond doubt at the dangers to which he was about to expose himself,

attempted to dissuade the young adventurer from his enterprise.

Chateaubriand, however, would not be persuaded, and soon after hired a

guide and really began his journey, fancying that he had merely to go

straight to the Pole, as he had gone from Saint Malo to Paris. He

reached the limit of civilization, in what was then considered a short

time, and with indescribable joy found himself amid the dark and

mysterious forests of the new world, where it seemed _to him_, no human

foot had ever been planted before. He thus describes his sensations,

when his soul first became replete with astonishment and amazement at

the magnificence of the scene.

“I wandered from tree to tree, now turning to the right and then to the

left, saying to myself, here there are no beaten paths, no restricted

dwelling places; presidents, kings and oligarchies, have no power here.

By way of exhibiting my freedom from all control, I committed countless

wild pranks, which made the steady Dutchman, who was my guide, fancy me

a fool.”

The young lieutenant, however, looked anxiously for one of those Indian

villages, in which the children of nature, the men of the soil, might

certainly be found. His first essay, however, by no means impressed him

favorably in relation to the true Native Americans. After a journey of

several days, he saw in the depth of a forest, compared with which, all

France was but a park, a wigwam from which strange sounds issued, and

which in that place must have astonished him indeed. He listened with

attention, and heard a well known “_chant populaire_” of France, with an

accompaniment wrung from a violin, which certainly, Stradivarius never

made. The wanderer entered the hut, and amid a bevy of Indians, who

danced as if Saint Vitus had touched them, he saw an old man of

diminutive stature, with his hair “_à l’oisseau royal_,” with a green

coat, a coarse vest, cut however, _à l’agonie_ de Louis XV., ruffles and

wristbands of coarse cotton, busy in teaching a dozen Iroquois to dance

the cotillion and _minuet de la cour_. The teacher’s name was Violet,

and strange to say, he was the progenitor of that individual of the same

name, made so famous by the late Captain Marryatt. Violet had been a

servant of the Count Rochambeau, and had been induced to establish

himself on one of the little lakes in New York, amid the

Iroquois.—French nature and human nature are however, different

entirely, and the _valet de chambre_ had begun to civilize North

American Indians, from the _point du départ de la danse_.

The young adventurer in a short time left his countryman and resumed his

journey through the wilderness. He soon met with Indians far less

civilised than the Corypheans of Violet. He was kindly received by

various tribes which he visited, and participated in their councils and

their wars. At this period of his career, he collected the variety of

information, which was ultimately fused into Atala, René and the

Natchez. It cannot but be regretted, that Chateaubriand never chanced to

grasp the thread of that tradition, which connected the Natchez with the

Aztecs, of whom beyond all doubt they were an abrasion. Had he done so,

the light his meditative mind would have thrown on the traditions of

that mysterious people, of whom now no remnant exists, and the memory of

whom is forgotten, can scarcely be calculated. His poetical meditations

did not, however, prevent him from keeping in view the original idea

which had brought him to America, and he became more and more resolved

to penetrate to the icy Pole. One day though, by a strange fancy, a

fragment of a French paper, containing an account of the flight of Louis

XVI, his arrest at Varennes, and the formation of the Army of Condé,

beyond the Rhine, reached him. As he read this strange intelligence, the

Breton gentleman, fancied that he heard the cry of honor calling him to

defend that king for whom he had sworn to live and die. He then

hastened, to cross the sea again, and within a few months, was a simple

volunteer in the ranks of the royal and catholic army. It is well, here,

to mention, that though Chateaubriand sought for the North Pole, he had

from the lakes of New York, gone southward, and that the fragment of

newspaper, which, in all probability, changed the tenor of his whole

career, reached him in the depth of the lagoons of Florida. It is very

certain that though his voyage to America, produced Atala and the

Natches, he would not have occupied a high position among the great

discoverers.

Having been wounded by the explosion of a shell, at Thionville, after

undergoing the greatest vicissitudes, he contrived to reach England. The

danger from which he had escaped on the Rhine, was, however, replaced

only by penury, and the suffering of exile. In that country while

expecting death, his physicians having told him, that he could live,

under no possibility, more than two or three years, he wrote and

published the “_Essai historique, politique et moral, sur les

révolutions anciennes et modernes considérées dans leurs rapports avec_

_la révolution Française_.” This is one of the strangest books ever

published, the author succeeding in the most incomprehensible manner in

drawing a parallel between Pisistratus and _Robespierre_, _Marat_ and

Harmodius, _J. J. Rousseau_ and Heraclitus, Hanno and Fox, and Barca and

Pitt, and finally discovering in Miltiades the type of Dumouriez.

Having on the 18th Brumaire returned to France, Chateaubriand became

with Fontanes, his friend, a companion in exile, one of the proprietors

of the _Mercure_, in which paper he published Atala, (so far back as

this does the French _feuilleton_ date.) The freshness of the ideas, the

grandeur of sentiment, and exquisitely simple style of this book, were

novel indeed, at a time when all things were innoculated with the

pretence of the Directorate. The success of this prose-poem aptly

prepared the public for the immense sensation subsequently created by

_le genie du Christianisme_. It may safely be said that no work was ever

better timed. The iron grasp of Napoleon had strangled all popular

movements, order had succeeded anarchy, temples again were open for

prayer, and ruined altars were rebuilt. All the world, weary of the

fruitless worship of the personification of abstract and transcendental

qualities and virtues, felt an innate longing for a less sterile and

more poetical faith. Society hastened to resume that old creed, which

had been the source of all the civilization which existed, not it may be

true, because of conviction, but because the disgusting orgies at the

feet of the statue of the so-called goddess of reason, had offended not

only all sentiment but all decency. Never probably before were the fasts

and feasts of Christianity so rigidly observed, and all France, by a

rigid observance of Lent, sought to atone for and wipe out all

remembrance of the reign of terror. With that wonderful sagacity which

made Napoleon great in cabinet as he was on the battle-field, he did not

neglect Chateaubriand’s book, and rewarded the author by the appointment

of Secretary of Embassy to Rome, where the Cardinal Fesch was the French

representative. Then, in the eternal city, amid the ruins of the

coliseum, yet filled with the spirits of the ancient martyrs, the

Christian poet formed a conception of the angelical Cymodocré and

Eudoxe, and determined to visit the cradle of Christianity, the triumph

and contests of which he resolved to celebrate, and to gather

inspiration in the “city of desolation” by contemplating that one

sepulchre which when time shall be no more will yield nothing to the

great, grand judge.

Soon after his return from Rome, the Vicomte de Chateaubriand, who

continued to maintain as high a position as ever in the favor of

Napoleon, was appointed plenipotentiary to the Valois. Just then a

rumor, circulated beyond doubt by the partisans of the exiled dynasty,

acquired some influence on the popular mind, many hoping and others

fearing that the emperor was prepared to follow the example of Monk, and

sought to replace the Bourbons on the throne of Saint Louis and Henri

IV. Chateaubriand, perhaps more than any one else, under the influence

of the chivalric ideas which always characterised him, flattered himself

that this dream would soon be realised. At once, however, all Paris was

amazed by the news that the Duke d’Enghien, the last of the Condés, had

been shot at midnight, in the ditch of the castle of Vincennes. Thus

Napoleon replied to the imprudent suggestions of the royalists. The

reason of this terrible tragedy is even now unknown, the only man who

possibly could have explained it, the emperor, having borne the secret

with him to the grave. The whole party then known as the emigration, was

however terrified, and under the influence of a generous indignation, on

the very day that he heard the news Chateaubriand resigned his

appointment. Independence was then a crime, but far from being offended,

Napoleon conceived a yet more exalted esteem for Chateaubriand. Prayers,

promises, every possible inducement were used in vain to retain him in

the imperial service. Chateaubriand hurried the preparations for his

pilgrimage and crossed the Alps. On his previous visit he had not

studied closely enough the Italian, and after a careful tour the vicomte

sailed for Greece. In the wilds of America, the poet had shaken himself

free of all old-world ideas as he would from a burden which oppressed

him, that his soul in vigor, and unrestrained, might hear every accent

of the poetry of a young nature. In Greece, however, his conduct was

precisely the reverse. He was in the holy land of poetry and art, and he

sought to conjure up by the powerful magic of memory, the mighty dead

who for almost twenty centuries have slumbered in unknown graves.

Thrice, according to ancient usage, he made the echos of Thermopylæ

resound with the name of Leonidas, and in his pious wanderings across

the ruins of Athens, he would ascend some fallen tribune, from which

perhaps the voice of Demosthenes might have been heard moving the

popular mind as the wind agitates the sea, and calling forth a new

generation of warriors by the magic of the names of “those who died at

Marathon.” If ever a man was instinct with the feeling of universal

love, if ever any one idolized nature it was Chateaubriand, the piety of

whom, however, was too intense to permit him ever to mistake the

apparent for the great first cause. In the words of one of our own

writers “he was filled with devotion to God and sympathized with all

humanity.” Those now desolate regions he soon left, and the enthusiast

went to seek in the dwelling-places of the once “people of God,” those

spots over which Christ had passed during his pilgrimage from Bethlehem

to the “place of the skull,” amid hordes of savage Bedweens and robber

Arabs, he crossed the summits of Mount Liban and the waters of the sea

of death. He prayed on the Mount of Olives, moistened his lip in the

cool wave of the Jordan, and brought a portion of its waters, which,

preserved with all the care of a pious superstition was subsequently

used at the baptism of the Duke of Bordeaux. He finally knelt at the

very tomb of Christ, the venerable guardians of which clasped on his

heel the spur of Godfry de Bouillon, and made him a “Knight of the Holy

Sepulchre.” The city of Alexandria and the capital of the Ptolemies were

also visited by him, and ascending the Nile as far as Cairo, he sat at

the foot of the pyramids, and gave himself up to meditation amid the

Memphian ruins. He then re-embarked, and after undergoing imminent

danger from shipwreck, landed at Tunis. Neglecting the living city, he

visited that Carthage which twice became the rival of Rome, in war in

the days of Hannibal, and in religion when St. Cyprian lived. From

Africa Chateaubriand passed to Spain, that land of war and love, and as

he wandered through the dilapidated halls of the Alhambra, and recalled

Pelayo, Charlemagne and Boabdil, he formed the conception of the tender

and chivalric legend of “THE LAST ABENCERRAGES.”

