now meets his eye where'er it turns. Well may he exclaim with such a

prospect before him, in the language of the same poet,

"The Niobe of nations! there she stands,

Childless and crownless in her voiceless woes.

* * * * *

Alas! the lofty city! and alas!

The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day

When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass

The conqueror's sword, in bearing fame away.

Alas for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,

And Livy's pictured page!"

When he sees all these mutations and revolutions on a single spot of

earth, in the hour of his meditations his mind reverts to Him who

alone is immutable and unchangeable, upon whose brow, time writes no

wrinkles. "Alas, the pride of man goes down with him into the dust! it

withers when the lamp of his transient existence flickers out into the

long slumbering of the tomb." Eternal youth, eternal majesty, eternal

duration, belong only to the great, the unchangeable I AM. The

bustling transitory career of the mighty of the earth, when duly

contemplated, should but the more strongly impress on the mind the

infinity, eternity, and omnipotence of Deity. "Where now are they who

sounded the clarion of war along the plains of Thessaly, the mount of

Marathon and Samos's rocky isle. The trumpet's voice hath died upon

the breeze; the thousands which it aroused have gone to rest; the

castles which have been subdued and won, on whose walls the spear

glittered and the cannon pealed, have crumbled into dust; the ivy

lingers about the decaying turrets; the raven builds her nest in the

casement, and sends upon the ear of midnight her desolate wailings;

the owl hoots where the song was heard; and man, proud man, who once

fought and won--he who reared the structure,"

"Sleeps where all must sleep."

There is religion, yes a deep abiding religion in such a retrospect as

this, and the mind which can trace back in its reflections the history

of man along the pathway of ages, and see how dynasties have been

overthrown, and thrones crumbled, how nations have risen, flourished

for a day, then have declined and fallen, and been numbered among the

things that are past and gone, cannot fail to turn, upon the principle

of contrast, to the God of nature, whose throne is eternal, and whose

dominion can never pass away.

Such may be the salutary effect of the reflection of man, when man

reflects. Let us now turn to woman, and see the character of her

meditations and reflections. She perhaps may not, in her solitary

musing, so much {628} delight, as man, to look to the history of

nations, and draw the mighty moral from their fluctuations and

vicissitudes. But there are scenes around her--there are events

constantly occurring in her own limited sphere, which much more

frequently, upon the principles just explained, excite her

meditations, and lead her on to religious devotion. Woman, as I before

remarked, is the tender, constant, and affectionate nurse of our race.

Hers is the heavenly office to watch the sorrows of man and mitigate

them, by her sweet, her benevolent ministrations.

"The very first

Of human life must spring from woman's breast.

Your first small words are taught you from her lips,

Your first tears quenched by her, and your last sighs

Too often breathed out in woman's hearing,

When men have shrunk from the ignoble care

Of watching the last hour of him who led them."

Now this contemplation of pain and suffering, notwithstanding all the

magnificence which pride or grandeur may spread around the couch of

sickness and death, is calculated to force upon the mind the gloomy

truth of the instability of the things of earth, and that there is

nothing but God upon whom we can rely amid all the vicissitudes of

earthly scenes. "The sight of death," says Dr. Brown, "or of the great

home of the dead, seldom fails to bring before us our common and equal

nature. In spite of all the little distinctions which a churchyard

exhibits in mimic imitations, and almost in mockery of the great

distinctions of life, the turf, the stone with its petty sculpture,

and all the columns and images of the marble monument; as we read the

inscription, or walk over the sod, we think only of what lies beneath,

_in undistinguishable equality_." Here then is the scene to which

woman in her meditations is oftener transported than man. Our last

sufferings are longer remembered by her than by man--they produce a

more mighty influence on her mind, and frequently do we see that the

death of a child, of a husband, of a brother, sister, parent, or even

friend, produces a sudden but lasting impression on woman's mind,

arrests her in her gay and thoughtless career--makes her reflect upon

the vanities of this world, and in the end is the cause of her being

gathered into the fold of the faithful and the righteous, where she

can ever after, with truth and feeling, amid all her earthly

prosperity, exclaim in the beautiful language of Gray, in his

Churchyard,

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave

Await alike the inevitable hour,

The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

_5th. Peculiar Character of the Christian Religion_.

But one of the most important causes of the religious differences of

the sexes, remains yet to be told. _It is the character of the

christian religion, and its peculiar suitability to the whole female

nature and economy._ It may boldly, without fear of contradiction be

asserted, that never since the foundation of the world, has there been

propagated a religion so consolatory to woman in all her sorrows and

difficulties--so liberal in promises--so congenial, in fine, with all

the undefined wants and longings of her heart, as the _Religion of

Christ_. Throughout the world, in all ages and countries where this

religion has not been preached, it may be truly said, that the great

religious wants of woman have not been administered to. She has pined,

if I may use the expression, for the want of religious culture, and

has entirely failed to accomplish, in consequence of it, her sweetest

and most graceful destinies on earth.

Shall we turn for example to the boasted polytheistical religion of

Greece and Rome? how illy adapted do we find it to the wants, the

habits, the sensibilities, and I may add, the virtue and chastity of

woman. It is true, that in the innumerable host of their divinities,

they numbered some distinguished female goddesses. Minerva, Juno,

Diana, Ceres, Venus, &c. occupied very conspicuous stations in the

celestial hierarchy. But we are not to infer from this compliment to

the ladies, that the religion was one adapted to the female character.

When we come to examine it, we perceive at once its barbarous and

uncivilized origin, and see that the progress of science and

civilization in Greece and Rome, merely refined and polished it,

without adapting it to the real wants of society, or purging it of its

enormities and vices.

In the first place, Jupiter, the king of the gods, who could shake all

Olympus with his nod, was not omnipotent. He was restrained by the

fates, and in constant apprehension of combinations among other gods,

to resist or cheat him. Nor was Jupiter, with all the gods to back

him, omnipotent. On one occasion, they were all thrown into

consternation, by the formidable array of the giants, who were

attempting to pile mountain on mountain, Ossa upon Pelion, in order

that they might scale the ramparts of heaven. This great dread proved

the want of omnipotence. Again; Xenophon tells us that the

Lacedemonians used to send up their prayers early in the morning, to

be beforehand with their enemies. Sometimes, according to Seneca,

persons bribed the sexton in the temple to secure a place near the

god, so that he might the more certainly hear them. When the Tyrians

were besieged by Alexander the Great, they chained the Hercules in the

temple to prevent his desertion. Augustus Cæsar, after twice losing

his fleet by storm, determined to insult Neptune, the god of the sea,

publicly; and therefore ordered that he should not be carried in

procession with the other gods. And we are told, that after the death

of Germanicus in Rome, who was a great favorite with the people, they

were so much incensed with the gods, that they stoned and renounced

them.

In the Iliad, after the celebrated quarrel between Agamemnon and

Achilles, when the latter urges his mother Thetis, to lay his

complaints before Jupiter, she tells him that Jupiter has gone in

procession with the other gods, to pay honors to the Ethiopians, and

on his return, she will present his petition. But besides the want of

omnipotence in one or all the gods combined, the polytheistical

religion presented a multitude of gods, among whom reigned the wildest

disorders, the fiercest contentions, and the most revolting vices and

crimes. Jupiter was the king of heaven, and he ruled not like the

Jehovah of the christian, with mildness and love, but depended upon

his thunder and his might. By these terrible means and not by love for

him, his subjects were kept in awe. Listen to him in the 8th book of

the Iliad, where he forbids the gods to take any part in the contest

between the Greeks and Trojans. I give Pope's translation. Jupiter

does not speak in the language of mildness, but threatens and

denounces the most cruel {629} punishment for disobedience, merely

because his power enables him to enforce it.

"What god but enters yon forbidden field,

Who yields assistance or but wills to yield;

Back to the skies with shame he shall be driven

Gash'd with dishonest wounds, the scorn of heaven," &c.

And the gods obeyed, not from love or affection to Jupiter, but from

absolute terror, inspired by his power.

"The Almighty spoke, nor durst the powers reply,

A reverend horror silenced all the sky;

Trembling they stood before the sov'reign's look," &c.

Poor Juno, the _ox-eyed Juno_, the unfortunate wife of the Olympic

thunderer, was the most unhappy of women, eternally quarrelling with

her imperial husband and complaining of his partiality to her enemies.

Minerva, too, more beloved by Jupiter than his own wife, complains of

him as raging with an evil mind, in perpetual opposition to her

inclinations. Old Vulcan, it is well known, got his lameness by being

thrown out of heaven by Jupiter in a mad fit, occasioned by Vulcan's

interference in behalf of Juno, when persecuted by her unreasonable

and irascible husband.

The gods, too, are represented as frequently engaged in actual strife

with men, and with one another. In the 20th book of the Iliad, when

Jupiter permits the gods to enter the hitherto forbidden field of

Troy, and take sides according to their inclinations, we have a

regular battle between them. Diomed wounds no less than two gods in

the engagement; Venus, who went off weeping to Jupiter, and Mars, the

great god of war. In the same engagement, we have Neptune pitted

against Apollo, the god of the sun, and Pallas or Minerva, matched

with Mars, and actually prostrating him by a huge rock, a most

unfeminine, _unlady-like_ act.

"Thundering he falls: a mass of monstrous size,

And seven broad acres covers, as he lies."

This wise, but most austere and forbidding old maid, appears truly

terrific in this battle of the gods, and seems an overmatch for all,

save the Olympic thunderer.

But again, the morals of the gods were of the most corrupt and

profligate character. Jupiter was the greatest rake of all the ancient

world. How many wives and maidens was he represented as seducing by

the most unfair means? and so regardless was he of his wife Juno, that

she was obliged to borrow the girdle and charms of Venus, when she

wished to captivate the thunderer. The historian tells us that the

Amphitrion of Aristophanes, was supposed in Greece, to be very

pleasing to Jupiter--that he was like all rakes, exceedingly fond of

the recital of his prowess in the arts of love and seduction. Venus,

the goddess of beauty, as we might well suppose, after hearing a

description of her ungainly hard favored husband, was no better than

the thunderer. Her levities _bred_ disturbances in heaven, and heroes

on earth.[2] In view of these circumstances, no one need wonder at the

account which St. Peter gives of the Gentiles in his time, that "they

walked in lasciviousness, lust, excess of wine, revellings,

banquetings, and abominable idolatries."

[Footnote 2: The Trojan wanderer, the hero of the Æneid, was the son

of Venus, by Anchises a mortal.]

Besides all this, the polytheistical religion was entirely inattentive

to all those rules of morality which civilize and humanize the race of

man, while they bind them together in peace and harmony like a band of

brothers. Minerva, for example, is represented in the 4th book of the

Iliad, as advising Pandarus to endeavor to bribe Apollo with the

promise of a Hecatomb to assist him in assassinating Menalaus,

contrary to the faith of a solemn treaty; and even Jupiter himself

joins with that goddess and Juno in promoting so foul a murder. When

we consider the vices and immoralities of the heavenly host, and then

think of the virtues of the first Romans, we are almost disposed to

assert with Rousseau, that virtue seemed to have been banished from

heaven's confines, to take up her residence on earth. Did human nature

in the ancient world, ever appear in a more stern and dignified

attitude, than when Lucretia was represented as worshipping Venus, and

still plunging the dagger in her bosom, because she had lost her

virtue? What a practical rebuke was here given to the lascivious queen

of beauty.

