"'Courage, my son!' said he. 'The veil is withdrawn.'

"Bolko drew a heavy sigh.

"'I have spoken the truth, my child!' continued Hubert. 'Believe and

trust!'

"'Thanks for thy kind words, good Hubert,' replied the youth. 'I

revere thy wisdom, I esteem thy love. How shall I believe that it has

been permitted thee to break open the gloomy vaults of the past?'

"'And yet if this were so! If an auspicious--a heaven-sent chance'--

"'Hubert!'

"'Hast thou courage, Bolko, to penetrate into the past?--Then read

this roll attentively. It offers us the means, as I most solemnly

believe, to weaken, if not annihilate, the curse which has so long

persecuted thy unhappy race.'

"Hubert drew a parchment from the folds of his garment, and placed it

in the hands of the astounded Bolko. The priest immediately withdrew.

The youthful noble as quickly drew a chair to the window; and by the

vanishing light of the evening sky, he read the following history:--

"'_This is the last Confession of Walter, baron of Gottmar, which

I, his Confessor, write down by his command, that it may be

preserved in everlasting remembrance, by all who are Descendants

of the House of Gottmar._

"'My great-uncle Herbert, the tenth inheritor of this territory,

was a passionate lover of the chase. In all seasons of the year,

in good weather and in bad, by day and night, he scoured the

boundless forests which he called his own. In his time, the

hunting of the boar was a noble and especial sport, and hence

the breeding of these beasts was diligently fostered and

encouraged. The immense forests of beech and fir upon the slopes

of the mountain which bears our name, attracted to their

neighbourhood an extraordinary number of these boars; so that at

all times my ancestor could indulge his passion to the full.

During one of his grand expeditions, two remarkable events had

place. A gigantic boar dug open with his tusks a marvellously

clear spring, which bubbled forth so vigorously, and purled so

bright and cool along the mossy fields, that a brook was formed

from it immediately. This discharged itself into the low grounds

with rare turns and windings; so that Herbert was fain to fix a

village there, and to name it after the boar, and the brook which

his ferocity had brought to light. Whilst this was happening on

the western declivity of the mountain, a similar accident took

place upon the slope projecting to the eastward. Here, in like

manner, a considerable bed of turf was discovered, and close upon

it, beneath granitic sand, another powerful spring. This Herbert

caused empty itself into large ponds; and the turf-pit he had

worked by skilful men, over whom he placed as chief Wittehold his

page. The profit from this turf was so large that the wealth of

Herbert grew more and more, and the population of the

newly-founded village rose as rapidly; since every new settler

was suffered to take on the turf-bed as much fuel as he needed

for firing during the space of five years.

"'Wittehold, too, the overseer, was well contented with his post.

He enjoyed the confidence of his lord, and became independent. He

married; and, after the lapse of a year, had the happiness to

press a lovely child to his fond bosom. But the birth of the

child cost him the life of her mother. Herbert promised to

provide for the orphan, and maintained his word. My great-uncle

was a bachelor, who had never been able to meet with a maiden

possessing all the qualities which he demanded in a wife. He

postponed the all-important step of marriage from year to year,

without suffering any inconvenience from the delay.

"'In the mean time the beautiful daughter of Wittehold--who had,

I know not why, been christened AURIOLA--grew to womanhood, and

unfolded a sweetness and grace that fascinated all beholders.

Herbert, whose heart had so long resisted the attacks of love,

was not proof against the beauty, ingenuousness, and innocence of

Auriola. He confessed his affection to the maiden, and petitioned

Wittehold for his child. With the last, contrary to expectation,

he found but little favour. Wittehold submitted that his daughter

was not born to be the consort of so great and rich a lord, and

respectfully declined the honour of her advancement. Moreover, he

had already promised her to a faithful comrade, a worthy overseer

at the turf-works. Herbert expostulated, appealed to his

protection of Auriola, to her affection for him, but in vain. He

plied the obstinate Wittehold with threats. In spite of them the

latter held out: he did more; he bore his child with his own hand

from the castle, and carried her to his cottage near the pit,

hoping, by such a step, and by sound remonstrance, to lead his

fascinated master on to other and to better thoughts.

"'The conduct of Wittehold threw Auriola into a deep melancholy.

She hurried to the cottage door a hundred times a-day, and looked

with straining eye towards the lofty castle of her lover. Her

father being absent, she would bound, swift as a fawn, through

the silvery grass that trembled and sparkled in the sunny light,

and seat herself upon the high margin of the spring, feeding her

vision with the pearly drops that bubbled from the bottom. The

spot, visited by few, was rendered almost sacred by a cluster of

broad-armed beech-trees that overshadowed it. Herbert encountered

his Auriola in this retreat. Who shall tell their joy? Herbert

urged his suit--Auriola followed him through bush and thicket,

and was powerless before his ardent supplications. Wittehold

surprised the pair. His fury and indignation were ungovernable.

Herbert, in self-defence, had recourse to his good sword, but

this was as a lath against the ire of his assailant. Wittehold

slew his lord. Not yet satisfied, the madman pursued his

fugitive child, whose screams for aid only brought her to a

speedier end. He met her at the spring--there seized the

trembling creature, and mercilessly cast her in. The maiden

struggled for an instant; but, the short conflict over, she

uttered a piteous wail, and sank for ever beneath the

softly-rippling water. Even whilst she struggled, the inhuman

father raised his clenched fist, and pointed with it towards

Gottmar's castle. 'God of heaven!' he exclaimed, 'hear my curse;

and may it fall like the unerring bolt upon this execrated race.

May no male offspring take to his arms a bride, or brighten his

hearth with her presence, until a Gottmar restore my daughter's

virgin honour. Until this happen, let the poor victim be

accursed, and evil work with the posterity of her betrayer!' The

miserable murderer invoked the infernal powers to assist in the

fulfilment of his curse, and then, as if beside himself, ran to

the turf-pits. Here he procured a shovel and an axe. With their

help he choked up the crystal grave of his daughter, and diverted

the strong current into the pit, which it soon flooded. This

done, he fled into the woods, and has not since been heard of.

But his curse has been fulfilled with frightful regularity in the

family of Gottmar. Not one has married with impunity. Bridegroom

and bride have fallen. Auriola, crying for vengeance, hovers

above the turf-pit, which since that hour has become a wide

unfathomable moor.

Heinrich Wendelin, _Chaplain_.'

"The hand of Bolko dropped as he finished the narrative. The evening

twilight thickened before his eyes. He sank into a solemn musing. When

he awoke from it, Hubert was again at his side.

"'Hast thou read?' enquired the teacher.

"Bolko slowly raised his head, and looked full in the face of his

confessor.

"'Canst thou vouch for this, Hubert?' he asked in his turn. 'Is it

genuine, is it true?'

"'Since when hast thou learned to suspect me of deception?' replied

the old man calmly.

"'Forgive me, Hubert. This narrative confounds me. I am unable to

distinguish truth from falsehood. But do thou advise me. What dost

thou think of it? Can a curse such as this is represented to have

been--can it have retained its force so long?'

"'Universal nature is one tremendous mystery,' replied the priest;

'who shall decide wherein her power consists? At the best we can but

conjecture at her connexion with the world of man--her weaving and

working. No one can deny that a solemn curse, spoken with a determined

and haughty purpose, has often, on the very instant, accomplished its

fulfilment. If this be so, why may it not work again and again? The

disregarded belief of the people--that a curse floats in the air until

it finds its victim, and then drops down upon him--is not so worthless

as men would have us think. There is at least expressed in it, dimly

and perhaps unconsciously, the inseparable union that subsists between

the spirit of man and the all-governing spirit of nature.'

"The youth had risen from his chair, and was pacing the apartment to

appease his agitated soul.

"'Well, well!' said he, drawing a heavy breath; 'it is a decree which

we must receive without a murmur, and suffer patiently.'

"'And who says that?' replied the priest with quickness. 'The wisdom

of nature has created an antidote for every poison.'

"'Art thou serious?' asked Bolko earnestly.

"'Heaven is merciful!' continued Hubert. 'Pardon is unlimited where

repentance is sincere.'

"'Who shall repent in this case?' answered Bolko. 'The criminal is

long since dead. Can another atone for his offence?'

"'Dost thou yet doubt, and art thou my pupil?' said Hubert. 'The WILL

can kill and also vivify.'

"The eyes of Bolko sparkled in the gloomy chamber. He grasped the hand

of his aged teacher, and drew him to the casement.

"'Speak!' he exclaimed. 'I will hear thee, and do thy bidding--do all

that thou holdest lawful and right.'

"Hubert directed his countenance, over which a few hoary locks still

lingered, towards the landscape before them.

"'You have often heard, my son,' said he, 'that yon desolate spot,

called to this day the _Gold Spring_, is the deadliest spot on earth

to those who bear your name. Far as the wood extends on either side,

extended formerly the turf-pit. The deep moor is covered now by an

unsteady earth-crust, overgrown with pale red sedge, and from its

centre, as from a grotto, the beautiful rivulet ripples forth that

irrigates and renders fruitful all your land. I doubt not that this

grotto, with its golden vault of granite, is the very spring into

which the furious Wittehold cast his daughter. The place is to this

hour deemed unholy. No one willingly sets foot there; no man ventures

to draw water from the fount. Temerity has already been punished for

the attempt. Strange sights have met the eyes of the daring one, and

he has fled like a coward from the spot. Have not many seen--have not

I myself beheld that fairy-like, almost transparent form, with her

unearthly pitcher, drawing water from the spring, then pouring it over

the moor in curious arches by sun and moonlight; and ever so, that the

rays of light kindled therein the most huey gleamings? Is it not well

attested, that when at such times mortals have addressed her, the

delicate creature has grown o' the sudden pale--paler and more

transparent, until, melting into silvery cloud, she has glided

pillar-like along the moor, and vanished at length into the cool and

wondrous grotto?'

"'You describe the Maiden of the Moor,' said Bolko, interrupting him.

"'So she is called!' returned Hubert. 'It was her apparition which

drew my attention to the neighbourhood, and to the tales that are

current respecting it. When I had discovered the manuscript, I saw at

once in the Maiden of the Moor the complaining spirit of the unhappy

Auriola.'

"'And the spirit, as you deem, may be appeased?'

"'Assuredly, my son; and thou art he who must perform the expiation.'

"'I!--Father Hubert?--I'----

"'Thou art guileless, sound of heart, leading a life of innocence and

nature. To a pure spirit, a determined will, a feeling heart--much is

possible.'

"'But how, father?--how?'

"Hubert remained silent for a few minutes. He then proceeded--

"'Thy heart is still free, but it yearns for love--for the mysterious,

magical response of another--a _womanly_, heart. It may be that

Auriola will afford thee thy delight, if thou couldst once behold

her.'

"'What! The Moor Maiden! Father, thou mockest me. What can this female

be to me, appearing as a vision to man, a creature of air?'

"'And if she appear to _thee_, hast thou courage to address her?'

"'Father, a lovely form shall hardly frighten me,' said Bolko, with a

smile.

"'I exact thy promise,' said Hubert quickly. 'From this day forward,

shun the Gold Spring no more. Thou art a lover of nature and her

creations. I have seen thee for hours lost in admiration of the form

and colour of choice butterflies. That spot abounds in the rarest.

Thou mayst find them at any hour of the day. It would seem, indeed,

that the delicate insects of peace had retreated thither to find

security from the tumult of busy money-lusting men. The realm of the

Moor Maiden is the paradise of these tenderest of winged beauties.

Bolko, thou wilt visit them!'

"The baron gave his right hand to his preceptor without uttering one

word of assurance or affirmation. Hubert had done. He left his young

lord to his own meditations.

* * * * *

"Bolko passed some days in restless suspense. Now he was a wanderer in

the woods, now a prisoner in the apartment that looked upon the moor,

watching intently during the day every slight phenomenon that arose

there. The morning and evening mist and the yellow vapour of noon were

his best discoveries. Not a human being approached a place shunned, as

it appeared, by every living thing. The conversation, however, with

Hubert had proved a secret spur to him, and he found no rest until he

visited the dreary moor in person. It was late in the afternoon, when,

furnished with a hunting-knife and insect-net, he set out on his

adventure. Bolko had never before visited the spring, and his surprise

was naturally great when he beheld the peculiar condition of the soil

around him. Along the entire surface of the notorious moor--and its

extent was considerable--there appeared a singularly-coloured sedge.

