CHAPTER XVI.

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THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

Of Literature, Art, and Science.

Vol. IV. NEW-YORK, NOVEMBER 1, 1851. No. IV.

THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF THE NEW-YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY AT

ROCHESTER.

[Illustration: EXTERIOR OF THE FAIR.]

This is an age of Exhibitions. From the humble collection of cattle and

counter-panes, swine and "garden sauce," at the central village of some

secluded County, up to the stupendous "World's Fair" at London, wherein all

nations and all arts are represented, "Industrial Expositions," as the

French more accurately term them, are the order of the day. And this is

well--nay, it is inspiring. It proves the growth and diffusion of a wider

and deeper consciousness of the importance and dignity of Labor as an

element of national strength and social progress. That corn and cloth are

essential to the comfortable subsistence of the human family, and of every

portion of it, was always plain enough; but the truth is much broader than

that. Not food alone, but knowledge, virtue, power, depend upon the subtle

skill of the artificer's fingers, the sturdy might of the husbandman's arm.

Let these fail, through the blighting influence of despotism,

licentiousness, superstition, or slavery, and the national greatness is

cankered at the root, and its preservation overtasks the ability of

Phocion, of Hannibal, of Cato. A nation flourishes or withers with the

development and vigor of its Industry. It may prosper and be strong without

statesmen, warriors, or jurists; it fades and falls with the decline of its

arts and its agriculture. Wisely, therefore, do rulers, nobles, field

marshals and archbishops, unite in rendering the highest honors to eminence

in the domain of Industry, dimly perceiving that it is mightier and more

enduring than their petty and fragile potencies. The empire of Napoleon,

though so lately at its zenith, has utterly passed away, while that of

Fulton is still in its youth.

A State Agricultural Society, numbering among its members some thousands of

her foremost citizens, mainly but not wholly farmers, is one of the most

commendable institutions of this great and growing commonwealth. Aided

liberally by the State government, it holds an Annual Fair at some one of

the chief towns of the interior, generally on the line of the Erie Canal,

whereby the collection of stock and other articles for exhibition is

facilitated, and the cost thereof materially lessened. Poughkeepsie,

Albany, Saratoga Springs, Utica, Syracuse (twice), Auburn, Rochester

(twice), and Buffalo, are the points at which these Fairs have been held

within the last ten years. Recently, the railroads have transported cattle,

&c., for exhibition, either at half-price, or entirely without charge,

while the State's bounty and the liberal receipts for admission to the

grounds have enabled the managers to stimulate competition by a very

extensive award of premiums, so that almost every recurrence of the State

Fair witnesses a larger and still more extensive display of choice animals.

Whether the improvement in quality keeps pace with the increase in number

is a point to be maturely considered.

The Fair of this year was held at ROCHESTER, in a large open field about a

mile south of the city, and of course near the Genesee river. Gigantic

stumps scattered through it, attested how recently this whole region was

covered with the primeval forest. Probably fifty thousand persons now live

within sight of the Rochester steeples, though not a human being inhabited

this then dense and swampy wilderness forty years ago. And here, almost

wholly from a region which had less than five thousand white inhabitants in

1810, not fewer than one hundred thousand persons, two-thirds of them adult

males, were drawn together expressly to witness this exhibition. The number

who entered the gates on Thursday alone exceeded seventy-five thousand,

while the attendance on the two preceding days and on Friday, of persons

who were not present on Thursday, must have exceeded twenty-five thousand.

Of course, many came with no definite purpose, no previous preparation to

observe and learn, and so carried home nothing more than they brought

there, save the head-ache, generated by their irregularities and excesses

while absent; but thousands came qualified and resolved to profit by the

practical lessons spread before them, and doubtless went away richly

recompensed for the time and money expended in visiting the Fair. This

Annual Exhibition is as yet the Farmers' University; they will in time have

a better, but until then they do well to make the most of that which

already welcomes them to its cheap, ready and practical inculcations.

[Illustration: ROCHESTER.]

The President of the State Society for this year is Mr. JOHN DELAFIELD,

long a master spirit among our Wall-street financiers, and for some years

President of the Phenix bank. He was finally swamped by the rascality of

the State of Illinois in virtually repudiating her public debt, whereby Mr.

Delafield, who had long acted as her financial agent in New-York, and had

staked his fortune on her integrity, was reduced from affluence to need.

Nothing daunted by this reverse, he promptly transferred his energies from

finance to agriculture, taking hold of a large farm in Seneca County, near

the beautiful village of Geneva; and on this farm he soon proved himself

one of the best practical agriculturists in our State. Before he had been

five years on the soil, he was already teaching hundreds of life-long

cultivators, by the quiet force of his successful example, how to double

the product of their lands and more than double their annual profits. His

enlightened and admirable husbandry has finally called him to the post he

now occupies--one not inferior in true dignity and opportunity for

usefulness to that of Governor of the State. And this is a fair specimen of

the elasticity of the American character and its capacity for adapting

itself to any and every change of circumstances.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE FAIR.]

The Annual Address at this Fair was delivered by the Hon. STEPHEN A.

DOUGLAS, now U. S. Senator from Illinois, and a very probable "Democratic"

candidate for next President of the United States. It was an able and well

enunciated discourse, devoted mainly to political economy as affecting

agriculture, taking the "free trade" view of this important and difficult

subject, and evidently addressed quite as much to southern politicians as

to New-York farmers; but it embodied many practical suggestions of decided

force and value. This address has already received a very wide circulation.

A public entertainment was proffered on Thursday evening to the officers of

the State Society, on behalf of the city of Rochester, which was attended

by ex-President TYLER, GOV. WASHINGTON HUNT, ex-Governor and ex-Secretary

MARCY, GEN. WOOL, Governor WRIGHT of Indiana, &c. &c. Senator DOUGLAS

arrived in the train just before the gathering broke up. The presence of

ladies, and the absence of liquors, were the most commendable features of

this festivity, which was convened at an absurdly late hour, and

characterized by an afflictive amount of dull speaking. Such an

entertainment is very well on an occasion like this, merely as a means of

enabling the congregated thousands to see and hear the celebrities convened

with them; but it should be given in the afternoon or beginning of the

evening, should cost very little (the speaking being dog-cheap and the

eatables no object), and should in nearly all respects be just what the

Rochester festival was not. As an exercise in false hospitality, however,

and a beacon for future adventurers in the same line, this entertainment

had considerable merit.

[Illustration: AZALIA.

_The best Short-Horned Durham Cow over Three Years Old: Owned by Lewis G.

Morris._]

[Illustration: LORD ERYHOLM.

_The best Two Year Old Short-Horned Durham Bull: Owned by Lewis G.

Morris._]

NEAT CATTLE stood first in intrinsic value among the classes of articles

exhibited at the Fair. Probably not less than One Thousand of these were

shown on this occasion, including imported bulls and cows, working-oxen,

fat steers, blood-heifers, calves, &c. &c. Of these we could not now say

whether the Durham or Devonshire breed predominated, but the former had

certainly no such marked ascendency as at former Fairs. Our impression from

the statements of disinterested breeders was and is, that where cattle are

bred mainly for the market, a larger weight of flesh may be obtained at an

early age from the Durham than from any rival breed, though not of the

finest quality; while for milk or butter the Devon is, and perhaps one or

two other breeds are, preferable. But this is merely the inference of one,

who has no experience in the premises, from a comparison of the statements

of intelligent breeders of widely differing preferences. Probably each of

the half-dozen best breeds is better adapted to certain localities and

purposes than any other; and intelligent farmers assert, that we still need

some breeds not yet introduced in this country, especially the small Black

Cattle of the Scottish Highlands, which, from their hardiness, excellence

of flesh, small cost for wintering, &c., are specially adapted to our own

rugged upland districts, particularly that which half covers the

north-eastern quarter of our State. The subject is one of the deepest

interest to agriculturists, and is destined to receive a thorough

investigation at their hands.

[Illustration: EARL SEAHAM.

_The best Short-Horned Durham Bull over Three Years Old: Owned by J. M.

Sherwood and A. Stevens._]

[Illustration: DEVON.

_The best Devon Bull over Three Years Old: Owned by W. P. and C. S.

Wainwright._]

[Illustration: TROMP.

_The best Hereford Bull, over Three Years Old: Owned by Allen Ayrault._]

[Illustration: KOSSUTH AND BRISKA.

_Best Foreign (Hungarian) Cattle, over Two Years Old: Owned by Roswell L.

Colt._]

Of Horses, the number exhibited was of course much smaller--perhaps two

hundred in all--embracing many animals of rare spirit, symmetry, and

beauty. Some Canadian horses, and a few specimens of a famous Vermont breed

(the Morgan) were among them. Our attention was not specially drawn in this

direction, and we will leave the merits of the rival competitors to the

awards of the judges.

[Illustration: DEVON HEIFER.

_Best three-fourth bred Devon Heifer: owned by George Shaeffer._]

[Illustration: OLD CLYDE.

_Best Foreign Horse: owned by Jane Ward, Markham, Canada West._]

[Illustration: CONSTERNATION.

_Best thorough-bred horse over four years old: owned by John B. Burnet._]

[Illustration: SOUTH DOWN SHEEP.

_Best Middle-Wooled Ewe, over Two Years Old: Owned by Lewis G. Morris._]

Of Sheep, there were a large number present--at a rough guess, Two

Thousand--embracing specimens of widely contrasted varieties. The

fine-wooled Saxonies and Merioes were largely represented; so were

coarse-wooled but fine-fleshed Bakewells and Southdowns. For three or four

years past, the annual product of wool, especially of the finer qualities,

has been unequal to the demand, causing a gradual appreciation of prices,

until a standard has this year been reached above the value of the staple.

Speculators, who had observed the gradual rise through two or three

seasons, rushed in to purchase this year's clip, at prices which cannot be

maintained, and the farmers have received some hundreds of thousands of

dollars more for their wool than the buyers can ever sell it for. This has

naturally reacted on the price of sheep, whereof choice specimens for

breeding have been sold for sums scarcely exceeded during the celebrated

Merino fever of 1816-18. _Bona fide_ sales for $100 each and over have

certainly been made; and it is confidently asserted that picked animals

from the flocks of a famous Vermont breeder were sold, to improve Ohio

flocks, at the late Fair of that State--a buck for $1,000, and six ewes for

$300 each. These reports, whether veritable or somewhat inflated, indicate

a tendency of the times. Where sheep are grown mainly for the wool, it is

as absurd to keep those of inferior grades, as to plant apple-trees without

grafting and grow two or three bushels of walnut-sized, vinegar-flavored

fruit on a tree which might as well have borne ten bushels of Spitzenbergs

or Greenings. But there is room also for improvement and profit in the

breeding of sheep other than the fine-wooled species. The famous

roast-mutton of England ought to be more than rivaled among us; for we have

a better climate and far better sheep-walks than the English in the rugged

mountain districts of New-England, of Pennsylvania, and of our own State.

The breeding of large, fine-fleshed sheep of the choicest varieties, on the

lines of all the railroads communicating with the great cities, is one of

the undertakings which promise largest and surest returns to our farmers,

and it is yet in its infancy. A hundred thousand of such sheep would be

taken annually by New-York and Philadelphia at largely remunerating prices.

Thousands of acres of sterile, scantily timbered land on the Delaware and

its branches might be profitably transformed into extensive sheep-walks,

while they must otherwise remain useless and unimproved for ages. These

lands may now be bought for a song, and are morally certain to be far

higher within the next dozen years.

[Illustration: LONG-WOOLED SHEEP.

_Best long-wooled buck and ewe over two years old: owned by J. McDonald and

Wm. Rathbone._]

Of Swine there were a good many exhibited at the Fair, but we did not waste

much time upon them. The Hog Crop once stood high among the products of the

older States, but it has gradually fallen off since the settlement of the

great West, and the cheapening of intercommunication between that section

and the East, and is destined to sink still lower. Pork can be made on the

prairies and among the nutwood forests and corn-bearing intervales of the

West for half the cost of making it in New-England; no Yankee can afford to

feed his hogs with corn, much less potatoes, as his grandfather freely did.

Only on a dairy farm can any considerable quantity of pork be profitably

made east of the Ohio; and he who keeps but a pig or two to eat up the

refuse of the kitchen cares little (perhaps too little) for the breed of

his porkers. So let them pass.

"Fancy" Fowls are among the hobbies of our day, as was abundantly evinced

at the State Fair. Coops piled on coops, and in rows twenty rods long, of

Chinese, Dorking, and other breeds of the most popular domestic bird,

monopolized a large share of attention; while geese, ducks, turkies, &c.,

were liberally and creditably represented. The "Hen Convention," which was

a pet topic of Boston waggery a year or two since, might have been easily

and properly held at Rochester. Many of these choice barn-yard fowls were

scarcely inferior in size while doubtless superior in flavor to the

ordinary turky, while the farmer who opens the spring with a hundred of

them may half feed his family and at the same time quite keep down his

store-bill with their daily products. Small economies steadily pursued are

the source of thrift and competence to many a cultivator of flinty and

ungenial acres; few farmers can afford to disregard them. If thrice the

present number of fowls were kept among us, their care and food would

scarcely be missed, while their product would greatly increase the

aggregate not only of thrift but of comfort.

[Illustration: J. DELAFIELD'S CHINESE HOGS.]

"Floral Hall" was the name of a temporary though spacious structure of

scantling and rough boards, in which were exhibited, in addition to a

profusion of the flowers of the season, a display of Fruits and Vegetables

whereof Rochester might well be proud. This city seems the natural centre

of the finest fruit-growing district on the American continent--yes, in the

whole world. Its high latitude secures the richest flavors, while the harsh

northern winds, which elsewhere prove so baneful, are here softened by

passing over lake Erie or Ontario, and a climate thus produced, which, for

fruit, has no rival. Large delicious grapes of innumerable varieties;

excellent peaches; delicate, juicy, luscious pears; quinces that really

tempt the eye, though not the palate; and a profusion of fair, fragrant,

golden, mammoth apples,--these were among the products of the immediate

vicinity of Rochester exhibited in bounteous profusion. In the department

of Vegetables also there were beets and turnips of gigantic size; several

squashes weighing about one hundred and thirty pounds each; with

egg-plants, potatoes, tomatoes, and other edibles, which were all that

palate could desire. The fertility of western New-York is proverbial; but

it was never more triumphantly set forth than in the fruit and vegetables

exhibited at the State Fair.

Of butter, cheese, honey, (obtained without destroying the bees,)

maple-sugar &c., the display was much better than we have remarked on any

former occasion. And in this connection the rock salt from our own State

works around Syracuse deserves honorable mention. New-York salt has been

treated with systematic injustice by western consumers. In order to save a

shilling or two on the barrel, they buy the inferior article produced by

boiling instead of the far better obtained by solar evaporation; then they

endeavor to make a New-York standard bushel of fifty six pounds do the work

of a measured bushel of Turks Island weighing eighty pounds; and because

the laws regulating the preservation and decomposition of animal substances

will not thus be swindled, they pronounce the New-York salt impure and

worthless. Now there is no purer, no better salt than the New-York solar;

but, even of this, fifty-six pounds will not do the work of eighty. Buy the

best quality, (and even this is dog cheap,) use the proper quantity, and no

salt in the world will preserve meats better than this. The New-York solar

salt exhibited at Rochester could not be surpassed, and that which had been

_ground_ has no superior in its adaptation to the table.

There were many tasteful Counterpanes and other products of female skill

and industry exhibited, but the perpetual crowd in the 'halls' devoted to

manufactures allowed no opportunity for their critical examination. Of

stoves and ranges, heating and (let us be thankful for it, even at this

late day) ventilating apparatus and arrangements, there was a supply; and

so of daguerreotypes, trunks, harness, &c. &c. Nothing, however, arrested

our attention in this hall but the specimens of FLAX-COTTON and its various

proportions exhibited by E. G. Roberts, assignee of Claussen's patents for

the United States. We saw one intelligent influential citizen converted

from skepticism to enthusiasm for flax-cotton by his first earnest

examination. It _will_ go inevitably. A cotton fibre scarcely

distinguishable from Sea Island may be produced from flax by Claussen's

process for six cents per pound; and a machine for breaking out the fibre

from the unrotted stalk was exhibited by Mr. Clemmons of Springfield,

Massachusetts, which is calculated materially to expedite the flax-cotton

revolution. This machine renders the entire fibre, with hardly a loss of

two per cent. as 'swingle-tow,' straight and wholly separated from the

woody substance or 'shives,' at a cost which can hardly equal one cent per

pound of dressed flax. Its operation is very simple, and any man who has

seen it work a day may manage it. Its entire cost is from $125 to $200,

according to size. It will be a shame to American agricultural enterprise

if flax-cotton and linen are not both among our country's extensive and

important products within the next three years.

The department of Agricultural Machinery and Implements was decidedly the

most interesting of any. No other can at all equal it in the rapidity and

universality of progress from year to year. Of Plows, there cannot have

been less than two hundred on the ground, exhibiting a great variety of

novel excellence. One with two shares, contrived to cut two furrows at

once, seemed the most useful of any recently invented. The upper share cuts

and turns the sward to the depth of five inches, which is immediately

buried seven inches deep by the earth turned up by the deeper share. Since

it is impossible to induce one farmer in twenty to subsoil, this, as the

next best thing, ought to be universally adopted.

Seed-Sowers, Corn-Planters, Reapers, Fanning-Mills, Straw-Cutters, &c.,

&c., were abundant, and evinced many improvements on the best of former

years. A Mower with which a man, boy, and span of horses, will cut and

spread ten acres per day of grass, however heavy, on tolerably level

land--both cutting and spreading better than the hand-impelled scythe and

stick will do--was among the new inventions; also two threshers and

cleaners, each of them warranted to thresh and nearly clean, by the labor

of four men, a boy, and two horses, over one hundred bushels of wheat or

two hundred bushels of oats per day. The testimony of candid citizens who

had used them, and the evidence of our own senses, left no doubt on our

mind of the correctness of these assertions. But we do not write to commend

any article, but to call attention to the great and cheering truth which

underlies them all. Agriculture is a noble art, involving the knowledge of

almost all the practical sciences--chemistry, geology, climatology,

mechanics, &c. It is not merely progressive, but rapidly progressing, so

that fifty days' labor on the same soil produce far more grain or hay now

than they did half a century ago. And every year is increasing and

rendering more palpable the pressing need of a PRACTICAL COLLEGE, wherein

Agriculture, Mechanics, and the sciences auxiliary thereto shall be ably

and thoroughly taught to thousands and tens of thousands of our countrymen,

who shall in turn become the disseminators of the truths thus inculcated to

the youth of every county and township in the country.

And thus shall Agriculture be rendered what it should be--not only the most

essential but the most intellectual and attractive among the industrial

avocations of mankind.

HORACE GREELEY

[Illustration: THE VIRGINIA REAPER.

_Exhibited at the Crystal Palace, and the New-York State Agricultural Fair,

by Cyrus H. McCormick_.]

WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE.

[Illustration]

Of the large number of young men in this country who write verses, we

scarcely know of one who has a more unquestionable right to the title of

poet than WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE, who has just published, in a very handsome

volume, a collection of his writings, under the title of _Meditations in

America_. Mr. WALLACE has written other things which in their day have been

sufficiently familiar to the public; in what we have to say of his

capacities we shall confine ourselves to the pieces which he has himself

here selected as the truest exponents of his genius, and without giving

them indiscriminate praise shall hope to find in them evidences of peculiar

and remarkable powers, combined with a spirit eminently susceptible to the

influences of nature and of ideal and moral beauty.

Mr. Wallace is a western man, and was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in the

year 1819. His father was a Presbyterian minister, of good family, and

marked abilities, who died soon after, leaving the future poet to the care

of a mother whose chief ambition in regard to him was that he should be so

trained as to be capable of the most elevated positions in society. After

the usual preparatory studies, he went first to the Bloomington College,

and afterwards to the South Hanover College, in Indiana, and upon

graduating at the latter institution studied the law in his native city.

When about twenty-two years of age, having already acquired considerable

reputation in literature, by various contributions to western and southern

periodicals, he came to the Atlantic states, and with the exception of a

few months passed in Philadelphia, and a year and a half in Europe, he has

since resided in New-York, occupied in the practice of his profession and

in the pursuits of literature. Of his numerous poetical compositions, this

is the first collection, and the only volume, except _Alban, a Romance_,

intended to illustrate the influence of certain prejudices of society and

principles of law on individual character and destiny, which was published

in 1848.

His works generally are distinguished for a sensuous richness of style,

earnestness of temper, and much freedom of speculation. Throughout the

_Meditations in America_ we perceive that he is most at home in the serious

and stately rhythms and solemn fancies of such pieces as the hymn "To a

Wind Going Seaward," "The Mounds of America," "The Chant of a Soul," &c.;

but he occasionally writes in livelier and less peculiar measures.

The late Mr. Poe in his _Marginalia_ refers to the following as one of the

finest things in American literature; it is certainly very characteristic.

THE CHANT OF A SOUL.

My youth has gone--the glory, the delight

That gave new moons unto the night,

And put in every wind a tone

And presence that was not its own.

I can no more create,

What time the Autumn blows her solemn tromp,

And goes with golden pomp

Through our unmeasurable woods:

I can no more create, sitting in youthful state

Above the mighty floods,

And peopling glen, and wave, and air,

With shapes that are immortal. Then

The earth and heaven were fair,

While only less than gods seem'd all my fellow-men.

Oh! the delight, the gladness,

The sense yet love of madness,

The glorious choral exultations,

The far-off sounding of the banded nations,

The wings of angels at melodious sweeps

Upon the mountain's hazy steeps,--

The very dead astir within their coffin'd deeps;

The dreamy veil that wrapp'd the star and sod--

A swathe of purple, gold, and amethyst;

And, luminous behind the billowy mist,

Something that look'd to my young eyes like GOD.

Too late I learn I have not lived aright,

And hence the loss of that delight

Which put a moon into the moonless night

I mingled in the human maze;

I sought their horrid shrine;

I knelt before the impure blaze;

I made their idols mine.

I lost mine early love--that love of balms

Most musical with solemn psalms

Sounding beneath the tall and graceful palms.

Who lives aright?

Answer me, all ye pyramids and piles

That look like calmest power in your still might.

Ye also do I ask, O continents and isles!

Blind though with blood ye be,

Your tongues, though torn with pain, I know are free.

Then speak, all ancient masses! speak

From patient obelisk to idle peak!

There is a heaving of the plains,

A trailing of a shroud,

A clash of bolts and chains--

A low, sad voice, that comes upon me like a cloud,

"Oh, misery, oh, misery!"--

Thou poor old Earth! no more, no more

Shall I draw speech from thee,

Nor dare thy crypts of legendary lore:

Let silence learn no tongue; let night fold every shore.

Yet I have something left--the will,

That Mont Blanc of the soul, is towering still.

And I can bear the pain,

The storm, the old heroic chain;

And with a smile

Pluck wisdom from my torture, and give back

A love to Fate from this my mountain-rack.

I do believe the sad alone are wise;

I do believe the wrong'd alone can know

Why lives the world, why spread the burden'd skies,

And so from torture into godship grow.

Plainer and plainer beams this truth, the more

I hear the slow, dull dripping of my gore;

And now, arising from yon deep,

'Tis plain as a white statue on a tall, dark steep.

Oh, suffering bards! oh spirits black

With storm on many a mountain-rack

Our early splendor's gone.

Like stars into a cloud withdrawn--

Like music laid asleep

In dried-up fountains--like a stricken dawn

Where sudden tempests sweep.

I hear the bolts around us falling,

And cloud to cloud forever calling:

Yet WE must nor despair nor weep.

Did WE this evil bring?

Or from our fellows did the torture spring?

Titans! forgive, forgive!

Oh, know ye not 'tis victory but to live?

Therefore I say, rejoice with harp and voice!

I know not what our fate may be:

I only know that he who hath a time

Must also have eternity:

One billow proves and gives a whole wide sea.

On this I build my trust,

And not on mountain-dust,

Or murmuring woods, or starlit clime,

Or ocean with melodious chime,

Or sunset glories in the western sky:

Enough, I _am_, and shall not choose to die.

No matter what my future fate may be:

To live is in itself a majesty!

Oh! there I may again create

Fair worlds as in my youthful state;

Or Wo may build for me a fiery tomb

Like Farinata's in the nether gloom:

Even then I will not lose the name of man

By idle moan or coward groan,

But say, "It was so written in the mighty plan!"

The next poem is in a vein of lofty contemplation, and the rhetoric is

eminently appropriate and well sustained. It is one of the most striking

pieces in the book.

THE MOUNDS OF AMERICA.

Come to the mounds of death with me. They stretch

From deep to deep, sad, venerable, vast,

Graves of gone empires--gone without a sighn,

Like clouds from heaven. They stretch'd from deep to deep

Before the Roman smote his mailed hand

On the gold portals of the dreaming East;

Before the Pleiad, in white trance of song,

Beyond her choir of stars went wandering.

The great old Trees, rank'd on these hills of death,

Have melancholy hymns about all this;

And when the moon walks her inheritance

With slow, imperial pace, the Trees look up

And chant in solemn cadence. Come and hear.

"Oh patient Moon! go not behind a cloud,

But listen to our words. We, too, are old,

Though not so old as thou. The ancient towns,

The cities throned far apart like queens,

The shadowy domes, the realms majestical,

Slept in thy younger beams. In every leaf

We hold their dust, a king in every trunk.

We, too, are very old: the wind that wails

In our broad branches, from swart Ethiop come

But now, wail'd in our branches long ago,

Then come from darken'd Calvary. The Hills

Lean'd ghastly at the tale that wan Wind told;

The Streams crept shuddering through the tremulous dark;

The Torrent of the North, from morn till eve,

On his steep ledge hung pausing; and o'er all

Such silence fell, we heard the conscious Rills

Drip slowly in the caves of central Earth.

So were the continents by His crowned grief

Together bound, before that Genoese

Flamed on the dim Atlantic: so have we,

Whose aspect faced the scene, unchallenged right

Of language unto all, while memory holds.

"O patient Moon! go not behind a cloud,

But hear our words. We know that thou didst see

The whole that we could utter--thou that wert

A worship unto realms beyond the flood--

But we are very lonesome on these mounds,

And speech doth make the burden of sad thought

Endurable; while these, the people new,

That take our land, may haply learn from us

What wonder went before them; for no word

E'er came from thee, so beautiful, so lone.

Throned in thy still domain, superbly calm

And silent as a god.

Here empires rose and died;

Their very dust, beyond the Atlantic borne

In the pale navies of the charter'd wind,

Stains the white Alp. Here the proud city ranged

Spire after spire, like star ranged after star

Along the dim empyrean, till the air

Went mad with splendor, and the dwellers cried,

"Our walls have married Time!"--Gone are the marts,

The insolent citadels, the fearful gates,

The pictured domes that curved like starry skies;

Gone are their very names! The royal Ghost

Cannot discern the old imperial haunts,

But goes about perplexed like a mist

Between a ruin and the awful stars.

Nations are laid beneath our feet. The bard

Who stood in Song's prevailing light, as stands

The apocalyptic angel in the sun,

And rained melodious fire on all the realms;

The prophet pale, who shuddered in his gloom,

As the white cataract shudders in its mist;

The hero shattering an old kingdom down

With one clear trumpet's will: the Boy, the Sage,

Subject and Lord, the Beautiful, the Wise--

Gone, gone to nothingness.

The years glide on,

The pitiless years! and all alike shall fail,

State after State rear'd by the solemn sea,

Or where the Hudson goes unchallenged past

The ancient warder of the Palisades,

Or where, rejoicing o'er the enormous cloud,

Beam the blue Alleghanies--all shall fail:

The Ages chant their dirges on the peaks;

The palls are ready in the peopled vales;

And nations fill one common sepulchre.

Nor goes the Earth on her dark way alone.

Each star in yonder vault doth hold the dead

In its funereal deeps: Arcturus broods

Over vast sepulchres that had grown old

Before the earth was made: the universe

Itself is but one mighty cemetery

Rolling around its central, solemn sun.

"O patient Moon! go not behind a cloud,

But listen to our words. We, too, must die--

And thou!--the vassal stars shall fail to hear

Thy queenly voice over the azure fields

Calling at sunset. They shall fade. The Earth

Shall look and miss their sweet, familiar eyes,

And, crouching, die beneath the feet of GOD.

Then come the glories, then the nobler times,

For which the Orbs travail'd in sorrow; then

The mystery shall be clear, the burden gone;

And surely men shall know why nations came

Transfigured for the pangs; why not a spot

Of this wide world but hath a tale of wo;

Why all this glorious universe is Death's.

"Go, Moon! and tell the stars, and tell the suns,

Impatient of the wo, the strength of him

Who doth consent to death; and tell the climes

That meet thy mournful eyes, one after one,

Through all the lapses of the lonesome night,

The pathos of repose, the might of Death!"

The voice is hush'd; the great old wood is still:

The Moon, like one in meditation, walks

Behind a cloud. We, too, have them for thought,

While, as a sun, GOD takes the West of Time

And smites the pyramid of Eternity.

The shadow lengthens over many worlds

Doom'd to the dark mausoleum and mound.

We do not remember any poem on Mahomet finer than the following:

EL AMIN.

Who is this that comes from Hara? not in kingly pomp and pride,

But a great, free son of Nature, lion-souled and eagle-eyed!

Who is this before whose presence idols tumble to the sod?

While he cries out--"Allah Akbar! and there is no god but God!"

Wandering in the solemn desert, he has wondered like a child

Not as yet too proud to wonder, at the sun, and star, and wild.

"Oh, thou moon! who made thy brightness? Stars! who hung you there on high?

Answer! so my soul may worship: I must worship or die!"

Then there fell the brooding silence that precedes the thunder's roll;

And the old Arabian Whirlwind called another Arab soul.

Who is this that comes from Hara? not in kingly pomp and pride,

But a great, free son of Nature, lion-souled and eagle-eyed!

He has stood and seen Mount Hara to the Awful Presence nod;

He has heard from cloud and lightning--"Know there is no god but God!"

Call ye this man an imposter? He was called "The Faithful," when,

A boy, he wandered o'er the deserts, by the wild-eyed Arab men.

He was always called "The Faithful." Truth he knew was Allah's breath;

But the Lie went darkly gnashing through the corridors of Death.

"He was fierce!" Yes! fierce at falsehood--fierce at hideous bits of wood,

That the Koreish taught the people made the sun and solitude.

But his heart was also gentle, and Affection's graceful palm,

Waving in his tropic spirit, to the weary brought a balm.

"Precepts?" "Have on each compassion:" "Lead the stranger to your door:"

"In your dealings keep up justice:" "Give a tenth unto the poor."

"Yet ambitious!" Yes! ambitious--while he heard the calm and sweet

Aiden-voices sing--to trample troubled Hell beneath his feet.

"Islam?" Yes! "Submit to Heaven!" "Prophet?" To the East thou art!

What are prophets but the trumpets blown by God to stir the heart?

And the great heart of the desert stirred unto that solemn strain,

Rolling from the trump at Hara over Error's troubled main.

And a hundred dusky millions honor still El Amin's rod--

Daily chanting--"Allah Akbar! know there is no god but God!"

Call him then no more "Impostor." Mecca is the Choral Gate

Where, till Zion's noon shall take them, nations in her morning wait.

Mr. Wallace has published a few songs. They have not the stately movement

of his other pieces, and the one which follows needs the application of the

file; but it is, like the others, very spirited:

AVELINE.

----The sunny eyes of the maiden fair

Give answer better than voice or pen

That as he loves he is loved again.--C. C. LEEDS.

Love me dearly, love me dearly with your heart and with your eyes;

Whisper all your sweet emotions, as they gushing, blushing rise;

Throw your soft white arms about me;

Say you cannot live without me:

Say, you are my Aveline; say, that you are only mine,

That you cannot live without me, young and rosy Aveline!

Love me dearly, dearly, dearly: speak you love-words silver-clearly,

So I may not doubt thus early of your fondness, of your truth.

Press, oh! press your throbbing bosom closely, warmly to my own:

Fix your kindled eyes on mine--say you live for me alone,

While I fix my eyes on thine,

Lovely, trusting, artless, plighted; plighted, rosy Aveline!

Love me dearly; love me dearly: radiant dawn upon my gloom:

Ravish me with Beauty's bloom:--

Tell me "Life has yet a glory: 'tis not all an idle story!"

As a gladdened vale in noonlight; as a weary lake in moonlight,

Let me in thy love recline:

Show me life has yet a splendor in my tender Aveline.

Love me dearly, dearly, dearly with your heart and with your eyes:

Whisper all your sweet emotions as they gushing, blushing rise.

Throw your soft white arms around me; say you _lived not_ till you found me--

Say it, say it, Aveline! whisper you are only mine;

That you cannot live without me, as you throw your arms about me,

That you _cannot_ live without me, artless, rosy Aveline!

Our limits will not permit us to quote any of the remaining poems of this

volume in full, and we conclude our extracts with a few passages penciled

while in a hasty reading. In the piece entitled The Kings of Sorrow, the

poet sings:

Was HE not sad amid the grief and strife, the Lord of light and life,

Whose torture made humanity divine, upon that woful hill of Palestine?

Then is it not far better thus to be, thoughtful, and brave, and melancholy,

Than given up to idle revelry, amid the unreligious brood of folly?

For our sorrow is a worship, worship true, and pure, and calm,

Sounding from the choir of duty like a high, heroic psalm,

In its very darkness bearing to the bleeding heart a balm.

Brothers, we must have no wailing: do we agonize alone?

Look at all the pallid millions; hear a universal moan,

From the mumbling, low-browed Bushman to a Lytton on his throne.

Nor shall we have coward faltering: Brothers! we must be sublime

By due labor at the forges blazing in the cave of Time;

Knowing life was made for duty, and that only cowards prate

Of a search for Happy Valley and the hard decrees of fate:

Seeing through this night of mourning all the future as a star,

And a joy at last appearing on the centuries afar,

When the meaning of the sorrow, when the mystery shall be plain,

When the Earth shall see her rivers roll through Paradise again.

O! the vision gives to sorrow something white and purple-plumed:

Even the hurricane of Evil comes a hurricane perfumed.

In the same:

... The Storm is silent while we speak;

The awe-struck Cloud hath paused above the peak;

The far Volcano statlier waves on high

His smoking censer to the solemn sky;

And see, the troubled Ocean folds his hands

With a great patience on the yellow sands.

In Rest:

So rest! and Rest shall slay your many woes;

Motion is god-like--god-like is repose,

A mountain-stillness, of majestic might,

Whose peaks are glorious with the quiet light

Of suns when Day is at his solemn close.

Nor deem that slumber must ignoble be.

Jove labored lustily once in airy fields;

And over the cloudy lea

He planted many a budding shoot

Whose liberal nature daily, nightly yields

A store of starry fruit.

His labor done, the weary god went back

Up the long mountain track

To his great house; there he did wile away

With lightest thought a well-won holiday;

For all the Powers crooned softly an old tune

Wishing their Sire might sleep

Through all the sultry noon

And cold blue night;

And very soon

They heard the awful Thunderer breathing low and deep.

And in the hush that dropped adown the spheres,

And in the quiet of the awe-struck space,

The worlds learned worship at the birth of years:

They looked upon their Lord's calm, kingly face.

And bade Religion come and kiss each starry place.

In the same:

See what a languid glory binds

The long dim chambers of the darkling West,

While far below yon azure river winds

Like a blue vein on sleeping Beauty's breast.

In The Gods of Old:

Not realmless sit the ancient gods

Upon their mountain-thrones

In that old glorious Grecian Heaven

Of regal zones.

A languor o'er their stately forms

May lie,

And a sorrow on their wide white brows,

King-dwellers of the sky!

But theirs is still that large imperial throng

Of starry thoughts and firm but quiet wills,

That murmured past the blind old King of Song,

When staring round him on the Thunderer's hills.

In the same:

... Still Love, sublime, shall wrap

His awful eyebrows in Olympian shrouds.

Or take along the Heaven's dark wilderness

His thunder-chase behind the hunted clouds.

And mortal eyes upturned shall behold

Apollo's robe of gold

Sweep through the long blue corridor of the sky

That, kindling, speaks its Deity:

And He, the Ruler of the Sunless Land

Of restless ghosts, shall fitfully illume

With smouldering fires, that stir in caverned eyes,

Hell's mournful House of Gloom.

In the Hymn to a Wind, Going Seaward:

Move on! Move on,

Wind of the wide wild West! Tell thou to all

The Isles, tell thou to all the Continents

The grandeur of my land! Speak of its vales

Where Independence wears a pastoral wreath

Amid the holy quiet of his flock;

And of its mountains with their cloudy beards

Tossed by the breath of centuries; and speak

Of its tall cataracts that roll their bass

Amid the choral of the midnight storms;

And of its rivers lingering through the plains

So long, that they seem made to measure time;

And of its lakes that mock the haughty sea;

And of its caves where banished gods might find

Night large enough to hide their crownless heads;

And of its sunsets broad and glorious there

O'er Prairies spread like endless oceans on--

And on--and on--over the far dim leagues

Till vision shudders o'er immensity.

In the same:

----Troubled France

Shall listen to thy calm deep voice, and learn

That Freedom must be calm if she would fix

Her mountain moveless in a heaving world.

In a Chant to the East:

Still! Oh still!

Despite of passion, sin, and ill,

Despite of all this weary world hath brought,

An angel band from Zion's holy hill

Walks gently through the open gate of Thought.

Oh, still! Oh, still!

Despite of passion, sin, and ill,

ONE in red vesture comes in sorrow's time--

ONE crowned with thorns from that far Orient clime,

Who pitying looks on me

And gently asks, "Poor man, what aileth thee?"

In the same:

The nations must forever turn to thee,

Feeling thy lustrous presence from afar;

And feed upon thy splendor as a sea

Feeds on the shining shadow of a star.

In Wordsworth:

And many a brook shall murmur in my verse;

And many an ocean join his cloudy bass;

And many a mountain tower aloft, whereon

The black storm crouches, with his deep-red eyes

Glaring upon the valleys stretch'd below;

And many a green wood rock the small, bright birds

To musical sleep beneath the large, full moon;

And many a star shall lift on high her cup

Of luminous cold chrysolite, set in gold

Chased subtilely over by angelic art;

To catch the odorous dews which poets drink

In their wide wanderings; and many a sun

Shall press the pale lips of the timorous morn

Couch'd in the bridal east: and over all

Will brood the visible presence of the ONE

To whom my life has been a solemn chant.

In the Last Words of Washington:

There is an awful stillness in the sky,

When after wondrous deeds and light supreme,

A star goes out in golden prophecy.

There is an awful stillness in the world,

When after wondrous deeds and light supreme,

Sceptres refused and forehead crowned with truth,

A Hero dies, with all the future clear

Before him, and his voice made jubilant

By coming glories, and his nation hushed,

As though they heard the farewell of a god.

A great man is to earth as God to Heaven.

In Greenwood Cemetery:

O, ye whose mouldering frames were brought and placed

By pious hands within these flowery slopes

And gentle hills, where are ye dwelling now?

For man is more than element! The soul

Lives in the body as the sunbeam lives

In trees or flowers that were but clay without.

Then where are ye, lost sunbeams of the mind?

Are ye where great Orion towers and holds

Eternity on his stupendous front?

Or where pale Neptune in the distant space

Shows us how far, in his creative mood,

With pomp of silence and concentred brows,

The Almighty walked? Or haply ye have gone

Where other matter roundeth into shapes

Of bright beatitude: Or do ye know

Aught of dull space or time, and its dark load

Of aching weariness?

Mr. Wallace is somewhat too much of a rhetorician, and he has a few defects

of manner which, from this frequent repetition, he seems to regard as

beauties. Peculiar phrases, of doubtful propriety, but which have a musical

roll, occur in many of his poems, so that they become very prominent; this

fault, however, belongs chiefly to his earlier pieces; the extracts we have

given, we think will amply vindicate to the most critical judgments, the

praise here awarded to him as a poet of singular and unusual powers,

original, earnest, and in a remarkable degree _national_. It can scarcely

be said of any of our bards that they have caught their inspiration more

directly from observation and experience, or that their effusions, whatever

the distinction they have in art, are more genuine in feeling.

AMERICA AS ABUSED BY A GERMAN.

Having made it a point to faithfully report all that is said of our country

by foreign travellers or journalists, we deem it a duty to lay before our

readers not only the more agreeable accounts given by those who have

impartially examined our institutions and manners, but also the more

prejudiced relations of those who, urged by interest or ill-nature, have

sketched simply the darker and more irregular outlines. And we are the more

induced to follow this course since we are fully convinced that it is

productive of equal good with the former. We have--particularly to English

eyes--appeared as a people who eagerly devour all that is said to our

discredit, and at the same time fiercely repudiate the slightest

insinuation that we in any thing fall short of perfection. As regards the

latter, we shall content ourselves with remarking, that even the

disposition to deny the existence of imperfection among us, redounds far

more to our credit, than the complacent exaltation of our weaker points to

virtues; while as to the former, we are certain that a higher feeling than

mere nervous, sensitive vanity, induces in us the desire

"To see ourselves as others see us,"

since there is no nation which more readily avails itself of the remarks of

others, even when by far too bitter or unjust to improve. True to our

national character of youthfulness, we are ever ready to act on every hint.

We are, _par excellence_, a _learning_ nation. Send even the _young_

Englishman on his continental tour, and the chances are ten to one that he

returns with every prejudice strengthened, and his vanity increased. But

the American--ductile as wax, evinces himself even at an advanced period of

life, susceptible of improvement, yet firm in its retention. That we

earnestly strive in every respect to improve is evident from many "little

things" which foreigners ridicule. For instance, the habitual use of "fine

language," and the attempt to clothe even our ordinary trains of thought in

an elegant garb, which has been time and again cruelly ridiculed by Yankee

goaders, is to a reflecting mind suggestive of commendation, from the very

fact, that an attempt at least is made _to improve_. Better a thousand

times the impulse to progress, even through the whirlwinds of hyperbole and

inflated expression, than the heavy miasma of a patois, the lightest breath

of which at once proclaims the cockney or provincial.

For the entertainment of those who are willing to live, laugh, and learn,

we are induced to give our readers a few extracts from a recently published

work, by a German, entitled, _Skizzen aus den Vereinigten Staaten von Nord

Amerika: Von_ DR. A. KIRSTEN, (or, _Sketches of the United States of North

America_, by Dr. A. KIRSTEN,) a work in which the author, after exhausting

all the three-penny thunder of ignorant abuse, coolly informs his readers,

that he has by no means represented things in their worst light. The

American public at large are not aware that among the rulers of Germany,

emigration to America is sternly yet anxiously discouraged. Rejoiced as

they are to behold our country a receptacle for the sweepings of their

prisons and _Fuchthaueser_, or houses of correction, they still gaze with an

alarmed glance at the almost incredible "forth-wandering" which has at

times depopulated entire villages, and borne with it an amount of wealth,

which, trifling as it may appear to us, is in a land of economy and poverty

of immense importance. The reader who judges of Germany by Great Britain

and Ireland, is mistaken. That emigration which is to the government of the

latter countries health and safety, brings to the former death and

destruction. As a proof of this, we need only point to the tone of all the

German papers which are in any manner connected with the interests of their

respective courts. In all we find the old song: Depreciation of America, as

far as applicable to the prevention of emigration. To accomplish this end,

writers are hired and poets feed; remedies against emigration are proposed

by political economists, and where possible, even clergymen are induced to

persuade their flocks to nibble still in the ancient stubble, or among the

same old barren rocks.

Dr. Kirsten, it would appear, is either a natural and habitual grumbler, or

a paid hireling. If the former, we can only pity--if the latter, despise

him. Could our voice be heard by his patrons, we would, however, advise

them to employ a better grumbler--one who can wield lance and sword against

his foes, instead of mops and muddy water. A weaker lancer, or more

impotent and impudent abuser, has rarely appeared, even among our earlier

English decriers.

Like many other weak-minded individuals, the Herr Doctor appears to have

started under the fullest conviction that our country was, if not a true

"_Schlaraffen Land_," or _Pays de Cocagne_, or Mahomet's Paradise, in which

pigeons ready roasted fly to the mouth, at least a realized _Icarie_, or

perfected Fourier-dom. All the books which he had read, relative to

America, described it in glowing colors, and inclined his mind favorably

toward it. Such was his faith in these books, or also so great his fear,

that these glorious dreams might be dissipated, that he did not even

ascertain or confirm their truth by the personal experience of those who

had been there, and we are informed naively enough in the preface, that

previous to his departure he had but once had an opportunity of conversing

with an educated German, who had resided for a long time in America. Such

weak heedlessness as this does not, to our ears at least, savor of the

characteristic prudence and deliberation of the German, and strongly

confirms us in the belief, that the doctor wandered forth well knowing what

he was about--in other words, that he went his way with his opinions

already cut and dried.

"After an eight weeks' voyage I arrived in New-York. It was at the end of

August. Even in the vicinity of the Gulf Stream a terrible heat oppressed

us, which increased as we approached land; but it was in that city that I

became aware of what the heat in America really was. Many visits which I

was obliged to make, caused during the day a cruel exhaustion, while at

night I found no refreshment in slumber, partly because the heat was hardly

diminished, and partly from the musquitoes, and to me unaccustomed alarms

of fire, which were nightly repeated, from which I found that life in

America was by no means so agreeable as I had been led to infer from books

and popular report."