I need scarcely conclude this little episode in which I have been

indulging, by the assertion that such a religion was unsuited to the

wants of the human race, but particularly of woman. She likes to send

from her closet, or from her silent and solitary chamber her prayers

to heaven. She therefore requires an all-seeing, all-searching eye,

which can behold her in the prayerful moments of her solitude. She

likes to commune with a God who is omnipotent and able to heal and

save. Her nature shudders at the conflicts and broils of the gods of

the heathen--at their immoralities and vices. The female deities are

all gross, lewd, masculine conceptions, unworthy of the delicacy,

chastity, modesty and grace of the virtuous female. The gods were all

unworthy of her confidence and entire _trustingness_. Where is the

virtuous woman of the modern world, who, in the hour of affliction and

trial, would unbosom herself before so terrible, so wicked, and so

licentious a being as the Jupiter of the ancients? Or what female

could bear to contemplate the amours of Venus, or to imitate the acts,

and the monstrous immorality of the goddess of wisdom. Well then might

the worshippers of such beings be described as "dead in trespasses and

sins," and well might St. John, in view of such a religion, exclaim

"the whole world lieth in wickedness."

If we turn from the Polytheistic religion of the ancient world, to the

Monotheistic religion of the Mohammedan, we shall find the whole of

this system more gloomy, more revolting, and more repugnant to woman's

feelings, than even the Polytheistical. The fiery warlike character of

the prophet, the propagation of the religion by fire and sword--the

total degradation of the female character--the seraglio and the

attendant eunuchs, and the low and sensual offices of the black-eyed

Houris in Mohammed's paradise, are all too revolting to the women of

christian countries, to be even contemplated with composure for a

moment. We are not to wonder at the implacable hostility of christian

females all over the world towards the moslem. Women have always

attended in considerable numbers the armies of Europe, when it was

threatened with invasion by the devastating armies of the Turks.

D'Israeli in his very interesting collection of the curiosities of

literature, has a chapter on "events, which have not happened," and

gives us some speculations on the fate of Europe, if the Saracens

under Abderam had beaten {630} Charles Martel at Tours. What woman now

moving with freedom and grace in the social circles of christendom,

but shudders at the bare idea of such a result.

Let us now turn to the _religion of Christ_, and contemplate its

character for a moment. And here shall we find a religion in every

respect suited to the character of woman. It has been truly and

emphatically pronounced to be a _religion of love_. The very scheme of

salvation was conceived by the Almighty in a spirit of love. God is

represented as so loving the world, that he gave his only begotten Son

to save it. And when that Son came into the flesh, and was asked by

the Pharisees for the most important commandments of the law, Christ

answered, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with

all thy soul, with all thy mind; and the second is like unto it. Thou

shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all

the law and the prophets." Now I have already shown in my first

number, that woman loves more tenderly, more devotedly, and constantly

than man. This religion of Christ, then, above every other, is fitted

for that deep abiding love which woman feels so much oftener than man.

It is eminently and peculiarly adapted to that being whose whole

history has been pronounced to be a history of the affections. "There

is nothing surely on earth (says Mrs. Butler,) that can satisfy and

utterly fulfil the capacity for loving, which exist in every woman's

nature. Even when her situation in life is such as to call forth and

constantly keep in exercise the best affections of her heart, as a

wife and a mother; it still seems to me as if more would be wanting to

fill the measure of yearning tenderness, which like an eternal

fountain gushes up in every woman's heart; therefore, I think it is,

that we turn, in the plenitude of our affections, to that belief which

is a religion of love, where the broadest channel is open to receive

the devotedness, the clinging, the confiding trustfulness, which are

idolatry when spent upon creatures like ourselves, but becomes a holy

worship when offered to heaven."[3]

[Footnote 3: In an Epistle supposed to be written by the famous Abbé

Rencé, of la Trappe, this alliance between love and religion is well

described, though rather too much in the peculiar style of a

thoughtless Frenchman, "Je n'avois plus d'amante (says the Abbé,) il

me fallùt un dieu."]

But again--was there ever a being so congenial, so suitable to the

character of woman, as the Saviour of the world. He condescended to be

born of woman. Mary was his mother; and while executing the high

behests of his father on earth, he treated his mother with the most

affectionate and filial tenderness. And then his character was all

mildness and meekness. He who could come forth in all the might of his

father,

"Into terror chang'd,

With countenance too severe to be beheld;

And full of wrath,"

hurl the fearful host of fallen and rebellious angels into the

bottomless pit, and chain them there through the endless ages of

eternity--could, whilst in this world, bear the scoffings, the

revilings, the buffetings of sinful man, could beg his father to

forgive his persecutors, because they knew not what they did. His

dominion in this world was not based upon violence, devastation and

bloodshed. In his glorious career, he made no widows and orphans.

Wherever he moved, he carried consolation and healing to the lowly and

the humble. He restored the sick, and made the lame to walk, the blind

to see, and the dead to come forth from their sepulchres. His kingdom

was one of peace, and harmony, and forbearance. He commanded his

disciples to love one another, and to serve his father in spirit and

in truth. He did not, like Mohammed, exclude woman from an equal

participation in all the promises of the gospel; and he declared that

Mary and Martha had chosen that good part which should not be taken

from them. Woman ministered to him while on earth; she was with him at

the cross; she was with him at his grave:

"Not she with trait'rous kiss her Saviour stung--

Not she denied him with unholy tongue;

She, while apostles shrank, could danger brave--

Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave."

The religion of the cross has been very truly pronounced to be a

species of legislation in behalf of the rights of woman. The

promulgation of the new gospel elevated her at once to that station

which she deserves, and which adds so much to the refinement,

happiness and prosperity of the world. Compare the woman of the modern

with her of the ancient world; compare the woman of christendom with

her of the heathen, and then will you behold the mighty agency of the

religion of Christ in the amelioration of her destiny. Well then may

woman cleave to this religion, as the ark of her safety and

dependence. Well may she worship the Saviour of the world, for he was

the true friend of woman--the husband to the widow, and father to the

fatherless.

Woman is most deeply interested in the success of every scheme which

curbs the passions and enforces a true morality. She is the weaker

portion of the human family. When wickedness reigns in the land, and

might is recognized as constituting right, she is always the great

sufferer. Behold her among barbarians--among nations and people

engaged in deadly strife, and how miserable do you always find her

condition. Now the new gospel, in addition to the best religion which

has ever been given to the world, contains likewise the very best

system of morality. I have always thought that it was one of the most

beautifully characterising traits of the christian religion, that it

has ever been found better and better adapted to our condition, as the

human race advances in civilization, knowledge and morality; and in

this respect, no religion was ever found like it. The sermon of Christ

on the mount, contains a system of morality which will be more and

more appreciated as long as the world stands.

_6th. Nervous System_.

In giving an account of the causes of religious differences between

the sexes, I have not adverted to the effects produced by

physiological differences of the nervous systems of the sexes. The

whole frame and nervous system of woman, is said to be much more

delicate and sensitive than that of man. Hence an additional tendency

to the reception of quick and sudden impressions of all kinds. Hence

too, the great proneness of woman to irritation and to hysteric

affections,[4] {631} and her liability to great and frequently

overpowering excitement, in those religious congregations where

enthusiasm is propagated by contagion. I have frequently seen

indiscriminate multitudes assembled together for worship, when every

soul was concentrated, and every mind was mingled in the same thought;

when all hearts were blended in song--"The poor man by the side of the

rich, without being jealous, had forgotten his miseries--the rich man

had learned his indigence." All seemed to have obtained intelligence

of their bright celestial destiny; all seemed prepared for it,

rejoicing together, and all seemed advancing towards it. On these

occasions, I have always witnessed more feeling, more earnestness, and

more enthusiasm among the women than the men; and not unfrequently

have I seen them cry aloud, and continue in a state of violent

agitation for many minutes. The greater nervous irritability of the

female then, must certainly be ranked among the causes of her

peculiarly religious temperament. But I will not dwell longer on the

causes of the religious differences between the sexes. It is

sufficient to know that woman is more religious every where than man,

and that the causes assigned for this difference, if not the only

ones, are certainly the most important and most powerful in their

operation. I will conclude my remarks on this deeply interesting

subject, by a brief consideration of some of the effects of religion

on the character of woman.

[Footnote 4: Babington tells us, that in orphan asylums, hospitals and

convents, the effect of contagion is so great, that the nervous

disorder of one female easily and quickly becomes the disorder of all.

He tells us, upon the authority of a medical work, on which he places

the most implicit reliance, of a large convent in France, where the

example of one female who imitated the mewing of a cat, set the whole

convent to mewing, so as to make every day a complete cat concert. And

upon the authority of Carden, he tells of a nun in a German convent,

who commenced biting her companions like a mad dog. The contagion

spread from one to the other, until all in the nunnery were affected

with this rabid humor, which spread from convent to convent until it

reached Rome. These cases, however, if they actually occurred, were of

a very extraordinary character, and could only happen under such

circumstances as generally attend on the secluded, contemplative and

eccentric life of a convent, which nature never intended to be the

life of a rational, active, social being.]

_Effects of Religion on Woman_.

Religion, I mean the religion of the heart and of the feelings, such

as woman generally possesses, has undoubtedly a tendency to heighten

and improve all those qualities and attributes which we consider as

most essential to the female character. All the great duties of life,

those of wife, mother, friend, &c. she performs with a double relish,

and under the influence of a double motive. Religion furnishes a new

and powerful impulse to virtue. Virtue, it is true, has its own

charms, and may be said, by the happiness which it affords, to

constitute its own reward; but you have never so well fortified it and

guarded it against dangerous assault, as when you have thrown over it

the sacred panoply of the christian religion. Most of the religions of

the world have chimed in with the prevailing tendencies of the corrupt

portions of our nature, and have flattered and ministered to some of

the worst and most malignant passions of the human heart. Not so with

the christian religion; it has exalted the humble and meek in spirit,

and pulled down the proud and wicked: it has waged war on vice and the

indulgence of evil passions of every description, and has proclaimed

the great law on which the whole code of morality hangs, that

"whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to

them."

The religious female then, in addition to all the ordinary motives

which can incite to virtue, has the additional one of wishing to

please her God and of providing for her happiness hereafter. Religion

softens and disciplines the feelings, it quickens and heightens the

tender sensibilities, and increases all the sympathies of our nature.

It throws, in fine, a drapery of grace, of amiableness and loveliness

over the whole female character. Woman is never so lovely as in the

quiet unobtrusive discharge of her religious duties. "Men," says Dr.

Cogan, "contemplate a female atheist with more disgust and horror,

than if she possessed the hardest features embossed with carbuncles."

Even those who do not believe in the truth of christianity, turn

frequently with disgust from unbelieving women; they know too well the

value of religion and piety in the mother and the wife; they know full

well that the religious woman is generally the one who loves most

tenderly, most engrossingly, and most constantly. There is a

mysterious connection between even human love and religion. Rousseau

has long ago remarked upon the similarity of the languages of the

two.[5] How soon does a man in love, convert his mistress into an

_angel_; he is ready to make every _sacrifice_ for her; he kneels at

her _shrine_; he _worships_, he _adores_ her; 'tis _heaven_ where she

is, _torment_ where she is not.