It was not red, or yellow, or brown, but a mixture of all three, and

it marked, by the sharpest line, the confines of the moor from the

green turf of the remaining country. At every step, the ground,

although very strong, yielded, as it threatening to give way. Towards

the centre of the moor there was an elevation surrounded with bushes.

This was the source of the silvery water that took its serpentine

course along the moor, and through the luxuriant woods beyond.

"Bolko made his way towards this point, and, reaching it, his eye

rested with delight upon the basin and its border of golden granite.

The water ascended noiselessly from its immeasurable depths in

countless glistening pearls. Over the refreshing fountain, and far

away upon the nodding blades of grass, and bearded turf-flowers,

hovered, in giddy graceful sport, a variegated troop of gorgeous

butterflies. The majestic and solemn _Silver-mantle_, the cherub of

these winged dwellers of the air, the soft and exquisite

_Peacock's-eye_, the burning _Purple-bird_, were here assembled. Bolko

was ravished with the sight, and thought of nothing but a glorious

capture. Delicate and lovely as the creatures were, his cruel hand

robbed them of their gladsome life; and he pursued them further and

further across the moor, and with such ardour and desire, that he

forgot all other things, and suffered the very object of his visit to

escape from his remembrance. Suddenly, and in the act of imprisoning a

multitude of these illuminated beings, he perceived a Maiden sitting

at the extremity of the moor, her back towards him. Her form was

slender, and her hair, golden as the sun, travelled in burnished

tresses from her shoulders to the earth, where it curled along the

moor-grass like rays of the divine orb itself. After the manner of

Sclavonian girls, the stranger wore a closely-fitting snow-white cap,

or rather frontlet, from which, as from a chaplet, the beautiful hair

streamed down. Bolko had approached the maiden unperceived, near

enough to discern a butterfly of rare magnitude and unequaled beauty

oscillating about her marble forehead. The youth stole cautiously

behind the fair one, and tried to catch the flutterer. He touched the

maiden in his eager movement, and she turned round immediately.

"'Forgive me, lovely child!' said he. 'I'----The words died upon his

tongue. He could say no more. The butterfly escaped from his hands,

and flew slowly towards the Gold Spring, changing its brilliant

colours with every motion of its wing.

"The singular beauty of the maiden had struck the baron dumb. From a

soft transparent countenance of the purest form, there beamed upon him

a pair of eyes which had derived their holy light from the very

fountain-head of Love. She wore an uncommon but most becoming dress.

"To a party-coloured gown, scarcely reaching to her ankle, was

attached a sky-blue boddice in front, united by perfect silver clasps,

and not so closely as to prevent the sweetest glimmering of a

snow-white virgin bosom. Her arms, round, delicate, and pure as

marble, were uncovered to the shoulders. Her small feet were bare, yet

protected partly by fairy-looking slippers profusely ornamented. The

beauteous object smiled upon the youth, and answered him in a voice

that dropped like melody upon his ear.

"'Thou art the robber then,' said she; 'the merciless purloiner of my

fairest thoughts! Can I wonder now that I have been so destitute of

late!'

"'How?' stammered Bolko, more astonished than ever.

"'Strange man!' continued the maiden, in the same ravishing voice,

'thou revelest with thy fancies, and dost thou wonder that I, too,

love to dally with my thoughts and dreams? The tiny creatures whom

thou hast taken from me were, and still are, threads of my heart,

which I permit at times to issue into the sunny light of day. Restore

them, living, and beautiful as thou hast found them, or I accuse thee

of breaking this poor heart!'

"'Who art thou, sweetest child?'

"'They call me AURIOLA. I know thee well. Thou art Bolko of

Gottmar--Bolko, the accursed!'

"'Yes--the accursed!' repeated the youth, pressing his hands to his

eyes as if he would forget his doom. When he removed them, Auriola had

risen, and was standing before him. Her lovely countenance, her

matchless eyes were turned full upon him. At her feet he perceived an

earthen pitcher of a peculiar and not ungraceful form. It bore a

strong resemblance to the sacrificial pitchers which are still

discovered in places once inhabited by Sclavonians.

"'What wilt thou, poor child?' said Bolko in a tone of kindness. 'Can

I help thee?'

"Auriola smiled.

"'Thou hast come to me at thine own bidding. I invited thee not, for I

invite none. Yet he who visits me must do my will. Thou hast wrought

me pain in stealing away the thoughts which were soaring in mid air

decked in their brightest robes. Thou must be punished for thy

misdeed. Come!'

"The marvellous creature took Bolko's hand, and drew him after her

towards the Gold Spring. Before her, and above her head, the

butterflies formed with their magnificent wing-shells a glowing arched

pavilion. The youth was allured by an irresistible attraction, and

would not, if he could, have dragged himself away from the celestial

being; albeit, he still regarded her as a mere apparition. Every

feeling, every thought, every desire of his heart, streamed towards

Auriola. Fleeting shadow that she was, he loved her already to

idolatry.

"At the margin of the spring, Auriola released her companion,

descended the grotto with her pitcher, and filled it with the purest

water. In a few minutes she was again at his side. She placed the

pitcher on the ground, and her two hands upon the shoulders of the

youth. In this trustful, graceful, loving posture, fixing her wondrous

eyes upon the boy, the maiden spoke.

"'And canst thou love, too?'

"He answered not; but he pressed the beauteous Auriola to his heart,

and passionately kissed her forehead. But Bolko started back

affrighted, for he had kissed a forehead colder than ice.

"'Note me well!' said she, and her voice sounded more melancholy than

before. She seated herself upon the high ledge of the spring, drew

Bolko beside her, and placed the pitcher of water between herself and

him. The butterflies stood now in the full light of the sun over the

rippling spring. A scattered few only still hovered about the moor.

"'We must tarry yet awhile,' said Auriola, 'until my heart is quite my

own again!' As she spoke, her ecstatic eyes glanced to the single

flutterers on the moor. As if caught by a magnet, they directed their

flight instantly towards the Gold Spring.

"'Now I am myself--for what is yet wanting rests in thee. Take heed!'

"Auriola now poured from the pitcher into her small left hand as much

water as this would hold, and extended the right to her companion. He,

surprised by love, encircled the maiden's waist, brought his ear close

to her delicate cheek, and watched with eagerness her strange

performance. Auriola blew at first softly, then more vehemently, into

the hollow of her hand, so that the water, bubbling up, ran to the

slender rosy fingers, and, in glittering drops, sprinkled from the

finger-tips.

"'Look!' she exclaimed, 'look! Tell me what thou see'st?'

"The pearly drops had scarcely touched the air before they joined,

when, on the instant, a vision rose before the sight. There was a

bright green meadow, edged by waving beech-trees, through whose

foliage the evening sun shed burnished gold. A youth was on his knees

before a maiden, in the act of offering her a golden ring. The picture

was, in the beginning, dim and indistinct, but it grew clearer and

clearer, until by degrees it dissolved again, and was lost in the

atmosphere.

"'What means this, Auriola?' enquired the ravished Bolko. 'Chain not

my unguarded heart to thine with such witchery. Misery and death will

be the penalty.'

"'Dream and listen,' replied Auriola. 'Hearts and souls have nothing

better to do. We do but speak into the future, to catch back the tones

which strike in unison with our desires.'

"'_Our_ future?' whispered Bolko.

"'Say _thine_, if it likes thee better,' answered Auriola, filling her

hand anew with water, and once more urging the sparkling fluid towards

her finger-ends. Bolko perceived a horseman galloping across a gloomy

heath, and looking back with horror. This apparition, like the former,

shone distinctly for a time, and then, in the same manner, vanished by

degrees, and expired.

"'And what is this?' asked Bolko.

"Auriola shook her head in silence, poured water again into her hand,

and blew it again along her fingers into the air. A lofty,

many-towered castle was visible. A rope-ladder was fastened to a

gallery. A man was climbing up. As soon as he reached the gallery, the

vision was lost.

"'It is the castle of my ancestors!' cried Bolko.

"'Thou art mistaken,' answered Auriola. 'But tell me--canst thou

love?'

"Her voice was again mournful.

"The youth drew the fair questioner to his heart. His lips fastened on

hers, and hallowing fire streamed through his frame.

"Auriola heaved a melancholy sigh, and once more filled her hand with

water. At the usual signal there arose a brilliantly illuminated hall.

Dancers, gaily dressed, were in happy motion. Music was heard, and

then the strains and the colours died away in the twilight.

"'I smart!' exclaimed Bolko. 'I am tortured! My soul is gnawed with

agony!'

"'Hush, and listen,' said Auriola, in a tone of command--filling her

hand, and impelling the crystal water into the air, as before. A

roaring was heard, like the course of a hurricane sweeping through a

forest. The air grew black. Then the moon broke through night and

mist, and lit up a hilly region, surrounded by wood and cliff. Out of

the wood issued a carriage and four, making at full speed for a

solitary open space, that looked dismal and deserted. The form of a

maiden floated before the carriage, her painfully smiling countenance

ever turned towards it until she evaporated, like a cloud, in the

wood. A flash of lightning from the murky sky struck a beech-tree,

near whose flames the carriage slowly disappeared into the ground.

"This vision at an end, Auriola bent her head, and tears fell upon her

bosom.

"'Lovely enchantress,' said Bolko, 'why perform these miracles if they

afflict thee?'

"'Because there is no longer love upon the earth.'

"'Say not so!' exclaimed the youth. 'Love still exists--deep, eternal,

holy love. I feel it now. Auriola, I, whose arms never encircled

maiden yet--I love thee, Auriola, with every fibre of my body--with

every faculty of my soul. I will be thine--thine for ever; be thou

mine, my Auriola!'

"'BE CONSTANT!' The words were uttered in the clear voice of Auriola;

as if from the air. Bolko saw the lovely form grow pale, felt her

vanishing, at his heart. The brilliant cloud of butterflies arose from

the spring, and flew towards heaven by a hundred roads. A thin misty

streak sank into the grotto. Bolko was alone upon the barren moor.

Sultry vapours were exhaling in the twilight. Indescribable sensations

preyed on the soul of Bolko, as he remembered that he had given his

heart to one who was no longer a dweller upon earth--that he had

plighted his faith to the Maiden of the Moor. He hurried from the

scene of his unhallowed engagement, to seek from the wisdom of his

Hubert consolation for the peace of mind which had been so sadly

disturbed, if not for ever taken from him.

* * * * *

"The priest listened to the account of Auriola's appearance with

secret delight, and did not fail to comfort the unhappy youth. Bolko,

restored to peace, passed the night in blissful dreams. Once more the

sweet form of the Moor Maiden floated before him--once more the

magical pictures gleamed, ravishing his senses. With sunrise he

quitted the castle, and obeyed the sorcery that allured him to the

moor. All fear and alarm had disappeared. Solitude, erewhile so

hateful to him, was now enchanting! The stony, brown, and barren

plain, the gloomy confines of the wood, the vapours of the boggy soil,

united to create an earthly paradise. He took his seat upon the

margin of the limpid spring, and, gazing on the charmed waters,

invoked the presence of the fair magician. Auriola, however, appeared

not. At noon he quitted the moor unsatisfied, but the approach of

evening found him there again. Still she came not, and nothing

remained to assure him of the reality of his former interview but the

illuminated winged cloud of butterflies which, like a living rainbow,

overarched the spring. Impatient and distressed, the ardent lover

scoured the extensive moor, and at last approached the borders of the

forest. Suddenly he saw--scarce twenty paces from him--the wished-for

figure gliding through the rustling grass, the earthen pitcher

drooping from her hand. Auriola regarded him not, but waved the vessel

gracefully around her head, scattering its contents in glittering

jets, that leaped about her like garlands of the precious diamond.