From the single, mysterious, educated German with whom the doctor had

conferred previous to his departure, he had learned that, in the United

States, any thing like marked distinction of class, rank, or caste, did not

exist; and that this was particularly the case among Germans living there.

"The educated and refined knew how to draw into their society the less

gifted, and it was really singular to observe in how short a time the

latter rose to a higher degree of culture. People actually destitute of

knowledge and manners, in fact could not be found. Moreover, I there

anticipated a southern climate, for which I had some years longed."

How miserably the poor doctor was disappointed in these moderate and

reasonable anticipations, appears from the following lamentable account:

"Ere long I, indeed, became acquainted with many Germans, who received me

in the kindest manner, and of whom recollections will ever be dear to me.

But this was not the case with the Americans, as I had been led to

anticipate, nor indeed with the Germans, generally. Among these I found

neither connection nor unity, and they mostly led a life such as I had in

Germany never met with, while nothing like social cultivation, in a higher

sense, was to be found. Led into the society of those who by day were

devoted to business, but in the evening scattered themselves, here and

there, without a point of union, I found myself in the noisy, but

pleasure-wanting city, forlorn and unwell. Many, to whom I complained of

what I missed in New-York, thought that it might be found in Philadelphia."

But even in Philadelphia our pilgrim found not the promised Paradise, where

there was no distinction of rank or family, and where the more educated and

refined would eagerly adopt him, the lowly brother, into their Icarian

circle. Neither did he discover the golden tropical region--the southern

heaven--for which his soul had longed for years. Alas! no. "After a

residence of four weeks in New-York, I repaired to Philadelphia, and there

found that among the Germans, things were the same as in New-York--_in

fact, there was even less unity among them_." But although the doctor did

not discover any Germans inspired with the sublime spirit of harmony, he

certainly appears to have met with several who had acquired the American

virtue of common sense.

"A German who had been for a long time resident in the United States

asserted that he had, as yet, met with no fellow-countryman, who had been

in the beginning satisfied with America. Others were of the opinion, that I

would first be pleased with the country when I had found a profitable

employment. _And some others, that I would never be satisfied._"

And so the doctor, ever dependent on others for happiness, looked here and

there, like the pilgrim after Aden, or the hero of the Morning Watch, for

the ideal of his dreams. The so-called entirely German towns in

Pennsylvania were German only in name. The heat disgusted him with the

south--the cold with the north. After residing nine months in Poughkeepsie,

he returned to New-York, and there remained for some time, occupied, as it

would appear, solely with acquiring information. This residence at an end,

he returned to Germany.

We pass over the first chapters of his work, devoted to an ordinary account

of the climate, animals, and plants of the country, to a more interesting

picture, namely--its inhabitants. From this we learn that the American is

cold, dry, and monosyllabic, in his demeanor and conversation. During his

return to Germany he was delayed for a period of something less than nine

days at Falmouth, England, where, during his daily walks, he experienced

that in comparison with us the English are amiable, communicative, and

agreeable. Indeed, he found that when, during a promenade in America,

strangers returned his greetings, these polite individuals were invariably

Britons, "which proves that while in more recent times, the English have

assumed or approached the customs of other nations, the Americans have

remained true to the character and being of the earlier emigrants, and are

at present totally distinct from the English of to-day.

"This is especially shown by the demeanor of Americans towards foreigners,

and nearly as much so by their conduct to one another. Regard them where we

will, they are ever the same. In the larger or the smaller towns, in the

streets or in the country, every one goes his own way without troubling

himself about others, and without saluting those with whom he is

unacquainted. Never do we see neighbors associating with each other; and

neighborly friendship is here unknown. If acquaintances meet, they nod to

each other, or the one murmurs, '_How do you do?_' while the other

replies, '_Very well_,' without delaying an instant, unless business

affairs require a conversation. This concluded, they depart without a word,

unless, indeed, as an exception, they wish each other good morning, or

evening. Nor are they less distant in hotels, or during journeys in

railroad cars and steamboats."--"Continued conversations, in which several

take part, are extremely rare. Any one speaking frequently to a stranger,

at table or during a journey, runs the risk not merely of being regarded as

impertinent, but as entertaining dishonest views; and, indeed, one should

invariably be on his guard against Americans who manifest much

friendliness, since, in this manner, pickpockets are accustomed to make

their advances.

"In a corresponding degree this coldness of disposition is manifested

towards more intimate acquaintances. Never do we observe among friends a

deep and heart-inspired, or even a confiding relationship. Nay, this is not

even to be found among members of the same family. The son or the daughter,

who has not for several days seen his or her parents, returns and enters

the room without a greeting, or without any signs of joy being manifested

by either. Or else the salutation is given and returned in such a manner

that scarcely a glance passes between the parties. The direst calamities

are imparted and listened to with an apathy evincing no signs of emotion,

and a great disaster, occurring on a railroad or steamboat, in the United

States, excites in Germany more attention and sympathy than in the former

country, even when friends and perhaps relatives have thereby suffered.

Even the loss of a member of the family is hardly manifested by the

survivors."

In a recent English work we were indeed complimented for our _patience_,

but it was reserved for Doctor Kirsten to discover in us, this degree of

iron-hearted, immovable, _nil admirarism_. But when he goes on to assert

that "in the most deadly peril--in such moments as those which precede the

anticipated explosion of a steamboat boiler, even their ladies preserve the

same repose and equanimity," so that any expression from a stranger is

coldly listened to, without producing evident impression, _our_ surprise is

changed to wonder, and we are tempted to inquire, Can it be possible, that

we are such Spartans--endowed with such superior human stoicism?

"This coldness of the American is legibly impressed on his features. In

both sexes we frequently meet with pretty, and occasionally beautiful,

faces; but seldom, however, do we perceive in either, aught cheerful or

attractive. In place thereof we observe, even in the fairest, a certain

earnestness, verging towards coldness. From the great majority of faces we

should judge that no emotion could be made to express itself upon them, and

such is truly the case.

"That the nearest acquaintances address each other with _Sir_ and _Master_,

or _Miss_ and _Mistress_, and that husband and wife, parents and children,

yes, even the children themselves employ these titles to each other, has

undoubtedly much to do with their marked and cold demeanor. But this must

have a deeper ground than that merely caused by the use of distant forms of

salutation.

"And yet, the Americans are by no means of a bad disposition, since they

are neither crafty and treacherous, nor revengeful, nor even prone to

distrust; on the contrary, quite peaceable, and by the better classes,

there is much charity for apparent misery; seldom does one suffering with

bodily ailments leave the house of a wealthy man without being munificently

aided; the which charity is silently extended to him, without a sign of

emotion. Those who are capable of work--no matter what the cause of their

sufferings may be, seldom receive alms, for the Americans go upon the

principle that work is not disgraceful, and without reflecting that the

applicant may not have been accustomed to work, refuse in any manner to aid

him. If any man want work, he can apply to the overseers of the poor, who

are obliged to receive him in a poor-house, and maintain him until he find

such. Much is done at the state's expense for the aged, sick, and insane."

After this our doctor lets fall a few flattering drops of commendation by

way of admitting that this iron immobility of the American is not without

its good points, but fearing that he has spoken too favorably, he brings up

the chapter by remarking that--

"The here-mentioned good traits in the American character can, however, by

no means overbalance or destroy the evil impression which their coldness

produces, but merely soften it."

From our appearance and deportment he proceeds to a bold, hasty, and

remarkably superficial criticism of education in America. The father of a

family in America, we are informed, is occupied with business from morning

to night, and leaves all care for the education and training of his

children to the mother, who is, however, generally quite incapable to

fulfil such duty. No teacher dare correct a child, for fear of incurring

legal punishment, in consequence of which they grow up destitute of

decency, order, or obedience. Some few, indeed, find their way eventually

into academies and colleges, which are not so badly managed; but, as for

school-boys, since there is no one to insure their regular attendance at

school, they play truant _a discretion_. As for the children of the lower

and middle classes, they pass their boyhood in idleness, and grow up in

ignorance, until at a later period they enter into business, when they are

compelled to perfect themselves in the arts of reading and writing, yet

they quickly acquire the business spirit of their fathers.

"The education of the girls is, however, of an entirely different nature.

On them the mothers expend much care and trouble, which is, however, of the

most perverted kind, since it is in its nature entirely external. Before

all, do they seek to give them an air of decency and culture, which is,

nevertheless, more apparent than real. In accordance with the republican

spirit of striving after equality, every mother--no matter how poor, or how

low her rank may be--desires to bring her daughter up in such a manner that

she may be inferior in respectability and external culture to no one." "In

fact, the daughters of the poorest workman bear themselves like those of

the richest merchant. In their mien we see a pride flashing forth, which

can hardly be surpassed by that of the haughtiest daughters of the highest

German nobility. And that their daughters may in every respect equal those

of others, we see poor men lavishing upon them their last penny; and while

the boys run in the streets, covered with ragged and dirty fragments of

clothing, the sisters wear bonnets with veils, bearing parasols, and while

at school, short dresses and drawers."

After this fearful announcement, we are informed, that the poor girls

profit as little in school as their unhappy brothers, and that no regard is

paid to their future destiny.

"Even after the maiden has left school, her mother instructs her in no

feminine employment, not even in domestic affairs, and least of all, in

cookery. While the former lives, and the daughter remains unmarried, she

(the mother,) attends to housekeeping, as far as the word can be taken in

the German sense, while her daughter passes the time in reading, more

frequently with bedecking herself, but generally in idleness. When the

daughter, however, marries, we may well imagine how a house is managed in

such hands. The principal business henceforth is self-adornment and

housekeeping. All imaginable care is bestowed upon these branches, but none

whatever on any other. Cookery is of the lowest grade; nearly every day

sees the same dishes, and those, also, which are prepared with the least

trouble. Very frequently, indeed, the husbands are obliged to prepare their

meals before and after their business hours. Knitting and spinning, either

in town or country, is unknown; only manufactured or woven stockings are

worn, and shirts are generally purchased ready-made in the shops." "Washing

is the only work which they undertake, and this is done by young ladies of

wealthy family. This takes place every Monday, for there are very few

families who own linen sufficient for more than a single week's wear.

"So long as the father lives, his daughters stick to him, useless as they

are, and heavy as the burden may be to him. It is _his_ business to see

where the money comes from wherewith to nourish and decently clothe them:

on this account the servant girls in America generally consist of Irish,

Germans, and blacks. Even these, taking pattern from their mistresses,

refuse to perform duties which are expected from every housemaid in

Germany--for examples, boot-brushing, clothes-cleaning, and the bringing of

water across the way, as well as street and step-cleaning; for which reason

we often see respectable men performing these duties."

From this terrible plague of daughters, and daughterly extravagance, the

doctor finds that poorer men in America are by no means as well off as

would be imagined from their high wages. "The father with many daughters,

so far from advancing in wealth, generally falls behind. Fearing the cost

of a family, many men remain unmarried, and in no country in the world are

there so many old maids as in the United States." From which the author

finds that dreadful instances of immorality and infanticide result.

Filial duty, he asserts, is unknown. When the son proposes emigration to

another place, or the undertaking of a new business, he announces it to his

father "perhaps the evening before; while the daughters act in like manner

as regards marriage, or, it may be, mention it to him for the first time

after it has really taken place--from which the custom results that parents

give their children no part of their property before death. Nothing is

known of a true family life, in which parents are intimately allied to

children, or brothers and sisters to each other." We spare our readers the

sneer at those writers who have praised the Americans in their domestic

relations, with which this veracious, high-minded, and unprejudiced chapter

concludes.

In science and art, we are sunk, it seems, almost beneath contempt; the

former being cultivated only so far as it is conducive to money-making. The

professions of Divinity, Law, and Medicine, are badly and superficially

taught and acquired. "There are, indeed," says the doctor, "in New-York and

Philadelphia, institutions where the student has opportunities of becoming,

if he will, an excellent physician; but these are far from being well

patronized."

As regards general education, he asserts that, though a few professors in

our colleges are highly educated men, this cannot be said of their pupils,

since the latter set no value on knowledge not directly profitable, "and

the backward condition of ancient languages, natural science, even

geography, history and statistics, save as applicable to their own country,

is really a matter of wonder."

But in the fine arts, it appears, we are sunk so far beneath contempt that

we really wonder that the doctor should have found it, in this particular,

worth while to abuse us. "There are but two monuments in all America worthy

of mention, and both are in Baltimore. Philadelphia and New-York have

nothing of the kind to show, though each city possesses two public squares

or parks planted with trees, which are well adapted to receive such works

of art, and where the eye sadly misses them." "Public and private

collections of statues and pictures are altogether wanting, and the walls

of the rich are generally devoid of paintings and copper-plate engravings.

What they have generally consists of family portraits, or those of

Washington and other presidents. But to dazzle the eye, we find in the

possession of the wealthy, the most worthless pictures in expensive gold

frames. Of late years a public gallery has been established in New-York for

the sale of such productions. As far however as the works of native artists

are concerned, we find among them none inspired by high art; on the

contrary, they are generally, to the last degree, mediocre affairs, or mere

daubs (_wahre Klecksereien_) not worth hanging up; the better however are

exaggerated and unnatural both in subject and color. This is also the case

with most of the copper-plate engravings exposed for sale in the French

shop-windows, and which appear almost as if manufactured in Paris expressly

for the American taste. The inferior appreciation of art in the Americans

and their delight in extravagance is particularly shown in the political

caricatures, which are entirely deficient in all refined wit, consisting

either of stupid allusions to eminent men or party leaders, or direct and

clumsy exaggerations."

By way of amends for all this abuse, our author admits that we excel in all

practical arts and labor-saving inventions. "But in proportion to the

backward state of the fine arts, is the advance which the Americans have

made in all pertaining to mechanics, and technical art. Particular

attention is paid to the supplanting of hand labor by machinery. Even the

most trifling apparatus or tool is constructed with regard to practical

use, and it only needs a more careful observation of this to convince us

that in all such matters they have the advantage of Germany.

"It is often truly startling to see how simply and usefully those articles

used in business are constructed--for example, the one-horse cars (_drays

or trucks?_) and hand-carts, employed in conveying merchandise to and from

stores. As a proof how far the Americans have advanced in mechanic arts, we

may mention that high houses, of wood or brick, several stories high and

entire, are transported on rollers to places several feet distant.

Occasionally, to add a story, the house is raised by screws into the air

and the building substructed. In either case the family remains quietly

dwelling therein."

But alas, even these few rays of commendatory comfort vanish in the dark,

after reflection, that it is precisely this ingenuity and enterprise in

business and practical matters which unfits us for all the kinder and more

social duties, and renders us insensible to every soothing and refining

influence. No allowance for past events, unavoidable circumstances, or our

possible future destiny, appears to cross the doctor's mind. All is dark

and desolate. True, every man of high and low degree--the laborer and

shop-man--the lawyer and clergyman, pause in the street to study any

mechanical novelty which meets their eye--but ere they do this the doctor

is mindful to suggest _that they pass picture shop-windows without deigning

to glance therein_. The professions are studied like trades, and in matters

of criminal law our condition is truly deplorable. It happened not many

months since, he informs us, that the publisher of a slanderous New-York

paper, was castigated by a lady, with a hunting whip, in Broadway, at noon.

The said lady had been (according to custom) unjustly and cruelly abused in

the journal referred to. So great was her irritation that she actually

followed the editor along the streets, lashing him continually. But the

_finale_ of this startling incident consists of the fact that the lady, on

pleading guilty, was fined six cents.

There is an obscurity attached to his manner of narrating this anecdote,

which leaves the opinion of the author a little uncertain. Six cents would

in some parts of Germany be a serious fine, worthy of appeal, mercy, and

abatement. In different parts of Suabia and even Baden, notices may be seen

posted up, in which the commission of certain local offences is prohibited

by fines ranging from four to twelve cents. On the whole, as a zealous

defender of the purity and dignity of woman, when unjustly assailed, we are

inclined to think that the author sides with _the_ LADY.

But we need not follow the doctor further in his career of discontent and

prejudice. Before concluding, we would however caution the reader against

supposing that he expresses views in any degree accordant with the feelings

and opinions of his countrymen. The best, the most numerous, the most

impartial, and we may add, by far the most favorable works on America, are

from German pens. In confirmation of our assertion that his work is

unfavorably regarded at home we may adduce the fact that it has been

severely handled by excellent reviewers among them; take for example the

following, from the Leipzig _Central Blatt_. After favorably noticing the

late excellent work of QUENTIN on the United States, he proceeds to say of

the doctor's _Sketches_, that

"HERR KIRSTEN seems to desire to be that for North America, which _Nicolai_

of noted memory was in his own time for Italy. Already, on arrival, we find

him in ill temper, caused by the excessive heat, which ill-humor is

aggravated by his being obliged to make many calls by day, and _the

musquitoes and alarms of fire which disturbed his slumbers during the

night_. In other places he was no better pleased.

"The Germans were disagreeable on account of their want of unity, the

Americans from their coldness--in short, he missed home life--could not

accustom himself to the new country, and returned after a sojourn of less

than two years to Germany. In 'sketches,' resulting from such

circumstances, we naturally encounter only the darker side of American

life. Much may indeed be true of what he asserts regarding the natural

capabilities, climate, soil, and inhabitants of the land, the manners and

customs of the latter, their common and party spirit, education of

children, and the condition of science and art; but particulars are either

too hastily generalized, or else the better points, as for example, the

characteristic traits of the people, their extraordinary progress in

physical and mental culture, and the excellent management of the country,

are either entirely omitted or receive by far too slight notice. His

narrow-minded and ill-natured disposition to find fault is also shown by

his reproaching the Americans with faults which they share in common with

every nation in America, _ourselves included_, as, for example, excesses

committed by political partisans. Still, the book may not be entirely

without value, at least to those who see every thing on the other side of

the water only in a rosy light, and believe that the German emigrant as

soon as his foot touches shore, enters a state of undisturbed happiness."

So much for the critical doctor's popularity at home. In conclusion, we may

remark that our main object in this notice, in addition to amusing our

readers, has been to prove by this exception, and the displeasure which it

excites in Germany, the rule, that by the writers of that country our own

has been almost invariably well spoken of. And we have deemed these remarks

the more requisite, lest some reader might casually infer that Dr. Kirsten

expressed the views and sentiments of any considerable number of his

countrymen.

REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE MR. COOPER.--HIS LAST DAYS.

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL.

BY JOHN W. FRANCIS, M. D., LL. D.

NEW-YORK, _October 1st, 1851_.

MY DEAR SIR,--I readily comply with your wish that I should furnish you

with such reminiscences of the late Mr. Cooper as occur to me, although the

pressure of professional engagements absolutely forbids such details as I

would gladly record. For nearly thirty years I have been the occasional

medical adviser, and always the ardent personal friend of the illustrious

deceased; but our intercourse has been so fragmentary, owing to the

distance we have lived apart, and the busy lives we have both led, that the

impressions which now throng upon and impress me are desultory and varied,

though endearing. I first knew Mr. Cooper in 1823. He at that time was

recognized as the author of "Precaution," of "the Spy," and of "the

Pioneers." The two last-named works had attracted especial notice by their

widely extended circulation, and the novelty of their character in American

literature. He was often to be seen at that period in conversation at the

City Hotel in Broadway, near Old Trinity, where many of our most renowned

naval and military men convened. He was the original projector of a

literary and social association called the "Bread and Cheese Club," whose

place of rendezvous was at Washington Hall. They met weekly, in the

evening, and furnished the occasion of much intellectual gratification and

genial pleasure. That most adhesive friend, the poet Halleck, Chancellor

Kent, G. C. Verplanck, Wiley, the publisher of Mr. Cooper's works, Dekay,

the naturalist, C. A. Davis (Jack Downing), Charles King, now President of

Columbia College, J. Depeyster Ogden, J. W. Jarvis, the painter, John and

William Duer, and many others, were of the confederacy. Washington Irving,

at the period of the formation of this circle of friends, was in England,

occupied with his inimitable "Sketch Book." I had the honor of an early

admittance to the Club. In balloting for membership the bread declared an

affirmative; and two ballots of cheese against an individual proclaimed

non-admittance.

From the meetings of this society Mr. Cooper was rarely absent. When

presiding officer of the evening, he attracted especial consideration from

the richness of his anecdotes, his wide American knowledge, and his

courteous behavior. These meetings were often signally characterized by the

number of invited guests of high reputation who gathered thither for

recreative purposes, both of mind and body; jurists of acknowledged

eminence, governors of different States, senators, members of the House of

Representatives, literary men of foreign distinction, and authors of repute

in our own land. It was gratifying to observe the dexterity with which Mr.

Cooper would cope with some eastern friend who contributed to our delight

with a "Boston notion," or with Trelawny, the associate of Byron,

descanting on Greece and the "Younger Son," or with any guests of the Club,

however dissimilar their habits or character; accommodating his

conversation and manners with the most marvellous facility. The New-York

attachments of Mr. Cooper were ever dominant. I witnessed a demonstration

of the early enthusiasm and patriotic activity of our late friend in his

efforts, with many of our leading citizens, in getting up the Grand Castle

Garden Ball, given in honor of Lafayette. The arrival of the "Nation's

Guest" at New-York, in 1824, was the occasion of the most joyful

demonstrations, and the celebration was a splendid spectacle; it brought

together celebrities from many remote parts of the Union. Mr. Cooper must

have undergone extraordinary fatigue during the day and following night;

but nearly as he was exhausted, he exhibited, when the public festivals

were brought to a close, that astonishing readiness and skill in literary

execution for which he was always so remarkable. Adjourning near daybreak

to the office of his friend Mr. Charles King, he wrote out more quickly

than any other hand could copy, the very long and masterly report which

next day appeared in Mr. King's paper--a report which conveyed to tens of

thousands who had not been present, no inconsiderable portion of the

enjoyment they had felt who were the immediate participants in this famous

festival. The manly bearing, keen intelligence, and thoroughly honorable

instincts of Mr. Cooper, united as they were with this gift of

writing--soon most effectively exhibited in his literary labors, now

constantly increasing--excited my highest expectations of his career as an

author, and my sincere esteem for the man. There was a fresh promise, a

vigorous impulse, and especially an American enthusiasm about him, that

seemed to indicate not only individual fame, but national honor. Since that

period I have followed his brilliant course with no less admiration than

delight.

It was to me a cause of deep regret that soon after his return from Europe,

crowned with a distinct and noble reputation, he became involved in a

series of law-suits, growing out of libels, and originating partly in his

own imprudence, and partly in the reckless severity of the press. But these

are but temporary considerations in the retrospect of his achievements; and

if I mistake not, in these difficulties he in every instance succeeded in

gaining the verdict of the jury. It was a task insurmountable to overcome a

_fact_ as stated by Mr. Cooper. Associated as he was in my own mind with

the earliest triumphs of American letters, I think of him as the creator of

the genuine nautical and forest romances of "Long Tom Coffin" and

"Leatherstocking;" as the illustrator of our country's scenes and

characters to the Europeans; and not as the critic of our republican

inconsistencies, or as a litigant with caustic editors.

It is well known that for a long period Mr. Cooper, at occasional times

only, visited New-York city. His residence for many years was an elegant

and quiet mansion on the southern borders of Otsego Lake. Here--in his

beautiful retreat, embellished by the substantial fruits of his labors, and

displaying everywhere his exquisite taste, his mind, ever intent on

congenial tasks, which, alas! are left unfinished, surrounded by a devoted

and highly cultivated family, and maintaining the same clearness of

perception, serene firmness, and integrity of tone, which distinguished him

in the meridian of his life--were his mental employments prosecuted. He

lived chiefly in rural seclusion, and with habits of methodical industry.

When visiting the city he mingled cordially with his old friends; and it

was on the last occasion of this kind, at the beginning of April, that he

consulted me with some earnestness in regard to his health. He complained

of the impaired tone of the digestive organs, great torpor of the liver,

weakness of muscular activity, and feebleness in walking. Such suggestions

were offered for his relief as the indications of disease warranted. He

left the city for his country residence, and I was gratified shortly after

to learn from him of his better condition.

During July and August I maintained a correspondence with him on the

subject of his increasing physical infirmities, and frankly expressed to

him the necessity of such remedial measures as seemed clearly necessary.

Though occasionally relieved of my anxieties by the kind communications of

his excellent friend and attending physician, Dr. Johnson, I was not

without solicitude, both from his own statements as well as those of Dr.

Johnson himself, that his disorder was on the increase; certain symptoms

were indeed mitigated, but the radical features of his illness had not been

removed. A letter which I soon received induced me forthwith to repair to

Cooperstown, and on the 27th of August I saw Mr. Cooper at his own

dwelling. My reception was cordial. With his family about him he related

with great clearness the particulars of his sufferings, and the means of

relief to which he was subjected. Dr. Johnson was in consultation. I at

once was struck with the heroic firmness of the sufferer, under an

accumulation of depressing symptoms. His physical aspect was much altered

from that noble freshness he was wont to bear; his complexion was pallid;

his interior extremities greatly enlarged by serous effusion; his debility

so extreme as to require an assistant for change of position in bed; his

pulse sixty-four. There could be no doubt that the long continued hepatic

obstruction had led to confirmed dropsy, which, indeed, betrayed itself in

several other parts of the body. Yet was he patient and collected. That

powerful intellect still held empire with commanding force, clearness, and

vigor. I explained to him the nature of his malady; its natural termination

when uncontrolled; dwelt upon the favorable condition and yet regular

action of the heart, and other vital functions, and the urgent necessity of

endeavoring still more to fulfil certain indications, in order to overcome

the force of particular tendencies in the disorder. I frankly assured him

that within the limits of a week a change in the complaint was

indispensable to lessen our forebodings of its ungovernable nature.

He listened with fixed attention; and now and then threw out suggestions of

cure such as are not unfrequent with cultivated minds.

The great characteristics of his intellect were now even more conspicuous

than before. Not a murmur escaped his lips; conviction of his extreme

illness wrought no alteration of features; he gave no expression of

despondency; his tone and his manner were equally dignified, cordial, and

natural. It was his happiness to be blessed with a family around him whose

greatest gratification was to supply his every want, and a daughter for a

companion in his pursuits, who was his intelligent amanuensis and

correspondent as well as indefatigable nurse.[1]

I forbear enlarging on matters too professional for present detail. During

the night after my arrival he sustained an attack of severe fainting, which

convinced me still further of his great personal weakness. An ennobling

philosophy, however, gave him support, and in the morning he had again been

refreshed by a sleep of some few hours' duration. I renewed to him and to

his family the hopes and the discouragements in his case. Never was

information of so grave a cast received by any individual in a calmer

spirit. He said little as to his prospects of recovery. Upon my taking

leave of him, however, shortly after, in the morning, I am convinced from

his manner that he shared my apprehensions of a fatal termination of his

disorder. Nature, however strong in her gifted child, had now her healthful

rights largely invaded. His constitutional buoyancy and determination, by

leading him to slight that distant and thorough attention demanded by

primary symptoms, doubtless contributed to their subsequent aggravation.

I shall say but a few words more on this agonizing topic. The letters which

I received, after my return home, communicated at times some cheering facts

of renovation, but on the whole, discouraging demonstrations of augmenting

illness, and lessened hope, were their prominent characteristics. A letter

to me from his son-in-law, of the 14th of September, announced: "Mr. Cooper

died, apparently without much pain, to-day at half-past one, P.M., leaving

his family, although prepared by his gradual failure, in deep affliction.

He would have been sixty-two years old to-morrow."

A life of such uniform and unparalleled excellence and service, a career so

brilliant and honorable, closed in a befitting manner, and was crowned by a

death of quiet resignation. Conscious of his approaching dissolution, his

intelligence seemed to glow with increased fulness as his prostrated frame

yielded by degrees to the last summons. It is familiarly known to his most

intimate friends, that for some considerable period prior to his fatal

illness, he appropriated liberal portions of his time to the investigation

of scriptural truths, and that his convictions were ripe in Christian

doctrines. With assurances of happiness in the future, he graciously

yielded up his spirit to the disposal of its Creator. His death, which must

thus have been the beginning of a serene and more blessed life to him, is

universally regarded as a national loss.

Will you allow me to add a few words to this letter, already perhaps of

undue extent. It has been my gratification during a life of some duration

to have become personally acquainted with many eminent characters in the

different walks of professional and literary avocation. I never knew an

individual more thoroughly imbued with higher principles of action than Mr.

Cooper: he acted upon principles, and fully comprehended the principles

upon which he acted. Casual observers could scarcely, at times, understand

and appreciate his motives or conduct. An independence of character worthy

of the highest respect, and a natural boldness of temper which led him to a

frank, emphatic, and intrepid utterance of his thoughts and sentiments,

were uncongenial to that large class of people, who, from the want of moral

courage, or a feeble physical temperament, habitually conform to public

opinion, and endeavor to conciliate the world. Mr. Cooper was one of the

most genuine Americans in his tone of mind, in manly self-reliance, in

sympathy with the scenery, the history, and the constitution of his

country, which it has ever been my lot to know. His genius was American,

fresh, vigorous, independent, and devoted to native subjects. The

opposition he met with on his return from Europe, in consequence of his

patriotic, though, perhaps, injudicious attempts to point out the faults

and duties of his countrymen, threw him reluctantly on the defensive, and

sometimes gave an antagonistic manner to his intercourse; but, whoever,

recognizing his intellectual superiority, and respecting his integrity of

purpose, met him candidly, in an open, cordial and generous spirit, soon

found in Mr. Cooper an honest man, and a thorough patriot.

How strongly is impressed upon my memory his personal appearance, so often

witnessed during his rambles in Broadway and amidst the haunts of this busy

population. His phrenological development might challenge comparison with

that of the most favored of mortals. His manly figure, high, prominent

brow, clear and fine gray eye, and royal bearing, revealed the man of will

and intelligence. His intellectual hardihood was remarkable. He worked upon

a novel with the patient industry of a man of business, and set down every

fact of costume, action, expression, local feature, and detail of maritime

operations or woodland experience, with a kind of consciousness and

precision that produced a Flemish exactitude of detail, while in portraying

action, he seemed to catch by virtue of an eagle glance and an heroic

temperament, the very spirit of his occasion and convey it to the reader's

nerves and heart, as well as to his understanding. Herein Mr. Cooper was a

man of unquestionable originality. As to his literary services, some idea

may be formed of the consideration in which they are held by the almost

countless editions of many of his works in his own country, and their

circulation abroad by translations into almost every living tongue.

I may add a word or two on the extent of his sympathies with humanity. What

a love he cherished for superior talents in every ennobling pursuit in

life--how deep an interest he felt in the fortunes of his scientific and

literary friends--what gratification he enjoyed in the physical inquiries

of Dekay and Le Conte, the muse of Halleck and of Bryant, the painting of

Cole, the sculpture of Greenough! Dunlap, were he speaking, might tell you

of his gratuities to the unfortunate playwright and the dramatic performer.

With the mere accumulators of money--those golden calves whose hearts are

as devoid of emotion as their brains of the faculty of cogitation--he held

no congenial communion at any time: they could not participate in the

fruition of his pastime; and he felt in himself an innate superiority in

the gifts with which nature had endowed him. He was ever vigilant, a keen

observer of men and things; and in conversation frank and emphatic. It was

a gratifying spectacle to encounter him with old Col. Trumbull, the

historical painter, descanting on the many excellencies of Cole's pencil,

in the delineation of American forest-scenery--a theme the richest in the

world for Mr. Cooper's contemplation. A Shylock with his money-bags never

glutted over his possessions with a happier feeling than did these two

eminent individuals--the venerable Colonel with his patrician dignity, and

Cooper with his somewhat aristocratic bearing, yet democratic sentiment;

the one fruitful with the glories of the past, the other big with the

stirring events of his country's progress, in the refinement of arts, and

national power. Trumbull was one of the many old men I knew who delighted

in Cooper's writings, and who in conversation dwelt upon his captivating

genius.

To his future biographer Mr. Cooper has left the pleasing duty rightly to

estimate the breadth and depth of his powerful intellect--psychologically

to investigate the development and functions of that cerebral organ, which

for so many years, with such rapid succession and variety, poured out the

creations of poetic thought and descriptive illustration--to determine the

value of his capacious mind by the influence which, in the dawn of American

literature, it has exercised, in rearing the intellectual fabric of his

country's greatness--and to unfold the secret springs of those

disinterested acts of charity to the poor and needy, which signalized his

conduct as a professor of religious truth, and a true exampler of the

Christian graces. He has unquestionably done more to make known to the

transatlantic world his country, her scenery, her characteristics, her

aboriginal inhabitants, her history, than all preceding writers. His death

may well be pronounced a national calamity. By common consent he long

occupied an enviable place--the highest rank in American literature. To

adopt the quaint phraseology of old Thomas Fuller, the felling of so mighty

an oak must needs cause the increase of much underwood. Who will fill the

void occasioned by his too early departure from among us, time alone must

determine. With much consideration, I remain,

Dear sir, yours most truly,

JOHN W. FRANCIS.

PUBLIC HONORS TO THE MEMORY OF MR. COOPER.

In the last number of the _International_ we were able merely to announce

the death of our great countryman Mr. Cooper. The following account of

proceedings in reference to the event is compiled mainly from the _Evening

Post_.

A meeting of literary men, and others, was held at the City Hall in

New-York, on the 25th of September, for the purpose of taking the necessary

measures for rendering fit honors to the memory of the deceased author.

Rufus W. Griswold, calling the meeting to order, said it had been convened

to do justice to the memory of the most illustrious American who had died

in the present century. Since the design of such a meeting had first been

formed, a consultation among Mr. Cooper's friends had been held, and it had

been determined that the present should be only a preparatory meeting, for

the making of such arrangements as should be thought necessary for a more

suitable demonstration of respect for that eminent person, whose name, more

completely than that of any of his cotemporaries and countrymen, had filled

the world.

On motion of Judge Duer, Washington Irving was elected President of the

meeting. On motion of Joseph Blunt, Fitz Greene Halleck and Rufus W.

Griswold were appointed Secretaries.

Mr. Blunt said, that as it had been thought proper to consider this

occasion as merely preliminary, and for the purpose of making arrangements

to do honor to the distinguished author who has left us, he would move that

a committee of five be appointed by the chair, to report what measures

should be adopted, by the literary gentlemen of this city and of the

country, so far as they may see fit to join them, for the purpose of

rendering appropriate honors to the memory of the late J. Fenimore Cooper.

The motion was adopted, and the chair appointed the following gentlemen

members of the committee: Judge Duer, Richard B. Kimball, Dr. Francis, Fitz

Greene Halleck, and George Bancroft; to whom Washington Irving and Rufus W.

Griswold were subsequently added. The meeting then adjourned.

This committee afterwards met and appointed as a General Committee to carry

out the designs of the meeting: Washington Irving, James K. Paulding, John

W. Francis, Gulian C. Verplanck, Charles King, Richard B. Kimball, Rufus

W. Griswold, Lewis Gaylord Clarke, Francis L. Hawks, John A. Dix, George

Bancroft, Fitz Greene Halleck, John Duer, William C. Bryant, George P.

Morris, Charles Anthon, Samuel Osgood, J. M. Wainright, and William W.

Campbell.

R. W. Griswold, Donald G. Mitchell, Parke Godwin, C. F. Briggs, and

Starbuck Mayo were appointed a Committee of Correspondence.

Besides letters from many of the gentlemen present, others had been

received from some twenty of the most eminent literary men of the United

States, all expressing the warmest sympathy in the proposal to do every

possible honor to the memory of Mr. Cooper. We copy from these the

following:

_From Washington Irving._

SUNNYSIDE, Thursday, Sept. 18, 1851.

MY DEAR SIR:--The death of Fenimore Cooper, though

anticipated, is an event of deep and public concern,

and calls for the highest expression of public

sensibility. To me it comes with something of a shock;

for it seems but the other day that I saw him at our

common literary resort at Putnam's, in full vigor of

mind and body, a very "castle of a man," and apparently

destined to outlive me, who am several years his

senior. He has left a space in our literature which

will not easily be supplied....

I shall not fail to attend the proposed meeting on

Wednesday next. Very respectfully, your friend and

servant,

WASHINGTON IRVING.

Rev. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD.

_From William C. Bryant._

ROCHESTER, Friday, Sept. 19, 1851.

MY DEAR SIR:--I am sorry that the arrangements for my

journey to the West are such that I cannot be present

at the meeting which is about to be held to do honor to

the memory of Mr. Cooper, on losing whom not only the

country, but the civilized world and the age in which

we live, have lost one of their most illustrious

ornaments. It is melancholy to think that it is only

until such men are in their graves that full justice is

done to their merit. I shall be most happy to concur in

any step which may be taken to express, in a public

manner, our respect for the character of one to whom we

were too sparing of public distinctions in his

lifetime, and beg that I may be included in the

proceedings of the occasion as if I were present. I am,

very respectfully yours,

WM. C. BRYANT.

Rev. R. W. GRISWOLD.

_From Bishop Doane._

RIVERSIDE, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 1851.

MY DEAR SIR:--...I beg you to say, generally, in your

discretion, that I yield to no one who will be present,

in my estimate of the distinguished talents and

admirable services of Mr. Cooper, or in my readiness to

do the highest honor to his illustrious memory. His

name must ever find a place among the "household words"

of all our hearts; a name as beautiful for its

blamelessness of life, as it is eminent for its

attainments in letters, which has subordinated to the

higher interests of patriotism and piety, the fervors

of fancy and the fascinations of romance. Very

faithfully, your friend and servant,

G. W. DOANE.

Rev. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD.

_From Mr. Bancroft._

NEWPORT, R. I., Thursday, Sept. 18, 1851.

MY DEAR SIR:--I heartily sympathize with the design of

a public tribute to the genius, manly character, and

great career of the illustrious man whose loss we

deplore. Others have combined very high merit as

authors, with professional pursuits. Mr. Cooper was, of

those who have gone from among us, the first to devote

himself exclusively to letters. We must admire the

noble courage with which he entered on a course which

none before him had tried; the glory which he justly

won was reflected on his country, of whose literary

independence he was the pioneer, and deserves the

grateful recognition of all who survive him.

By the time proposed for the meeting, I fear I shall

not be able to return to New-York; but you may use my

name in any manner that shall strongly express my

delight in the writings of our departed friend, my

thorough respect for his many virtues, and my sense of

that surpassing ability which has made his own name and

the names of the creations of his fancy, household

words throughout the civilized world. I remain, dear

sir, very truly yours,

GEORGE BANCROFT.

Rev. R. W. GRISWOLD.

_From John P. Kennedy._

BALTIMORE, October, 1851.

DEAR SIR:--Your invitation reached me too late to

enable me to participate in the meeting which has just

been held at the City Hall in your city, to render

appropriate honors to the memory of Mr. Cooper.

I rejoice to see what has been done and what you

propose to do. It is due to the eminent merits of

Fenimore Cooper, that there should be an impressive

public recognition of the loss which our country has

sustained in his death. He stood confessedly at the

head of a most attractive and popular department of our

literature, in which his extraordinary success had

raised him up a fame that became national. The country

claimed it as its own. This fame was acknowledged and

appreciated not only wherever the English tongue is the

medium of thought, but every where amongst the most

civilized nations of Europe.

Our literature, in the lifetime of the present

generation, has grown to a maturity which has given it

a distinction and honorable place in that aggregate

which forms national character. No man has done more in

his sphere to elevate and dignify that character than

Fenimore Cooper: no man is more worthy than he, for

such services, of the highest honors appropriate to a

literary benefactor. His genius has contributed a rich

fund to the instruction and delight of his countrymen,

which will long be preserved amongst the choicest

treasures of American letters, and will equally induce

to render our national literature attractive to other

nations. We owe a memorial and a monument to the man

who has achieved this. This work is the peculiar

privilege of the distinguished scholars of New-York,

and I have no doubt will be warmly applauded, and if

need be, assisted, by every scholar and friend of

letters in the Union.

With the best wishes for the success of this

enterprise, I am, my dear sir, very truly yours,

JOHN P. KENNEDY.

Rev. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD.

_From C. J. Ingersoll._

FONTHILL, PHILADELPHIA, September, 30th, 1851.

DEAR SIR:--Your favor, inviting me to a meeting of the

friends of Fenimore Cooper, did not reach me till this

morning, owing probably to irregularity of the

post-office. Otherwise I should have tried to attend

the proposed meeting, not only as a friend of Mr.

Cooper, but as one among those of his countrymen who

consider his memory a national trust for honored

preservation.

In my opinion of Fenimore Cooper as a novelist he is

entitled to one merit to which few if any one of his

cotemporary European romance writers can lay claim, to

wit, originality. Leatherstocking is an original

character, and entirely American, which is probably one

of the reasons why Cooper was more appreciated in

Continental Europe than even Scott, whose magnificent

fancy embellished every thing, but whose genius, I

think, originated nothing. And then, in my estimate of

Mr. Cooper's superior merits, was manly independence--a

rare American virtue. For the less free Englishman or

Frenchman, politically, there was a freeness in the

expression as well as adoption of his own views of men

and things. And a third kindred merit of Cooper was

high-minded and gentlemanly abstinence from

self-applause. No distinguished or applauded man ever

was less apt to talk of himself and his performances.

Unlike too many modern poets, novelists, and other

writers, apt to become debauchees, drunkards,

blackguards and the like (as if, as some think, genius

and vice go together), Mr. Cooper was a gentleman

remarkable for good plain sense, correct deportment,

striking probity and propriety, and withal

unostentatiously devout. Not meaning to disparage any

one in order by odious comparisons to extol him, I deem

his Naval History a more valuable and enduring

historical work than many others, both English and

American, of contemporaneous publication and much wider

dissemination. In short, if the gentlemen whose names I

have seen in the public journals with yours, proposing

some concentrated eulogium, should determine to appoint

a suitable person, with time to prepare it, I believe

that Fenimore Cooper may be made the subject of

illustration in very many and most striking lights,

justly reflecting him, and with excellent influence on

his country.

I do not recollect, from what I read lately in the

newspapers, precisely what you and the other gentlemen

associated with you in this proceeding propose to do,

or whether any thing is to take place. But if so,

whatever and wherever it may be, I beg you to use this

answer to your invitation, and any services I can

render, as cordial contributions, which I shall be

proud and happy to make. I am very respectfully your

humble servant,

C. J. INGERSOLL.

Rev. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD.

_From G. P. R. James._

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass., 23d September, 1851.

DEAR DOCTOR GRISWOLD:--I regret extremely that it will

not be in my power to be present at the meeting to

testify respect for the memory of Mr. Cooper. I grieve

sincerely that so eminent a man is lost to the country

and the world; and though unacquainted with him

personally, I need hardly tell you how highly his

abilities as an author, and his character, were

appreciated by yours faithfully,

G. P. R. JAMES.

_From Mr. Everett._

CAMBRIDGE, 23d September, 1851.

DEAR SIR:--I received this afternoon your favor of the

17th, inviting me to attend and participate in the

meeting to be held in your City Hall, for the purpose

of doing honor to the memory of the late Mr. Fenimore

Cooper.

I sincerely regret that I cannot be with you. The state

of the weather puts it out of my power to make the

journey. The object of the meeting has my entire

sympathy. The works of Mr. Cooper have adorned and

elevated our literature. There is nothing more purely

American, in the highest sense of the word, than

several of them. In his department he is _facile

princeps_. He wrote too much to write every thing

equally well; but his abundance flowed out of a full,

original mind, and his rapidity and variety bespoke a

resolute and manly consciousness of power. If among his

works there were some which, had he been longer spared

to us, he would himself, on reconsideration, have

desired to recal, there are many more which the latest

posterity "will not willingly let die."

With much about him that was intensely national, we

have but one other writer (Mr. Irving), as widely known

abroad. Many of Cooper's novels were not only read at

every fireside in England, but were translated into

every language of the European continent.

He owed a part of his inspiration to the magnificent

nature which surrounded him; to the lakes, and forests,

and Indian traditions, and border-life of your great

state. It would have been as difficult to create

Leatherstocking anywhere out of New-York, or some state

closely resembling it, as to create Don Quixotte out of

Spain. To have trained and possessed Fenimore Cooper

will be--is already--with justice, one of your greatest

boasts. But we cannot let you monopolize the care of

his memory. We have all rejoiced in his genius; we have

all felt the fascination of his pen; we all deplore his

loss. You must allow us all to join you in doing honor

to the name of our great American novelist. I remain,

dear sir, with great respect, very truly yours,

EDWARD EVERETT.

Rev. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD.

Letters of similar import were received from Richard H. Dana, George

Ticknor, William H. Prescott, John Neal, and many other eminent men, all

approving the design to render the highest honors to the illustrious

deceased.

At the meeting of the New-York Historical Society, on the evening of

Tuesday, the 7th of October, after the transaction of the regular business,

the following resolutions were moved by Rev. Rufus W. Griswold, and

seconded by Mr. George Bancroft:--

_Whereas_, It has pleased Almighty God to remove from

this life our illustrious associate and countryman,

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, while his fame was in its

fulness, and his intelligence was still unclouded by

age or any infirmity, therefore:

Resolved, That this society has heard of the death of

James Fenimore Cooper with profound regret:

That it recognizes in him an eminent subject and a

masterly illustrator of our history:

That, in his contributions to our literature he

displayed eminent genius and a truly national spirit:

That, in his personal character, he was honorable,

brave, sincere, and generous, as respectable for

unaffected virtue as he was distinguished for great

capacities:

That this society, appreciating the loss which,

however heavily it has fallen upon this country and

the literary world, has fallen most heavily upon his

family, instructs its officers to convey to his family,

assurances of respectful sympathy and condolence.