[Footnote 5: He says that "the enthusiasm of devotion borrows the

language of love; the enthusiasm of love borrows the language of

devotion."]

I have already spoken of some of the effects of human love on man; it

is through the medium of the same powerful, mysterious agent, that

woman can frequently do so much for the cause of religion. There are

few men who can be deeply devoted to a pious female without a deep

sense of the beauty, the loveliness, and the holiness of true

religion. I once knew a being who loved, and loved devotedly a pious

lady. I have seen him gaze on her, as she moved before him in all the

loveliness of modesty and grace. Her looks, her words, her actions,

were all the subject of his intensest thoughts. I do believe he had

wrought them into a science, which he did most dearly love to study.

"She could bend him to her ev'ry will,

His soul's emotions all were in her power."

This being was not an unbeliever, but yet he was indifferent towards

religion. As soon, however, as he had felt the sweet influence of

human love, his mind assumed decidedly a religious cast; his thoughts

were more frequently turned on high. He declared, in the plenitude of

his affections, that he felt an indescribable pleasure in kneeling

beside the object of his affections at the altar, and mingling his

prayers with hers. He felt a deeper veneration and love for the God of

nature, because that God was loved by _her_, whose pure love, in his

mind at least, could sanctify and hallow every object which it

embraced. Reader! you who have wandered into distant climes, have you

not sometimes at sunset hour, when the great orb of day was pouring

his last flood of dimmed light over a world fast sinking into rest,

when every breeze had died away and every noise was hushed, reflected,

with feelings which no language could adequately describe, that the

same great luminary might be shedding his light on the dear friends of

your bosom, and that she whom you most tenderly loved, {632} might

then, perhaps far away, be gazing on the same object? With feelings

like these, would the being just described direct his prayers and

thoughts to heaven. It almost seemed to him that they met _hers_

there, and held communion together.

And yet, be not surprised, he never told his tale of love to her! She

might have known it, for acts and looks are more eloquent than words.

But the impression produced on this individual by the absorbing

affection which he felt for one pious woman, remained with him; he

declares that the bare remembrance of her who seems to him even now a

vision of loveliness and piety on earth, has made him a better and a

holier man. He can truly and feelingly declare in those exquisite

lines of Petrarch's, whose beauty no translation can express,

"Gentil mia donna, io veggio

Nel mover de' vostri occhi un dolce lume

Che mi mostra la via che al ciel conduce."

Yes, and there are thousands besides who, like him, have been indebted

to pious females for that "sweet light" which illumines the path to

heaven.

I have already said that the female communicants in our country, form

from two-thirds to three-fourths of the whole church. If you will

examine into this small comparative number of male communicants, you

will find that one-half, or perhaps three-fourths have been brought

into the church either directly or indirectly by female influence. But

we must remember that this great, this salutary influence of woman, is

exercised through the medium of her example, and of the sweet

propriety and purity of her demeanor before God and man. She need not

preach her own goodness, like the Pharisee; she need not obtrude her

sentiments, with the enthusiasm of the fanatic, on those around her.

It is not her province to go upon the highway and compel all to come

in to the feast. She is not the being to force you by denunciation and

terror, to enter the church; all this is offensive, but particularly

so in a modest female.[6]

[Footnote 6: St. Peter speaks in the following terms, to christian

ladies whose husbands were not yet converted to the new faith:

"Likewise ye wives be in subjection to your husbands, that if any obey

not the word, they also without the word, may be won by the

conversation of the wives, while they behold your _chaste conversation

coupled with fear_." This recommendation of the apostle, marks out the

true province of woman in matters of religion.]

Under the present system of education it is rarely the case that woman

can discuss with grace, and elegance, and truth, the doctrinal points

of religion. "Judge not that ye be not judged," is a text which every

woman should bear constantly in mind. A female persecutor is the most

odious of her sex. I have often thought that the bigoted,

bloody-minded Mary, queen of England, was the most unlovely woman

mentioned in the page of English history; and we can scarcely blame

her equally bigoted husband, in withholding all affection and love

from a woman who resembled him so closely. I do not believe that even

the bigoted husband can love a ferocious, blood-thirsty, bigoted wife.

Mrs. Sandford blames those enthusiastic females "who wander about from

house to house, retailing the spiritual errors of the day, feeling the

religious pulse, dispensing prescriptions, and giving notoriety, at

least, to every new nostrum which would impose on the credulity of

weak and wayward christians; going about with their little casket of

specifics, they excite and foster the diseases they affect to cure."

Such enthusiasm as this, she well observes, "bears not the rose of

Sharon, but the apple of discord: not clusters of the celestial vine,

but spurious berries, which have the form, but not the sweetness of

the genuine fruit." There is a something in the quiet, meek, gentle,

and unobtrusive aspect and demeanor of the truly pious woman, which,

of itself, produces a mighty influence on the other sex. In the

collection of Lely's famous Windsor Beauties, there is one which

strikes the eye of the beholder, and rivets it in steadfast and

extatic gaze, it is the picture of Mrs. Nott. In Mrs. Jameson's

description of those Beauties, I have been more struck with Mrs. Nott,

although her tale is untold, than with any in the collection, not

excepting even the beautiful, the lovely Miss Hamilton. This fair

creature is represented with her book, and her flowers, and her

_village church_, in the back ground. These are the beautiful and

graceful appendages of piety and virtue. "As for the picture," says

Mrs. J. "it is some satisfaction to know, that slander has never

breathed upon those features to sully them to our fancy; that sorrow,

which comes to all, can never come there." Gazing on such a lovely, I

had like to have said _holy_ picture, well might she exclaim, "Is

there no power in conjuration to make those ruby lips unclose and

reveal all we long to know? Are they forever silent? The soul that

once inhabited there, that looked through those mild eyes, the heart

that beat beneath that modest vest; are they fled and cold? And of all

the thoughts, the feelings, the hopes, the joys, the fears, 'the hoard

of unsunn'd griefs' that once had their dwelling there; is this--this

surface--where beauty yet lives, 'clothed in the rainbow tints of

heaven,' but mute, cold, impassive--all that remains." And such will

ever be the curiosity which a meek, beautiful, and pious female, will

excite in the bosom of sensibility and affection.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

LIONEL GRANBY.

CHAP. IV.

She like a solitary rose that springs

In the first warmth of summer days, and flings

A perfume the more sweet because alone

Just bursting into beauty, with a zone--

Half girl's--half woman's.--_Marcian Colonna_.

The gentle ease, and simple tranquillity which reigned at Chalgrave,

found me its most obedient vassal. I lounged in the library the whole

day, devouring with a morbid appetite, romance, poetry, and light

fantasy. I shunned the gay circle of its inmates, not through

misanthropy or boyish modesty, but from an utter contempt of the form

and spirit of social intercourse. I communed alone with myself, and in

the wanton dreams which a sickly fancy conjured before me, I was

alternately the victim of caprice, restlessness, and disquietude.

Though secluded I was not solitary--though a hermit I was not a

misanthrope. Arthur Ludwell was a little nucleus, about whom the

affections and friendships of the whole household gathered themselves.

His occasional visits to the library--his frank and open address, and

his serious and manly sense, all conspired to teach me the value of

his usefulness, and the degradation of my own worthlessness. He could

laugh at my sentimental reveries, yet he had a deep and {633}

chastened taste for poetry; and though he was in the full tide of

elastic youth, he could read me a homily on the errors of an ill

regulated mind, with all the grave solemnity of referend age. His

expostulations--the remonstrances of my mother, and the broad hints

about bad breeding which the old dining-room servant gave me, could

not seduce me from my much loved retreat. I adhered to its

fascinations even as the ivy to the falling tower, and was simple

enough to believe that wisdom was gained by the bopeep game between

reason, fancy and folly.

One morning while I was engaged in my usual speculations, the door of

the library was suddenly opened, and Lucy entered, exclaiming! "Your

cousin Isa has arrived; shut your books! and do, my dear Lionel,

arrange your disordered dress. Look at your dishevelled hair. 'Twill

curl in graceful ringlets! and now do take it away from your pale and

melancholy brow." Twining her fingers in my hair, "I declare," cried

she, "I will not leave you till you come into the parlor. Isa is a

lovely girl, and is now receiving the affectionate salutations of the

whole family. Do, for my sake! for our mother's! and for the character

of the name you bear, grant my request." I could not hesitate, when

she impressed her entreaty with a kiss; and promising that I would

appear before my cousin, I soon commenced the unusual labors of my

toilette. I felt a wish, from some unaccountable emotion, to impress

my cousin with my appearance, and went into my toilette as a warrior

into an armory. Scipio's countenance was lit up with joy, when I

summoned his assistance; and with much deference he ventured to hope

that I would now let the old books rest--that I would sometimes sail

in our pleasure boat--that I would look at the Janus colts--that I

would let him go with me to our old walks, and that we would be boys

again.

So soon as I had descended into the parlor, my mother advancing

towards me, led me to a recess in the dormant window; and with much

solemnity introduced me in due form to my cousin Isa Gordon! My fair

relative was much abashed at the gravity of my introduction, and

something like fear checked the furtive glance which was beaming over

her countenance. For my own part I was confused, alarmed, and

agitated, and trembled beneath that silent eloquence, and impassioned

sympathy, which in making woman lovely, ever makes man a fool. To me

the situation was painful and singular, for I had never before quailed

under the smiles or frowns of female society. I had gained their

contempt by apathy; and studiously avoiding the little attentions

demanded by the honor of gallantry, I stood among them a heartless

being, whose company was tolerated only because his satire was

dangerous.

"I am truly happy to see you at Chalgrave," were the first words which

were stammered through my confusion!

She blushed more deeply when I had spoken, and was hesitating a reply,

when Lucy advancing relieved her from her embarrassment. At the call

of my mother they moved across the room, and I was left gazing in mute

rapture, at the grace and sylph-like gentleness, which characterized

the footsteps of my cousin.

This was Isa Gordon! that morning star which still shines on with

purity and brightness over the dark horizon of memory, and which even

now pours its bold and mellow light over the dreary waste of my

affections. Though not of tall stature, her form was one of exquisite

grace and symmetry, and her beauty mingled itself with the eye and

memory of the beholder. Her golden locks relieved a blushing cheek,

where laughing summer had set its seal, while her countenance

expressed a sensibility, intelligence, sweetness of temper and

innocence which disarmed flattery, and kindled affection. She was

grave more from gentle thoughtfulness than melancholy; and the low,

rich and soft music of her voice, stole upon the heart like the

swelling cadence of the Æolian harp. To firmness she united delicacy

of character, and possessing softness without weakness, humility

without arrogance, and beauty without affectation, her life became a

rare and happy combination of dignity, elevation and gentleness, with

the virtues which ennoble man, and the winning graces which endear

woman. She was in all the pride and power of conquering seventeen, yet

still no girlishness weakened the unobtrusive dignity of her

character. Romance might have decked her with all the gorgeous hues of

its fond imaginings. Poetry might have lingered around the silent

purity of her life, but reason alone could truly love--and wisdom

adore her.

