Alone, and in secret, did he plot his plans to circumvent them. Lost now

to every feeling of shame and honor, he repelled no scheme, however

base, that presented itself; and though the better and more manly

exercise of his faculties drooped and withered under his scorching

passion, a deeper, deadlier cunning than he ever knew before, sweltered

and forged unceasingly the most crafty implements for his hellish

purpose. He would trust not an iota to the assistance of other hands,

but assumed the whole burden of contriving and executing upon himself.

Not a breath did he breathe of his infamous design to human ears. His

demeanor in public possessed all the semblance of urbanity and good

feeling that he once felt; but his interior Vulcan reposed not from his

craft. Every piece of information that he could unsuspectingly acquire

concerning either poor Roderick or Ella, he stored up and revolved in

his aristocratic mind, digesting it with his moral venom, as a viper

would revolve and masticate with poison its loath-some morsel. He

learned from many sources, partially from herself, the particulars of

Ella’s history, as far as was known; and contrasting several portions

with certain circumstances that had fallen under his observation when in

England, was astonished at the result of his machinations, which now

doubled upon himself, to involve him too in their fatal entanglement.

Thus far he had stood apart, aloof, as it were, upon a height above his

contemplated victims. His baser passions had thrown aside the drapery of

virtue and honor which once veiled the lovely woman from the gaze of

rude thought, and he could look down upon her very graces as an object

of his intended prey; but when the artful interlocking of his web and

woof turned up to his astonished eyes, in gathered forms, the whole and

real picture of his contemplated deed; when his study brought to light

the astounding fact that Ella could claim close kindred with the

proudest titles of the British peerage, his craven spirit of profligacy

slunk away, for the time awed, but not quelled, by the air of reverence,

and veneration that breathed upon it. At its return, elevated, softened,

warmed, but not purified, by its admixture of romance, he felt his

sternest anger giving way, his haughtiest pride tottering, his very soul

melting into admiration and love; he reeled from his position aloof, and

writhed a whole burnt offering among the other victims to his passion.

His subtle ingenuity soon brought to the crucible the extraordinary

change in his sentiments toward the unconscious girl, and the analysis

did not dispel the new charm that enveloped her. He saw it was perfectly

natural, and the only fruit of his discovery was a resolution to bring

the charm to operate upon her own mind—it would open the avenue to a

secret discontent with her present position, unfold a vast and

snare-beset field to the vagaries of a romantic imagination, and bring

her feelings to a sympathetic appreciation of the fellowship of caste

that existed between her and himself.

Full of this dark resolve, Count Frederick went forth alone one

afternoon. He had designedly employed the unsuspecting Roderick to

restore some old paintings that had accumulated the dust of ages. They

were in a studio in town. There Roderick had labored busily all the day,

and when evening drew near he was still detained by some management of

the count, in order to give his lordship the opportunity for his coveted

interview with Ella. He had learned at what hour she would probably be

at the appointed rendezvous, and timed his evening excursion

accordingly. It was a beautiful afternoon in April. From the castle

heights, the sun was seen slowly creeping down the skies of France, and

the changing tints of the glittering clouds, were gorgeously reflected

by the distant waters of the Rhine, and the intermediate mirrors of the

Neckar. Villages, hamlets, cottages, spread over the plain, rolled their

black smoke in heavy volumes against the green mountains, about whose

feet the lights and shadows already had begun to sketch fantastic

tableaux. How naturally did the words of the Mantuan poet’s pastoral

seem to spring to Count Frederick’s lips, as he stood within a few paces

of the bower, gazing abroad upon the scene, observed by the startled

inmate, and feigning not to observe again. Ella understood perfectly

well the words of the text, and as they were feelingly and eloquently

poured forth, as though spontaneously, by the handsome youth, as he

threw himself upon the turf, lost her surprise in the appropriate beauty

of the poet’s effusion—

Hic tamen hac mecum poteris requiescere nocte,

Frondes super virides; sunt nobis mitia poma,

Castaneæque molles, et pressi copia lactis.

Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant,

Majoresque codunt altis de montibus umbrae.

The last two lines he rapturously repeated several times, then turning

his eyes, as though perchance toward the bower, he hastily arose, and in

a moment stood blandly before Ella, apologizing for his intrusion, and

in the same breath requesting the favor of one of her pastoral songs.

She challenged him for a repetition of the verses, and he uttered them

in so off-hand, theatrical a way, that they both burst into a laugh. The

ice was broken. Never before had he so far descended from his dignity in

her presence. There and alone with him, she felt the charm of this

novelty, and bandied words with him willingly, for she supposed that

Roderick would soon come, and she thought it would be fine to pique his

jealousy a little, only to reward it the better afterward with the

sweetness of perfect tranquillity. He gradually drew forth from her own

lips what little she knew of her father’s history and family, and

artfully beguiled away the key to her enjoyments and her regrets. He had

been intimate, very intimate, he told her, with a nobleman in England,

whom he now knew must be her uncle. The identity of her father’s

history, even to his fall in a duel, with that of a brother of Lord B.;

the same name, even a perceptible resemblance of Ella to him, rendered

his assurance doubly sure. Then followed many particulars which

completely set Ella’s willing mind at rest in regard to the nobility of

her parentage.

So far, all was well. As he anticipated, the disclosure was to her

astounding and pleasing at the same time. The shadows of incredulity

that for a moment hovered before the citadel of her happiness, flitted

away before the march of pleasurable emotions. Her first feelings were

those of gratitude, and in the liveliness of her satisfaction, as he

poured into her ears the minuter details of her family history, she

could have smiled almost any thing, looked almost any reward for him who

bore her the welcome tidings. She divined the emotion that quivered on

his lip, fathomed the eloquence that sparkled in his eye, suffusing his

whole face with its light, and trembled, trembled like an aspen, with

momentary terror: but, as his glowing speech expatiated on the

time-honored and world-worshiped glory and privileges of the _noblesse_,

the spirit of high-toned chivalry that begot, that chose, that ever

ornamented the knightly order of Christendom, her terrors flew to the

winds, and left her trembling frame a play-thing in the frenzied hands

of wilder discord than her bosom had ever known. She no longer shunned

his gaze; their eyes met again and again; a shadow, as of a dream,

passed over her faculties; phantoms of law and duty and religion sprang

up, to clamor for their rights; hastily she breathed an acquiescence,

and then spurned them away as phantoms, as disturbers of the serenity of

her soul. For the first time in all her life she felt the thrill of

passion; the sorcerer beheld it, and closer and closer did he wind his

web around them both, until, convulsed by the mighty battery within, he

leaped from his seat, folded her resistless form in her arms, imprinted

one passionate kiss upon her lips, and disappeared down the precipice.

When she recovered a little self-possession, her mind soon comprehended

all; she felt and knew that passion had taken possession of her, and

that love was gone; but never for a moment did she advert to any fault

of her own. If conscience arose, she hastily repressed it, and despite

what she inmostly _felt_, declared in her own mind that she could not

see, measuring by laws of right and possession, wherein she had

transgressed. Then stepped in pride. She transgressed! Oh! that one idea

condemns the cause. She, who never had sinned, even in thought, against

womanly decorum! yet, though her face burned with indignation at the

thought, it was her own unerring conscience that accused, and against

which she turned in so virtuous a scorn. Poor Ella! the great sin was

already done. The loose rein she had given to her ideas, had permitted

the birth, the growth, the _manifestation_ of what she felt,

consequently the encouragement of Count Frederick’s excited passion.

What would strict principle have done? Trembled, and crushed the serpent

in the egg. It had glided in and twined itself around her bosom so

gently and unconsciously that she scarcely felt its presence; so

brilliant and changing were its deadly eyes in their repose, so yielding

its soft and graceful neck, that, trusting to its tameness, she nursed

its strength and venom there. At once she felt a tightening of the

coils. Who, but one willfully deceived, would not have felt death! She

did not; she saw no death, but felt she could not cast her visitant

aside, felt that she might have to struggle on and bear her burden

triumphantly along. What harm if no positive evil came of it? It was her

own burden; might she not bear it if she could? Thus she beguiled her

better reason; she did not reflect that whosoever loveth danger shall

perish in it.

The reaction from the state of excitement she had been in, was powerful,

and she was just recovering from it, when Roderick came and found her at

the bower, “pensive and melancholy,” as he termed it; and, since they

could not enjoy the evening together, tenderly and affectionately led

her home. This was the first night of Roderick’s grief and Ella’s

unhappiness. One great effort would then have shaken off her enemy

forever, and restored the serenity of her mind; but she did not see the

necessity, the obligation; it could be done at any time. Her pillow was

bedewed with her tears, but she attributed them to the agitation of her

feelings. All night, that one moment of delirium was prolonged to hours

in rapturous dreams. She awoke weary and pale. She was not responsible

for her dreams, she reasoned; probably she was not; but I would not

answer for the pleasure of them, for whenever her broken slumbers were

dispelled by consciousness, through the night, she acknowledged the

unlawfulness of dwelling upon that pleasure then, and she courted sleep

as a means to enjoyment in irresponsibility. Her harp lay untouched all

day. Her daylight reveries were but shadows of her midnight dreams; more

she did not dare. To her uncle’s somewhat anxious inquiries she replied,

that she had perspired so, all night;—it was true. The next evening was

quite as charming as the preceding one. There was no reason why she

should not take her accustomed stroll to the bower; it was her castle,

as it were; she had built it, and it was her almost daily haunt; she saw

no obligation to discontinue her visits there; if any one came, it would

be his intrusion, not hers. Besides, if she did not meet Roderick there,

he would be hurt, and probably suspect her of growing indifference. Step

by step had she advanced so far in blinding herself, as to be deceived

by such a transparency; in the days of her innocence it would have

shocked her. Her very duty to her betrothed she converted into a pretext

to betray him. Still, call her not traitress. Like one who begins to

believe his oft-told lie to be the truth, a penalty for his deceit, she

more than half trusted her shallow sophistry. No human power now, no

stand of honor or pride, can save her now; she has let the enemy within

the citadel to parley, and whilst she prates in whispered, cowering

tones, of future peace or victory, he quietly possesses himself of every

avenue and stronghold, and nothing less than power divine can lend the

least effective aid. Will she ask it? Well would she wish to do so, but

the mighty effort of instantaneous renunciation (the only condition for

God’s help) is too great; and with an ungrounded, forlorn, despairing

hope, she still thinks some impossibility _may_ come to pass, to save

her soul. She went earlier than usual, and long sat trembling in her

accustomed seat. When at last Count Frederick appeared, she was not

surprised; but an unaccountable dread seized her, and she would have

fled, had he not gently detained her. She stopped; he saw all at a

glance, he knew every thought that was agitating her mind; he understood

her sudden impulse, that it was a last effort of expiring virtue, and he

understood, too, that he possessed the power to overrule it. He knew it

was an issue of life or death, and that either way, he held the hat in

his hand. Neither spoke. He stood, holding the unresisting arm, gazed on

her shrinking form, her imploring eyes, her lips parted in sudden

terror, upon her every feature yielding in despair to the agony of a

struggle for her very soul; the loud beating of her heart struck upon

his ear with unearthly sound; he thought of the affrighted lamb before

the altar, felt that in his hand gleamed the keen knife his beautiful

victim shrank from; his eyes drank in her exceeding loveliness, his

heart melted, and he burst into tears. He sat upon the bench, half

turned from her, his elbow resting on the trellis, and his face buried

in his handkerchief, overcome by the storm of his feelings. At this

moment, the better nature in both, had a strong game. There is something

fearful to behold when a strong man bends his head to tears. When a

woman weeps, it is the drops from a fleeting cloud, an April shower, or,

at times, the ceaseless pouring of a settled rain—a deluge; but there

is the flash, and the storm, and the fitful blast that groans and yaws,

and bursts through all control. No woman can pass on and not feel the

cloak of her human sympathy draw close around her, as if to impel her to

go forth and pour the unction of her tenderness upon the troubled heart.