Dr. JOHN W. FRANCIS addressed the society in a very interesting speech, in

support of these resolutions. Among the great men of letters, he said, whom

our country has produced, there were none greater than Mr. Cooper. I knew

him for a period of thirty years, and during all that time I never knew any

thing of his character that was not in the highest degree praiseworthy. He

was a man of great decision of character, and a fair expositor of his own

thoughts on every occasion--a thorough American, for I never knew a man who

was more entirely so in heart and principle. He was able, with his vast

knowledge, and a powerful physical structure, to complete whatever he

attempted. He had studied the history of this country with a large

philosophy, and understood our people and their character better than any

other writer of the age. He was not only perfectly acquainted with our

general history, but was thoroughly conversant with that of every state,

county, village, lake, and river. And with his vast knowledge he was no

less remarkable for ability as a historian than for his intrepidity of

personal character. I could not, said Dr. Francis, allow this opportunity

to pass without paying my tribute to the merits of this truly great man.

Mr. GEORGE BANCROFT next addressed the society. My friend, he said, has

spoken of the illustrious deceased as an American--I say that he was an

embodiment of the American feeling, and truly illustrated American

greatness. We were endeavoring to hold up our heads before the world, and

to claim a character and an intellect of our own, when Cooper appeared with

his powerful genius to support our pretensions. He came forth imbued with

American life, and feeling, and sentiment. Another like Cooper cannot

appear, for he was peculiarly suited to his time, which was that of an

invading civilization. The fame and honor which he gained, were not

obtained by obsequious deference to public opinion, but simply by his great

ability and manly character. Great as he was in the department of romantic

fiction, he was not less deserving of praise in that of history. In Lionel

Lincoln he has described the battle of Bunker Hill better than it is

described in any other work.

In his naval history of the United States he has left us the most masterly

composition of which any nation could boast on a similar subject. Mr.

Bancroft proceeded in a masterly analysis of some of Mr. Cooper's

characters, and ended with an impressive assertion of the purity of his

contributions to our literature, the eminence of his genius, and the

dignity of his personal character.

Dr. HAWKS spoke with his customary eloquence of the personal character of

Mr. Cooper, his indefectible integrity, his devotion to the best interests

of his country, and his religious spirit. He approved the resolutions which

had been offered to the society.

The Rev. SAMUEL OSGOOD said:

It must seem presumptuous in me, Mr. President, to try

to add any thing to the tribute which has been paid to

the memory of Cooper, by gentlemen so peculiarly

qualified from their experience and position to speak

of the man and his services. But all professions have

their own point of view, and I may be allowed to say a

few words upon the relation of our great novelist to

the historical associations and moral standards of our

nation. I cannot claim more than a passing acquaintance

with the deceased, and it belongs to friends more

favored to interpret the asperities and illustrate the

amenities which are likely to mark the character of a

man so decided in his make and habit. With his position

as an interpreter of American history and a delineator

of American character, we are in this society most

closely concerned. None in this presence, I am sure,

will rebuke me for speaking of the novelist as among

the most important agents of popular education,

powerful either for good or ill.

Is it not true, Sir, that the romance is the prose epic

of modern society, and that we now look to its pages

for the most graphic portraitures of men, manners, and

events? Social and political life is too complex now

for the stately march of the heroic poem, and this age

of print needs not the carefully measured verse to make

sentences musical to the ear, or to save them from

being mutilated by circulation. The romance is now the

chosen form of imaginative literature, and its gifted

masters are educators of the popular ideal. What epic

poem of our times begins to compare in influence over

the common mind with the stories of Scott and Cooper?

Our novelist loved most to treat of scenes and

characters distinctively national, and his name stands

indelibly written on our fairest lakes and rivers, our

grandest seas and mountains, our annals of early

sacrifice and daring. With some of his criticisms on

society, and some of his views of political and

historical questions, I have personally little

sympathy. But, when it is asked, in the impartial

standard of critical justice, what influence has he

exerted over the moral tone of American literature, or

to what aim has he wielded the fascinating pen of

romance, there can be but one reply. With him, fancy

has always walked hand in hand with purity, and the

ideal of true manhood, which is everywhere most

prominent in his works, is one of which we may well be

proud as a nation and as men.

The element of will, perhaps more strongly than

intellectual analysis, or exquisite sensibility, or

high imagination, is the distinguished characteristic

of his heroes, and in this his portraitures are good

types of what is strongest in the practical American

mind. His model man, whether forester, sailor, servant,

or gentleman, is always bent on bringing some especial

thing to pass, and the progress from the plan to the

achievement is described with military or naval

exactness. Yet he never overlooks any of the essential

traits of a noble manhood, and loves to show how much

of enterprise, courage, compassion, and reverence, it

combines with practical judgment and religious

principle.

It has seemed to me that his stories of the seas and

the forests are fitted to act more than ever upon the

strong hearts in training for the new spheres of

triumph which are now so wonderfully opening upon our

people. Who does not wish that his noted hero of the

backwoods might be known in every loghouse along our

extending frontier, and teach the rough pioneer always

to temper daring by humanity? Who can ever forget that

favorite character, as dear to the reader as to the

author--that paladin of the forest, that lion-heart of

the wilderness, Leatherstocking, fearless towards

man--gentle towards woman--a rough-cast gentleman of

as true a heart as ever beat under the red cross of the

crusader. The very qualities needed in those old times

of frontier strife are now needed for new emergencies

in our more peaceful border life, and our future

depends vastly upon the characters that give edge to

the advancing mass of our population now crowding

towards the rocky mountains and the Pacific coast. It

is well that this story-teller of the forest has been

so true to the best traits of our nature, and in so

many points is a moralist too. As a romancer of the

sea, Cooper's genius may perhaps be but beginning to

show its influence, as a new age of commercial

greatness is opening upon our nation.

Mr. Cooper did not shrink from battle scenes and had no

particular dread of gunpowder, yet his best laurels

upon the ocean have been won in describing feats of

seamanship and traits of manhood that need no bloody

conflict for their display, and may be exemplified in

fleets as peaceful and beneficent as ever spread their

sails to the breezes to bear kindly products to

friendly nations. As we sit here this evening under the

influence of the hour, the images of many a famous

exploit on the water seems to come out from his

well-remembered pages and mingle themselves with recent

scenes of marine achievement. Has not the "Water Witch"

herself reappeared of late in our own bay, and laden

not with contraband goods, but a freight of

stout-hearted gentlemen, borne the palm as "Skimmer of

the Seas," from all competitors in presence of the

royalty and nobility of England? And the Old Ironsides,

has not she come back again, more iron-ribbed than

ever--not to fight over the old battles which our naval

chronicler was so fond of rehearsing, but under the

name of the Baltic or (better omen) the Pacific, to win

a victory more honorable and encouraging than ever was

carried by the thundering broadsides of the noble old

Constitution! The commanders and pilots so celebrated

by the novelist, have they not successors indomitable

as they? and just now our ship-news brings good tidings

of their achievements, as they tell us of the Flying

Cloud that has made light of the storms of the fearful

southern cape, and of the return of the adventurous

fleet that has stood so well the hug of the Polar

icebergs, and shown how nobly a crew may hunt for men

on the seas with a Red Rover's daring and a Christian's

mercy.

It is well that the most gifted romancer of the sea is

an American, and that he is helping us to enact the

romance of history so soon to be fact. The empire of

the waters, which in turn has belonged to Tyre, Venice,

and England, seems waiting to come to America, and no

part of the world now so justly claims its possession

as that state in which Cooper had his home. Who does

not welcome the promise of the new age of powerful

commerce and mental blessing? Who does not feel

grateful to any man who gives any good word or work to

the emancipation of the sailor from his worst enemies,

and to the freedom of the seas from all the violence

that stains its benignant waters? While proud of our

fleet ships, let us not forget elements in their

equipment more important than oak and iron. In this age

of merchandise, let us adorn peace with something of

the old manhood that took from warfare some of its

horrors. Did time allow, I might try to illustrate the

power of an attractive literature in keeping alive

national associations and moulding national character,

but I am content to leave these few fragmentary words

with the society as my poor tribute to a writer who

charmed many hours of my boyhood, and who has won

regard anew as the entertaining and instructive

beguiler of some recent days of rural recreation. May

we not sincerely say that he has so used the treasures

of our national scenery and history as to elevate the

true ideal of true manhood, and quicken the nation's

memory in many respects auspiciously for the nation's

hopes?

It is understood that a public discourse on the life and genius of Mr.

Cooper will be delivered by one of the most eminent of his contemporaries,

at Tripler Hall, early in December, and that measures will be adopted to

secure the erection of a suitable monument to his memory in one of the

public squares or parks of the city. On this subject Mr. Washington Irving

has written the following letter:

SUNNYSIDE, October, 1851.

MY DEAR SIR:--My occupations in the country prevent my

attendance in town at the meeting of the committee, but

I am anxious to know what is doing. I signified at our

first meeting what I thought the best monument to the

memory of Mr. Cooper--a statue. It is the simplest,

purest, and most satisfactory--perpetuating the

likeness of the person. I understand there is an

excellent bust of Mr. Cooper extant, made when he was

in Italy. He was there in his prime; and it might

furnish the model for a noble statue. Judge Duer

suggested that his monument should be placed at

Washington, perhaps in the Smithsonian Institute. I was

rather for New-York, as he belonged to this State, and

the scenes of several of his best works were laid in

it. Besides, the seat of government may be changed, and

then Washington would lose its importance; whereas

New-York must always be a great and growing

metropolis--the place of arrival and departure for this

part of the world--the great resort of strangers from

abroad, and of our own people from all parts of the

Union. One of our beautiful squares would be a fine

situation for a statue. However, I am perhaps a little

too local in my notions on this matter. Cooper

emphatically belongs to the nation, and his monument

should be placed where it would be most in public view.

Judge Duer's idea therefore may be the best. There will

be a question of what material the statue (if a statue

is determined on) should be made. White marble is the

most beautiful, but how would it stand our climate in

the open air? Bronze stands all weathers and all

climates, but does not give so clearly the expression

of the countenance, when regarded from a little

distance.

These are all suggestions scrawled in haste, which I

should have made if able to attend the meeting of the

committee. I wish you would drop me a line to let me

know what is done or doing.

Yours very truly,

WASHINGTON IRVING.

The Rev. RUFUS GRISWOLD.

The plan thus recommended by Mr. Irving will undoubtedly be approved by the

committee and the public, and there is little doubt that it will soon be

carried into execution.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The accomplished authoress of "Rural Hours."--_Ed. International._

THE LONDON TIMES ON AMERICAN INTERCOMMUNICATION.

We are by no means confident that the Mexican War, with all its victories,

was more serviceable to our reputation in Europe, than the single victory

of Mr. Stevens, in his yacht America, off the Isle of Wight. This triumph

has been celebrated in a dinner at the Astor House, but the city might have

well afforded to welcome the returning owner of the America with an

illumination, or the fathers, in council assembled, might have voted him a

statue. Mr. Collins and Mr. Stevens have together managed to deprive

England of the "trident of the seas," and as soon as it was transferred

there began a shower of honors, which continues still, from the _Times_

down to the very meanest of its imitators. From that time the Americans

have had all the "solid triumphs" in the Great Exhibition. We have been

regarded as a wonderful people, and our institutions as the most

interesting study that is offered for contemporary statesmen and

philosophers. We copy below a specimen of the leaders with which the

_Times_ has honored us, and commend it to our readers, not more for its

tone than for the valuable information contained in it:--

LOCOMOTION BY RIVER AND RAILWAY IN THE UNITED STATES.

England has been so dazzled by the splendor of her own

achievements in the creation of a new art of transport

by land and water within the last thirty years, as to

become in a measure insensible to all that has been

accomplished in the same interval and in the same

department of the arts elsewhere, improvements less

brilliant, indeed, intrinsically, than the stupendous

system of inland transport, which we lately noticed in

these columns, and having a lustre mitigated to our

view by distance, yet presenting in many respects

circumstances and conditions which may well excite

profound and general interest, and even challenge a

respectful comparison with the greatest of those

advances in the art of locomotion of which we are most

justly proud.

It will not, therefore, be without utility and

interest, after the detailed notice which we have

lately given of our own advances in the adaptation of

steam to locomotion, to direct attention to the

progress in the same department which has been

simultaneously made in other and distant countries, and

first, and above all, by our friends and countrymen in

the other hemisphere.

The inland transport of the United States is

distributed mainly between the rivers, the canals, and

the railways, a comparatively small fraction of it

being executed on common roads. Provided with a system

of natural water communication on a scale of magnitude

without any parallel in the world, it might have been

expected that the "sparse" population of this recently

settled country might have continued for a long period

of time satisfied with such an apparatus of transport.

It is, however, the character of man, but above all of

the Anglo-Saxon man, never to rest satisfied with the

gifts of nature, however munificent they be, until he

has rendered them ten times more fruitful by the

application of his skill and industry, and we find

accordingly that the population of America has not only

made the prodigious natural streams which intersect its

vast territory over so many thousands of miles,

literally swarm with steamboats, but they have,

besides, constructed a system of canal navigation,

which may boldly challenge comparison with any thing of

the same kind existing in the oldest, wealthiest, and

most civilized States of Europe.

It appears from the official statistics that, on the

1st of January, 1843, the extent of canals in actual

operation amounted to 4,333 miles and that there were

then in progress 2,359 miles, a considerable portion of

which has since been completed, so that it is probable

that the actual extent of artificial water

communication now in use in the United States

considerably exceeds 5,000 miles. The average cost of

executing this prodigious system of artificial water

communication was at the rate of 6,432_l._ per mile, so

that 5,000 miles would have absorbed a capital of above

32,000,000_l._

This extent of canal transport, compared with the

population, exhibits in a striking point of view the

activity and enterprise which characterize the American

people. In the United States there is a mile of canal

navigation for every 5,000 inhabitants, while in

England the proportion is 1 to every 9,000 inhabitants,

and France 1 to every 13,000. The ratio, therefore, of

this instrument of intercommunication in the United

States is greater than in the United Kingdom, in

proportion to the population, as 9 to 5, and greater

than in France in the ratio of 13 to 5.

The extent to which the American people have

fertilized, so to speak, the natural powers of those

vast collections of water which surround and intersect

their territory, is not less remarkable than their

enterprise in constructing artificial lines of water

communication. Besides the internal communication

supplied by the rivers, properly so called, a vast

apparatus of liquid transport is derived from the

geographical character of their extensive coast,

stretching over a space of more than 4,000 miles, from

the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the delta of the

Mississippi, indented and serrated with natural harbors

and sheltered bays, fringed with islands forming

sounds, throwing out capes and promontories which

inclose arms of the sea in which the waters are free

from the roll of the ocean, and which, for all the

purposes of navigation, have the character of rivers

and lakes. The lines of communication formed by the

vast and numerous rivers are, moreover, completed in

the interior by chains of lakes presenting the most

extensive bodies of fresh water in the known world.

Whatever question may be raised on the conflicting

claims for the invention of steam navigation, it is an

incontestable fact that the first steamboat practically

applied for any useful purpose was placed on the

Hudson, to ply between New-York and Albany, in 1808;

and, from that time to the present that river has been

the theatre of the most remarkable series of

experiments of locomotion on water ever recorded in the

history of man. The Hudson is navigable by steamers of

the largest class as high as Albany, a distance of

nearly 150 miles from New-York. The steam navigation

upon this river is entitled to attention, not only

because of the immense traffic of which it is the

vehicle, but because it forms a sort of model for all

the rivers of the Atlantic States. Two classes of

steamers work upon it--one appropriated to the swift

transport of passengers, and the other to the towing of

the vast traffic which is maintained between the city

of New-York and the interior of the State of that name,

into the heart of which the Hudson penetrates.

The passenger steamers present a curious contrast to

the sea-going steamers with which we are familiar. Not

having to encounter the agitated surface of the ocean,

they are supplied with neither rigging nor sails, are

built exclusively with a view to speed, are slender and

weak in their structure, with great length in

proportion to their beam, and have but small draught of

water. The position and form of the machinery are

peculiar. The engines are placed on deck in a

comparatively elevated situation. It is but rarely that

two engines are used. A single engine placed in the

centre of the deck drives a crank constructed on the

axle of the enormous paddle-wheels, the magnitude of

which, and the velocity imparted to them, enable them

to perform the office of fly-wheels. These vessels,

which are of great magnitude, are splendidly fitted up

for the accommodation of passengers, and have been

within the last ten or twelve years undergoing a

gradual augmentation of magnitude, to which it would

seem to be difficult to set a limit.

In the following table, which we borrow from the work

on _Railway Economy_, from which we have already

derived so large a portion of our information, are

given the dimensions and the details of fourteen of the

principal steamers plying on the Hudson in the year 1838:--

|Length of deck.

| |Breadth of beam.

| | |Draught.

| | | |Diameter of wheels.

| | | | |Length of paddles.

| | | | | |Depth of paddles.

| | | | | | |Number of engines.

| | | | | | | |Diameter of cylinder.

| | | | | | | | |Length of stroke.

| | | | | | | | | |Number of

| | | | | | | | | |revolutions.

| | | | | | | | | | |Part of stroke

| | | | | | | | | | |at which steam

Names. | | | | | | | | | | |is cut off.

-------------+----+----+----+----+----+---+--+----+----+----+-----+

| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.|ft.| | in.| ft.| | |

Dewit Clinton| 230|28 |5.5 |21 |13.7|36 |1 |65 | 10 |29 |.75 |

Champlain | 180|27 |5.5 |22 |15 |34 |2 |44 | 10 |27.5|.50 |

Erie | 180|27 |5.5 |22 |15 |34 |2 |44 | 10 |27.5|.50 |

North America| 200|30 |5 |21 |13 |30 |2 |44.5| 8 |24 |.50 |

Independence | 148|26 | -- | -- | -- |-- |1 |44 | 10 | -- | -- |

Albany | 212|26 | -- |24.5|14 |30 |1 |65 | -- |19 | -- |

Swallow | 233|22.5|3.75|24 |11 |30 |1 |46 | -- |27 | -- |

Rochester | 200|25 |3.75|23.5|10 |24 |1 |43 | 10 |28 | -- |

Utica | 200|21 |3.5 |22 | 9.5|24 |1 |39 | 10 | -- | -- |

Providence | 180|27 |9 | -- | -- |-- |1 |65 | 10 | -- | -- |

Lexington | 207|21 | -- |23 | 9 |30 |1 |48 | 11 |24 | -- |

Narraganset | 210|26 |5 |25 |11 |30 |1 |60 | 12 |20 |.50 |

Massachusetts| 200|29.5|8.5 |22 |10 |28 |2 |44 | 8 |26 | -- |

Rhode Island | 210|26 |6.5 |24 |11 |30 |1 |60 | 11 |21 | -- |

+----+----+----+----+----+---+--+----+----+----+-----+

Averages | 200|26 |5.6 |24.8|11 |30 |--|50.8| 10 |24.8| -- |

-------------+----+----+----+----+----+---+--+----+----+----+-----+

The changes more recently made all have a tendency to

increase the magnitude and power of those vessels--to

diminish their draught of water--and to increase the

play of the expansive principle. Vessels of the largest

class now draw only as much water as the smallest drew

a few years ago, four feet five inches being regarded

as the _maximum_.

It appears from the following table that the average

length of these prodigious floating hotels is above 300

feet; some of them approaching 400. In the passenger

accommodation afforded by them no water communication

in any country can compete. Nothing can exceed the

splendor and luxury with which they are fitted up,

furnished, and decorated. Silk, velvet, the most costly

carpetings and upholstery, vast mirrors, gilding, and

carving, are profusely displayed in their decoration.

Even the engine-room in some of them is lined with

mirrors. In the Alida, for example, the end of the

engine-room is one vast mirror, in which the movements

of the brilliant and highly-finished machinery are

reflected. All the largest class are capable of running

from twenty to twenty-two miles an hour, and average

nearly twenty miles without difficulty.

In the annexed table are exhibited the details of ten

of the most recently constructed passenger vessels:--

---------------+------------------------+----------------+------------------

| DIMENSIONS OF | ENGINE. | PADDLE-

| VESSEL. | | WHEEL.

+------------------------+----------------+------------------

| |Diameter of |

| |cylinder. |

|Length. | |Length of |Diameter.

| |Breadth. | |stroke. | |Length of

| | |Depth of | | |Number | |bucket.

Names. | | |Hold. | | |of | | |Depth of

| | | |Tonnage.| | |strokes.| | |bucket.

---------------+----+-----+----+--------+---+---+--------+----+----+--------

| ft.| ft. | ft.| |in.|ft.| | ft.|ft. | in.

Isaac Newton |333 |40.4 |10.0| |81 |12 | 18-1/2 |39.0|12.4| 32

Bay State |300 |39.0 |13.2| |76 |12 | 21-1/2 |38.0|10.3| 32

Empire State |304 |39.0 |13.6| |76 |12 | 21-1/2 |38.0|10.3| 32

Oregon |308 |35.0 | -- | |72 |11 | 18 |34.0|11.0| 28

Hendrick Hudson|320 |35.0 | 9.6| 1,050 |72 |11 | 22 |33.0|11.0| 33

C. Vanderbilt |300 |35.0 |11.0| 1,075 |72 |12 | 21 |35.0| 9.0| 33

Connecticut |300 |37.0 |11.0| |72 |13 | 21 |35.0|11.6| 36

Commodore |280 |33.0 |10.6| |65 |11 | 22 |31.6| 9.0| 33

New-York |276 |35.0 |10.6| |76 |15 | 18 |44.6|12.0| 36

Alida |286 |28.0 | 9.6| |56 |12 | 24-1/2 |32.0|10.0| 32

---------------+----+-----+----+-------+----+----+-------+----+----+--------

Averages |310 |35.8 |11.0| |71.8|12.1|20.8 |35.0|10.8| 37

---------------+----+-----+----+-------+----+----+-------+----+----+--------

It may be observed, in relation to the navigation of

those eastern rivers (for we do not here speak of the

Mississippi and its tributaries), that the occurrence

of explosions is almost unheard of. During the last ten

years not a single catastrophe of this kind has been

recorded, although cylindrical boilers ten feet in

diameter, composed of plating 5-16ths of an inch thick,

are commonly used with steam of 50lb. pressure.

Previously to 1844 the lowest fare from New-York to

Albany, a distance of 145 miles, was 4s. 4d.; at

present the fare is 2s. 2d.--and for an additional sum

of the same amount the passenger can command the luxury

of a separate cabin. When the splendor and magnitude of

the accommodation is considered, the magnificence of

the furniture and accessories, and the luxuriousness of

the table, it will be admitted that no similar example

of cheap locomotion can be found in any part of the

globe. Passengers may there be transported in a

floating palace, surrounded with all the conveniences

and luxuries of the most splendid hotel, at the average

rate of twenty miles an hour, for less than _one-sixth

of a penny per mile_! It is not an uncommon occurrence

during the warm season to meet persons on board these

boats who have lodged themselves there permanently, in

preference to hotels on the banks of the river. Their

daily expenses in the boat are as follows:

Fare 2_s._ 2_d._

Separate bedroom 2 2

Breakfast, dinner, and supper 6 6

------

Total daily expense for board, lodging, 10 10

attendance, and travelling 150 miles,

at 20 miles an hour

Such accommodation is, on the whole, more economical

than a hotel. The bedroom is as luxuriously furnished

as the handsomest chamber in an hotel or private house,

and is much more spacious than the room similarly

designated in the largest packet ships.

The other class of steamers, used for towing the

commerce of the river, corresponds to the goods trains

on railways. No spectacle can be more remarkable than

this class of locomotive machines, dragging their

enormous load up the Hudson. They may be seen in the

midst of this vast stream, surrounded by a cluster of

twenty or thirty loaded craft of various magnitudes.

Three or four tiers are lashed to them at each side,

and as many more at their bow and at their stern. The

steamer is almost lost to the eye in the midst of this

crowd of vessels which cling around it, and the moving

mass is seen to proceed up the river, no apparent agent

of propulsion being visible, for the steamer and its

propellers are literally buried in the midst of the

cluster which clings to it and floats round and near

it.

As this _water-goods train_, for so it may be called,

ascends the river, it drops off its load, vessel by

vessel, at the towns which it passes. One or two are

left at Newburgh, another at Poughkeepsie, two or three

more at Hudson, one or two at Fishkill, and, finally,

the tug arrives with a residuum of some half-dozen

vessels at Albany.

The steam navigation of the Mississippi and the other

western rivers is conducted in a manner entirely

different from that of the Hudson. Every one must be

familiar with the lamentable accidents which happen

from time to time, and the loss of life from explosion

which continually takes place on those rivers. Such

catastrophes, instead of diminishing with the

improvement of art, seem rather to have increased.

Engineers have done literally nothing to check the

evil.

In a Mississippi steamboat the cabins and saloons are

erected on a flooring six or eight feet above the deck,

upon which and under them the engines are placed, which

are of the coarsest and most inartificial structure.

They are invariably worked with high-pressure steam,

and in order to obtain that effect which in the Hudson

steamers is due to a vacuum, the steam is worked at an

extraordinary pressure. We have ourselves actually

witnessed boilers of this kind, on the western rivers,

working under a full pressure of 120lb. per square inch

above the atmosphere, and we have been assured that

this pressure has been recently considerably increased,

so that it is not unfrequent now to find them working

with a bursting pressure of 200lb. per square inch!

As might naturally be expected, the chief theatre of

railway enterprise in America is the Atlantic States.

The Mississippi and its tributaries have served the

purposes of commerce and intercommunication to the

comparatively thinly scattered population of the

Western States so efficiently that many years will

probably elapse, notwithstanding the extraordinary

enterprise of the people, before any considerable

extent of railway communication will be established in

this part of the States. Nevertheless, the traveller in

these distant regions encounters occasionally detached

examples of railways even in the valley of the

Mississippi. In the State of Mississippi there are five

short lines, ten or twelve in Louisiana, and a limited

number scattered over Florida, Alabama, Illinois,

Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. These, however, are

generally detached and single lines, unconnected with

the vast network which we shall presently notice. To

the traveller in these wild regions the aspect of such

artificial agents of transport in the midst of a

country, a great portion of which is still in the state

of native forest, is most remarkable, and strongly

characteristic of the irrepressible spirit of

enterprise of its people. Travelling in the back woods

of Mississippi, through native forests, where till

within a few years human foot never trod, through

solitudes, the silence of which was never broken, even

by the red man, we have been sometimes filled with

wonder to find ourselves transported by an engine

constructed at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and driven by an

artisan from Liverpool, at the rate of twenty miles an

hour. It is not easy to describe the impression

produced by the juxtaposition of these refinements of

art and science with the wildness of the country, where

one sees the frightened deer start from its lair at the

snorting of the ponderous machine and the appearance of

the snakelike train which follows it.

The first American railway was opened for passengers on

the last day of 1829. According to the reports

collected and given in detail in the work already

quoted, it appears that in 1849, after an interval of

just twenty years, there were in actual operation 6,565

miles of railway in the States. The cost of

construction and plant of this system of railways

appears by the same authority to have been

53,386,885_l._, being at the average rate of 8,129_l._

per mile.

The reports collected in Dr. Lardner's work come up to

the middle of 1849. We have, however, before us

documents which supply data to a more recent period,

and have computed from them the following table,

exhibiting the number of miles of railway in actual

operation in the United States, the capital expended in

their construction and plant, and the length of the

lines which are in process of construction, but not yet completed:--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

| Railways | Cost of | Projected |Cost per

| in | Building and | and in | Mile.

| operation. | Plant. | progress. |

------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+--------

| Miles. | L | Miles. | L

Eastern States, | | | |

including Maine, New | | | |

Hampshire, Vermont, | | | |

Massachusetts, Rhode | | | |

Island, and Connecticut| 2,845 | 23,100,987 | 567 | 8,123

| | | |

Atlantic States, | | | |

including New-York, the | | | |

Jerseys, Pennsylvania, | | | |

Delaware, and Maryland | 3,503 | 27,952,500 | 2,020 | 7,979

| | | |

Southern States, | | | |

including Virginia, the | | | |

Carolinas, Georgia, | | | |

Florida, and Alabama | 2,103 | 8,253,130 | 1,283 | 3,919

| | | |

Western States, | | | |

including Mississippi, | | | |

Louisiana, Texas, | | | |

Tennessee, Kentucky, | | | |

Ohio, Michigan, Indiana,| | | |

Illinois, Missouri, | | | |

Iowa, and Wisconsin | 1,835 | 7,338,290 | 5,762 | 3,999

|-------------+--------------+-------------+--------

Totals and averages | 10,289 | 66,653,907 | 9,632 | 6,478

------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+--------

It must be admitted that the results here exhibited

present a somewhat astonishing spectacle. It appears

from this statement that there are in actual operation

in the United States 10,289 miles of railway, and that

there are 9,632 projected and in process of execution.

So that when a few years more shall have rolled away,

this extraordinary people will actually have 20,000

miles of iron road in operation.

It appears from the above report, compared with the

previous report quoted from Dr. Lardner, that the

average cost of construction has been diminished as the

operations progressed. According to Dr. Lardner, the

average cost of construction of the 6,500 miles of

railway in operation in 1849 was 8,129_l._ per mile

whereas, it appears from the preceding table that the

actual cost of 10,289 miles now in operation has been

at the average rate of 6,478_l._ per mile. On

examining the analysis of the distribution of these

railways among the States, it appears that this

discordance of the two statements is apparent rather

than real, and proceeds from the fact that the railways

opened since Dr. Lardner's report, being chiefly in the

southern and western States, are cheaply constructed

lines, in which the landed proprietors have given to a

great extent their gratuitous co-operation, and in

which the plant and working stock is of very small

amount, so that their average cost per mile is a little

under 4,000_l._--the average cost per mile in the

eastern and northern States corresponding almost to a

fraction with Dr. Lardner's estimate. It is also worthy

of observation that the distribution of this network of

railways is extremely unequal, not only in quantity,

but in its capability, as indicated by its expense of

construction. Thus, in the populous and wealthy States

of Massachusetts, New-Jersey, and New-York, the

proportion of railways to surface is considerable,

while in the southern and western States it is

trifling. In the following table is given the number of

miles of surface for each mile of railway in some of

the principal States:--

Square miles of surface for each mile of railway.

Massachusetts 7

New-Jersey 22

New-York 28

Maryland 31

Ohio 58

Georgia 76

When it is considered that the railways in this country

have cost upon an average about 40,000_l._ per mile,

the comparatively low cost of the American railways

will doubtless appear extraordinary.

This circumstance, however, is explained partly by the

general character of the country, partly by the mode of

constructing the railways, and partly by the manner of

working them. With certain exceptions, few in number,

the tracts of country over which these lines are

carried, is nearly a dead level. Of earthwork there is

but little; of works of art, such as viaducts and

tunnels, commonly none. Where the railways are carried

over streams or rivers, bridges are constructed in a

rude but substantial manner of timber supplied from the

roadside forest, at no greater cost than that of hewing

it. The station houses, booking offices, and other

buildings, are likewise slight and cheaply constructed

of timber. On some of the best lines in the more

populous States the timber bridges are constructed with

stone pillars and abutments, supporting arches of

trusswork, the cost of such bridges varying from 46s.

per foot, for 60 feet span, to 6_l._ 10s. per foot for

200 feet span, for a single line, the cost on a double

line being 50 per cent. more.

When the railways strike the course of rivers such as

the Hudson, Delaware, or Susquehanna--too wide to be

crossed by bridges--the traffic is carried by steam

ferries. The management of these ferries is deserving

of notice. It is generally so arranged that the time of

crossing them corresponds with a meal of the

passengers. A platform is constructed level with the

line of railway and carried to the water's edge. Upon

this platform rails are laid by which the wagons which

bear the passengers' luggage and other matters of light

and rapid transport are rolled directly upon the upper

deck of the ferry boat, the passengers meanwhile going

under a covered way to the lower deck. The whole

operation is accomplished in five minutes. While the

boat is crossing the spacious river the passengers are

supplied with their breakfasts, dinner, or supper, as

the case may be. On arriving at the opposite bank the

upper deck comes in contact with a like platform,

bearing a railway upon which the luggage wagons are

rolled; the passengers ascend, as they descended, under

a covered way, and, resuming their places in the

railway carriages, the train proceeds.

But the prudent Americans have availed themselves of

other sources of economy by adopting a mode of

construction adapted to the expected traffic. Formed to

carry a limited commerce the railways are generally

single lines, sidings being provided at convenient

situations. Collision is impossible, for the first

train that arrives at a siding must enter it and remain

there until the following train arrives. This

arrangement would be attended with inconvenience with a

crowded traffic like that of many lines on the English

railways, but even on the principal American lines the

trains seldom pass in each direction more than twice a

day, and their time and place of meeting is perfectly

regulated. In the structure of the roads, also,

principles have been adopted which have been attended

with great economy compared with the English lines. The

engineers, for example, do not impose on themselves the

difficult and expensive condition of excluding all

curves but those of large radius, and all gradients

exceeding a certain small limit of steepness. Curves of

500 feet radius, and even less, are frequent, and

acclivities rising at the rate of 1 foot in 100 are

considered a moderate ascent, while there are not less

than 50 lines laid down with gradients varying from 1

in 100 to 1 in 75, nevertheless these lines are worked

with facility by locomotives, without the expedient,

even, of assistant or stationary engines. The

consequences of this have been to reduce in an immense

proportion the cost of earthwork, bridges, and

viaducts, even in parts of the country where the

character of the surface is least favorable. But the

chief source of economy has arisen from the structure

of the line itself. In many cases where the traffic is

lightest the rails consist of flat bars of iron, 2-1/2

inches broad and 6-10ths of an inch thick, nailed and

spiked to planks of timber laid longitudinally on the

road in parallel lines, so as to form what are called

continuous bearings. Some of the most profitable

American railways, and those of which the maintenance

has proved least expensive, have been constructed in

this manner. The road structure, however, varies

according to the traffic. Rails are sometimes laid

weighing only from 25lb. to 30lb. per yard. In some

cases of great traffic they are supported on transverse

sleepers of wood like the European railways, but in

consequence of the comparative cheapness of wood and

the high price of iron, the strength necessary for the

road is mostly obtained by reducing the distance

between the sleepers so as to supersede the necessity

of giving greater weight to the rails.

The same observance of the principles of economy is

maintained with regard to their locomotive stock. The

engines are strongly built, safe and powerful, but are

destitute of much of that elegance of exterior and

beauty of workmanship which has excited so much

admiration, in the machines exhibited in the Crystal

Palace. The fuel is generally wood, but on certain

lines near the coal districts coal is used. The use of

coke is nowhere resorted to. Its expense would make it

inadmissible, and in a country so thinly inhabited the

smoke proceeding from coal is not objected to. The

ordinary speed, stoppages included, is from 14 to 16

miles an hour. Independently of other considerations,

the light structure of many of the roads would not

allow a greater velocity without danger; nevertheless

we have frequently travelled on some of the better

constructed lines at the ordinary speed of the English

railways, say 30 miles an hour and upwards.

Notwithstanding the apparently feeble and unsubstantial

structure of many of the lines, accidents to passenger

trains are scarcely ever heard of. It appears by

returns now before us that of 9,355,474 passengers

booked in 1850 on the crowded railways of

Massachusetts, each passenger making an average trip of

18 miles, there were only 15 who sustained accidents

fatal to life or limb. It follows from this, by the

common principles explained by us in a former article,

that when a passenger travels one mile on these

railways the chances against an accident producing

personal injury, even of the slightest kind, are

11,226,568 to 1, and of course in a journey of 100

miles the chances against such accident are 112,266 to

1. We have shown in a former article that the chances

against accident on an English railway, under like

circumstances, are 85,125 to 1. The American railways

are, therefore, safer than the English in the ratio of

112 to 85.

The great line of communication is established, 400

miles in length, between Philadelphia and Pittsburg, on

the left bank of the Ohio, composed partly of railway

and partly of canal. The section from Philadelphia to

Columbia (82 miles) is railway; the line is then

continued by canal for 172 miles to Holidaysburg; it is

then carried by railway 37 miles to Johnstown, whence

it is continued 104 miles further to Pittsburg by

canal. The traffic on this mixed line of transport is

conducted so as to avoid the expense and inconvenience

of transhipment of goods and passengers at the

successive points where the railway and canals unite.

The merchandise is loaded and the passengers

accommodated in the boats adapted to the canals at the

depot in Market-street, Philadelphia. These boats,

which are of considerable magnitude and length, are

divided into segments by partitions made transversely

and at right angles to their length, so that such boat

can be, as it were, broken into three or more pieces.

These several pieces are placed each on two railway

trucks, which support it at the ends, a proper body

being provided for the trucks adapted to the form of

the bottom and keel of the boat. In this manner the

boat is carried in pieces, with its load, along the

railway. On arriving at the canal the pieces are united

so as to form a continuous boat, which being launched,

the transport is continued on the water. On arriving

again at the railway the boat is once more resolved

into its segments, which, as before, are transferred to

the railway trucks and transported to the next canal

station by locomotive engines. Between the depot in

Market-street and the locomotive station which is

situated in the suburbs of Philadelphia the segments of

the boat are drawn by horses on railways conducted

through the streets. At the locomotive station the

trucks are formed into a continuous train and delivered

over to the locomotive engine. As the body of the truck

rests upon a pivot, under which it is supported by

wheels, it is capable of revolving, and no difficulty

is found in turning the shortest curves, and these

enormous vehicles, with their contents of merchandise

and passengers, are seen daily issuing from the gates

of the depot in Market-street, and turning with

facility the corners at the entrance of each successive

street.

By a comparison of the returns published by Dr.

Lardner, in his work already quoted, with the more

recent results which we have already given, it will

appear that within the last two years not less than

3,700 miles of railway have been opened for traffic in

the United States. Among these are included several of

the most important lines, among which are more

especially to be noticed the great artery of railway

communication extending across the State of New York to

the shores of Lake Erie, the longest line which any

single company has yet constructed in the United

States, its length being 467 miles. The total cost of

this line, including the working stock, has been

4,500,000_l._ sterling, being at the average rate of

9,642_l._ per mile--a rate of expense about 50 per

cent. above the average cost of American railways taken

collectively. This is explained by the fact that the

line itself is one constructed for a large traffic

between New York and the interior, and therefore built

to meet a heavy traffic. Although it is but just

opened, its average receipts have amounted to

11,000_l._ per week, which have given a net profit of

6-1/2 per cent. on the capital, the working expenses

being taken at 50 per cent. of the gross receipts. One

of the great lines in a forward state, and likely to be

opened by the close of the present year, connects New

York with Albany, following the valley of the Hudson.

It will no doubt create surprise, considering the

immense facility of water transport afforded by this

river, that a railway should be constructed on its

bank, but it must be remembered that for a considerable

interval during the winter the navigation of the Hudson

is suspended from the frost.

A great line of railway, which will intersect the

States from south to north, connecting the port of

Mobile on the Gulf of Mexico with Lake Michigan and the

lead mines of Galena on the Upper Mississippi, is also

in progress of construction, large grants of land being

conceded to the company by the Federal Government. This

line will probably be opened in 1854.

It is difficult to obtain authentic reports from which

the movement of the traffic on the American railways

can be ascertained with precision. Dr. Lardner,

however, obtained the necessary statistical data

relating to nearly 1,200 miles of railway in the States

of New England and New York, from which he was enabled

to collect all the circumstances attending the working

of these lines, the principal of which are collected in

the following table:--

Tabular analysis of the average daily movement of the traffic on 28 of the

principal railways in the States of New England and New York.

PASSENGER TRAFFIC.--Number booked 23,981

Mileage 437,350

Receipts L2,723

Mileage of trains 8,091

GOODS TRAFFIC.--Tons booked 6,547

Mileage 248,351

Receipts L1,860

Mileage of trains 4,560

Total length of the above railways in the State of New York 490 miles

Ditto, in the States of New England 670 "

-----

Total 1,160 miles.

Average cost of construction and stock in the State of New

York L7,010

Ditto, in the States of New England L10,800

General average L9,200

| Receipts | Expenses. | Profits.

--------------------------------------+----------+------------+----------

Total average receipts, expenses, | | |

and profits per day in the State of | L | L | L

New York | 1,654 | 684 | 970

| | |

Ditto, States of New England | 3,040 | 1,505 | 1,535

+----------+------------+----------

Totals | 4,694 | 2,189 | 2,505

| | | Per cent.

| Per mile | Per mile | per annum

|of railway| run by | on

| per day. | trains. | capital.

--------------------------------------+----------+------------+----------

| L | |

Receipts | 4,05 | 7s. 5d. | 16,1

Expenses | 1,89 |3s. 5-1/2d. | 7,5

+----------+------------+----------

Profits | 2,16 |2s.11-1/2d. | 8,6

Expense per cent. of receipts 46,8

Average receipts for passengers booked 27,0d.

Average distance travelled per passenger 18,2 miles

Average receipts per passenger per mile 1,47d.

Average number of passengers per train 54,0

Total average receipts per passenger train per mile 7s.

Average receipts per ton of goods booked 6s. 8-1/2d.

Average distance carried per ton 38,0 miles

Average receipts per ton per mile 1s. 8d.

Average number of tons per train 54,5

Total average receipts per goods per mile 8,2s.

The railways, of whose traffic we have here given a

synopsis, are those of the most active and profitable

description in the United States. It would, therefore,

be a great error to infer from the results here

exhibited general conclusions as to the financial

condition of the American railways. It appears, on the

other hand, from a more complete analysis, that the

dividends on the American lines, exclusive of those

contained in the preceding analysis, are in general

small, and in many instances nothing. It is, therefore,

probable that in the aggregate the average profits on

the total amount of capital invested in the American

railways does not exceed, if it indeed equal, the

average profits obtained on the capital invested in

English railways, which we have in a former article

shown to produce little more than 3 per cent.

The extraordinary extent of railway constructed at so

early a period in the United States has been by some

ascribed to the absence of a sufficient extent of

communication by common roads. Although this cause has

operated to some extent in certain districts it is by

no means so general as has been supposed. In the year

1838 the United States' mails circulated over a length

of way amounting on the whole to 136,218 miles, of

which two-thirds were land transport, including

railways as well as common roads. Of the latter there

must have been about 80,000 miles in operation, of

which, however, a considerable portion was

bridle-roads. The price of transport in the stage

coaches was, upon an average, 3.25d. per passenger per

mile, the average price by railway being about 1.47d.

per mile.

Of the entire extent of railway constructed in the

United States, by far the greater portion, as has been

already explained, consists of single lines,

constructed in a light and cheap manner, which in

England would be regarded as merely serving temporary

purposes; while, on the contrary, the entire extent of

the English system consists, not only of double lines,

but of railways constructed in the most solid,

permanent, and expensive manner, adapted to the

purposes of an immense traffic. If a comparison were to

be instituted at all between the two systems, its basis

ought to be the capital expended, and the traffic

served by them, in which case the result would be

somewhat different from that obtained by the mere

consideration of the length of the lines. It is not,

however, the same in reference to the canals, in which

it must be admitted America far exceeds all other

countries in proportion to her population.

The American railways have been generally constructed

by joint stock companies, which, however, the State

controls much more stringently than in England. In some

cases a major limit to the dividends is imposed by the

statute of incorporation, in some the dividends are

allowed to augment, but when they exceed a certain

limit the surplus is divided with the State; in some

the privilege granted to the companies is only for a

limited period, in some a sort of periodical revision

and restriction of the tariff is reserved to the State.

Nothing can be more simple, expeditious, and cheap than

the means of obtaining an act for the establishment of

a railway company in America. A public meeting is held

at which the project is discussed and adopted, a

deputation is appointed to apply to the Legislature,

which grants the act without expense, delay, or

official difficulty. The principle of competition is

not brought into play as in France, nor is there any

investigation as to the expediency of the project with

reference to future profit or loss as in England. No

other guarantee or security is required from the

company than the payment by the shareholders of a

certain amount, constituting the first call. In some

States the non-payment of a call is followed by the

confiscation of the previous payments, in others a fine

is imposed on the shareholders, in others the share is

sold, and if the produce be less than the price at

which it was delivered the surplus can be recovered

from the shareholder by process of law. In all cases

the act creating the companies fix a time within which

the works must be completed, under pain of forfeiture.

The traffic in shares before the definite constitution

of the company is prohibited.

Although the State itself has rarely undertaken the

execution of railways, it holds out in most cases

inducements in different forms to the enterprise of

companies. In some cases the State takes a great number

of shares, which is generally accompanied by a loan

made to the company, consisting in State Stock

delivered at par, which the company negotiate at its

own risk. This loan is often converted into a

subvention.

The great extent of railway communication in America in

proportion to its population must necessarily excite

much admiration. If we take the present population of

the United States at 24,000,000, and the railways in

operation at 10,000 miles, it will follow that in round

numbers there is one mile of railway for every 2,400

inhabitants. Now, in the United Kingdom there are at

present in operation 6,500 miles of railway, and if we

take the population at 30,000,000, it will appear that

there is a mile of railway for every 4,615 inhabitants.

It appears, therefore, that in proportion to the

population the length of railways in the United States

is greater than in the United Kingdom in the ratio of

46 to 24.

On the American railways passengers are not differently

classed or received at different rates of fare as on

those of Europe. There is but one class and one fare.