On that day I felt a new passion adding itself to my dreamy solitude;

and when I returned to my tranquil room, I found myself the victim of

wild and impassioned love, betraying every symptom of its curious and

wayward power. I was alternately humble and arrogant--stubborn and

infirm--now a gallant cavalier, winning woman's heart by martial

prowess--now a finished coxcomb with a plentiful store of that

harmless folly which is frittered away from common sense, and now a

rhyme stricken poet, drawing inspiration from my own distempered

vanity, and struggling for metre in the odds and ends of language. I

loved with a holy and fervent ardor; yet the purity which I fondly

believed was the characteristic of my passion, was stained into

grossness by individual pride. Self love made me a little deity, and

woman's regard was an offering demanded by my insatiate egotism. I do

not know that I erred more than most young lovers, in thus reasoning

from the cause to the effect, and in believing that the existence of

love arises solely from our own latent merits and fascinations.

Kindness makes us arrogant, while pride deduces from a blush or a

smile, positive evidence of woman's unhesitating love. If she reason

with the folly of our passion, she is cold--if she shew the least

sunshine of tenderness, she is indelicate, and if she exercise the

common prudence of a reasoning being, she is a coquette. Man must have

all the constancy of her love, all the devotion of her guileless

heart, and he alone must mould its delicate texture to the wanton

caprice of his own vanity. He grants her all that love which he can

spare from the faction and turmoil of the world, and demands in return

her esteem for his errors, and her adoration for his infirmities. We

treat them as fools, when we breathe our false and treacherous love,

and thus cheat ourselves into a belief of our own purity and truth. A

woman of dignity will smile at the fantastic tricks which duplicity

enacts before her; and if she truly love she will crush our pride by

coldness, and blind the searching eye of our vanity by indifference.

She risks her total happiness--she nobly throws all her treasured

hopes into the scale of marriage, {634} and when once resolved, she

hesitates no longer over the trembling sacrifice of her implicit

confidence. Man calls the considerations of her judgment

insincerity--and the justifiable warfare of defence--coquetry. He

loves from pride; while prudence teaches her to inspire him with that

true passion, which takes its brightness like the diamond, only from

the attrition of its own fragments.

Excited by the influence of my new passion, I became a being of

different habits, and boldly entered into the spirit of that social

circle whose gaiety I had shunned. The rays of love had beamed athwart

the darkness of my solitude, and I basked in their brilliancy till

seclusion lost its philosophy and study its excitement. I was happy

only in the company of Isa Gordon, and revelled like a martyr, in the

funereal pyre, which consumed my tranquillity. With the quick

penetration of her sex she perceived my love, and though it hourly

disported its vagaries before her, it failed to move either her

serenity of temper, or unbend her dignity of character. In her

intercourse with me she was courteous, kind and polite, and I vainly

labored to find some of those thousand signs of reciprocal attachment

with which egotism flatters pride, and with which vanity sustains

folly. I thought she was cold and heartless, and have often gazed on

her beauty with that chilled rapture which would dwell on the rainbow

that lends its glittering canopy to the brow of the glacier.

Time wore away on downy feet, and the period was rapidly approaching

when Isa was to leave Chalgrave, and I was to enter college. I dared

not breathe my love; for though blinded by excess of passion, I had

enough of reason to know that I should be rejected; but could she

refuse when I plainly declared my sentiments? My vanity whispered her

acceptance, and I believed that her indifference proceeded not from

dislike but from my silence on that necessary and important

declaration which the pride and pretended ignorance of every woman

imperiously demands.

"You are singularly romantic, Lionel!" said she, as I was earnestly

employed in repeating some wild stanzas which I had inscribed to the

evening star! "What a curious conceit to make it the bridal torch of

the moon, and why people it with the genius of light. Many a poet has

sighed away his sense in searching for metaphors to exalt it--yet it

still shines on, careless of the poor folly which labors to adorn it."

"There is destiny in it, Isa! and even now as it arrests your gaze,

does it not tell thee of futurity? and does it not give a dreamy

melancholy--an incoherent imagining to thy young, thy cold, thy

uncorrupted heart?"

"My heart cold!" replied she, smiling, "What a happy poet! In one

moment basking in the light of the evening star, and in the next

ungenerously censuring a heart of which you know nothing."

"I do know it! I know that you have chilled its better feelings by the

dictates of reason, and from long obedience to stern prudence, you

cannot, dare not love! You have seen the sincerity of my passion, and

you have trampled on the purity of that love which adores you! Hear

me, dear Isa," I continued, seizing her hand and arresting her

departure, "hear my unworthy love. I am a wretched, desolate being,

and live alone."

"Lionel!" said she, suddenly interrupting me, "I do not love you! You

have noble qualities, and a genius which promises the highest

distinctions of fame. Forget your idle passion, and be assured that I

shall ever retain for you the most affectionate friendship. Enter into

the busy throng of the world, and you will quickly gain that chastened

wisdom which can laugh to scorn all your boyish dreams of romance, and

in the race of ambition you must and will forget your fancied sorrows.

Is it not true that

'Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies

And Venus sets--ere Mercury can rise.'"

"I did not reckon on insult," I replied with much temper, "nor did I

wish you to read me a homily on the extravagance of that passion which

you alone have caused. You may scorn, yet I can love."

Lucy, accompanied by Arthur Ludwell, appeared at this moment, and

relieved me from a scene of distress, confusion, and embarrassment.

They returned with Isa to the parlor; and I, in a state of tempestuous

feeling and subdued pride, sauntered to the shores of the Chesapeake.

A _whip-poor-will_ seated on the leafless branch of a ruined oak, was

carolling his funereal notes to the responsive echoes of the forest.

The moon was rising far in the East, and the broad sea before me had

already flushed its rippled surface in her mellow light. Here and

there in the fretted horizon, might be dimly discovered the diminished

sail, or the frail bark of the silent fisherman. All nature was

slumbering in deathlike solitude, while I alone was the rude string

whose vibrations jarred into discord the peaceful scene around me. In

the bitterness of wounded pride I solemnly resolved to conquer my

unrequited passion. I returned to Chalgrave, proud, stubborn and

unconquerable. I looked up to its dreary grandeur and my eye caught

the light form of Isa flitting athwart a window. My obstinacy vanished

like the mist of the morning, and I was again the creature of love,

hope, and imagination.

On the succeeding day she quitted Chalgrave. Her parting interview was

simple and affecting. A kiss for my mother--a tear for Lucy, and a

smile for me, were the little legacies her affections bequeathed. With

strained eye and intense interest, I watched the chariot which bore

her away, and when it had sunk into the forest, I turned off to

meditate on her virtues and dream on her beauty. My old nurse gently

touching me, placed in my hand a little packet which she said Miss Isa

had left for me. I tore off the envelope, and a golden locket fell at

my feet, on which was inscribed in faint though legible lines, "_Dinna

forget_." That momento is now on my heart--a holy relic of the wreck

of my happiness.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO H. W. M.

When the cup is pledged, and the bright wine flowing,

At the festal board, in the halls of light;

And gentle eyes, like stars are glowing,

In the cloudless sky of a summer's night:

Oh! breathe but my name o'er the wine, for yet

I will dare to believe that all will not forget.

When the moon looks out on the leafy bowers,

Where the gladsome daughters of beauty are wreathing

The brightest and fairest of all the flowers,

To crown their altars with incense breathing,

Oh, name one flower for the absent one,

Who forgotten by thee is remembered by none. {635}

In that home, to thee brightest and best upon earth,

Where the spirits thou lovest are yearning to greet thee,

When round the light of the household hearth,

The smiles and the tears of affection greet thee,

Mid the beam of the smile and the glow of the tear,

Shall a thought ever whisper "I wish he were here?"

For if life were changed, and its beamings of gladness,

Were shrouded in gloom by the veil of sorrow,

And the pale cold shade of unaltered sadness,

Found no ray of hope in the coming morrow;

Each pang could but render more precious to me,

The friendship of M----, the beauty of B.

MORNA.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

LINES

Written on being accused of coldness of character and manners by some

friends--1830.

They call me cold--they know me not, nor can they understand

The warmth of my affections, by the breeze of _kindness_ fanned;

My feelings may not show themselves in countenance or voice,

But my _heart_ can weep with those who weep--with those who sing,

rejoice!

My best affections lie concealed--I bring them not to light,

For I know that those with whom I dwell can never read them right;

But their fountain, tho' it calmly flow, is warm and full and deep,

And the stream of love within my breast, tho' _silent_, does not

_sleep_.

To all the dearest ties of life I cling most tenderly;

And the few whose unbought love is mine, compose the world to me:

It is not those who feel the most their feelings best express,

Nor those the most sincerely fond, who with the _tongue_ can bless--

The paltry counterfeit may shine with radiancy as bright

As the costly gem which monarchs wear--may look as pure and white;

The artificial rose may glow with a color full as fair

As the lovely flower which nature rears in sunshine and in air;

'Tis time, and time alone, can show the real gem and flower,

And time will oft on those we love, exert its magic power;

It may change the beaming smiles to frowns, kind greetings to

disdain,

And cause the _seeming_ friend to scorn our poverty and pain.

Oh! it is not thus with me, I know, the tide of feeling flows;

Affection may not speak in looks, but in my bosom glows,

With a warmth which time can never chill, scarce injuries suppress,

And my heart responds to every tone of the voice of tenderness.

E. A. S.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

ON THE DEAF, DUMB, AND BLIND GIRL OF THE ASYLUM AT HARTFORD,

CONNECTICUT.

Yet deem not, though so dark her path,

Heaven strew'd no comforts o'er her lot,

Or in its bitter cup of wrath

The healing drop of balm forgot.

Oh no!--with meek, contented mind,

The needle's humble task to ply,

At the full board her place to find,

Or close in sleep the placid eye.

With order's unobtrusive charm

Her simple wardrobe to dispose,

To press of guiding care the arm,

And rove where Autumn's bounty flows,

With Touch so exquisitely true,

That vision stands astonish'd by,

To recognize with ardor due

Some friend or benefactor nigh,

Her hand mid childhood's curls to place,

From fragrant buds the breath to steal,

Of stranger-guest the brow to trace,

Are pleasures left for her to feel.

And often o'er her hour of thought,

Will burst a laugh of wildest glee,

As if the living forms she caught

On wit's fantastic drapery,

As if at length, relenting skies

In pity to her doom severe,

Had bade a mimic morning rise,

The chaos of the soul to cheer.

But who, with energy divine,

May tread that undiscover'd maze,

Where Nature, in her curtain'd shrine,

The strange and new-born Thought arrays?

Where quick perception shrinks to find

On eye and ear the envious seal,

And wild ideas throng the mind,

Which palsied speech may ne'er reveal;

Where instinct, like a robber bold,

Steals sever'd links from Reason's chain,

And leaping o'er her barrier cold

Proclaims the proud precaution vain:

Say, who shall with magician's wand

That elemental mass compose,

Where young affections pure and fond

Sleep like the germ mid wintry snows?

Who, in that undecipher'd scroll

The mystic characters may see,

Save Him who reads the secret soul,

And holds of life and death the key?

Then, on thy midnight journey roam,

Poor wandering child of rayless gloom,

And to thy last and narrow home

Drop gently from this living tomb. {636}

Yes, uninterpreted and drear,

Toil onward with benighted mind,

Still kneel at prayers thou canst not hear,

And grope for truth thou may'st not find.

No scroll of friendship or of love,

Must breathe its language o'er thy heart,

Nor that Blest Book which guides above,

Its message to thy soul impart.

But Thou who didst on Calvary die,

Flows not thy mercy wide and free?