And there Ella stood beside him; one hand lay gently on his quivering

shoulder, whilst the other pushed back the scattered curls from his

noble brow. Oh, what a powerful language there is in the human heart,

without words! In all this interview, since first they met, neither had

spoken a word. It was a pantomime in real life; yet, what terrible

converse they had held! Neither had ever, in all their lives, spoken to

the other one word of love; and such a scene!

“I intended,” said he, at length, as he pressed her hand to his lips; “I

intended to beg your forgiveness for my extreme rudeness on yesterday. I

was overcome, beside myself; and now, when I would utter the words of my

supplication, they stick in my throat. I am tossed like a leaf, before

you; and here I sit trembling like a child, beneath your touch. I feel

in my inmost heart the sweetness of your sympathy. I go, and but for the

treasure of that sweetness my heart would wither in its desolation. I

dare not speak to you of love, for your troth is another’s. At least, in

mercy, vouchsafe to me one glimpse of the Elysium denied me!” He folded

her once more to his heart; indistinctly she heard in spasmodic

whispers: _life—soul—dearest_—and he was gone. The nobler nature was

triumphant; and Ella, overcome by his generosity and her now

unquenchable love, wept long and bitterly. She turned from side to side

in her loneliness, gazed into the heavens, upon the wide landscape,

until the tears blinded her. Then she bent her head upon the trellis

where he had leaned; her dark hair hung in loose locks upon the

branching vines, and she moaned in very bitterness.

That night she thought of Roderick, and for a moment compared him with

Count Frederick. What a contrast! His very name, his only inheritance

from his forefathers, was essentially plebeian, rustic. Ackerman!

Roderick Ackerman, the husbandman! She had never thought of that before!

She, the daughter of a noble house, could never bear that name! Her

dreams were not those of pleasure only, for Roderick stood all night, a

horrid phantom, between her impatient love and its unlawful object. Next

morning she did not quiet her mind with the reflection, that she was not

responsible for her dreams; and her midnight dreams, pleasure and

displeasure, were her daylight reveries.

Roderick’s society still possessed a singular charm for her. In his

presence she became more like her former self. She still loved him with

a calm, settled love, which nothing on earth could ever destroy. When he

turned his mournful gaze toward her, there was so much of tenderness and

truth, so much of ill-concealed anxiety and trust, that tears of anguish

and of pity would gather upon her eyelids, and she would turn her head,

to brush them away unseen. There was no selfishness in her love for him;

it was virtuous and sincere, unshaken; yet, in his absence her thoughts

continually recurred to the all-absorbing passion that possessed her.

Day after day would she go to the bower, but she found no pretext now,

in duty to Roderick, for she always returned before it was time for him

to be there, and he never knew she went. He said to me on the mount,

when relating this portion of his history—“She never went to the bower

any more.” Count Frederick did not come again. He secluded himself at

home more closely than ever—and let us not trespass upon the sanctuary

of a penitent heart. Poor Ella might have been seen day after day, as

evening drew near, wandering alone over the hill, watching, with intense

anxiety, the path which Count Frederick would take in case he _should_

go out upon his evening walk. A mournful, restless spirit of solitude

she seemed, ever wending her silent way among the evening shadows, never

venturing upon the sun-lit green. At last her daring steps would turn

toward the manor, and she would take its circuit, on her way to the

bower. Once she passed, muffled and trembling, through the very lawn. O!

could she have seen herself as others would have seen her, she would

have sunk into the earth for very shame. How strange—that he who had

been the ruthless tempter, in heart and mind the fell destroyer, should

now, whilst retiring in virtuous seclusion, become the tempted! How

strange, how passing strange—that she, poor victim, should become

tempter, persecutor! Yet so it was: and such is man.—And such is

woman—when she falls.

One day, from his chamber window he beheld her retreating form slowly

disappearing in a little copse near the manor. The whole truth flashed

like lightning on his mind: that he was not the only tempter; that not

with him lay the damning guilt he had supposed; that he was sought; that

she could be gained. The whirlwind of passion came again. The reflection

that he had too unjustly accused himself, stifled every breath of

remorse; and he went forth, in heart a demon, worse than ever. He soon

gained her, and heaven-attesting vows were exchanged of never-dying

love. All that was honorable and fair for man to do he promised. Their

interviews thenceforward were frequent and clandestine; her health was

failing in a perpetual struggle, and matters were drawing to a crisis.

She never told her uncle what was done; she feared, she felt in her own

heart, that it was not honest love. Count Frederick, I said, had

promised all that was honorable for man to do; that promise he did not

intend to keep. The more he thought over it, the more fully was he

persuaded that she was not sanguine of its observance. After a lengthy

consideration his plot was laid, and he appointed a time with Ella for

an interview at the bower. It was Roderick’s eventful evening, the one

he alluded to when he said: “I could not resist a moment’s visit to the

bower, for, since pleasure there seemed henceforth to be forbidden fruit

to me, I longed for a moment, even of its pain.” They were both punctual

to the appointment. Count Frederick was paler than usual; she noticed

his agitation, and he, to cover it, took out his Virgil and read her

several beautiful passages. He turned to the Æneiad, and wrought upon

her mind and her sympathies with the loves and sorrows, the struggles

and the fall, of the queenly Dido. She caught the incendium, and as he

repeated over and over, with increasing gusto, the more inflammatory

passages, in the words of the poet, like Dido herself she sat

“_pendesque iterum narrantis ab ore_.” At last, as he closed the book,

he gazed intently on her, trembling with the very burden of his task. He

took her hand; she smiled.

“Ella,” said he, “dost thou love me?”

She took the book, and marked a passage with her pencil. He read:

“Est mollis flamma medullas,

Interea et tacitum vivit sub pectore vulnus.”

The glow of her features attested the truth. He continued:

“Wouldst thou be happy to wander the wide world over by my side, to

revel in the gayeties of Paris, to stand amid the awful ruins of Athens

and Palmyra, to tread the hallowed spots of Palestine, and bask in the

sunny skies of Italy?”

“With thee and honor, anywhere.”

“Ella, thou hast a picture; let me see it? Who gave it thee?”

“My mother.”

“When?—dost thou remember?”

“Yes, when I was a tiny child. She gave it in my hands and said it was

all I had from my dear father but his name.”

“Thou hast his name. Dost thou know, Ella, who this is?”

“I never knew.”

“I know. I have seen her: she is living yet, and bears but a slight

resemblance now to this young face.”

“Tell me of her; is she my father’s sister?”

“No; but wouldst thou know indeed?”

“Tell me.”

“Listen then—thy father’s wife.”

She sat stupefied; her bosom heaved convulsively.

“Couldst thou marry Roderick, now?”

She started to her feet. “Fiend! I understand you,” she shouted. Her

eyes flashed, her form dilated, her outstretched arm quivered with the

strength of her indignation; whilst her melodious voice raised in tones

of inspiration, rang through the evening stillness with the poet’s

terrible imprecation:

“Sed mihi vel tellus optem prius ima dehiscat,

Vel Pater Omnipotens adigat me fulmine ad umbras,

Pallentes umbras Erebi, noctemque profundam”—

she turned away, and sinking upon one knee, raised her clasped hands and

streaming eyes—

“Ante pudor quam te violem, aut-tua-jura re-solvam.”

And she fell lifeless upon the ground. A step was heard. The count

launched himself down the precipice. Roderick came, saw, and flew off on

the wings of the wind, with a crushed heart and raving brain.

Ella’s first act of returning consciousness was to recognize herself

reclining in the arms of Count Frederick. The swaying to and fro, the

heavy lurch, the crackling stones, the dashing tramp, soon brought home

to her mind the terrible certainty that she had departed from Heidelberg

forever. How far she was away, whither she was going she knew not: she

only knew that she was lost beyond redemption. Her body and her mind

were powerless, paralyzed in utter imbecility: she could not, would not

will: but as the reality of the world and her existence in it stole on

her awakening senses, every power of her soul rushed to the view of her

prostration; her heart struggled in very anguish, her reason staggered

from side to side in the mazes of a darksome labyrinth; night had

gathered around, and heavy dews swept through the carriage windows;

terrors, strange and indefinable, fell like a death chill on her

sickened soul, and she clung with frenzied grasp to the form beside her.

Words of love, of courage, of hope, breathed into her ears another life,

and she abandoned her whole being to the power of its inspiration. Ere

morning dawned they were far away, and the second nightfall beheld them

in Cologne.

Before I proceed any further, let me make a little necessary explanation

concerning Ella’s picture. What Count Frederick said concerning her

“father’s wife,” he knew to be utterly false. The miniature was that of

a lady Mr. Corbyn had been affianced to in England, and whom he forsook

for another, more to his liking. As the engagement had become notorious,

and he felt the extent of the injury he was indicting upon her and her

family, he retired into as great obscurity as possible, on the

continent, and married Katrina. Ere many years he was discovered in his

retreat, and the arrival of the strangers in his village, his fall in a

duel with a brother of his former betrothed, were consequent upon that

discovery. Ella’s birth was honorable as birth could be. The mystery

which hung about the picture had prepared her mind to become the easy

dupe of a well-told lie.