The only distinction observable arises from color. The

colored population, whether emancipated or not, are

generally excluded from the vehicles provided for the

whites. Such travellers are but few, and are usually

accommodated either in the luggage van or in the

carriage with the guard or conductor. But little

merchandise is transported, the cost of transport being

greater than goods in general are capable of paying;

nevertheless, a tariff regulated by weight alone,

without distinction of classes, is fixed for

merchandise.

Although Cuba is not yet _annexed_ to the United

States, its local proximity here suggests some notice

of a line of railway which traverses that island,

forming a communication between the city of Havana and

the centre of the island. This is an excellently

constructed road, and capitally worked by British

engines, British engineers, and British coals. The

impressions produced in passing along this line of

railway, though different from those already noticed in

the forests of the far west, is not less remarkable. We

are here transported at 30 miles an hour by an engine

from Newcastle, driven by an engineer from Manchester,

and propelled by fuel from Liverpool, through fields

yellow with pineapples, through groves of plantain and

cocoa-nut, and along roads inclosed by hedge-rows of

ripe oranges.

To what extent this extraordinary rapidity of

advancement made by the United States in its inland

communications is observable in other departments will

be seen by the following table, exhibiting a

comparative statement of those _data_, derived from

official sources, which indicate the social and

commercial condition of a people through a period which

forms but a small stage in the life of a nation:

1793. 1851.

Population 3,939,325 24,267,488

Imports L6,739,130 L38,723,545

Exports L5,675,869 L32,367,000

Tonnage 520,704 3,535,451

Lighthouses, beacons, and lightships 7 373

Cost of their maintenance L2,600 L115,000

Revenue L1,230,000 L9,516,000

National expenditure L1,637,000 L8,555,000

Post offices 209 21,551

Post roads (miles) 5,642 178,670

Revenue of Post-office L22,800 L1,207,000

Expenses of Post-office L15,650 L1,130,000

Mileage of mails ---- 46,541,423

Canals (miles) 0 5,000

Railways (miles) 0 10,287

Electric telegraph (miles) 0 15,000

Public libraries (volumes) 75,000 2,201,623

School libraries (volumes) 0 2,000,000

If they were not founded on the most incontestable

statistical data, the results assigned to the above

table would appear to belong to fable rather than

history. In an interval of little more than half a

century it appears that this extraordinary people have

increased above 500 per cent. in numbers; their

national revenue has augmented nearly 700 per cent.,

while their public expenditure has increased little

more than 400 per cent. The prodigious extension of

their commerce is indicated by an increase of nearly

500 per cent. in their imports and exports and 600 per

cent. in their shipping. The increased activity of

their internal communications is expounded by the

number of their post offices, which has been increased

more than a hundred-fold, the extent of their post

roads, which has been increased thirty-six-fold, and

the cost of their post-office, which has been augmented

in a seventy-two-fold ratio. The augmentation of their

machinery of public instruction is indicated by the

extent of their public libraries, which have increased

in a thirty-two-fold ratio, and by the creation of

school libraries, amounting to 2,000,000 volumes. They

have completed a system of canal navigation, which,

placed in a continuous line, would extend from London

to Calcutta, and a system of railways which,

continuously extended, would stretch from London to Van

Diemen's Land, and have provided locomotive machinery

by which that distance would be travelled over in three

weeks, at the cost of 1-1/2d. per mile. They have

created a system of inland navigation, the aggregate

tonnage of which is probably not inferior in amount to

the collective inland tonnage of all the other

countries in the world, and they possess many hundreds

of river steamers, which impart to the roads of water

the marvellous celerity of roads of iron. They have, in

fine, constructed lines of electric telegraph which,

laid continuously, would extend over a space longer by

3,000 miles than the distance from the north to the

south pole, and have provided apparatus of transmission

by which a message of 300 words despatched under such

circumstances from the north pole might be delivered

_in writing_ at the south pole in one minute, and by

which, consequently, an answer of equal length might be

sent back to the north pole in an equal interval.

These are social and commercial phenomena for which it

would be vain to seek a parallel in the past history of

the human race.

THE LAST EARTHQUAKE IN EUROPE.

A correspondent of the _Athenaeum_ gives the following account--the best we

have yet seen--of the recent earthquake at Amalfi, in the kingdom of

Naples:--

"I have, however, seen several persons from Malfi; and

from their narratives will endeavor to give you some

idea of this awful visitation. The morning of the 14th

of August was very sultry, and a leaden atmosphere

prevailed. It was remarked that an unusual silence

appeared to extend over the animal world. The hum of

insects ceased--the feathered tribes were mute--not a

breath of wind moved the arid vegetation. About

half-past two o'clock the town of Malfi rocked for

about six seconds, and nearly every building fell in.

The number of edifices actually levelled with the earth

is 163--of those partially destroyed 98, and slightly

damaged 180. Five monastic establishments were

destroyed, and seven churches including the cathedral.

The awful event occurred at a time when most of the

inhabitants of a better condition were at dinner; and

the result is, that out of the whole population only a

few peasants laboring in the fields escaped. More than

700 dead bodies have already been dug out of the ruins,

and it is supposed that not less than 800 are yet

entombed. A college accommodating 65 boys and their

teachers is no longer traceable. But the melancholy

event does not end here. The adjoining village of

Ascoli has also suffered:--32 houses laving fallen in,

and the church being levelled with the ground. More

than 200 persons perished there. Another small town,

Barile, has actually disappeared; and a lake has arisen

from the bowels of the earth, the waters being warm and

brackish.

"I proceed to give a few anecdotes, as narrated by

persons who have arrived in Naples from the scene of

horror:--'I was travelling,' says one, 'within a mile

of Malfi when I observed three cars drawn by oxen. In a

moment the two most distant fell into the earth; from

the third I observed a man and a boy descend and run

into a vineyard which skirted the road. Shortly after,

I think about three seconds, the third car was

swallowed up. We stopped our carriage, and proceeded to

the spot where the man and boy stood. The former I

found stupified--he was both deaf and dumb; the boy

appeared to be out of his mind, and spoke wildly, but

eventually recovered. The poor man still remains

speechless.' Another informant says:--'Malfi, and all

around present a singular and melancholy appearance:

houses levelled or partially fallen in--here and there

the ground broken up--large gaps displaying volcanic

action--people wandering about stupified--men searching

in the ruins--women weeping--children here and there

crying for their parents, and some wretched examples of

humanity carrying off articles of furniture. The

authorities are nowhere to be found.' A third person

states:--'I am from Malfi, and was near a monastery

when the earthquake occurred. A peasant told me that

the water in a neighboring well was quite hot,--a few

moments after I saw the building fall. I fell on the

ground, and saw nothing more. I thought that I had had

a fit.'

"The town of Malfi--or, Amalfi--is 150 miles from

Naples, and about the centre of the boot. It is

difficult, therefore, to gain information. The

government, I should add, sent a company of sappers and

miners to assist the afflicted _nine days after the

earthquake_!--and a medical commission is to set off

to-morrow. In conclusion, I may observe, that Vesuvius

has for a long time been singularly quiet. The shock of

the earthquake was felt slightly, though sensibly, from

Naples round to Sorrento. I have just heard that the

shocks have not ceased in the district of Malfi; and it

is supposed that volcanic agency is still active.

Indeed, my informant anticipates that an eruption will

take place; and probably some extraordinary phenomena

may appear in this neighborhood. The volcanic action

appears to have taken the direction of Sicily, as

reports have arrived stating that the shocks were felt

in that direction far more strongly than in that of

Naples. I shall send you further particulars as soon as

I can do so with certainty."

MR. JEFFERSON ON THE STUDY OF THE ANGLO-SAXON LANGUAGE.

The trustees of the University of Virginia have had printed a few copies of

_An Essay towards facilitating Instruction in the Anglo-Saxon and Modern

Dialects of the English Language_: _By_ THOMAS JEFFERSON. The MS. has been

preserved in the library of their University ever since Mr. Jefferson's

death. It is a very characteristic production, and is printed in a thin

quarto volume, prefaced by the following letter from Mr. Jefferson to

Herbert Croft, LL.B., of London:

MONTICELLO, _Oct. 30th, 1798_.

Sir; The copy of your printed letter on the English and

German languages, which you have been so kind as to

send me, has come to hand; and I pray you to accept of

my thanks for this mark of your attention. I have

perused it with singular pleasure, and, having long

been sensible of the importance of a knowledge of the

Northern languages to the understanding of English, I

see it, in this letter, proved and specifically

exemplified by your collations of the English and

German. I shall look with impatience for the

publication of your "English and German Dictionary."

Johnson, besides the want of precision in his

definitions, and of accurate distinction in passing

from one shade of meaning to another of the same word,

is most objectionable in his derivations. From a want

probably of intimacy with our own language while in the

Anglo-Saxon form and type, and of its kindred languages

of the North, he has a constant leaning towards Greek

and Latin for English etymon. Even Skinner has a little

of this, who, when he has given the true Northern

parentage of a word, often tells you from what Greek

and Latin source it might be derived by those who have

that kind of partiality. He is, however, on the whole,

our best etymologist, unless we ascend a step higher to

the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary; and he has set the good

example of collating the English word with its kindred

word in the several Northern dialects, which often

assist in ascertaining its true meaning.

Your idea is an excellent one, in producing authorities

for the meanings of words, "to select the prominent

passages in our best writers, to make your dictionary a

general index to English literature, and thus to

intersperse with verdure and flowers the barren deserts

of Philology." And I believe with you that "wisdom,

morality, religion, thus thrown down, as if without

intention, before the reader, in quotations, may often

produce more effect than the very passages in the books

themselves;"--"that the cowardly suicide, in search of

a strong word for his dying letter, might light on a

passage which would excite him to blush at his want of

fortitude, and to forego his purpose;"--"and that a

dictionary with examples at the words may, in regard to

every branch of knowledge, produce more real effect

than the whole collection of books which it quotes." I

have sometimes myself used Johnson as a Repertory, to

find favorite passages which I wished to recollect, but

too rarely with success.

I was led to set a due value on the study of the

Northern languages, and especially of our Anglo-Saxon,

while I was a student of the law, by being obliged to

recur to that source for explanation of a multitude of

law-terms. A preface to Fortescue on Monarchies,

written by Fortescue Aland, and afterwards premised to

his volume of Reports, developes the advantages to be

derived to the English student generally, and

particularly the student of law, from an acquaintance

with the Anglo-Saxon; and mentions the books to which

the learner may have recourse for acquiring the

language. I accordingly devoted some time to its study,

but my busy life has not permitted me to indulge in a

pursuit to which I felt great attraction. While engaged

in it, however, some ideas occurred for facilitating

the study by simplifying its grammar, by reducing the

infinite diversities of its unfixed orthography to

single and settled forms, indicating at the same time

the pronunciation of the word by its correspondence

with the characters and powers of the English alphabet.

Some of these ideas I noted at the time on the blank

leaves of my Elstob's Anglo-Saxon Grammar: but there I

have left them, and must leave them, unpursued,

although I still think them sound and useful. Among the

works which I proposed for the Anglo-Saxon student, you

will find such literal and verbal translations of the

Anglo-Saxon writers recommended, as you have given us

of the German in your printed letter. Thinking that I

cannot submit those ideas to a better judge than

yourself, and that if you find them of any value you

may put them to some use, either as hints in your

dictionary, or in some other way, I will copy them as a

sequel to this letter, and commit them without reserve

to your better knowledge of the subject. Adding my

sincere wishes for the speedy publication of your

valuable dictionary, I tender you the assurance of my

high respect and consideration.

THOMAS JEFFERSON."

Of the Essay itself we have room for only the initial paragraph, which is

as follows:

"The importance of the Anglo-Saxon dialect towards a

perfect understanding of the English language seems not

to have been duly estimated by those charged with the

education of youth; and yet it is unquestionably the

basis of our present tongue. It was a full-formed

language; its frame and construction, its declension of

nouns and verbs, and its syntax were peculiar to the

Northern languages, and fundamentally different from

those of the South. It was the language of all England,

properly so called, from the Saxon possession of that

country in the sixth century to the time of Henry III.

in the thirteenth, and was spoken pure and unmixed with

any other. Although the Romans had been in possession

of that country for nearly five centuries from the time

of Julius Caesar, yet it was a military possession

chiefly, by their soldiery alone, and with dispositions

intermutually jealous and unamicable. They seemed to

have aimed at no lasting settlements there, and to have

had little familiar mixture with the native Britons. In

this state of connection there would probably be little

incorporation of the Roman into the native language,

and on their subsequent evacuation of the island its

traces would soon be lost altogether. And had it been

otherwise, these innovations would have been carried

with the natives themselves when driven into Wales by

the invasion and entire occupation of the rest of the

Southern portion of the island by the Anglo-Saxons. The

language of these last became that of the country from

that time forth, for nearly seven centuries; and so

little attention was paid among them to the Latin, that

it was known to a few individuals only as a matter of

science, and without any chance of transfusion into the

vulgar language. We may safely repeat the affirmation,

therefore, that the pure Anglo-Saxon constitutes at

this day the basis of our language. That it was

sufficiently copious for the purposes of society in the

existing condition of arts and manners, reason alone

would satisfy us from the necessity of the case. Its

copiousness, too, was much favored by the latitude it

allowed of combining primitive words so as to produce

any modification of idea desired. In this

characteristic it was equal to the Greek, but it is

more specially proved by the actual fact of the books

they have left us in the various branches of history,

geography, religion, law, and poetry. And although

since the Norman conquest it has received vast

additions and embellishments from the Latin, Greek,

French, and Italian languages, yet these are but

engraftments on its idiomatic stem; its original

structure and syntax remain the same, and can be but

imperfectly understood by the mere Latin scholar. Hence

the necessity of making the Anglo-Saxon a regular

branch of academic education. In the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries it was assiduously cultivated by

a host of learned men. The names of Lambard, Parker,

Spelman, Wheeloc, Wilkins, Gibson, Hickes, Thwaites,

Somner, Benson, Mareschal, Elstob, deserve to be ever

remembered with gratitude for the Anglo-Saxon works

which they have given us through the press, the only

certain means of preserving and promulgating them."

THE OBELISKS OF EGYPT.

In the last number of the _International_ we gave an interesting article

from the London _Times_ respecting "Cleopatra's Needle." The subject of its

removal has since been largely discussed in England, and Mr. Tucker, a

civil engineer, has been sent out to Alexandria to "report on the condition

and site of the obelisk," and Lord Edward Russell has been appointed to the

Vengeance to proceed to Egypt for the purpose of bringing it to England. On

the publication of these facts Mr. Nathaniel Gould writes to the _Times_ as

follows:

How far a "man-of-war" is a proper vessel for this

purpose may be seen hereafter. The Premier is, however,

ready enough to appropriate some little _eclat_ to a

member of his own family. I stated that, so far as I

could make out, the bringing the obelisk of Luxor to

Paris had cost the French Government 40,000_l._; but it

is stated by Mr. Gliddon, late United States Consul at

Cairo, that it actually cost France 2,000,000f., or

80,000_l._! Private offers have been made to bring the

Needle to England for from 7,000_l._ to 12,500_l._

within a twelvemonth; it remains to be seen what it

will cost when brought on Government account.

Notwithstanding that so much has of late appeared upon

the subject of Egyptian obelisks, but little has been

given of value to the public touching the nature,

origin, inscriptions, numbers, and localities of these

curious and interesting objects. Perhaps, Sir, you may

not think it out of the way to give room for such

information as I have got together in my researches,

while contemplating the removal of the obelisk from

Alexandria. Obelisks are of Egyptian invention, and are

purely historical records, placed in pairs before

public buildings, stating when, by whom, and for what

purpose the building was erected, and the divinity or

divinities to whom it was dedicated.

We read that the ancient Hebrews set up stones to

record signal events, and such stones are called by

Strabo "books of history;" but, as they were

uninscribed, the Egyptian monoliths are much more so.

The Celts, too, have left similar stones in every

country in which they settled, as our own islands

sufficiently prove, whether in those of the Channel or

of Ireland and Scotland. The Scandinavian nations have

in more recent periods left similar records, some of

them inscribed with Runic characters, which, like the

hieroglyphics of Egypt, are now translated.

Egyptian obelisks are all of very nearly similar

proportions, however they may differ in height; the

width of the base is usually about one-tenth of the

length of the shaft, up to the finish or pyramidion,

which, again, is one-tenth of the length of the shaft.

The image of gold set up by king Nebuchadnezzar agrees

with these proportions--viz., sixty cubits high and six

cubits wide. They are generally cut out of granite,

though there are two small ones in the British Museum

of basalt, and one at Philoe of sandstone. The

pyramidions of several appear to be rough and

unfinished, leading some persons to suppose that they

were surmounted with a cap of bronze, or of rays. Bonom

writes, that Abd El Latief saw bronze coverings on

those of Luxor and that of Materiah in the 13th

century; with such a belief it is not improbable that

the obelisk of Arles, in France, found and re-erected

to the glory of the Great Louis, was surmounted with a

gilt sun. The temples of Egypt may be considered not

only as monuments of the intelligence and ancient

civilization of mankind, as vignettes in the great book

of history, but also as possessing a peculiar interest,

as belonging to a people intimately connected with

sacred records.

As regards the original sites of the obelisks, none are

found on the west bank of the Nile, neither are any

pyramids found on the eastern bank of Egypt Proper;

this caused Bonomi to think that obelisks were intended

as decorations to the temples of the living, symbolized

by the rising sun, and pyramids decorations of the

temples of the dead, symbolized by its setting. The

greater number of obelisks are engraven on the four

faces; some are engraven on one face only, and some

have never been inscribed. Some of the faces are

engraven in one column, some in two, and some in three

columns. In some instances the side or lateral columns

have been additions in after times, in different and

inferior styles of engraving; and in some instances the

name of the king, within the oval or cartouche, has

been erased and another substituted. The inscriptions

are hieroglyphic or sacred writing, which have been

unintelligible till within the last few years. The

French occupation of Egypt commenced that discovery,

which has been perfected by the key of Young and the

alphabet of Champollion--though mainly perhaps indebted

to the Rosetta Stone, found in 1799, engraven in three

characters, hieroglyphic, Demotic and Greek. The more

ancient inscriptions are beautifully cut, and as fresh

as if just from the tool, and are curiously caved

inwardly, and exquisitely polished.

It would take too much of your space and of my time to

give a history of the progress of this wonderful

discovery, by which we now know more of the Egyptian

history before the time of Abraham than of England

before Alfred the Great, or of France before

Charlemagne. Some of these monuments are considered to

date as far back as 2,000 years before the Christian

era. It is sufficiently evident, from the small number

that are known to exist, that they were a most costly

production, requiring a long time for their completion,

and the most elaborate skill of the most perfect

sculptors to execute. Bonomi, to whose indefatigable

research, and clear and positive style of writing, and

condensation of his knowledge I am indebted, out of his

papers read before the Royal Society of Literature (of

which I am a member), gives us an account of all the

known obelisks.

The number of Egyptian obelisks now standing is 30; of

which there are remaining in Egypt, 8; in Italy, 14; in

Constantinople, 2; in France, 2; in England, 4. The

loftiest is that of the "Lateran," at Rome, which is

105 feet, though 4 feet were cut from its broken base,

to enable it to stand when re-erected. The shortest is

the minor "Florentine," which is 5 feet 10 inches. The

number of prostrate obelisks known is 12, viz.: at

Alexandria, 1; in the ruins of Saan, or Tanais, 9; at

Carnack, 2; all in Egypt, and all colossal, and of the

18th and 20th dynasties. Thus it seems that, like the

cedars of Lebanon, there are more in other parts of the

world than in the country of their original location.

The 12 obelisks at Rome were conveyed thither by the

Caesars to adorn the eternal city; that of the Lateran

was brought by Constantine from Heliopolis to

Alexandria, and from Alexandria by Constantius, and

placed in the "Circus Maximus." It was brought from

Alexandria in an immense galley. When the barbarians

sacked Rome they overthrew all the obelisks, which were

broken in their fall; this was in three pieces, and the

base so destroyed that when raised by Fontana in 1588,

by order of Sixtus V., above 4 feet were cut from its

base; it is now 105 feet 7 inches in shaft. It is

sculptured on all four sides, and the same subject on

each. There are three columns--the inner the most

ancient and best cut. The obelisk of the Piazza del

Popolo was brought from Heliopolis by Augustus, and,

like the preceding, was broken in three pieces, and

required above three feet to be cut off its damaged

base. This, too, was re-erected by order of Sixtus V.,

in 1589. Its height, as now shortened, is 87 feet 5

inches. It is sculptured on all four sides in three

columns of different age and excellence. The obelisk of

"Piazza Rotunda" was re-erected by Clement XI., A. D.,

1711. It is 19 feet 9 inches shaft. It has only one

column of hieroglyphics, with the name of Rameses on

each. Those of Materiah and the Hippodrome at

Constantinople also have but one centre column

engraved. So much for some of those at Rome. Of the

four in England, two small ones, of basalt, are in the

British Museum; they are only 8 feet 1 inch in height.

That at Alnwick Castle was found in the Thebaid, and

presented to Lord Prudhoe by the Pacha in 1838, and got

to England by Bonomi. It is of red granite, 7 feet 3

inches in height, and 9-3/4 inches at the base. It is

inscribed on one face only. That at Corfe Castle was

brought over for Mr. Bankes by the celebrated Belzoni.

It is of granite, and 22 feet in height.

Mr. Gould proceeds to repeat the particulars respecting Cleopatra's Needle,

which were contained in the October number of this magazine. Signor

Tisvanni D'Athanasi also writes to the _Times_, proposing to undertake the

removal of this obelisk, and says:

"Every body knows that from the time of the Romans up

to the present century the only colossal objects which

have been transported from Egypt, with the exception of

the obelisk of Luxor, are the two sphynxes which are

now at St Petersburgh, and which were found and sent to

Alexandria through my means."

DR. LATHAM ON THE MOSKITO KINGDOM.

The last portion of Dr. ROBERT G. LATHAM'S learned work on the Ethnology of

the British Colonies and Dependencies, treats of American ethnology, a

branch of the subject which, though extensively investigated, is greatly in

want of systematic arrangement. Some of Dr. Latham's views are novel. The

following sketch of the Nicaraguan Indians is interesting at the present

moment for political reasons:--

"The Moskito Indians are no subjects of England, any

more than the Tahitians are of France, or the Sandwich

Islanders of America, France, and England conjointly.

The Moskito coast is a Protectorate, and the Moskito

Indians are the subjects of a native king. The present

reigning monarch was educated under English auspices at

Jamaica, and, upon attaining his majority, crowned at

Grey Town. I believe that his name is that of the

grandfather of our late gracious majesty. King George,

then, King of the Moskitos, has a territory extending

from the neighborhood of Truxillo to the lower part of

the River San Juan; a territory whereof, inconveniently

for Great Britain, the United States, and the commerce

of the world at large, the limits and definition are

far from being universally recognized. Nicaragua has

claims, and the Isthmus canal suffers accordingly. The

King of the Moskito coast, and the Emperor of the

Brazil, are the only resident sovereigns of the New

World. The subjects of the former are, really, the

aborigines of the whole line of coast between Nicaragua

and Honduras--there being no Indians remaining in the

former republic, and but few in the latter. Of these,

too--the Nicaraguans--we have no definite ethnological

information. Mr. Squier speaks of them as occupants of

the islands of the lakes of the interior. Colonel

Galindo also mentions them; but I infer, from his

account, that their original language is lost, and that

Spanish is their present tongue; just as it is said to

be that of the aborigines of St. Salvador and Costa

Rica. This makes it difficult to fix them. And the

difficulty is increased when we resort to history,

tradition, and archaeology. History makes them

Mexicans--Asteks from the kingdom of Montezuma, and

colonists of the Peninsula, just as the Phoenicians

were of Carthage. Archaeology goes the same way. A

detailed description of Mr. Squier's discoveries is an

accession to ethnology which is anxiously expected. At

any rate, stone ruins and carved decorations have been

found; so that what Mr. Stephenson has written about

Yucatan and Guatemala, may be repeated in the case of

Nicaragua. Be it so. The difficulty will be but

increased, since whatever facts make Nicaragua Mexican,

isolate the Moskitos. They are now in contact with

Spaniards and Englishmen--populations whose

civilization differs from their own; and populations

who are evidently intrusive and of recent origin.

Precisely the same would be the case if the Nicaraguans

were made Mexican. The civilization would be of another

sort; the population which introduced it would be

equally intrusive; and the only difference would be a

difference of stage and degree--a little earlier in the

way of time, and a little less contrast in the way of

skill and industry. But the evidence in favor of the

Mexican origin of the Nicaraguans is doubtful; and so

is the fact of their having wholly lost their native

tongue; and until one of these two opinions be proved,

it will be well to suspend our judgment as to the

isolation of the Moskitos. If, indeed, either of them

be true, their ethnological position will be a

difficult question. With nothing in Honduras to compare

them with--with nothing tangible, or with an apparently

incompatible affinity in Nicaragua--with only very

general miscellaneous affinities in Guatemala--their

ethnological affinities are as peculiar as their

political constitution. Nevertheless, isolated as their

language is, it has undoubtedly general affinities with

those of America at large; and this is all that it is

safe to say at present. But it is safe to say this. We

have plenty of data for their tongue, in a grammar of

Mr. Henderson's, published at New-York, 1846. The chief

fact in the history of the Moskitos is that they were

never subject to the Spaniards. Each continent affords

a specimen of this isolated freedom--the independence

of some exceptional and impracticable tribes, as

compared with the universal empire of some encroaching

European power. The Circassians in Caucasus, the

Tshuktshi Koriaks in North-Eastern Asia, and the

Kaffres in Africa, show this. Their relations with the

buccaneers were, probably, of an amicable description.

So they were with the negroes--maroon and imported. And

this, perhaps, has determined their _differentiae_. They

are intertropical American aborigines, who have become

partially European, without becoming Spanish. Their

physical conformation is that of the South rather than

the North American; and, here it must be remembered,

that we are passing from one moiety of the new

hemisphere to the other. With a skin which is

olive-colored rather than red, they have small limbs

and undersized frames; whilst their habits are,

_mutatis mutandis_, those of the intertropical African.

This means, that the exuberance of soil, and the heat

of the climate, make them agriculturists rather than

shepherds, and idlers rather than agriculturists, since

the least possible amount of exertion gives them roots

and fruits, whilst it is only those wants which are

compatible with indolence that they care to satisfy.

They presume rather than improve upon the warmth of

their suns, and the fertility of the soil. When they

get liquor, they get drunk; when they work hardest,

they cut mahogany. Canoes and harpoons represent the

native industry. Wulasha is the name of their evil

spirit, and Liwaia that of a water-dog. I cannot but

think that there is much intermixture amongst them. At

the same time, the data for ascertaining the amount are

wanting. Their greatest intercourse has, probably, been

with the negro; their next greatest with the

Englishman. Of the population of the interior we know

next to nothing. Here their neighbors are Spaniards.

They are frontagers to the river San Juan. This gives

them their value in politics. They are the only well

known extant Indians between Guatemala and Veragua.

This gives them their value in ethnology. The

populations to which they were most immediately allied

have disappeared from history. This isolates them; so

that there is no class to which they can be

subordinated. At the same time, they are quite as like

the nearest known tribes as the American ethnologist

is prepared to expect. What they were in their truly

natural state, when, unmodified by either Englishman or

Spaniard, Black or Indian, they represented the

indigenous civilization (such as it was) of their

coast, is uncertain."

GOLD-QUARTZ AND SOCIETY.

The Burns Ranch Union Mining Company in California have published a

prospectus--we suppose to facilitate the sale of their stock--and the

writer indulges in some speculations respecting the influence of the

discovery that the chief mineral riches of the new state are in mines,

instead of the sands of rivers, thus:

It appears to be the destiny of America to carry on the

greatness of the future, and that Providence--which

shapes the ends of nations as well as of persons, at a

time when it was most needful for the prosecution of

her mission, when war and the expedients of political

strategy are out of vogue, and the people is most

powerful of which the individual civilization, energy,

ambition, and resources are greatest--that Providence,

at this crisis, has opened the veins of the Continent,

slumbering so many thousand years, in order that we

might derive from them all that remained necessary for

investing the United States with the leadership of the

world.

The first intelligence of the discovery of gold in

California fell upon the general mind like news of a

great and peculiar revolution. It was at once--even

before the statements on the subject assumed a definite

or certain form--it was at once felt that a new hour

was signally on the dial-plate of history. Immediately,

those immense fortunes which were acquired by the

Portuguese and Spaniards nearly four centuries

ago--fortunes which, in the decline of nations, have

still remained in families as the sign and substance of

the only nobility and power which mankind at large

acknowledge--those astonishing fortunes which raised

the enterprising poor man to the dignity and happiness

of the most elevated classes in society, were recalled,

and made suggestive of like successes to new and more

hardy adventurers. The reports came with increased

volume; every ship confirmed the rumors brought by its

predecessor, and new intelligence, that, in its turn,

tasked the popular credulity; and it came soon to be

understood that we had found a land literally flowing

with gold and silver, as that promised to the earlier

favorites of Heaven did with milk and honey. As many as

were free from controlling engagements, and had means

with which to do so, started for our El Dorado, making

haste, in fear that the wealth of the country would

quickly be exhausted--not dreaming, even yet, that

there was any thing to be acquired but flakes and

scales and scattered masses of ore, which would be

exhausted by the first hunters who should scour the

rivers and turn the surface soil.

But at length the geologists began to apprehend, what

experience soon confirmed, that, extraordinary as were

the amounts of gold found in drifts of gravel, and

deposits that had been left in the beds of streams,

these were merely the signs of far greater

riches--merely indexes of the presence of rocks and

hills, and underlayers of plains, impregnated with

gold, in quantities that the processes of nature could

never disclose, and that would reward only the

scientific efforts of miners having all the mechanical

appliances which the laborious experiments of other

nations had invented. The fact of the existence of

veins of gold in vast quartz formations, and ribs of

gold in hills, was as startling almost as the first

news of the presence of the precious metal in the

country. This at once changed the prospect, and from a

game of chance, elevated the pursuit of gold in

California to a grand industrial purpose, requiring an

energy and sagacity that invest it with the highest

dignity, and to such energy and sagacity promising,

with absolute certainty, rewards that make it worthy of

the greatest ambition.

Now, men of character and capital--the class of men

whose speculating spirit is held in subjection by the

most exact reason--began to turn to the subject their

investigations, and to connect with it their plans.

This will account for the fact that has so much

astonished the world, which had supposed our Pacific

colony to be composed of the reckless, profligate and

desperate only--the fact, that when California made her

constitution of government, it shot at once in

unquestionable wisdom directly and far in advance of

all the states on the Atlantic, presenting to mankind

the very highest type of a free government that had

ever been conceived. The demonstration that California

was a _mine_, like other mines in all but its

surpassing richness, elevated it from a scene of

gambling to one for the orderly pursuit of riches, and

by the splendor of its promises, drew to it the most

sagacious and most heroical intelligences of the time.

Astonishing as are the present and prospective results

of the discovery in California, however, we are not to

suppose that there is any possibility of a decline in

the value of the precious metals. In absolute material

civilization, the world in the last three-quarters of a

century has advanced more than it had in any previous

three full centuries; and the supply of gold, for

currency and the thousand other objects for which it

was demanded, was becoming alarmingly insufficient, so

that the addition of more than thirty per cent. to the

total annual product of the world, which we are led by

the officially-stated results thus far to expect from

California, will merely preserve the historical and

necessary proportion and standard value.

INEDITED LETTER OF DR. FRANKLIN.

The following characteristic and interesting letter by Dr. Franklin is

first printed in the _International_. Captain Falconer, to whom it is

addressed, took Dr. Franklin to France when he was appointed commissioner,

and proceeded thence with his ship to London. The letter is directed _To

Captain Nathaniel Falconer, at the Pennsylvania Coffee-house, Birchin Lane,

London_, and the autograph is in the collection of Mr. George W. Childs, of

Philadelphia:

PASSY, July 28, 1783.

DEAR FRIEND:--I received your favor of the 18th.

Captain Barney brought us the dispatches we so long

expected. Mr. Deane as you observe is lost. Dr.

Bancroft is I believe steady to the interest of his

country, and will make an agreeable passenger if you

can take him. You desire to know something of the

state of affairs here. Every thing goes well with

respect to this court and the other friendly powers;

what England is doing or means to do, or why the

definitive treaty is so long delayed, I know perhaps

less than you do; as, being in that country, you may

have opportunities of hearing more than I can. For

myself, I am at present as hearty and well as I have

been these many years; and as happy as a man can be

where every body strives to make him so. The French are

an amiable people to live with; they love me, and I

love them. Yet I do not feel myself at home, and I wish

to die in my own country. Barney will sail this week

with our dispatches. A good voyage to you, my friend,

and may God ever bless you.

B. FRANKLIN.

CAPTAIN FALCONER.

A BALLAD OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

FROM A FORTHCOMING VOLUME OF POEMS BY GEORGE H. BOKER.

"The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around."--COLERIDGE.

O, whither sail you, Sir John Franklin?

Cried a whaler in Baffin's Bay.

To know if between the land and the pole

I may find a broad sea-way.

I charge you back, Sir John Franklin,

As you would live and thrive;

For between the land and the frozen pole

No man may sail alive.

But lightly laughed the stout Sir John,

And spoke unto his men:--

Half England is wrong, if he is right;

Bear off to westward then.

O, whither sail you, brave Englishman?

Cried the little Esquimaux.

Between the land and the polar star

My goodly vessels go.

Come down, if you would journey there,

The little Indian said;

And change your cloth for fur clothing,

Your vessel for a sled.

But lightly laughed the stout Sir John,

And the crew laughed with him too:--

A sailor to change from ship to sled,

I ween, were something new!

All through the long, long polar day,

The vessels westward sped;

And wherever the sail of Sir John was blown,

The ice gave way and fled.

Gave way with many a hollow groan,

And with many a surly roar;

But it murmured and threatened on every side,

And closed where he sailed before.

Ho! see ye not, my merry men,

The broad and open sea?

Bethink ye what the whaler said,

Think of the little Indian's sled!

The crew laughed out in glee.

Sir John, Sir John, 'tis bitter cold,

The scud drives on the breeze,

The ice comes looming from the north,

The very sunbeams freeze.

Bright summer goes, dark winter comes--

We cannot rule the year;

But long ere summer's sun goes down,

On yonder sea we'll steer.

The dripping icebergs dipped and rose,

And floundered down the gale;

The ships were staid, the yards were manned,

And furled the useless sail.

The summer's gone, the winter's come,

We sail not on yonder sea:

Why sail we not, Sir John Franklin?

A silent man was he.

The summer goes, the winter comes--

We cannot rule the year:

I ween, we cannot rule the ways,

Sir John, wherein we'd steer.

The cruel ice came floating on,

And closed beneath the lee,

Till the thickening waters dashed no more;

'Twas ice around, behind, before--

My God! there is no sea!

What think you of the whaler now?

What of the Esquimaux?

A sled were better than a ship,

To cruise through ice and snow.

Down sank the baleful crimson sun,

The northern light came out,

And glared upon the ice-bound ships,

And shook its spears about.

The snow came down, storm breeding storm,

And on the decks was laid;

Till the weary sailor, sick at heart,

Sank down beside his spade.

Sir John, the night is black and long,

The hissing wind is bleak,

The hard, green ice is strong as death:--

I prithee, Captain, speak!

The night is neither bright nor short,

The singing breeze is cold,

The ice is not so strong as hope--

The heart of man is bold!

What hope can scale this icy wall,

High over the main flag-staff?

Above the ridges the wolf and bear

Look down with a patient, settled stare,

Look down on us and laugh.

The summer went, the winter came--

We could not rule the year;

But summer will melt the ice again,

And open a path to the sunny main,

Whereon our ships shall steer.

The winter went, the summer went,

The winter came around;

But the hard, green ice was strong as death,

And the voice of hope sank to a breath,

Yet caught at every sound.

Hark! heard you not the noise of guns?

And there, and there again?

'Tis some uneasy iceberg's roar,

As he turns in the frozen main.

Hurra! hurra! the Esquimaux

Across the ice-fields steal:

God give them grace for their charity!

Ye pray for the silly seal.

Sir John, where are the English fields,

And where are the English trees,

And where are the little English flowers

That open in the breeze?

Be still, be still, my brave sailors!

You shall see the fields again,

And smell the scent of the opening flowers,

The grass, and the waving grain.

Oh! when shall I see my orphan child?

My Mary waits for me.

Oh! when shall I see my old mother

And pray at her trembling knee?

Be still, be still, my brave sailors!

Think not such thoughts again.

But a tear froze slowly on his cheek;

He thought of Lady Jane.

Ah! bitter, bitter grows the cold,

The ice grows more and more;

More settled stare the wolf and bear,

More patient than before.

Oh! think you, good Sir John Franklin,

We'll ever see the land?

'Twas cruel to send us here to starve,

Without a helping hand.

'Twas cruel, Sir John, to send us here,

So far from help or home,

To starve and freeze on this lonely sea:

I ween, the Lords of the Admiralty

Had rather send than come.

Oh! whether we starve to death alone,

Or sail to our own country,

We have done what man has never done--

The open ocean danced in the sun--

We passed the Northern Sea!

REMARKABLE PROPHECY.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. LAHARPE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE.

BY H. J. BEYERLE, M.D.

It seems to me as if it had been but yesterday, and yet it happened in the

beginning of the year 1788. We were at table with one of our colleagues of

the Academy, a respectable and lively gentleman. The company was numerous,

and selected from all ranks: nobles, judges, professional men,

academicians, &c. We had enjoyed ourselves as is customary at a well-loaded

table. At the desert, the _malvasier_ and Cape wine exalted the pleasure

and increased in a good company that kind of liberty which does not remain

within precise limits.

People in the world had then arrived at the point where it was allowed to

say every thing, if it was the object to excite laughter. Chamfort had read

to us some of his blasphemous and unchaste tales, and the noble ladies

heard them without even taking for refuge to the fan. Then followed a whole

volley of mockery on religion. One mentioned a tirade from the Pucelle; the

other reminded us of those philosophical stanzas of Diderot, wherein he

says: "With the intestines of the last priest tie up the throat of the last

king;" and all clapped approbation. Another rises, holds up the full

tumbler, and cries: "Yes, gentlemen, I am just as certain that there is no

God, as I am certain that Homer was a fool!" and really, he was of the one

as certain as he was of the other: we had just spoken of Homer and of God,

and there were guests present, too, who had said something good of the one

and of the other.

The conversation now became more serious. We spoke with astonishment of the

revolution Voltaire had effected, and we agreed that it is the most

distinguished foundation of his fame. He had given the term to his

half-century; he had written in such a manner, that he is read in the

anteroom as well as in the hall.

One of the guests told us with great laughter, that his hairdresser, as he

powdered him, said, "You see, sir, though I am only a miserable fellow, I

yet have not more religion than others." We concluded that the revolution

would soon be completed, and that superstition and fanaticism must

absolutely yield to philosophy; we calculated the probability of the time,

and who of this company may have the happiness to live to see the reign of

reason. The older ones were sorry that they could not flatter themselves to

see this; those younger rejoiced with the hope that they shall live to the

time, and we particularly congratulated the Academy for having introduced

the great work, and that they have been the chief source, the centre, the

mainspring of freedom of thought.

One of the guests had taken no part in this gay conversation, and had even

scattered a few jokes in regard to our beautiful enthusiasm. It was M.

Cazotte, an agreeable and original gentleman; but who, unfortunately, was

prepossessed by the idle imaginations of those who believe in a higher

inspiration. He took the word, and said, in the most serious manner: "Sirs,

rejoice; you all will be witnesses of that great and sublime revolution for

which you wish so much. You are aware that I make some pretensions to

prophecy. I repeat it to you, you will all see it!"

"For this a man needs no prophetic gifts," was answered him.

"This is true," he replied, "but probably a little more for what I have to

tell you yet. Do you know what will arise from this revolution (where,

namely, reason will triumph in opposition to religion)? what her immediate

consequence, her undeniable and acknowledged effects will be?"

"Let us see," said Condorcet, with his affected look of simplicity, "a

philosopher is not sorry to meet a prophet."

"You, M. Condorcet," continued M. Cazotte, "you will be stretched out upon

the floor of a dungeon, there to yield up your ghost. You will die of

poison, which you will swallow to save yourself from the hangman--of the

poison which the good luck of the times, which then will be, will have

compelled you always to have carried with you."

This at first excited great astonishment, but we soon remembered that the

good Cazotte occasionally dreamed waking, and we all laughed heartily.

"M. Cazotte," said one of the guests, "the tale you relate to us here is

not as merry as your 'Devil in Love' (a romance which Cazotte had written).

What kind of a devil has given you the dungeon, the poison, and the

hangman?--what has this in common with philosophy, and with the reign of

Reason?"

"This is just what I told you," replied Cazotte. "In the name of

philosophy, in the name of humanity, of liberty, of reason, it shall be

that you shall take such an end; and then reason will still reign, for she

will have temples; yes, at the same time there will be no temples in all

France, but temples of Reason."

"Truly," said Chamfort, with a scornful smile, "you will not be one of the

priests in these temples?"

"This I hope," replied Cazotte, "but you, M. de Chamfort, who will be one

of them--and very worthy you are to be one--you will open your veins with

twenty-two incisions of the razor--and yet you will only die a few months

afterwards."

They look at each other, and continue to laugh. Cazotte continues:

"You, M. Vicq d'Azyr, you will not open your veins yourself; but afterwards

you will get them opened six times in one day, and during the night you

will die."

"You, M. Nicolli, you will die on the scaffold."

"You, M. Bailly, on the scaffold!"

"You, M. Malesherbes--you, on the scaffold!"

"God be thanked," exclaimed M. Roucher, "it appears M. Cazotte has it to do

only with the Academy; he has just started a terrible butchery among them;

I--thanks to heaven--"

Cazotte interrupted him: "you?--you, too, will die on the scaffold."

"Ha! this is a bet," they exclaimed from all sides; "he has sworn to

extirpate everything!"

_Cazotte._--"No, it is not I that has sworn it."

"Then we must be put under the yokes of the Turks and Tartars?--and yet--"

_Cazotte._--"Nothing less: I have told you already; you will then be only

under the reign of philosophy and reason; those who shall treat you in this

manner, will all be philosophers, will always carry on the same kind of

conversation which you have peddled out for the last hour, will repeat all

your maxims; they will, like you, cite verses from Diderot and the

Pucelle."

It was whispered into one another's ear: "You all see that he has lost his

reason--(for he remains very serious while he is talking)--Do you not see

that he is joking?--and you know that he mixes something mysterious into

all his jokes." "Yes," said Chamfort, "but I must confess his mysteries are

not agreeable, they are too scaffoldish! And when shall all this occur?"

_Cazotte._--"Six years will not expire, before all I told you will be

fulfilled."

"There are many wonders." This time it was I (namely Laharpe) who took the

word, "and of me you say nothing?"

"With you," replied Cazotte, "a wonder will take place, which will at least

be as extraordinary; you will then be a Christian!"

Here was a universal exclamation. "Now I am easy," cried Chamfort, "if we

don't perish until Laharpe is a Christian, we shall be immortal!"

"We, of the female sex," then said the Duchess de Grammont, "we are lucky

that we shall be counted as nothing with the revolutions. When I say

nothing, I do not mean to say as if we would not mingle ourselves a little

into them; but it is assumed that nobody will, on that account, loath at us

or at our sex."

_Cazotte._--"Your sex will this time not protect you, and you may ever so

much desire not to mingle into anything; you will be treated just like men,

and no distinction will be made!"

_Duchess._--"But what do you tell us here, M. Cazotte? You preach to us the

end of the world!"

_Cazotte._--"That I do not know; but what I do know, is, that you, Madame

Duchess, will be led to the scaffold, you, and many other ladies, and on

the public cart, with your hands tied on your back!"

_Duchess._--"In this case, I hope I shall have a black trimmed coach?"

_Cazotte._--"No, madam! Nobler ladies than you, shall, like you, be drawn

on that same cart, with the hands tied on the back!"

_Duchess._--"Nobler ladies? How? the princesses by birth?"

_Cazotte._-"Nobler yet!"

Now was observed a visible excitement in the whole company, and the master

of the table took on a dark appearance; they began to see that the joke had

been carried too far.

Madame de Grammont, to scatter the clouds which the last answer had

occasioned, contented herself by saying in a facetious tone: "You shall see

that he will not even allow me the comfort of a father confessor!"

_Cazotte._--"No, madam! you will not get one; neither you nor any one else!

The last one executed, who, out of mercy, will have received a father

confessor"--here he stopped a moment--

_Duchess._--"Well, who will be the fortunate one, when this fortunate

preference will be granted?"

_Cazotte._--"It will be the only preference that he shall yet keep; and

this will be the king of France!"

Now the host arose from the table, and all with him. He went to Cazotte,

and said with an excited voice, "My dear M. Cazotte, this lamentable jest

has lasted long. You carry it too far, and within a degree where you place

the company in which you are, and yourself, into danger."

Cazotte answered not, and made himself ready to go away, when madame

Grammont, who always tried to prevent the matter from being taken

seriously, and exerted herself to restore the gaiety of the company, went

to him, and said: "Now, M. Prophet! you have told us all our fortunes, but

you say nothing of your own fate?"

He was silent and cast down his eyes; then he said: "Have you, madame,

read, in Josephus, the history of the siege of Jerusalem?"