"'Auriola!' exclaimed the boy, rushing forward as he spoke. 'My own

Auriola--mine, now and for ever!' He threw himself before her, seized

her hand, and in an instant fixed a golden ring upon her taper finger.

"The maiden offered no resistance. But when the passionate Bolko rose

from the ground, and was about to embrace his beloved, she lifted the

ring-decked hand, and, in a voice of touching melancholy, exclaimed--

"'Behold!'

"Bolko followed the direction of her finger. Over the live and

swarming cloud there appeared, now here, now there, the apparition of

the previous evening; only that to-day it was larger and more

distinct, and continued longer to the view.

"Bolko recognised, to his astonishment, the forms of Auriola and

himself.

"'What does this mean?' said Bolko. 'Is it reality or illusion?'

"'Thou beholdest!' answered Auriola. 'The air abhors falsehood, and

reflects nothing but truth.'

"Bolko advanced. Auriola waved the pitcher, and the vision was lost.

"'Wilt thou be constant?' asked the maid. 'Misery is mine if thou

canst forget this day and its betrothal.'

"The eyes of Bolko were fixed in amazement on the air where the

picture had shone so palpable a moment before. He saw not, he heard

not, Auriola, and the agony of the preceding evening tortured his

whole frame. When he recovered his suspended faculties, Auriola was

gone. The usual tranquil, solemn repose, the old desolate gloom,

universally prevailed. The low-lying meadows breathed out their thin

vapours, the more distant ponds were enveloped in mist, and the grey

shadows vanished by degrees from hill and thicket.

"Bolko arrived, agitated and breathless, at his castle gate. He went

at once to the library, where he found, as he expected, his friend and

counsellor.

"'Save me, save me, father!' cried the young lord. 'Thou hast beguiled

me into a compact with a being of another world. Womanly love has

cozened and betrayed me. Passion has overmastered me. I have bound

myself to the Moor Maiden, and am eternally made over to her sorcery.'

"'And wherefore should this frighten you?' replied the hoary chaplain.

'Thou hast done my bidding; and since thou art permitted to destroy a

curse which threatens to annihilate thy race, gratitude, not fear,

should move thee. Yonder Moor Maiden contents herself with the sweet

semblance, and will not ask for dull reality. Auriola never looks to

wed thee--never to possess thee--body and soul.'

"'But I love her--love her to madness!' cried Bolko, furiously.

"'Love her still; always love her with a spiritual and pure affection.

This will not hinder thee from bestowing the other half of thy

affection upon some fair daughter of Eve, worthy of thy heart.'

"'And is this to be spiritually faithful?' said Bolko, in a

reproachful tone.

"'No earthly passion, my son,' continued Hubert, 'can either break or

abolish the spiritual faith which thou hast vowed to Auriola. When

thou hast loved a daughter of Eve, thou wilt see, feel, and be

satisfied, that between the love of thy earthly bride and of the

enchanting Auriola, there is a difference as wide as heaven from

earth.'

"Bolko heaved a bitter sigh, and shook his head in doubt.

Nevertheless, he meditated long and seriously upon all that Hubert

said. By degrees, even, he acknowledged to himself, that the kernel,

the pure light of a deep truth, glimmered in his words, although in a

manner veiled. He began to question his own heart; the more probable,

nay, the more desirable seemed the consummation of Hubert's promises.

For reasons, which he could scarcely explain to himself, he studiously

avoided another visit to the moor. But in the meanwhile, that which

originally had been a half-formed wish, and scarcely that, ripened

into absorbing passion, vehement desire. Incessant thought nourished

the ever-glowing flame, which burned the brighter, the more the

spiritual love of Auriola receded and grew faint. Remembrance, it is

true, still clung with a devout aspiration upon that beauteous image,

but it resembled rather the placid feeling of a holy friendship, than

the impetuous throbbing of a young and passionate love. 'Hubert is

right!' said the youth; 'I will follow his direction. Auriola, lovely

and rapturous being, angelic, spiritual, and human, will rejoice with

the Accursed, when he carries to his desolate home the mistress of his

castle--the wife of his bosom.'

"Opportunity is seldom wanting when inclination needs its service.

About three miles from Gottmar, amongst the mountains, majestically

rose the battlements of a proud castle. Baron T----, its wealthy

master, had already visited Bolko upon his accession to the family

estates, and Bolko now determined to acknowledge his neighbour's act

of kindness. Had the baron been childless, it is very likely that

Bolko would still have remembered what was due to society, and to his

own station in the world; and it is equally true, that the fact of his

possessing a young and lovely daughter, did not diminish the youthful

noble's desire to act conformably to usage and propriety.

Unfortunately for the intention of his visit, Bolko learned, on his

arrival at the castle, that the baron was from home. In his stead,

however, a maiden greeted him, slender of figure, noble in bearing. It

was very strange, but it is certain, that the tumultuous feelings

which of late had stirred within him unrestrained--were suddenly

chained and riveted upon an object that afforded them a sweet

tranquillity. Emma was gentle, frank, and beauteous as the blushing

rose. In Bolko's frame of mind, could she fail to make a deep

impression upon his young and too susceptible soul? He lingered at her

side hour after hour, and was himself astonished to find the darkness

of night creeping over the earth, and he not more prepared for

departure than he had been on entering the castle-gates some hours

before. However, the knight did not make his appearance, and good

breeding suggested to unwilling ears that it was time to retire. Bolko

said farewell--more tenderly, perhaps, than he supposed or meant; and

as the delicate hand of Emma lay involuntarily in his own, he

flattered himself that he felt his pressure softly returned, and that

he could perceive a smile of contentment escaping from her lips as he

promised to pay a second visit 'shortly.'

"The night was very dark: a few stars only twinkled through the thin

veil which covered the heavens. Bolko madly spurred his steed, and the

high-spirited animal, who needed no such incitement, bounded like a

deer towards home. The thoughts of the baron were no longer with him,

but imprisoned in the happy room in which he had passed so many

blissful hours. Trusting to the instinct of the horse, the master took

no heed of the road: and the trustworthy servant, scenting the

vicinity of his stable, found easily for himself the best and shortest

paths towards that wished-for spot. The trees became thinner and

thinner, falling back on either side, whilst a flat and barren region

lay before horse and rider. The former snorted and pranced, and the

latter could not distinguish the locality through the blackness. Bolko

coaxed the steed, and gently urged him forwards. But the animal

trembled, and, in spite of bridle and spur, struck to the side, and

swept along the skirts of the forest, without touching so much as with

a hoof the gloomy-looking heath. Accustomed to the surrounding

darkness, the eye of Bolko was at length able to discern--not without

a creeping of horror--the ruddy and unsteady reed-grass. The moor and

the Gold Spring were on one side of him. Pale stripes of fog, like

ribbed vaults, were spread above him, giving a sacredness to the air,

with which all other things strangely contrasted. The mind of Bolko,

against his will, reverted to Auriola; his heart beat, as though he

were conscious of a heavy fault--of some inhuman crime. He turned his

gaze from the moor, and, with an effort, directed it towards the dark

forest, to which the horse galloped at full speed.

"The words, 'BE CONSTANT!' fell loudly and articulately upon the ears

of Bolko--uttered in a tone rather of supplication than of demand or

threatening. He turned his horse's head in terror, and--oh amazement!

sitting at the edge of the fountain, covered with a bright veil,

hemmed with diamonds, was--Auriola! Her fair and loosened hair,

encompassed, as at their first meeting, her entire body, and

glittering, curled along the ground. Her right hand was stretched high

above her lovely head, holding between forefinger and thumb the ring

with which the already inconstant Bolko had espoused her.

"'BE CONSTANT!' The words re-echoed from the moor: the streaks of fog

descended. Over the maiden's head beamed forth a shining spot--gaining

in size, and forming itself into a picture. Bolko, shuddering, beheld

the second vision of Auriola's enchantment, and looked upon himself as

he had burst a few minutes before upon the moor.

"Auriola beckoned to the youth, and pointed to the picture. Then once

again, more melancholy, more mournfully, more entreatingly upon the

distracted ears of Bolko came--the repeated cry of admonition--'BE

CONSTANT!'

"The youth galloped for his life. He reached his home paler than

death, and refused to be comforted even by the wisdom of his

preceptor.

"From this time, Bolko ceased to visit the moor in search of Auriola.

The daughter of earth had inspired him with a love that admitted of no

commingling of affection. Memory however, refused to lose sight of

her. It obtruded her form upon him, the more determinedly he

endeavoured to thrust it from his mind by dwelling upon the charms of

his Emma. He repeated his visit at the castle, and was soon a constant

guest there. He confessed his love to Emma, and she did not rebuke

him. Her father was less tender. He roundly refused his daughter's

hand. 'He had no desire,' he said, 'to make his child unhappy. He knew

well enough how every Lord of Gottmar was obliged to harbour an evil

Kobold in his house, who couldn't endure the sight of women, and no

sooner met one than he mercilessly strangled her. No, sir baron,' he

continued, 'it cannot be. Take not unkindly the answer which I give

thee. It touches not thy noble person, which pleases me right well,

but simply thy house and castle Kobold. Remove the creature, or at

least its power of doing harm, and thou art welcome here. But before

that time, I pray thee come not again, lest I should forget myself,

and do that which both of us would be sorry for.'

"The lovers protested against the decision, and Bolko tried hard to

convince the old baron that the mysterious power which had so long and

so fatally reigned over the house of Gottmar, was propitiated, and no

longer hurtful. Hubert attested the repeated asseverations of his

pupil, but nothing could bring conviction to the stubborn veteran. He

swore they were all in a league, or building castles in the air, and

he persisted in his resolution.

"It was autumn. The days were declining. Showers and tempests swept

through the forest. Upon a night, brightened by no moonbeam or

glittering star, Emma sat melancholy and alone in her apartment. The

heavy embroidered curtains were drawn across the high windows of the

balcony, which jutted out as a point of observation from the

castle-wall. At intervals, the maiden applied her delicate ear to the

window, catching eagerly at every strange sound muttered forth by the

growing storm. She had resumed her seat many times, when the

castle-bell tolled eleven, and almost at the same moment the cry of a

screech-owl was distinctly heard. The expectant damsel glided on

tiptoe to the window, and listened eagerly. The cry was repeated.

Emma's eye sparkled at length with joy, a deep blush overspread her

cheeks, and she produced from an aperture a ladder of twine, which she

fastened to the casement. The cry of the owl was heard for the third

time. The ladder was dropped, and in another instant a vigorous youth

had mounted it.

"Bolko and Emma, happy and blessed, were in each other's arms, and

they forgot all but the delicious present. Vows of love and constancy

were exchanged, and rings were given, in remembrance of the blissful

hour. But strange to say, as Bolko was about to adorn the hand of Emma

with the pledge of his affection, a fearful gust of wind burst the

window open, and blew into the room a little glistening object that

rolled to Bolko's feet and settled there. Emma raised it from the

ground, and discovered in her hand a broken ring.

"Bolko saw and trembled. It was his gift to Auriola. He fixed his eyes

upon the broken symbol, and there glared before them the third charmed

picture created from the waters. The rope-ladder, the balcony Emma and

himself, all grouped, and taking the shape and form of that bright

vision. Bolko glanced at the window, dreading to meet the reproachful

look of Auriola; but instead of this, he heard with no less horror the

approaching footsteps of his Emma's father.

"'Fly, Bolko, fly!' exclaimed the maiden. 'My father! We are lost!'

"Bolko hurried to the recess, and would have escaped, had not the

malicious wind already carried away the rope-ladder. A prisoner and

unarmed, he expected nothing short of death at the hands of the baron.

The latter entered the apartment, stood for a few seconds in silence

at the door, and measured the criminals with looks of stern severity.

"'My aged eye did not deceive me, then!' he said, at length, advancing

to the trembling lovers.

"'Baron!' said Bolko, hesitatingly.

"'Silence, sir!' continued the old knight. 'If I should act now as my

fathers would have done, I should fling you through that very window

which helped you, like a robber, into this room; but I charge myself

with blame already in this business, and I am more disposed to mercy.

Come hither, young man. I know the fire and boldness of our youth.

Give my child your hand; you are her future husband. May God prosper

you both, and send his blessing on your union!'