Many days Ella lay consuming beneath the fire of a raging fever, whilst

a sad and anxious watcher, night and day, moved ever silently about the

darkened chamber. This was the most trying period of Count Frederick’s

life. Ever and anon the low murmuring of troubled dreams would fall like

heavy curses on his cowering heart; and as he would gently move aside

the curtains and bend his ear to feel the parching breath, words fraught

with the odor of youthful innocence would ascend. Now the light of

childhood’s golden hours would beam softly on her mind, and smiles of

love and tenderness and purity would gently play about her mouth,

dimpling her beautiful features with holy pleasure as she would whisper:

“Yes, dear mother, Ella knows, listen—‘God keep little Ella from all

sin.’” Then there would be some uneasy motion, some momentary

contortion, as from a sudden pang, and then a low, trembling sigh,

scarce rising with its burden of despair. O, how he shook in very agony!

Then all was still. Her degradation, though she was unconscious of its

existence, seemed, like an unknown and unfelt medicinal application, to

extend, by some inappreciable virtue of its own, its subtle influence

unceasingly through the system. Soon, names most familiar in her joyous

girlhood, brief snatches of song or hymn that none but ecstatic moods of

happiness or devotion ever called forth from her stores of melody; even

the name of Roderick, accompanied with a tender relaxation and softened

whisper, rose up like threatening spectres in Count Frederick’s night of

mental darkness. He gazed and gazed on her pallid loveliness, watched

every quiver of her parted lips, and could have rejoiced in the life of

their occasional smile or tranquillity; but, that the hidden, lightless

eyes, and the ever “chill, changeless brow”—for it never changed in all

her emotions—appalled with the coldness of some fearful death: and he

turned away. He would have prayed, if he could, for that poor being, but

his heart was void; it was his brain that ached, for he knew that all

that melancholy ruins had fallen from a sublime structure by his fell

utterance of a lie.

It behooves me now to hasten this lengthy history to a close. As soon as

possible our wanderers hastened off to Paris, to restore their sunken

spirits amid the pleasures and gayeties of the _beau monde_. There it

was I saw them, as they took their evening airing along the Champs

Elysées. They had been there several months, and poor Ella’s looks and

manner both told the inefficiency of worldly pleasure, to lighten the

heavy burden of a guilty soul. The gayety of France was like the smart

of sparkling wine on an ulcerated sore, and away they wandered into

distant lands. The still, death-like aspect of the Grecian shores seemed

like the languor of cold sympathy with her own silent sorrow; and as the

startling semblance rose up before her, and she viewed in every phase

and feature that all that was elevating and life-giving was passed away,

she shuddered at her own kindred desolation. She would venture upon the

rocky cliffs and gaze into the troubled sea, where—as now in her own

mind—the lights of Heaven were pictured in flitting and uncertain

forms; she would look abroad upon the unspotted blue, where not a coming

or departing sail broke the distinct horizon, and she would reflect how

the powers of her soul were mouldered away, and brought no more back to

her enjoyment the riches and the fruits of other climes, the luxuries

from nature’s and religion’s overflowing bounty. Then she would wander

upon the lonely strand, and the splashing of the journeyed waters, whose

tempest roar was spent in low, last murmurs at her feet, reëchoed the

wild moanings of a dying spirit. Oh! how she sat and cried. Had her

tears been those of repentance and return, they would have hallowed for

ever a spot that was only classic, and her groans would have lifted the

vault of Heaven; but the bitter drops, wrung by degradation and despair,

were swept away by the encroaching wavelets—and the sighs were borne

afar by the winds, to swell that everlasting _ROMOR_ of anguish that

never reaches God.

In the Roman Colosseum, the blood-stained arena of the martyrs seemed to

burn her very feet, and she looked not upon a stone, nor an herb, in

that sanctuary of Christendom but returned a look of withering reproach,

as if by express command of Heaven. There was no peace. Like Jonah, had

she tried to flee from the wrath of God, and find ease and security in

sin; and now that she found it not, she longed for death—but dared not

court it—as the oblivion of all her being.

Again our fugitives sought the resources of Paris. Ella was fast failing

in health, and both knew that she must soon die. She possessed no longer

any gayety, and Count Frederick secretly rejoiced in her decline, as the

only means of ridding himself of a burden now become almost

insupportable. Still, her death would not have occurred without

inflicting upon him one severe pang; for her intellect, increasing in

beauty and brilliancy as the body faded, held him in a spell that seemed

to involve his very life. A short time after their arrival in Paris, the

revolution of February put all Europe in a commotion. It was a God-send

to Count Frederick, for a field now opened to him for the employment of

his faculties; something at last, if not repose, at least a breathing

spell to ease him in his tired struggle with a sleepless, unflagging

remorse. He plunged into the under-revolutionary current, heedless of

whence it flowed or where it came to light. All manner of impure

ultraïsm gathering in its way, formed the nuclei of innumerable vortices

that eddied and whirled at every turn of his onward progress, hurling

him along with strange fits of semi-delirium, until the following June,

when the whole concentrated power bubbled in red volumes to the surface,

and the streets of Paris ran with human blood. Count Frederick became a

willing tool in crafty hands, and shrank not from offices of most

imminent danger. All night and all day did he lend his wealth, his

influence and his labor to the construction of barricades for the

defense of the populace: he became a leading spirit, and on several

occasions his sword was foremost in the fray. His attire, his repose,

his ordinary food, all was forgotten. Once he stood tired and worn,

within a new barricade not far from the barrière St. Martin; his hat and

coat were thrown aside, his dress all torn and begrimed with sweat and

dirt; in one hand he held a naked sword, whilst the other grasped the

stock of a pistol that was still unmoved from his leathern belt. Upon

this arm hung poor Ella, still clinging through toil and danger to him

she could not but love. Her bonnet was thrown aside; a soiled cambric

handkerchief tied beneath the chin, had kept in check her unbound hair,

but it was now in places loose and disheveled; one dark lock swung

around her neck, and as it reposed upon her bosom, the curled, purple

extremity appeared in fearful contrast with the snowy field it lay upon.

Woman to the last, she bore upon her person many a mark of blood, and

many dying lips within the last few hours, had breathed a blessing upon

the unknown and beautiful angel of mercy that bent above them. Upon a

stove, that had been carried into the middle of the street, stood a

popular demagogue, gesticulating wildly, and thundering anathemas

against the provisional government, that were horrible for ears to

listen to; whilst around him stood some hundreds of the armed and

excited populace, venting, at almost every gesture of the frantic

orator, vows of eternal vengeance on what they deemed the recreant

soldiery. Some one had just arrived to announce that the military, in

force, were marching upon them. The shadow of the hand of death seemed

already to rest upon the multitude, and not an eye was there that did

not dwell upon eternity. Soon the military, in serried ranks and with

bristling bayonets, wheeled into view far down the street, and then

commenced the steady advance upon the barricade. The orator grew wilder

and wilder, and every heart in that vast multitude quivered in awful

expectation. The street was cleared, not a soul moved upon the

side-walks; and the measured tread of the soldiers, with now and then a

groan or shriek from out some chamber, was all that broke the silence as

they marched along. Soon the note of death sounded in the rear, then the

noise of changing muskets, at the word of command—and immediately was

heard from out the barricade, trembling in solemn melody, low sounds as

of some unearthly dirge; and the words, “_Mourir pour la patrie_”—arose

with many a mingled yell. With the gallop of the words—“_c’est la mort

la plus belle_,” all rushed to action, and when the first great burst of

the murderous fire was past, the last words of the death-song still rang

o’er piles of bleeding men.

The attack on this barricade was long and bloody. At the second

discharge, Count Frederick rolled from the mound of curb-stones upon

which he had leaped to replace a fallen red-republican ensign, and was

borne into a neighboring house; there all assistance ceased. As he lay

bleeding upon the floor, in a state of almost insensibility, Ella knelt

beside him, striving to staunch with her handkerchief, her dress, her

hair, the exhaustless spring of blood that welled up from a bullet wound

in his chest. Not a word escaped her lips, not a tear fell from her eye,

but she bent all the faculties of her mind to the faithful

accomplishment of her stupendous task. His breathing became weak and

weaker; she heeded it not. The veil of eternity was settling upon him,

and the dim vision of mortality was being illumined under its shadow;

the heinousness of his damning crime shone out in perfect distinctness;

but one reparation, he thought, and that a slight one, remained; but how

could he ever summon courage to speak it there? She seemed to him, in

truth, an angel, as he turned his glazing eyes toward her; she would not

yield to despair. He made the sacrifice; collected all his strength of

body and of mind, and told to the wretched girl the story of his

deception. It fell upon her like a thunderbolt. For the first time she

became aware of the stupendous depth of her fall. Her only stay, her

only consolation, her only anchor of future hope, upon her troubled sea,

had rested on the excuse of natal degradation: now that was taken away.

She sunk upon the floor; but in a moment, with frantic energy she

bounded to her feet, and seizing the flag-staff from the dying hand,

rushed into the street. The combat still raged; leaping over the dead

and dying, with a bound she reached the breast-work.

The French journals, in describing the assault upon, and the carrying of

this barricade, illustrated the enthusiastic patriotism of the

insurgents, with the story of a young and beautiful girl, who, in the

hottest of the fight, leaped upon the ramparts, flag in hand, and waving

it gallantly above her head, shouting—_liberté_—fell, pierced by a

hundred bullets, outside the barricade. It was Ella Corbyn.

* * * * *

SONG OF THE SPIRIT OF THE NORTH.

BY WILLIAM ALBERT SUTLIFFE.

Midnight was brooding o’er the Arctic highlands

Midnight, the dim, and faint, and strangely cold;

When on an iceberg, ’mid the icy islands,

Sat the chill Northern Spirit, weird, and cold.

Her floating tresses hung,

Wailing unto the blast;

Her vapory vestment swung

As the wind hurried past:

And ever and anon she moaned, and sung,

With tremulous voice, such as the tempest leaf

In piny woods, and then again she flung

Her slender fingers o’er a harp, and wept,

And wailed unearthly music, as when grieves

And sings a fallen angel, then it slept

A moment in the rude arms of the blast—

The snowy-footed madly rushing past—

And then sprung up again, as when o’erleap

Rich showers of harmony Heaven’s rampart steep,

And, star-like, from on high

Far-trailing down the sky,

Strike mortals mad, or wild:

So the pale Boreal Child

Sang to the soul of Naught, that brooded o’er

Lone semi-annual nights, and days as long,

An icy ocean, with an icy shore,

And icy islands, sparsely thrown among

A yest of icy waves; and all was ice,

By sempiternal Winter wrought

To many a quaint device.

And then again, when the cold North-wind kissed

Her pallid lips, up to the amethyst

Of the far heaven she raised her spirit eyes,

Then beat, and wept, while ever grim Surprise

Wondered that she should weep, and then she played

A prelude to her harp, then sung, then paused,

While symphonies filled up the gaps she made,

And Echo woke applause.

Wondrous the sadness of her floating strain!

The icebergs thrilled unto their heart of hearts,

And Ocean’s breast rose with convulsive starts;

While from her eyes the tearful-beaded rain

Froze into gems upon her vapory dress,

Embroidered loveliness.