On his return to Spain, in 1807, Chateaubriand, who had not yet ceased

to feel an interest in Spain, published an analysis of Laborde’s book on

that country. This book excited great curiosity, some of the pages

containing allusions to which a malicious public gave a point. Napoleon

was weak enough to take offense at a fancied parallel between himself

and Nero; and after having stripped him of his ownership of the

_Mercure_, went so far as to threaten to have him shot down in the

Tuileries.

The independence of Chateaubriand is well known, and the despotism of

Napoleon found an untiring enemy in him. All were, however, surprised to

find in his _Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem_, frequent eulogies of

the imperial glory. The public was not aware of the fact, that a few

days before its appearance, the publisher was notified that it would be

suppressed unless praises of the emperor were inserted. Chateaubriand

long protested against this edict, and yielded only to the prayers of

the bookseller, who informed him that the suppression of the work would

be his ruin. He had, however, something in reserve to gratify his

self-respect, speaking only of the military glory, not of the

statesman-like qualities of Napoleon.

Subsequently, in his peaceful hermitage of _la vallée aux loups_,

Chateaubriand finished the great work, the plan of which he had

conceived at Rome, and which he had meditated on during the whole of his

pilgrimage in Greece, Judea, and Africa. _The Martyrs_ at last appeared,

and were all the pamphlets and books of every size which it called forth

collected, a hall large as the Alexandrine Library would not suffice to

contain them. It was a daring act, indeed, to personify, in a

prose-poem, all the mysterious powers of Christianity. It was a poetical

novel, the old gods of Greece and Rome playing a conspicuous part. In

the introduction of the Pagan divinities, instead of Beelzebub and the

powers of darkness, does this book greatly differ in general conception

from the strange old book of the Puritan Bunyan. The genius of

Christianity, however, demonstrates that there was inherent in

Christianity, not less poetry than existed in the Heathen Olympus, and

that the mysteries of Christianity opened as rich a field to the poet as

did the Hesiodic theogony.

This was a great discovery in France, where at that time the Paradise

Lost, and Klopstock’s great poem, were almost unknown. The attack and

defense of this poem consequently created much excitement, and the

reputation of Chateaubriand rapidly expanded. In 1811, a chair in the

Academy having, by the death of Joseph Chenier, become vacant, public

opinion designated Chateaubriand as the person most qualified to fill

it. It is well known that custom requires the new member to eulogize his

predecessor. Chateaubriand, however, in politics differed entirely from

Chenier, and unwilling to submit to the usage, had prepared to attack

him. The emperor having heard of his intention, forbade him to pronounce

his address, seeing that this could not but be a dangerous precedent at

a time when the judges of Louis XIV. occupied all the principal offices

of state. From that time the emperor and Chateaubriand were

irreconcilable.

During the hundred days Chateaubriand accompanied Louis XVIII. to Ghent,

and after the restoration, was elevated to the dignity of a peer of

France. At this crisis his opinions were ultra royalist. In his last

work, _de la Monarchie selon la Charte_, he dared to define clearly the

position of the king, according to the charter; he lost favor, Louis

XVIII. being too shrewd to break with the liberal party. The order

dismissing him is very significative, viz., “The Vicomte de

Chateaubriand having in a printed book expressed doubt in relation to

our personal will, made known in the decree of the 5th of September, the

said Vicomte will, from to-day, cease to be one of our ministers of

state.”

It is now scarcely worth while to follow Chateaubriand through all the

phases of his political life. Dismissed and subsequently restored to

royal favor, he was ambassador at both Berlin and London. He was also

plenipotentiary at the Congress at Verona, again dismissed, and sent as

minister to Rome. He again resigned on the coming into power of the

ministry of Polignac, and even then foresaw the fall of the throne he

had been so anxious to make secure. Having undergone proscription and

exile, he had nothing more to undergo except imprisonment. He was yet

doomed to taste of prison-fare, and it was reserved for the government

of Louis Philippe to arraign the author of _The Martyrs_ before the

Court of Assizes.

Subsequent to the restoration, besides various political pamphlets,

Chateaubriand published many works of a purely literary character. The

first of these was _The Natchez_. The manuscript of this book, forgotten

with many other similar things by the author, had been left at an inn in

London, on the occasion of his return from emigration after the 18th

Brumaire. Twenty years after it was strangely recovered in a cottage at

an obscure village. The honesty of persons to whom he had confided it

was the source of one of the happiest hours of the life of

Chateaubriand, and secured to the world one of the _chef-d’œuvres_ of

romance. Next came Moses, the Essay on English Poetry, the translation

of Milton, the Congress of Verona, and the Life of _Ranée_. The life of

Chateaubriand, it will be seen, was eventful as the age in which he

lived. Like Dante, Tasso, Cervantes, Camaeus, and Milton, persecution of

every kind was heaped on him.

For many years he lived in an almost impenetrable retirement. Caring

little for the convulsions of the world, or for courtly intrigues, he

has consecrated his time to the publication of his _Memoires d’Outre

Tombe_, the recent publication of which has suggested this notice.

This remarkable book he thus prefaces: “I have met almost all the men

who, in my own days, have been conspicuous in my own or foreign

countries—Washington and Napoleon, Louis XVIII. and Popes Alexander,

Pius VII., and Gregory XVI., Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, Londonderry, Capo

d’Istrias, Malesherbes, and Mirabeau, Nelson, Bolivar, Mehemet, the

Pacha of Egypt, Suffren, Bougainville, Lapeyrouse, Moreau, and others. I

was one of a triumverate which has no parallel in the history of the

world; three poets of different views and interests having been almost

at the same time ministers of foreign affairs—I, in France, Canning, in

England, and Martinez de la Rosa, in Spain, I have lived through the

uneventful years of my youth, the teeming era of the republic, the proud

days of Buonaparte, and the reign of legitimacy. I have sailed over the

seas of the Old and New World, and stood on the soils of four quarters

of the globe. I have slept in the Indian wigwam, Arab tent, and Huron

hut; amid the ruins of Athens, Jerusalem, Memphis, Carthage, and

Grenada, with the Greek, Turk, and Moor, amid forests, and amid deserted

cities. I have worn a bear-skin cap, and the Mameluke caftan; I have

undergone hunger and thirst, and as an ambassador, covered with golden

embroidery, and stars, and insignia of chivalry, have sat at the board

of kings, princesses and ladies, and then have again become

impoverished, and have languished in prison.”

For a long time the health of Chateaubriand had been the source of much

uneasiness to his friends, but on his return from a trip to Dieppe, in

1847, the symptoms became absolutely alarming. He had resolved to visit

Italy, but was attacked with pneumonia, in Paris, and died July 4, 1848,

after an illness of five days. The body of the poet was taken to Saint

Malo, his birth-place, and on a rocky promontory, where the waves of the

Atlantic ceaselessly beat, one who was restless as they, found a final

repose. Full of tender love for his childhood’s home, he himself

selected his burial place, as the bird which perchance has girded the

earth, returns to the nest whence it first winged its flight—to die.

* * * * *

TO J. F. H.

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

Nine years have slipped like hourglass-sand

From life’s fast-emptying globe away,

Since last, dear friend, I clasped your hand,

And lingered on the impoverished land,

Watching the steamer down the bay.

I held the keepsake which you gave,

Until the dim smoke-pennon curled

O’er the vague rim ’tween sky and wave,

And closed the distance like a grave,

Leaving me to the outer world;

The old worn world of hurry and heat,

The young, fresh world of thought and scope;

While you, where silent surges fleet

Tow’rd far sky-beaches still and sweet,

Sunk wavering down the ocean-slope;

Come back our ancient walks to tread,

Old haunts of lost or scattered friends,

Amid the Muses’ factories red,

Where song, and smoke, and laughter sped

The nights to proctor-haunted ends.

Our old familiars are not laid,

Though snapped our wands and sunk our books,

They beckon, not to be gainsaid,

Where, round broad meads which mowers wade,

Smooth Charles his steel-blue sickle crooks;

Where, as the cloudbergs eastward blow,

From glow to gloom the hill-side shifts

Its lakes of rye that surge and flow,

Its plumps of orchard-trees arow,

Its snowy white-weed’s summer drifts.

Or let us to Nantasket, there

To wander idly as we list,

Whether, on rocky hillocks bare,

Sharp cedar-points, like breakers, tear

The trailing fringes of gray mist,

Or whether, under skies clear-blown,

The heightening surfs with foamy din,

Their breeze-caught forelocks backward blown

Against old Neptune’s yellow zone,

Curl slow, and plunge forever in.