"Bolko quaffed with the sturdy Baron of T---- until an early hour of

the morning. The happy Emma acted the part of Hebe, and presented the

flagons to the merry carousers.

* * * * *

"'Why have you withheld this from me?' asked Hubert, when Bolko

related to him the unaccountable restoration of the ring. 'Oh, youth,

youth! inconsiderate even to madness, and only content to listen to

the voice of wisdom when they can of themselves find no outlet from

difficulty and danger.'

"Bolko stood with folded arms at the window, gazing into the forest,

and upon the lofty turrets of Castle T---- peeping in the grey

distance above it.

"'Thou hast not visited the moor of late?' asked Hubert, after a

pause.

"'What should I do there?' answered Bolko peevishly. 'Why should I

spend my days in chasing an apparition, the mere creation of an

over-heated fancy?'

"'Beware whom thou calumniatest!' said Hubert solemnly. 'Beware of the

mysterious being that can deal out weal or woe to thee and all thy

race! One whom thou mightest have appeased hadst thou been obedient

and followed my instructions.'

"'Thy instructions!' repeated Bolko hastily. 'It is because I have

listened too patiently to thy advice, because I have connected myself

with thy aerial and capricious schemes, that I am the most miserable

of men. But for thy persuasion and thy childish parchment, I should

never have dreamed of making love to a ghost.'

"Hubert disregarded the youth's reproaches.

"'Rage avails not here,' he said calmly. 'Wisdom alone can save thee.

Listen to me. Women are women ever, even such as we call

supernatural--easy to anger, easy to persuade--before flattery the

weakest of the weak. Praise the ugliest for her beauty, and she smiles

graciously, yea, with the mirror before her eyes. Speak the plain

truth, and you are a rough uncouth companion. They thrive best upon

the sugary food of delusion--therefore, delude them. It is the rattle

of these eternal glorious children!'

"'What wouldst thou have me do?'

"'Cast the ring into the Spring, and pray to Auriola for forgiveness.'

"'And if she prove obstinate?'

"'Have no fear; she will forgive you. Here is the ring; take it; it is

once more united!'

"Bolko took the pledge from Hubert, and hastened to the moor. The high

grass was already withered by storm and cold; it lay bent down upon

the marshy earth-crust, which now breathed out its vapour more

abundantly than ever, wrapping the Gold Spring in one enduring mist.

If this spot looked barren and deserted in summer, the abandonment was

increased a hundred-fold in autumn. Even the butterflies were gone.

The damp and chilly fog only was visible; nothing could be heard but

the monotonous current of the rippling water.

"The boggy ground yielded to the foot more readily than ever, and

Bolko trod it with a faltering step. He approached the spring, and,

suing for reconciliation, dropped the ring into the charmed element.

As though he feared some extraordinary result from the act, he covered

his eyes with his hands, and could with difficulty summon courage to

remove them. When he did so, he perceived the fog receding by degrees

from the confines of the moor, and the graceful form of Auriola

standing before him at a little distance. As at their first meeting,

her countenance was averted. She waved the earthen pitcher as was her

wont, and bathed the ground on which she went with flashes of the

brilliant water.

"'Auriola!' cried Bolko, in a voice that carried the tenderness of

love, the sorrow of repentance, to the ear of the listener--'gentle

Auriola!' She turned her face towards the imploring youth, placed the

pitcher at her side, and beckoned him to approach.

"'My father was right!' said the Moor Maiden. 'No Gottmar but is

fickle and inconstant. Well it is for thee, youth, that thou art here

of thy own free-will, and didst not tarry for my summons. Thou hast

kept thy promise badly, and thou wilt keep it so again, if I give thee

no monitor to aid thee. Take this, and carry it, henceforward, in thy

bosom; it will protect thee from harm, and keep thee faithful in

_spirit_, albeit in heart thou art already estranged from me.'

"With these words, the enchantress placed upon the neck of Bolko a

chain braided of her own golden hair, to which was attached a small

box wrought of the shards of the Peacock's eye and Purple-bird. In the

tiny case, trembling with its ever-changing light, was one pearly drop

from the spring.

"'Lose or give away this jewel,' proceeded Auriola--'this jewel, which

is a portion of my heart, and thy ruin and the destruction of thy

house is certain. Love, or at least its symbol, can and must avert the

curse of my father!'

"Bolko looked into the earnest and marvellously bright eyes of

Auriola, as she pronounced his doom. His heart belonged once more to

the Maiden of the Moor, and his gaze made known his passion. She

touched his forehead with her transparent fingers, poured the last

drops of water into the hollow of her hand, and in her usual manner

blew the little curling waves into the misty air. A multitude of

images arose, but in scarcely finished outline. The moist atmosphere

seemed to hinder their accomplishment.

"'Now, farewell!' said Auriola. 'Thou hast beheld. Thy life is

troubled, as are the feelings which sway thy heart. Love truly and

wholly, as aforetime thou lovedst me, and the mirror of thought will

again display its clear bright pictures.

"Auriola took the pitcher, and her bare feet, scarcely disturbing the

faded blades of grass, glided towards the margin of the spring, where

she melted into air.

* * * * *

"Emma and Bolko were united in holy matrimony. The halls of Castle

T---- overflowed with joyous guests. Music delighted the noble

visitors during the marriage-feast, and a happier scene could not be

imagined. All hearts joined in wishing prosperity to the bridal pair,

and the latter seemed to entertain no fears for their bright future.

The banquet over, the guests, preceded by the newly-married couple,

withdrew to the adjoining saloon. The old knights seated themselves in

the niches of the windows, having still many goblets to empty over the

dice-box, whilst the younger spirits disposed themselves for dancing.

Bolko, with his high-born bride, commenced the ball. If they were

happy before, they were now at the very porch of a terrestrial heaven.

They made but short pauses in their pleasure, and these only that they

might mingle again the more intensely in the delightful measure.

"It was during the jocund dance that Bolko's doublet suddenly opened,

and the mysterious little box flew out. The bridegroom was made aware

of the accident by the exclamations of his partner.

"'Oh! look, look, Bolko! See that magnificent butterfly! How singular

at this season of the year!'

"Emma caught at the little beauty, and Bolko discovered his fault.

"'Hold, hold!' said he, in a whisper. 'That is no butterfly for thee,

my love! Its colours play for me alone!'

"Emma looked enquiringly at her husband, then more closely at the

little box, glowing in a fire of colours, and she beheld the golden

hair chain to which it was attached.

"'A chain too! and what beautiful hair!' The maiden caught at the

prize, and continued, 'Who gave thee this hair and the sweet case!

Dearest Bolko, to whom does it belong? Why have you never mentioned

this? What need was there of secresy?'

"Emma sobbed, and Bolko hardly knowing what excuse to offer, withdrew

her to a neighbouring room.

"'Promise me, dearest Emma,' said he, 'to be calm and patient, and you

shall know every thing.'

"The young wife looked at him distrustfully.

"'Make known to me the history and contents of the little box, and I

will restrain my curiosity until----to-morrow.'

"'Content, my beloved, so let it be; as we return to Gottmar all shall

be cleared up.'

"'Oh, I unhappy!' exclaimed the girl, bursting into tears.

"'Say rather _happy_, dearest. Since all our happiness flows from the

history of this chain; from this alone. Sweetest, let us return to the

dance.'

"Emma resigned her arm to her young lord with a sullen resignation. As

the latter opened the folding-doors of the saloon, and gazed for a few

seconds upon the dancing throng, he seemed to possess a distant

remembrance of the scene. The Gothic arches, the window niches, the

gaily-attired musicians, the groups of dancers--the whole scene had

once before been present to his eyes. He taxed his memory until his

thoughts carried him to the bleak and barren moor. Had not the

dazzling vision flowed into the sunny evening air over the white

transparent fingers of the ethereal Auriola? He acknowledged it, and

shuddered.

"The dance was at an end. The guests had departed. In the eyes of the

newly-married Emma a tear of troubled joy trembled, as she sank upon

the bosom of her young and doating husband.

"Upon the following morning, Bolko already repented him of his hasty

promise, and delayed his departure by every means in his power. The

weather favoured him, for hail and storm were pouring down upon the

earth. As the day declined, Bolko found it impossible to conceal his

disquietude; and Emma, when she perceived his anxiety, attributed it

at once to conscious guilt. This conviction on her part only made her

urge their departure with greater perseverance. There remained at last

no good ground for refusal, and Bolko silently acquiesced in her wish.

"For some time the young couple sat side by side, and were very

sparing of their speech. Bolko, indeed, was dumb. The inquisitive

Emma, however, had not so powerful an excuse for silence. In a few

kind words she reminded her lord of his pledged word, and begged him

to confide in her.

"'Emma,' said Bolko in reply, and in a serious tone, 'if I comply with

thy request, I risk the eternal happiness of both. I have promised

that which I cannot perform without a breach of faith. Thou canst

gain nothing by my communication, and I pray thee, therefore, give me

back my promise.'

"Bolko could not have preferred a more untimely suit. Emma,

inquisitive, suspicious, and jealous, would rather have been put to

death in torture than have given up her claim. She refused his

petition at once; implored, threatened, implored again; and, finding

all such efforts only darkened Bolko's humour, proceeded to flattery

and coaxing. She promised the most perfect secresy, and used, in

short, every artifice by which woman knows how to overcome the

strongest resolutions of weak man. Bolko grew tender-hearted, and then

related to his wife all that he had to tell;--the history of the

malediction that rested on his family, and the singular manner in

which he had effected the expiation.

"Emma listened to the narrative not without an inward pique and lively

jealousy.

"'I thank thee, Bolko, for thy confidence,' said she. 'Fear not my

prudence. But for the charm, thou wilt not surely wear it so near thy

bosom.'

"'Next my heart, beloved--since there it shields us both from ruin.'

"Emma bit her lips with womanly vexation.

"'Thou canst not wish,' continued Bolko, 'that I should take it

thence.'

"'I do, I do!' replied the jealous wife. 'I wish it. I insist upon

it--now--this very instant.'

"The storm increased in fury. The fir-trees were beating together as

if in battle.

"'It is impossible!' cried Bolko. 'Thou art mad to ask it.'

"'Then shall I mistrust thy love,' continued Emma, 'or canst thou hope

for my affection whilst that ghostly gift divides us? Never! Inhuman

man, thou wilt teach me to hate thee.'

"The carriage drove rapidly through the hurricane into the midst of

the forest. The wind bellowed, the yellow lightning glared, and

thunder crashed and resounded fearfully from the distant valleys.

"'It is the warning voice of heaven!' said Bolko. 'Its lightnings will

reach us if I yield to thy entreaty.'

"'Heaven has nothing in common with enchanters and sorcerers,' replied

Emma; 'nature is uttering a summons to thee, and--whilst a devoted

wife embraces thee--protects and defends thee against demoniac powers,

bids thee renounce all witchcraft, and put aside the unholy gift.'

"Bolko answered not, but peered through the door carriage windows to

learn his exact situation. The dark pinnacles of Gottmar lay

immediately before him. Above his head the tempest lowered, hurling

its lightnings on every side.

"'Art thou angry with me?' enquired Emma sorrowfully, leaning her

ringleted head upon the bosom of her husband. Bolko pressed her

forehead to his lips. Emma threw her arms about his neck. She wept,

she kissed, she coaxed him; they were the fondest lovers, as in the

earliest days of their attachment. The heart of Bolko was melted. In

the intoxication of happiness he forgot his danger; and reposing on

Emma's bosom, did not perceive that she untied his doublet, and

heedfully but eagerly searched for the amulet. She was mistress of it

before Bolko could suspect her intention.

"'It is mine, it is mine!' almost shrieked the young wife in her

delight, snatching away both chain and box. The next moment the

carriage window was drawn down and the precious objects thrown into

the storm. Bolko caught at them, but too late. A gust of wind had

already clutched them, and carried them away.

"A flash of lightning struck a beech-tree, that blazed, awfully

illuminating the whole neighbourhood. The horses took fright, plunged

aside, then tore with the carriage towards a treeless melancholy-looking

plain. Bolko recognised the spot at the first brief glance.