Thou, who didst rend of _death_ the tie,

Is _Nature's_ seal too strong for thee?

And Thou, oh Spirit pure, whose rest

Is with the lowly, contrite train,

Illume the temple of her breast,

And cleanse of latent ill the stain.

That she whose pilgrimage below

Was night that never hoped a morn,

That undeclining day may know

Which of eternity is born.

The great transition who can tell?

When from the ear its seal shall part

Where countless lyres seraphic swell,

And holy transport thrills the heart.

When the chain'd tongue, which ne'er might pour

The broken melodies of time,

Shall to the highest numbers soar,

Of everlasting praise sublime,

When those blind orbs which ne'er might trace

The features of their kindred clay,

Shall scan of Deity the face,

And glow with rapture's deathless ray.

L. H. S.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

AN ELEGY

Sacred to the memory of the infant children of S. M. and C. W. S. of

Campbell county, Va.

By Frederic Speece.

O, they were rose-buds, fresh and bright,

Fair flow'rets breathing of delight;

Young cherubs from a happier sphere,

Too gently sweet to linger here.

The rose-buds withered ere their bloom,

The flow'rets strewed an early tomb,

The gentle cherubs tasted pain,

Then sought their native skies again.

Infants are bright immortal things

Though robed in feeble, dying clay:

Death but unfolds their silken wings,

And speeds their joyful flight away;

Beyond these cold, sublunar skies,

They seek a home among the blest;

On strong unwearied pinions rise,

Cleave the blue vault and are at rest.

What though no marble may attest

Where slumber lone their cold remains,

Their little cares are hushed to rest,

And terminated all their pains.

Nor Fame may deign a feeble blast,

To tell the world that _they have been_;

Nor snatch the record of the past

From the dark grave that locks it in.

Barren the theme--the legend trite

Of joys or griefs it could reveal--

The interchange of shade and light

That all _have_ felt and all _must_ feel.

Though grief has lost its keener edge,

Remembrance lingers where they lie,

To muse on ev'ry precious pledge

The loved ones left beneath the sky.

And ere oblivion's ebon wing

Sweep ev'ry vestige from the spot,

Affection shall its off'rings bring,

Nor leave them to be quite forgot.

Each lovely flow'r and drooping bell--

Bright daughters of the op'ning year,--

Those beauteous things they loved so well

Shall weep their annual tribute here.

Through dreary Winter's storm and cold,

These sleep from all his terrors free--

Again their blooming sweets unfold,

Emblem of all that they shall be.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

SONNET.

BY ALEX. LACEY BEARD.

Sunset is past,--and now while all is still,

And softly o'er the plain the moonbeams fall,

I'll hold communion with myself and call

From mem'ry's caverns, feelings deep, that fill

My soul with gladness.... Now I feel the thrill

Of past delights;--I stand in that old hall,

My friends surround me,--yes, I see them all:--

My heart grows faint, my eyes with tear-drops fill.

And now they vanish, from my sight they go.

Farewell ye loved ones, we shall meet again

As oft we've met, at the dim twilight's wane;--

In dreams and visions which shall brightly show

Your sunny faces, and shall bring the glow

Of by-gone joys, back to my soul again.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO MARY.

Mary, amid the cares--the woes

Crowding around my earthly path,

(Sad path, alas! where grows

Not ev'n one lonely rose,)

My soul at least a solace hath

In dreams of thee, and therein knows

An Eden of sweet repose.

And thus thy memory is to me

Like some enchanted, far-off isle,

In some tumultuous sea--

Some lake beset as lake can be

With storms--but where, meanwhile,

Serenest skies continually

Just o'er that one bright island smile.

E. A. P.

{637}

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

THE VISIONARY--A TALE.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

Stay for me there! I will not fail

To meet thee in that hollow vale.

[_Exequy on the death of his wife, by Henry King, Bishop of

Chichester_.

Ill-fated and mysterious man! Bewildered in the brilliancy of thine

own imagination, and fallen in the flames of thine own youth! Again in

fancy I behold thee! Once more thy form hath risen before me!--not--oh

not as thou art--in the cold valley and shadow--but as thou _shouldst

be_--squandering away a life of magnificent meditation in that city of

dim visions, thine own Venice--which is a star-beloved elysium of the

sea, and the wide windows of whose Palladian palaces look down with a

deep and bitter meaning upon the secrets of her silent waters. Yes! I

repeat it--as thou _shouldst be_. There are surely other worlds than

this--other thoughts than the thoughts of the multitude--other

speculations than the speculations of the sophist. Who then shall call

thy conduct into question? Who blame thee for thy visionary hours, or

denounce those occupations as a wasting away of life, which were but

the overflowings of thine everlasting energies?

It was at Venice, beneath the covered archway there called the _Ponte

di Sospiri_, that I met for the third or fourth time the person of

whom I speak. It is with a confused recollection that I bring to mind

the circumstances of that meeting. Yet I remember--ah! how should I

forget?--the deep midnight, the Bridge of Sighs, the beauty of woman,

and the demon of romance, who stalked up and down the narrow canal.

It was a night of unusual gloom. The great clock of the piazza had

sounded the fifth hour of the Italian evening. The square of the

Campanile lay silent and deserted, and the lights in the old Ducal

Palace were dying fast away. I was returning home from the Piazetta,

by way of the Grand Canal. But as my gondola arrived opposite the

mouth of the canal San Marco, a female voice from its recesses broke

suddenly upon the night, in one wild, hysterical, and long continued

shriek. Startled at the sound, I sprang upon my feet: while the

gondolier, letting slip his single oar, lost it in the pitchy darkness

beyond a chance of recovery, and we were, consequently, left to the

guidance of the current which here sets from the greater into the

smaller channel. Like some huge and sable-feathered Condor, we were

slowly drifting down towards the Bridge of Sighs, when a thousand

flambeaus flashing from the windows, and down the stair-cases of the

Ducal Palace, turned all at once that deep gloom to a livid and

supernatural day.

A child, slipping from the arms of its own mother, had fallen from an

upper window of the lofty structure into the deep and dim canal. The

quiet waters had closed placidly over their victim; and, although my

own gondola was the only one in sight, many a stout swimmer, already

in the stream, was seeking in vain upon the surface, the treasure

which was to be found, alas! only within the abyss. Upon the broad,

black marble flagstones, at the entrance of the palace, and a few

steps above the water stood a figure which none who then saw can have

ever since forgotten. It was the Marchesa Aphrodite--the adoration of

all Venice--the gayest of the gay--the most lovely where all were

beautiful--but still the young wife of the old and intriguing

Mentoni--and the mother of that fair child, her first and only one,

who now deep beneath the murky water, was thinking in bitterness of

heart upon her sweet caresses, and exhausting its little life in

struggles to call upon her name.

She stood alone. Her small, bare, and silvery feet gleamed in the

black mirror of marble beneath her. Her hair, not as yet more than

half loosened for the night from its ball-room array, clustered amid a

shower of diamonds, round and round her classical head, in curls like

the young hyacinth. A snowy white and gauze-like drapery seemed to be

nearly the sole covering to her delicate form--but the midsummer and

midnight air was hot, sullen, and still, and no motion--no shadow of

motion in that statue-like form itself, stirred even the folds of that

raiment of very vapor which hung around it as the heavy marble hangs

around the Niobe. Yet--strange to say!--her large lustrous eyes were

not turned downwards upon that grave wherein her brightest hope lay

buried--but riveted in a widely different direction! The prison of the

Old Republic is, I think, the stateliest building in all Venice--but

how could that lady gaze so fixedly upon it, when beneath her lay

stifling her only child? Yon dark gloomy niche too yawns right

opposite her chamber window--what, then, _could_ there be in its

shadows--in its architecture--in its ivy-wreathed and solemn cornices

that the Marchesa di Mentoni had not wondered at a thousand times

before? Nonsense! Who does not remember that, at such a time as this,

the eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of its sorrow,

and sees in innumerable far off places, the woe which is close at

hand.

Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the arch of the Water-Gate,

stood in full dress, the Satyr-like figure of Mentoni himself. He was

occasionally occupied in thrumming a guitar, and seemed _ennuied_ to

the very death, as at intervals he gave directions for the recovery of

his child. Stupified and aghast, I had myself no power to move from

the upright position I had assumed upon first hearing the shriek, and

must have presented to the eyes of the agitated group, a spectral and

ominous appearance, as, with pale countenance and rigid limbs, I

floated down among them in that funereal gondola.

All efforts proved in vain. Many of the most energetic in the search

were relaxing their exertions, and yielding to a gloomy sorrow. There

seemed but little hope for the child--but now, from the interior of

that dark niche which has been already mentioned as forming a part of

the Old Republican Prison, and as fronting the lattice of the

Marchesa, a figure, muffled in a cloak stepped out within reach of the

light, and pausing a moment upon the verge of the giddy descent,

plunged headlong into the canal. As, in an instant afterwards, he

stood with the still living and breathing child within his grasp upon

the marble flagstones by the side of the Marchesa, his cloak heavy

with the drenching water became unfastened, and, falling in folds

about his feet, discovered to the wonder-stricken spectators, the

graceful person of a very young man, with the sound of whose name the

greater part of Europe was then ringing.

No word spoke the deliverer. But the Marchesa! {638} She will now

receive her child--she will press it to her heart--she will cling to

its little form, and smother it with her caresses. Alas! _another's_

arms have taken it from the stranger--_another's_ arms have taken it

away, and borne it afar off, unnoticed, into the palace! And the

Marchesa! Her lip--her beautiful lip trembles: tears are gathering in

her eyes--those eyes which, like Pliny's own Acanthus, are "soft and

almost liquid." Yes! tears are gathering in those eyes--and see! the

entire woman thrills throughout the soul, and the statue has started

into life! The pallor of the marble countenance, the swelling of the

marble bosom, the very purity of the marble feet, we behold suddenly

flushed over with a tide of ungovernable crimson; and a slight shudder

quivers about her delicate frame, as a gentle air at Napoli about the

rich silver lilies in the grass. Why _should_ that lady blush? To this

demand there is no answer--except that, having left in the eager haste

and terror of a mother's heart, the privacy of her own _boudoir_, she

has neglected to enthral her tiny feet in their slippers; and utterly

forgotten to throw over her Venitian shoulders that drapery which is

their due. What other possible reason could there have been for her so

blushing?--for the glance of those wild appealing eyes?--for the

unusual tumult of that throbbing bosom?--for the convulsive pressure

of that trembling hand?--that hand which fell, as Mentoni turned into

the palace, accidentally, upon the hand of the stranger. What reason

could there have been for the low--the singularly low tone of those

unmeaning words which the lady uttered hurriedly in bidding him adieu?

"Thou hast conquered"--she said, or the murmurs of the water deceived

me--"thou hast conquered--one hour after sunrise--we shall meet--so

let it be."

* * * * *

The tumult had subsided, the lights had died away within the palace,

and the stranger, whom I now recognized, stood alone upon the flags.

He shook with inconceivable agitation, and his eye glanced around in

search of a gondola. I could not do less than offer him the service of

my own, and he accepted the civility. Having obtained an oar at the

Water-Gate, we proceeded together to his residence, while he rapidly

recovered his self-possession, and spoke of our former slight

acquaintance in terms of great apparent cordiality.