For years thrice three, wise Horace said,

A poem rare let silence bind;

And love may ripen in the shade,

Like ours, for nine long seasons laid

In crypts and arches of the mind.

That right Falernian friendship old

Will we, to grace our feast, call up,

And freely pour the juice of gold,

That keeps life’s pulses warm and bold,

Till Death shall break the empty cup.

* * * * *

TO A SUMMER HAUNT.

BY HENRY T. TUCKERMAN.

When cradled on thy placid breast,

In hushed content I loved to muse,

Too full the heart, too sweet the rest

For thought and speech to interfuse.

But now, when thou art shrined afar,

Like Nature’s chosen urn of peace,

Remembrance, like the evening star,

Begins a vigil ne’er to cease.

Each mossy rock, each fairy isle,

Inlets with thickets overhung,

The cloud’s rose-tint or fleecy pile,

And Echo’s wildly-frolic tongue;

The light and shade that o’er thee play,

The ripple of thy moonlit wave,

The long, calm, dreamy summer day,

The very stones thy waters lave;

The converse frank, the harmless jest,

The reverie without a sigh,

The hammock’s undulating rest,

With fond companions seated by;

Yet linger, as if near thee still,

I heard, upon the fitful breeze,

The locust and the whippoorwill,

Or rustle of the swaying trees.

Hills rise in graceful curves around,

Here dark with tangled forest shade,

There yellow with the harvest-ground,

Or emerald with the open glade;

Primeval chestnuts line the strand,

And hemlocks every mountain side,

While, by each passing zephyr fanned,

Azalin flowers kiss the tide.

We nestle in the gliding barge,

And turn from yon o’erarching sky,

To watch, along the bosky marge,

Its image in thy waters nigh.

Or, gently darting to and fro,

The insects on their face explore,

With speckled minnows poised below,

And tortoise on the pebbly floor.

Or turn the prow to some lone bay

Where thick the floating leaves are spread;

How bright and queen-like the array

Of lilies in their crystal bed!

Like chalices for beauty’s lip

Their snowy cones half open lie,

The dew-drops of the morn to sip,

But close to day’s intrusive eye.

And in their pure and stately grace,

Their shrinking from the noontide glare,

The charm they yield their dwelling-place,

How like the noblest of the fair!

To thy serene and balmy air,

Above life’s vain and common things,

Should gentle spirits oft repair,

And fondly plume their drooping wings.

O let me thence, in fancy, bear

The dreams of youth by thee renewed;

And hallow the domain of care

With visions born in solitude!

* * * * *

[Illustration: Drawn by G. Harvey, Engraved by J. Smillie

_Catskill Mountain House _

From an original picture painted for Graham.]

* * * * *

THISTLE-DOWN.

OR ROSALIE SHERWOOD’S DEBUT.

BY CAROLINE CHESEBRO’.

As, one by one, thy hopes depart

Be resolute and calm.

· · · · · ·

Oh fear not in a world like this,

And thou shalt know ere long—

Know how sublime a thing it is

To suffer and be strong.

LONGFELLOW.

CHAPTER I.

Poor young creature, how perfectly wretched she looks as she sits in the

bow-window, watching the fairy-like thistle-seed as it goes floating

away up in the still air.

There is nothing like these clear September nights after sunset, for a

reverie. If it is a calm evening, and an intense light fills the sky and

glorifies it, and you sit where you can see the new moon, with the

magnificent evening star beneath it, you must be a stupid affair indeed,

if you cannot then dream the most _heavenly_ dreams!

But Rosalie Sherwood is in no dreaming mood this lovely Sabbath night.

Her heart is crushed in such an utter hopelessness of grief as leaves no

room in it for hopes, her brain is too acutely sensitive just now for

visions. The thistle-down in beautiful procession moves gently on and up

before her eyes, and as she watches, the frail things assume a new

interest to her; she feels a human sympathy with them—like the viewless

winds they come, from whence she knows not—and go, whither none can

tell. They are homeless and alone, and she is like them, but she is not,

as they, purposeless!

If you could look into her mind now, you would see how she has nerved it

up to a great determination—how, that mastering visions and hopes once

cherished, she has gone forward now to a bleak and barren path, and

stands there very resolute, yet, in the first moment of the resolve,

miserable; no—she has not yet grown strong in the suffering—she cannot

_this_ night stand up beneath the burden, to bear it with a smile of

triumph.

Rosalie Sherwood was an only child: the infant of an humble friend Mrs.

Melville had known from her own girlhood. She, poor creature, had

neither _lived_ nor _died_ a sinner,

“But, as love’s wild prayer dissolved in air,

Her woman’s heart gave way!——

And—the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven,

By man is cursed alway!”

On her death-bed Cecily Sherwood gave her unrecognized, nameless child,

to the care of one who promised, in the sincerity of her compassion, to

be a mother to the unfortunate infant. And during the eighteen years of

that girl’s life, from the hour of her mother’s death, to the day when

she was left without hope in the world, Rosalie _had_ found a parent in

the rigid but always just and kind, Mary Melville.

This widow lady had one son; he was four years old when her husband

died, which was the very year that the little Rosalie was brought to

Melville House. The boy’s father had been considered a man of large

wealth, but when his affairs were settled after his decease, it was

found that the debts of the estate being paid, little more than a

competency remained for the widow. But the lady was fitted, by a life of

self-discipline, even in her luxurious home, to calmly meet this

emergency. With the remnant of a great fortune she retired to an humble

residence, where in quiet retirement she gave her time to managing the

household affairs, and to superintending the home-education of her

children.

Her son Duncan, and the young Rosalie had grown up together—until the

girl’s twelfth birth-day constant playmates and pupils in the same

academy. No one, not even the busiest busy-body had ever been able to

detect the slightest partiality in Mrs. Melville’s treatment of her

children. And indeed it had been quite impossible that she should ever

regard a child so winningly beautiful as Rosalie, with other than the

tenderest affection. Under a light or careless rein, the child had been

a difficult one to manage, for there was a light like fire oft-times in

her eyes that told of strong will, and deep passions; and besides, her

striking appearance had won sufficient admiration to have completely

spoiled her, if a guardian the most vigilant, as well as most

discerning, had not been ever at hand to speak the right word and do the

right thing with her.

Mrs. Melville was a thoroughly religious woman, and deeply conscious of

the responsibility she incurred in adopting the infant. She could not

quiet her conscience with the reflection that she had done a wonderfully

good thing in giving Rosalie a home and education—the deep pity she

felt for the unfortunate child led her to exercise an uncommon care,

that all tendency to evil should be eradicated in the heart of the

brilliant girl while she was yet young—that a deep sense of right

should be impressed on her tender mind. And her labor of love met with a

return which might well have made the mother proud.

There had been no officious voice to whisper to Rosalie Sherwood the

story of that doubtful position which she occupied in the world. She was

an orphan, the adopted child of the lady whom she so devoutly loved,

with all a daughter’s tenderness, this she knew, and it was all she

knew—and Mrs. Melville was resolved that she should never know more.

* * * * *

The son of the widow had been educated for the ministry. He was now

twenty-two years old, and was soon to be admitted to the priesthood.

This was following out his own wish, and the dearest hope of his

mother’s heart—and it seemed to all who knew the young man as though

the Head of the Church had set His seal upon Duncan from his boyhood. He

was so mild and so forbearing—so discreet and generous, and never deaf

to _any_ call of charity. Meek and holy of heart, was the thought of

whosoever looked on his placid, youthful face. Yet he had besides his

gentleness, that, without which his spirit might have subsided into

puerile weakness, a firmness of purpose and a strict sense of right,

like that which marked his mother among women. Duncan Melville’s

abilities were of a high order, perhaps not of the highest—though, if

his ambition would only equal his powers, they would surely seem so. His

voice was of a sweet, persuasive tone, that was fitted to _win_ souls to

Christ, yet it could ring like a clarion when the grandeur of the themes

he touched fired his own soul. He had moreover an earnest, impressive

manner, even in private conversation, which characterized all his words

and deeds. With the warmest hopes and deepest interest they who knew the

difficulties and trials of the profession he had chosen looked on this

young man.

* * * * *

Duncan and his adopted sister had long known the nature of the tie which

bound them members of one family, and they never called themselves

brother and sister after the youth came home, a graduate from college.

For, from the time when absence empowered him to look, as a stranger

would on Rosalie, from that time he saw her elegant, and accomplished,

and bewitching as she was, and other than fraternal affection was in his

heart for her.

And Rosalie, too, loved him—just as Duncan, had he spoken his passion

and his hope, would have prayed her to love him. She had long ago made

him the standard of all manly excellence, and when he came back after

three years of absence, she was not inclined to revoke her early

decision—therefore was she prepared to read the language of Duncan’s

eyes, and she consecrated her heart to him.

During the years which followed his return from college, till he was

prepared for ordination as a priest, he did not once _speak_ to her of

his love, which was growing all the while stronger and deeper, as the

river-course, that, flowing to the ocean, receives every day fresh

impetus and force from the many tiny springs that commingle with it.

Duncan Melville never thought of wedding with another than Rosalie

Sherwood.

It was, as I said, near the time appointed for his ordination, when he

felt for the first time, as though he had _a right_ to speak openly with

her of all his hopes. He asked her then, what in soul-language he had

long before asked, a question which she had as emphatically, in like

language, answered—to be the partner of his life for weal or for wo.