"'The moor! the moor!' he screamed to the driver; but the latter had

lost all power over the snorting steeds, who bore the fated carriage

in a whizzing gallop towards the marsh. The blazing beech-tree

rendered the surrounding objects fearfully distinct. Bolko could

descry the figure of Auriola at the margin of the spring. Between her

fingers glittered the ring, and words of lamentation issuing from her

lips, dropped into the soul of Bolko and paralysed it."

"'Auriola, Auriola!' exclaimed the youth, supporting the pale and

quivering Emma--'forgive me! forgive me!'

"The Moor Maiden dropped the ring into the well, and it vanished like

an unearthly flame. Auriola herself, slowly and like a mist, descended

after it. She held her hand above her head, and it seemed to point to

the onward-dashing carriage.

"Horror upon horror! the carriage itself began to sink into the

earth--quicker and quicker.

"'We are sinking! Heaven help us!' cried the driver. Bolko burst the

carriage door open, but escape was impossible. The moor had given way

around him. The horses were already swallowed up in the abyss. The

pale earth-crust trembled and heaved like flakes of ice upon a

loosening river. It separated, and huge pieces were precipitated and

hurled against each other. In a few seconds horses and carriage, bride

and bridegroom, had disappeared for ever. As the moor closed over

them, the hand of Auriola vanished.

"The Curse of her father was accomplished.

"On the same night, Gottmar castle was struck by lightning. It burned

to the ground, and there the aged Hubert found his grave."

"THAT'S WHAT WE ARE."

"Careful and troubled about many things,"

(Alas! that it should be so with us still

As in the time of Martha,) I went forth

Harass'd and heartsick, with hot aching brow,

Thought fever'd, happy to escape myself.

Beauteous that bright May morning! All about

Sweet influences of earth, and air, and sky,

Harmoniously accordant. I alone,

The troubled spirit that had driven me forth,

In dissonance with that fair frame of things

So blissfully serene. God had not yet

Let fall the weight of chastening that makes dumb

The murmuring lip, and stills the rebel heart,

Ending all earthly interests, and I call'd

(O Heaven!) that incomplete experience--Grief.

It would not do. The momentary sense

Of soft refreshing coolness pass'd away;

Back came the troublous thoughts, and, all in vain,

I strove with the tormentors: All in vain,

Applied me with forced interest to peruse

Fair nature's outspread volume: All in vain,

Look'd up admiring at the dappling clouds

And depths cerulean: Even as I gazed,

The film--the earthly film obscured my vision,

And in the lower region, sore perplex'd,

Again I wander'd; and again shook off

With vex'd impatience the besetting cares,

And set me straight to gather as I walk'd

A field-flower nosegay. Plentiful the choice;

And, in few moments, of all hues I held

A glowing handful. In a few moments more

Where are they? Dropping as I went along

Unheeded on my path, and I was gone--

Wandering again in muse of thought perplex'd.

Despairingly I sought the social scene--

Sound--motion--action--intercourse of _words_--

Scarcely of mind--rare privilege!--We talk'd--

Oh! how we talk'd! Discuss'd and solved all questions:

Religion--morals--manners--politics--

Physics and metaphysics--books and authors--

Fashion and dress--our neighbours and ourselves.

But even as the senseless changes rang,

And I help'd ring them, in my secret soul

Grew weariness, disgust, and self-contempt;

And more disturb'd in spirit, I retraced,

More cynically sad, my homeward way.

It led me through the churchyard, and methought

There entering, as I let the iron gate

Swing to behind me, that the change was good--

The unquiet living, for the quiet dead.

And at that moment, from the old church tower

A knell resounded--"Man to his long home"

Drew near. "The mourners went about the streets;"

And there, few paces onward to the right,

Close by the pathway, was an open grave,

Not of the humbler sort, shaped newly out,

Narrow and deep in the dark mould; when closed,

To be roofed over with the living sod,

And left for all adornment (and so best)

To Nature's reverential hand. The tomb,

Made ready there for a fresh habitant,

Was that of an old family. I knew it.--

A very ancient altar-tomb, where Time

With his rough fretwork mark'd the sculptor's art

Feebly elaborate--heraldic shields

And mortuary emblems, half effaced,

Deep sunken at one end, of many names,

Graven with suitable inscriptions, each

Upon the shelving slab and sides; scarce now

Might any but an antiquarian eye

Make out a letter. Five-and-fifty years

The door of that dark dwelling had shut in

The last admitted sleeper. She, 'twas said,

Died of a broken heart--a widow'd mother

Following her only child, by violent death

Cut off untimely, and--the whisper ran--

By his own hand. The tomb was ancient _then_,

When they two were interr'd; and they, the first

For whom, within the memory of man,

It had been open'd; and their names fill'd up

(With sharp-cut newness mocking the old stone)

The last remaining space. And so it seem'd

The gathering was complete; the appointed number

Laid in the sleeping chamber, and seal'd up

Inviolate till the great gathering day.

The few remaining of the name dispersed--

The family fortunes dwindled--till at last

They sank into decay, and out of sight,

And out of memory; till an aged man

Pass'd by some parish very far away

To die in ours--his legal settlement--

Claim'd kindred with the long-forgotten race,

Its sole survivor, and in right thereof,

Of that affinity, to moulder with them

In the old family grave.

"A natural wish,"

Said the authorities; "and sure enough

HE WAS of the old stock--the last descendant--

And it would cost no more to bury him

Under the old crack'd tombstone, with its scutcheons,

Than in the common ground." So, graciously,

The boon was granted, and he died content.

And now the pauper's funeral had set forth,

And the bell toll'd--not many strokes, nor long--

Pauper's allowance. He was coming home.

But while the train was yet a good way off--

The workhouse burial train--I stopp'd to look

Upon the scene before me; and methought

Oh! that some gifted painter could behold

And give duration to that living picture,

So rich in moral and pictorial beauty,

If seen arightly by the spiritual eye

As with the bodily organ!

The old tomb,

With its quaint tracery, gilded here and there

With sunlight glancing through the o'er-arching lime,

Far flinging its cool shadow, flickering light--

Our greyhair'd sexton, with his hard grey face,

(A living tombstone!) resting on his mattock

By the low portal; and just over right,

His back against the lime-tree, his thin hands

Lock'd in each other--hanging down before him

As with their own dead weight--a tall slim youth

With hollow hectic cheek, and pale parch'd lip,

And labouring breath, and eyes upon the ground

Fast rooted, as if taking measurement

Betime for his own grave. I stopp'd a moment,

Contemplating those thinkers--youth and age--

Mark'd for the sickle; as it seem'd--the _unripe_

To be first gather'd. Stepping forward, then,

Down to the house of death, in vague expectance,

I sent a curious, not unshrinking, gaze.

There lay the burning brain and broken heart,

Long, long at rest: and many a Thing beside

That had been life--warm, sentient, busy life--

Had hunger'd, thirsted, laugh'd, wept, hoped, and fear'd--

Hated and loved--enjoy'd and agonized.

Where of all this, was all I look'd to see?

The mass of crumbling coffins--some belike

(The undermost) with their contents crush'd in,

Flatten'd, and shapeless. Even in this damp vault,

With more completeness could the old Destroyer

Have done his darkling work? Yet lo! I look'd

Into a small square chamber, swept and clean,

Except that on one side, against the wall,

Lay a few fragments of dark rotten wood,

And a small heap of fine, rich, reddish earth

Was piled up in a corner.

"How is this?"

In stupid wonderment I ask'd myself,

And dull of apprehension. Turning, then,

To the old sexton--"Tell me, friend," I said,

"Here should be many coffins--Where are they?

And"--pointing to the earth-heap--"what is that?"

He raised his eyes to mine with a strange look

And strangely meaning smile; and I repeated--

(For not a word he spoke)--my witless question.

Then with a deep distinctness he made answer,

Distinct and slow, looking from whence I pointed,

Full in my face again, and what he said

Thrill'd through my very soul--"_That's what we are!_"

So I was answer'd. Sermons upon death

I had heard many. Lectures by the score

Upon life's vanities. But never words

Of mortal preacher to my heart struck home

With such convicting sense and suddenness

As that plain-spoken homily, so brief,

Of the unletter'd man.

"That's what we are!"--

Repeating after him, I murmur'd low

In deep acknowledgment, and bow'd the head

Profoundly reverential. A deep calm

Came over me, and to the inward eye

Vivid perception. Set against each other,

I saw weigh'd out the things of time and sense,

And of eternity;--and oh! how light

Look'd in that truthful hour the earthly scale!

And oh! what strength, when from the penal doom

Nature recoil'd, in _His_ remember'd words:

"_I am the Resurrection and the Life_."

And other words of that Divinest Speaker

(Words to all mourners of all times address'd)

Seem'd spoken to me as I went along

In prayerful thought, slow musing on my way--

"_Believe in me_"--"_Let not your hearts be troubled_"--

And sure I could have promised in that hour,

But that I knew myself how fallible,

That never more should cross or care of this life

Disquiet or distress me. So I came,

Chasten'd in spirit, to my home again,

Composed and comforted, and cross'd the threshold

That day "a wiser, _not_ a sadder, _woman_."

C.

EDMUND BURKE.[14]

Burke died in 1797, and yet, after the lapse of almost half a century,

the world is eager to treasure every recollection of his name. This is

the true tribute to a great man, and the only tribute which is worth

the wishes of a great man. The perishable nature of all the memorials

of human hands has justly been the theme of every moralist, since

tombs first bore an image or an inscription. Yet, such as they are,

they ought to be given; but they are all that man can give. The nobler

monument must be raised by the individual himself, and must be the

work of his lifetime; its guardianship must be in the hands, not of

sacristans and chapters, but in those of the world; his panegyric must

be found, not in the extravagance or adulation of his marble, but in

the universal voice which records his career, and cherishes his name

as a new stimulant of public virtue.

We have no intention of retracing the steps by which this memorable

man gradually rose to so high a rank in the estimation of his own

times. No history of intellectual eminence during the latter half of

the nineteenth century--the most troubled, important, and productive

period of human annals since the birth of the European kingdoms--can

be written, without giving some testimonial to his genius in every

page. But his progress was not limited to his Age. He is still

progressive. While his great contemporaries have passed away, honoured

indeed, and leaving magnificent proofs of their powers, in the honour

and security of their country, Burke has not merely retained his

position before the national eye, but has continually assumed a

loftier stature, and shone with a more radiant illumination. The great

politician of his day, he has become the noblest philosopher of ours.

Every man who desires to know the true theory of public morals, and

the actual causes which influence the rise and fall of thrones, makes

his volumes a study; every man who desires to learn how the most

solemn and essential truths may not merely be adorned, but

invigorated, by the richest colourings of imagination, must labour to

discover the secret of his composition; and every man who, born in

party, desires to emancipate his mind from the egotism, bitterness,

and barrenness of party, or achieve the still nobler and more

difficult task of turning its evils into good, and of making it an

instrument of triumph for the general cause of mankind, must measure

the merits and success of his enterprise by its similarity to the

struggles, the motives, and the ultimate triumph of Edmund Burke.

The present volumes contain a considerable portion of the

correspondence which Burke carried on with his personal and public

friends during the most stirring period of his life. The papers had

been put in trust of the late French Lawrence the civilian, and

brother to the late Archbishop of Cashel, with whom was combined in

the trust Dr King, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, both able men and

particular friends of Burke. But Lawrence, while full of the intention

of giving a life of his celebrated friend, died in 1809, and the

papers were bequeathed by the widow of Burke, who died in 1812, to the

Bishop of Rochester, the Right Hon. W. Elliot, and Earl Fitzwilliam,

for the publication of such parts as had not already appeared. This

duty chiefly devolved upon Dr King, who had been made Bishop of

Rochester in 1808. Personal infirmity, and that most distressing of

all infirmities, decay of sight, retarded the publishing of the works;

but sixteen volumes were completed. The bishop's death in 1828, put an

end to all the hopes which had been long entertained, of an authentic

life from his pen.