There are some subjects upon which I take pleasure in being minute.

The person of the stranger--let me call him by this title, who to all

the world was still a stranger--the person of the stranger is one of

these subjects. In height he might have been below rather than above

the medium size: although there were moments of intense passion when

his frame actually _expanded_ and belied the assertion. The light,

almost _slender_ symmetry of his figure, promised more of that ready

activity which he evinced at the Bridge of Sighs, than of that

Herculean strength which he has been known to wield without an effort,

upon occasions of more dangerous emergency. With the mouth and chin of

a deity--a nose like those delicate creations of the mind to be found

only in the medallions of the Hebrew--singular, wild, full, liquid

eyes, whose shadows varied from pure hazel to intense and brilliant

jet, and a profusion of glossy, black hair, from which a forehead

rather low than otherwise, gleamed forth at intervals all light and

ivory--his were features than which I have seen none more classically

regular, except, perhaps, the marble ones of the Emperor Commodus. Yet

his countenance was, nevertheless, one of those which all men have

seen at some period of their lives, and have never afterwards seen

again. It had no peculiar--I wish to be perfectly understood--it had

no _settled predominant expression_ to be fastened upon the memory; a

countenance seen and instantly forgotten--but forgotten with a vague

and never-ceasing desire of recalling it to mind. Not that the spirit

of each rapid passion failed at any time, to throw its own distinct

image upon the mirror of that face--but that the mirror, mirror-like,

retained no vestige of the passion, when the passion had departed.

Upon leaving him on the night of our adventure, he solicited me, in

what I thought an urgent manner, to call upon him very early the next

morning. Shortly after sunrise, I found myself accordingly at his

Palazzo, one of those huge piles of gloomy, yet fantastic grandeur,

which tower above the waters of the Grand Canal in the vicinity of the

Rialto. I was shown up a broad winding staircase of mosaics, into an

apartment whose unparalleled splendor burst through the opening door

with an actual glare, making me sick and dizzy with luxuriousness.

I knew my acquaintance to be wealthy. Report had spoken of his

possessions in terms which I had even ventured to call terms of

ridiculous exaggeration. But as I gazed about me, I could not bring

myself to believe that the wealth of any subject in Europe could have

supplied the far more than imperial magnificence which burned and

blazed around.

Although, as I say, the sun had arisen, yet the room was still

brilliantly lighted up. I judged from this circumstance, as well as

from an air of exhaustion in the countenance of my friend, that he had

not retired to bed during the whole of the preceding night. In the

architecture and embellishments of the chamber, the evident design had

been to dazzle and astound. Little attention had been paid to the

_decora_ of what is technically called _keeping_, or to the

proprieties of nationality. The eye wandered from object to object,

and rested upon none--neither the _grotesques_ of the Greek

painters--nor the sculptures of the best Italian days--nor the huge

carvings of untutored Egypt. Rich draperies in every part of the room

trembled to the vibrations of low, melancholy music, whose unseen

origin, undoubtedly lay in the recesses of the crimson trelliss work

which tapestried the ceiling. The senses were oppressed by mingled and

conflicting perfumes, reeking up from strange Arabesque censers, which

seemed actually endued with a monstrous vitality, as their

particolored fires writhed up and down, and around about their

extravagant proportions. The rays of the newly risen sun poured in

upon the whole, through windows formed each of a single pane of

crimson-tinted glass. Glancing to and fro, in a thousand reflections,

from curtains which rolled from their cornices like cataracts of

molten silver, the beams of natural glory mingled at length fitfully

with the artificial light, and lay weltering in subdued masses upon a

carpet of rich, liquid looking cloth of Chili gold. Here then had the

hand of genius been at work. A chaos--a wilderness of beauty lay

before me. A sense of dreamy and incoherent {639} grandeur took

possession of my soul, and I remained within the door-way speechless.

Ha! ha! ha!--ha! ha! ha!--laughed the proprietor, motioning me to a

seat, and throwing himself back at full length upon an ottoman. "I

see," said he, perceiving that I could not immediately reconcile

myself to the _bienseance_ of so singular a welcome--"I see you are

astonished at my apartment--at my statues--my pictures--my originality

of conception in architecture and upholstery--absolutely drunk, eh?

with my magnificence. But pardon me, my dear sir, (here his tone of

voice dropped to the very spirit of cordiality) pardon me, my dear

sir, for my uncharitable laughter. You appeared so _utterly_

astonished. Besides, some things are so completely ludicrous that a

man must laugh or die. To die laughing must be the most glorious of

all glorious deaths! Sir Thomas More--a very fine man was Sir Thomas

More--Sir Thomas More died laughing, you remember. Also there is a

long list of characters who came to the same magnificent end, in the

_Absurdities_ of Ravisius Textor. Do you know, however,"--continued he

musingly--"that at Sparta (which is now Palæochori), at Sparta, I say,

to the west of the citadel, among a chaos of scarcely visible ruins,

is a kind of _socle_ upon which are still legible the letters [Greek:

LASM]. They are undoubtedly part of [Greek: GELASMA]. Now at Sparta

were a thousand temples and shrines to a thousand different

divinities. How exceedingly strange that the altar of Laughter should

have survived all the others! But in the present instance"--he

resumed, with a singular alteration of voice and manner--"in the

present instance I have no right to be merry at your expense. You

might well have been amazed. Europe cannot produce anything so fine as

this, my little regal cabinet. My other apartments are by no means of

the same order--mere _ultras_ of fashionable insipidity. This is

better than fashion--is it not? Yet this has but to be seen to become

the rage--that is with those who could afford it at the cost of their

entire patrimony. I have guarded, however, against any such

profanation. With one exception you are the only human being besides

myself, who has been admitted within the mysteries of these imperial

precincts."

I bowed in acknowledgement: for the overpowering sense of splendor and

perfume, and music, together with the unexpected eccentricity of his

address and manner, prevented me from expressing in words my

appreciation of what I might have construed into a compliment.

"Here"--he resumed, arising and leaning on my arm as he sauntered

around the apartment--"here are paintings from the Greeks to Cimabue,

and from Cimabue to the present hour. Many are chosen, as you see,

with little deference to the opinions of Virtû. They are all, however,

fitting tapestry for a chamber such as this. Here too, are some _chéf

d'oeuvres_ of the unknown great--and here unfinished designs by men,

celebrated in their day, whose very names the perspicacity of the

academies has left to silence and to me. What think you"--said he,

turning abruptly as he spoke--"what think you of this Madonna della

Pietà?"

"It is Guido's own!" I said, with all the enthusiasm of my nature, for

I had been poring intently over its surpassing loveliness. "It is

Guido's own!--how _could_ you have obtained it?--she is undoubtedly in

painting what the Venus is in sculpture."

"Ha!" said he, thoughtfully, "the Venus?--the beautiful Venus--the

Venus of the Medicis?--she of the gilded hair?--the work of Cleomenes,

the son of the Athenian? Part of the left arm (here his voice dropped

so as to be heard with difficulty,) and all the right are

restorations, and in the coquetry of that right arm lies, I think, the

quintessence of all affectation. The Apollo too!--is a copy--there can

be no doubt of it--blind fool that I am, who cannot behold the boasted

inspiration of the Apollo! I cannot help--pity me!--I cannot help

preferring the Antinous. Was it not Socrates who said that the

statuary _found his statue in the block of marble_? Then Michæl Angelo

was by no means original in his couplet--

'Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto

Chè un marmo solo in se non circunscriva.'"

* * * * *

It has been, or should be remarked, that, in the manner of the true

gentlemen, we are always aware of a difference from the bearing of the

vulgar, without being at once precisely able to determine in what such

difference consists. Allowing the remark to have applied in its full

force to the outward demeanor of my acquaintance, I felt it, on that

eventful morning, still more fully applicable to his moral temperament

and character. Nor can I better define that peculiarity of spirit

which seemed to place him so essentially apart from all other human

beings, than by calling it a _habit_ of intense and continual thought,

pervading even his most trivial actions--intruding upon his moments of

dalliance--and interweaving itself with his very flashes of

merriment--like adders which writhe from out the eyes of the grinning

masks in the cornices around the temples of Persepolis.

I could not help, however, repeatedly observing, through the mingled

tone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly descanted upon

matters of little importance, a certain air of trepidation--a degree

of nervous _intensity_ in action and in speech--an unquiet

excitability of manner, which appeared to me at all times

unaccountable, and, upon some occasions, even filled me with alarm.

Frequently, too, pausing in the middle of a sentence whose

commencement he had apparently forgotten, he seemed to be listening in

the deepest attention, as if either in momentary expectation of a

visiter, or to sounds which must have had existence in his imagination

alone.

It was during one of these reveries, or pauses of apparent

abstraction, that, in turning over a page of the poet and scholar

Politian's beautiful tragedy "The Orfeo," (the first native Italian

tragedy) which lay near me upon an ottoman, I discovered a passage

underlined in pencil. It was a passage towards the end of the third

act--a passage of the most heart-stirring excitement--a passage which,

although tainted with impurity, no man shall read without a thrill of

novel emotion--no woman without a sigh. The whole page was blotted

with fresh tears, and, upon the opposite interleaf, were the following

lines, written in a hand so very different from the peculiar

characters of my acquaintance, that I had some difficulty in

recognizing it as his own.

Thou wast that all to me, love,

For which my soul did pine--

A green isle in the sea, love, {640}

A fountain and a shrine,

All wreathed around about with flowers;

And the flowers--they all were mine.

But the dream--it could not last;

And the star of Hope did rise

But to be overcast.

A voice from out the Future cries

"Onward!"--while o'er the Past

(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies,

Mute, motionless, aghast!

For alas!--alas!--with me

Ambition--all--is o'er.

"No more--no more--no more,"

(Such language holds the solemn sea

To the sands upon the shore,)

Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,

Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my hours are trances;

And all my nightly dreams

Are where thy dark eye glances,

And where thy footstep gleams,

In what ethereal dances,

By what Italian streams.

Alas! for that accursed time

They bore thee o'er the billow,

From Love to titled age and crime,

And an unholy pillow--

From me, and from our misty clime,

Where weeps the silver willow!

That these lines were written in English--a language with which I had

not believed their author acquainted--afforded me little matter for

surprise. I was too well aware of the extent of his acquirements, and

of the singular pleasure he took in concealing them from observation,

to be astonished at any similar discovery; but the place of date, I

must confess, occasioned me no little amazement. It had been

originally written _London_, and afterwards carefully overscored--but

not, however, so effectually, as to conceal the word from a

scrutinizing eye. I say this occasioned me no little amazement; for I

well remember that, in a former conversation with my friend, I

particularly inquired if he had at any time met in London the Marchesa

di Mentoni, (who for some years previous to her marriage had resided

in that city,) when his answer, if I mistake not, gave me to

understand that he had never visited the metropolis of Great Britain.

I might as well here mention, that I have more than once heard,

(without of coarse giving credit to a report involving so many

improbabilities,) that the person of whom I speak was not only by

birth, but in education an _Englishman_.

* * * * *

"There is one painting," said he, without being aware of my notice of

the tragedy--"there is still one painting which you have not seen."

And throwing aside a drapery, he discovered a full length portrait of

the Marchesa Aphrodite.

Human art could have done no more in the delineation of her superhuman

beauty. The same ethereal figure which stood before me the preceding

night upon the steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before me once again.