O Loneliness, O Nothingness, O Death!

O Dreariness around me, I must weep!

Would that my very soul were tears to steep

The wind with, that, at every breath,

With weeping, I might spend my soul so fast

My agony’s last throb would soon be past.

O Desolation, wild, and gaunt, and grim!

O hopeless absence of all glad and bright!

O horrid shapes fantastical, what hymn

Of mine, alas! can tell such shapes aright

Would ye but strike me mad,

I should indeed be glad,

I now can pass the dark hours but in weeping;

And could my soul but freeze,

Like the breast of the seas,

How rapturous would be my silent sleeping.

Thou cold and icy moon,

Thou dost not pity me!

Six long months hast thou seen

My weary soul, each year,

Since Earth began, nor wept.

Away, thou’rt hateful now!

Away, for I am mad!

And Earth, detested orb,

How long must thou exist?

Each throb of thy vast pulse

Strikes keenest agony

Into this soul of mine.

If thou hast loveliness,

It ne’er was shown to me.

Come, let us die together!

Hurry thy steeds, O Time!

Bear us into the dark

Of that Eternity,

Whose shadows are so deep

We cannot pierce them yet.

Ye icebergs, that have seen

My wildest misery,

Do ye know sympathy?

Then melt ye down in tears,

And in a sea of grief

Flow round me with sweet sound!

They feel not, know not, aught!

My misery is full!

I must unto my bower—

My bower of chillest ice—

Would that it were my tomb

Ye smile on me in scorn,

Ye that do see my grief!

Then spreading out her wings,

Toward the extremest North

She took her liquid way.

The moon withdrew, and wept;

The stars died out with grief;

The icebergs thrilled again

Unto their icy hearts.

All things were sad for her,

Saddened by her wild song.

* * * * *

SONNET.—ART.

BY WM. ALEXANDER.

Art! what were mankind destitute of thee?

Religion’s handmaid oft do we thee find,

As to thy polished car seek’st thou to bind

True elegance with sweet utility—

Long, wide, extensive is thy magic sway,

O’er matter all inanimate and mind,

E’en savage man thou teachest to be kind,

And charmest his rude soul with thy harmony;

Cross seas the ship by thy good guidance goes;

Fields arable, rich gardens, sacred grove,

Town, temple, feel the influence of thy love;

Thy sacred power the mind immortal knows,

Nor can thy empire, universal, end

Till Nature’s forces all in sweet subjection bend.

* * * * *

A REPLY TO DWIGHT’S ARTICLE ON MOZART’S DON GIOVANNI.

This is the title of a long and prominent article in Graham’s February

number: the writer is but a wordy plagiarist. He has received many

rebukes already for his cool appropriation of the ideas of others, but

Aristabulus Bragg fashion, he still goes on, in the calmest, most

approved style, perfectly unblushing. A year or eighteen months ago an

article of his in Sartain’s Magazine was pointed out to us as containing

some clever thoughts on a very original idea, “the Musical Trinity.” Oh,

we exclaimed, this is not original, the whole idea is stolen from the

German; then we turned to Goethe’s correspondence with a child, Bettina

von Arnheim, and found several passages on the same subject in

conversations with Beethoven and Schlosser. Some time after we read in

Saroni’s Musical Times that the editor had also detected the plagiarism

in this article, and pointed out another author, book and page; saying

with great good-nature that he would not have noticed it, had Mr. Dwight

only written his article as clearly and concisely as the original; “but

to rob an author first and then murder him,” says the editor, “is more

than we can bear.” The author alluded to by Mr. Saroni, is the German

Marx, and he tells us that the fourth paragraph in Sartain’s article is

an almost literal translation of a paragraph in Marx’s

“_Komposition-shlere_,” second edition, p. 24.

We have waded through this last article of Mr. Dwight’s on Don Giovanni,

partly from curiosity, partly for amusement. We wanted to see the extent

to which he would go: and then it amused us to detect the little

pilfered thoughts, trigged out in the Boston transcendental clothing

until their parents would have scarcely recognized them.

It opens with quite a flourish, trying to decorate the story and hero as

the German Hoffman did long ago, but though the whole of the first part

is a spun-out translation of the German critic’s description, it is so

mingled with his own crude, half-educated thoughts, as to require some

little skill in separating Hoffman from Dwight. He has made an attempt

to improve upon the German, and we can not say we admire the Boston

imitation. Judge for yourself by the following comparison:

DWIGHT.

The true conception of Mozart’s Don Giovanni is that of a

gentleman, to say the least, and more than that, a man of

genius: a being naturally full of glorious passion, large

sympathies and irrepressible energies, noble in mind, in person

and in fortune; a large, imposing, generous, fascinating

creature. He is such as we all are—“_only more so_,” to borrow

an expressive vulgarism. He is a sort of ideal impersonation of

two qualities or springs of character, raised as it were to the

highest power projected into supernatural dimensions—which is

only the poet’s and musician’s way of truly recognizing the

element of infinity in every passion of the human soul, since

not one ever finds its perfect satisfaction.

HOFFMAN.

Nature had provided for Don Giovanni, one of her dearest

children, all that could elevate a man above the crowd which is

condemned to be, to do, and to suffer: she had lavished on him

the gifts which bid the human nature approximate to the divine.

She had destined him to shine, to conquer and to rule. She had

animated with a splendid organization that vigorous and

accomplished frame: had inspired that breast with a celestial

spark: had given to him a soul of deep feeling, quick and

penetrating intelligence.

We think Hoffman’s description of Don Giovanni a little exaggerated, but

the Boston imitation is what may be called a “free translation,” _very_

free. All that duality business—“_that ideal impersonation of two

qualities or springs of character_,” is decidedly an attempt to amplify,

if not to improve the German criticism, and is in the usual

moral-defying style of the no-principle school of Harbinger and Phalanx

writers. In olden times our grand-parents, when they saw any thing

particularly broad or free in expression or action, were apt to say,

with a proper shrug of the shoulders, that it was “_very French_.” At

the present day, when we see any thing questionable in morals or

opinions we exclaim, “_transcendental, mock German_, and, _very

Boston;_” and thus we say of this attempt of Mr. Dwight’s to idealize

the very sensual, commonplace libertine of the opera.

We will now give another comparison.

DWIGHT.

Excessive love of pleasure, helped by a rare magnetism of

character, and provoked by the suppressive moralism of the

times, have engendered in him a reckless, roving, unsatiable

appetite, which intrigue excites and disappoints until _the very

passion in which so many souls are first taught the feeling of

the infinite_ becomes a fiend in his breast, and drives him to a

devilish love of power that exults over woman’s ruin, or rather,

that does not mind how many hearts and homes fall victims to his

unqualified assertion of the every where rejected and snubbed

faith in Passion.

HOFFMAN.

In truth, there is nothing on earth which more elevates a man in

his own opinion than love, that love whose vast and conquering

influence gives light to the heart, and gives it at once

happiness and confusion. Can we be surprised if, when Don Juan

hoped to appease by love the passions which rent his breast,

that the devil spread a net for him? It was he who inspired Don

Juan with the thought that by love and the society of woman we

may accomplish on earth _those celestial promises which we bear

written in the deepest recesses of our hearts, that intense

desire which from our earliest days brings us most closely to

heaven_.

The principal difference Mr. Dwight makes in his rendering of this

passage of Hoffman’s is, that where the German, in a very old-fashioned

manner, attributes Don Juan’s wickedness to the influence of the Spirit

of Evil, Mr. Dwight, by some slight of hand, metamorphoses the Passion

of Love into an evil demon, and then gives a _fling_, as he would

express it, at the religious discipline of the times to which he applies

the very lucid epithet, “_suppressive moralism_.” We wish we had some of

that “_suppressive moralism_” at the present day to exercise a little

wholesome discipline over the authors of this

_Phalanx Socialist Literature_.

After this piece of borrowing and altering from Hoffman, the writer

talks a great deal about “_the old theme and under-current of Opera—the

Body and the Soul—the liberty of Passion in conflict with the Law

intensely narrowed down by social custom from God’s great law of

universal harmony_,” and such like rubbish, and then informs us in a

note, with his usual precision, by way of illustrating this

“_under-current_” of “_Body and Soul_” in “_Old Opera theme_,” that,

strange to say, the first Opera _he_ reads of, and which was produced at

Rome in 1600, bore the name of “_Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo!_”

Now if this were so, it is puzzling to know what it would have to do

with all his talk about “_the under-current of Body and Soul_” in Don

Giovanni: but it is not true. The first Opera on record is _Euridice_,

the libretto composed by the poet Rinuccini, the music by the composer

Peri. It was presented, as he says, in 1600, but not at Rome—at

Florence, on the occasion of the marriage of Mary di Medici with Henri

Quatre of France.

In 1600, Emilio del Cavalieri, of Rome, brought out an _Oratorio_, which

was sung in a church in that city, which bore the title “_Dell Anima e

di Corpo_;” and the invention of _Recitative_ dates from these two

compositions—the opera _Euridice_ of Peri, and the _Sacred Oratorio_ of

Cavalieri. But it answered his purpose to imagine this the other way,

and with his usual want of accuracy he applied it—or he was ignorant,

and with true transcendental presumption, took it for granted no one

knew any more than he did.

Such reviews as this we now write of would be scarcely worth noticing,

if it were not for the fact, that they are accepted by the uninstructed,

for real _bona fide_ musical criticisms, founded on actual knowledge.

One might have expected that Mr. Saroni’s rebuking exposure of his

Musical Trinity Article, would have startled the author into something

like modesty; and when one sees how reckless he is, it makes one wish

that Mr. Saroni would carry his threat into execution, and publish those

“certain articles” on Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which bear such a

remarkable similarity to Mr. Dwight’s lectures.

M. Bombert says, in his “Life of Mozart,” when speaking of this Opera of

Don Giovanni—

“He (Mozart) shines in the awful accompaniment to the reply of the

statue—a composition perfectly free from all inflation or bombast—it

is _the style of Shakspeare in music_.”

Now for Mr. Dwight’s patch-work—straightway he snatches up this idea of

M. Bombert, and makes use of it thus:

“The splendid sinner’s end is rather melo-dramatic in the Opera, and yet

there is a poetic and moral truth in it—and _the spectre of the

commendatore is a creation fully up to Shakspeare_.”

This is literary murder as well as literary theft. Now any one who knows

any thing of this Opera will see that the “_creation of the

commendatore_” has nothing remarkable in it, but the _Orchestral

Accompaniment_ is one of the grandest things ever composed. Mozart cared

very little for the stage part of the affair; and this is proved by the

finest music in this Opera being given to the Orchestra. We have

heard—we cannot give the authority—but we have read somewhere, that a

contemporary critic said that Mozart had put his statue in the

Orchestra, and left only the pedestal on the stage—and this is true.