_Duchess._--"Certainly! who has not read it? but you seem to think that I

have not!"

_Cazotte._--"Well, madame, during the siege a man went round the city, upon

the walls, for seven days, in the face of the besiegers and the besieged,

and cried continually, with a mournful voice, 'Wo unto Jerusalem! Wo unto

Jerusalem!' but on the seventh day he cried, 'Wo unto me!' and at that

moment he was dashed to pieces by an immense stone, which the machines of

the enemy had thrown."

After these words, M. Cazotte bowed himself, and went away.

In relation to the above extraordinary prediction, a certain M.... has

inserted the following article in the public journals of Paris: "That he

well knew this M. Cazotte, and has often heard from him the announcement

of the great oppression which was to come over France, and this at a time

when not the least of it was suspected. The attachment to the monarchy was

the reason why, on the second of September, 1792, he was brought to the

abbey, and was saved from the hands of the bloodthirsty rabble only through

the heroic courage of his daughter, who mitigated the raging populace. This

same rabble which wanted to destroy him, led him to his house in triumph.

All his friends came to congratulate him, that he had escaped death. A

certain M. D... who visited him after the terrible days, said to him: "Now,

you are saved!"--"I believe it not," answered Cazotte; "in three days I

shall be guillotined!"--"How can this be?" replied M. D... Cazotte

continued: "Yes, my friend, in three days I will die on the scaffold!" As

he said this he was very much affected, and added: "Shortly before your

arrival, I saw a gend'armes enter, who fetched me by order of Petion; I was

under the necessity of following him: I appeared before the mayor of Paris,

who ordered me to the _Conciergerie_, and thence I came before the

revolutionary tribunal. You see, therefore (by this vision, namely, which

Cazotte had seen), my friend, that my hour has arrived; and I am so much

convinced of this, that I am arranging my papers. Here are papers for which

I care very much, which you will deliver to my wife; I entreat you to give

them to her, and to comfort her.""

M. D... declared this all folly, and left him with the conviction, that his

reason had suffered by the sight of the scenes of terror from which he had

escaped.

The next day he came again; but he learned that a gensd'arme had taken M.

Cazotte to the Municipality. M. D... went to Petion; arrived at the

mayoralty, he heard that his friend had just been taken to prison; he

hurried thither; but he was informed that he could not speak to him, he

would be tried before the revolutionary tribunal. Soon after this, he heard

that his friend had been condemned and executed.

GREENWOOD.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

BY MAUNSELL B. FIELD.

I would that I were dreaming,

Where lovely flowers are gleaming,

And the tall green grass is streaming

O'er the gone--for ever gone.

MOTHERWELL.

The evening glories of a summer sky

Brimming the heart with yearnings to be blest;

The wood-bird's wailing as he soars on high

Winging his weary way to distant nest;

The murmuring billows as they kiss the strand,

Bearing dim memories of stranger land;

The sad mysterious voices of the night,

Bathing the soul in reverie and love;

The low wind, whispering of its former might

To the tall trees that sigh the hills above,

Like angel-tones that roll from sphere to sphere

And dimly echo to the faithful ear;

The flitting shadows glancing o'er the sail

Of some proud ship that's dreaming on the sea;

The lighthouse fires that fitful glow and pale;

The far-off strains of martial minstrelsy;

Wechawken's hoary head o'er hill and dell,

Gloomy and proud, a giant sentinel;

Such the soft charms, thou Paradise of Death!

My languid spirit hath erewhile confest,

When wearied with the city's tainted breath,

Fever'd and faint I've sought thy shades of rest,

Where all combines in heaven, and earth, and sea,

To image life, death, immortality!--

Here where the dusky savage twanged his bow

In the old time at startled doe or fawn,

Raised the shrill war-whoop at the approach of foe,

His wild eye flashing with revenge and scorn;

Here where the Indian maiden told her love

To the soft sighing spirits of the grove.

Here, where the bloody fiend of frantic war

Flapped its red wings o'er hill-top and o'er plain--

Where the sharp musket ring, and cannon roar,

Crashed o'er the valley, thundered o'er the main,

No sound is heard, save the sweet symphony

Of Nature's all-pervading harmony.

Here the pale willow, drooping o'er the wave,

Dips its long tresses in the silvery flood;

Here the blue violet, blooming o'er the grave,

Distils its fragrance to the enamored wood,

While the complaining turtle's mournful woe

Steals on the ear in murmurs soft and low.

Here its cold shaft the polished marble rears;

Here, eloquent of grief, the sculptured urn

Bares its white bosom to the dewy tears,

Dropt pure from heaven, far purer to return!

Here the grim granite's sempeternal pile

In monumental grandeur stands the while.

Where the still stars with gentlest radiance shine

On forest green and flower-enamelled vale,

Two simple columns circled by one vine,

Tell to the traveller's eye the tender tale

Of constancy in life and death--and love,

Not e'en the horrors of the tomb could move.

Here strained, and struggling with the unequal might

Of sea and tempest, the poor foundering bark,

And the snapp'd cable, chiselled on yon height,

Where calmly sleeps the wave-tossed pilot mark;

Hope, with her anchor, pointing to the sky,

Triumphant hails the spirit flight on high!

Hark! how the solemn spirit dirge ascends

In floating cadence on the evening air,

Where with clasped hands the weeping angel bends

In human grief o'er her that's buried there;

The gentle maid, in festive garments hurled

From life's gay glitter to the gloomy world!

Thy childish laughter lingers on mine ear,

Thy fairy form still floats before mine eye;

Still is the music of thy footsteps near,

Visioned to sense by tenderest memory;

Thy soul too pure for purest mortal love,

Enraptured seraphs snatched to realms above!

Here where the sparkling fountain flings its spray

In sportive freedom, frolicksome and wild,

Mocking the wood-nymphs with its gladsome lay,

Serenely sleeps the dark-eyed forest child--

Her kinsman's glory and her nation's pride!

A chieftain's daughter and a warrior's bride!

Oft shall the pale face, pensive o'er thy mound,

Weep for the white man's shame, the red man's wrong;

Oft from spring warblers, o'er this hallowed ground,

Shall gush the tenderest melody of song,

For the poor pilgrim to that distant shore,

Her fathers loved, their sons shall see no more!

Pause, weary wanderer, pause! In yon lone glade

Where silence reigns in deep funereal gloom,

Where the pale moonbeams struggle through the shade,

Open the portals of "The Stranger's Tomb!"

No holier symbol taught since time began

The sacred sympathy of man for man!

Dear Greenwood! when the solemn heights I tread,

And catch the gray old ocean's sullen roar,

Chanting the dirge of the mighty dead,

Over whose graves the oblivious billows pour,

A tearful prayer is gushing from my breast,

"Here in thy peaceful bosom may I rest!--

"Rest till the signal calls the ransomed throng

With shouts their Saviour and their God to greet;

Rest till the harp, the trumpet, and the song

Summon the dead, Death's conqueror to meet;

And love, imperfect, man's best gift below,

In heaven eternal rapture shall bestow!"

AN AUGUST REVERIE.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

BY A. OAKLEY HALL.

I have "laid" the tiniest ghost of my professional duties. I shook off city

dust twenty hours ago, and my lungs are rejoicing this August morning with

the glorious breezes that sweep from the summits of the "Trimountains" of

Waywayanda lake--that stretches its ten miles expanse before my freshened

vision.

Waywayanda lake?

A Quere. Shall I play geographer to those who are learned in the

nomenclature of snobbism? Who allow innkeepers and railroad guides to

assassinate Aboriginal terms in order that petty pride may exult in petty

fame? No! But if snobbism has a curiosity, I refer it to the first

landscape painter of its vicinage: or the nearest fisherman amateur: or the

Recorder of New-York: or sportsman Herbert and the pages of his "Warwick

Woodlands;" a list of references worthy of the spot.

And as I gaze and breathe I feel as if the waters before me had bubbled

from the fountains of rejuvenescence for which Ponce de Leon so

enthusiastically searched in the everglades of Florida; and as if, too, I

had just emerged from their embraces.

My pocket almanac says that I am living in the dogdays. Perhaps so. But

"Sirius" hath no power around these mountains and primeval solitudes. Were

the fiercest theological controversialist at my elbow, he would be as cool

as an Esquimaux.

I feel at peace with all things. My friend M. says the conscience lieth in

the stomach. Perhaps so; and perhaps I owe my quietude of spirit to the

influence of as comforting a breakfast as ever blessed the palate of a

scientific egg-breaker.

Shall I join forces with the laughing beauties who are handling maces in

the billiard room of the inn hard by? Shall I challenge my "Lady Gay

Spanker" of last night's acquaintance to a game of bowling? Shall I tempt

the unsophisticated pickerel of the lake under the shadow of yonder

frowning precipice, with glittering bait? Shall I clamber the mountain side

and feast my vision with an almost boundless view--rich expanses of farm

land stretching away for miles and miles, and edging themselves in the blue

haze of the horizon where the distant Catskill peaks rise solitary in their

sublimity?

It is very comfortable here. Is there always poetry in motion? How far

distant are the confines of dreamland: that magical kingdom where the tired

soul satiates itself in the intoxications of fancy?

I had just carefully deposited upon a velvety tuft of grass Ik Marvel's

"Reveries of a Bachelor." I had arrived at the conclusion that its pages

should be part and parcel of the landscape about. Surely there is a unison

between them both. There are always certain places where only certain

melodies can be sung to the proper harmony of the heart-strings. Who ever

learned "Thanatopsis" on the summit of the Catskills, and afterwards forgot

a line of it? Now I have seen these same "Reveries" of the said bachelor

upon many a centre-table: in the lap of many a town beauty, half cushioned

in the velvet of a drawing room sofa: but the latter half of the volume

never looked so inviting as it does here just in the middle of one of

nature's lexicons. May the page of it never be blurred.

Reveries of a Bachelor!

'Tis a sugared pill of a title. Its morals are sad will o' wisps. And if

the definition "that happiness consists in the search after it" be true, it

is so when the definition settles itself on the mind of a bachelor. Hath

_he_ reveries half so sweet for morsels under the tongues of memory and

fancy as those which come nigh to the brain of the married man? As sure as

the lesser is always included in the greater: as certain as the maxim _de

minimis lex non curat_: the reveries of the first are but bound up in the

reveries of the last; one is a _pleasing_ romance, the other its enchanting

sequel.

What is that yonder? There is a merry-faced form in the distant haze,

shaking a dreamy negative with his head. A head whose reality is miles and

miles away, airing its brow of single blessedness in foreign travel.

Let us argue the point: he smiles as if willing. Man socially is at least a

three volumed work: however much longer the James-like pen of destiny may

extend him. Volume first--bachelor. Volume second--husband. Volume

third--father. There _may_ be a dozen more--there _should_ be none less.

You have been a bachelor: you are a husband and a father. You always had,

perhaps, a bump of self-esteem attractive to the digits of Fowler. You

never believed half so well of yourself as when one morning at your

business you were first asked concerning the well being of your _family_.

At the moment, you were in a fog, like the young attorney upon the first

question of his first examination: next, memory rallied and your face

brightened; your stature increased as you replied. You felt you were going

up in the social numeration table of life. Two years ago you were a unit:

you next counted your importance by tens over the parson's shoulder; when

your child was born you felt that the leap to hundreds in the scale was far

from enough and should have been higher.

Before the publication of your third volume--the father--you had been

measurably blind. Your mental sight was afflicted with amaurosis. Like the

philosopher of old you are now tempted to grasp every one by the hand and

cry "Eureka." How indignantly you take down "Malthus" from your upper

library shelf and bury him on the lowest among the books of possible

reference. Your political views upon education are cured of their jaundice.

You pray of Sundays in the service for the widow and the orphan with a

double unction. You walk the streets with a new mantle of comfort. The

little beggar child whose importunities of the last wet day at the street

crossings excited your petulance, upon the next wet day invites your

sympathies. You stop and talk to her, nor perceive until you have

ascertained where her hard-hearted parents live, and that she is uncommonly

bright for the child of poverty and wretchedness, and that you have a half

dollar unappropriated--nor perceive until these are found out, I say, that

your umbrella has been dripping upon the skirts of your favorite coat, and

that you have stood with one foot in a puddle. How this would have annoyed

you years ago. But now--? How unconcernedly of the curious looks from

pedestrians around do you stop the careless nurse in Broadway, who has

allowed her infant charge to fall asleep in a painful attitude, and lay

"it" tenderly and comfortably in position. You recall to mind with much

remorse the execrations of five years ago, when the moanings of a dying

babe in the next apartment to your own at the hotel disturbed your rest;

and you wonder whether the mother still thinks of the little grave and the

white slab which a sympathetic fancy _now_ brings up before you.

You are at your business: the lamps are lighting: in the suggestions of

profit by an hour or longer at the desk you recognize an unholy temptation.

Now, as often before, through all the turmoils of business memory suggests

the lines of Willis:

"I sadden when thou smilest to my smile,

Child of my love! I tremble to believe

That o'er the mirror of thine eye of blue

The shadow of my soul must always pass--

That soul which from its conflicts with the world

Comes _ever_ to thy guarded cradle home,

And careless of the staining dust it brings,

Asks for its idol!"

And you dwell on them. You bless the author first, and truly think how

cruelly unjust are they who can call into torturing question the loyalty as

husband and father of him whose soul could plan and whose pen could write

such holy lines. And then you think deeper of the sentiments. And then the

profit-tempter hides himself in the farthest corner of the money-drawer;

and you begin to think your clerk a very clever manager: and wonder if

_his_ remaining will not do as well--poor fellow, he's _only_ a bachelor.

And then you decide that he will, and so yourself, "careless of the

staining dust" your coming brings, fly to "the guarded cradle home."

You have been in Italy. Or you have studied the pictures in the _Louvre_.

But the hours which you passed before the canvas whereon was embodied

Madonna and child never seemed so agreeable in their realization as they

now appear in the glass of memory, as you see the child of your love in the

arms of your life companion whose eyes, always bright to yours, and

brighter still at your coming after absence, grow brightest when they are

lifted from the slumbering innocence beneath them. Men call you rough in

your bearing, perhaps. What would they say to see how gently your arms

receive the sleeping burthen and transfer it softly to its snowy couch?

Your step abroad is heavy and impetuous: how noiselessly it falls upon the

floor--_now!_ And how the modulated voice accords with every present

thought!

You cannot give the child a sweeter sleep by watching over him so intently:

and yet you choose to stay. Moments are not so precious to you that at this

one household shrine they will become valueless in some most chastened

heart-worship! Your infant does not when awake understand the language

which your affection addresses: and yet you look with rapture to the

future, when the now inquiring eye will become one of understanding; when

the cautiously put forth arms will clasp in loving confidence; when the

fond endearing name now half intelligibly and doubtingly lisped forth will

be uttered in the boldness of love.

The shadowy form in the distant cloud over the lake has been listening

intently. It listens still; and the face of it bends towards me as if to

say, there's a hidden truth and mysterious sympathy in all you say; and yet

the language soundeth strangely in these bachelor ears--

Bachelor ears!

Listless and deaf, as yet, to all the sweeter human music of our nature.

Deafer yet to the clarion call of emulation in the race of life and

struggles for power, rank, and fame. Deafest of all to that which spurreth

on man to be a king of kings among the great men of his race.

You are a father, then, I say; and working in your mental toil by night and

day, in the severest and darkest frowning of all professions. But in the

crowded senate-room, and in the close committee-chamber; and in the

court-room among the multitudes of faces all about, (some of these

anticipating in their changing features defeat and disgrace,) there is a

_something_ which overrides all agitation: clears the heavy brain, and oils

the tongue with every pungency of rhetoric.

What is that "something?"

Were I home and in my library the downturned leaf of the duodecimo

biography in the left corner of the first shelf would tell it you at a

glance. The biography of Lord Erskine; marked at the page which speaks of

his dauntless legal debut in the Sandwich case, when not the necessity of

speaking in a crowded court-room from the obscure back benches: when not

the sarcastic eyes of a hundred (etiquette-ly termed) brethren; when not

the awful presence of Lord Mansfield nor his rebuking interruption at a

critical sentence frightened the self-possession of the enthusiastic

advocate, or stopped the current of his eloquent invective. The biography,

which goes on to tell how, when the speech was ended, all the attorneys in

the room flocked around the debutant with retainers--needed, more than all

the smiles and congratulations to be drawn from earnest heart-wells: and

how the advocate replied--(when some one, timid of the judge, asked how the

barrister had the courage to stand the rebuking interruption, and never to

quail with embarrassment before it)--_I felt my little children tugging at

my gown and crying, now is the time, father, to get us bread_.

How eloquent!

How worthy of a father's heart! And in the reference, the dullest mind

cannot fail to read the "something" which, to every father in a like

position, nerves the will, disarms all agitation, clears the heavy brain,

and oils the tongue with every pungency of rhetoric.

--The shadowy form turns closer towards me as my reverie yet chains me to

the lake side, where the mountain breezes still are freshening all the

August air.--

You have a purpose now in life, which, like the messenger of the king, that

every morning knocked at his bedroom door to say, "Oh king, remember all

this day that you are mortal," hourly brings to mind the bright reward of

every toil and every aspiration. Besides a physical frame there is a mental

constitution hinging on your own. There's a long life far beyond your own

brief years of breath to provide for. Your name is to be perpetuated. In

the very evening of your life there is to be a star that is now in its

morning of existence, which will cheer and enliven. You feel all this as in

some sad hour of the sickly night; you pace your room with the little

sufferer wrestling with disease, and you feel that in the future will be

found ample rewards for all your present bitter draughts of anxiety.

Wrestling with disease!

The thought is ugly to the mental sight. I pause to brush its cobweb from

my August Reverie as an idle vaporish thing. But the shadowy form, in the

edge of the distant cloud, over the far off waters of the lake, hisses the

words back into my brain. And then it comes nearer. And then the atmosphere

grows more dreamy and hazy about. And I half feel the mountain breezes, and

half miss them from off my temples. And next I feel my thoughts less

concentrate, as the shadowy form I know so well seems to be looking under

my half-closed lids, and dwelling on the words I brushed like

cob-webs--"wrestling with disease."

And I think of the still chamber, with the blue edge of the bracket, as it

is rimmed with the faintest glimmer of the turned-down gas. And I see the

half-closed shutters. And the tumbler with its significant spoon on the

mantel. And the pale watcher by the ghostly curtains of the bed. And I am

bending silently and almost pulseless over the sleeping boy, upon whose

face each minute the fever-flushes play like summer lightning under a satin

cloud.

And days go by. There is a strange hush in the household, with a horridly

sensitive jarring from the vehicles in the street, which never, never were

before so noisy, neither have the thronging passengers from the pavements

ever gossipped so discordantly, as they go under the windows of the silent

house. There's a strange echo of infantile prattle by the niches on the

landings of the stairs, and from the couches, and behind the curtains; but

the substantive music, whence the conjured-up echo came, is nowhere found.

Then the echo itself becomes but an illusion. And Memory is strangely and

impassionately chid for its creation.

I pass into a little room scarcely wide enough to wheel a sofa within. It

seems as boundless in its desolation as an untenanted temple-ruin. There

are mournful spirits in the little atmosphere which sting me to the

heart--not to be torn away. The little cotton-dog, and morocco-ball, and

jingling-bells, and coral-toys, so strangely scattered all about, are

prodigious ruins to the sight. There's a gleeful laugh, a cunning smile, an

artless waving of the hands, which should be here as tenants of the room.

All gone! all gone into that hushed and silent chamber where yet the

patient-watcher is by the snowy curtains; and the sickly blue still edges

the rim of the bracket light, and the fever-flushes still play about the

wasted cheek.

How long to last? What next to come? And the shadowy form no longer can

peep under the all-closed eyelids, but enters its whisperings through the

delicate passages of the ear into the brain, which tortures in a maze of

bitter conjecture and horrid contemplation. And my reverie becomes a

painful nightmare dream.

* * * * *

But the mountain-breezes, and the uprising-to-meridian sun, are merciful.

The shadowy form my reverie hinged itself upon is blown away. The open eyes

once more glance upon the glassy waters of the lake close by the shore, and

onward to the dancing ripples far away. And a merry prattling voice, from

out of loving arms, is coming nearer and nearer over the velvety lawn--a

voice so full of spirit, and life, and health, and sparkling innocence of

care, that in a moment the frightful nightmare-dream is quite forgotten.

More--

My reverie turns itself into a lesson of bright reality; a present study of

budding mind; a jealous watch of care encroaching upon innocence; a kindly

outpouring of the father's manly heart upon the shrine of his idol.

Could such a reverie better end?

HEROINES OF HISTORY--LAURA.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE BY MARY E. HEWITT.

Laura, rendered immortal by the love and lyre of Petrarch, was the daughter

of Audibert de Noves, who was of the _haute noblesse_ of Avignon. He died

in the infancy of Laura, leaving her a dowry of one thousand gold crowns,

(about fifty thousand dollars,) a magnificent portion for those times. She

was married at the age of eighteen to Hugh de Sade, a young noble only a

few years older than his bride, but not distinguished by any advantages

either of person or mind. The marriage contract is dated in January, 1325,

two years before her first meeting with Petrarch; and in it her mother, the

Lady Ermessende, and her brother, John de Noves, stipulate to pay the dower

left by her father; and also to bestow on the bride two magnificent dresses

for state occasions; one of green, embroidered with violets; the other of

crimson, trimmed with feathers. In all the portraits of Laura now extant,

she is represented in one of these two dresses, and they are frequently

alluded to by Petrarch. He tells us expressly that when he first met her at

matins in the church of Saint Claire, she was habited in a robe of green

spotted with violets. Mention is also made of a coronal of silver with

which she wreathed her hair; of her necklaces and ornaments of pearls.

Diamonds are not once alluded to because the art of cutting them had not

then been invented. From all which it appears that Laura was opulent, and

moved in the first class of society. It was customary for women of rank in

those times to dress with extreme simplicity on ordinary occasions, but

with the most gorgeous splendor when they appeared in public.

There are some beautiful descriptions of Laura surrounded by her young

female companions, divested of all her splendid apparel, in a simple white

robe and a few flowers in her hair, but still preeminent over all by her

superior loveliness.

She was in person a fair, Madonna-like beauty, with soft dark eyes, and a

profusion of pale golden hair parted on her brow, and falling in rich curls

over her neck. The general character of her beauty must have been pensive,

soft, unobtrusive, and even somewhat languid. This softness and repose must

nave been far removed from insipidity, for Petrarch dwells on the rare and

varying expression of her loveliness, the lightning of her smile, and the

tender magic of her voice, which was felt in the inmost heart. He dwells on

the celestial grace of her figure and movements, and describes the beauty

of her hand and the loveliness of her mouth. She had a habit of veiling her

eyes with her hand, and her looks were generally bent on the earth.

In a portrait of Laura, in the Laurentinian library at Florence, the eyes

have this characteristic downcast look.

Laura was distinguished, then, by her rank and fortune, but more by her

loveliness, her sweetness, and the untainted purity of her life and manners

in the midst of a society noted for its licentiousness. Now she is known as

the subject of Petrarch's verses, as the woman who inspired an immortal

passion, and, kindling into living fire the dormant sensibility of the

poet, gave origin to the most beautiful and refined, the most passionate,

and yet the most delicate amatory poetry that exists in the world.

Petrarch was twenty-three years of age when he first felt the power of a

violent and inextinguishable passion. At six in the morning on the sixth of

April, A. D. 1327, (he often fondly records the exact year, day and hour,)

on the occasion of the festival of Easter, he visited the church of Saint

Claire at Avignon, and beheld, for the first time, Laura de Sade. She was

just twenty years of age, and in the bloom of beauty--a beauty so touching

and heavenly, so irradiated by purity and smiling innocence, and so adorned

by gentleness and modesty, that the first sight stamped the image in the

poet's heart, never thereafter to be erased.

Petrarch beheld the loveliness and sweetness of the young beauty, and was

transfixed. He sought acquaintance with her, and while the manners of the

times prevented his entering her house, he enjoyed many opportunities of

meeting her in society, and of conversing with her. He would have declared

his love, but her reserve enforced silence. "She opened my breast and took

my heart into her hand, saying 'speak no word of this,'" he writes. Yet the

reverence inspired by her modesty and dignity was not always sufficient to

restrain her lover. Being alone with her on one occasion, and she appearing

more gracious than usual, Petrarch tremblingly and fearfully confessed his

passion; but she, with altered looks, replied, "I am not the person you

take me for!" Her displeasure froze the very heart of the poet, so that he

fled from her presence in grief and dismay.

No attentions on his part could make any impression on her steady and

virtuous mind. While love and youth drove him on, she remained impregnable

and firm; and when she found that he still rushed wildly forward, she

preferred forsaking to following him to the precipice down which he would

have hurried her. Meanwhile, as he gazed on her angelic countenance, and

saw purity painted on it, his love grew spotless as herself. Love

transforms the true lover into a resemblance of the object of his passion.

In a town, which was the asylum of vice, calumny never breathed a taint

upon Laura's name: her actions, her words, the very expression of her

countenance, and her slightest gestures were replete with a modest reserve

combined with sweetness, and won the applause of all.

Francesco Petrarch was of Florentine extraction, and the son of a notary,

who, being held in great esteem by his fellow-citizens, had filled several

public offices.

When the Ghibelines were banished Florence, in 1302, Petraccolo was

included in the number of exiles; his property was confiscated, and he

retired with his wife, Eletta Canigiani, whom he had lately married, to the

town of Arrezzo, in Tuscany. And here on the night of the 20th of July,

1304, Petrarch first saw the light. When the child was seven months old his

mother was permitted to return from banishment, and she established herself

at a country house belonging to her husband near Ancisa, a small town

fifteen miles from Florence. The infant who, at his birth, it was supposed

would not survive, was exposed to imminent peril during this journey. In

fording a rapid stream, the man who had charge of him carried him, wrapped

in swaddling clothes, at the end of a stick; he fell from his horse, and

the babe slipped from the fastenings into the water; but he was saved, for

how could Petrarch die until he had seen his Laura?

The youth of Petrarch was obscure in point of fortune, but it was attended

by all the happiness that springs from family concord, and the excellent

character of his parents. At the age of fifteen he was sent to study in the

university of Montpellier, then frequented by a vast concourse of students.

His father intended his son to pursue the study of the law, as the

profession best suited to ensure his reputation and fortune; but to this

pursuit Francesco was invincibly repugnant. He was soon after sent to

Bologna, where, as at Montpellier, he continued to display great taste for

literature, much to his father's dissatisfaction.

At Bologna, Petrarch made considerable progress in the study of the law,

moved thereto, doubtless, by the entreaties of his excellent parent.

After three years spent at Bologna, Petrarch was recalled to France by the

death of his father. Soon after his mother died also, and he and his

brother were left entirely to their own guidance, with very slender means,

and those diminished by the dishonesty of those whom his father named as

trustees to their fortune. Under these circumstances Petrarch entirely

abandoned the profession of the law, as it occurred to both him and his

brother that the clerical profession was their best resource in a city

where the priesthood reigned supreme. They resided at Avignon, and became

the favorites and companions of the ecclesiastical and lay nobles who

formed the papal court. His talents and accomplishments were of course the

cause of this distinction; besides that his personal advantages were such

as to prepossess every one in his favor. He was so handsome as frequently

to attract observation when he passed along the streets. When, to the

utmost simplicity and singleness of mind, were added splendid talents, the

charm of poetry, so highly valued in the country of the Troubadours, an

affectionate and generous disposition, vivacious and pleasing manners, an

engaging and attractive exterior; we cannot wonder that Petrarch was the

darling of his age, the associate of its greatest men, and the man whom

princes delighted to honor.

The passion of Petrarch for Laura was purified and exalted at the same

time. She filled him with noble aspirations, and divided him from the

common herd. He felt that her influence made him superior to vulgar

ambition, and rendered him wise, true, and great. She saved him in the

dangerous period of youth, and gave a worthy aim to all his endeavors. The

manners of his age permitted one solace; a Platonic attachment was the

fashion of the day. The Troubadours had each a lady to adore, to wait upon,

and to celebrate in song; without its being supposed that she made him any

return beyond a gracious acceptance of his devoirs, and allowing him to

make her the heroine of his verses. Petrarch endeavored to merge the living

passion of his soul into this airy and unsubstantial devotion. Laura

permitted the homage: she perceived his merit and was proud of his

admiration; she felt the truth of his affection, and indulged the wish of

preserving it and her own honor at the same time. Without her

inflexibility, this had been a dangerous experiment: but she always kept

her lover distant from her; rewarding his reserve with smiles, and

repressing by frowns all the overflowings of his heart.

By her resolute severity, she incurred the danger of ceasing to be the

object of his attachment, and of losing the gift of an immortal name, which

he has conferred upon her. But Petrarch's constancy was proof against

hopelessness and time. He had too fervent an admiration of her qualities

ever to change: he controlled the vivacity of his feelings, and they became

deeper rooted. "Untouched by my prayers," he says, "unvanquished by my

arguments, unmoved by my flattery, she remained faithful to her sex's

honor; she resisted her own young heart, and mine, and a thousand, thousand

things, which must have conquered any other. She remained unshaken. A woman

taught me the duty of a man! to persuade me to keep the path of virtue, her

conduct was at once an example and a reproach."

But whether, in this long conflict, Laura preserved her heart untouched, as

well as her virtue immaculate; whether she shared the love she inspired; or

whether she escaped from the captivating assiduities and intoxicating

homage of her lover, "fancy free;" whether coldness, or prudence, or pride,

or virtue, or the mere heartless love of admiration, or a mixture of all

together, dictated her conduct, is at least as well worth inquiry as the

color of her eyes, or the form of her nose, upon which we have pages of

grave discussion. She might have been _coquette par instinct_, if not _par

calent_; she might have felt, with feminine _tacte_, that to preserve her

influence over Petrarch, it was necessary to preserve his respect. She was

evidently proud of her conquest: she had else been more or less than woman;

and at every hazard, but that of self-respect, she was resolved to retain

him. If Petrarch absented himself for a few days, he was generally better

treated on his return. If he avoided her, then her eye followed him with a

softer expression. When he looked pale from sickness of heart and agitation

of spirits, Laura would address him with a few words of pitying tenderness.

When he presumed on this benignity, he was again repulsed with frowns. He

flew to solitude,--solitude! Never let the proud and torn heart, wrung with

the sense of injury, and sick with unrequited passion, seek that worst

resource against pain, for there grief grows by contemplating itself, and

every feeling is sharpened by collision. Petrarch sought to "mitigate the

fever of his heart" amid the shades of Vaucluse, a spot so gloomy, and so

solitary, that his very servants forsook him; and Vaucluse, its fountains,

its forests, and its hanging cliffs, reflected only the image of Laura.

He passed several years thus, cut off from society; his books were his

great resource; he was never without one in his hand. Often he remained in

silence from morning till night, wandering among the hills when the sun was

yet low; and taking refuge, during the heat of the day, in his shady

garden. At night, after performing his clerical duties (for he was canon of

Lombes), he rambled among the hills; often entering, at midnight, the

cavern, whose gloom, even during the day, struck his soul with awe. "Fool

that I was!" he exclaims in after life, "not to have remembered the first

school-boy lesson--that solitude is the nurse of love!"

While living at Vaucluse, Petrarch, invited to Rome by the Roman Senate,

repaired thither to receive the laurel crown of poesy. The ceremony was

performed in the Capitol with great solemnity, in presence of all the

nobles and high-born ladies of the city. Leaving Rome soon after his

coronation, he repaired to Parma, where Clement VI. rewarded him for

subsequent political services by naming him prior of Migliarino in the

diocese of Pisa.

Petrarch returned to Avignon. The sight of Laura gave fresh energy to a

passion which had survived the lapse of fifteen years. She was no longer

the blooming girl who had first charmed him. The cares of life had dimmed

her beauty. She was the mother of many children, and had been afflicted at

various times by illness. Her home was not happy. Her husband, without

loving or appreciating her, was ill-tempered and jealous. Petrarch

acknowledged that if her personal charms had been her sole attraction he

had already ceased to love her. But his passion was nourished by sympathy

and esteem; and, above all, by that mysterious tyranny of love, which,

while it exists, the mind of man seems to have no power of resisting,

though in feebler minds it sometimes vanishes like a dream. Petrarch was

also changed in personal appearance. His hair was sprinkled with gray, and

lines of care and sorrow trenched his face. On both sides the tenderness of

affection began to replace, in him the violence of passion, in her the

coyness and severity she had found necessary to check his pursuit. The

jealousy of her husband opposed obstacles to their seeing each other. They

met as they could in public walks and assemblies. Laura sang to him, and a

soothing familiarity grew up between them as her fears became allayed, and

he looked forward to the time when they might sit together and converse

without dread.

At length he resolved to leave Laura and Avignon forever; and instead of

plunging into solitude, to seek the wiser resource of travel and society.

Laura saw him depart with regret. When he went to take leave of her, he

found her surrounded by a circle of her ladies. Her mien was dejected; a

cloud overcast her face, whose expression seemed to say, "Who takes my

faithful friend from me?" Petrarch was struck to the heart by a sad

presentiment: the emotion was mutual; they both seemed to feel that they

should never meet again.

Petrarch departed. The plague, which had been extending its ravages over

Asia, entered Europe. It spread far and wide: nearly one half the

population of the world became its prey. Petrarch saw thousands die around

him, and he trembled for his friends. He heard that it was at Avignon. A

thousand sad presentiments haunted his mind. At last the fatal truth

reached him, Laura was dead! By a singular coincidence, she died on the

anniversary of the day when he first saw her. She was taken ill on the

third of April, and languished but three days. As soon as the symptoms of

the plague declared themselves, she prepared to die: she made her will,

which is dated on the third of April, and received the sacraments of the

church. On the sixth she died, surrounded by her friends and the noble

ladies of Avignon, who braved the dangers of infection to attend on one so

lovely and so beloved. On the evening of the same day on which she died,

she was interred in the chapel of the Cross which her husband had lately

built in the church of the Minor Friars at Avignon.

Her tomb was discovered and opened in 1533, in the presence of Francis the

First, whose celebrated stanzas on the occasion are well known.

Of the fame which, even in her lifetime, love and poetical adoration of

Petrarch had thrown around his Laura, a curious instance is given which

will characterize the manners of the age. When Charles of Luxembourg

(afterwards Emperor) was at Avignon, a grand fete was given, in his honor,

at which all the noblesse were present. He desired that Petrarch's Laura

should be pointed out to him; and when she was introduced, he made a sign

with his hand that the other ladies present should fall back; then going up

to Laura, and for a moment contemplating her with interest, he kissed her

respectively on the forehead and on the eyelids.

Petrarch survived her twenty-six years, dying in 1374. He was found

lifeless one morning in his study, his hand resting on a book.

THE KING AND OUTLAW.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

Robin Hood was a gentleman,

An outlaw bold was he;

He lost his Earldom and his land,

And took to the greenwood tree.

The king had just come home from war

With the Soldan over sea;

And Robin dwelt in merry Sherwood,

And lived by archerie.

Five bucks as fat as fat could be,

Were bleeding on the ground,

When up there came a hunter bright,

With a horn and leashed hound.

"Who's this, who's this, i' th' merry greenwood?

Who's this with horn and hound?

We'll hang him, an' he pay not down

For his life a thousand pound.

"Come hither, hither, Friar John,

And count your rosarie,

And shrive this sinful gentleman,

Under the greenwood tree!"

"Stand back, stand back, thou wicked Friar,

Nor dare to stop my way;

I'll tear your cowl and cassock off,

And hurl your beads away!"

"Nay! hold your hands, my merry man!

I like his gallant mood;

Sir Hunter pray you take a staff,

And play with Robin Hood."

They played an hour with quarter staffs,

A good long hour or more,

And Robin Hood was beat at the game,

That never was beat before.

"Hold off, hold off," he said at length,

And wiped the blood away;

"Thou art a noble gentleman,

Come dine with me to-day."

"With the quarter staff, as a yeoman might,

For love I played with thee;

Now draw thy sword, as fits a knight,

And play awhile with me."

They fought an hour with rapiers keen,

A weary hour or more,

And Robin Hood began to fail,

That never failed before.

But still he fought as best he might,

In the summer's burning heat,

Till he sank at last with loss of blood,

And fell at the Stranger's feet.

He brought him water from the spring,

And took him by the hand;

"Rise up!" he said, "my good old Earl,

The best man in the land!

"Rise up, rise up, Earl Huntington,

No longer Robin Hood;

I will be king in London town,

And you in green Sherwood!"

SAINT ESCARPACIO'S BONES.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE.

Upon a fine May morning in the year 1585, a Spanish vessel lay at anchor in

the Port of St. Jago, in the island of Cuba. She was about to sail for

Cadiz, the passengers were on board, and the sailors at their several

stations, awaiting the word of command. The captain, a small, tight-built,

shrewd-looking man, with the voice and manner of a naval officer, which,

indeed, he had formerly been, was brave and experienced, and although

somewhat wild and daring, he was a good fellow at heart, but now and then

violent and headstrong to a fault, in short, Captain Perez was the terror

of his men.

He was walking the deck with rapid strides, and exhibiting the greatest

impatience, now stopping to observe the direction of the wind, and casting

a glance at the shore, then resuming his walk with a preliminary stamp of

disappointment and vexation; no one, in the meanwhile, daring to ask why he

delayed getting under way.

At length strains of church music at a distance are heard on board the

vessel, and all eyes are directed to the shore. A long procession of monks,

holding crosses and lighted wax tapers, and singing, is seen approaching

the beach opposite the vessel. The procession moves slowly and solemnly to

the cadence of the music. Between two rows of monks dressed in deep black

is a coffin richly decorated with all the symbols of the Catholic faith,

and covered with garlands and chaplets, and, what is singular, the coffin

is carried with difficulty by six stout negroes. Four venerable Jesuits

support the corners of the pall, and, immediately behind the coffin, walks

alone, with a grave and dignified step, the Right Reverend Father Antonio,

superior of the Jesuit missionaries of the island of Cuba. An immense crowd

of citizens, the garrison of the island, and the military and civil

authorities, piously form the escort.

Suddenly the singing ceases, the procession halts, the coffin is placed on

elevated supporters. Father Antonio approaches it, and, kissing the pall

with reverence, exclaims, with a solemnity befitting the occasion,

"Adieu! Saint Escarpacio, thou worthy model of our order, adieu! In

separating myself from thy holy remains, I fulfil thy last wishes; may they

piously repose in our happy Spain, and may thy saintly vows and aspirations

be thus accomplished. But before their departure from our shores, we

conjure thee, holy saint, to look down from thy holy place of rest in

heaven, and deign to bless this people, and us, thy mourning friends on

earth."

The whole assembly then knelt upon the ground, after which the negroes,

resuming their heavy burden, carried it on board a boat, closely followed

by Father Antonio. With vigorous rowing the boat soon reached the vessel's

side, and the coffin was hoisted on board.

"You are very late, reverend father," said Captain Perez, "and you know

_wind and tide wait for no man_. I ought to have been far on my way long

before this hour."

"We could not get ready sooner, my son," the holy father replied, "but fear

not, God will reward you for the delay, and these precious remains will

speed you on your voyage. I hope you have made your own private cabin, as

you promised, worthy of their reception?"

"Yes, certainly, I have."

"You must not for a moment lose sight of the coffin."

"Make yourself easy on that point, holy father; I shall watch over it as if

it were my own. Hollo there forward, bear a hand aft," the captain cried.

Four sailors place themselves at the corners of the coffin, but they can

hardly raise it from the deck; two more are called, and the six, bending

under its weight, succeed in carrying it down into the cabin, followed by

the Captain and by Father Antonio.

When the coffin was properly bestowed, the reverend father addressed

Captain Perez in the most earnest and solemn manner:

"I hope you will be found worthy of the great confidence and trust I now

repose in you. These precious remains should occupy your every moment, and

you will sacredly and faithfully account to me for their safety--the

smallest negligence will cost you dear. On your arrival at Cadiz, you will

deliver the coffin to none other than Father Hieronimo, and not to him

even, unless he shall first place in your hands a letter from me--you

understand my instructions and commands? Now depart, and may God speed you

on your way."

Father Antonio then came upon deck, and bestowed his benediction upon the

vessel, and upon all it contained; after which, descending to the boat, he

was rowed to the shore. As he placed himself at the head of the procession,

the singing recommenced, the anchor was weighed, and, to the sound of

music, the cheering of the people, and the roar of cannon, the vessel moved

slowly on her destined voyage.

When fairly at sea, the wind was favorable, and all went well. The second

evening out, Captain Perez was alone in his private cabin, and in a

contemplative mood, when the feeble light of the single lamp glancing

across the coffin, as the vessel rocked from side to side, attracted his

attention, and led him to think about the singularity of its great weight.

"It is very strange," he said musingly, "six stout fellows to carry a man's

dry bones!--it cannot be possible. But what does the coffin contain if it

does not contain the saint's bones? Father Antonio was very, _very_

particular. I should really like to know what there is in the coffin. It

took a good half dozen strong healthy negroes, and then as many sailors, to

carry it: what can there be in the coffin? Why, after all, I _can_ know if

I please. I have but to take out a few screws, it can be done without the

slightest noise, and I am alone, and the cabin door is easily fastened."

Suiting the action to his soliloquy, he bolted the door of the cabin, took

from his tool-chest a screw-driver, and, after a moment's indecision, began

cautiously to loosen one of the screws in the lid of the coffin, his hands

all the while trembling violently.

"If," thought he, "I am committing a heinous sin, if the saint should start

up, and if, in his anger, he should in some appalling manner punish my

sacrilegious meddling with his bones?"

A cold sweat overspread his bronzed visage, and he stood still a moment,

hesitating as to whether he should go on. But curiosity conquered, and he

rallied his energies with the reflection, that if he opened the coffin,

Saint Escarpacio himself well knew it was only to find out what made his

bones so heavy; there could be no impiety in that--quite the contrary. His

conscience was by this time somewhat fortified, his superstitious fears

gradually grew fainter, and keeping his eyes steadily fixed upon the lid of

the coffin--to be sure the saint did not stir--he slowly and silently took

out the first screw. He then stopped short: the saint showed no signs of

anger.

"I knew it," said Perez, going to work more boldly upon the second screw,

"I knew there was nothing sinful in opening the coffin, for the sin lies in

the intention."

All the screws were soon drawn out, and to gratify his curiosity it only

remained to raise the coffin lid, and here his heart beat violently--but

courage--Perez did raise the lid, _and, and, he saw--no saint, but hay--the

hay is carefully removed--then strips of linen--they are removed--then hay

again, but no saint, nothing like the bone of a saint--but a wooden box_.

"Well, that is odd," thought Perez, "and what can there be in it? I must

open the box, but how? there is no key, what is to be done? Shall I force

the lock, or break the cover of the box? Either attempt would make a noise,

which the passengers or sailors might hear, but what is to be done? Good

Saint Escarpacio, take pity on me, and direct me how to open the box,"

whispered Perez, and there was perhaps a little irony in the supplication.

In feeling among the hay surrounding the box, Perez found a key at one of

its corners secured by a small iron chain.

"Ah! ha! I have it at last" Perez cried, "_the key, the key_," and quickly

putting it into the key-hole, he opened the Box--and he saw--what?

_Leathern bags filled to the top_ according to the beautifully written

tickets, with GOLD PISTOLES--SILVER CROWNS, closely ranged in shining

piles--all in the most perfect order. "But what is this? a letter? I must

read it," exclaimed the excited Perez--"_by your leave, gentle wax_," and

he tears the letter open. It began thus:

"Father Antonio, of Cuba, to the reverend fathers in Cadiz, greeting.

"As agreed between us, Most Reverend Fathers, I send you THREE HUNDRED

THOUSAND LIVRES, in the name, and under the semblance of Father Escarpacio,

whose bones I am supposed to be sending to Spain. The annexed memorandum of

accounts will show that this sum comprises the whole of our little

gleanings and savings up to this time, for the benefit of our Holy Order.

You will pardon I am sure this innocent artifice on our part, Most Reverend

Fathers, as it will prove a safeguard to the treasure, and avoid awakening

the avarice and cupidity of the person to whom I am obliged to intrust it.

(Signed) ANTONIO, of Cuba."

"Three hundred thousand livres! there are, then, three hundred thousand

livres," exclaimed Perez in amazement, as he realized that this immense sum

lay in real gold and silver coin before his eyes. "Oh, reverend, right

reverend and worthy fellows of the crafty Ignatius! you are indeed cunning

foxes! a hundred to one your trick was not discovered, for who but a Jesuit

could have imagined it, and who could have guessed that the coffin

contained _money_? And so these bags of gold are your _holy remains_, and I

too, old sea shark as I am, to be humbugged like a land lubber, with your

procession and your mummery--but I am deceived no longer, my eyes are

opened; and by my patron saint, trick for trick my pious masters--bones you

shall have, and burn me for a heretic, if you get any thing better than

bones;" and he began to untie and examine the contents of the money-bags.

"Let me consider" said he, "I want some bones, and where the devil shall I

find them?"

He was on his knees, his body bent over the box, with his hands in the open

gold-bags. His agitated countenance expressed with energy the mingled

emotions, of desire to keep the rich booty all to himself, and of fear that

in some mysterious manner it might elude his grasp--but he must, he _must_

have it.