But in the expression of the countenance, which was beaming all over

with smiles, there still lurked (incomprehensible anomaly!) that

fitful stain of melancholy which will ever be found inseparable from

the perfection of the beautiful. Her right arm lay folded over her

bosom. With her left she pointed downwards to a curiously fashioned

vase. One small, fairy foot, alone visible, barely touched the

earth--and, scarcely discernible in the brilliant atmosphere which

seemed to encircle and enshrine her loveliness, floated a pair of the

most delicately imagined wings. My glance fell from the painting to

the figure of my friend, and the vigorous words of Chapman's _Bussy

D'Ambois_ quivered instinctively upon my lips--

"He is up

There like a Roman statue! He will stand

Till Death hath made him marble!"

"Come!" he said at length, turning towards a table of richly enamelled

and massive silver, upon which were a few goblets fantastically

stained, together with two large Etruscan vases, fashioned in the same

extraordinary model as that in the foreground of the portrait, and

filled with what I supposed to be Vin de Barâc. "Come!" he said

abruptly, "let us drink! It is early--but let us drink! It is _indeed_

early," he continued thoughtfully as a cherub with a heavy golden

hammer, made the apartment ring with the first hour after sunrise--"It

is _indeed_ early, but what matters it? let us drink! Let us pour out

an offering to the solemn sun, which these gaudy lamps and censers are

so eager to subdue!" And, having made me pledge him in a bumper, he

swallowed in rapid succession several goblets of the wine.

"To dream," he continued, resuming the tone of his desultory

conversation, as he held up to the rich light of a censer one of the

magnificent vases--"to dream has been the business of my life. I have

therefore framed for myself, as you see, a bower of dreams. In the

heart of Venice could I have erected a better? You behold around you,

it is true, a medley of architectural embellishments. The chastity of

Ionia is offended by antediluvian devices, and the sphynxes of Egypt

are stretching upon carpets of gold. Yet the effect is incongruous to

the timid alone. Proprieties of place, and especially of time, are the

bugbears which terrify mankind from the contemplation of the

magnificent. _Once_ I was myself _a decorist_: but that sublimation of

folly has palled upon my soul. All this is now the fitter for my

purpose. Like these Arabesque censers, my spirit is writhing in fire,

and the delirium of this scene is fashioning me for the wilder visions

of that land of real dreams whither I am now rapidly departing." Thus

saying, he confessed the power of the wine, and threw himself at full

length upon an ottoman.

A quick step was now heard upon the staircase, and a loud knock at the

door rapidly succeeded. I was hastening to anticipate a second

disturbance, when a page of Mentoni's household burst into the room,

and faltered out, in a voice chokeing with emotion, the incoherent

words, "My mistress!--my mistress!--poisoned!--poisoned! Oh

beautiful--oh beautiful Aphrodite!"

Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and endeavored to arouse the

sleeper to a sense of the startling intelligence. But his limbs were

rigid--his lips were livid--his lately beaming eyes were riveted in

_death_. I staggered back towards the table--my hand fell upon a

cracked and blackened goblet--and a consciousness of the entire and

terrible truth flashed suddenly over my soul.

{641}

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

PETER'S MOUNTAIN.

An extract from the unpublished Journal of a Tourist.

The third and last mountain over which the traveller passes, as he

proceeds from Fincastle to the Sweet Springs, is Peter's

Mountain--here called the Sweet Spring Mountain. This is, on several

accounts, one of the most remarkable mountains in Virginia. It is

remarkable, in the first place, for the appearance of regularity which

it presents to the eye of the traveller, when viewed from the west. It

extends sixty or seventy miles, between Jackson river on the north,

and New river on the south, apparently in a straight line, and of

nearly a uniform elevation. But this is not its whole extent. The

mountain north of Jackson river, and that south of New river, are

evidently continuations of the same mountain, and exhibit the same

unbroken and regular appearance. While on the east there are numerous

spurs extending from it in every direction, there is nothing of the

kind observable on the west. Were it not for the magnitude of this

mountain, its elevation, and its peculiar structure, we might readily

have imagined it to be, like the Chinese wall, the work of man,

constructed by the line and the plummet, in a former age, as a bulwark

of defence, by some hardier race than ours; but these point us to the

heavens for its great original.

As we looked back upon it from the valley on its west, our thoughts

reverted to the period, when the red men of the forest took up the

line of march, and relinquished the east to the peaceable possession

of their treacherous invaders. Here, it was natural to suppose, they

halted, and pitched their tents, and constructed their villages, and

began again to feel as though they were "monarchs of all they

surveyed." As they looked upon the mountain behind them, feelings of

security would be restored, and they would consider this mountain as a

barrier, reared by the Great Spirit for their protection.

"It is true, the white men made them wings--they flapped the winds,

and passed over the wide waters, and up the big rivers. They gathered

on the plains--they cleared the land, and made it theirs. But their

wings were made for the waters, and not for the rugged mountains--and

their feet are tender--they cannot encounter the flinty rock. Here,

then, shall the waves of pride and oppression be stayed. Here may our

wives and our children once more sit them down secure from foes, and

build their fires, and gather their nuts, while we chase the deer and

the buffalo in the far off west." Such we may suppose to have been the

reflections of some savage chieftain, _nescius auræ fallacis_, as he

looked upon the lofty, and seemingly interminable mountain bulwark

before him. But, if such they were, they proved deceptive. A few

revolving years passed away, and the white man was again on his

borders. His track was seen on the mountain, and the stroke of his

axe, and the shrill sound of his rifle were heard in the hollows. A

few years more, and the Indian again disappeared, and the white man

stood in his place--and the green grass grew, and the corn-blade

rustled, and the farm house was seen, where once stood the rude

villages, in which the chieftains had told the tale of the white man's

fraud, and of their own and their father's wrong, and their own and

their father's valor.

The circumstance which, more than any other, renders this mountain

remarkable, is its intersection with that chain of mountains known as

the Alleghany, which divides the waters that flow east into the

Atlantic, from those which flow west into the Ohio and Mississippi. At

about an equal distance between the Sweet Springs and Peterton, or the

Grey Sulphur, the Alleghany dips under this mountain, and emerges

again on its eastern side. The principal branches of the James river,

head on the west of Peter's Mountain, but east of the Alleghany; while

New river, the principal branch of the Great Kanawha, arises far to

the east of Peter's Mountain, though west of the Alleghany. The waters

of the Warm, Hot and Sweet Springs pass off to the ocean through the

James river; while those of the White, Salt, Red and Grey Sulphur

communicate with the Ohio, through the Kanawha.

This mountain, though uniform in its outline, is sufficiently

variegated in other respects. In some places it sustains heavy

forests, and is arable nearly to its summit; while in other places it

is nearly denuded, sustaining only a stinted shrubbery. In some

places, the large masses of sandstone which project near its summit,

exhibit the most grotesque and romantic appearance. In the

neighborhood of the Hot and Warm Springs, there are several very

picturesque views. There is one in particular, which seen at the

distance of three, four or five miles, has the appearance of a village

in ruins, with some of its public edifices standing, and numerous

villas or country mansions in a dilapidated state, scattered around

it. In the skirts of this rocky village, is what appears to be an

extensive burying-ground, with its vaults and tomb-stones, protecting

the dust of the dead from the unhallowed tread of the living. In other

places, the projections are less extensive, and resemble fortified

outposts. As one gazes on such scenes, the mind is involuntarily led

back to former ages, and the spectator is apt to fancy that he views

one of the castles or fortified places, in which were transacted the

tragical events of which he had heard or read in the records of a

feudal age.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

THE DUEL.

"McCarthy is no more!" said George, as I rushed out on learning his

arrival from the scene of conflict. "Raymond reserved his fire; then

deliberately taking aim, sent his ball through the heart of our

gallant friend, who stood firm and undaunted to receive his fire."

"Good God!" I exclaimed, "was there no man present whose humanity

prompted him to interpose for the prevention of so murderous a deed?"

"The attempt was made," said George, "but unavailingly. Raymond was

the challenged party, and with a savage sternness of purpose insisted

on his right, according to the rules which were agreed upon to govern

the conflict."

"He is a hardened villain," cried I, "stained with the blood of four

victims; and palsied be the hand that {642} has robbed society of so

pure and generous a spirit as McCarthy's."

Struck with horror at the occurrence, and overwhelmed with sorrow at

the loss of so worthy a friend, needing consolation myself rather than

capable of affording any, I hurried nevertheless to the house of the

deceased, to share, if not to alleviate the sufferings of his bereaved

mother and sister. Never, never shall I forget the scene which there

awaited me. The lifeless body of McCarthy, weltering in his own blood,

lay extended on a large folding table. The ball had entered the right

side, and with fatal energy had passed through the body, leaving a

corresponding wound on the left. The mother and sister, with

disordered hair and the wild expression of maniacs, stood at either

side of the corpse, applying their mouths to the wounds from which the

blood was still oozing; nor could anything short of absolute violence

withdraw them from the body. They wept not--they spoke not; but in all

the wild impassioned energy of despair, kept their mouths still

applied to the gaping wounds of the son and brother.

The deceased was a young gentleman, who inherited a handsome estate in

the south of Ireland. He had but the year before become of age, and

returned from Trinity College, where his vigorous understanding and

zeal in the pursuit of literature had won for him the first honors of

that venerable institution. Frank, generous and beneficent, he seemed

intent on applying the energies of his active mind and the resources

of an ample fortune, to the moral and physical improvement of his

tenantry and dependants. A year of unexampled scarcity, gave him an

early opportunity of developing those generous purposes of his pure

and elevated mind. To the lower classes of his tenantry he remitted a

part of their rents, and to the surrounding poor he distributed

provisions, exacting from them in return, only increased attention to

cleanliness and neatness in their persons and dwellings. He had

besides a large tract of unreclaimed peat land, on which, at proper

intervals, he erected comfortable stone dwellings, and let portions of

this land to the industrious poor, requiring no rent from them except

the application to the soil which they were to cultivate for their own

benefit, of some bushels of lime, easily procured from the contiguous

quarries. Thus, in a very short period, he effected a perceptible

change in the condition of his tenantry, while he was in fact

developing new resources for the indulgence of further beneficence.

His tenantry already looked to him as a friend and protector; they

submitted their difficulties to his arbitration, and applied to him

for redress for their grievances, when oppressed or maltreated by any

of the petty gentry of the vicinage. In addition to this generous

devotion to their interests, McCarthy possessed advantages, which are

no where more fully appreciated than among the imaginative and half

chivalrous Irish peasantry. With a Moorish head, and face of the

finest cast, often met with among the Milesian gentry of Ireland, he

had a form developed in muscular and beautiful proportions, much above

the common stature, resembling his ancestors in that particular, who

from their large and muscular frames, obtained familiarly the

appellation of _McCarthy Mores_. The cordial frankness of his manners

too, assured the peasants who approached him, that his was no affected

interest in their welfare and happiness. Thus endowed with every

quality of mind, heart and person that could win esteem and

confidence, was it to be wondered at that he should have become,

almost at once, the idol of a warm-hearted and grateful people? Alas!

they had too many opportunities of contrasting his kindness and

generosity, with the indifference, if not harshness of neighboring

landlords; or with the odious oppressions of mercenary agents to whom

they confided their estates. To this latter class Raymond belonged; he

was one of that wretched faction that so long kept Ireland in

degradation. A Palatine by extraction--a member of the Orange

Club--distinguished for his zeal in the unholy objects of that

mischievous and once powerful association--without fortune and without

education, save a limited knowledge of accounts, he possessed cunning

and contrivance enough to win his way to the agency of a large estate,

belonging to an absentee nobleman, who appeared once in three years

among his tenantry, only to exasperate their feelings by walking at

the head of an Orange procession. Raymond had a pecuniary claim

against one of the humblest of McCarthy's tenantry, and in the hour of

his greatest need, was enforcing it with the spirit of a Shylock.