Mr. Dwight gives such an exaggerated, spun-out account of this famous

Opera, endeavoring at the same time to gloss over the gross, vulgar,

immorality of the plot, with all that confused mysticism peculiar to

this Harbinger and Phalanx style of composition, that we will sketch a

short matter-of-fact outline of it. Mr. Dwight, with the usual insane

transcendental desire to apply an epithet, and make a speech, says, in a

short sentence, which he thinks very comprehensive, that it “_is an old

middle age Catholic story_;” making a sort of defense for the shocking

immoralities in it, by accusing, impliedly, the strict discipline of the

church for the libertine hero’s licentiousness, to whom he applies

another string of expletives. In the opening, Mr. Dwight calls him “_a

large, imposing, generous, fascinating creature_.” Now he has him “_an

elegant, full-blooded, rich, accomplished, and seductive gallant_.” A

sort of “_a love of a man_” according to Mr. Dwight’s ideas.

The subject of the story of Don Giovanni was a favorite one in the 17th

century—“_the middle age Catholic times!_” Mr. Dwight talks of, in his

off-hand sentence characterizing the story, was a little earlier than

that, we think, a trifle of two or three hundred years or so—but let

that pass. French, Italian, and Spanish writers all used it. Moliere

wrote a famous play on it, “_Festin de Pierre_,” and from Moliere’s play

Da Ponte prepared his libretto.

The story is a decided failure; and a great deal of time, and paper, and

manufactured sentiment have been wasted in endeavoring to excuse and

even to discover hidden philosophy and a good moral in it. Mr. Dwight is

not the first one at this piece of business. If the wish is to make

operatic music elevate and refine the public taste, by contributing to

the moral purity of our people, composers should not select immoral and

wicked plots; and no matter how beautiful the music may be, no audience

should tolerate such a degrading story as Don Giovanni. It is full of

all sorts of unnatural and disgusting scenes. The opening is very fine,

and leads one to expect something tragic and grand.

Don Giovanni, a wicked, reckless libertine, has entered at midnight the

house of an old military officer, and is seen at the rising of the

curtain rushing out of the door, followed by the beautiful daughter of

the commander, who he had intended to add to the list of his victims. A

beautiful, rapid duet ensues between this daughter, Donna Anna, and Don

Giovanni, she endeavoring to discover the bold ravisher. During this,

her old father comes out, sword in hand—a combat ensues—Don Giovanni

kills the old officer, and escapes. Then follows a beautiful _scena_,

one of the gems of the Opera, between Donna Anna and her lover, Ottavio.

She expresses her grief in heart-rending notes, and with frantic

earnestness calls on her lover to avenge the murder. All this promises

well, and one would imagine from so grand a commencement, something

magnificently tragic was surely to follow. But the whole of the middle

part of the Opera is flat and insipid—we are speaking now only of the

story—filled with disgusting scenes of Don Giovanni’s gallantries. With

a hard and sensual heart, he betrays alike the high and the low—the

lady and the maid; he stains the palace and pollutes the peasant’s cot

with his wanton treachery and crimes. He goes to a village festival, and

selects for another victim, a poor village girl, a bride—Zerlina. This

character was one of Madam Malibran’s famous parts, as Donna Anna was of

Sontag’s. Zerlina, though properly the second Donna’s character,

occupies more room in the Opera than the first soprano, Donna Anna. The

famous duet, “_La ci darem la mano_,” is sung by Don Giovanni and her;

and her little _coquetries_ with the libertine lord, and seductive

coaxing scenes with her peasant bridegroom, occupy a large portion of

the middle part of the Opera.

A Donna Elvira, a discarded wife or mistress it seems to matter little

which—of Don Giovanni comes in also. A trying scene ensues between her

and Leperello—the impudent, buffoon valet of Don Giovanni—the _buffo_

character of the opera, during which, he tells her of his master’s

conquests, while the poor Elvira has to stand mute, and listen to his

long, comic piece; which—if she is not a better actress than is

generally cast in a third-rate character—makes it very absurd in

representation.

After the grand opening scene of the first Act, Donna Anna and her lover

Ottavio dwindle down into insignificance. All their frantic declarations

of revenge end in nothing, and they content themselves with following

the licentious nobleman about in masquerade; once in a while picking him

up in the streets, unmasking, and entertaining themselves in berating

him. They sing a beautiful trio with Elvira, just before the banquet

scene; which is about the only good and useful thing they do in the

Opera. For it serves a double purpose—as an English critic

suggests—besides pleasing the audience, it gives time to have the stage

prepared for the banquet-scene.

Don Giovanni, after flirting with and seducing fine ladies and humble

peasant maidens, at last meets with his punishment; but not at the hands

of the injured fair ones, or at the more probable ones of the outraged

lovers; that would be too reasonable for this most unnatural story, but

the grave must yield up its dead, and the infernal regions disclose

their horrible secrets. At midnight, again he enters upon the stage—the

scene represents a square, containing a marble monument, erected by

Donna Anna to the memory of her murdered father. Leporello is with him,

frightened to death at the sight of the grave by moonlight, and he

declares to his reckless master that the statue moves its head. The bold

libertine scoffs at the valet’s cowardice, and by way of bravado,

invites the marble statue to sup with him. To his amazement the Statue

answers “Yes,” “_Si_,” and here is that beautiful passage in the _music_

which M. Bombert considers the Shakspearian style in music—it is the

_Orchestral Accompaniment_ to the simple _reply_ of the Statue. A little

startled, Don Giovanni leaves the stage. But in the next scene he

appears as abandoned as ever. What a capital transcendental critic he

would have made. He is supping alone, and seems to eat with great

_goût_. During his solitary banquet the Statue enters, according to the

engagement. Don Giovanni can scarcely credit his senses; but, bold to

the last, receives his remarkable guest with great ceremony. The Statue

tells him he has come on a mission of warning, and that he has yet a

chance for repentance. Don Giovanni scoffs at the offer, and overcoming

his awe, takes the extended hand of the Statue. In an instant, he is

struck with the death-pangs—the Statue disappears—and he dies in a

vision of endless torments, which is generally represented on the stage

by a display of fireworks, giving the vulgar idea of the infernal

regions; a place made for the devil and his angels.

Now it is this shameless, coarse libertine that Mr. Dwight in his

article, following in the wake of others, strives not only to excuse,

but to idealize and elevate.

We have done with the story: let us return for a few moments to Mozart’s

part of this Opera—the music. Off of the stage, in a _salon_ or

concert-room, the effect of this Opera is most beautiful; for on the

stage the immoral, vulgar story, low buffoonery and farce-like

appearance of many of the scenes, are sadly at variance with the

elevated and almost religious tone of the music, and disgust even a

hearty admirer, if he is candid enough to admit it.

Let us here take leave of this subject and of Mr. Dwight: begging of him

in future, if he is not able to be original, to at least copy good

models of style and morals, and not inflict upon the community his own

exaggerated, loose-principled, Boston notions. Luckily, however, his

style is so confused and mystified, that much of the injurious effect is

lost. We have heard these Boston non-religionists talk, and we know with

what _goût_ they “_defy the moral_” of any matter, to use Mr. Dwight’s

own words; then, how can one expect better principles, where such laxity

of morals are avowed. The closing sentence in this Don Giovanni article

is a pretty fair specimen of this anti-religious, moral-defying kind of

literature; indeed, the whole article is—for “_passion life_,” “_innate

gospel of joy_,” and such English run-mad expressions dance through the

whole article, enlivened and varied, once in a while, with some of the

fire-engine vernacular.

Shame! shame upon such literature! Mr. Dwight talks of the “_divine good

of the senses and the passions_,” and longs for that “_pure and perfect

state_,” when these grosser parts of our nature “_shall be—not dreaded,

not suppressed; but regulated, harmonized, made rythmical and safe, and

more than ever lifesome and spontaneous, by Law as broad and as deep

themselves_.” A pretty state of affairs we should have in such a

hereafter as these people long for. All this is entirely foreign to our

old-fashioned notions of Heaven and a hereafter. It may be the Heaven of

an Agapedome, or a Woman’s Rights Convention, but it is not the Heaven

of a Christian. And they will find out, sooner or later, that there is a

real hereafter—a solemn, and stern judging hereafter; and though they

may imagine that their transcendental “_Souls, with their capacity for

joy and harmony, is of that godlike and asbestos quality_,” as to defy

punishment, punishment will come, and pretty effectual it will be, and

they will see all this “spiritual asbestos quality”—why not _gutta

percha_, just as well—of little account, when they are found with lamps

untrimmed, and talents buried in the earth.

Mount Edgecumb.

* * * * *

THE AUTOGRAPH OF GOD.

BY GEORGE W. BUNGAY.

The thirsty earth, with lips apart,

Looked up where rolled an orb of flame

As though a prayer came from its heart

For rain to come; and lo! it came.

The Indian corn, with silken plume,

And flowers with tiny pitchers filled,

Send up their praise of sweet perfume,

For silver drops the clouds distilled.

The modest grass is fresh and green—

The fountain swells its song again;

An angel’s radiant wing is seen

In every cloud that brings us rain.

There is a rainbow in the sky,

It spans the arch where tempests trod;

God wrote it ere the world was dry—

It is the Autograph of God.

Up where the heavy thunders rolled,

Where clouds on fire were swept along,

The sun rides in a car of gold,

And soaring larks dissolve in song.

The rills that gush from mountains rude,

Flow trickling to the verdant base—

Just like the tears of gratitude

That often steal adown the face.

Great King of peace, deign now to bless—

The windows of the sky unbar;

Shower down the rain of righteousness,

And wash away the stain of war;

Though we deserve the reeking rod,

Smile from thy throne of light on high—

That we may read the name of God,

In lines of beauty on the sky.

* * * * *

IF I WERE A SMILE.

BY RICHARD COE.

If I were a smile, a beautiful smile,

I would play o’er the infant’s face,

And stamp such an heavenly impress there

That never a tinge of sorrow or care

Should ever its beauty efface,

To appear the while,

If I were a smile, a beautiful smile.

If I were a sigh, a sorrowing sigh,

In the breast of a maiden fair;

I would speed me on angel wings above,

And lie like a beautiful wounded dove

At the feet of my Saviour there,

Till he heard my cry,

If I were a sigh, a sorrowing sigh.

If I were a tear, a bright, pearly tear,

In the eye of a Christian mild;

I would flow at the sight of keen distress,

As the dew-drop falls on the earth to bless,

To calm the heart from tumult wild

Were my task so dear,

If I were a tear, a bright, pearly tear.

But as I am neither a smile nor sigh,

Nor even a tear pearly bright;

But an humble poet singing the while,

The world of its sorrows and to beguile,

I’ll scatter my songs with delight

To the passer-by,

Till smiles take the place of the tear and sigh.