On this melancholy event, the papers came into the possession of the

late Earl Fitzwilliam, from whom they devolved to the present Earl,

who, with Sir Richard Bourke, a distant relative of the family, and

personally intimate with Burke during the last eight years of his

life, has undertaken the present collection of his letters. Those

letters which required explanation have been supplied with intelligent

and necessary notes, and the whole forms a singularly important

publication.

* * * * *

Many of Burke's earliest letters were written to a Richard Shackleton,

the son of a Quaker at whose school Burke with his two brothers had

been placed in 1741. In 1743, he was placed in the college of Dublin,

and then commenced his correspondence with Shackleton. Even those

letters exhibit, at the age of little more than fifteen, the

sentiments which his mature life was spent in establishing and

enlarging. He says of sectaries, and this was to a sectary himself, "I

assure you, I don't think near so favourably of those sectaries you

mentioned, (he had just spoken of the comparative safety of virtuous

heathens, who, not having known the name of Christianity, were not to

be judged by its law,) many of those sectaries breaking, as they

themselves confessed, for matters of indifference, and no way

concerned in the only affair that is necessary, viz. salvation; and

what a great crime schism is, you can't be ignorant. This, and the

reasons in my last, and if you consider what will occur to yourself,

together with several texts, will bring you to my way of thinking on

that point. Let us endeavour to live according to the rules of the

Gospel; and he that prescribed them, I hope, will consider our

endeavours to please him, and assist us in our designs.

"I don't like that part of your letter, wherein you say you had the

testimony of well-doing in your breast. Whenever such notions rise

again, endeavour to suppress them. We should always be in no other

than the state of a penitent, because the most righteous of us is no

better than a sinner. Read the parable of the Pharisee and the

Publican who prayed in the temple."

We next have a letter exhibiting the effect of external things on the

writer's mind, and expressed with almost the picturesque power of his

higher days. He tells his friend, that he will endeavour to answer his

letter in good-humour, "though every thing around," he says,

"conspires to excite in him a contrary disposition--the melancholy

gloom of the day, the whistling winds, and the hoarse rumbling of the

swollen Liffey, with a flood which, even where I write, lays close

siege to our own street, not permitting any to go in or out to supply

us with the necessaries of life."

After some statements of the rise of the river, he says, "It gives me

pleasure to see nature in those great though terrible scenes; it fills

the mind with grand ideas, and turns the soul in upon herself. This,

together with the sedentary life I lead, forced some reflections on

me, which perhaps would otherwise not have occurred. I considered how

little man is, yet, in his own mind, how great. He is lord and master

of all things, yet scarce can command any thing. What well laid, and

what better executed scheme of his is there, but what a small change

of nature is entirely able to defeat and abolish. If but one element

happens to encroach a little upon another, what confusion may it not

create in his affairs, what havoc, what destruction: the servant

destined to his use, confines, menaces, and frequently destroys this

mighty, this feeble lord."

One of those letters mentions his feelings on the defeat of the

luckless Charles Edward, whose hopes of the British crown were

extinguished by the battle of Culloden, (April 16, 1746.) "The

Pretender, who gave us so much disturbance for some time past, is at

length, with all his adherents, utterly defeated, and himself (as some

say) taken prisoner. 'Tis strange to see how the minds of the people

are in a few days changed. The very men who, but a while ago, while

they were alarmed by his progress, so heartily cursed and hated those

unfortunate creatures, are now all pity, and wish it could be

terminated without bloodshed. I am sure I share in the general

compassion. It is, indeed, melancholy to consider the state of those

unhappy gentlemen who engaged in this affair, (as for the rest, they

lose but their lives,) who have thrown away their lives and fortunes,

and destroyed their families for ever, in what, I believe, they

thought a just cause." Those sentiments exhibit the early propensity

of Burke's mind to a generous dealing with political opponents. He was

a Protestant, a zealous admirer of the constitution of 1688, as all

Irish Protestants were in his day, whether old or young; and yet he

feels an unequivocal, as it was a just compassion for the brave men,

who, under an impulse of misapplied loyalty, and in obedience to a

mistaken sense of duty, went headlong to their ruin, for a prince who

was a Papist, and thus would have been, like his father, a most

hazardous sovereign to the liberties and religion of England.

In allusion to his collegiate career, he describes himself as having

taken up every successive subject, with an ardour which, however,

speedily declined.

"First, I was greatly taken with natural philosophy, which, while I

should have given my mind to logic, employed me incessantly, (logic

forming a principal part of the first year's studies.) This I call my

_furor mathematicus_. But this worked off as soon as I began to read

it in the college. This threw me back to logic and metaphysics. Here I

remained a good while, and with much pleasure, and this was my _furor

logicus_--a disease very common in the days of ignorance, and very

uncommon in these enlightened times. Next succeeded the _furor

historicus_, which also had its day, but is now no more, being

absorbed in the _furor poeticus_, which (as skilful physicians assure

me) is difficultly cured. But doctors differ, and I don't despair of a

cure." Fortunately, he at last accomplished that cure, for his early

poetry gives no indications of future excellence. His prose is much

more poetic, even in those early letters, than his verse. A great poet

unquestionably is a great man; but Burke's greatness was to be

achieved in another sphere. It is only in the visions of prophecy that

we see the Lion with wings. Burke entered his name at the Middle

Temple in April 1747, and went to London to keep his terms in 1750. He

was now twenty-two years old, and his constitution being delicate, and

apparently consumptive, he adopted, during this period of his

residence in England, a habit to which he probably owed his strength

of constitution in after-life. During the vacations, he spent his time

in travelling about England, generally in company with a friend and

relative, Mr William Burke. Though his finances were by no means

narrow--his father being a man of success in his profession--Burke

probably travelled the greater part of those journeys on foot. When he

found an agreeable country town or village, he fixed his quarters

there, leading a regular life, rising early, taking frequent exercise,

and employing himself according to the inclinations of the hour. There

could be no wiser use of his leisure; exercise of the frame is health

of the mind, open air is life to the student, change of scene is

mental vigour to an enquiring, active, and eager spirit; and thus the

feeble boy invigorated himself for the most strenuous labours of the

man, and laid the foundation for a career of eminent usefulness and

public honour for nearly half a century of the most stirring period of

the modern world.

Some of his letters touch, in his style of grave humour, on these

pleasant wanderings.--"You have compared me, for my rambling

disposition, to the sun. Sincerely, I can't help finding a likeness

myself, for they say the sun sends down much the same influences

whenever he comes into the same signs. Now I am influenced to shake

off my laziness, and write to you at the same time of the year, and

from the same west country I wrote my last in. Since I had your letter

I have often shifted the scene. I spent part of the winter, that is

the term time, in London, and part in Croydon in Surrey. About the

beginning of the summer, finding myself attacked with my old

complaints, I went once more to Bristol, and found the same benefit."

Of his adventures at Monmouth, he says they would almost compose a

novel, and of a more curious kind than is generally issued from the

press. He and his relative formed the topic of the town, both while

they were there and after they left it. "The most innocent scheme,"

said he, "they guessed, was that of fortune-hunting; and when they saw

us quit the town without wives, the lower sort sagaciously judged us

spies to the French king. What is much more odd is, that here my

companion and I puzzled them as much as we did at Monmouth, [he was

then at Turlaine in Wiltshire,] for this is a place of very great

trade in making fine cloths, in which they employ a great number of

hands. The first conjecture, for they could not fancy how any other

sort of people could spend so much of their time at books; but finding

that we receive from time to time a good many letters, they conclude

us merchants. They at last began to apprehend that we were spies from

Spain on their trade." Still they appeared mysterious; and the old

woman in whose lodgings they lived, paid them the rather ambiguous

compliment of saying, "I believe that you be gentlemen, but I ask no

questions." "What makes the thing still better," says Burke, "about

the same time we came hither, arrived a little parson equally a

stranger; but he spent a good part of his time in shooting and other

country amusements, got drunk at night, got drunk in the morning, and

became intimate with every body in the village. But he surprised

nobody, no questions were asked about him, because he lived like the

rest of the world. But that two men should come into a strange

country, and partake of none of the country diversions, seek no

acquaintance, and live entirely recluse, is something so inexplicable

as to puzzle the wisest heads, even that of the parish-clerk himself."

About the year 1756, Burke, still without a profession--for though he

had kept his terms he was never called to the bar--began to feel the

restlessness, perhaps the self-condemnation, natural to every man who

feels life advancing on him without an object. He now determined to

try his strength as an author, and published his _Vindication of

Natural Society_--a pamphlet in which, adopting the showy style of

Bolingbroke, but pushing his arguments to the extreme, he shows the

fallacy of his principles. This work excited considerable attention at

the time. The name of the author remained unknown, and the imitation

was so complete, that for some time it was regarded as a posthumous

work of the infidel lord. Burke, in one of his later publications,

exclaims--Who now reads Bolingbroke? who ever read him through? We may

be assured, at least, that one read him through; and that one was

Edmund Burke. The dashing rhetoric, and headlong statements of

Bolingbroke; his singular affluence of language, and his easy

disregard of fact; the boundless lavishing and overflow of an

excitable and glowing mind, on topics in which prejudice and passion

equally hurried him onward, and which the bitter recollections of

thwarted ambition made him regard as things to be trampled on, if his

own fame was to survive, was incomparably transferred by Burke to his

own pages. The performance produced a remarkable sensation amongst the

leaders of public opinion and literature. Chesterfield pronounced it

to be from the pen of Bolingbroke. Mallet, the literary lord's

residuary legatee, was forced to disclaim it by public advertisement;

but Mallet's credit was not of the firmest order, and his denial was

scarcely believed until Burke's name, as the author, was known. But

his _Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of the Sublime and

Beautiful_, brought him more unequivocal applause. His theory on this

subject has been disputed, and is obviously disputable; but it was

chiefly written at the age of nineteen; it has never been wholly

superseded, and, for elegance of diction, has never been equaled. It

brought him into immediate intercourse with all that may be called the

fashion of literature--Lyttleton, Warburton, Soame Jenyns, Hume,

Reynolds, Lord Bath, Johnson, the greatest though the least

influential of them all, and Mrs Montague, the least but the most

influential of them all. There must have been a good deal of what is

called fortune in this successful introduction to the higher orders of

London society; for many a work of superior intelligence and more

important originality has been produced, without making its author

known beyond the counter of the publisher. But what chance began his

merits completed. The work was unquestionably fit for the hands of

blue-stockingism; the topic was pleasing to literary romance; the very

title had a charm for the species of philosophy which lounges on

sofas, and talks metaphysics in the intervals of the concert or the

card-table. It may surprise us, that in an age when so many manly and

muscular understandings existed at the same time in London, things so

infinitely trifling as conversaziones should have been endured; but

conversaziones there were, and Burke's book was precisely made to

their admiration. It is no dishonour to the matured abilities of this

great man, that he produced a book which found its natural place on

the toilet-tables, and its natural praise in the tongues of the Mrs

Montagues of this world. It might have been worse; he never thought it

worth his while to make it better; the theory is worth nothing, but

the language is elegant; and the whole, regarded as the achievement of

a youth of nineteen, does honour to the spirit of his study, and the

polish of his pen.

A change was now to take place in Burke's whole career. He might have

perished in poverty, notwithstanding his genius, except for the chance

which introduced him to Fitzherbert, a graceful and accomplished man,

who united to a high tone of fashionable life a gratification in the

intercourse of intelligent society. Partly through this gentleman's

interference, and partly through that of the late Earl of Charlemont,

Burke was introduced to William Gerard Hamilton, who shortly after

went to Ireland as secretary to the lord-lieutenant, Lord Halifax.

However, this connexion, though it continued for six years, was

evidently an uneasy one to Burke; and a letter written by him in the

second year of his private secretaryship to Hamilton, shows how little

they were fitted for cordial association. A pension of L.300 a-year

was assigned to Burke as a remuneration for his services, which,

however, he evidently seemed to regard in the light of a retaining

fee. In consequence of this conception, and the fear of being fettered

for life, Burke wrote a letter, stating that it would be necessary to

give a portion of his time to publication on his own account.