He had tried to calmly consider Rosalie’s character, as a Christian

minister should consider the character of her whom he would make the

sharer of his peculiar lot, and setting every preference aside, Duncan

felt that she was fitted to assist and to bear, with him. She was

truthful as the day, strong-minded and generous, humane and charitable,

and though no professor of religion, a woman full of reverence and

veneration. He knew that it was only a fear that she should not _adorn_

the Christian name that kept her back from the altar of the church, and

he loved her for that spirit of humility, knowing that she was “on the

Lord’s side,” and that grace ere long would be given her to proclaim it

in the doing _all_ His commandments.

It was certainly with a joyful and confident heart, after he had

_spoken_ with Rosalie, that Duncan sought his mother yesterday, to speak

with her of the _whole_ of that bright future which opened now before

him.

How then was he overcome with surprise and grief, when Mrs. Melville

told him that it was a union to which she could _never_ consent! Then,

for the first time in his life, the astonished young man heard of that

stain which was on the name poor Rosalie bore. He heard the story to an

end, and then with a decision and energy that would have settled the

matter with almost any other person, he declared:

“Yet, mother—I will not give her up.”

“It could not be expected that you would fulfill the engagement; Rosalie

herself would not allow it, if she knew the truth of the matter.”

“But she need not know it—there is no existing necessity. Is it not

enough that she is good and precious _to me_? She is a noble woman,

whose life has been, thanks to your guidance, beautiful and lofty.”

“God knows I have striven to do my duty by her—but I know not what I

should have done, if I had thought you would ever wish to change your

relations with her, Duncan.”

“The world has not her equal! It is cruel, it is wrong, mother, in you

to oppose.”

“She _is_ a lovely woman—she has well availed herself of the advantages

given her—but, my son, there are myriads like her.”

“No, not one! Tell me, you will never breathe a word of this to her?”

“Never!”

“Oh, thank you! thank you! Mother, you could not wish another daughter?”

“But for that I have told you, Duncan, I could not wish another.”

“Then I say you must not work this great injustice on her and me.

Rosalie loves me, she has promised to be mine. You will break my heart.”

“You are deluded and strangely excited, my son, or you never would speak

so to me,” said the mother, persisting in that firmness with which the

physician resorts to a desperate remedy for a desperate disease. Then

she spoke to him of all the relations in life he might yet be called

upon to assume, of the misery which very possibly might follow, though

now unforeseen, in after days—hours passed on, and the conference was

not ended until with a crushed heart and trembling voice Duncan arose

abruptly, while his mother yet spoke, and he said,

“If the conclusion to which you have urged me is right in God’s sight,

He will give me, He will give Rosalie, too, strength to abide by it. But

I can never speak to her of this, and I must find another home than

yours and hers. You must speak _for_ me, mother—and oh let me charge

you, do it gently. Do not tell her _all_. Let her think what she

will—believe, as she must, that I am a wretch past pardon, but do not

blight her peace by telling _all_.”

“I promise you, Duncan,” was the answer, spoken through many tears, and

the young man did not wait to hear more.

An hour after he was on the way from the village, that he might spend

the coming Sabbath in another town.

And after he was gone the mother sought her younger, her dearly-loved

child. Rosalie heard that familiar step on the stairway—she had seen

Duncan hurrying away from the house, and she knew the conference was

over: but she had no fear for its result. So she hushed the glad,

tumultuous beating of her heart, and tried to veil the brightness of her

eyes, as she heard the gentle tapping at her door that announced the

mother coming.

As for Mrs. Melville—_her_ heart quite failed her when she went into

the pleasant room and sat down close by Rosalie. Despite all the

strengthening thoughts of duty she had taken with her as a support in

that interview, she was now at a sore loss, for it was a bitter grief to

her kind heart that she must even for a day make those young creatures

unhappy. How then could she endure to take away their life’s best joy,

their richest hope? It was a hard thing—and many moments passed before

she could nerve that strong spirit to utter the first word; and Rosalie,

anxious, and impatient too, but unsuspecting, at last exclaimed—

“What can it be that so much troubles you, mother?”

Then Mary Melville spoke, but in a voice so soft and sad, and so faint

with emotion, that it seemed not at all _her_ voice—she said,

“I want you to consider that what I say to you, dear child, has given me

more pain even to think of, than I have ever felt before. Duncan has

told me of your engagement to marry with him. And it has been my duty,

my most sorrowful duty, oh believe me! to tell him that such a tie can

never unite you. He can never be your husband, you can never be his

wife.”

She paused, exhausted by her emotion—she could not utter another

syllable. Rosalie who had watched her with a fixed astonishment as she

listened to the words, was the first to speak again, and she tried to

say calmly,

“Of course you have a reason for saying so. It is but just that I should

know it.”

“It cannot _be_ known. If I had ever in my life deceived you, Rosalie,

you might doubt me now when I assure you, that an impediment which

cannot be named, exists to the marriage. Have I not been a mother to you

always?” she asked appealingly, imploringly, “I love you as I love

Duncan—and it cuts me to the heart to grieve you.”

“Has Duncan given you an answer?”

“Yes, Rosalie.”

“And it?”

“He has trusted to his mother,” she said, almost proudly.

“Rather than me,” quickly interrupted Rosalie.

“Rather than do that which is wrong; which might prove the misery of you

both hereafter, my child.”

“Where is he? Why does he not come himself to tell me this? If the thing

is really true, _his_ lips should have spoken it and not another’s.”

“He could not do it. I believe his heart is broken. Oh, Rosalie, do not

look so upon me. Is it not enough that I bitterly regret, that I shall

always deplore having not foreseen the result of your companionship. Say

only that you do believe I have striven to do the best for you always,

so far as I knew how.”

“Heaven knows that I believe it, mother. When will Duncan come home

again?”

“Monday, not before.”

* * * * *

When Monday morning came, on the desk in Rosalie’s room this letter was

found.

“I cannot leave you forever, Duncan, I cannot go from your protecting

care, mother, without saying all that is in my heart. I have no strength

to look on you, my brother, again—mother, the union I had thought

between _us_ life-lasting, is broken. I cannot any longer be your

daughter. I would have done so, I would have remained in any capacity,

as a slave even, in your service, for I was bound by gratitude for all

you have done for me, to be with you always, at least, so long as you

should wish. If you had unveiled the mystery, and suffered me to stand

before you, recognizing myself as _you_ knew me, I would have stayed—I

would have been to you, Duncan, as in childhood, a proud, yet humble

sister, rejoicing in your triumphs—and a sharer in your sorrows. I

would have put fetters on my heart, and calmed my voice, and veiled my

eyes, the spirit dwelling in me should have been henceforth a stranger

to you. I would have borne to see another made your wife—but in a

mistaken kindness you put this utterly beyond my power. Too much has

been required—and, I am found—wanting! If even the most miserable fate

that can befall an innocent woman, if the curse of illegitimacy were

upon me, I could bear that thought even, and acknowledge _the_ justice

and wisdom that did not consider me fit to associate with those, whose

birth is recognized by a parent’s pride and fondness. But—I must be

cognizant of the relation, whatever it is, that I bear you. I cannot, I

will not consent to appear nominally your daughter, when you scorn to

receive me as such.

“Mother—in my dead mother’s name I thank you for the generous love you

have ever shown me—for the generous care with which you have attended

to the development of the talents God gave me. For I am fitted thus to

labor for myself. I thank you for that watchful providence that has made

me what I am, a woman self-reliant, and strong in spirit. I thank you

for it all, from a heart that has learned only to love and honor you in

the past eighteen years. And I call down the blessing of the Infinite

God upon you, as I depart. Hereafter, always it will be the endeavor of

my life to live worthily of you—to be all that you have in your charity

capacitated me to be. Duncan, you will not forget me—I do not ask it.

But, pray for me, and live up to the fullness of your heart and your

intellect. There is a happy future for you. I have no word of counsel,

no feeble utterance of encouragement to leave you—you will not need

such from _me_. God bless and strengthen you in every good word and

work—it shall be the constant hope of the sister who _loves_ you.

Mother, fare you well.”

This letter was written on that Sabbath-eve, on which our story

opens—written in a perfect passion, yes, of grief, and of despair. The

anger that Rosalie may at first have felt, gave way to the wildest

sorrow now, but her resolution was taken, and her heart was really

strung to bear the resolution out.

After her sudden and most unlooked-for disappearance, the mother and son

sought long, and I cannot tell, you must imagine how anxiously, for the

young girl. But their search was in vain, and at last, as time passed

on, she became to the villagers as one who had never been. But never by

the widow was Rosalie forgotten. And oh! there was in the world one

heart at least that sorrowed with a constant sorrow, that hoped with a

constant hope for her.

He had lost her—and Duncan sought for no other love among women. When

all his searching for Rosalie was proved to be unavailing, the minister

applied himself with constant industry to his profession—he forgot ease

and comfort, and personal enjoyment, in the works of his calling. And

verily, he met here with his reward, for as he was a blessing to the

people of his parish, in turn they almost adored him. He was a spiritual

physician, whom God empowered to heal many a wounded, stricken heart;

but there was a cross of suffering, that he bore himself, which could

not _be_ removed: It was his glory, that he bore it with martyr-like

patience; that he never uttered a reproachful word to her, through whom

he bore it. As years passed away, the gifted preacher’s impassioned

eloquence and stirring words, bowed many a proud and impenitent soul,

with another love than that which he wished to inspire, but he still

sought not among any companionship, or close friendship; they said at

last, considering his life spent in the most rigid performance of duty,

that “he was too high church to marry;” that he did not believe such

union consonant with the duties of a minister of the cross!—But, the

mother knew better than this; _she_ knew a name that was never spoken

now, in Rosalie’s old home, that was dearer than life to the heart of

her son—and desolate and lonely as she was, she never _dared_ ask him

to give to her a daughter—to take unto himself a wife!