* * * * *

A TRUE IRISH STORY.

BY REDWOOD FISHER.

“Erin-Go-Bragh,” the celebrated Irish song of an exiled

patriot—Why it was written by a Scotchman, with an interesting

account of Campbell the poet, and some account of Gen. A.

McC——n, the Irish Patriot.

O, sad is my fate, said the heart-broken stranger:

The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee,

But I have no refuge from famine and danger,

A home and a country remain not for me.

Ah! never again in the green shady bowers,

Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours,

Or cover my harp with the wild woven flowers,

And strike the sweet numbers of Erin-go-bragh.

_See Campbell’s Poems._

In the year 1810, a native of Philadelphia resided in the city of

Altona, and became intimately acquainted with Gen. McC——, who

commanded the Irish patriots at the battle of Ballanahench.

The general was a real Irish gentleman, with a heart alive to every

refined sympathy of human nature, and warmly attached to Americans and

the American character. Never can it be forgotten by those who were so

happy as to share his confidence, how his fine manly countenance would

light up, as he listened to the answers his questions would draw forth,

when inquiring into the private characters of any of our revolutionary

sages or soldiers.

Often would the tears start into his eyes, when, at the social bowl,

some unpublished anecdote would be elicited of the daring of Putnam, the

Hannibal-like qualities of Greene and Marion, the persevering bravery of

Rifle Morgan, or the daring of General Wayne in his battles with the

savage foe.

His whole soul would appear to flash from his expressive eye, and he

would burst forth with the exclamation: “Oh, Erin, oh my beloved

country, from which, alas! I am banished, when will heroes such as these

arise and burst the bands by which thou art enslaved?—Will a just God

never hear thy prayers? Will the groans of enslaved millions, will the

agonies of a brave and generous people never reach thy throne, and call

down thy vengeance upon her persecutors? Excuse me,” he would say,

“excuse the companion of the Emmets, the McNevens, and others, who were

confined with me in Fort George, in Scotland, from whence I was

transported hither—banished! What a word! banished from the home of my

childhood—torn from the land where my forefathers dwelt!” On one

occasion of this kind, when the most of the company had retired, in his

own hospitable mansion, he invited his Philadelphia friend to remain and

hear the sad story of his life.

He rose from the table, and going to a book-case, he produced a copy of

Campbell’s poems, and turning to the beautiful song of

Erin-go-bragh—“there,” said he, “is my history, I am the original

Erin-go-bragh. My countrymen, I am told, often inquire how it happened

that a Scotchman should write this national, this glowing account of the

wrongs of my devoted countrymen. Listen to me, and I will truly tell you

the whole story—that is, if I can tell it! If I can sufficiently

compose myself, you shall hear it; and should you survive me _you_ may

publish it, that the mystery may be solved and the world may know how

the heart of a Scotch poet was touched with the holy sympathy of our

common nature, and has placed on record, in the most exalted and

touching numbers, the feelings of an Irish exile. While confined in the

fortress of Fort George I was, without any knowledge of what was to be

my fate, conveyed to a seaport and put on board of an English frigate,

to be banished I knew not whither!” (The name of the port of embarkation

and of the vessel were given, but are not now remembered.) “On board of

this vessel was Campbell, the Scotch poet, then about to make his

pedestrian tour on the continent of Europe. It was not long before we

became intimately acquainted, and as you may suppose my whole heart was

filled with wo.

“During our passage to this place, we had many and very close

conversations, pending which I poured into his attentive ear, in

impassioned language, the sad—the overwhelming woes of my countrymen,

and particularly my own hard fate.

“We were not very long in reaching our destination—we landed together

at Altona, and what was my surprise to find my companion as destitute of

money as myself. I had been hurried away without the knowledge of my

friends, who had no intimation of my banishment, and coming from close

confinement, was not overburdened with a wardrobe, much less with the

necessary funds for decency, to say nothing of comfort.

“Campbell was as poor as myself, and in this condition we entered a very

common inn, and were ushered into a room, not very well furnished,

having nothing but an oaken table and a very few common chairs. We

seated ourselves at opposite sides of the table, and gazed at each other

with no enviable feelings, when, on examining our exchequer, we found

the whole sum in the treasury amounted to no more than a crown. We

called for a candle, for it was growing dark, and ordered, in consonance

with our finances, a small bottle of rum. The light came, and you must

believe me when I tell you it was a dip candle stuck in a black bottle.

There was something so ludicrous in this, and in our general

circumstances, that we both indulged in a hearty laugh, applying

ourselves to the ‘Cruise Keen Lawn’ to keep up for a time the tone of

our feelings.

“As our spirits were operated upon by the wretched liquor, which we

drank more to drown the rising sigh than for any partiality for it,

Campbell called for pen, ink, and paper. ‘Mr. McC.’ said he, ‘your story

has deeply interested me, and a kind of notion has arisen that I should

like to put it upon paper.’

“In a little time a miserable ink-horn was produced, and something which

was called paper, but it was so stained, and otherwise disfigured, it

seemed almost impossible, with the wretched pen that accompanied it,

that legible characters could be traced upon it; and I could but indulge

in my risible propensities, at the idea of any attempt to write with

such materials.

“But the soul of the poet had been aroused, and he bade me again to

refresh his memory with my tale, which I did by replying to such

questions as he from time to time propounded to me. Every now and then

he would pause, and pledge me in the tin cup with which we were

furnished, for glasses there were none; when he would again commence to

write, and before he had finished, so potent were the draughts in which

we had indulged, that some of the last lines ran in any other direction

than parallel to each other.

“At last he finished his labors, and the result of them was the song of

Erin-go-bragh, the very song printed in his works, and which I now hand

to you.

“This is a true history of that inimitable production, more full of

feeling, in my opinion, than any thing he has ever written before or

since.

“Read it to me,” said the general, “for if the king would withdraw the

act which banished me, the object nearest my Irish heart, I could not

read that song aloud!”

Such was the story told to the writer, as nearly as it can be

remembered, after a lapse of thirty-eight years. There are yet living in

this city several persons who will recognize it, and an appeal to them

for the accuracy with which it is here told, would confirm it in every

particular; its only defect being the absence of power in the writer to

impart to his readers any thing of the enthusiasm with which General

McC. related it—nor the heart-stirring emotion ever exhibited by him

when it became, as it often did, the subject of conversation.

As the reader may feel desirous to know what was subsequently the fate

of the real and original Erin-go-bragh, he may be told that his friends

found out where he was, remitted him funds, that he embarked in a

profitable pursuit, and ever after lived in comparative affluence.

The story of his marriage is of so romantic a nature, that as he is now

no more, and there is therefore no impropriety in giving it publicity,

the writer is tempted to narrate it, as he has often listened to it from

the lips of the general, at his own hospitable board, in the presence of

his wife.

“‘There she is,’ he would say, ‘she is my preserver!’ Campbell and

myself continued in our lodgings, and with Saturday night came the bill

of expenses, but alas! our means were exhausted.

“When the bill for the first week was presented to us, ‘Well,’ said the

poet to me, ‘what do you propose to do, general?’ To which I replied,

‘Do!—what do I propose to do, did you ask me? I might put the same

question to you—but no! let an Irishman alone for getting out of a

scrape. I will call up the landlord, and tell him our story; adding,

that I expect ere long my relatives will find out whither I have been

sent, and it cannot be, but that in a short time funds will be sent to

me.’ Suiting the action to the word, I rang the bell, the landlord

appeared, and I gave him our story in a few words, for though a German,

he was well acquainted with our language. ‘An Irish general,’ said the

apparently incredulous Boniface, ‘and a Scotch poet!’ He left us with

the exclamation, and after he had gone, I proposed a walk, to which my

companion assenting, we strolled around the city of Altona, and returned

to our lodgings, without having met with any occurrence worthy of

remark. Being somewhat fatigued, and having no book, or other means of

occupation, we retired to our humble chamber, which had in it two single

beds, by no means luxurious.

“Another week of anxiety passed away, and no advices reached me. The

poet and myself were in a considerable stew. Another bill was presented,

and to our great surprise we found our host very lenient indeed. He made

no remark when presenting it—simply asked me had I received my funds,

and on expressing my mortification that my reply must be in the

negative, he left me with a polite bow.

“‘The accommodations,’ said the poet, ‘are here none of the best, but

our host is an honest fellow, we have inspired him with confidence, and

he appears content to wait!’

“I know not how it was, but I felt a strange sensation come over me, a

feeling that relief was at hand. So strongly was I impressed with this

belief that I communicated it to my friend, who laughed out at what he

called my Irish modest assurance.

“‘Relief,’ he said, ‘may come when your relations hear of you, but my

word for it, that will not be soon. No, no, there is no relief, and I

must leave you for my continental tour.’

“He however yielded to my solicitation to walk, which was always my

resource, and as we left the house, I said to him, ‘Campbell, when we

come back I shall hear something.’

“‘If you do,’ said he, ‘it may be in the shape of a dun for our unpaid

bills.’

“‘You will see,’ I replied; when we sallied forth, and were gone perhaps

an hour. On returning to our room, judge of the sensation I experienced

when I discovered on the oaken table, a neat envelope directed, in a

female hand, ‘To Gen. A. McC.’ With an eagerness much more easily

conceived than described, I broke the seal—not a line of manuscript did

it contain—but for a moment my heart leaped with joy, for I found

within the envelope a Schleswig Holstein bank bill of twenty dollars!

Although my surprise was without bounds—‘Did I not tell you,’ said I to

my friend, ‘that relief was at hand?’

“Our treasury was now replenished, and we had a fruitful subject of

conversation. Addressing himself to his attentive listener, ‘I wish,’

said the general, ‘you could have seen the stride with which I paced up

and down that room.’ Never in my whole eventful life had I such

commingled sensations. My pride was gratified, that I could now

discharge our indebtedness to our host, while I suffered the deepest

humiliation in the reflection, that I was considered an object of

charity by some unknown person! My curiosity was at fault to determine

who it could be, and I shall never forget Campbell’s looks as he

exclaimed, ‘You have conquered here, if you could not in Ireland. But it

is Cupid who has been your aid. The hand-writing, the neatness of the

billet, and its diminutive proportions, all declare it to be a

_billet-doux_. My word for it, your Irish complexion and figure have

taken captive the heart of some fair lady!’ This idea greatly added to

my embarrassment, but the pride of being enabled to discharge our

indebtedness, overcame for the moment all my other sensations, and

strutting up to the bell, I rang it with so much violence, that our

landlord ran up in an instant, and demanded to know what was the matter?

‘_Bring your bill_,’ said I, ‘that I may at once discharge it.’ I

thought this would be the most agreeable intelligence I could give him.