"Whatever advantages," said he, "I have acquired, have been owing to

some small degree of literary reputation. It would be hard to persuade

me that any further services which your kindness may propose for me,

or any in which my friends may co-operate with you, will not be greatly

facilitated by doing something to cultivate and keep alive the same

reputation. I am fully sensible that this reputation may be as much

hazarded as forwarded by a new publication; but because a certain

oblivion is the consequence to writers of my inferior class of an

entire neglect of publication, I consider it such a risk as must

sometimes be run. For this purpose some short time, at convenient

intervals, and especially at the dead time of the year, it would be

requisite to study and consult proper books. The matter may be very

easily settled by a good understanding between ourselves, and by a

discreet liberty, which I think you would not wish to restrain, or I

to abuse."

However, it will be seen that Gerard Hamilton thought differently on

the subject. We break off this part of the correspondence, for the

purpose of introducing a fragment of that wisdom which formed so early

and so promising a portion of the mind of Burke. In writing of his

brother Richard to his Irish friend, he says--"Poor Dick sets off at

the beginning of next week for the Granadas, [in which he had obtained

a place under government.] He goes in good health and spirits, which

are all but little enough to battle with a bad climate and a bad

season. But it must be submitted to. Providence never intended, to

much the greater part, an entire life of ease and quiet. A peaceable,

honourable, and affluent decline of life must be purchased by a

laborious or hazardous youth; and every day, I think more and more

that it is well worth the purchase. Poverty and age suit very ill

together, and a course of struggling is miserable indeed, when

strength is decayed and hope gone. _Turpe senex miles!_"

Burke's quarrel with Hamilton ended in his resigning his pension. His

feelings appear to have been deeply hurt by Hamilton's superciliousness,

and his demand for the right to employ the whole time of his private

secretary. In a long explanatory letter to Hutchinson, a leading member

of the Irish parliament, and father of the late Lord Donoughmore, he

says, indignantly enough--"I flatter myself to let you see that I

deserved to be considered in another manner than as one of Mr Hamilton's

cattle, or as a piece of his household stuff. Six of the best years of

my life he took me from every pursuit of literary reputation, or of

improvement of my fortune. In that time he made his own fortune, a very

great one; and he has also taken to himself the very little one which I

had made. In all this time you may easily conceive how much I felt at

being left behind by almost all my contemporaries. There never was a

season more favourable for any man who chose to enter into the career

of public life; and I think I am not guilty of ostentation in supposing

my own moral character and my industry, my friends and connexions, when

Mr H. first sought my acquaintance, were not at all inferior to those of

several whose fortune is at this day upon a very different footing from

mine."

It is evident that Burke's mind was at this period turned to

authorship, and that his chief quarrel arose from the petty and

pragmatical demand of Hamilton, that he should abandon it altogether.

Burke soon had ample revenge, if it was to be found in the obscurity

into which Hamilton rapidly fell, and the burlesque which alone

revived his name from its obscurity. The contrast between the two must

have been a lesson to the vanity of the one, as pungent as was its

triumph. If ever the fate of Tantalus was realized to man, it was in

the perpetual thirst and perpetual disappointment of Hamilton for

public name. The cup never reached his lips but it was instantly dry;

while Burke was seen reveling in the full flow of public

renown--buoyant on the stream into which so many others plunged only

to sink, and steering his noble course with a full mastery of the

current. "Single-speech Hamilton" became a title of ridicule, while

Burke was pouring forth, night after night, speech after speech, rich

in the most sparkling and most solid opulence of the mind. He must

have been more or less than man, to have never cast a glance at the

decrepitude of the formal coxcomb whom he once acknowledged as his

leader, and compared his shrunk shape with the vigorous and athletic

proportions of his own intellectual stature. Hamilton, too, must have

had many a pang. The wretched nervousness of character which at once

stimulated him to pine for distinction, and disqualified him from

obtaining it, must have made his life miserable. If the magnificent

conception of the poet's Prometheus could be lowered to any thing so

trivial as a disappointed politician of the eighteenth century, its

burlesque might be amply shown in a mind helplessly struggling against

a sense of its own inferiority, gnawed by envy at the success of

better men, and with only sufficient intellectual sensibility

remaining to have that gnawing constantly renewed.

Burke's letters to the chief Irishmen with whom his residence in

Dublin had brought him into intercourse, long continued indignant.

"Having presumed," said he, in one of those explanatory letters, "to

put a test to me, which no man _not born in Africa_ ever thought of

taking, on my refusal he broke off all connexion with me in the most

insolent manner. He, indeed, entered into two several negotiations

afterwards, but both poisoned in their first principles by the same

spirit of injustice with which he set out in his first dealings with

me. I, therefore, could never give way to his proposals. The whole

ended by his possessing himself of that small reward for my services

which, I since find, he had a very small share in procuring for me.

After, or, indeed, rather during his negotiations, he endeavoured to

stain my character and injure my future fortune, by every calumny his

malice could suggest. This is the case of my connexion with Mr

Hamilton."

If all this be true--and whoever impeached the veracity of Burke in

any thing?--the more effectually his enemy was trampled the better:

malice can be punished sufficiently only by extirpation.

A powerful letter to Henry Flood, then one of the leading members of

the Irish House of Commons, shows how deeply Burke felt the vexation

of Hamilton's conduct, and not less explicitly administers the moral,

of how much must be suffered by every man who enters into the

conflicts of public life. Flood, too, had his share of those

vexations; perhaps more of them than his correspondent. Henry Flood

was one of the most remarkable men whom Ireland had produced.

Commencing his career with a handsome fortune, he had plunged into the

dissipation which was almost demanded of men of family in his day; but

some accidental impression (we believe a fit of illness) suddenly

changed his whole course. He turned his attention to public life,

entered the House of Commons, and suddenly astonished every body by

his total transformation from a mere man of fashion to a vigorous and

brilliant public orator. He was the most logical of public speakers,

without the formality of logic, and the most imaginative, without the

flourish of fancy. For ten years, Flood was the leader of the House,

on whichever side he stood. He was occasionally in opposition, and the

champion of opposition politics in his earlier career; but at length,

unfortunately alike for his feelings and his fame, he grew indolent,

accepted an almost sinecure place, and indulged himself in ease and

silence for full ten years. A loss like this was irreparable, in the

short duration allotted to the living supremacy of statesmanship. No

man in the records of the English parliament has been at his highest

vigour for more than ten years; he may have been _rising_ before, or

inheriting a portion of his parliamentary distinction--enough to give

dignity to his decline; but his true time has past, and thenceforth he

must be satisfied with the reflection of his own renown. Flood had

already passed his hour when he was startled by the newborn splendour

of Grattan. The contest instantly commenced between those

extraordinary men, and was carried on for a while with singular

animation, and not less singular animosity. The ground of contest was

the constitution of 1782. The exciting cause of contest was the wrath

of Flood at seeing the laurels which he had relinquished seized by a

younger champion, and the daring, yet justified confidence of Grattan

in his own admirable powers to win and wear them. Flood, in the

bitterest pungency of political epigram, charged Grattan with having

sold himself to the people, and then sold the people to the minister

for prompt payment. (A vote of L50,000 had been passed to purchase an

estate for Grattan.) Grattan retorted, that "Flood, after having sold

himself to the minister, was angry only because he was interrupted in

the attempt to sell himself to the people." The country, fond of the

game of partizanship, ranged itself under the banners of both,

alternately hissed and applauded both, and at length abandoned both,

and in its new fondness for change, adopted the bolder banners of

revolution. Both were fighting for a shadow, and both must have known

it; but the prize of rhetoric was not to be given up without a

struggle. The "constitution" was rapidly forgotten, when Flood retired

into England and obscurity; and Grattan, who had been left, if not

victor, at least possessor of the field, grew tired of struggles

without a purpose, and plaudits without a reward. The absurdity of

affecting an independence which could not exist an hour but by the

protection of England, and the burlesque of a parliament into which no

man entered but in expectation of a job; the scandal of an Irish

slave-market, and the costliness of purchasing representatives, only

to be sold by them in turn, became so palpable to the national eye,

that the nation contemptuously cashiered the legislature. The gamblers

who had made their fortunes off the people, and had amused themselves

with building a house of cards, saw their paper fabric fall at the

first breath; and the nation looked on the fall with the negligent

scorn excited in rational eyes by detected imposture. The attempt is

once more prepared, but Ireland will have no house of cards, still

less will she suffer the building of an hospital for decayed fashion

and impotent intrigue--a receptacle for political incurables--and

meritorious, in the sight even of its projectors, simply for affording

them snug stewardships, showy governorships, and the whole sinecure

system of emolument without responsibility.

Burke again repeats to Flood his wrath at Hamilton's

provocation.--"The occasion of our difference was not any act

whatsoever on my part, it was entirely on his--by a voluntary, but

most insolent and intolerable demand, amounting to no less than a

claim of servitude during the whole course of my life." He then

alludes to the position of political parties, and gives a sketch of

the great Earl of Chatham which shows the hand of a master. "Nothing

but an intractable temper in your friend Pitt can prevent an admirable

and most lasting system from being put together; and this crisis will

show whether pride or patriotism be predominant in his character, for

you may be assured that he has it now in his power to come into the

service of his country upon any plan of politics he may choose to

dictate; with great and honourable claims to himself and to every

friend he has in the world, and with such a stretch of power as will

be equal to every thing but absolute despotism over the king and

kingdom. A few days will show whether he will take his part, or that

of continuing on his bank at Hayes, (his country-seat,) talking

fustian, excluded from all ministerial, and incapable of all

parliamentary service; for his gout is worse than ever, but his pride

may disable him more than his gout."

We then have an odd rambling letter from Dr Leland, the author of a

History of Ireland, a heavy performance but an honest one, and by far

the best and least unfortunate of the unfortunate attempts to

rationalize the caprices and calamities of that unhappy country.

Leland's letter is written in congratulation to the two brothers,

Edmund and William Burke, the former having been appointed private

secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham in July 1765, the latter one of

the under secretaries of state. In speaking of Ireland, this writer

says, sensibly enough, "Let who will come to govern us poor wretches,

I care not, provided we are decently governed. I would not have his

secretary a jolly, good-humoured abandoned profligate, (the most

dangerous character in society,) or a sullen, vain, proud, selfish,

cankered-hearted, envious reptile--though what matter who is either

lieutenant or secretary?"

Burke was not at this time in Parliament, nor until the 26th of

December in this year, when he was returned for the borough of

Wendover, through the influence of Lord Verney. A letter from Dr

Markham, afterwards archbishop of York, shows the degree of estimation

in which his abilities were held, and the expectations which he

excited among able men, at a period when his parliamentary faculties

were still unknown. He says to William Burke,--"I was informed of

Ned's cold by a letter from Skynner. I am very glad to hear it is so

much better. I should be grieved to hear he was ill at any time, and

particularly at so critical a time as this. I think much will depend

on his outset. I wish him to appear at once in some important

question. If he has but that confidence in his strength which I have

always had, he cannot fail of appearing with lustre. I am very glad to

hear from you that he feels his own consequence as well as the crisis

of his situation. He is now on the ground on which I have been so many

years wishing to see him. One splendid day will crush the malevolence

of enemies, as well as the envy of some who often praise him. When his

reputation is once established, the common voice will either silence

malignity or destroy its effect."

This was written three days after Burke's entrance into Parliament. It

is curious to see, in the letters of those early correspondents, most

of them accomplished and practical men, how fully they were possessed

with a sense of his promised superiority. "You are now, I am certain,"

says Leland, "a man of business, deeply immersed in public affairs,

commercial and political. You will show yourself a man of business in

the House of Commons, and you will not, I am certain, build your

reputation and consequence there upon a single studied manufactured

piece of eloquence, and then, like the brazen head, shut your mouth

for ever. I trust I shall hear of your rising regularly, though

rapidly; that I shall hear of ministers begging that you would be

pleased to accept of being vice-treasurer of Ireland, and then of your

soaring so high as to be quite out of view of such insects as I--and

so good-night, my dear Ned. If ever chance should bring us together,

we are quite ruined as companions. The saunterings, the readings, the

laughings, and the dosings in Mount Gallagher (his country-seat) are

all over. Your head is filled with questions, divisions, and

majorities. My thoughts are employed on Louth and Warburton."