CHAPTER II.

In a splendid old cathedral, a solemn ceremonial was going forward on

the morning of a holy festival. A bishop was to be consecrated.

A mighty crowd assembled in this edifice to witness the ceremony, and

the mother of Duncan Melville was there, the happiest soul in all that

great company, for it was her son on whom the high honor was to be laid!

How beautiful was the pale, holy countenance of the minister, who in the

early strength of his manhood, was accounted worthy to fill that great

office, for which he was about to be set apart! He was a man “acquainted

with grief;” you had known it by that resigned, submissive expression of

his face: you had known that the passions of mortals had been all

subdued in him, by the holy light of his tranquil eyes. Duncan _had_

toiled—he _had_ borne a burden.

A thousand felt it, looking on the noble front, where religion

undefiled, and peace, and holy love, and charity, had left for

themselves unmistakable witnesses: and more than all, one being felt it,

that had not looked upon that man for years. Not since the lines of care

and grief had marked the face and form of Duncan Melville. There was a

reason for the passionate sobs of one heart, crushed anew in this solemn

hour—there was a pathos, such as no other voice could give, to the

prayers that went up to God that day, from one woman’s heart in the

great congregation, for _him_. Poor, loving, still-beloved Rosalie! she

was there—there, her proud, magnificent figure, bent humbly from the

very commencement till the close of the ceremonial—there, her beautiful

eyes filled with tears of love, and grief, and despair, and

pride—there, crushed as the humblest flower—that glorious beauty.

And the good man at the altar for whom the prayers and the praise

ascended, thought of her in that hour! Yes, in that very hour, he

remembered how one would have looked on him that day, could she have

come, his wife, to witness how his brethren and the people loved and

honored him. He thought of her, and as he knelt at the altar, even then

he prayed for her. But, not as numbers thought upon the name of Rosalie

Sherwood that day; for she also, was soon to appear before a throng, and

there were a myriad hearts that throbbed with expectancy, and waited

impatiently for the hour to come when they should look upon her!

Bishop Melville sat in his study at noonday, for a few moments, alone.

He was glancing over the sermon that he was to deliver that afternoon,

when his mother, his proud, happy mother came into the room quietly,

laid a sealed note upon the table, and instantly withdrew, for she saw

how he was occupied.

When he had finished his reading, the bishop opened the note and

read—could it have been with careless eyes?

“DUNCAN,—I have knelt to-day in the house of the Lord, and

witnessed your triumph. Ten years ago when I went desolate and

wretched from your house, I might have prophesied your destiny.

“Come to-night and behold _my_ triumph—at—the Opera House!

“Your sister,

“ROSALIE.”

Do you think that as he read that summons he hesitated as to whether he

should obey it? If his bishopric had been sacrificed therefor, he would

have gone—if disgrace and danger had attended his footsteps, he would

have sought her at the bidding!—The love which had been strengthening

in ten long years of loneliness and bereavement, was not now to stop, to

question, or to fear.

“Accompany me dear mother, this evening—I have made an engagement for

you,” he said as he went, she hanging on his arm, to the cathedral for

afternoon service.

“Willingly my son,” was the instant answer: and Duncan kept her to her

word.

But it was with wondering, with surprise, that she did not attempt to

conceal, and with questions which were satisfied with no definite reply,

that Mrs. Melville found herself standing with her son in an obscure

corner of the Opera-House, that night. Soon all her expressions of

astonishment were hushed, but by another cause than the mysterious

inattention of her son—a queenly woman appeared upon the stage, she

lifted her voice and sobbed the mournful wail, which opens the first

scene in —— ——. For years, there had not been such a sensation

created among the frequenters of that place as now, by the appearance of

this stranger. The wild, singular style of her beauty, made an

impression, that was heightened by every movement of her graceful

figure, every tone of her rich, melodious voice.—She seemed, for the

time, the very embodiment of the sorrow, to which she gave expression,

and the effect was a complete triumph.

Mary Melville and her son gazed upon the debutant, they had no look no

word for each other; for they recognized in her voice, the tones of a

grief, of which long ago they heard the prelude, and every note found

its echo in the bishop’s inmost heart.

“Come away! let us go home! Duncan, this is no place for us, for _you_;

it is disgrace to be here,” was the passionate plea of the mother, when

at last, Rosalie disappeared, and other forms stood in her place.

“We will stay and save her,” was the answer spoken with tears and

trembling, by the man for whom, in many a quiet home, prayers in that

hour ascended. “She is mine _now_, and no earthly consideration or power

shall divide us!”

And looking steadfastly for a moment in her son’s face, the lady turned

away sighing and tearful, for she knew that she must yield then, and she

had fears for the future.

A half hour passed, and the star of the night re-appeared—resplendent

in beauty, and triumphing in hope—again her marvelous voice was raised,

not with the wail of sorrow—not with the bitter cry of despair that was

hopeless, but glad, and gay, angelic in its joy.

Again the mother’s eyes were turned on him beside her—and a light was

on that pale forehead, a smile on that calm face, a gladness in those

eyes, which she had not seen there for long years,—and though she could

not wonder as she looked with a mother’s love upon the one, who stood

the admiration of all eyes, crowned with the glory-crown of perfection

in her art; she could not with Duncan, hope. For, alas! her woman heart

knew too well, the ordeal through which the daughter of her care and

love must have passed, before she came into _that_ presence, where she

stood now—who could tell if still the mistress of herself, and of her

destiny, pure and undefiled?

* * * * *

That night and the following day, there were many who sought admittance

to the parlors of Rosalie Sherwood; they would lay the homage of their

trifling hearts at her feet. But all these sought in vain—and why was

this? Because such admiring tribute was not what the noble woman sought,

and because, ere she had risen in the morning, a letter written in the

solitude of night, was handed her, which barred and bolted her door

against the curious world.

“Rosalie! Rosalie! look back through the ten years that are gone, I am

answering your letter of long ago, with words—I have a thousand times

answered them in my heart, till the thoughts which have been crowded

there filled it almost to breaking. We have met, met at last, you and I.

But, did you call that a triumph, when you stood in God’s house, and saw

them lay their consecrating hands upon me? Heaven forgive me, I was

thinking of _you_ then—and thinking too, that if this honor was in any

way to be thought a reward, the needful part of it was wanting—you were

not there! Yet, you _were_ there, you have written me—ah, but not

_Rosalie my wife_, the woman I loved better than _all_ on earth, the

_acknowledged_ woman, whose memory I had borne about with me till it was

a needful part of my existence. You were by when the people came to see

me consecrated:—and I obeyed _your_ call, I saw you, when the people

anointed you with the tears of their admiration and praise. If you read

my heart at all that day, you knew how I had suffered, that I had grown

old in the sorrow; was I mistaken to-night, in the thought that you too

were not unmindful of the past—that you were not _satisfied_ with the

popular applause? that you also, have been lonely, and wept and

sorrowed?

“There is but one barrier now in the wide world that shall interpose

between us, Rosalie—your own will. If I was ever anything to you, I

beseech you think calmly before you answer, and do not let your

‘triumph’ to-night, blind you to the fact, which you once

recognized—which can make us happy _yet_.—I trust you as in our

younger days; nothing, nothing but your own words, could convince me

that you are not worthy to take the highest place among the ladies of

this land:—give me only your heart—and let the remembrance that I have

been faithful to you through all the past, plead for me, if your pride

should rise up to condemn me. Let me come and plead _with_ you, for I

know not what I write.”

The answer returned to this letter was as follows:

“I learned long ago the bar that prevented our union—it is in existence

still, Duncan. Your mother only, shall decide, if it be insurmountable.

I have never, for a moment, doubted your faithfulness, and it has been

to me an unspeakable comfort, in the days when I was alone, and toiling

for a support, to know that none had supplanted me in your affections.

In the temptations, and struggles, and hardships I have known, it has

kept me above and beyond the world—and if the last night’s triumph

proves to be but the opening to a new life for me on earth, the

recollection of what you are, and that you care for me, will prove a

rock of defense, and a strong-hold of hope, always. Severed from, or

united with you, I am yours forever.”

Seven days after, there was a marriage in the little church of that

remote village, where Duncan Melville and Rosalie Sherwood, passed their

childhood. Side by side they stood now, once again, where the baptismal

service had long since been read for them, and the mother of the bishop

gave the bride away!—“_Honi soit qui mal y pense!_”

* * * * *

THE DEATH OF WORDSWORTH.

BY WILLIAM SYDNEY THAYER.

When the beloved guide, with whom we oft

Have wandered over meadow, hill and dale,

Have had sweet converse, and who bore aloft

Our minds attentive to some pleasing tale,

Whose words of wisdom often could avail

To cheer us on our weariest pilgrimage,

Bending with years, passes beyond the pale

Of earthly life, what crowding thoughts engage

Our hearts, which seek in vain the staff-supported sage!