What, then, was our joint surprise, when he replied, ‘That, gentlemen,

is of no kind of importance; I pray of you give yourselves no uneasiness

on that score—you can pay me at your convenience.’ Saying this, he

departed, leaving my friend and myself more deeply involved in the

mystery which had not only supplied us with money, but which had also

placed us in such ample credit.

“‘You see,’ said the poet, ‘you are known, and Cupid has taken you under

his special protection. Let us call for wine, and pledge him, and the

sweet _heart_ he has enlisted in your service, in a bottle of the very

best the house affords. Would for her sake and our own it were nectar!’

“The wine was ordered, and it was long before it made its appearance,

for it was a fluid unknown within the precincts of our habitation; but

it came at last, and though none of the best, never was the choicest

Burgundy drunk with greater _gusto_, or a toast given with a more hearty

glee than inspired us till we finished the second bottle.

“Time now passed more pleasantly. The second Saturday brought another

note, addressed in the same hand-writing, containing a second bank-note

of the same amount. Finding our finances so much improved we took better

lodgings, and indulged ourselves with more of the creature comforts, for

the unknown benefactor found us out in our new abode, and continued the

supply, which enabled us to do so.

“I think,” continued the general, “it was in the fourth week that I was

returning to my lodgings alone, in the dusk of the evening, when one of

the flag-stones of the pavement being somewhat raised above its fellows,

caused me to strike it with my foot, and being thus thrown from my

equilibrium, I fell against the porch of a dwelling, in which was seated

a lady, who did not attract my attention until I heard a voice, a sweet

voice, which inquired if I was hurt. A voice in my native tongue

uttering sounds of sympathy would have been accompanied with a charm,

come from whom it might; but imagine the ecstasy with which I was

thrilled when I heard the sweet voice which addressed me, and knew it to

be from the lips of a fair daughter of the Emerald Isle—in plain

English, an Irish woman.

“‘I hope you are not hurt, general?’

“‘General!’ she knows me then, thought I.

“‘Come,’ said she, ‘and rest yourself in the porch.’

“I could no longer contain myself. I had been dining out with an

acquaintance—for I had by this time made one or two acquaintances—and

the generous wine I had imbibed had opened my heart, alive as it was, to

any and every accent of kindness to an exile. I could contain myself no

longer.

“Tell me,” said I, “by what blessed influence I have been thus brought

to listen to the sweet sympathizing accents of a country-woman, and one

who appears to know me: for if I mistake not, you addressed me by my

title—the sad, sad title which calls up all my afflictions, and revives

the sad fate of my companions in a strife which failed to benefit our

beloved country, proved fatal to one of the best men, and sent me hither

a wandering exile.”

“There,” said he, pointing to his wife, then present, “there sits the

angel of mercy, who poured into my attentive ears—till they reached my

inmost soul—accents attuned to the most holy of all earthly

consolations: accents of sympathy for me, and the most noble and heroic

sentiments, applauding the course of our dear native land.”

“Now,” said the lady, “I pray of you do not get into your heroics:” and

addressing their guest, she continued—“Receive what he says with many

allowances, for on this subject he is insane. I forgive him, for he has

suffered much in the cause of that dear land from which we both derive

our birth; and you who know him know that he never thinks or speaks of

dear Erin and his exile—of a spot for which he is ready to shed the

last drop of his blood—that his whole soul is not on fire. Of this he

may talk to you; and if you will listen to him he will do so till

to-morrow’s sun shall warm you with his meridian rays—but I forbid him

to talk of me and of our union.”

“Forbid!” said the husband, “there is no such word in the vocabulary. I

will tell this to our friend, for you know I love him. I will tell him

how you courted me, and how you saved me, and made me what I am, your

happy husband.”

To this the fond wife would reply, deprecating the continuance of his

narrative, which, however, did not prevent him from doing ample justice

to every incident which occurred; from the time of their first

accidental meeting as here related, until Hymen had sealed a union which

had made both husband and wife as happy as they could be under the

circumstances of his banishment. This was an eternal source of chagrin

and mortification to his heroic soul; and never could Ireland be named

within his hearing, that the tear did not start in his eye.

The substance of his love affair was, that the lady of whom we have

spoken was an Irish lady, who had come when a young woman with her

parents to Altona, had married a young German, who did not long survive

their union. She was left in very comfortable circumstances, and hearing

from the keeper of the inn that a person was an inmate with him, calling

himself an Irish general, who had been banished, and who had not heard

from his friends, and was without funds, she had sent him the weekly

supply which so much astonished the poet and the general. The

innkeeper—knowing the lady to be an Irish woman—had gone to consult

her as to the probability of the general’s story, and had been told to

withhold nothing, and that she would be responsible. Often did she tell

the writer that she sent the money without any expectation of ever

seeing the recipient, who was represented to her as so fine-looking in

person, that he could not be an impostor. She believed him to be a

veritable Irishman in distress, and—that was enough—had she never seen

him, he was a countryman of hers, and had a right to any thing she could

do for him—happy to have been furnished with an object to call forth

her patriotic feelings, to exercise them in his behalf was her greatest

delight. Pure accident had given her a knowledge of who was the cause of

calling them forth, and his heart was touched and hers responded to his

love—they had been several years married when the writer became an

inmate with them—their home was the abode of peace and contentment, and

a hospitality that knew no limits.

It was enough that their guest was an American to call forth all their

patriotic feelings: and many were there—besides the writer of this

imperfect sketch of so noble a character—that can join with the writer

in esteeming it a high honor, and a source of extreme gratification to

have been permitted to know and to enjoy the society of the “Original

Erin-go-bragh.”

His sentence of banishment was remitted many years after the period here

spoken of; and he was permitted again to return to the home of his

childhood, and the land of his forefathers, for which he had bled, and

for the redemption of which he was ever ready to lay down his life—but

it was not so ordered. He died in peace, and was buried in the tomb of

his ancestors. General Anthony McCann was the veritable and original

“Erin-go-bragh.”

* * * * *

TO MISS LIGHT UNDERWOOD.

BY J. R. BARRICK.

I have been out this lovely eve,

With Nature’s self to muse,

While pleasant thoughts fell gently on

My heart like falling dews;

And every star and every flower

That gave their presence to the hour,

And every voice of melody,

Seemed laden with sweet thoughts of thee.

I mused upon thy deep, high soul

Of intellect and grace:

I mused on all the loveliness

Of thy fair form and face:

And thy bright smile unto my dreams

Came stealing like the glow that beams

From sky and star, in waves of light

Upon the far, dim shades of night.

With every tone of moonlight sound,

With every breeze of balm,

With every fountain, lake and stream,

So beautiful and calm,

With every cloud, with every star,

And every sound borne from afar,

Thy voice seemed mingling with the whole,

Of Music’s self the life and soul.

And as I gazed up to the sky,

And on the earth below,

My thoughts went back a few brief months,

’Mid saddening scenes of wo:

When thou wert lost in rayless night,

A wanderer from the sense of sight,

When Nature’s self had ceased to cheer

Thy high heart with her beauty dear,

I mused on the long night of wo

That thou wert doomed to share,

When not a hope was left to beam

Upon thy dark despair:

I thought how sad it was to be

From earth and sky shut out like thee,

To pine beneath a cloud of gloom,

Hung o’er thee, like a raven’s plume.

But now thou art restored again,

To former sense of sight,

And lookest back with fearful gaze

On that remembered night:

And happy in thy mind’s high powers

Thou rangest Thought’s Elysian bowers,

And canst behold with joyous eyes,

The wide, green earth, and free blue skies.

* * * * *

THE CONDOR HUNT.[2]

BY LIEUT. WM. F. LYNCH.

In each division of the American Continent, nature seems to have carried

on her operations with boundless magnificence, and upon a gigantic

scale. Chateaubriand, reclining by his watch-fire on the banks of the

Niagara, where the thunders of its cataract were only interrupted by the

startling yell of the Iroquois, could yet _feel_, in the midst of

tumult, the amazing silence and solitude of the North American forest.

And the hardy mariner, whose bark has escaped the perils of the Southern

sea, and is wafted along the western coast of Chili, looks with no less

admiration upon the fertile plains gradually receding into the swell of

the Andes, which literally lifts its smoking craters and towering

eminences above the clouds, and upon its snow-capped and sunny summits,

scarcely feels the undulations of the storms which gather and burst

around its waist.

With the stars and stripes of the Union floating from the mast-head of

our frigate, we were sailing along that part of the coast of Chili,

where the waving line of the Andes rounds within a short distance of the

Pacific, and were unusually solicitous, after the perils and privations

of a tempestuous sea-voyage, to tread upon a soil on which nature, from

her horn of abundance, has poured forth the choicest of her gifts.

Older sailors than ourselves had spoken of the generous hospitality of

the Spanish colonists, and there were historical associations connected

with this favored land, well calculated to render a visit agreeable. Who

that has been nurtured in the lap of freedom, would not long to look

upon the only race of native people on the western continent who had

never been subdued, and who, to this day, tread the soil of their

forefathers unvanquished and invincible?

The Araucanians, who inhabit the southern portion of this delightful

country, like the Saxons of the European continent, are the only native

race who have successfully repelled every invader, and who, happier than

the Saxon, still rejoice in their unbridled freedom.

Neither Diego Almagro, with his brutal treachery, nor Valverde, with his

unsparing cruelty, could ever subdue or intimidate a race of freemen

whose liberties still survive the frequent convulsions by which they

have been agitated. The flame of freedom among this gallant people, like

the volcanoes of their native mountains, seems destined to burn on for

ever unextinguished. But I proposed to speak of the Condor Hunt on the

plains of Chili.

Every one has heard of the Condor or Great Vulture of the Andes,

rivaling in natural history, the fabled feats of the Roc of Sinbad. Even

the genius of Humboldt has failed to strip this giant bird of its

time-honored renown, and his effort to reduce the Chilian Condor to the

level of the Lammergyer of the Alps, is a signal failure.

Although he has divested this mountain-bird of all its fictitious

attributes, and stripped a goodly portion of romantic narrative of its

wildest imagery, yet the Condor still floats in the solitude of the

higher heavens, the monarch of the feathered race. The favorite

abiding-place of this formidable bird is along a chain of mountains in

our southern continent, whose summits, lifted far above the clouds, are

robed in snow, which a torrid sun may kiss but never melt. Above all

animal life, and beyond the limit of even mountain vegetation, these

birds delight to dwell, inhaling an air too highly attenuated to be

endured by other than creatures peculiarly adapted to it. From the crown

of these immense elevations they slowly and lazily unfold their sweeping

pinions, and wheeling in wide and ascending circles, they soar upward

into the dark blue vault of heaven, until their great bulk diminishes to

the merest speck, or is entirely lost to the aching sight of the

observer.