McCarthy remonstrated--offered to insure the payment, if he would

extend the time until the ripening crop should enable the poor man to

meet the demand. Raymond insultingly refused--charged McCarthy with

rendering the tenantry of the surrounding country insubordinate to

their landlords, and creating discontent among his neighbor's

tenantry, by ill-timed indulgence to his own; and intimated in

McCarthy a purpose inconsistent with loyalty to his sovereign.

Unhappily, instead of inflicting on the miscreant the punishment which

his strong arm could so easily have enforced, yielding to a barbarous

usage which his better judgment must have condemned, McCarthy sent him

a hostile message on the following morning. Proud of meeting such an

antagonist--conscious of his unerring dexterity in the use of a weapon

which on three former occasions had been fatally true in his

hands--and anxious to remove a neighbor whose virtues and whose energy

were a painful rebuke, and promised to be a troublesome check on his

own views--Raymond gladly accepted the challenge, and dictated through

his friend, as vindictive as himself, the terms of the combat. The

result is known; and long shall the impressions made by that result,

leave their traces in the breasts of the inhabitants of Kenmare.

Amidst the general sorrow for what was regarded as a public

bereavement, there was one heart on which it fell with a blight that

withered every joy, and dried up at its very source the fountain of

every hope. The mother and the daughter were privileged in their

wailings; but there was one, who had received from him only the first

evidences of newly kindled love, but who, silent and unobserved, had

reposed on that evidence, slight though it was, all that she hoped for

of earthly felicity. It was Ellen--to whom an expression of tenderness

which her love made her interpret aright, and a hurried earnestness of

manner in his last adieu, had whispered that the heart in which she

had unconsciously garnered up her happiness, reciprocated a feeling

which she strove to conceal even from herself. Daily intercourse with

both, too plainly told me that the world contained but {643} one being

capable of interesting Ellen. I saw the wasting of a flame, which I

feared would consume her; and believing her every way worthy of my

noble-hearted friend, I sought to fix his attention on the charms of

her person, and the elegance and purity of her mind, without wounding

his delicacy by an intimation that I believed he had any hold on her

affections. At first his mind was so occupied with schemes for

ameliorating the condition of his tenantry, that they seemed to render

him indifferent to all besides. The natural enjoyments of his age and

station seemed to be shut out by these thoughts; and it was only when

the approach of the fatal rencontre with Raymond caused him to look

more closely into the recesses of his own breast, that McCarthy felt

that Ellen was not to him an object of indifference. He sought her

presence the evening before his fall. There was in his manner that

which told the watchful eye of a lover that her love was returned. Yet

he breathed no word of love--he sought no pledge of affection, lest

the event of the morrow should pierce too deeply a heart which he now

felt he would not wound for the world. Leaving to other friends the

task of consoling, if possible, the distracted relatives of the

deceased, I sought the home of Ellen. I found her alone; she started

wildly on seeing me.

"Is it true?" she exclaimed; "is he dead? Say, is McCarthy dead?"

"It is too true, Ellen," said I; "our friend--our generous,

noble-hearted friend, has fallen by the hands of a privileged

assassin."

"_Friend!_" said Ellen impetuously, "he was to me--" and checking

herself in the expression which to me was not necessary to convey what

she meant, she sunk back, relaxed and colorless, into her chair; her

bosom heaved as if contending with a tide of emotions--she sobbed

hysterically, and at last found temporary relief in a flood of tears.

Poor Ellen, alas! the relief was but temporary. The wild tide of

passionate sorrow, it is true, subsided soon; but it had left deep

furrows in the broken heart of Ellen, which time could not efface. Her

spirits sunk daily; her beautifully rounded figure became lank and

attenuated; her eye lost its lustre, and she shrunk instinctively from

the gaze of all, as if anxious to hide the secret of that grief which

was consuming her. Her physicians recommended change of air and scene;

they were tried--but no scene had a charm, no air had a balm for poor

Ellen.

Twelve months rolled by, and a gloomy pageant was seen passing through

the streets of Kenmare; that pageant was conducting to the family

vault, the lifeless remains of Ellen Mahony.

The fatal ball which drank the life's blood of the generous McCarthy,

broke also the heart of Ellen. Nor were they the only victims

immolated on the altar of a false honor. The mother of McCarthy sunk

prematurely into the grave; and his lovely sister continued to

manifest for many years, by occasional fits of melancholy madness, the

severe shock which her heart and understanding had received from the

premature fall of an idolized brother.

The pursuit of professional knowledge called me far away from the

scene of these occurrences. The fate of McCarthy and Ellen presented

itself less frequently to my mind, occluded by new scenes and

avocations. In 1818, six years after the fatal catastrophe, I returned

to visit, for the last time, my relatives in Kenmare. Mary, the lovely

sister of my murdered friend, bereft of every nearer relative, was

residing with her uncle, a distinguished officer of the Irish Brigade,

who with a constitution broken down by the fatigues of an eventful

life, had retired to a small estate near the lakes of Killarney. I

owed it to the memory of my deceased friend, to visit the last

surviving object of his affection. The day was full of freshness and

beauty, and the country through which I must travel to reach the seat

of Colonel McCarthy, is not surpassed by any in the world, in the wild

grandeur of its scenery. The road from Kenmare winds along a chain of

lakes, now narrowing into deep channels, hurrying precipitously their

angry and foaming waters into reservoirs below--now expanding into

broad and silvery inland seas, studded with verdant islands, blooming

with Arbutus and Lauristina. From the unruffled surface of these

lakes, you behold reflected, as from an expanded mirror, the images of

the over-hanging mountains, wooded to their tops, and varying in the

hues of the dense foliage that covers them with every varying stratum

of soil, from their bases to their summits. The high and threatening

Turk Mountain yields its reluctant base to the winding road. The

beautiful Peninsula of Mucrus is seen in full view. Its venerable

Abbey, still exhibiting traces of its former grandeur, containing

within its sombre walls the slumbering remains of many a gallant

knight and gentle maiden, of the humble and the great, in

indiscriminate oblivion. The proud mansion of the Herberts, still in

fine keeping--the long vistas opening in every direction on some

cultivated villa or rich demesne; the town of Killarney, with its

spires and undulating lines of white buildings; the mansions of the

Kenmares, the Cronins, and O'Connells,--all seen in distant

perspective, afford a coup d'oeil unsurpassed in beauty and natural

munificence by any in the world. As I revisited these scenes which my

boyhood loved to trace, there stole upon my heart a melancholy joy; it

was indeed "pleasant but mournful to the soul." The friends with whom

I had enjoyed these scenes were gone, or hurried far apart by the

varying engagements of busy life. To one of those friends this journey

was devoted, and his virtues and his fate rose before me in vivid

colors. The tear rose unbidden to my eye, and dimmed for awhile the

bright scene before me. Thus attuned to melancholy, I approached about

ten o'clock the residence of Colonel McCarthy. The modest but tasteful

dwelling was situated on a small eminence in the centre of a basin,

formed by a hill in the rear, and two projecting wings, open and

expanding to the south and southeast, having in full view before it

the ancient castles of Dunloe and Desmond--the beautiful lower lake

and its crowning ornament, the island of Innisfallen--Ross, the

majestic castle of the O'Donoghues--and to the right the bold Mountain

of Tornies, with its foaming cataract, appearing to the distant eye

like the giant guardian of the place, with his silvery beard flowing

on his venerable breast. The grounds were tastefully laid out, and the

regularity and order that was observable in all the decorations of the

place, gave evidence of a superintending mind trained to discipline;

while the surrounding {644} scenery bespoke it an appropriate refuge

for the warrior worn with toil and years.

As I approached, I beheld a female form sitting on a little eminence

to the right of the house, which was decorated with a cluster of white

pines. I could not mistake the light and graceful form of the

beautiful Mary. It was she, much as I had beheld her six years before.

Her large blue eye had the same wildness of expression which was

observable in it after the death of her brother; her figure was if

anything more beautiful, set off by a dress which she had selected in

the wild imaginings of her sorrow, to fit her in a special manner for

communion with the spirits of her mother and brother; her hair was

loose, but carefully combed, flowing gracefully on her shoulders; her

bust was incased in a plain white spencer, most studiously fitted to

her person; and she wore hanging in loose folds around her, a pure and

virgin white drapery, that was rivalled by the pellucid whiteness of

her uncovered neck, hand and arm. This dress, as I afterwards learned,

she always wore when the mind gave way before periodical melancholy;

and its approach was too truly announced by the cautious vigilance

with which she was observed to hide from her friends the preparations

for her strange attire. As I approached, I saw too plainly that Mary

had no thought for any object before her.

"Mary," said I, "do you not know me? do you not know E----, the friend

of your brother?"

"Oh yes," said she, keeping her eye steadily fixed as on some object

towards the lake. "Yes, yes," said she in a hurried manner. Then

placing her soft hand gently in my arm, she said, "Go, good spirit,

go; I want my mother and Sandy. See, they are coming; Mary will yet

have a mother and brother."

I spoke, I reasoned, I entreated her to come with me into the presence

of her uncle.

She replied with a hysterical laugh, and said, "He too is gone with

them."

I turned towards the house, and all there seemed silent and full of

sorrow. The Colonel's servant, with eyes swollen from weeping, replied

to my inquiries about his master, that he had that morning expired,

having for some days suffered intensely from the effects of his old

wounds.

"And who," said I, "remains to give consolation to the poor and

forlorn Mary?"

"Ah," said John, "Miss Mary is always light when any sorrow comes on

the family. The Dunloe family are coming here to take Miss Mary home

with them."

"God grant," said I, "she may be soothed by their kindness. Has she no

attendant, John?"

"Yes sir, but my poor master said it was best not to trouble her when

she is in her strange way."

I wound my way back slowly and mournfully from this house of sorrow. I

have since passed from scene to scene; I have witnessed the agonies of

many a breaking heart, and have been myself the subject of much sorrow

and anguish; but never did I witness blight and desolation equal to

that brought on the house of McCarthy by the murderous hand of

Raymond.

E.

_Henry County_.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

LINES.

The dove of my bosom lies bleeding,

The hopes I once cherished are fled,

I gaze on their ruins unheeding,

Earth's brightest is low with the dead.

The eye that with rapture was beaming,

Is clouded in silence and gloom,

And those locks that like sunlight were gleaming,

Are damp with the dews of the tomb.

The smile that I sought as a treasure,

Is gone with the being who gave

To this bosom its throbbings of pleasure,

And my heart is with her in the grave.

* * * * *

Above her the wild flowers are growing,

They were nursed by the thoughts of her love,

They are wet by the tears that are flowing,

And shall flow, till I greet her above.

MORNA.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

MY NATIVE HOME.

BY GEO. WATTERSTON.