Wordsworth is dead! and yet not wholly sad

The feelings which our sorrowing bosoms thrill;

Death was his gain, for here his spirit had

Not space enough to wander at its will,

Filling its fruitful treasury until

Men might be blest with its rich overflow;

As when the sinking sun behind the hill,

Growing more broad as it doth westward go,

Scatters its golden dust upon the world below.

To him Creation all her stores unrolled,

To him unveiled the glories of her face;

To him ’twas given her mysteries to behold,

Her countless forms of grandeur and of grace—

The blue-eyed violet in its hiding-place,

The drowsy locust, singing at high noon,

From the elm-bough, her shrill, unvarying lays,

Till listening Nature seems almost to swoon—

The humblest sights and sounds chimed with his spirit’s tune.

Throughout the universe he ever saw

A mighty, interfusing Presence shine,

Controlling all things by its sovereign law;

He saw the secret bands, so strong and fine,

That link the insect to a source divine.

And gazing up, like one of those rapt seers,

Whose souls have visioned out God’s vast design,

Entranced in adorations, hopes and fears,

Yielded himself to thoughts that “lie too deep for tears.”

And o’er the human soul with quiet eye

He deeply brooded, and its wonders knew;

The subtle powers that underneath it lie,

From their unfathomed haunts his magic drew—

Displayed its tranquil beauty to our view,

Unstirred by passions blowing strong and wild,

And, in his thought, our marvelous being grew,

To a strange harmony, serene and mild,

Which blent in union sweet the old man and the child.

Blest be the Priest, whose consecrating hands

Wreathed a new glory round the true and right,

Baptized by whom, the humblest duty stands,

Appareled in a clear, celestial light;

Blest be the Prophet, who has turned our sight,

From the drear Present’s sinful turbulence,

To his ideal world, that island bright

In Time’s dim ocean, where men pitch their tents,

And walk before the Lord in fearless innocence.

I see the Poet in his peaceful home,

The home of mountain, forest, and of lake,

While closing round him Death’s cool shadows come,

And the calm hopes of Heaven within him wake,

Glowing with sunset, Grasmere’s waters take

To their still bosom, sky, and rock, and wood;

Nature stands trembling, grieved that she must break

Union with him, who shared her quietude,

The dearest worshiper that near her altar stood.

But thou diest not, O Wordsworth! who hast found,

And called from sleep our holier sympathies,

Strewing with deathless flowers Life’s barren ground,

And lighting up our pathway to the skies—

Translator of great Nature’s mysteries!

Linked with herself, thou livest evermore,

And we, united by thy teachings wise,

Shall tread a lovelier earth than heretofore,

Shall sail on smoother seas, along a sunnier shore.

* * * * *

THE COMUS OF MILTON.

BY REV. J. N. DANFORTH.

GENIUS, in whatever age of the world it has appeared, has commanded the

respect and homage of mankind. MIND, in every stage of development, and

in every altitude of attainment, must be an object of profound interest

to mind. When, therefore, a mind of so high an order as that of JOHN

MILTON, appears before men, the fact constitutes an era in the history

of intellect and imagination, and all the productions of such a mind are

scanned and studied with a diligence proportioned to the dignity and

fame of the author. The principal monument or statue in honor of the

departed, of course attracts the most profound contemplation, but around

it the genius of the artist may have wrought some beautiful adjunct

figures, worthy of their share of admiration. Thus, while the Paradise

Lost stands in superior beauty and grandeur, a fitting monument of the

transcendent mind of the author, there are minor productions of the same

imagination, which are finely conceived, and exquisitely wrought. Among

these may be mentioned COMUS, a “Mask,” or Dialogue composed in dramatic

form with no particular attention to rules or probabilities, and

therefore affording the imagination of the poet considerable freedom in

the exercise of its pencil. This was one of the earliest productions of

the muse of Milton, one in the progress of which he tried the strength

of those pinions, which were destined to bear him beyond this ‘visible

diurnal sphere,’ into those spiritual and sublime regions, till then

unknown to the adventurous flight of the poet. Johnson, in his Lives of

the Poets, declares this to be “the greatest of his juvenile

performances, in which may very plainly be discovered the dawn or

twilight of Paradise Lost.” The characters are six only in number, the

Attendant Spirit, Comus and his crew, a Virgin Lady, her two brothers,

and Sabrina, a nymph.—The scene is a wild-wood, and the poem opens with

a long soliloquy from the attendant spirit, followed by the entrance of

the wizard Comus, and the strange, unearthly beings of monstrous forms,

now encountered by the lady, who has lost her way in the woods, and who

is subjected to the severe trial of their foul incantations. The two

brothers set forth in pursuit of their lost sister, and succeed in

finding her, happy that she has survived unharmed, all the arts of the

wicked and the seductive.

Sabrina, the “goddess of the silver lake,” is invoked, and rises out of

the “cool, translucent wave,” chiefly to confer a crowning grace upon

the scene and afford further opportunity for the exercise of the

imaginative powers of the poet. There can be said to be little plan, or

intention of plan or plot about the piece. But whatever may be wanting

in beauty or ingenuity of design, is amply compensated by the sterling

value of the thoughts, the exquisite character of the imagery, the

richness of the coloring, and the purity of the tone of sentiment. Many

a “household word” is here recognized. Many a stem, from which we

plucked flowers for our herbarium, grew here. Beautiful gems, that have

been set here and there in the bosom of congenial prose, or, like

current coin, from hand to hand, that have circulated from mouth to

mouth, in elegant society, were formed in this mine. Those “thousand

liveried angels” that lackey a pure and gentle spirit, the “airy

tongues, that syllable men’s names,” that “charming, divine philosophy,”

which is “musical as Apollo’s lute,” the vision of those serene and

celestial regions, that glow “above the smoke and stir of this dim spot,

which men call earth,” the view of a sable cloud, turning its “silver

lining on the night,” these, and many kindred images and sentiments of

beauty, have their original expression in the Comus, as others do in

other works of the immortal poet, who sought not merely to weave

splendid visions of the imagination, but to embalm sublime truths for

the nourishment of humanity in all ages, and to vindicate the ways of

God to man.

Here, too, we find some of those sententious generics of history or

geography, of fable or fancy; those classic touches; those suggestive

single words, which instantly bring up before the mind, a train of

ideas, or a treasure of knowledge connected with the past.

These habits of thought and composition are fully developed in Paradise

Lost. “The poetry of Milton,” says an eminent critic, “differs from that

of Dante, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt, differ from the picture-writing

of Mexico. The images which Dante employs speak for themselves; they

stand simply for what they are. Those of Milton have a signification

which is often discernible only, to the initiated. Their value depends

less on what they directly represent, than on what they remotely

suggest.” Numerous instances of this might be adduced. It has been

called electrifying the mind through a conductor. The mind of the reader

must in some good measure co-operate with that of the author. We must be

ready to fill up the outline which he sketches; to respond with our

melody to the key-note, which he strikes. There must be some music in

the soul that is to appreciate the genius of Milton. Addison never

earned a purer glory, than when he set forth his merits as by a charmed

pen. Those words of enchantment—those forms of beauty created by the

imagination of the poet, deeply impressed a congenial mind.

The Comus is constructed on the plan of the Italian _masque_, and

belongs to that class of poems, which do not depend for their interest

on any complication of plot or conflicts of intense passion, on dramatic

unities or strange developments; startling scenes and horrible

catastrophes. The poem rather claims and commands our admiration for the

Doric simplicity of its structure, than for any gay and glittering forms

of poetic architecture. Though dramatic in its plan, the Mask—while it

has the simplest form of the drama—is essentially lyric, especially in

the carol of the Water Nymph and the song of the attendant spirit, which

constitutes a kind of delicious epilogue to the piece, and concludes

with a beautiful moral lesson:

Mortals, that would follow me,

Love Virtue; she alone is free:

She can teach you how to climb

Higher than the sphery chime;

Or if Virtue feeble were,

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

Indeed, the whole design and execution of the poem is evidential of that

purity of mind, that chasteness of the imagination, so nobly

distinguishing all the productions of this first of poets.

There is no reason why Shakspeare should not have maintained the same

elevated tone of morality and purity in his immortal works, but that he

was destitute of those religious principles, which purify the heart,

and, indeed, clarify all the powers of the mind. The polluting habits of

his early life, so closely connected with the stage, when it was in its

deepest debasement, contributed to this malformation of his moral

character. Let it not be said it was rather the “fault of the age” than

of the individual. Milton was of that age. There was little more than a

generation between them. But the poet was not ensnared either with the

conspicuous examples of vice before him or around him. In the midst of a

crooked and perverse generation, he shone as a light of superior

brilliancy, entering upon the responsibilities and trials of life, with

a heart full of love for freedom, and of hatred of tyrants, just at that

illustrious period of the world, when the genius of Liberty had set her

foot on these North American shores.

All republicans have a special interest in studying the genius and

character of Milton. He took no pleasure as did the great dramatic poet,

in exalting the prerogatives, or setting forth the splendors of royalty.

For this he was calumniated by his enemies, and even Johnson, the

inveterate old tory, joins in the censure of the politician and

civilian, while he praises the poet in such language as this: “He seems

to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to know what it

was that nature had bestowed upon him, more bountifully than upon

others; the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the splendid,

enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the

dreadful.” He could not stoop to trifle among kings and queens, or

attempt to make them conspicuous by his eulogies or representations. He

rose to the sublimities of supernal worlds. “He sent his faculties out

upon discovery, into worlds where only imagination can travel, and

delighted to form new modes of existence and furnish sentiment and

action to superior beings, to trace the counsels of hell, or accompany

the choirs of heaven.”