"A lucky thought strikes me," said he; "what a fool I am to give myself any

trouble about it. What says my bill of lading? '_Received from the Reverend

Father Antonio, a coffin containing bones, said to be those of Saint

Escarpacio._' A coffin containing bones, said to be those, &c.--very good,

and have I seen the bones, _said_ to be delivered to me, and _said_ to be

the saint's bones? certainly not, and the coffin might contain--any thing

else--_the said coffin containing_--what you please--how should I know?

_said to be the bones of Saint Escarpacio_," &c. &c.

In short, Captain Perez began noiselessly and methodically to empty the box

of its bags of gold and piles of silver, taking care to stow the treasure

away in a chest, to which he alone had access. He then filled the box with

whatever was at hand, bits of rusty iron, lead, stones, shells, old junk,

hay, &c., substituting as nearly as possible pound for pound in weight if

not in value, conscientiously adding some bones which were far removed from

_canonisation_, and at last carefully screwing down the lid, the right

reverend father Antonio himself, had he been on board, could not have

discovered that the coffin had been touched by mortal hand.

In about a month the vessel arrived at the port of Cadiz. The quarantine

for some unexplained reason was much shorter than usual, and had hardly

expired, when a venerable Jesuit was the first person who stood before the

captain, a few minutes only after he had taken possession of his lodgings

on shore.

"I would speak with Captain Perez," said the Jesuit, gravely.

"I am he," the captain replied, somewhat disconcerted at the abruptness of

the inquiry. Quickly recovering his presence of mind, however, he added,

with perfect calmness, "You have probably come, holy father, to take charge

of the precious remains intrusted to my care by Father Antonio, of Cuba?"

The Jesuit bowed his head, in token of assent.

"And I have the honor of addressing Father Hieronimo?"

"You have," was the reply.

"You are no doubt the bearer of a letter for me, from Father Antonio?"

"Here it is," said Father Hieronimo, handing Captain Perez a letter.

"I beg a thousand pardons, holy father," the captain said, with much

humility, "but I hope you will not take offence at these necessary

precautions?"

"On the contrary they speak in your favor."

"I see all is right," said the captain, "and I will go myself and order the

coffin brought on shore."

The captain went immediately on board, Father Hieronimo meanwhile placing

himself at an open window whence he could over-look the vessel and watch

every movement. The coffin was brought on shore by eight sailors, who,

bending under its weight, slowly approach the captain's quarters.

"How heavy it is, how _very_ heavy," said the Jesuit, rubbing his hands in

exultation.

Captain Perez had of course accompanied the coffin from the vessel, and now

that he was about to deliver it into Father Hieronimo's keeping, he said to

him, in a solemn and impressive manner,

"I place in your hands, holy father, the precious remains intrusted to my

care."

"I receive them with pious joy."

"The responsibility was great."

"It will henceforth be mine."

"It was a precious treasure."

"Very precious."

"I have watched over it with vigilance."

"God will reward you."

"I hope so."

"From this hour every thing will prosper with you."

"Do you think so, holy father?"

"I am sure of it. I must now bid you adieu."

"You have forgotten, holy father, to give me a receipt; but if--"

"You are right," said the Jesuit, "it had escaped me." And he seated

himself at a table on which lay writing materials, first sending a servant

for his carriage.

The receipt spoke of the piety and zeal of Captain Perez in the most

flattering terms; and, while the captain was reading it with becoming

humility, the carriage drew up opposite to the coffin, which was soon

resting upon the cushioned seats within the vehicle.

"I go immediately to Madrid," said Father Hieronimo. "You can no doubt

imagine the impatience of the holy fathers to possess the sacred relics;

they have waited so long. Once more adieu, believe me we shall never forget

you."

With these words, and a parting benediction on Perez, Father Hieronimo

stepped into the carriage, and, with his holy remains by his side, started

at a brisk trot of his well-fed mules on the road to Madrid. When fairly

out of sight and hearing of Captain Perez, the good father laughed aloud.

"The captain, poor simple soul," said he, "suspects nothing."

And Perez, he too would have laughed aloud if he had dared; indeed he could

with difficulty restrain himself in presence of his crew. "The crafty old

fox," he said exultingly, "he has got his holy remains--ha! ha!--and he

_suspects nothing_."

A day or two after the delivery of the coffin, Captain Perez sailed for

Mexico.

After an interval of ten years, during which period, according to the

Jesuit's prediction, prosperity had constantly waited upon Perez, he became

weary of successful enterprise, and tired of the roving and laborious life

he was leading. Worth a million, and a bachelor, he wisely resolved to give

the remainder of his days to enjoyment. Seville was judiciously selected

for his residence, where a magnificent mansion, extensive grounds, a well

furnished cellar, good cooks, chosen friends, with all the other et ceteras

which riches can bring, enabled him to pass his days and nights joyously.

Captain Perez was indeed a _happy dog_.

One night he was at table, surrounded by his friends of both sexes. The

cook had done his duty; there were excellent fruits from the tropics; there

were wines in abundance and variety, and with songs and laughter the very

windows rattled, when Perez, the jolly Perez, _half seas over_, begged a

moment's silence.

"I say, my worthy friends, I have something to tell you better than all

your singing. I must tell you a story that will make you split your

sides--a real good one, about a capital trick I served them poor devils the

Jesuits. You must know I was lying at anchor in Cuba, and--"

Suddenly the door of the apartment is thrown open with great violence, and

a monk, clothed in deep black, enters, followed by a guard of _alguazils_

armed to the teeth.

"Profane impious wretches!" he cried, in a voice of appalling harshness,

"is it thus you do penance for your sins? Is it in riotous feasting and

drunkenness you spend the holy season of Lent?" Then, turning to Captain

Perez, he said, "Follow me to the palace of the Holy Inquisition. Before

that tribunal you must answer for your sacrilegious conduct."

The guests were stupefied with fear, and Perez, now completely sobered,

stared in affright at the monk.

"Do you recollect me, Captain Perez?" said the monk.

"No--but--it appears to me I have somewhere seen--"

"I am Father Antonio, of Cuba," cried the monk, fixing his eyes, sparkling

with savage fury, upon Perez.

"And you are a member of the Holy Inquisition?" Perez faltered out in

trembling accents.

"I am. Again I say, follow me on the instant."

Poor Captain Perez, or rather rich Captain Perez, at the early day in which

he lived had, perhaps, never heard the avowal made by a man who, in

speaking of honesty and dishonesty, declared _honesty to be the best

policy, for_, said he, _I have tried both_.

That the captain was not born to be hanged is certain; and although from

childhood a sojourner upon the ocean, it was not his destiny to be drowned.

There is a tradition handed down, that had it not been for very

considerable donations, under his hand and seal, to a religious community

in Spain, a method of bidding adieu to this life more in accordance with

the pious notions prevalent three hundred years ago, would certainly have

been chosen for our hero. Indeed, there were not wanting many

heretic-hating persons who affirmed that an _auto-da-fe_ was got up

expressly for the occasion. But we have ascertained beyond a doubt that he

reformed in his manner of living, that he secured to the Holy Order the

donations already mentioned, that the reverend fathers kindly took from his

legal heirs all trouble in the division of his riches, and that he died in

his bed at last, as a pious Catholic should die, and was buried in

consecrated ground, with every rite and ceremony belonging to the community

he had so munificently contributed to enrich.

DIRGE FOR AN INFANT.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

He is dead and gone--a flower

Born and withered in an hour.

Coldly lies the death-frost now

On his little rounded brow;

And the seal of darkness lies

Ever on his shrouded eyes.

He will never feel again

Touch of human joy or pain;

Never will his once-bright eyes

Open with a glad surprise;

Nor the death-frost leave his brow--

All is over with him now.

Vacant now his cradle-bed,

As a nest from whence hath fled

Some dear little bird, whose wings

Rest from timid flutterings.

Thrown aside the childish rattle,

Hushed for aye the infant prattle--

Little broken words that could

By none else be understood

Save the childless one that weeps

O'er the grave where now he sleeps.

Closed his eyes, and cold his brow--

All is over with him now!

R. S. CHILTON.

THE CHIMES.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE. BY E.W. ELLSWORTH.

It was evening in New England,

And the air was all in tune,

As I sat at an open window,

In the emerald month of June.

From the maples by the roadway,

The robins sang in pairs,

Listening and then responding,

Each to the other's airs.

Sounds of calm that wrought the feeling

Of the murmur of a shell,

Of the drip of a lifted bucket

In a wide and quiet well.

And I thought of the airs of bargemen,

Who tunefully recline,

As they float by Ehrenbreitstein,

In the twilight of the Rhine.

And then of an eve in Venice,

And the song of the gondolier,

From the far lagunes replying

To the winged lion pier.

And then of the verse of Milton,

And the music heard to rise,

Through the solemn night from angels

Stationed in Paradise.

Thus I said it is with music,

Wheresoe'er at random thrown,

It will seek its own responses,

It is loth to die alone.

Thus I said the poet's music,

Though a lovely native air,

May appeal unto a rhythm

That is native everywhere.

For although in scope of feeling,

Human hearts are far apart,

In the depths of every bosom,

Beats the universal heart;

Beats with wide accordant motion,

And the chimes among the towers

Of the grandest of God's temples

Seem as if they might be ours.

And we grow in such a seeming,

Till indeed we may control

To an echo, our communion

With the good and grand in soul.

As an echo in a valley

May revive a cadence there,

Of a bell that may be swaying

In a lofty Alpine air.

As a screen of tremulous metal,

From the rolling organ tone,

Rings out to a note of the music

That can never be its own.

As an earnest artist ponders

On a study nobly wrought,

Till his fingers gild his canvas

With a touch of the self-same thought.

But the sun had now descended

Far along his cloudy stairs,

And the night had come like the angels

To Abraham, unawares.

A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.[2]

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.

CHAPTER XLVI.

Mrs. Hazleton fancied herself in high good luck; for just as she was

passing through the door into the hall, Lady Hastings' maid crossed and

made her a curtsey. Mrs. Hazleton beckoned her up, saying in a quiet, easy,

every-day tone, "I suppose your lady is awake by this time?"

"No, madam," replied the maid, "she is asleep still. She did not take her

nap as early as usual to-day; for Mistress Emily was with her, and my lady

would not go to sleep till she went out to take a walk."

Mrs. Hazleton was somewhat alarmed at this intelligence; for she had not

much confidence in her good friend's discretion. "How is Miss Emily?" she

said in a tender tone. "She seemed very sad and low when last I saw her."

"She is just the same, Madam," replied the maid. "She did not seem very

cheerful when she went out, and has been crying a good deal to-day."

Mrs. Hazleton was better satisfied, and paused for an instant to think; but

the maid interrupted her cogitations by saying--"I think I may wake my lady

now, if you please to come up, Madam."

"Oh, dear, no," replied Mrs. Hazleton. "Do not wake her. I will go in

quietly and sit with her till she wakes naturally. It is a pity to deprive

her of one moment's calm sleep. You needn't come, you needn't come. I will

ring for you when your mistress wakes;" and she quietly ascended the

stairs, though the maid offered some civil remonstrances to her undertaking

the task of watching by her sleeping mistress.

The most careful affection could not have prompted greater precautions in

opening the door of the sick lady's chamber, than those which were taken by

Mrs. Hazleton. It was a good solid door, however, well seasoned, and well

hung, and moved upon its hinges without noise. She closed it with the same

care, and then with a soft tread glided up to the side of the bed.

Lady Hastings was sleeping profoundly and quietly; and as she lay in an

attitude of easy grace, a shadow of her youthful beauty seemed to have

returned, and all the traces of after cares and anxiety were banished for

the time. On the table, near the bed-head, stood the vial of medicine, with

the glass and spoon; and Mrs. Hazleton eyed it for a moment or two without

touching it. She saw that she had hit the color exactly; but the quantity

in that vial, and the one she had with her, was somewhat different. She

felt puzzled and doubtful. She asked herself--"Would the difference be

discovered when the time came for giving her the medicine?" and a certain

degree of trepidation seized her. But she was bold, and said to

herself--"They will never see it. They suspect nothing. They will never see

it." She took the vial from her pocket, and held it for an instant or two

in her hand. Again a doubt and hesitation took possession of her. She gazed

at the sleeper with a haggard eye. The face was so calm, so sweet, so

gentle in expression, that the pleasant look perhaps did move her a little

with remorse. The voice within said again, and again, "Forbear!" She tried

to deafen herself against it, or to fill the ear of conscience with

delusive sounds. "She is dying," she said--"She will die--she cannot

recover. It is but taking away a few short hours, in order to stop that

fatal marriage, which shall never be. I am becoming a fool--a weak

irresolute fool."

Just as she thus thought, Lady Hastings moved uneasily, as if to wake from

her slumber. That moment was decisive. With a hurried hand, and quick as

light, Mrs. Hazleton changed the two vials, and concealed the one which she

had taken away.

Then it was, probably for the first time, that all the awful consequences

of the deed, for time and for eternity, flashed upon her. The scales fell

from her eyes: no longer passion, or mortified vanity, or irritated pride,

or disappointed love, distorted the objects or concealed their forms. She

stood there consciously a murderer. She trembled in every limb; and, unable

to support herself, sunk down in the chair that stood near.

Had Lady Hastings slept on, Mrs. Hazleton would have been saved; for her

impulse was immediately to reverse the very act she had done--all would

have been saved--all to whom that act brought wretchedness. But the

movement of the chair--the sound of the vial touching the marble table--the

rustle of the thick silk--dispelled what remained of slumber, and Lady

Hastings opened her eyes drowsily, and looked round. At the very moment she

would have given worlds to recall it. The deed became irrevocable. The

barrier of Fate fell: it was amongst the things done; it was written in the

book of God as a great crime committed. Nothing remained but to insure,

that the end she aimed at would be obtained; that the evil consequences, in

this world at least, should be averted from herself. There was a terrible

struggle to recover her self-command--a wrestling of the spirit--against

the turbulent and fierce emotions which shook the body. She was still much

agitated when Lady Hastings recognized her and began to speak; but her

determination was taken to obtain the utmost that she could from the act

she had committed--to have the full price of her crime. She was no Judas

Iscariot, to be content with the thirty pieces of silver for the innocent

blood, and then hang herself in despair. Oh no! She had sold her own soul,

and she would have its price.

But yet, as I have said, the struggle was terrible, and lasted longer than

usual with her.

"Dear me, my kind friend, is that you?" said Lady Hastings. "Have you been

here long? I did not hear you come in."

Her words, and her tone, were gentle and affectionate. All the coldness and

the sharpness of the preceding day seemed to have passed away, and to have

been forgotten; but words and tone were equally jarring to the feelings of

Mrs. Hazleton. The sharpest language, the most angry manner, would have

been a relief to her. They would have afforded her some sort of

strength--some sort of support.

It is painful enough to hear sweet music when we are very sad. I have known

it rise almost to agony; but the tones of friendship and regard, of

gentleness and tender kindness, to the ear of hatred and malice, must be

more terrible still.

"I have been here but a moment," said Mrs. Hazleton, gloomily--almost

peevishly. "I suppose it was my coming in woke you; but I am sure I made as

little noise as possible."

"Why, what is the matter?" said Lady Hastings. "You look quite pale and

agitated, and you speak quite crossly."

"Your sudden waking startled me," said Mrs. Hazleton; "and, besides, you

looked so ill, my dear friend. I almost thought you were dead till you

began to move."

There was malice in the sentence, simple as it seemed, and it had its

effect. Nervous, hypochondriac, Lady Hastings was frightened at the mere

sound, and her heart beat strangely at the very thought of being supposed

dead. It seemed to her to augur that she was very ill; that she was much

worse than her friends allowed her to believe; that they anticipated her

speedy dissolution, and she remained silent and sad for several minutes,

giving Mrs. Hazleton time to recover herself completely. She was a little

piqued too at the abruptness of Mrs. Hazleton's manner. Neither the speech,

nor the mode, nor the speaker, pleased her; and she replied at

length--"Nevertheless, I feel a good deal better to-day. I have slept well

for, I dare say, a couple of hours; and my dear child Emily has been with

me all the morning. I must say she bears opposition and contradiction very

sweetly."

She knew that would not please Mrs. Hazleton, and she laid some emphasis on

the words by way of retaliation. It was petty, but it was quite in her

character. "Now I think of it," she added, "you promised to tell me what

you discovered in regard to Marlow's relationship to Lord Launceston. I

find--but never mind. Tell me what you have found out."

Mrs. Hazleton hesitated. The first impulse was to tell a lie--to assert

that Marlow was not the old earl's heir; but there was something in Lady

Hastings' manner which made her suspect that she had received more certain

information, and she made up her mind to speak the truth.

"It is very true," she said; "Mr. Marlow is the old lord's nearest male

relation, and heir to his title. I suspect," she added with a silly

sounding laugh, "you have found this out yourself, my dear friend, and have

made your peace with Emily, by withdrawing your opposition to her

marriage."

Her heart was very bitter at that moment; for she really did suspect all

that she said. The idea presented itself to her mind (producing a feeling

of fierce disappointment), of all her efforts being rendered fruitless, her

dark schemes frustrated, her cunning contrivances without effect, at the

very moment when the crime, by which she proposed to insure success, was so

far consummated as to be beyond recall. She was relieved on that score in a

moment.

"Oh dear no," cried Lady Hastings. "I promised you, my dear friend, that I

would say nothing till I saw you, and I have said nothing either to my

husband or Emily. But I will of course now tell her all immediately, and I

do confess it will give me greater satisfaction than any act of my whole

life, to withdraw the opposition to her marriage which has made her so

miserable, and to bid her be happy with the man of her own choice--an

excellent good young man he is too. He has been laboring, I find, for the

last fortnight or three weeks, night and day, in our service, and has

detected the horrible conspiracy by which my husband was deprived of his

rights and property. I shall tell Emily, with great joy, as soon as ever

she comes back, that were it for nothing but this zeal in our cause, I

would receive him joyfully as my son-in-law."

"You had better wait till to-morrow morning," said Mrs. Hazleton, in a cold

but significant tone.

"Oh dear no," said Lady Hastings, somewhat petulantly, "I have waited quite

long enough--perhaps too long. You surely would not have me protract my

child's anxiety and sorrow unnecessarily. No, I will tell her the moment

she returns. She read me part of a letter from Marlow to-day, which shows

me that he has lost no time in seeking to serve us and make us happy, and I

will lose no time in making my child and him happy also."

"As you please," replied Mrs. Hazleton; "I only thought that in this

changeable world, there are so many unexpected things occurring between one

day and another, it might be well for you to pause and consider a

little--in order, I mean, that after-thought may not show you reason to

withdraw your consent, as you now withdraw your objection."

"My consent once given, shall never be withdrawn," replied Lady Hastings,

in a determined tone.

Mrs. Hazleton looked at the vial by the bedside, and then at her watch.

"You had better avoid all agitation," she said, "and at all events before

you speak with Emily, take a dose of the medicine, which Short tells me he

has given you to soothe and calm your spirits--shall I give you one now?"

"No, I thank you," replied Lady Hastings, briefly; "not at present."

"Is it not the time?" said Mrs. Hazleton, looking at her watch again: "the

good man told me you were to take it very regularly."

"But he told me," replied Lady Hastings, "that nobody was to give it to me

but Emily, and she will be back at the right time, I am sure. What o'clock

is it?"

"Past five," replied Mrs. Hazleton, advancing the hour a little.

"Then it wants three quarters of an hour to the time," said Lady Hastings,

"and Emily has only gone to take a walk. We are expecting Marlow to-night,

so she will not go far I am sure."

Mrs. Hazleton fell into profound thought. In proposing to give Lady

Hastings the portion herself, she had deviated a little from her original

plan. She had intended all along, that the mortal draught should be

administered by the hand of Emily, and she had only been tempted to depart

from that purpose by the fear of Lady Hastings withdrawing her opposition

to her daughter's marriage with Marlow before the deed was fully

accomplished. There was no help for it, however. She was obliged to take

her chance of the result; and while she mused at that moment, vague

notions--what shall I call them?--not exactly schemes or purposes, but

rather dreams of turning suspicion upon Emily herself, of making men

believe--suspect, even if they could not prove--that the daughter knowingly

deprived the mother of life, crossed her imagination. She meditated rather

longer than was quite decorous, and then suddenly recollecting herself she

said, "By the way, has Emily yet condescended to particularize her

astounding charges against your poor friend? I am really anxious to hear

them, and although I confess that the matter has afforded me some

amusement, it has brought painful feelings and doubts with it too. I have

sometimes fancied, my dear friend, that there is a slight aberration in

your poor Emily's mind, and I can account for her conduct in this instance

by no other mode. You know her grandfather, Sir John, had moments when he

was hardly sane. I have heard your own good father declare upon one

occasion, that Sir John was as mad as a lunatic. Tell me then, has Emily

brought forward any proofs, or alluded to these accusations since I saw

you? You said she would explain all in a few hours."

"She has not as yet explained all," replied Lady Hastings, "but I cannot

deny that she has alluded to the charges, and repeated them all

distinctly. She said that the delay had been rather longer than she

expected; but that as soon as Mr. Dixwell came, every thing should be

told."

"The suspense is unpleasant," said Mrs. Hazleton, somewhat sarcastically;

"I trust the young lady does not play with the feelings of her lover as she

does with those of her friends, otherwise I should pity Marlow."

Lady Hastings was a good deal nettled. "I do not think he much deserves

your pity," she replied; "and besides, I think he is quite satisfied with

Emily's conduct, as I am also. I am quite confident she has good reason for

what she says, my dear Madam--not that I mean to assert that the charges

are true, by any means--she may be mistaken, you know--she may be

misinformed--but that she brings them in good faith, and fully believes

that she can prove them distinctly, I do not for a moment doubt. If she is

wrong, nobody will be more grieved, or more ready to make atonement than

herself; but whether she is right or wrong, remains to be proved."

"All that I have to request then is," said Mrs. Hazleton, "that you will be

kind enough to let me know, immediately you are yourself informed, what are

the specific charges, and upon what grounds they rest. That they must be

false, I know; and therefore I shall give myself no uneasiness about them.

All I regret is, that you should be troubled about what must be frivolous

and absurd. Nevertheless, I must beg you to let me hear immediately."

"Sir Philip will do that," replied Lady Hastings, coldly. "If Emily is

right in her views, the matter will require the intervention of a man. It

will be too serious for a woman to deal with."

"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Hazleton, with an air of offended dignity. "Good

morning, my dear Lady;" and she quitted the room.

She paused upon the broad staircase for two or three minutes, leaning upon

the balustrade in deep thought; but when she descended to the hall, she

asked a servant who stood there if Mistress Emily had returned. The man

replied in the negative, and she then inquired for Sir Philip, asking to

see him.

The servant said he was in his library, and proceeded to announce her. She

followed him so closely as to enter the room almost at the same moment, and

beheld Sir Philip Hastings, with his head leaning on his hand, sitting at

the table and gazing earnestly down upon it. There was a book before him,

but it was closed.

"I beg pardon for intruding, my dear sir," said Mrs. Hazleton, "but I

wished to ask if you know where Emily is. I want to speak with her."

"I know nothing about her," said Sir Philip, abruptly; and then muttered to

himself, "would I knew more."

"I thought I saw her in the fields as I came," said Mrs. Hazleton,

"gathering flowers and herbs--she is fond of botany, I believe."

"I know not," said Sir Philip, recovering himself a little. "Pray be

seated. Madam--I have not attended much to her studies lately."

"Thank you, I must go," said Mrs. Hazleton. "Perhaps I shall meet her as I

drive along. Do not let me interrupt you, do not let me interrupt you;" and

she quietly quitted the room.

"Gathering herbs!" said Sir Philip Hastings, "what new whim is this?"

CHAPTER XLVII.

Emily Hastings was not three hundred yards from the house when Mrs.

Hazleton drove away from the house door. She had never been more than three

hundred yards from it during that day. She had gathered no herbs, she had

wandered through no fields; but, at her mother's earnest request, she had

gone out to breathe the fresh air for half an hour, and had ascended

through the gardens to a little terrace on the hill, where she had

continued to walk up and down under the shade of some tall trees; had seen

Mrs. Hazleton arrive, and saw her depart. The scene which the terrace

commanded was very beautiful in itself, and the house below, the

well-cultivated gardens, a fountain here and there, neat hedge-rows, and

trim, well-ordered fields, gave the whole an air of home comfort, and

peaceful affluence, such as few countries but England can display.

I have shown, or should have shown, that Emily was somewhat of an

impressible character, and the brightness and the pleasant character of the

scene had its usual effect in cheering. Certainly, to any one who had stood

near her, looking over even that fair prospect, she herself would have been

the loveliest object in it. Every year had brought out some new beauty in

her face, and without diminishing one charm of extreme youth, had expanded

her fair form into womanly richness. The contour of every limb was perfect:

the whole in symmetry complete; and her movements, as she walked to and

fro, upon the terrace, were all full of that easy, floating grace, which

requires a combination of youth and health, and fine proportion, and a

pure, high mind. If there was a defect it was that she was somewhat pale

that day; for she had not slept at all during the preceding night from

agitated feelings, and busy thoughts that would not rest. But the slight

degree of languor, which watching and anxiety had given, was not without

its own peculiar charm, and the liquid brightness of her eyes seemed but

the more dazzling for the drooping of the eyelid, with its long sweeping

fringe.

There was a mixture, too, strange as it may seem to say so, of sadness and

cheerfulness, in the expression of her face that day--perhaps I should say

an alternation of the two expressions; but the change from the one to the

other was too rapid for distinctness; and the well of feelings from which

the expressions flowed, was of very mingled waters. The scene of death and

suffering which she had lately witnessed at the cottage, her father's wild

and gloomy manner, her mother's sickness, the displeasure of one parent,

however unjust, and the opposition of another, to her dearest wishes,

however unreasonable, naturally produced anxiety and sadness. But then

again, on the other hand, Marlow's letter had cheered and comforted her

much; the prospect of seeing him so speedily, rejoiced her more than she

had even anticipated, and the certainty that a few short hours would remove

for ever all doubts as to her conduct, her thoughts and her feelings, from

the mind of both her parents, and especially from that of her father, gave

her strength and happy confidence.

Poor Emily! How lovely she looked as she walked along there with the ever

varying expressions fluttering over her face, and her rich nut brown hair,

free and uncovered, floating in curls on the sportive breath of the breeze.

When first she came out the general tone of her feelings was sad; but the

bright hopes seemed to gain vigor in the open air, and her mind fixed more

and more gladly on the theme of Marlow's letter. As it did so she extracted

fresh motives of comfort from it. He had given her many details in regard

to his late proceedings. He had openly and plainly spoken of the conduct of

Mrs. Hazleton, and told her he could prove the facts which he asserted. He

had not even hinted at an injunction to secrecy, and although her first

impulse had been to wait for his arrival and let him explain the whole

himself, yet, as it was now getting late in the day, and he had not

come--as the obligation to secrecy, laid upon her by John Ayliffe, might

not be removed till the following morning, and her mother was evidently

anxious and uneasy for want of all explanations--Emily thought she might be

fully justified in reading more of Marlow's letter to Lady Hastings than

she had hitherto done, and showing her that she had asserted nothing

without reasonable cause. The sight of Mrs. Hazleton's carriage arriving

confirmed her in this intention. She knew that fair lady to possess very

great influence over her mother's mind. She believed that influence to have

been always exerted balefully, and she judged it better, much better, to

cut it short at once, rather than suffer it to endure even for another day.

When she saw the carriage drive away, then, she returned rapidly to the

house, went to her room to get Marlow's letter, and then proceeded to her

mother's chamber.

"Mrs. Hazleton has been here, my love," said Lady Hastings, as soon as

Emily approached, "and really, she has been very strange and disagreeable.

She seems not to have the slightest consideration for me; but even in my

weak state, says every thing that can agitate and annoy me."

"I trust, my dear mother, that you will see her no more," said Emily. "The

full proofs of what I told you concerning her, I cannot yet give; but

Marlow lays me under no injunction to secrecy, and I have brought his

letter to read you the part in which he speaks of her. That will show you

quite enough to convince you that Mrs. Hazleton should never be permitted

within these doors again."

"Oh read it, pray read it, my dear," said Lady Hastings. "I am all anxiety

to know the facts; for really one does not know how to behave to this

woman, and I feel in a very awkward position towards her."

Emily sat down by the bedside and read, word for word, all that Marlow had

written in reference to Mrs. Hazleton, which was interspersed, here and

there, with many kindly and respectful expressions towards Lady Hastings

and her husband, which he knew well would be gratifying to her whom he

addressed. His statements were all clear and precise, and from them Lady

Hastings learned he had obtained proof, from various different sources,

that her seeming friend had knowingly and willingly supplied John Ayliffe

with the means of carrying on his fraudulent suit against Sir Philip

Hastings: that she had been his counsel and cooperator in all his

proceedings, and had suggested many of the most criminal steps he had

taken. The last passage which Emily read was remarkable: "To see into the

dark abyss of that woman's heart, my dearest Emily," he said, "is more than

I can pretend to do; but it is perfectly clear that she has been moved in

all her proceedings for some years, by bitter personal hatred towards Sir

Philip, Lady Hastings, and yourself. Mere self-interest--to which she is by

no means insensible on ordinary occasions--has been sacrificed to the

gratification of malice, and she has even gone so far as to place herself

in a situation of considerable peril for the purpose of ruining your

excellent father, and making your mother and yourself unhappy. What offence

has been committed by any of your family to merit such persevering and

ruthless hatred, I cannot tell. I only know that it must have been

unintentional; but that it has not been the less bitterly revenged. Perhaps

the disclosures which must be made as soon as I return, may give us some

insight into the cause; but at present I can only tell you the result."

"My dear Emily," said Lady Hastings, "your father should know this

immediately. He has been very sad and gloomy since his return. I really

cannot tell what is the matter with him; but something weighs upon his

spirits, evidently; but this news will give him relief, or, at all events,

will divert his thoughts. It was very natural, my dear girl, that you

should first tell your mother, but I really think that we must now take

him into our councils."

"I will go and ask him to come here, at once," said Emily. "I think my dear

father has not understood me rightly lately, and has chilled me by cold

looks and words when I would fain have spoken to him, and poured my whole

thoughts into his bosom. Oh, I shall be glad to do any thing to regain his

confidence; and although I know it must be regained in a very, very short

space of time, yet I would gladly do any thing to prevent its being

withheld from me even a moment longer."

She took a step towards the door as she spoke; but Lady Hastings,

unhappily, called her back. "Stay, my Emily," she said. "Come hither, my

dear child; I have something to say that will cheer you and comfort you,

and give you strength to meet any little crosses of your father's with

patience and resignation. He has been sorely tried, and is much troubled.

But I was going to say, dear Emily," and she threw her arms round her

daughter's neck as she leaned over her, "that I have been thinking much of

all that was said the other day, in regard to your marriage with Marlow. I

see that your heart is set upon it, and that you can only be happy in a

union with him. I know him to be a good and excellent young man; and after

all that he has done to serve us, I must not interpose your wishes any

longer; although, perhaps, I might have chosen differently for you had the

choice rested with me. I give you, therefore, my full and free consent,

Emily, and trust you will be as happy as you deserve, my dear girl. I think

you might very well have made a higher alliance, but----"

"But none that would have made me half so happy," replied Emily, embracing

her mother. "Oh, dear mother, if you could know the load you take from my

heart, you would be amply repaid for any sacrifice of opinion you make to

your child's happiness. I cannot conceive any situation more painful to be

placed in than a conflict between two duties. My positive promise to

Marlow, my obedience to you, are now reconciled, and I thank you a thousand

thousand times for having thus relieved me from so terrible a struggle."

The tears rose in her eyes as she spoke, and Lady Hastings made her sit

down by her bedside, saying--"Nay, my dear child, do not suffer yourself to

be so much agitated. I did not know till the other day," she said, feeling

some self-reproach at having been brought to play the part she had acted

lately, "I did not know till the other day that you were really so much in

love, my Emily. But I have known what such feelings are, and can sympathize

with you. Indeed I should have yielded long ago if it had not been for the

persuasions of that horrid Mrs. Hazleton. She always stood in the way of

every thing I wanted to do, and would not even let me know the truth about

your real feelings--pretending all the time to be my friend too!"

"She has been a friend to none of us, I fear," replied Emily, "and to me

especially an enemy; although I cannot at all tell what I ever did to merit

such pertinacious hatred as she seems to feel towards me."

"Do you know, my child," said Lady Hastings, with a meaning smile, "I have

been sometimes inclined to think that she wished to marry Marlow herself?"

Emily started and looked aghast, and then that delicate feeling, that

sensitiveness for the dignity of woman's nature, which none, I suspect, but

woman's heart can clearly comprehend, caused her cheek to glow like a rose

with shame at the very thought of a woman loving unloved, and seeking

unsought. She felt, however, at once, that there might be--that there

probably was--much truth in what her mother said, that she had touched the

true point, and had discovered one at least of the causes of Mrs.

Hazleton's strange conduct. Nevertheless, she answered, "Oh, dear mother, I

hope it is not so. Sure I am that Marlow would never trifle with any

woman's love, and I cannot think that Mrs. Hazleton would so degrade

herself as even to dream of a man who never dreamt of her; besides, she is

old enough to be his mother."

"Not quite, my child, not quite," replied Lady Hastings. "She is, I

believe, younger than I am; and though old enough to be your mother, Emily,

I could not have been Marlow's, unless I had married at ten years old.

Besides, she is very beautiful, and she knows it, and may have thought that

such beauty as hers, and her great wealth, might well make up for a small

difference of years."

"Perhaps you are right," replied Emily, thoughtfully, as many a

circumstance flashed upon her memory, which had seemed to her dark and

mysterious in times past; but to which the cause suggested by her mother

seemed now to afford a key. "But if it was me, only, she hated," added

Emily, "why should she so persecute my father and yourself?"

"Perhaps," replied Lady Hastings, speaking with a clear-sighted wisdom

which she seldom evinced, "perhaps because she knew that the most terrible

blows are those which are aimed at us through those we love. Besides, one

cannot tell what offence your father may have given. He is very plain

spoken, and not accustomed to deal very tenderly. Now Mrs. Hazleton is not

well pleased to hear plain truths, nor to bear with patience any sharpness

or abruptness of manner. Moreover, my child, I have heard that it was old

Sir John Hastings' wish, when we were all young and free, that your father

should marry Mrs. Hazleton. But he preferred another, perhaps less worthy

of him in every respect."

"Oh, no, no," cried Emily, with eager affection. "More worthy of him a

thousand times in all ways. More good--more kind--more beautiful."

"Nay, nay, flatterer," said Lady Hastings, with a smile. "I was well enough

to look at once, Emily, and more to his taste. That is enough. My glass

tells me clearly that I cannot compete with Mrs. Hazleton now. But it is

growing dark, my dear, I must have lights."

"I will ring for them, and then go and seek my father," replied Emily.

She rang, and the maid appeared from the anteroom, just as Lady Hastings

was saying that it was time to take her medicine. Emily took up the vial

and the spoon, poured out the quantity prescribed, with a steady hand, very

unlike that with which Mrs. Hazleton had held the same bottle an hour

before, and having put the dose into a wine-glass, handed it to her mother.

"Bring lights," said Lady Hastings, addressing her maid; and the moment

after, she raised the glass to her lips, and drank the contents.

"It tastes very odd, Emily," she said, "I think it must be spoiled by the

heat of the room."

"Indeed," said Emily. "That is very strange. The last vial kept quite well.

But Mr. Short will be here to-night, and we will make him send some more."

She paused for a moment or two, and then added, "Now, shall I go for my

father?"

"No," said Lady Hastings, somewhat faintly; "wait till the girl comes back

with the lights."

She was silent for a few moments, and then raised herself suddenly on her

arm, saying in a tone of great alarm, "Emily, Emily! I feel very ill.--Good

God, I feel very ill!"

Emily sprang to her side and threw her arm round her; but the next instant

Lady Hastings uttered a fearful scream, like the cry of a sea-bird, and her

head fell back upon her daughter's arm.

Emily rang the bell violently: ran to the door and shrieked loudly for aid;

for she saw too well that her mother was dying.

The maid, several of the other servants, and Sir Philip Hastings himself,

rushed into the room. Lights were brought: Mr. Short was sent for; but ere

the servant had well passed the gates, Lady Hastings, after a few

convulsive sobs, had yielded up her spirit.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

When the surgeon entered the room of Lady Hastings there was a profound

silence. Sir Philip Hastings was standing by his wife's bedside, motionless

as a statue; gazing with a knitted brow and fixed stony eye upon the

features of her whom he had so well and constantly loved. Emily lay

fainting upon the floor, with her head supported by one of the maids, while

another tried to recall her to life. Two more servants were in the room,

but they, like all the rest, remained silent in presence of the awful scene

before them. The windows were not yet closed, and the faint, struggling,

gray twilight came in, and mingled sombrely with the pale light of the wax

candles, giving even a more deathlike hue to the face of the corpse, and

throwing strange crossing lights and shades upon features which remained

convulsed even after the agony of death was past.

"Good God! Sir Philip, what is this I hear?" exclaimed Mr. Short before he

caught the whole particulars of the scene.

Sir Philip Hastings made no answer. He did not even seem to hear; and the

surgeon advanced to the bedside, and gazed for an instant on the face of

Lady Hastings. He took her hand in his. It was still warm; but when he put

his fingers on her wrist, no pulse vibrated beneath his touch. The heart,

too, was quite still: not a flutter indicated a lingering spark of

vitality. The breath was gone; and though the surgeon sought on the

dressing-table for a small mirror, and applied it to the lips, it remained

undimmed. He shook his head sadly; but yet he made some efforts. Ho took a

vial of essence from his pocket, and applied it to the nostrils; he opened

a vein, and a few drops of blood issued from it, but stopped immediately;

and several other experiments he tried, that not a lingering doubt might

remain of death having taken possession completely.

At length he ceased, saying, "It is in vain. How did this happen? It is

very strange. There was not an indication of such an event yesterday. She

was decidedly better."

"And so she was this morning, sir," said Lady Hastings' maid; "she slept

quite well too, sir, before Mrs. Hazleton came."

Sir Philip Hastings remained profoundly silent; but Mr. Short gave a sudden

start at the name of Mrs. Hazleton, and asked the maid when that lady had

left her mistress.

"Not half an hour before her death, sir," replied the maid; "and even for a

little time after she was gone, my lady seemed quite well and cheerful with

Mistress Emily."

"Were you with her when she was seized so suddenly?" asked the surgeon.

"No, sir," said the maid. "No one was with her but Mistress Emily. My lady

had sent me away for lights; but just when I was coming up the stairs, I

heard my young lady ringing the bell violently, and screaming for help, and

in two minutes after I came in my lady was dead."

"I must hear the first symptoms," said Mr. Short, "and this dear young lady

needs attending to. If I know her right, this shock will well nigh kill

her."

He moved towards Emily as he spoke, but in passing across, his eye lighted

upon the vial which was standing upon the table at the bedside, with the

spoon and wine-glass which had been used in administering the medicine.

Something in the appearance of the bottle seemed to strike him suddenly,

and he raised it sharply and held it to the candle. "Good God!" exclaimed

Mr. Short; "Good God!" and his face turned as pale as death, and a fit of

trembling seized upon him.

It was several moments before he uttered another word. He put his hand to

his brow, and seemed to think deeply and anxiously. Then he examined the

bottle again, took out the cork, held it to his nostrils, tasted a single

drop poured upon the end of his finger, and shook his head sadly and

solemnly. Every eye but those of the maid, who was supporting Emily's head,

was now turned upon him. There was something in his manner so unusual, so

strange, that even the attention of Sir Philip Hastings was attracted by

it; and he looked gloomily at the surgeon for a moment, as if in a dreamy

wonder at his proceedings.

At length, Mr. Short spoke again. "Can any body tell me," he said, "when

Lady Hastings took a dose of this stuff?"

No one remarked the irreverent term which he applied to the contents of the

vial; for every one who listened to him would probably have given it the

same name, had it been a mithridate; but the maid of the deceased lady

replied at once, "Only a few minutes before she died, sir. I saw her take

it myself."

"Who gave it to her?" demanded the surgeon, sternly.

"My young lady, sir," answered the maid, "just before I went for the

lights, and I am sure she did not give her a drop too much of it; for she

measured it out carefully in the spoon before she put it into the glass."

Mr. Short remained silent again, and Sir Philip Hastings spoke for the

first time with a great effort.

"What is the matter, sir?" he asked, gloomily; "you seem confounded,

thunder-struck. What has befallen to draw your eyes from that?" and he

pointed to the bed of his dead wife.

"I am bound to say, Sir Philip," replied Mr. Short, "that it is my belief

that the dose given to Lady Hastings from that bottle, has been the cause

of her death. In a word, I believe it to be poison."

Sir Philip Hastings gazed in his face with a wild look of horror. His teeth

chattered in his head, his whole frame shook visibly to the eyes of those

around, but he uttered not a word, and it was the maid who answered,

exclaiming in a shrill voice, "Oh, how horrible! How could you send my lady

such stuff?"

"I never sent it to her, woman!" said Mr. Short, sternly; "if you had eyes

you would see that it is not of the same color, nor has it the same taste

of that which I sent. It is different in every respect; and if no other

proof were wanting that which I sent Lady Hastings was harmless, it would

be sufficient to say, that the last vial I brought was delivered to you

yourself yesterday quite full, that Lady Hastings ought to have taken four

or five doses of that medicine between that time and this, and----"

"Oh, yes!" exclaimed the maid, interrupting him, "she took it quite

regularly. I saw Mistress Emily give her three doses myself."

"Well, did those hurt her?" asked Mr. Short, sharply.

"I can't say they did," replied the woman, "indeed she always seemed better

a little while after taking them."

"Well that shows that this is not the same," said Mr. Short; "besides, this

bottle has never come out of my surgery. I always choose mine perfectly

clear and white, that I may be enabled to see if the medicine is at all

troubled or not. This has a green tinge, and must have come from some

common druggist's, and the stuff that it contains must be strictly

analyzed."

As he spoke, Sir Philip Hastings strode up to him, grasped his hand, and

wrung it hard, saying in a hollow husky tone, and pointing to the bottle,

"What is it you mean? What is it all about? What is that?"

"Poison! Sir Philip," replied Mr. Short, moved by the feelings of the

moment beyond all his ordinary prudence; "poison! and I very much fear that

it has been administered to your poor lady intentionally."

"Gathering herbs!--gathering herbs!" screamed Sir Philip Hastings, like a

madman; and tearing the hair out of his head, he rushed away from the room,

and locked himself into his library.

No one could tell to what his words alluded, nor did they trouble

themselves much to discover; for every one at once concluded that the shock

of his wife's sudden death, and the discovery of its terrible cause, had

driven him insane.

"Oh, do run after my master, sir," cried the maid; "he has gone into the

library, I heard him bang the door."

"Has he got any arms there?" asked Mr. Short, "there used to be pistols at

the Hall."

"No, sir, no," exclaimed one of the house-maids, "they are not there. They

are in his dressing-room out yonder."

"Well, then, I will leave him alone for the present," said the surgeon;

"here is one who demands more immediate care. Poor young lady! If she

should discover, in her present state of grief, how her mother has died,

and that her hand has been employed to produce such a catastrophe, it will

destroy either her life or her intellect."

"But who could have done it, sir?" exclaimed Lady Hastings' maid.

"Never you mind that for the present," said Mr. Short; "I have my

suspicions; but they are no more than suspicions at present. You stay with

me here, and let the other woman carry your poor young lady to her room. I

will be with her presently, and will give her what will do her good. One

of you, as soon as possible, send me up a man-servant--a groom would be

best."

His orders were obeyed promptly; for he spoke with a tone of decision and

command which the terrible circumstances of the moment enabled him to

assume; although in ordinary circumstances he was a man of mild and gentle

character.

As soon as poor Emily was borne away to her own chamber, Mr. Short turned

to the maid again, inquiring, "How long had Mistress Hazleton gone when

your mistress was seized with these fatal convulsions?"

"About half an hour, sir," said the maid. "It couldn't have been longer.

Mrs. Hazleton came when my lady was asleep, and went in alone, saying she

would not disturb her."

"Ha!" cried the surgeon; "was she with her for any time alone?"

"All the time that she staid, sir," replied the maid; "for I did not like

to go in, and Mistress Emily was walking on the terrace up the hill."

"I suppose then you cannot tell how long Mrs. Hazleton remained alone with

your lady before she woke?"

"Yes, I can pretty nearly, sir," answered the maid, "for though Mrs.

Hazleton told me not to come in with her, and said she would ring when my

lady waked, I came after her into the anteroom, and sat there all the time.

For about five minutes, or it might be ten, all was quiet enough; but at

the end of that time I heard my lady and Mrs. Hazleton begin to speak."

"You heard no other sounds previously?" asked the surgeon.

"Nothing but the rustle of Mrs. Hazleton's gown, as she moved about once or

twice," said the maid, "and of that I can't be rightly sure."

"You did not by chance look through the key-hole?" asked Mr. Short.

"No, that I didn't," said the maid, tossing her head, "I never did such a

thing in my life."