“All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,

Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,

Though the dark night is near.

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast—

The desert and illimitable air—

Lone wandering—but not lost.

Thou art gone—the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form.”

In those pure fields of ether, unvisited even by the thunder-cloud,

regions which may be regarded as his own exclusive domain, the Condor

delights to sail, and with piercing glance survey the surface of the

earth, toward which he never stoops but at the call of hunger. Surely

this power to waft and to sustain himself in the loftiest regions of the

air—the ability to endure, uninjured, the exceeding cold attendant upon

such remoteness from the earth, and to breathe with ease in an

atmosphere of such extreme rarity—together with the keenness of sight

that, from such vast heights can minutely scan the objects beneath, as

well as the formidable powers of this bird, when the herds are scattered

before him; were sufficiently admirable to entitle the Condor to our

attention, and to give us promise of goodly sport in the approaching

Condor or Lasso Hunt.

A large landed proprietor, a descendant of one of the early Spanish

patentees, to whom we had been indebted for abundant supplies of fruit

and provisions, as well as for numberless civilities, conveyed to us at

length the welcome tidings that the Condor, numerous as the sands of the

shore had stooped from his sublime domain, to the base of the mountain,

and that the hunt would commence in the morning.

The sun had scarcely risen in the heavens, when our party of from

twenty-five to thirty, sprang from the boats to the beach. The plain

before us ran in a gently ascending slope to the base of the hill about

one mile distant. The hunt was up—and the field in the distance was

dotted with scampering herds of cattle and groups of horsemen, mingled

in one dusty mêlée, the sight of which lent wings to our speed, as

vaulting into the deep Spanish saddles, prepared by our worthy host, we

sprang onward to the field of blood. Impelled by the cravings of

resistless appetite, the Condor, regardless of danger, pressed forward

to assail the herds of the plain; while the watchmen, having sounded the

alarm, the numerous population turned out, as well to protect their

cattle, as to hunt the mountain-bird—the Chilian’s manly pastime.

From the midst of a canopy of dust, spread wide over the plain, there

came forth sounds of noisy conflict, resembling the heady current of a

“foughten field;” and mountain and hill-side were shaken by the shouts

of the hunters, the tramp of scampering horsemen, and the bellowing of

enraged and affrighted cattle. The Condor, alone, rapid as the cassowary

of the desert, pursued in silence his destined prey. As we rapidly

approached, we perceived one of the herd bursting from the western

extremity of the cloud of dust, lashing his bleeding side with his tail,

and his blood-shotten eyes starting wildly from their sockets, while

foaming at the mouth, he bellowed loudly with pain. With a wonderful

unity of purpose, he alone was closely pursued by the whole flock of

birds, who, disregarding the other animals, seemed to follow, as with a

single will, this stricken one, who was at the same time cautiously

avoided by his terrified companions. Like all gregarious birds, the

Condor appeared to have a leader, who, rushing at their head, into the

midst of the herd, pounced with his greedy beak upon this devoted

animal, the fattest and the sleekest of the multitude, and tore a piece

of flesh from his side. Attracted by the sight or the scent of blood,

the whole flock, like a brood of harpies, joined in the mad pursuit.

Swift of foot as the fleetest racer, they kept close to his side, ever

and anon striking with unerring sagacity at his eyes.

Tell me not of the gladiators of martial Rome, or of the Tauridors of

modern Seville—they were pastimes for children, compared with the

thrilling excitement of the Condor Hunt. Away they fled, and away we

hurried in the chase. A thousand horsemen were wheeling rapidly in

pursuit—a thousand cattle, terrified and frantic, swept over the

plain—and a thousand Condors mingled in the crowd—until, by the rapid

movement, herd and Condor were again hidden from the view in clouds of

dust. A loud shout soon after attracted us to the scene of conflict.

Bursting forth once again from the cloud of dust into which he had

vainly rushed, the devoted animal plunged madly forward, yet more

closely followed by the whole field of vultures. Black with dust, and

streaming with blood from a hundred wounds inflicted by the remorseless

beaks of his pursuers, he still fled onward, but with diminished speed.

As if looking to man for assistance in his extremity, he rushed through

the midst of our cavalcade, and the Condor, regardless of our presence,

hung upon his side, or followed in his foot-prints.

From the altered movement of the animal after he had passed us, with his

head on high, plunging and blundering over the uneven ground, it was

evident that his course was no longer directed by sight. His eyes were

gone—they had been torn from their bleeding sockets!

Wearied and panting, his tongue hangs from his mouth, and every thirsty

beak is upon it. Still onward he flies, hopeful of escape—and onward

presses the Condor, secure of his prey. The animal now appeared to be

dashing for the water, but his declining speed and unequal step rendered

it doubtful whether he could reach it. He seemed suddenly to despair of

doing so, for wheeling round with one last and desperate effort, he

gathered himself up in the fullness of his remaining strength, and

rushed into the midst of the herd, as if he sought by mingling in the

living mass, to divert the attention of his pursuers. But the mark and

the scent of blood was upon him, and on the track of blood the Condor is

untiring and relentless. Beast and bird once again were lost to view

beneath the curtain of dust which overspread the trembling plain. But,

in a few moments, pursued by every bird, he broke from the midst of the

herd, and made a few desperate plunges toward the water, and reeling

onward, fell at length bleeding and exhausted, on the very margin of the

sea!

“Sternitur exanimisque tremens procumbit humis bos.”

In an instant he was buried up among his pursuers, his flesh torn off,

yet quivering, by hungry beaks, and his smoking entrails trailed upon

the ground. In the distance, on the verge of the horizon, the last of

the herd might still be discerned, flying upon the wings of the wind

from the fate of their companion.

Our host gave the signal, and we hurried to the spot to rescue the

carcass, with a view to visit upon the Condor vengeance for the mischief

he had done, and the blood he had spilled. At our near approach they

took reluctantly and lazily to wing, and wheeling in oblique circles,

they were soon seen floating over the crest of the mountain, dark specks

in the firmament. The hunters, prepared with stakes about seven feet in

length, commenced driving them in the ground, a few inches apart, and in

a circular form around the carcass, leaving a small space open. As soon

as we retired from the spot, the birds descended upon the plain, and

entering the inclosure, renewed their feast, and again took wing. In the

course of a few hours, the huntsmen returned, and throwing into the pen

an additional supply of food, drove down other stakes in the open space,

leaving just sufficient room for the admission of the Condor.

The birds, more numerous than ever, returned to their filthy banquet.

Meanwhile, having refreshed our horses, and partaken of the hospitality

of our worthy host, we once more took the field for vengeance on the

gorged and lazy foe. As the wings of these birds have a sweep of

seventeen feet, they are not readily unfurled, so that when the Condor

has alighted on the plain, he is only enabled to rise by running over a

space of fifteen or twenty rods, and gradually gathering wind to lift

himself on high. While in the midst of their ravenous feast, a few of

the hunters warily approached and closed the opening; and thus, unable

to soar aloft from a spot so confined and crowded, the Condors were

captive. But a Chilian scorns thus to slay a foe. Armed with a lasso,

each of the natives sits upon his horse, eagerly awaiting the turning

loose of half a dozen birds from the inclosure.

They are out—and away scamper the Condor, fleet as the winds of

heaven—and away, in rapid pursuit, wheels the mounted Chilian, swinging

around his head the noose of the unerring lasso, which, falling upon the

neck of the bird, makes him captive. The line is played out, and away

sweeps the powerful bird, and away the practiced horseman after him.

Springing upward, the Condor now unfolds his wings and flutters in such

width of circle as the rope will permit—and now shoots perpendicularly

upward—and now falls headlong, and is trailed exhausted on the ground.

The lengthened shadows of evening had fallen along the plain before the

sport was up, and the last Condor was captured. We returned to our ship,

well pleased with the entertainment, and swinging into our hammocks sunk

into deep slumber, for which the exercise of the day had prepared

us—but our sleep was not too sound for refreshing visitations from

friends far away,

“O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea.”

-----

[2] From Naval Life, published by Chas. Scribner, N. Y.

* * * * *

BEAUTIE.

BY MRS. E. J. EAMES.

Thou wert a worship in the ages olden,

Thou bright-veiled image of divinity;

Crowned with such gleams, imperial and golden,

As Phidias gave to Immortality!

A type exquisite of the pure Ideal,

Forth shadowed in perfect loveliness—

Embodied and existent in the Real,

A peerless shape to kneel before, and bless!

With the world’s childhood didst thou spring to being!

A thing of light!—a _felt_ divinity!

A stainless spirit, born of Love undying,

Nurst in that Eden of an earlier day.

Thence wandering on the morn of thy _awakening_,

Like a Dream-vision through the world didst go,

Filling its darkness with bright things, and making

The wild waste blossom, and the desert glow.

Still o’er the Earth, thy shining foot-prints tarry,

Upon the mountain-tops thy step yet strays;

Through the rich woods thy rainbow plume floats airy,

And on the sea thy form of glory plays!

Thy purple pinions fan the brow of morning;

Thy sun-bright splendors on the noonday rest,

Eve wears the silvery veil of thy adorning,

And night by thee in queenly robes is drest.

Oh, Beautie! still doth thy bright spirit linger

In the green vale where Jove was nurst of old:

Where the Babe Thunderer listened to the singer

Of “many-fountained Ida,” as ’tis told!

Still hauntest thou the violet-crowned city—

The Trojan Mountain, and the Cretan Hill?

Wanders thy soul yet, in the Syren’s ditty—

Speaks forth thy heart from the Lost Glory still?

We have rare legends of thy marvelous presence—

In Egypt’s Queen and bright Zenobia’s form;

In lovelorn Sappho thrilled thine airiest essence—

In proud Aspasia’s intellectual charm!

Nor was thy soul (through Raphael’s pencil) wanting

In Fornarina’s soft seraphic face!

And, thanks to Petrarch, Laura’s form is haunting

Our hearts with dreams of rare and breathing grace.

Once more! thou art the well-beloved of _Nature_!

Thine empire sweet, is o’er the grand old earth;

And well thy soft hand printeth on each feature

The brightness of thine own Immortal birth!

Thou touchest with rich hues and scents the blossom;

With emerald lines thou pencilest each leaf;

Pearlest with dew the lonely flower-bells bosom,

And flingest thy glory o’er the golden sheaf.

Joy to thy presence, all-pervading spirit!

Well may we worship at thy magic shrine;

There is _no gift_ that mortals may inherit

So favored and god-blest, and dear as thine.

And still to _me_, thy worshiper, oh, Beautie!

Come as a guest divine—an angel-friend;

Give me to see thee, in each darker duty,

And radiate my life-path to the end!

* * * * *

WHAT GLORY COSTS THE NATION.