His communion with the pure, the spiritual, the invisible, strengthened

the principles of conduct he had adopted in his anticipation of the

judgment of posterity, and especially in his consciousness of being “in

his great Taskmaster’s eye.”

In Comus, his youthful imagination luxuriates amid the freshness of its

own beautiful creations, amid the wealth which was destined to enrich

the world. Upon the ground of a pure moral sentiment the flowers of

poesy are distributed in the most free and graceful manner. There is no

pandering to the baser passions of the human heart; no prostitution of

the charms of his muse to the purposes of a secret, sinful gratification

on the part of his readers; no seductive attempt to “impair the strength

of better thoughts,” or to weaken the sanctions of that immutable law,

which binds together virtue and happiness, vice and misery. His

amaranthine wreath maybe wet with the “dew of heaven,” such as descended

on his own Paradise, but is never stained with tears such as innocence

weeps, when corrupted by guilt. “His diadem of beauty,” is set with gems

of the purest water, and most sparkling colors. The “Lady,” who is

wandering in the recesses of the forest, apprehensive perhaps, of being

assailed by prowling foes, appeals in fervent language:

Oh welcome, pure-eyed Faith; whitehanded Hope,

Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!

And thou, unblemished form of Chastity!

I see ye visibly——

The high lesson breathed through many a glowing line of this exquisite

poem, is the dignity of virtue, the conservative power of innocence, the

majesty of woman, even in her weakness, that weakness itself becoming

strength, when blended with a purity, before which the eye of profligacy

quails with very shame at the suggestions of a guilty heart. In the

picture of Comus, the fabled son of Bacchus and Circe, and the assailant

of the virtuous lady, drawn by the attendant spirit, there is a powerful

argument for temperance, a virtue so warmly applauded and so little

practiced among men. Comus,

—To every thirsty wanderer

By sly enticement gives his baneful cup,

With many murmurs mixed, whose pleasing poison

The visage quite transforms of him that drinks,

And the inglorious likeness of a beast

Fixes instead, unmoulding reason’s mintage

Charactered in the face.—

The imagination of Milton delighted to portray the moral virtues, often

grouping them in fine proportions and expressive relations. They appear

in the midst of exquisite poetry, gorgeous imagery, and all manner of

glowing thoughts, like beautiful forms of statuary revealing themselves

amidst the luxuriant vines and verdant foliage of a summer garden.

The scene in the palace between the Virgin Lady and Comus affords

occasion for the utterance of noble sentiments in language worthy of

them. She is supposed to sit in the enchanted chair, her eye resting

upon the dainties of a delicious feast, her ear greeted with strains of

the softest music, all the senses, in fine, addressed in the most

tempting manner, when the Enchanter with his wand appears before her,

and proffers his glass—the true “Circean cup,” which, being tasted,

first intoxicates, then ruins. It is the intoxication of pleasure in all

its forms and fascinations. This may be called a fable, but it stands

for truth and reality too sadly and fatally experienced by the children

of humanity.

The Enchanter opens his assault: “If I but wave this wand, your nerves

are all chained up in alabaster.” The lady nobly replies:

Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind

With all thy charms, although this corporeal rind

Thou hast immanacled, while Heaven sees good.

The contest proceeds, and it is one between Truth and Falsehood, Light

and Darkness, Principle and Profligacy, the Powers Supreme, and the

Infernal Crew. The germ of one portion of Paradise Lost is here. Those

conflicts between mighty opposing Powers, which constitute so much of

the sublime interest of that great EPIC, are here typified and

foreshadowed. Some poets would have invested this incantation of virgin

purity with the “armor of tears,” the resistless eloquence of entreaty,

disarming the sturdiest foe. But no such tender, melting scenes seem to

have been embraced within the design of the poet. His heroine belongs to

a severer order of the chaste sisterhood. There is a sternness in her

purity, before which even the Enchanter with his wand is compelled to

cower. He plies her with his enchantments, presses her with arguments

worthy of the father of lies, with sophistry becoming the most subtle

and accomplished deceiver, with flattery that would turn an ordinary

brain. To all this she replies with all the energy of indignant virtue:

“False traitor,” and charges home the guilt of his incantations,

spurning the offer of all his delicacies and luxuries:

—None

But such as are good men can give good things,

And that which is not good, is not delicious

To a well-governed and wise appetite.

Comus affects to despise the philosophy that is taught from the cynic

tub of Diogenes, and ranges over all Nature for proof that men were

intended to revel on her bounties, to “live while they live;” in fact to

do what those Epicurean philosophers taught, who said, “Let us eat and

drink, for to-morrow we die.” Nay, he dares to asperse the purity, and

insult the majesty of Beauty itself:

Beauty is nature’s coin, must not be hoarded,

But must be current; and the good thereof

Consists in mutual and partaken bliss—

Now does the Lady rebuke him with all the true natural authority of

virtue for obtruding his false rules “pranked in reason’s garb,” and in

the true spirit of Satan bolting out his practical heresies with a

fluency quite beyond the capabilities of the tongue of Virtue. It is

true that in this interview there appears to be, so far as the Virgin

Lady is concerned, a singular union of the romantic and the sensible,

indeed such a preponderance of the latter as would have been quite

inconsistent with the style and spirit of the drama, as authenticated by

the masters of the histrionic art. Nevertheless, so great a genius as

Milton had a right to choose in what form he would embody—through what

channel he would pour the exalted sentiments and burning thoughts which

it is the prerogative of genius to supply. If it pleased him to set

before us naked creations of loveliness, or solitary symbols of vice and

deformity, rather in the style of the statuary than of the painter of

scenes, then let us be thankful for the gift, and honor the memory of

the giver. Comus is rebuked by the Lady in such language as this:

Nature

Means her provision only to the good,

That live according to her sober laws,

And holy dictate of spare temperance:

If every just man that now pines with want,

Had but a moderate and beseeming share

Of that which lewdly-pampered luxury

Now heaps upon some face with vast excess,

Nature’s full blessings would be well dispensed

In unsuperfluous even proportion,

And she no whit encumbered with her store.

That strain continues until the guilty wizard stands abashed, like Satan

before the immaculate angel of the covenant, feeling how awful virtue

is: Comus confesses his fears of self-condemnation. He felt “her words

set off by some superior power,” and in spite of his professed exemption

from mortal ills, acknowledges “a cold shuddering dew dips me all o’er.”

Still he resolves to dissemble, and as he is proceeding with his speech,

in rush the brothers of the lady to the rescue, and scatter all things

around them.

The attendant Spirit again appears on the stage, to exercise her

guardian offices, and speaks at length. All the speakers are imbued with

classical knowledge, and abound in classical allusions. This is just

Miltonic. They are learned in Latin and Greek. And why should Milton

consult the verisimilitudes of the stage? In the compass of thirteen

lines of a song by the attendant Spirit, there are several classical or

fabulous names, among them Neptune, Nereus, Triton, Glaucus, Thetis,

Parthenope. How finely does he interweave them with the thread of his

song, even, by his poetic art, imparting to them a portion of the melody

that is vocal in his verse. He seems capable of setting to music the

whole catalogue of the Pantheon, the Stoa, the Academy, and the Temples,

whose sublime and impressive architecture itself suggests an analogy to

poetry of a high order. Then the Nereids, the Dryads, the Fauns will

always be poetical in an humbler sense, so long as the woods and the

waters shall be grateful to the senses or pleasing to the imagination.

Even the horrid Satyrs are welcomed among his guests.

This poem is full of MUSIC, reminding us as well of the beautiful

bond—_the indissoluble vinculum_—that unites the sister arts, as of

the author’s passion for the science and the symphonies of sweet sounds.

A good recitation of his Ode on the Nativity is equal to a grand

overture on the organ. HE was an EPIC all over. To quote from this very

Comus, he could originate “strains that might create a soul under the

ribs of death.” If he did not absolutely invent the exquisite epithet

“rosy bosomed hours,” (it being derived from the _Rododatetylos Eos_,

“rosy-fingered Aurora” of Homer,) he interwove it most gracefully in his

song, as he did all thoughts, images, and words which he deemed worthy

of adaptation into the magic structure of his works. They were so many

living, many-colored stones in that glorious temple of poesy, (be it

reverentially spoken,) “not made with hands,” but elaborated and

elevated to its towering height by those marvelous intellectual powers

which are as much the gift of God as inspiration itself, and far more

identified with the MAN than inspiration possibly could be. Oh, how

solemn the spectacle, to contemplate such a genius with his eye fixed,

like that of an ancient prophet, in a vision of spiritual worlds,

peopled, not with the ordinary phantoms of an earthly imagination, but

with beings of immortal mould and unmeasured power; his ear open to

catch the “ninefold harmony” of the celestial orders, as they sing and

praise the glorious Creator; his march above the ordinary walks of

humanity; his very soul taking wings, and like the eagle soaring “with

no middle flight,” but passing “the flaming bounds of time and space,”

and ascending from sphere to sphere until he reaches the throne of the

Eternal, there to hold high communion with the Invisible God, and the

august and awful associations that surround him, whom “No eye hath seen

nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting.”

* * * * *

THE GRAVE’S PALE ROSES.

BY C. F. ORNE.

On the couch of her suffering, meekly,

Like a lily so wan and pale,

She lay in her trance-like slumber,

A slumber for bliss or bale.