"Well, well. Get me a sheet of paper," replied the surgeon, "and a pen and

ink--oh, they are here are they?" But before he could sit down to write, a

groom crept in through the half-open door, and received orders from the

surgeon to saddle a horse instantly and return. Mr. Short then sat down and

wrote as follows:

"MR. ATKINSON:--As you are high constable of Hartwell, I write as a justice

of the peace for the county of ----, to authorize and require you to follow

immediately the carriage of The Honorable Mistress Hazleton, to apprehend

that lady and to keep her in your safe custody, taking care that her person

be immediately searched by some proper person, and that any vials, bottles,

powders, or other objects whatsoever bearing the appearance of drugs or

medicines, or of having contained them, be carefully preserved, and marked

for identification. I have not time or means to fill up a regular warrant;

but I will justify you in, and be responsible for, whatever you may do to

insure that Mrs. Hazleton has no means or opportunity allowed her of

concealing or making away with any thing she has carried away from this

house, where Lady Hastings has just deceased from the effects of poison.

You had better take the fresh horse of the bearer, and lose not an instant

in overtaking the carriage."

He then signed his name just as the groom returned; but ere he gave the man

the paper he added in a postscript:

"You had better search the carriage minutely, and make any preliminary

investigation that you may think fit before I arrive. The hints given above

will be sufficient for your guidance."

"Take this paper immediately to Jenny Best's cottage," said Mr. Short to

the groom. "Ask if Mr. Atkinson is there. Should he be so, give it to him,

and let him take your horse if he requires it. Should you not find him

there, seek for him either at the house of Mr. Dixwell, or at the farm

close by. Should he be at neither of those places, follow him on to his

house near Hartwell at full speed. Do you understand?"

"Oh, quite well, sir," said the groom, who was a shrewd, keen fellow; and

he left the room without more words.

When he got down to the hall door, however, he thought he might as well

know more of his errand, and read the paper which he had received with the

butler and the footman. A brief consultation followed between them, and not

a little horror and anger was excited by the information they had gained

from the paper, for Lady Hastings had been well loved by her servants, and

Mrs. Hazleton was but little loved by any of her inferiors in station.

"Go you on, John, as fast as possible," said the footman. "I'll get a horse

and come after you as fast as possible with Harry; for this grand dame has

three servants with her, and mayn't choose to be taken easily."

"Ay, come along, come along," said the groom; "we'll run her down, I'll

warrant," and hurrying away he got to his horse's back.

In the mean time Mr. Short had proceeded to the room of poor Emily

Hastings, whom he found recovering from her fainting fit, and sobbing in

the bitterness of grief.

"Oh, Mr. Short," she said, "this is very terrible. There surely was

something wrong about that medicine, for my poor mother was taken ill the

moment she had swallowed it. She had had the same quantity three times

to-day before; but she said that it tasted strange and unpleasant. It could

not surely have been spoiled by keeping so short a time, and that could not

have killed her even if it had been so. Pray do examine it."

"I will, I will, my dear," replied Mr. Short kindly, "but I don't think

the medicine I sent could spoil, and if it did it could have no evil

effect. Now quiet yourself, my dear Mistress Emily; I am going to give you

a draught which will soothe your nerves, and fit you better to bear all

these terrible things."

He then had recourse to the little store of medicines he usually carried in

his pocket, and administered first a stimulant and then a somewhat powerful

narcotic. For about ten minutes he remained seated by Emily's bedside with

her own maid standing at the foot, and during that time the poor girl spoke

once or twice, asking anxiously after her father, and expressing a great

desire to go to him. Gradually, however, her eyelids began to droop, her

sentences remained unfinished, and, in the end, she fell into a deep and

profound sleep.

"She will not wake for six or eight hours," said Mr. Short, addressing the

maid. "But when she does wake it would be better you should be with her, my

good girl. If you like, therefore, you can go and take some rest in the

meanwhile; but order yourself to be called at the end of five hours."

"If you are quite sure that she will remain asleep, sir," said the maid, "I

will lie down, for I am sure sorrow wearies one more than work."

"She won't wake," said Mr. Short, "for six hours at least. I will now go

and see Sir Philip," and descending the stairs, he knocked at the door of

the library, thinking that probably he should find it locked. The stern

voice of Sir Philip Hastings, however, said "Come in," in a wonderfully

calm tone; and when the surgeon entered he found Sir Philip seated at the

library table, and apparently reading a Greek book, the contents of which

Mr. Short could not at all divine.

CHAPTER XLIX.

I must now follow the groom on his road, first to the cottage of good Jenny

Best, where he learned that Mr. Atkinson had gone away some five minutes

before, and then to the house of the neighboring farm, where he found the

person he sought still seated on his horse, but talking to the tenant at

the door.

"Here, Mr. Atkinson," cried the groom as he came up; "here's a note for you

from Mr. Short the surgeon--a sort of warrant, I believe; for he's a

justice of the peace, you know, as well as a surgeon. Read it quick, Mr.

Atkinson, read it quick; for it won't keep hot long; and if that woman

isn't caught I think I'll hang myself."

"Bring us a light, farmer," said Mr. Atkinson, "quickly. What is all this

about, John?"

"Why, Madam Hazleton has poisoned my lady, and she's as dead as a door

nail," said the groom, "that's all; and bad enough too. Zounds, I thought

she'd do some mischief; she was always so hard upon her horses."

"Good heaven!" exclaimed Mr. Atkinson, "you do not mean to say that she has

certainly poisoned Lady Hastings?"

"Why, Mr. Short believes it, and every one believes it," answered the

groom.

Mr. Atkinson might have endeavored to reduce the number comprised in the

term "every body" to its just proportions; but before he could do so, the

farmer returned with a light shaded from the wind by his hat; and the good

high constable of Hartwell, bending over his saddle, read hurriedly Mr.

Short's brief note.

"What's the matter? what's the matter?" cried the farmer; and great was his

surprise and consternation to hear that Lady Hastings was dead, and that

strong suspicion existed of her having been poisoned by Mrs. Hazleton.

There is a stern, dogged love of justice, however, in the English peasant,

which rises into energy and excitement; and the farmer was instantly heard

calling for his horse.

"Zounds, I'll ride with you, Atkinson," he said. "This great dame has got

so many servants, she may think fit to set the law at defiance; but she

must be taught that high people cannot poison other people any more than

low ones. But you go on; you go on. I'll catch you up, perhaps. If not,

I'll come in time, don't you be afraid."

"I'm going along too," said the groom, "and two others are coming; so if

her tall men show fight, I think we'll leather their jackets."

Away they went as fast as they could go, and to say truth, Mr. Atkinson was

not at all sorry to have some assistance; for without ever committing any

one act which could be characterized as criminal, unjust, or wrong, within

the knowledge of her neighbors, Mrs. Hazleton had somehow impressed the

minds of all who surrounded her with the conviction, that hers was a most

daring and remorseless nature. The general world received their impression

of her character--and often a false one, be it good or evil--by her greater

and more important actions: the little circle that surrounds us forms a

slower but more certain judgment from minute but often repeated traits.

On rode Mr. Atkinson and the groom, as fast as their horses could carry

them. Wherever there was turf by the roadside they galloped; and at the

rate of progression made by carriages in that day, they made sure they must

be gaining very rapidly upon the object of their pursuit. When first they

set out it was very dark; but at the end of twenty minutes, in which period

they had ridden somewhat more than four miles, the edge of the moon began

to appear above the horizon, and her light showed them well nigh another

mile on the road before them. Still no carriage was in sight, and the groom

exclaimed, "Dang it, Mr. Atkinson, we must spur on, or she will get home

before we catch her."

It is impossible to run after any thing without feeling some of the

eagerness of the fox-hound, and it is not to be denied that Mr. Atkinson

shared in some degree in the impetuous spirit of the chase with the groom.

He said nothing about it, indeed; but he made his spurs mark his horse's

sides, and on they went up the opposite slope at a quicker pace than ever.

From the top was a very considerable descent into the bottom of the valley,

in which Hartwell is situated; but the moon had not yet risen high enough

to illuminate more than half the scene, and darkness, doubly dark, seemed

to have gathered over the low grounds beneath the eyes of the two horsemen.

Mr. Atkinson thought he perceived some large object below, moving on

towards Hartwell; but he could not be sure of it till he had descended some

way down the hill, when the carriage of Mrs. Hazleton, mounting a little

rise into the moonlight, became plainly visible to the eye. The groom took

off his cap and waved it, saying, "Tally ho!" but neither he nor his

companion paused in their rapid course, but went thundering down at the

risk of their necks, and of their horses' knees. The carriage moved slowly;

the pursuers went very fast: and at the end of about four minutes they had

reached and passed the two mounted men-servants, who, as customary in those

days, rode behind the vehicle. Robberies on the highway were by no means

uncommon; so that it was the custom for the attendants upon a carriage to

travel armed, and Mrs. Hazleton's two men instantly laid their hands upon

the holsters of their pistols, when those too rapid riders passed them at

such a furious pace. Mr. Atkinson, however, was not a man to be easily

frightened from anything he undertook, and wheeling his horse sharply when

in a little advance of the coachman, he exclaimed, "In the King's name I

command you to stop. I am James Atkinson, high constable of Hartwell. You

know me, sir; and I command you in the King's name to stop!"

"Why, Master Atkinson, what is all this about?" cried the coachman. "There

is nobody but Mrs. Hazleton here. Don't you know the carriage?"

"Quite well," replied Mr. Atkinson; "but you hear what I say, and will

disobey at your peril. John, ride round to the other side, while I speak to

the lady here."

Now Mrs. Hazleton had heard the whole of this conversation, and had there

been sufficient light, Mr. Atkinson, whose eye was turned towards where she

sat, would have seen her turn deadly pale. It might naturally be supposed

that in any ordinary circumstances she would have directed her first

attention to the side from which the sounds proceeded; but so far from that

being the case, she instantly put her hand in her pocket, and was almost in

the act of throwing something into the road, when John the groom presented

himself at the window, and she stopped suddenly.

"What is it, Mr. Atkinson?" she exclaimed, turning to the other window, and

speaking in a tone of high indignation. "Why do you presume to stop my

carriage on the King's highway?"

"Because I am ordered, Madam, by lawful authority, so to do," replied Mr.

Atkinson. "I am sorry, Madam, to tell you that you must consider yourself

as a prisoner."

Mrs. Hazleton would fain have asked upon what charge; but she did not dare,

and for a moment strength and courage failed her. It was but for a moment,

however, and in the next she exclaimed in a loud and more imperious tone

than ever, "This is a pretence for robbery or insult. Drive on, coachman.

Mathew--Rogerson--clear the way!"

She reckoned wrongly, however, if she counted upon any great zeal in her

servants. The two men hesitated; for the King's name was a tower of

strength which they did not at all like to assail. Their mistress repeated

her order in an angry tone, and one of them, with habitual deference to her

commands, went so far as to cock the pistol which he now held in his hand;

but at that moment the adverse party received an accession of strength

which rendered all assistance hopeless. The other two servants of Sir

Philip Hastings came down the hill at full speed, and a gentleman, followed

by a servant, rode up from the side of Hartwell, and addressed Mr. Atkinson

by his name.

"Ah, Mr. Marlow!" said Mr. Atkinson. "You come at a very melancholy moment,

sir, and to witness a very unpleasant scene; but, nevertheless, I must

require your assistance, sir, as this lady seems inclined to resist the

law."

"What is the matter?" asked Marlow. "I hope there is no mistake here. If I

see rightly this is Mrs. Hazleton's carriage. What is she charged with?"

"Murder, sir," replied Mr. Atkinson, who had been a little irritated by the

lady's resistance, and spoke more plainly than he might otherwise have

done. "The murder of Lady Hastings by poison."

It was spoken. She heard the words clearly and distinctly. She had been

detected. Some small oversight--some accidental circumstance--some

precaution forgotten--some accidental word, or gesture, had betrayed the

dark secret, revealed the terrible crime. It was all known to men, as well

as to God, and Mrs. Hazleton sunk back in the carriage overpowered by the

agony of detection.

"Oh, ho; here come the other men," said Mr. Atkinson, as the two servants

of Sir Philip Hastings rode up. "Now, coachman, drive on till I tell you to

stop. You, John, keep close to the other window, and watch it well. I will

take care of this one. The others come behind. Mr. Marlow, you had perhaps

better ride with us for half a mile or so; for I must stop at the house of

Widow Warmington, as I have orders to make a strict search."

"Oh, take me to my own house--take me to my own house," said Mrs. Hazleton,

in a faint tone.

"I dare not venture to do that, Madam," said Mr. Atkinson; "for we are

nearly three miles distant, and accidents might happen by the way which

would defeat the ends of justice. I must have a full search made at the

very first place where I can procure lights. That will be at Mrs.

Warmington's; but she is a friend of your own, Madam, and you will be

received there with all kindness."

Mrs. Hazleton did not reply; and the carriage drove on, Mr. Atkinson

keeping a keen watch upon one window, and the groom riding close to the

other.

A few minutes brought them to the house of the shrewd widow, and the bell

was rung sharply by one of the servants. A woman servant appeared in answer

to the summons, and without asking whether her mistress was at home, or

not, Atkinson took the candle from her hand, saying, "Lend me the light for

a moment. I wish to light Mrs. Hazleton into the house. Now, Madam, will

you please to descend.--John, dismount, and come round here; assist Mrs.

Hazleton to alight, and come with us on her other side."

Mrs. Hazleton saw that she could not double or turn there. She withdrew her

hand from her pocket where she had hitherto held it, resumed her forgotten

air of dignity, and though, to say the truth, she would rather have met her

"dearest foe in heaven," than have entered that house so escorted, she

walked with a firm step and dauntless eye, with the high constable on one

side, and the groom on the other.

"They shall not see me quail," she said to herself. "They shall not see me

quail. I know the worst, and I can meet it--I have had my revenge."

In the mean time, the maid had run in haste to tell her mistress the

marvels of the scene she had just witnessed, and Mrs. Warmington had

gathered enough, without divining the whole, to rejoice her with

anticipated triumph. The arrest of Shanks the attorney on a charge of

conspiracy and forgery, had set going the hundred tongues of Rumor, few of

which had spared the name of Mrs. Hazleton; and Mrs. Warmington, at the

worst, suspected that her dear friend was implicated in the guilt of the

attorney. That, however, was sufficient to give the widow considerable

satisfaction, for she had not forgotten either some coldness and neglect

with which Mrs. Hazleton had treated her for some time, or her impatient

and insolent conduct that morning; and though upon the strength of her

plumpness, and easy manners, people looked upon Mrs. Warmington as a very

good natured person, yet fat people can be very vindictive sometimes.

"Good gracious me, my dear, what is the matter?" exclaimed Mrs. Warmington,

as the prisoner was brought in, while Mr. Atkinson, speaking to those

behind, exclaimed, "Let no one touch or approach the carriage till I

return."

Mrs. Hazleton made no answer to her dear friend's questions, and the high

constable, taking a little step forward, said, "I beg pardon, Mrs.

Warmington, for intruding into your house; but I have been ordered to

apprehend this lady, and to have her person and her carriage strictly

searched, without giving the opportunity for the concealment or destruction

of any thing. It seems to me that Mrs. Hazleton has something bulky in that

left hand pocket. As I do not like to put my hand rudely upon a lady, may I

ask you, Madam, to let me see what that pocket contains?"

Without the slightest hesitation, but with a good deal of curiosity, Mrs.

Warmington advanced at once and took hold of the rich silk brocade of the

prisoner's gown.

"Out, woman!" cried Mrs. Hazleton, with the fire flashing from her eyes;

and she struck her.

But Mrs. Warmington did not quit her hold or her purpose. "Good gracious,

what a termagant!" she exclaimed, and at once thrust her right hand into

the pocket, and drew forth the vial which had been sent by the surgeon to

Lady Hastings.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Warmington. "Why, this is the very bottle I saw

you mixing stuff in this morning, when you seemed so angry and vexed at my

coming into the still-room.--No, it isn't the same either; but it was one

very like this, only darker in the color."

"Ha!" said Mr. Atkinson. "Madam, will you have the goodness to put a mark

upon that bottle by which you can know it again?--Scratch it with a diamond

or something."

"Oh, poor I have no diamonds," said Mrs. Warmington. "My dear, will you

lend me that ring?"

Mrs. Hazleton gave her a withering glance, but made no reply; and Marlow

pointed to two peculiar spots in the glass of the bottle, saying, "By those

marks it will be known, so that it cannot be mistaken." His words were

addressed to Mr. Atkinson; for he felt disgusted and sickened by the

heartless and insulting tone of Mrs. Warmington towards her former friend.

At the sound of his voice--for she had not yet looked at him--Mrs. Hazleton

started and looked round. It is not possible to tell the feelings which

affected her heart at that moment, or to picture with the pen the varied

expressions, all terrible, which swept over her beautiful countenance like

a storm. She remembered how she had loved him. Perhaps at that moment she

knew for the first time how much she had loved him. She felt too, how

strongly love and hate had been mingled together by the fiery alchemy of

disappointment, as veins of incongruous metals have been mixed by the great

convulsions of the early earth. She felt too, at that moment, that it was

this love and this hate which had been the cause of her deepest crimes, and

all their consequences--the awful situation in which she there stood, the

lingering tortures of imprisonment, the agonies of trial, and the bitter

consummation of the scaffold.

"Oh, Marlow, Marlow," she cried--in a tone for the first time

sorrowful--"to see you mingling in these acts!"

"I have nothing to do with the present business, Mrs. Hazleton," replied

Marlow, "but I am bound to say that in consequence of information I have

procured, it would have been my duty to have caused your apprehension upon

other charges, had not this, of which I know nothing, been preferred

against you. All is discovered, madam; all is known. With a slight clue, at

first, I have pursued the intricate labyrinth of your conduct for the last

two years to its conclusion, and every thing has been made plain as day."

"You, Marlow, you?" cried Mrs. Hazleton, fixing her eyes steadfastly upon

him, and then adding, as he bowed his head in token of assent, "but all is

not known, even to you. You shall know all, however, before I die; and

perhaps to know all may wring your heart, hard though it be. But what am I

talking of?" she continued, her face becoming suddenly suffused with

crimson, and her fine features convulsed with rage. "All is discovered, is

it? And you have done it? What matters it to me, then, whose heart is

wrung--or what becomes of you, or me, or any one? A drop more or less is

nothing in the overflowing well. Why should I struggle longer? Why should I

hide any thing? Why should I fly from this charge to meet another? I did

it--I poisoned her--I put the drug by her bedside. It is all true--I did it

all--I have had my revenge as far as it could be obtained, and now do with

me what you like. But remember, Marlow, remember, if Emily Hastings marries

you, she does it with a mother's curse upon her head--a curse that will

fall upon her heart like a milldew, and wither it for ever--a curse that

will dry up the source of all fond affections, blacken the brightest hours,

and embitter the purest joys--a dying mother's curse! She knows it--she has

heard it--it can never be recalled. I have put that beyond fate. Ha ha! It

is upon you both; and if you venture to unite your unhappy destinies, may

that curse cling to you and blast you for ever."

She spoke with all the vehemence of intense passion, breaking, for the

first time in life, through strong habitual self-control; and when she had

done, she cast herself into a chair, and covered her eyes with her hands.

She wept not; but her whole frame heaved and shivered, with the terrible

emotion that tore her heart.

In the mean time, Marlow and Mrs. Warmington and the high constable spoke

upon it, consulting what was to be done with her. The prison system of

England was at that time as bad as it could be, and those who condemned and

abhorred her the most, were anxious to spare her as long as possible the

horrors of the jail. At length, after many difficulties, and a good deal of

hesitation, Mr. Atkinson agreed, at the suggestion of Mrs. Warmington, to

leave her in the house where she then was, under the charge of a constable

to be sent for from Hartwell. There was a high upper room from which there

was no possibility of escape, with an antechamber in which the constable

could watch, and there he was determined to confine her till she could be

brought before the magistrate on the following day.

"I must have her thoroughly searched in the first place," said Mr.

Atkinson; "for she may have some more of the poison about her, and in her

present state, after all she has confessed, she is just as likely to

swallow it as not. However, Mr. Marlow, you had better, I think, ride on as

fast as possible to see Sir Philip Hastings, and tell him what has occurred

here. If I judge rightly, your presence will be very needful there."

"It will indeed," said Marlow, a sudden vague apprehension of he knew not

what, seizing upon him; "God grant I have not tarried too long already;"

and quitting the room, he sprang upon his horse's back again.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Continued from page 327.

TWO SONNETS.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

TRUTH.

For constant truth my aching spirit yearns,

And finds no comfort in a glorious cheat;

On the firm rock I wish to set my feet,

And look upon the star that changeless burns;

Yon gorgeous clouds that in the sunset glow,

With fire-wrought domes for angel-palace meet,

Beneath my gaze their surface beauties fleet;

With parting light how dull their splendors grow.

I cannot worship vapors, and the hue

That on the dove's neck flickers, as it veers,

Bewilders, but not charms me; whilst the blue

Of the clear sky gives comfort 'mid all fears,

And but to think on that unshadowed white,

The angels walk in, makes my dark path bright.

THE FUTURE.

Eternal sunshine withers; constant light

Would make the beauty of the world look wan;

The storm that sleeps with dark'ning terror on,

Leaves verdant freshness where it seemed to blight;

Most dreary is the land where comes no night,

For there the sun is chill, and slowly drawn

Round the horizon, spreads a sickly dawn,

No promise of a day more warm and bright.

Bless then the clouds and darkness, for we can

Discern with awe through them what angel faces

Watch and direct, and from their holy places

Smile with sublime benignity on man;

And dearly cherish sickness, pain, and sorrow,

As gloomy heralds of a bright to-morrow.

V.

THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE: OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.[3]

TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF H. DE.

ST. GEORGES.

VIII.--THE GARRET.

Half demented, Monte-Leone left the Duke's Hotel. His existence had become

a terrible dream, a hideous nightmare, every hour producing a new terror

and surprise. D'Harcourt was gone. He went to find Von Apsberg. "He at

least will speak. He will say something about this atrocious accusation. He

will explain the meaning of the perfidious reply of the chief of police. If

he repeated this atrocious calumny, if he persisted in thinking him guilty,

his heart would be open to Monte-Leone's blows. He would at least crush and

bury one of his enemies."

A new misfortune awaited him. The doctor was not to be found. The police

had occupied the house at the time that the Vicomte was being arrested. The

doctor had beyond a doubt been previously informed of their coming and

escaped, but his papers were seized. All the archives and documents of

Carbonarism fell into the hands of M. H----. One might have said some evil

genius guided the police and led them in their various examinations into

the invisible mines of their prey. Furniture, drawers, and all were

examined. Count Monte-Leone, when he heard of the disappearance of the

Doctor and of the seizure of his papers, felt an increase of rage. The

discovery of the archives ruined for a long time, if not for ever, the

prospects of the work to which Monte-Leone had consecrated his life. The

flight of Matheus also deprived him of any means of extricating himself

from the cloud of mystery which surrounded him, and made futile any hope of

vengeance. Taddeo alone remained, and he was protected by the oath he had

taken to the Marquise. One other deception yet awaited him. A devoted

member of the Carbonari, on the next day, came to Monte-Leone's house and

informed the Count that on the day after the Vicomte's arrest and the

escape of Matheus, a similar course had been adopted against Rovero, who

was indebted for his liberty only to information from Signor Pignana on the

night before the coming of the police. A note from Aminta told Monte-Leone

of the disappearance of Rovero. The Count was then completely at sea, and

he was abandoned by all to a horrible imputation which he could neither

avenge nor dispute. He could, therefore, only suffer and bide his time.

Resignation, doubt, and delay, were terrible punishments to his energetic

and imperative character. One hope remained, which, if realized, would

enable him to contradict all the imputations on his honor. This was, that

he would be able to share the fate of his comrades, not of Von Apsberg and

Taddeo, who had escaped, but of those who languished in the cells of _la

Force_ and the _Conciergerie_. The Count knew that the police, from the

perusal of the archives, must be aware of his position, and awaited hourly

and daily his arrest. This did not take place, though he perpetually

received anonymous letters of the most perplexing and embarrassing

character, charging him, in the grossest terms of the language, with being

a spy and a traitor to the association to which he had pledged his life and

his honor. He resolved at last to play a desperate game--to exhibit an

unheard of energy and power. He repudiated the disdainful impunity which

apparently was inflicted on him intentionally. He surrendered himself to

the police....

While Count Monte-Leone acted thus courageously, the following scene took

place in a hotel whither our readers have been previously taken.

A man apparently about thirty years old sat pale and downcast at a table,

writing with extreme rapidity. Occasionally he rested his weary head on his

hand, and his eyes wandered across the sky which he saw through a

trap-window, so usual in that room of houses known as the garret.[4] He

then glanced on the paper, and wrote down the inspirations he seemed to

have evoked from the abode of angels. He was the occupant of a garret,

which, though small, seemed so disguised by taste and luxury that the

narrow abode appeared even luxurious. The table at which the writer sat was

of Buhl, and was ornamented by vases of Sevres ware. The wooden bedstead

was hidden by a silken coverlet, and a large arm-chair occupied a great

portion of the room. On the small chimney-piece of varnished stone was a

china vase filled with magnificent flowers from hot-houses, above which

arose a superb camelia. A curtain of blue shut out the glare of the sun. It

was easy to see that female taste had presided over the arrangements of

this room. A beautiful woman really had done so. The inmate of the room was

Doctor von Apsberg. The girl of whom we have spoken was Marie d'Harcourt.

On the day of Rene's arrest, a fortnight before the one we write of, the

Doctor was alone when the secret panel was opened. Pignana suddenly

appeared before the Doctor and told him that his house as well as the

Doctor's was surrounded by suspicious looking people. Pignana therefore

advised him to go at once. Von Apsberg was about to go to his bureau and

take possession of his papers. The police did not allow him time to do so;

they knocked at that very moment at the door and entered the house before

Von Apsberg had time to leave. It will be remembered that the studio of

the Doctor in which the archives were kept, was in the third story of the

house. Matheus was, therefore, forced to fly through the opening, into

Pignana's house, and with his ear to the wall listened to the noise made by

the police, with thankfulness for the secret passage. He heard a deep voice

say, "If your Jacobin Doctor has escaped, you shall answer for it." This

was said to Mlle. Crepineau. The good maiden swore the Doctor was absent,

as she thought, or feigned to think. Another voice, with a deep southern

accent, said the following words, which the young Doctor heard with

surprise and fear:

"The one you seek is gone. If, though, you would find him, press that

copper nail which you see on the third row of books. You will find the

means of his escape into the next house."

A cry was heard from the interior of the room. A female voice thus spoke to

the man who had just spoken: "Senor Munez, it is abominable for you thus to

betray the poor fellows. You are a bad and heartless man."

When the Doctor heard thus revealed the secret of his retreat, he had

pushed through the inner door, and it was well he did, for it gave him time

to leave the room. The door of the library offered but a feeble resistance,

which was soon overcome, and Pignana's house was carefully entered and

searched.

He at once conceived an idea of a plan of escape. He said to Pignana, "Not

a word; but follow me." Von Apsberg, accompanied by Pignana, left the place

where they were concealed, went into the yard, and proceeded to a shed

which was separated from his house by a few badly joined planks. One of

these he removed, passed through the opening, and stood in an outhouse

where he remembered he had once made some anatomical inquiries.

"But you are going back," said Pignana, "you will again fall in the hands

of the enemy."

"You would be a bad general, Pignana," said Von Apsberg; "this is a common

_ruse de guerre_, and is known as a counter-march. These places have been

explored by the enemy, and consequently they will return no more. While the

agents are looking where we are not, we will return where they have been."

When night came, and at this time of the year it was at four o'clock,

Pignana told his companion of his plan. He purposed to scale the wall of

the yard by means of the trellices of the vines. When once on the other

side they would be in the garden of the Duke d'Harcourt, from which the

young physician expected to go to the hotel to obtain protection from the

Vicomte. The execution of this plan was easy for one as thin as d'Harcourt,

but was impracticable to a person with an abdomen like Pignana. As soon as

night had come, the latter said to Von Apsberg, "Go through the air,

Doctor, if you can. I intend to adopt a more earthly route--through the

door of the house, even if, much to Mlle. Crepineau's terror, I have the

audacity to assume the guise of the suicide, and terrify her into opening

the door for me. Besides, I am but slightly compromised, and will extricate

myself. Adieu, then, Doctor," said he, "and good luck to you amid the

clouds!" Von Apsberg clasped his hand, hurried from his retreat, ascended

the wall, passed it, and a few minutes after was in the Duke's garden.

Taking advantage of the darkness he went to the hotel, every window of

which, to his surprise, he found closed. He went without being seen to the

door of the reception rooms on the ground floor. The window had not been

shut since the arrest of the Vicomte. The Doctor entered it. At the back of

this room was a boudoir a la Louis XIV., of rare elegance, and appropriated

to Marie d'Harcourt. Amid the darkness he heard a strange sound of sighs

and sobs. The Doctor drew near, expecting that there was some pain for him

to soothe. "Who is there?" said the Duke d'Harcourt.

"It is I, my lord, Doctor Matheus."

"You here, sir!" said the Duke; "they told me that, like my unfortunate

son, you were arrested; and for the same offence."

"What say you, sir?" said Von Apsberg, with deep distress; "Rene, dear

Rene, arrested?"

"Yes, sir," said the old Duke; "arrested and torn from his father's arms.

Yet the blow did not overwhelm me. This, though, will take place ere long,

and the executioner's axe will strike father and son at once."

A footman appeared with lights, and the Doctor saw the whole family

weeping. His head rested on Marie's shoulder, and the long white hair of

the old man was mingled with the young girl's dark locks, and seemed like

the silvery light of the moon resting on her brown hair. The Duke saw at a

glance how the Doctor participated in all his sorrows, and how the fate of

his son lacerated the heart of his visitor. He gave his hand to the Doctor.

"I forgive you," said he, "the part you have had in my son's error, when I

remember how you love him, and the care you have taken of Marie."

"Alas! Monsieur," said Von Apsberg; "that duty I can discharge no longer.

The fate of Rene must be mine, to-morrow, to-day, in a few moments--for I

came to seek for concealment. If, though, he has lost his liberty; if all

his plans are destroyed, why should I any longer contend against

misfortune? Adieu, Duke! I will rejoin Rene, share his misfortune, and

defend his life; if not against men, at least against the cruel disease

which menaces his career."

As she heard these words, the cheeks of Marie d'Harcourt became pale as

marble, and she said, in tones of deep distress, "Father, will you suffer

him to go thus?"

Von Apsberg looked at her with trouble and surprise.

"No, my child," said the Duke, "the Doctor will not leave us; and we will

protect him." Von Apsberg then told the bold means by which he had entered

the house.

"No one saw," said the Duke, "_how_ you came hither?"

"No one."

"There is no suspicion?"

"None."

Assisted by Marie, the Duke contrived a plan for an impenetrable asylum for

the Doctor. In the right wing of the hotel were many rooms intended for

servants, and uninhabited; for, since the death of his other sons, the Duke

had greatly reduced his household. In one of these rooms, carefully decked

and furnished, by Marie's care, Doctor Matheus was fixed. The old secretary

of the Duke d'Harcourt alone was in the secret, and this worthy man took

charge of the food of the Doctor, who saw no one except Marie and her

father. The young girl gradually became bolder, and touched with pity at

the loneliness of the prisoner, obeyed the dictates of her own heart and

went frequently to the young Doctor's room to be sure that he was in want

of nothing. Like a consoling angel, she came with her celestial presence to

adorn the captive's retreat, and restore something of happiness to his

heart. Von Apsberg, who had been for some days left alone, had reflected

deeply on his political opinions and on their consequences. The immense

difference between all old principles and the innovating ideas of

Carbonarism caused him to doubt the triumph of the latter; the great

discouragement which Monte-Leone's _apparent treason_ had produced, and the

fate of his associates, produced a deep impression on him. Amid all these

gloomy thoughts, one fresh and prominent idea reinvigorated his mind, and

gave him ineffable joy.

Without wishing to analyze his feelings towards Marie, the Doctor was under

their influence. He did not dream of ever possessing that aristocratic

heart from which he was separated by rank, birth, and fortune. The heart of

man, nevertheless, is so constituted, that the most honest and loyal man is

never exempt from a shadow of egotism. Perhaps, therefore, in the Doctor's

mind there was a feeble hope of approaching that class whose position he so

envied. Let this be as it may, abandoning himself to the luxury of seeing

always by his side this beautiful creature, whose health his care had

already revived, the Doctor blessed his captivity, and lived in anxious

expectation of the hours when Marie used to visit him. Von Apsberg

possessed that Platonic heart which enabled him to look on Marie as a

creature of pure poetry. He entertained so respectful a tenderness for the

young girl, that he distrusted her no more than she did him.

On the day we found the Doctor writing in his retreat with such ardor, he

was writing out a _regime_ for his patient. He told her what to do, and, as

if gifted with prescience, provided for her future life.

"If," said he, "I be discovered--if the future have in reserve for the

heiress d'Harcourt"--and his heart felt as if a sharp iron had transfixed

it--"if a noble marriage separate me from her; at least in this painful

study of her health she will be able to contend against her family disease,

and perhaps will be indebted to me for life, happy and unsuffering." The

idea seemed too much for the strength of the young physician as he saw thus

fade before him all hope of a union with Marie. Steps just then were heard

outside his room just as he was concluding the sad _memoire_ we have spoken

of.

The Doctor, in obedience to the request of his host, answered no knock, and

gave no evidence of life, except at a concerted signal known only to three

persons--the Duke, his daughter, and D'Arbel. Therefore he listened. The

person who advanced paused for a time before his door, and then left

rapidly as it had come. Von Apsberg, however, by means of that lover's

intuition, guessed who it was. The eyes of his heart pierced the opacity of

the door, to enable him to admire the charming angel who had alighted at

his door and flown away. Before this angel had disappeared from the long

corridor which led to the Doctor's room, the door was opened, and he paused

to glance at the young girl who was ready to escape. Marie returned to the

Doctor, and advanced slowly towards him.

"Ah! Monsieur," said she to Matheus, "it is wrong in you not to keep your

promise better. You promised my father never to open the door without a

signal--"

"Why then, Mademoiselle, did you not give the signal?"

"I did not come to see you," said Marie; "but I brought you books and

flowers. I am so afraid you will grow weary in this little room, where you

are always alone and sad."

As she spoke, the angel girl went to the Doctor's room, as she would have

done to her brother's, without any hesitation or trouble. She was robed in

innocence; and if her heart beat a little louder than usual then, the child

attributed it entirely to the rapidity with which she had ascended the

stairs. The Doctor took the books and flowers which she had placed at his

door, and put them in the vase on the mantle. He was glad to be able to

look away from Marie's face, for he felt that his countenance told all he

thought.

"I took the most amusing books from my little library," said she. "One

learned as you are, always immersed in study, may not approve of my choice.

Perhaps though, Monsieur, as you read them you will think of your

patient--"

"Ah! I do so always," said Von Apsberg. "I was thinking of you when you

came."

"You were writing," said Marie, as she looked at the sheet Von Apsberg

pointed out to her.

"Ah! Mademoiselle, I wrote for you. You must follow one rule of conduct in

relation to your health, when you are separated from your father--when you

are married."

"Married!" said Mlle. d'Harcourt, and she grew pale. "I never thought of

being married."

"But marry you must. You will marry rich; and, Mlle., a husband worthy of

you. Ere long you will have many suitors."

"Monsieur," said the girl, "our house now is hung with mourning. The life

of my brother is in danger, and my health, as you said, is frail and

feeble. All this you know is altogether contradictory to what you say. As

for myself," said she, with an emotion she experienced for the first time,

"I am happy as I now am, and desire no other position, I must leave you,

though," added she: "for now my father must have come from the prison where

he obtained leave to visit my brother. I am anxious to hear from him. The

Duke and myself will soon tell you about him."

Light as a vapor, rapid as a cloud, the young girl left the Doctor's room,

to his eyes radiant with the lustre she left behind her.

IX.--THE CONCIERGERIE.

Eight days after the conversation between Von Apsberg and Marie, the Doctor

heard a knock at his door. The latter was reading over for the twentieth

time one of the books which had been brought him. This book was Telemachus,

the poetical romance one might have fancied Homer himself had dreamed of,

and which Virgil and Ovid had written--the book in which morals are

enwrapped in so dense a covering of flowers, that a reader often refuses to

glance at the serious part of the work, and pays attention only to the

graceful superficies. Von Apsberg, however, read the book, not for its own

sake, but for the sake of her who had given it to him. Marie had read every

page, and her hands had turned over every leaf. This fact gave the history

of the son of Ulysses an immense value in the eyes of the young Doctor, and

made Telemachus, not Fenelon's, but Marie d'Harcourt's book. The knock at

the Doctor's door was followed by the concerted signal. He opened it, and

saw the Duke's old secretary. "Monsieur," said he, "as the Duke is absent,

I am come to say that Mlle. Marie is ill. I know your care will be useful.

She does not, though, send for you, being too feeble to come up stairs, and

afraid to ask you to come down."

"Monsieur d'Arbel, let no one into the hotel; and tell Mlle. I will visit

her.

"She will see you, Monsieur, in the window next to the drawing-room. I will

send the servants out of the way, so that you can see Mlle. Marie without

fear of discovery."

All the Secretary's arrangements were carried out, and a few minutes after

Matheus waited on his fair patient. She was ill. Since her conversation

with the Doctor, her health had really changed. Something mental seemed to

influence it. Her complexion, sullied by the tears she had shed since her

brother's arrest, was faded, and a flush was visible on her cheeks alone.

These symptoms made the Doctor unhappy. He, therefore, approached Marie

with great uneasiness.

She said: "How kind you are, Doctor, to risk your liberty: I could not

otherwise have seen you. I have not strength enough."

"I will try soon to confer it on you, if God grants me power to attend to

you."

"I shall die," said she with an anxious voice, which penetrated the

Doctor's very heart, "if you cannot."

"For your sake," said Matheus, "I will defend my liberty by every means in

my power, for I wish to restore your health, and preserve an existence

indispensable to your father's happiness."

"How I suffer," said Marie, placing her hand on her snowy brow. "I have an

intense pain, which passes from temple to temple, and gives me much

suffering."

"Do you sleep well?" asked Matheus.

"No, no, for many days I have not slept, or if I have, phantoms have

flitted across my slumbers." She blushed as she spoke. This the Doctor did

not see, for he was searching out a remedy.

"Well," said he, "I think we must use a remedy which has hitherto

succeeded. Magnetism will enable you to sleep, and perhaps will soothe your

sufferings." Rising, then, he placed his hand on the patient's brow, as he

had done a few months before when the Marquise had experienced such good

effects from it. He placed his hands on the young girl's temples, and then

made passes across her face, the result of which was that she sank softly

to sleep. The state of somnambulism ensued, and Marie unfolded the

condition of her heart to the young physician. While he was thus engaged

the Duke entered.

"You here, Doctor?" said he; "how imprudent!"

"_She_ was suffering," said the physician; "now she sleeps." The Duke

thanked Von Apsberg for his care, but seemed to centre all his hope in the

young Doctor, as the sailor devotes himself to the lord of storms and

waves. Now, though, every word the Duke said seemed a reproach. He

shuddered as he thought of the confessions of Mlle. d'Harcourt, and asked

himself if he participated in her sentiments or had suffered her to divine

his. All his delicacy and loyalty revolted from the idea that this

confession would cost the unfortunate father the life of his daughter.[5]

Von Apsberg saw that henceforth it would be impossible for him to remain

longer at the Duke's hotel, and that it would be criminal to remain with

one the secret thoughts of whom he knew. He, therefore, made up his mind to

speak to the Duke. Just then Marie, who had been for some time free from

any magnetic influence, awoke calm and smiling. "How deliciously I have

slept," said she; "how well I am!"

The Duke kissed her affectionately. He said, "All this you owe to the

Doctor; and I thank heaven amid our misfortunes that he has been preserved

to us. I am glad I have been able to rescue him from his persecutors, and

preserve my daughter's health by means of his own watchful care."

Marie gave the Doctor her hand. The young girl did not remember what she

had said while she slept. This slumber of the heart, however, could not

last, and the young Doctor knew it. He resolved on the painful sacrifice

which, but for the waking of his patient, he would at once have

communicated to the Prince.

The reflections of the night confirmed the Doctor in the course he had

resolved to adopt. On the next day he put on a long cloak, which disguised

his stature, and went to the room of the Duke, after having also put on a

wig which Rene often wore when he visited Matheus, and which the Duke had

sent for to enable him in case of a surprise to leave unrecognized.

The distress of the Duke at the Vicomte's imprisonment increased every day.

He had only once been able to reach his son, and had contrived to inspire

the captive with hopes of liberty he was far from entertaining himself. The

Vicomte was actively watched, and his most trifling actions were observed.

Ever alone in the sad cell in which he had been confined, ennui and despair

took possession of him, and his brilliant mind, to which mirth and activity

had been indispensable, became downcast and miserable. Since the visit of

his father, also, his delicate chest had begun to suffer. What the Doctor

especially apprehended for his friend was the possibility of cold and

dampness producing a dangerous irritation of the respiratory organs. This

took place; for nothing could be more humid and icy than the cell of Rene.

He had a dry and incessant cough. The keepers paid no attention to it, and

the keeper of the Conciergerie treated it as a simple cold of no

importance. The Vicomte was unwilling to inform his father of it lest he

should be uneasy, and the mere indisposition rapidly became a serious and

terrible disease. This was the state of things when Von Apsberg presented

himself before the Duke. "What is the matter?" said the old man. "Are you

discovered and forced to leave us?"

"Duke," said the Doctor, "let me first express my deepest thanks for your

generous hospitality. Let me tell you how much your kindness has soothed

the cruel suffering to which I have been subjected day and night for three

weeks. I would, had it not been for your kindness, have weeks ago shared

the captivity of Rene; and the hope I entertained of being of use to your

daughter, alone prevented me from surrendering myself to despair at the

prospect of a crushed and prospectless life, when I saw my brethren

arrested in consequence of one whom I had always looked on as a devoted

friend."

"Do not speak to me of that man," said the Duke in a terrible tone, "for my

son, in my presence, charged him with having betrayed him."

"I have spoken to you of my gratitude," said the Doctor, "that you might

not doubt it now at our separation."

"What danger now menaces you?" said the Duke, "why do you leave us?"

"To avoid being ungrateful," said Von Apsberg. "That you may never accuse

your guest of selfishness, and that he may always deserve the esteem with

which you honor him."

"What is the meaning of this mysterious language?"

"Grant me," said the young physician, with a trembling voice, "the boon of

being permitted to keep the cause of my departure a secret. You would be as

sorry to hear as I would be to tell you."

"No," said the old man, "I will not consent to this. You shall not quit the

house which shelters you from your enemies: no, you shall not. Ah! sir,"

continued the Duke, "if you will not remain for your own sake do so for

mine, for you alone have preserved the life of my daughter thus far." The

Doctor said, as he gave a paper to the Duke: "Here is the result of my

study, in which I have traced out all the means known to science calculated

to strengthen the health of your daughter, and to parry the dangers which

menace her."

"Doctor," said the Duke, "do not distress me by leaving the hotel. Do not

make me perpetually miserable, Doctor, I am already unfortunate enough."

"Well," said the young man, unable to resist his prayers any longer, "you

shall know what forces me to go, and shall yourself judge of my duty." He

fell at the Duke's feet, and told him all he had learned during Marie's

slumber, his combats with himself, and his resolution.

"You are an honest man," said the Duke, with an expression of poignant

grief, and lifting him up: "but I am a most unfortunate father."

D'Asbel just then came in with a letter.

"From my son," said the Duke, and he opened it. The features of the old man

assumed, as he read, such an expression of terror, that Von Apsberg and the

Secretary advanced towards him and sustained him, for he seemed ready to

faint. "Read," said he, with a voice half indistinct, and he gave the

Doctor the letter. It was as follows:

"MY DEAR FATHER:--I can conceal no longer that I am dying. One man alone,

who has often soothed me by his care and advice, can now save me. This is

Von Apsberg. I cannot, though, ask him to accompany you, for he would

endanger his own liberty. Come, then, dear father, to see me for the last

time."

"Let us go, sir," said the Doctor. "Let us not delay a minute, for in an

hour--it may be too late."

"But you expose your life, Doctor, by going among your enemies," said the

Duke.

"But I will save his," said Von Apsberg. The Duke rushed into his arms.

Half an hour afterwards two men entered the Conciergerie. They were the

Vicomte's father and an English doctor whom the Duke brought to see his

son. The Director of the prison did not dare to refuse a father and

physician permission to see a sick son and patient. With the turnkeys they

passed an iron grate, beyond which was seen a vaulted passage, which, in

the darkness, seemed interminable. On the inner side of the grate sat a

morose looking man, whom nature seemed to have created exclusively to live

in one of these earthly hells. His only duty was to open and shut the

grate, to which he seemed as firmly attached as one of its own bars. His

duty was not without danger, for in case of a mutiny, the Cerberus had

orders to throw on the outside the heavy key he was intrusted with, and

thus expose himself, without means of escape, to the rage of the criminals.

They showed this man their pass. The key turned in the lock, and the grate

permitted them to enter. It then swung to, filling the vaulted passage with

its clash. Near this was a dark room, in which were several dark-browed

jailers and gend'armes.

The Duke and the Doctor were minutely examined. One of them, whose features

hidden by a dirty cap might recall one of the persons of this history, left

the group, opened the grate, and disappeared rapidly, just as a new jailer

guided the visitors to a long corridor in one of the cells, on opening

which was the Vicomte D'Harcourt. On a miserable pallet, in a kind of dark

cellar, into which the day seemed to penetrate reluctantly, through a

grated window, was Rene D'Harcourt, the last hope of an illustrious house,

without air or any of the attentions his situation demanded. The Duke wept

to see him. Rene, with hollow cheeks, and eyes sparkling with a burning

fever, arose with pain and extended his arms to his father, who embraced

him tenderly.