Burke began his parliamentary triumphs with but little delay. The

colonies were the grand subject of the time, and Burke instantly

devoted himself to that subject with the whole force of his capacious

intellect. He was regarded by the House, on the first speech which he

made on this voluminous topic, as exhibiting extraordinary knowledge,

combined with a power of language unequalled save by Chatham himself.

One of the letters of congratulations is from Dr Marriott, who was

afterwards judge of the court of admiralty. "Permit me to tell you

that you are the person the least sensible of the members of the House

of Commons, how much glory you acquired last Monday night; and it

would be an additional satisfaction to you that this testimony comes

from a judge of public speaking, the most disinterested and capable of

judging of it. Dr Hay assures me that your speech was far superior to

that of any other speaker on the colonies that night. I could not

refrain from acquainting you with an opinion, which must so greatly

encourage you to proceed, and to place the palm of the orator with

those which you have already acquired of the writer and the

philosopher." Hay was afterwards judge of the admiralty. At his death

he was succeeded by Marriott. He was of the Bedford party, which, as

it was wholly opposed to the Rockingham, made the testimony more

valuable.

Burke's second speech was equally the subject of admiration. A second

letter from Marriott, with whom he had had some conversation

expressive of his own diffidence, at least as to his manner, in

addressing the House, mentions once more the opinion of Dr Hay, for

whose taste Marriott seems to have had great deference. "His opinion,"

he writes, "is, that nothing could be more remote from awkwardness or

constraint than your manner; that your style, ideas, and expression,

were peculiarly your own; natural and unaffected, and so different

from the cant of the House, or from the jargon of the bar, that he

could not imagine any thing more agreeable; that you did not dwell

upon a point till you had tired it out, as is the way of most

speakers, but kept on with fresh ideas crowding upon you, and rising

one out of another, all leading to one point, which was constantly

kept in view to the audience; and, although every thing seemed a kind

of new political philosophy, yet it was all to the purpose and

well-connected, so as to produce the effect; and that he admired your

last speech the more as it was impromptu. I thought he was describing

to me a Greek orator, whose select orations I had translated four

times when I first went to the university, and therefore marked the

traits of this character. It was impossible for me not to communicate

to you a decision from so great a master himself, though differing

from you in party, that you may go on in a way you have begun, with

such glory to yourself, and to which you add so much by being so

little sensible of it."

In 1766 the Rockingham ministry was suddenly dashed to the ground, and

all its connexions, of course, went down along with it. The marquis

was a man of great estate and excellent intentions, but his ministry

realized the Indian fable of the globe being painted on a

tortoise--the merit of the political tortoise being, in this instance,

to stand still, while its ambition unfortunately was to move. The

consequence naturally followed, that the world took its own course,

and left the tortoise behind. But Burke had distinguished himself so

much that offers of office were made to him from the succeeding

administration. Those he declined, and commenced that neutral

existence which, with the majority of politicians, is worse than none.

There was a weakness in Burke's character which did him infinite

mischief for the first ten years of his political life. We shall not

call it an affectation in the instance of so great a man, but it paid

all the penalties of folly--and this was his propensity to feel, or at

least to express, a personal affection for the men whom he politically

followed. Even of Hamilton, the most supercilious and least loveable

of mankind, Burke speaks with a tenderness absolutely ridiculous

amongst politicians. Of Lord Rockingham he seldom speaks but in a tone

of romance, singularly inapplicable to that formal and frigid figure

of aristocracy. Of Fox, in latter days, he spoke in a sentimental tone

worthy only of a lover on the French stage; and, in all these

instances, he was doubtless laughed at, notwithstanding all his

sensibilities. With the highest admiration of his genius, we must

believe, for the sake of his understanding, that he adopted this style

merely for fashion's sake; for familiarity, which is akin to fondness,

as we are told by the poets that pity is akin to love, was much the

foolish fashion of the day. Men of the highest rank, and doubtless of

the haughtiest arrogance, were called Tom, and Dick, and Harry; and

this silliness was the language of high life, until the French

Revolution and the democratic war at home taught them, that if they

adopted the phraseology of their own footmen, their footmen would

probably take possession of their title-deeds. The hollowness of

public life is as soon discovered as the haughtiness of public men. A

man of heart like Burke ought to have disdained even the language of

courtiership, and while he observed the decorums of society, scorned

to stoop even to the phraseology of humiliation. But one of the most

curious features of this obsolete day is the manner in which the

country was disposed of. No game of whist, in one of the lordly clubs

of St James's Square, was ever more exclusively played. It was simply

a question whether his Grace of Bedford would be content with a

quarter or a half of the cabinet, or whether the Marquis of Rockingham

would be satisfied with two-fifths, or the Earl of Shelburne should

have all or should share power with the Duke of Portland. In all those

barterings and borrowings we never hear the name of the nation. No

whisper announces that there is such a thing in existence as the

people. No allusion ever proceeds from the stately lips, or offends

the "ears polite," of the embroidered conclave, referring to either

the interests, the feelings, or the necessities of the nation. All was

done as in an assemblage of a higher race of existence, calmly carving

out the world for themselves--a tribe of Epicurean deities, with the

cabinet for their Olympus, stooping to our inferior region only to

enjoy their own atmosphere afterwards with the greater zest, or shift

their quarters, like the poet's Jupiter, when tired of the dust and

clamour of war, moving off on his clouds and with his attendant

goddesses, to the tranquil realms of the Hippomolgi.

And this highbred condition of affairs was the more repulsive, from

the fact that the greater number of those disposers of office and

dividers of empire were among the emptiest of mankind. The succession

of ministers, from the days of Walpole, (unquestionably a shrewd,

though a coarse mind, and profligate personage,) with the exception of

Chatham, was a list of silken imbeciles; very rich, or very highborn,

or very handsomely supplied with boroughs, but, in all other senses,

the last men who should have been entrusted with power.

We have to thank the satirists, the public misfortunes, and even the

demagogues, for extinguishing this smooth and pacific system. Junius,

with his sarcastic pen, the American war, and even the gross impudence

of Wilkes, stirred the public mind to remember that it had a voice in

the state. A manlier period succeeded; and we shall no more hear of

the government being divided among the select party, like a twelfth

cake, nor see the interests of a nation which represents the interests

of the globe, compromised to suit the contending claims of

full-dressed frivolity.

As a specimen of this courtly affair, we give a few fragments from a

confidential letter of Burke to the Marquis of Rockingham. "Lord

Shelburne still continues in administration, though as adverse and as

much disliked as ever.--The Duke of Grafton continues, I hear, his

old complaints of his situation, and his genuine desire of holding it

as long as he can. At same time, Lord Shelburne gets loose too. I know

that Lord Camden, who adhered to him in these late divisions, has

given him up, and gone over to the Duke of Grafton. The Bedfords are

horridly frightened at all this, for fear of seeing the table _they

had so well covered_, and at which they sat down with so good an

appetite, kicked down in the scuffle. They find things not ripe at

present for bringing in Grenville, and that any capital move just now

would only betray their weakness in the closet and the nation." Thus,

those noble personages had it all to themselves. Again--

"If Grenville was peculiarly exceptionable, another middle person

might have the Treasury. I fancy their middleman to be the same they

had in their thoughts this time twelve-month--Lord Gower. They talked

of the Duke of Northumberland as a proper person for the Treasury, in

case of the Duke of Grafton's going out. The truth is, the Bedfords

will never act any part, either fair or amiable, with your lordship or

your friends, until they see you in a situation to give the law to

them." No doubt all this was perfectly true; the whole was selfish,

supercilious, and exclusive; one red riband matched against another,

one garter balanced against a rival fragment of blue; the whole a

court-ball, in which the nation had no more share than if it had been

danced in the saloon of Windsor; a masquerade in which the political

minuet was gravely danced by the peerage in character, and of which

the nation heard scarcely even the fiddles. But those times have

passed away, and, for the honour of common sense, they have passed

never to return.

The long contested authorship of "Junius's Letters" makes the subject

of a brief portion of his correspondence. A letter from Charles

Townshend, brother of Lord Sidney, says--"I met Fitzherbert last

night, and talked to him on the subject of our late conversation. I

told him that I had heard that he had asserted that you were the

author of 'Junius's Letters,' for which I was very sorry, because, if

it reached your ears, it would give you a great deal of concern. He

assured me, that he had only said that the ministry now looked upon

you as the author, but that he had constantly contradicted the report

whenever it was mentioned in his company, particularly yesterday and

the day before, to persons who affirmed that you were now fixed on as

the writer of those papers. He declared that he was convinced in his

own mind that you were not concerned in the publication, and that he

had said so." This letter was written in 1771. Burke replies to it, in

two days after, in a letter of thanks, unequivocally denying that he

had any share in those letters. "My friends I have satisfied; my

enemies shall never have any direct satisfaction from me. The

ministry, I am told, are convinced of my having written Junius, on the

authority of a miserable bookseller's preface, in which there are not

three lines of common truth or sense. I have never once condescended

to take the least notice of their invectives, or publicly to deny the

fact on which some of them were grounded. At the same time to you or

to any of my friends, I have been as ready as I ought to be in

disclaiming, in the most precise terms, writings that are as superior,

perhaps, to my talents, as they are most certainly different in many

essential points from my regards and my principles." Burke seems to

have been constantly bored on this subject, for he writes an angry

letter to Markham, then bishop of Chester. Charles Townshend writes to

him again to say that the Public require a more distinct disclaimer.

Burke answers, "I have, I daresay to nine-tenths of my acquaintances,

denied my being the author of Junius, or having any knowledge of the

author, whenever the thing was mentioned, whether in jest or earnest.

I now give you my word and honour that I am not the author of Junius,

and that I know not the author of that paper, and I do authorize you

to say so."

We believe that this is the first time in which Burke's disclaimer has

been made public; but our only surprise in the matter is, how he could

at any time have been considered as the author of Junius. We should

have rather said that he was the last man in the kingdom who ought to

have been suspected. The styles of Burke and Junius are totally

different: the one loose and flowing, the other terse and pungent; the

one lofty and imaginative, the other level and stern; the one taking

large views on every subject, and evidently delighting in the

largeness of those views, the other fixing steadily and fiercely upon

the immediate object of attack, and shooting every arrow point-blank.

Of course, we have no intention of wandering into a topic so

thoroughly beaten as that of the authorship of Junius; but we must

acknowledge, if Sir Philip Francis was not the man, no other nominal

candidate for the honour has been brought forward with equal claims.

The only objection which we have ever heard to his title as author is,

his not making it in person; for he was said to be a man of such

inordinate admiration of his own powers, that he could not have kept

the secret. It has been said, too, that no fear, after the lapse of

twenty years, could have prevented its being divulged. But there are

other motives than fear which might act upon a proud and powerful

spirit. The author of a work like Junius was clearly contemptuous of

mankind, and more contemptuous in proportion to the rank of his

victims. To such a man even the excitement produced by the general

enquiry into the authorship might be a triumph in itself. Though a

solitary, it might be a high gratification to a morbid spirit of

disdain, to see himself a problem to mankind, to hear perpetual

arguments raised on his identity, and see the puzzled pens of the

pamphleteering word all busy in sketching an ideal likeness which each

fancied to be the original. If we could imagine the shade of Swift or

Shaftesbury, of Scarron or Rabelais, to walk invisibly through the

world playing its bitter and fantastic tricks in the ways of men,

stinging some, astounding others, and startling all, we perhaps would

approach nearest to the feelings which might, now and then, have

indulged the habitual scorn and stimulated the conscious power of

Junius.

It has also been said that Sir Philip Francis was not equal to the

composition of those masterly letters; and it must be acknowledged

that, though he made some very powerful and pointed speeches in the

House of Commons, they wanted the penetration and the polish of

Junius. But there are several letters by Sir Philip Francis in these

volumes, which, though evidently written in the haste and

desultoriness of private correspondence, exhibit conceptions strongly

resembling the sarcastic strength and high-wrought point of Junius.