_He_ sat and watched beside her,

To whom her young life was dear,

From his eyes the sad dew of sorrow

Fell silently, tear by tear.

The hours passed unseen and unheeded

Till the dawning grew bright in the skies,

Then her white lids, with languid unclosing,

Revealed the soft light of her eyes.

She pressed the last kiss on his forehead,

And murmured in music so low,

“On my grave plant the pale blooming roses

That only a summer-life know.”

She slept: and they laid her with weeping,

In the greenwood so solemn and still:

He placed on her grave the pale roses

Whose life bears no winter wind’s chill.

As he knelt there what bathed his wan forehead,

So gently the rose-petals moved?

The sigh of the breeze that swept o’er them,

Or the spirit of her he had loved?

When spring came again to the greenwood,

Ah—a flowerless sod was there!—

The _new wife_ wore the pale blooming roses

In the wreaths of her raven hair.

* * * * *

ON SAN FRANCISCO’S SPLENDID BAY.

BY THOMAS G. SPEAR.

On San Francisco’s splendid bay

The weary hours I while away,

And think me of the days, no more,

I passed upon a dearer shore.

When time began to stretch the chain

Of which a few worn links remain,

To tell me that at fate’s command,

While years on years are rolling by,

They, too, must strew life’s desert strand,

Like leaves when Autumn’s blast is nigh.

Where azure hills o’erlook the seas,

I sit me down and feel the breeze

Fresh from the billows, wild and nigh,

Borne through a bright and boundless sky,

And musing gaze the landscape o’er

From rolling height to sandy shore,

And hail the beautiful and grand,

Blent with the softest light and shade,

In Freedom’s gold-encumbered land,

The seat of empire and of trade.

O’er Yerba Buena’s lonely isle

I watch the morning’s rosy smile;

And while it gilds the wave and mast,

From Contia Costa’s summit cast,

I think of those it woke before

It touched this mountain-sloping shore.

In that far off and hallowed home

Beyond the Allegheny’s sky,

Where breaks the white Atlantic foam,

And all life’s dear affections lie!

Ah me! what of these mountain scenes,

O’er which the blue sky sweetly beams!

This land of wild romantic charms

That man’s imperial wish embalms;

This clime of gold, whose sound to greet,

Swift hither rush the world’s life-fleet.

What of these treasures wrung by toil,

Their might, their magic, and their lure,

Without one sweet domestic smile,

In which the heart may feel secure.

* * * * *

THE QUIET ARBOR.

BY W. H. C. HOSMER.

“Hence let me haste into the midwood shade,

And on the dark green grass, beside the brink

Of haunted stream, that by the roots of oak

Rolls o’er the rocky channel, lie at large.”

When study pales my visage, and I feel

Oppressive languor chaining heart and brain,

Away from toil and books I often steal,

Exploring haunts where Quiet holdeth reign.

I love the wild, the picturesque—and when

Her nest of moss the roving linnet weaves,

And the low thorn is beautiful with flowers,

I seek my favorite glen,

While warm winds wanton with the twinkling leaves,

And pass in pleasant idleness the hours.

Where a dark arbor, by the mingling boughs

Of two gigantic hemlock-trees, is made,

I rest my limbs, and with wild shout arouse

The ruffed-grouse from her cover in the shade;

The tapping flicker does not keep aloof,

But plies his noisy bill above my head,

To greet my coming, while the summer heat

Falls on the verdant roof

That canopies my green, luxurious bed,

With the fresh odors of the forest sweet.

I lie and listen to the lulling tones

Of the clear brook that works its winding way,

Far down through brush, and over mossy stones,

The green marge wetting with its silver spray;

The path is steep and perilous that leads

To the cold flushing waters—and few dare

Descend to quaff refreshment from their flow;

For thick, entangling weeds,

In the loose soil seem matted to ensnare

The foot of him who ventureth below.

In the rich bottom of the dale, a grove

Of sylvan giants woos the roving eye;

The topmost limbs wave not their leaves above

The shrubby brow of the declivity.

Sometimes in musing indolence I stand,

And drink in rapture from the peaceful scene,

Or call up old rememberings from sleep;

Then pluck with careless hand

The ripe, red berries of the winter-green,

That blush like rubies on the verdant steep.

I watch the wild bees from my cool retreat

Hum tunefully around the blue harebell,

Before they enter to extract the sweet

That lieth hidden in each fragrant cell.

The small ground-squirrels leave their dwellings dark

In the black, slaty soil, and gambol oft

On an old oak with star-moss overgrown,

And reft of branch and bark;

While the fierce hawk forsakes his realm aloft,

And settles on the blasted pine, his throne.

Where the broad banks slope gently downward, grow

The sassafras and other fragrant trees;

And the bright lilies of the wave below,

Give nods of recognition to the breeze.

In mild accordance with the quiet scene,

Beat tranquilly the pulses of my heart;

While Fancy populates the place with fays,

In robes of dazzling sheen,

Who dance to merry music, and depart,

While other fairy visions cheat the gaze.

Around the sapling, like a verdant belt,

The claspers of the honeysuckle twine;

The Dryades of Argos never dwelt

Within a bower more beautiful than mine.

The humming-bird is near me on the wing,

And the warm breeze with dulcet tone is stealing

Through the green plumage of the hemlocks old—

A spiritual thing;

While butterflies round marshy spots are wheeling,

Clad in their dazzling liveries of gold.

The dusky lord of knife and hatchet roves

Near my wild haunt of loveliness no more;

He saw, amid his old ancestral groves,

Throng pale invaders from a foreign shore—

Then heard the sylvan monarchs, one by one,

With all their leafy diadems laid low,

And sought an undiscoverable lair

Toward the dim, setting sun,

With empty quiver and a broken bow,

And gloomy brow contorted by despair.

The game he hunted craftily is gone,

And meadow-grass conceals his ancient trail;

The flock is feeding where his camp-fire shone,

And rang his whoop of triumph on the gale.

His implements of battle and the chase,

Are often found near my romantic bower,

For the rich scene about it is allied

To legends of his race;

And mournful traces of his day of power

Make classic grove, and glade, and river-side.

Frost, washing rain-drops, and the plough lay bare

The rude graves of his sires on hill and plain,

Exposing their white secrets to the air,

And the rough foot-fall of the whistling swain;

When Autumn robes the forest in a dress

Of many colors, he returns no more,

To pay due homage to ancestral dust,

From distant wilderness;

The wave no longer flushes with his oar,

And crusted is his tomahawk with rust.

His woodland language cannot wholly die

While swift Ganèsus, with a voice of glee,

Between bright, flowery banks is rolling by

To mix his waters with the Genesee.

These tall old hemlocks tell of other days,

When the red warrior rested in their shade,

The painted ruler of the scene around;

And the far hills that raise

Their wooded tops, by Summer lovely made,

In marks of ancient Indian rule abound.

When the life-stream is frozen in my veins,

And hollow are my features with decay,

I fondly hope my cold and stiff remains

May not be hidden from the light of day,

In the dank yard where hundreds hide their dead;

For I would rather have a pleasant grave

Beneath the roofing of my arbor green,

With wild-grass over-spread;

While far below sing bird and gurgling wave,

Through the dense, rustling thicket, dimly seen.

* * * * *

PEDRO DE PADILH.

BY J. M. LEGARE.

(_Continued from page 310._)

SPAIN, AND TERCERA. }

AD. 1583. }

Capt. Wolfang Carlo and Don Hilo de Ladron, seated on the side of the

mountain above Angra, watched the sea brighten along the opposite

horizon and the white tents of the Spanish camp slowly emerge from the

mists in the valley to the right.

“There’ll be hard fighting yonder before the commandant gives in,” the

captain said, nodding toward Nostre Dame de Loup, “and nobody will find

time to look after us for some weeks to come.”

“We must make our peace with the marquis before it is over,” Hilo

returned indifferently.

“My plan,” the captain continued, “is to search along the western coast,

and wherever we find a boat put off in it for St. George. One of the

Portuguese told me the place wasn’t more than half a dozen leagues off

at most.”

“And what would you do there, brave captain?” the Spaniard asked with a

sneer. “Don’t comfort yourself that the marquis would let your

bull’s-neck out of his noose, because you merely deserted the commandant

and benefited himself in nothing. But your friendship for me mustn’t

keep you in Tercera. Perhaps the best thing after all you can do, would

be to go and be hanged; it will come about one of these days.”

“Not before I throttle you,” the ex-serjeant muttered, with a scowl at

the back of his careless comrade’s head.

“Joke away,” he added sulkily, aloud. “You’ve a great chance of catching

the count up here, while there’s a boat to be got, haven’t you.”

“Look you, captain,” Hilo said, raising himself on his elbow. “There

isn’t a boat on this coast, nor has there been for these three weeks.

These rascally Portuguese have been carrying away their families and

goods in every thing that could float, to be out of harm’s way until the

fighting is fairly over. I know it is so, for I overheard one of them

tell the count night before last; he had been along shore to find out.

So the viceroy is still in trap, and if you’ve a mind, you may come

along and find where he’s hidden; or if you like it better, swim over

the strait, or walk down to the marquis’ quarters: you’ve several

acquaintances made in Madrid, you know, who will be pleased to meet you,

captain.”

At this reference Wolfang regained enough of his good humor to show his

tusks in a grin.

“Your friends ain’t too many down there, either,” he rejoined. “If I’m

to go with you, let’s hear how the count is to be caught.”