Fifteen days had expanded his disease, the germs of which had long slept in

his system. The bad air and icy dew, amid which he lived, the absence of

constant and vigilant care, in such cases so indispensable, had, as it

were, conspired against him. A violent and dry cough every moment burst

from his chest, and at every access his strength seemed more and more

feeble. Had he sooner informed his father of his condition, beyond doubt,

some active remedy would have been used, not for pity's sake, for at that

time little was shown to conspirators, but from fear of the liberal press,

whose censure the administration dreaded. Rene, however, was too disdainful

of the persons he called his executioners to ask any favors. The physician

of the prison, as we have said, was satisfied with ordering a few trifling

palliatives. The Vicomte was dying without his even being aware of it. When

the turnkey had introduced the Duke and the Englishman he left, telling

them that in a few minutes he would return. Then the Vicomte saw that a

stranger was with his father. The latter approached, and taking the young

man's hand pressed it to his heart with an affection which told the

prisoner who visited him.

"Von Apsberg! Ah! father, I knew he would come."

"Be silent, dear Rene; be silent," said the Doctor, "for your sake and

mine. Forget that I am your friend, and remember me only as a doctor. Tell

me how you suffer. Speak quick, for time is precious. Tell me nothing--and

do not exhaust yourself in describing--what is plain enough, I am sorry to

say. I see, I read in your eyes, what is your condition."

To hide his tears Von Apsberg looked away. A father's heart though could

not be deceived, and the Duke had seen the Doctor's tears. The old man

said, "Save, Doctor, save my son."

Von Apsberg made an effort to surmount the grief which overcame him.

"We will save him," said he, calmly; "there is a remedy for such cases,

which in a few hours will terminate the progress of the malady, and enable

us to adopt other means. He took a card from his pocket and wrote a

prescription, which he ordered to be sent immediately to the nearest

apothecary. He yet had the card in his hand when the door of the cell was

violently thrown open, and several men accompanied by gend'armes rushed in

and seized the Doctor.

"Arrest him," said an officer. "It is he, the German physician whom we have

so long sought for. He has been recognized." Nothing could equal the effect

of this scene. The Vicomte made useless attempts to leave his bed and

assist his friend. The Duke was pale and agitated; and Von Apsberg, calm

and resigned, gave himself up to the men who surrounded him. In anxiety for

Rene he had forgotten himself.

"Gentlemen," said he, "you may do as you please with me, but, for heaven's

sake, let me remain a few moments with this young man, and one of you hurry

for this prescription I have written."

"A paper," said the principal agent with joy, when he saw what Von Apsberg

had in his hand. "It is, perhaps, a plan of escape. This must be taken to

the Director for the _Procureur du Roi_. Another scheme, perhaps, of the

Jacobin has come to light----" He put the paper in his huge pocket.

"Take this man away, said he to the gens d'armes, and do not let him speak

a word to the prisoner." Rushing on Von Apsberg like famished wolves, they

bore him away, and left the Duke alone with his son. The shock had done the

prisoner much injury. He sunk back on his bed with a violent cough, and

felt a mortal coldness glide over his frame and chill his blood.

"A doctor, a doctor," said the Duke, rushing towards the door. "A

physician, for heaven's sake. My son is dying." The door did not close. The

poor father leaning over his child pressed his lips to his burning brow,

and then supported his head, from time to time attempting to warm his icy

hands with his breath. He continued to call in heaven's name for a

physician.

Half an hour after Von Apsberg's arrest, and while the Duke yet pressed his

son's inanimate body, three men appeared in the room. They were the

Director, Doctor, and Jailer of the prison.

"Monsieur," said the Duke to the Director, rising to his full stature, and

with a tone of painful solemnity, "you are an accomplice in a great crime,

and before the country and king, I, Duke d'Harcourt, peer of France, and

grand cordon of the Saint Esprit, will accuse you."

"What mean you, sir?" said the Director, with a terror he could not

conceal. "Of what do you complain?"

"That you have placed in a cell, without air and light, as if he were

sentenced to death, a man against whom there is now a mere suspicion; for

he has not been tried. I complain that you have wrested from me a physician

I have brought hither to attend to my son--and that with horrible brutality

you have taken possession of a prescription for a remedy which might have

preserved him, and have by this means deprived him of life."

The Duke spoke but too truly, for a kind of suffocation took possession of

the young man. His breast seemed oppressed, and every sign of death was

visible.

The Director muttered some apology in defence of himself, but the Duke

said, "Not another word here, sir; accomplish your task in peace; or at

least, give me back the paper. It is the life of my son----"

As the Director was about to go in person for it, the Doctor called him

back and pointed to the patient over whose countenance death began to

steal. He said, "It is too late!"

The Vicomte arose with difficulty and said, "Father, forgive me the wrong I

have done. Forgive me, as I forgive others. No, no, not so; for there is

one person I cannot forgive!" He looked around with an expression of

intense hatred and contempt. "He has ruined and destroyed me, and all of

us; he has delivered us to our enemies,--_that_ man, hear all of you, is

Count Monte-Leone!" His head sank on his breast, and his last breath

mingled with the kisses of his father.

"I have no son!" said the old man in despair; and he sank by the side of

the child God had taken away from him.

X.--THE CONFESSION.

As we have seen in a previous chapter, Count Monte-Leone went to the

Prefect of Police to surrender himself to his enemies. The Count did not

hesitate, for he preferred a sudden and cruel death to the intolerable life

he now led. The Prefect was as civil as possible, and altogether different

from what he would have been three days before to a person pointed out as

one of the agents. The reason was, that after the energetic protestation of

the Count in the presence of M. H---- at the Duke d'Harcourt's, grave

doubts had arisen in the mind of the chief of the political police in

relation to the services said to have been rendered by the Neapolitan.

Making use then of the police itself, and causing the man who said he was

an agent of the Count's to be watched, his conviction of the

non-participation of Monte-Leone in the treachery became almost certain,

and he began to tremble at the idea that he had been made a dupe in this

affair, and at the probable consequences. The first of these was the fear

of ridicule, that powerful instrument against a police; next, the just

recrimination to which the Count might subject them as having slandered

him; and the capital error of having left at liberty the most powerful of

the Carbonari in Europe, under the belief that he was an ally of the

Government--to which he was a mortal foe. All this crowd of faults H----

had committed in his blind confidence, and had led astray the police and

all the agents. Thus uneasy, the Chief of Police saw that but one course of

safety was left him. This was both bold and adroit, for it foresaw danger

and prepared a conductor to turn its thunders aside. H---- went to the

Prefect and owned all. The first anger of the latter having passed away,

the two chiefs saw with terror that they were equally compromised--the one

for acting, and the other for suffering his subordinate to act. They,

therefore, adopted the only course left them, Machiavelian it is true, but

which extricated them from a great difficulty. This course was, to deny all

participation in the malicious reports circulated in relation to the Count,

but to suffer the public to imagine what it pleased, and attribute their

inaction to carelessness for the result, or to the mystery necessary to be

observed in police matters. Count Monte-Leone, too, since the arrest of his

accomplices, and the discovery of his friends, was not greatly to be

feared, especially as he was now repelled by society as a double traitor.

Two things alone disturbed H----. The first was the course of the strange

man who had used the Count's name to unveil so completely the plans of the

conspiracy. He, however, was soon restored to confidence by remembering

that he was now strictly carrying out this man's plans. Besides, in case of

need, there were a thousand methods of securing this man's eternal silence.

As for the pass in Monte-Leone's name, which might be a terrible arm in the

possession of the Count in case he attacked the Government, H----learned

much to his satisfaction, from Salvatori himself, that it had been

destroyed. The Prefect, therefore, did not hesitate to receive the Count.

"Sir," said the latter, "a horrible slander is circulated against me. In

disregard of my character and name I have been charged with being one of

your agents, and beg you to contradict this."

"The Prefect says your honor is above any such suspicion, and I should fear

I injured you even by referring to so idle a tale."

"But one of your principal officers has given credit to this rumor by the

perfidious reply he made a few days since, when the Vicomte d'Harcourt was

arrested."

The Prefect rang his bell and sent for M. H----. When the latter arrived,

he asked him, sternly, if he had seemed to believe that Count Monte-Leone

had any participation in the acts of the Police.

H---- said, "The Count is in error, if he understood me thus. I did not

believe that his self-accusation was true, for I could not realize that one

so exalted in rank as the Count, could be guilty of conspiracy. I had no

idea of insulting him, as he thinks. Were it not likely to give the affair

too much gravity, I would every where repel it."

This amazed the Count. His mind, which seemed to give way beneath so many

blows, had looked on this man's reply as an answer. The object of this

perfidy yet escaped him; and reason and good sense could form no idea of

the motive.

"You see, Count," said the Prefect, "all think you so far above the calumny

of which you complain, that we would not dare even to defend you; the

character of the department makes it impossible for us to mix in

discussions about reputations."

"I have already asked this gentleman," and the Count pointed to M. H----,

"to furnish a striking proof that I am not the creature they say I am. I

now ask you the same favor." The two officials were annoyed. "I am as

guilty as those you have arrested," continued he, "and demand a fate like

that of my associates."

The Prefect said, "I never act except from the orders of a higher

authority, and have none in relation to you. I prefer to think that your

devotion to those you call your associates has caused you to exaggerate

your complicity, and when that is proven you will find us just and stern to

yourself, as we have been to them." The Prefect bowed and returned to his

private office, and the Count left in indescribable agitation. He was

deprived of his last justification, of one he wished to buy at the price of

his life. His rage and despair had no limits. He was to experience a new

shock in the death of Vicomte d'Harcourt, which was circulated through all

Paris. He also heard that the Duke charged him with being the cause of his

death, and with having denounced him.

We will now leave our hero for a few moments, to refer to a terrible event

which at this crisis overwhelmed the Royal family and France with grief.

This circumstance, yet enwrapped in mystery, was the death of the Duke de

Berry. This Prince, the hope of France, expiring in the spring time of life

beneath the dagger of a vulgar assassin; the obscurity which covered the

details of the murder distressed all Europe. There was a general outcry

against secret societies. The one, the chief members of which were now in

prison, was especially thought guilty of having instigated the murder. The

chiefs of the Carbonari _ventas_ saw their chains grow heavier and their

prisons become dungeons. Ober, the banker F----, General A----, and Von

Apsberg, were not spared: their papers were examined, their past life

scrutinized in search of some connection with this odious murder. The trial

of the ruffian was anxiously waited for, in the hope that something would

connect him with Carbonarism. Nothing, however, was found in the whole of

the long and minute examination; and it soon became evident that the crime

had been committed by a fanatic who was isolated, without adherents,

instigators, or accomplices. Thus at least France thought of the result of

the trial. This was the impression produced by the execution of Louvel.

The liberals, who had been for a time terrified by the reports circulated

in relation to their partisans, began to regain their courage, and,

fortified by their acquittal, complained of the calumnies circulated in

relation to them. The first reproach cast on Government, and especially on

the ministry of Decazes, was great injustice towards the Carbonari. The

ministry was accused of having invented a conspiracy and

conspirators--questions of political humanity were mooted--and true or

imaginary tortures, to which the prisoners had been subject, were

recounted. French generosity and pity became interested for the sake of

victims who languished in chains. One voice, though, was heard above all

others, and spoke so distinctly, that it touched every heart and mind. It

reached the very throne, and aroused one of those powerful influences which

truth alone can. This voice was that of the Duke d'Harcourt--a king in

virtue and feeling. His word was a law people of every shade of opinion

listened to, in consequence of the admiration caused by his life and

conduct. The Duke, who was entitled to sympathy from the successive death

of his sons, accused those who had taken the last from him of barbarity. He

told of the death of the Vicomte while suspected of a crime which perhaps

was imaginary; and in the sublime tones of his despair uttered loud charges

against the fallen administration. The new one trembled before a unanimous

sentiment, and sought to win popularity from clemency. This sentiment,

which in Louis XVIII. was innate, his ministers echoed. One by one the

prisons were opened and their sad inmates restored to life and light. The

chief Carbonari were less fortunate than their followers. Their trial

progressed, and though many abortive schemes were discovered, no act was

found. There were ideas, utopias, and social paradoxes, but nothing

positive. F----, B----, Ober and their associates, whose friends acted

busily, were subjected to some months' imprisonment, which, added to their

previous incarceration, seemed to their judges a sufficient punishment for

their hopes, which, though criminal, had never been realized. General A----

was exiled, and Von Apsberg was detained for a long time in the

conciergerie. He was ultimately released. As for Taddeo, all the inquiries

of Aminta and of the Prince de Maulear, who loved him as a son, were vain.

Every day increased their uneasiness on this account, bringing to light the

disappointment of some hope. Thus a year passed....

Early in April, 1821, a man of about forty sat on a bench in a little

garden attached to a modest country abode near Neuilly. The garden was on

the Seine, which was the limit of a kind of town. The man of whom we speak

was almost bent beneath the double weight of grief and suffering. His

features were sharp and thin, his eyes sunken, and his hair, almost white,

gave him the appearance of one far more advanced in age. In this person

prematurely old and wretched, none would have recognized the brilliant and

elegant Count Monte-Leone, who once had been so deservedly admired. A deep

sorrow had crushed his strong constitution--months to him had become

years--and he had suffered all that a mind, richly endowed as his was,

could. Pursued by the atrocious slanders we refer to, he had given way

beneath the blow. In vain had he striven for some time after his useless

visit to the Prefect against them. The hideous monster which pursued him

redoubled its attacks, and cries of reprobation burst from every lip. The

relations and friends of the prisoners reproached him, and adversity seemed

to have seized him with its iron claw. In vain did he protest and call for

proof. All appealed to the circumstances. His many duels made people say in

his favor only this, "_Brave as he is, he is a spy!_" Despair, then, took

possession of him, and he fled from the world which cursed him, and hid

himself. One reason alone restrained him from suicide. This was, that he

knew another life depended on his, and clung to it as the ivy does to the

oak. The Count lived that another might not die. This person was an angel

rather than a woman. It was Aminta. Watching the unfortunate man as a

mother watches a child, braving the public opinion which dishonored him she

adored, Aminta rarely left the Count, whose tears fell on her heart like

burning lava.

The Marquise had purchased an establishment near the house of Monte-Leone,

with whom she passed all her time; for her visits made his desolate heart

more serene. On the day we speak of, the Count sat in the garden, and old

Giacomo advanced towards him, taking care to announce himself with a slight

cough. "Monseigneur," said he, "it is I, your intendant. I am come to speak

to you."

"I have no intendant," said the Count, "a miserable outlaw like myself can

indulge in no such luxury. Do not call me Monseigneur; the title now is

become an ironical insult."

"It, however, is your excellency's name, and _that_ the slanderous villains

cannot deprive you of."

"They have done more than that," said the Count, with a bitter smile; "they

have destroyed my honor. You shall not call me thus any longer."

"Very well," said the good man, whom the Marquise had told not to thwart

his master; "I will call Monseigneur, Count only. You are Monseigneur, for

all that."

"Enough," said the Count, "go away, you fatigue me, you injure me."

"I injure you," said Giacomo, "when you know I would die for you?"

The Count looked around on the companion of all his life; he saw the tears

the old man shed, and threw himself into his arms. "Ah! you love me in

spite of all--"

"And so does _she_," said Giacomo, whose features became kindled with

pleasure at this sudden exhibition of his master's love; "yes, that noble,

true woman loves you dearly."

"Aminta!" said the Count, "ah! but for her you would have no master."

"Monseigneur,--no--Count!" said the old valet; "Madame la Marquise has come

hither."

"Let her come--let her come--when she is with me, I pass my only happy

hours."

"True," said Giacomo, "but she is not alone--"

"Who accompanies her? Who has come to see the informer? Who dares to brave

the leprosy?"

The old man said, "The Prince de Maulear."

"The Prince! The Prince in my house! No, no! Tell him to go, that I see no

one! I will see no one--"

"You will see me, Monsieur?" said the old nobleman, advancing with Aminta

on his arm.

"What do you wish, sir?" said Monte-Leone; "if you insult me again, you

are indeed cruel."

"Monte-Leone," said Aminta, "the Prince is your friend. His words will be

of service; I brought him hither."

The Count sank on his seat and was silent.

"Count," said the Prince, "had I not been confined at one of my estates for

eight months by an obstinate _gout_, you would have seen me long since."

"Ah!" said the Count, with surprise.

"You would have seen me brought to you by repentance for the injury I did

you. I gave way, Monte-Leone, to an indignant feeling I shall regret all my

life. Reflection has enlightened me. The account I have heard from my

daughter-in-law, the resources which you concealed, and especially your

despair, the wasted condition of your health, the ravages of your misery,

her love, her respect, have long told me how unjust I was to you."

The Count looked at the Prince with mingled astonishment and doubt. The

Prince said, "As men of our rank are glad to confess their faults, and ask

pardon for them, I beg you, sir, to forgive me." The Prince bowed to

Monte-Leone, who seemed overcome by emotion.

Taking the Prince's hand he placed it on his heart and said, "Now, sir,

feel this palpitation, and tell me whether the heart of a bad or guilty man

ever beat thus with joy, at justice being done him."

From this day Monte-Leone enjoyed two of the greatest pleasures of life--a

tender love, and a noble friendship....

A month after the first visit of the Prince de Maulear to the house at

Neuilly, the following scene took place in a sad room of the _rue Casette_

in the Faubourg St. Germain.

A sick woman lay on a bed, and a stern dark man sat beside her. "I tell

you," said she, "I want a priest, and it is cruel for you to refuse me

one."

"Bah! Signora, you are not sick enough for that. Why have a confidant in

our affairs? Confession is of no use except to the dying!"

"I am very sick," said she, "and my strength every day decreases!"

"Well, let us come to terms, then, Duchess. You shall have a priest--but

you do not intend to make your confession only to him, I know."

"Your old ideas again, Stenio!" said La Felina.

"They are not my ideas. Did you not say once when you were very sick, '_No,

I will not die until I am completely avenged. I wish to know whence came

the shaft which crushed him. I wish him to curse me as I have cursed

him!_'"

"True!" said the Duchess, who, as she listened to the Italian, seemed lost

in thought. "It is true, I said all that."

"Well, the time is come. You fear you are dying, and would not leave your

work incomplete!"

"But if I tell all," said La Felina, "do you fear nothing for yourself?"

"That man is now but a shadow," said Salvatori, "and now in my strong hand

I can grasp him, as he once grasped me, with his iron nerves, when he

stabbed me. Besides, no one would believe him. _Is he not a spy?_"

The first words of the Italian, "_That man is but a shadow_," had arrested

La Felina's attention. She said, "Is he much changed? is he very sick?" She

could not restrain her accent.

"He? yes, indeed; he is dying. Public contempt has completely crushed the

proud giant. We have effected that. Besides," continued he, "in order to

make a suitable return for the touching interest you inspired me with just

now, I must tell you I am going. You have made me rich, and if I were so

unfortunate as to lose you--Ah, words never kill," added he, as he saw how

terrified La Felina was--"I would not remain an hour in this accursed

country."

"Very well," said she; "give me writing materials." She wrote a few lines

with a trembling hand.

"To the Count," said she, giving them to Salvatori; "I expect him

to-morrow."

"Very well," said the Italian, sternly. "This will kill him."

Scarcely had he left the room when La Felina rang her bell, and the servant

who had always accompanied her entered. The Duchess drew her towards her,

and placing her lips close to the ear of the woman, as if she was afraid

some one would hear her, whispered a few words and sank back completely

exhausted.

Such was the Duchess of Palma, the famous singer of San Carlo, whom we find

dying in this unknown and obscure retreat. The hand of God, who does not

always punish the soul of the criminal alone, but who sometimes strikes the

living body, weighed heavily on her. The Duke, weary of the ties imposed by

marriage on him, and becoming more and more infatuated with his thin

_danseuse_, sought for an opportunity to throw off his chains. He soon

found one. Feigning to be jealous, the Duke, in consequence of some vague

rumors, obtained the key of the bureau in which the Duchess kept the

"confessions of the heart," as she called the detail of her brief amour

with Monte-Leone. Having gotten possession of this paper, the Duke made a

great noise, threatened her with a suit, and easily obtained the separation

he desired so much. There was a general burst of indignation. The nobles

who had been furious at the _mesalliance_ of the Duke, were more so at the

ingratitude of the guilty wife and low-born woman, who had usurped a rank

and title of which she showed herself so unworthy. The Duchess disappeared

suddenly from the world, which gladly rejected one it had so unwillingly

received. La Felina took refuge in a small house in the retired quarter we

have mentioned. For, like _Venus attached to her prey_, she would not

leave Paris, in which she could not divest herself of the idea that

Monte-Leone, completely reinstated, would some day become Aminta's husband.

Sickness had gradually enfeebled her, and Salvatori, who was master of her

secrets, had established himself in her house. Taking advantage of her

complicity, he had, by means of cunning and terror, became in a manner the

master and tyrant, now that her health was gone, of one to whom he had been

an abject slave. For this reason he had, as we have seen, treated her with

such cruel disdain.

On the very day this scene took place, Monte-Leone received the following

note: "A woman, whose handwriting you will recognize, has but a few hours

to live. Come to see her for the sake of that pity she deserves. Do not

resist the prayers of one who is on her death-bed." Below was the address

of the Duchess.

The Count had long lost sight of La Felina; he knew she was separated from

her husband, but was so indifferent that he had not even asked why. Always

kind and generous, he thought duty required him to go, and on the next day

at noon, rang at La Felina's door. Stenio had preceded him a few moments,

and in the next room prepared to enjoy the scene. No sooner had the Count

entered the bedroom than Salvatori thought he heard steps in a boudoir

connected with it, and which opened on a back stairway. Uneasy at this

noise, for which he could not account, he was yet unable to satisfy

himself; for to do so, he would have been again obliged to cross the

Duchess's room, and the Count was already with her.

When the Count and La Felina met, a cry of astonishment burst from the lips

of each. They seemed to each other two spectres.

"Count," said the Duchess, in faint and broken voice, "the time is come

when the truth must be told, ere the tongue on which it depends be cold in

the grave. You are, therefore, about to hear the truth as the dying tell it

who have lost all dread of men and their wrath."

"Speak out, Signora; my life has been so strange that nothing now can

surprise me," said the Count.

"You will be astonished; for I am about to read the riddle, the mystery,

which you have so long attempted to penetrate." The Count was attentive.

"You have," said La Felina, "sought to know who was the secret enemy who

deprived you of name and fame. I am about to tell you." The Count seemed

surprised. "Do not interrupt me," said she. "This enemy has followed your

steps and poisoned your life. Thus has it been effected: You were ruined,

really ruined, but twice have fifty thousand francs been sent to you, and

you have been made to believe that this was but a restoration of your

fortune."

"Did it not come from Lamberti?" said the Count.

"No; bankrupts never pay. A forged letter from this banker insisted on

silence in relation to this restoration, and thus the mysterious resources

were created which awakened the suspicions of the world, and caused the

report that you were an agent of the police to be believed."

The Count grew pale with horror.

"Wait," said La Felina. "A man, a devil, purchased by your enemy, in

obedience to orders, went to the house of Matheus, your associate in

Carbonarism. This devil opened the drawer in which the archives of the

association were kept, and taking possession of the lists, substituted

copies for the originals."

"Infamous," said Monte-Leone.

"This devil did more. He dared to procure you a pass as a 'Spy in Society.'

This pass your friend Taddeo Rovero saw."

"My God, my God, can I hear aright?"

"This man did not think you were as yet sufficiently degraded in the eyes

of the world and your brethren. Taking advantage of a visit you paid me, he

went into your carriage with a cloak like yours over his shoulders, and was

driven to the Prefecture of Police."

"This is hell itself," said the Count.

"Did I not say this man was a demon?" said La Felina, coldly. "All this

evidence was accumulated against you. The French Government was deceived,

and did not exert severity towards the powerful chief of the Carbonari, now

become, as it believed, its agent. The world and public opinion did their

work."

"Why was all this? what was the motive?"

"You had destroyed the happiness of your enemy, and in return the sacrifice

of your honor was exacted; you had deserted one who adored you, and sought

to marry another; to prevent this she disgraced you. Now, Count

Monte-Leone," said La Felina, rising up, "is it necessary for me to name

that woman? Do you know me?"

"Wretch!" said the Count, "are you not afraid that I will kill you?"

"Why?" said she, "am I not dying?"

"Well," said he, "you shall carry to the tomb one crime in addition to the

offences you have revealed to me. With honor you destroyed my life." Taking

a pistol from his bosom he placed it to his brow, and was about to fire--

At the last words of the Count a door was thrown open, and an arm seized

Monte-Leone's hand. He looked around and saw the Duke D'Harcourt.

"Count," said he, "one person alone can restore you the honor of which you

have been so rudely deprived. That person is the Duke D'Harcourt."

"The voice of the man, of the father," said he, and his eyes became

suffused with tears, "who charged you publicly with having denounced his

son, and surrendered him to the executioners, with having killed him.

"Ah! God himself sends you hither," said the Count, with an indescribable

accent of hope. "Yes, yes; you have heard all, and will be believed.

Monsieur," said he, with great animation, "have you not heard all? You know

how I have been treated by those monsters. You will say so. Tell me that

you will. I cast myself at your feet to implore you."

"Count," said the Duke, lifting up Monte-Leone and embracing him, "I am the

guilty man, for louder than any one I have uttered an anathema on the

innocent. I have appealed to man and God for vengeance."

"Yes," said the Count, "and touched by the immensity of my sufferings God

has led you hither."

"Yes, God," said the Duke, "and _she_;" pointing to La Felina, whose eyes

brightened up with animation, strangely contrasted with the morbid palor of

her face.

"_She?_" said the Count.

"Yes," said the Duke. "Stricken down by repentance, she besought me

yesterday to come hither to hear her confession."

Scarcely had the Duke pronounced these words, than a cry of hatred, savage

as that of the jackal, was heard in the next room.

"Save me, save me," said the Duchess, calling Monte-Leone to her, and

sheltering herself behind his body, "_He_ will murder me."

"_He?_" said the Duke and Count together.

"Whom do you refer to?" said Monte-Leone.

"To Stenio Salvatori, the accomplice in this tissue of crime."

The two noblemen rushed towards the room where the cry had been heard. A

door leading to the stairway was open, and there was no one visible. When

they returned, the invalid giving way to so severe a shock and exertion was

dying. She had only strength to repeat the request she had urged on Stenio

the day before. "A priest, for heaven's sake, a priest, that I may repeat

to God what I have said to man."

The door opened and an ecclesiastic appeared.

"Quick, father, quick," said the Duchess. "Tell me that God, like man, will

forgive me."

The priest stood for a few minutes in the middle of the room, apparently

overpowered by emotion. He said, "One person must forgive you, Madame, and

that person is the individual whose life you have made miserable, whom you

have made use of to strike this innocent man;" and he pointed to the Count.

"I, as well as the Duke, was in the adjoining room, and have heard all.

That pardon I give you."

The Duchess said, "Then Rovero, too, forgives me;" before she had finished

his name, Monte-Leone clasped Taddeo in his arms.

Two days after, a funeral portage proceeded to a place of eternal rest.

Three men followed a body to the grave. They were Monte-Leone, the Duke

d'Harcourt, and the Abbe Rovero. Love and friendship having been both

betrayed, as he thought, Taddeo sought for consolation in religion. The

Divinity, he knew, did not betray those who love him. A fugitive and an

outlaw, he had sought refuge in a seminary, and subsequently had become a

priest. Chance had assigned him to a church near La Felina's house, and he

had been pointed out by the Duchess's confidential servant, as a priest

worthy her mistress's confidence. Heaven had accomplished the rest.

All Paris, at that time, was filled with a strange report, and with

amazement learned the truth in relation to Monte-Leone. A letter from the

Duke d'Harcourt appeared in the journals of the day and unfolded this

terrible drama. The Duke told Paris and all Europe, what he had overheard

in the Duchess's boudoir.

It said, if any voice should do justice to this injured man, it is that of

a father who wrongfully accused him of being the death of a son. The moral

reaction in favor of the Count was as sudden as the censure the world had

heaped on him had been. The person who, next to Monte-Leone, enjoyed this

complete reparation, was the adorable woman who had never doubted the honor

of the man she loved.

The King sent for the Duke d'Harcourt; he understood and participated in

the grief of an unfortunate father, for he, also, had lost the heir of his

throne. When the old noble left the King he bore with him the pardon of

Rene's young friend, the generous Von Apsberg. The Duke went to the

conciergerie, and on the Doctor, in his gratitude, asking after Marie, the

former said, "She is a patient who will give you a great deal of trouble,

both her health and her heart being seriously affected. You will have two

grave diseases to attend to, and the husband must assist the physician."

EPILOGUE.

A month after these events--on the first of May, that festival of sunlight,

flowers, and universal rejoicings--two couples, followed by many friends

and brilliant attendants, went from the small house on the banks of the

Seine, to the village church of Neuilly. The Prince de Maulear, made young

by happiness, had Marie d'Harcourt on his arm. The Duke escorted the

Marquise, and the Count and Von Apsberg followed them. The priest stood at

the foot of the altar. This priest, who made four persons happy, but who

looked to heaven alone for his own happiness, was Taddeo Rovero.

The three fiery Carbonari gradually felt their revolutionary ardor grow

dull. The reason is, these three men were now attached to the society they

had sought to destroy, by strong ties. Two were bound to it by family

bonds, and the other by religion.

_Carbonarism_ was not crushed in Europe, by the disasters of the French

association. It slumbered for ten years, but awoke in 1830. The tree has

grown, and the world now gathers its bitter fruits.

Stenio Salvatori received in Italy the punishment due his great crimes in

France. His vile heart became the sheath of the stiletto of one of the

brethren of the _Venta_ of CASTEL LA MARC.

Our old acquaintance, Mlle. Celestine Crepinean, touched by divine grace,

repented of having made so bad a disposition of her pure and virgin love.

Like Magdalen, she threw herself at the feet of her Savior, and lived to an

advanced age, greatly to the edification of the faithful as dispenser of

holy water at the church of Saint THOMAS AQUINAS.

END OF THE SPY IN SOCIETY.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Concluded from page 327.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by Stringer &

Townsend, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States

for the Southern District of New-York.

[4] _Mansarde_ Gallice, from the inventor Mansard, uncle of another

architect of the same name of the time of Louis XIV.

[5] It is one of the maxims of _magnetism_, that when once an entire

sympathy between two minds is established equality ensues, and consequently

neither can exert influence over the other.

A GHOST STORY OF NORMANDY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "HAMON AND CATAR; OR, THE TWO RACKS."

From Bentley's Miscellany.

I.

On a fine summer evening, in 1846, I left my house, which was in the

neighborhood of Honfleur, Normandy, to take a stroll. It was July. All the

morning and all the afternoon the sun had been busily pouring down streams

of radiance like streams of boiling water, and I had kept the house, and

kept it closely shut up too, till the orb of day had gone some way down

towards the sea, as if, like a fire-eater, or like a locomotive, to get a

_drink_ after its work.

My wife being asleep, I borrowed her parasol, for English life in France is

very free and easy, and I was rather careful of my complexion. I lit a

cigar, and starting, soon left the church of St. Catharine behind. My

business in the town was to post a letter, which I got safely done, and

then passing down the fish-market, I found myself, ere long, at the foot of

the Cote de Grace--a steep hill which rises abruptly from the town, and is

scaleable at one part by a sandy zigzag.

My cigar was a bad one altogether--a bad one to look at and a bad one to

blow. Of government manufacture, it cost five sous, and was not worth one.

Its skin was as thick as an ass's hide, and no persuasion would make _it_

draw. Like a false friend, it became quite hollow when I put the fire of

trial to it; and only waxed hot and oily as it burnt on. It was a French

regalia, and had nothing of French royalty about it but bad _smoke_. The

tobacco had, I think, lost savor, as salt used to do, in passing through

the monopolizing hands of the _Citoyen Roi_. In a word, my gorge rose at

it.

I stood awhile at the foot of the zigzag, endeavoring to coax it into

usefulness, for I was a family man, and had given many hostages to fortune,

and dared not to be extravagant. I tried to doctor it by incisions, and by

giving it draughts; but all was in vain. At last it began to unwind, and

some loose ashes found their way to my eyes. I was about to throw it away

in disgust, when a young Frenchman, who had passed me a moment before with

a party (I knew him slightly and we had bowed), returned, and observing

that my cigar seemed troublesome, asked me to try one of his.

His name was Le Brun. We had met occasionally on the pier, where in the

quiet evenings I used to take refuge from the uproar of my sanctuary at

home, and for awhile almost believed myself a lay bachelor lounging through

France without a charming wife and eight children. He and I had succeeded

well in chit-chat. The Browns, he was fond of saying, were a numerous race

in England, but if he ever settled there he would be distinguished from

them as THE Brown. He was vain of this play on his name, and I always

laughed when he produced it. I had no hesitation, therefore, when he

offered me a cigar: besides, I knew that he always smoked smuggled Cubas.

We gossiped for a few moments. At length I saw him glance at my wife's

parasol, which was shielding me from the sun. He _said_ nothing, but I felt

my cheek burn with a sudden sort of shame, and immediately shut it up.

"Madame will return," he said, "and Monsieur attends her."

This was not the fact. Monsieur had to return, and Madame attended him. But

the observation was put in the narrative form, and if my friend gave me

information which I knew to be false, I was not bound to say so. I only

bowed, therefore; and he added that he was forced to join his party, and

bowed too; and so we separated.

He had scarcely left me, when I thought that if I had avowed my solitary

state he might have asked me to join his party, which was evidently a merry

one; and I internally execrated the parasol, which had been the means of

preventing this. If by any accident I should meet him again, I resolved

that he should not see me with _it_, and without the lady; so I deposited

it at a little lace-maker's, and soon after began to ascend the Cote de

Grace, not without hopes of meeting the party as they returned, perhaps

from Val-a-Reine.

Between each wind of the zigzag path was a flight of wooden steps, by which

the adventurous might ascend directly from the bottom of the hill. At the

head of some of these flights of steps were rustic seats; they were

generally on the outer edge of the path, but a few were placed far back, so

that the hill immediately below was unseen.

I always climbed the Cote by the steps, as I used ever and anon to lie down

on the green carpet which nature has spread over each of the short ascents.

On the present occasion I had not mounted far before a pleasant piece of

this turf-flooring near the top of one of the little hills seduced me from

my toils. I sat down, took Shelley's "Revolt of Islam" from my pocket,

finished my cigar, and in consequence of reading half a dozen stanzas from

the poem--fell asleep.

I woke suddenly, and as soon as I had my faculties about me, noticed that

people were speaking, and in loud tones, close above me. Otherwise, all was

still around. There was no wind among the little trees; a bee buzzed past

me now and then, and insects hummed, but further off down the hill, and

these voices sounded harsh and dissonant in the quiet air. I listened, at

first mechanically. The conversation was carried on in French.

"It is time to end this," said a stern, disagreeable voice; "and I will not

wait any longer, M. Raymond."

"But M. Gray," answered another and more pleasant voice, "you will think of

my situation--my family. I have done all I could."

"I have thought too much of your family," replied Gray; "but I must also

think of myself. Esther--your daughter--she does not speak with me, for

example, as you said she should."

"Monsieur!" exclaimed the other.

"This Le Brun--she is all ears and eyes for him. She----"

"M. Gray!" said Raymond. His voice had been deprecating before--it was firm

now. "You are so harsh to me; how can you expect kindness from her?"

"Why, sir, you promised to use your influence with her----"

"Promised, M. Gray!" Raymond burst in. "You did not think I should sell my

daughter for a debt of the table? I do not think, monsieur, you expected me

to _sell_ my Esther, for example." And there was an emphasis on these last

words which only a Frenchman could give.

"I did not say you promised that," replied the other; "but I am seeking for

the money you owe me. I love your daughter; you know it; she does not

smile, and I must wait. But my creditors will not wait. I owe money, and

come to you for what you owe me."

The voice that said this was cold and stern. Suddenly, as I listened to it,

it seemed familiar to me; but where I had heard it I could not remember.

Raymond replied:

"And suppose I had not played with you and lost? What would you have done?"

"But my friends in England are so dilatory," was the evasive answer.

"Still--if Mademoiselle Esther----"

"Sacre!" cried Raymond, starting to his feet, and stamping on the path.

Gray seemed to rise too. "You press me too far. What do I know of you,

monsieur? You live here some few months--you play high--you--you----"

"Ah, well, monsieur," said Gray, icily, as he paused.

"My daughter, too," cried Raymond; "you use my debt to you as a means----."

He stopped again in his sudden passion.

"Pardon me, monsieur," said Gray, sternly, "this is only a debt of honor;"

and he laid a stress on the word which drove it home. "In England we cannot

enforce a debt of honor."

"What do you do there when it is not paid?"

"First post the guilty man, and then shoot him," was the answer.

I felt inclined to start from my concealment and say that this was false. I

recollected, however, just in time, that it was true.

"But this is folly," pursued Gray, "and we should not quarrel. I am not

going to shoot Esther's father, for example."

The effect of this cordial and peaceful declaration was instantaneous. Glad

apparently to drop his creditor in his friend at any price, Raymond

answered kindly, and even proposed to give Gray a small sum on account of

his debt, which he accepted. They then began to ascend the zigzag, and ere

long their voices died away in the distance.

I had remained lying-to where I was all this while, and felt glad when they

left the neighborhood. I never overheard a conversation with pleasure since

I read how the Rev. Dr. Follett declared that his bamboo, and not his

cloth, should protect him from Mr. Eavesdrop. Once, indeed, I had thought

of retiring, but put it off so long that I thought I might just as well

stay out the interview.

I knew Mr. Raymond by name. He was a banker, and reputed rich. He was also

thought religious--for a Frenchman, even pious. He crossed himself at all

the twopenny representations of the Divine agony. He never galloped past a

crucifix, or calvaire, or burial-place. And yet he now showed himself a

gambler, and apparently on the way to sell his daughter's hand to a man he

did not know, for a gambling debt. The discovery made me feel sick. And yet

I thought how many of my own parisioners, who wave their heads at the

sacred name in the creed, and appear to men to worship, are as false as

this man; packing away their religion like their best hat till next Sunday,

when it seems as good to the next pew as ever.

But I felt more than an abstract discomfort at my discoveries. Le Brun's

name had been mixed up with Esther Raymond's by this Gray. Now his Cuba

cigar had bound me indissolubly to The Brown, and as long as he asked

nothing but what cost nothing, I was his faithful well-wisher and friend.

This was the time to show my friendship; and accordingly I sprang from my

couch, put Shelley into my pocket, and resumed my ascent of the Cote.

I had gained the top, and, after looking across the water to Harfleur,

which showed well in the soft light of the westering sun, was about to

walk on, when I saw a party on the rude bench which is set on the seaward

side of the top of the Cote--Le Brun with them. I looked back across the

Seine, and watched the lights and shades shift on the hills of the opposite

shore, collecting my thoughts the while. Ere they were collected, however,

he joined me.

"Ah! but madame is no longer with monsieur?" he said.

"No; she's at home now," I answered, thinking how I should best break

ground, and almost inclined to leave him to his own courses now that it was

time to act. Why should I meddle in these foreigners' affairs? What were

they to me? I felt thus for a moment; Le Brun produced his cigar-case, and

I did not feel so for another.

"I hope you liked my cigar; it is not French," he said. "Will you try

another?"

"If you will try one of mine," I answered, ashamed to take without giving,

and forgetting that my property consisted of none but the despised French

article. The young gentleman took one of the great clown-like regalias with

a slight shudder, and I saw him wince as he inhaled a mouthful of its rank

produce, and, ere long, quietly drop the thing when he thought I was not

looking, and substitute one of his own.

The flavor of his Cuba opened my heart to him, and ere long I broached the

subject with which I had no earthly business.

"You know a certain M. Gray?" I asked. He started.

"Yes," he said; "that is him talking to mademoiselle. Shall I introduce

you?"

"Not at present--no, I thank you," I answered. He looked up at me.

"Do you know him?" he asked. My eye had been bent on him for the last few

seconds.

"I think I do," I said; "I am not sure."

"He came here with the Dowlasses; he is the son of an English milord, who

allows him a thousand pounds a year."

"Why did he leave England, then?" I inquired.

"He was too gay, I believe."

"And left his debts unpaid, I suppose." He looked up at me again.

"If you do know him, or anything about him," he exclaimed, "pray tell me; I

am particularly anxious about him."

"I know you must be, and so ought mademoiselle to be," I said. He blushed

like a girl and was going to speak, but I continued: "If he is the man I

think, never play at cards with him, M. le Brun; and, between us, separate

his hat from those pink ribbons further than they are now."

His curiosity, his anxiety, was thoroughly aroused; but, as he began to

speak, a lady's voice called him. It was Esther's.

"Will you join us?" he said. In another moment I was being introduced to

the party.

I was at first surprised to find Gray and his dupe smoking and chatting as

gayly as any of the party. I am a good wonderer, but always reason my

surprises away. I soon did so now, reflecting that all men use their faces

as masks, by which they lie without speaking falsehood. And, though I

detest hypocrisy myself, I remembered that I often smiled when I could

grind my teeth with rage--that is, if they were not false ones.

Le Brun had been summoned to rejoin the circle because a curious topic had

been started. M. Raymond was proprietor of an estate near St. Sauveur, the

house of which was reported to be haunted, and Esther had dared Gray to

spend a night there.

"But I don't believe in ghosts," he recommenced, after the introduction.

"It would only be to waste a night."

"Oh, there _is_ a goblin though," replied the beautiful girl--"a male

Amina; always walking into an occupied chamber, so that you're sure to see

him. He does not, however, stop to be caught napping in the morning, like

La Sonnambula."

"I'll tell you what I'll do," answered Gray. "You've called M. le

Brun"--and he looked somewhat fiercely at my friend--"if he'll spend a

night there, I will. I'm engaged to-night, and to-morrow night, so that he

can go first. But I can't believe in your ghost, mademoiselle."

"Not if I acknowledge to have seen him myself?" she asked. There was a

general movement among the listeners. "Well, I will accept for M. le Brun;

he shall go to-night or to-morrow, and you the night after--eh, M.

Frederic?"

Le Brun murmured something about obedience to her wishes; what, I did not

hear. He evidently, however, did not like the scheme, and Gray saw it; but,

in the general interest for Esther's tale, no one else did.

I do not give it here, for divers reasons. When she had done, it was found

to be time to return. I would have left the party, but Raymond having

seperated Le Brun from Esther, he joined himself to me, and I was unable to

do so.

"What will Grace say?" thought I. "I hope she won't wait tea for me." I

should have been somewhat crusty if, on an ordinary occasion, I had

returned from a stroll and found that she and the rest had _not_ waited. Le

Brun asked me--as M. Raymond had already done--to stay all the evening with

the party. That, however, I felt to be impossible, and said so.

"Well, for the present, then," he said. "What can you tell me of M. Gray?"

he added.

"I expect my brother here to-morrow," I said, "when I will compare notes

with him. Till then I should be cautious, as I may injure an innocent man.

But do you be cautious too. How about this challenge? Shall you sleep in

the haunted house? It is romantic nonsense--this of a spirit, you know.

Mademoiselle has seen a clothes-horse, or a--a part of her dress in

moonlight. I don't believe in ghosts myself at all."

"Don't you?" said he, somewhat sadly. "I--the truth is, mon cher, I am

afraid I do."

"You must go on now, though," I said, maliciously.

"Oh, yes--of course--go on," he answered; "but, monsieur----" he hesitated.

"What is it, my dear friend?" I said.

"I thought to ask a favor of you," he replied. "Will you accompany me to

this house, monsieur? I feel I ask much--but will you?"

"Much, my very dear sir!" I exclaimed, in the fullness of my heart--"not at

all too much. I shall be happy to be of any use to you, and will sit and

smoke those cigars of yours, and let the ghosts go to old ----." I stopped

suddenly.

"And what," thought I, "will Grace say to _that_?" A sort of dampness

rushed out upon my skin; I had forgotten her. My sentence remained

unfinished, and I looked eagerly about me, as if to question the adjoining

shrubs as to what on earth I was to do. My dear Grace was the light of my

eyes, and the joy of my heart, I'm sure; the best wife, the most amiable of

the sex, but yet she had a kind of will of her own, which was apt to get

grafted, as it were, upon mine. She never opposed me positively in any

thing, but somehow, if she did not like it, it was rarely done. I had just

promised what I might not be able to perform; and yet I did not like to

confess to this foreigner that my wife led me. "A plague upon his Cubas and

him too," I thought. Still, what was to be done?

"If you cannot sleep there to-night," he said, noticing my uneasiness, "I

will claim the night's grace----"

"Grace!" I exclaimed; my wife before me in the word.

"Yes, she said to-night or to-morrow."

"Oh, to-night?--impossible!" I cried. "I have a very--an engagement

to-night. I can not possibly make it to-night. Besides," I exclaimed,

grasping at an idea like a drowner at a rope, or any thing saving,

"mademoiselle may not give leave to share your danger with any one."

"I asked her," he said--I had noticed them exchange whispers--"and she

will----"

"Bother!" I muttered; but instantly continued, with a smile, "if it is to

be so I will be at your service to-morrow. Meanwhile, let me slip away

now--that engagement, you know."

We were at the foot of the Cote de Grace by this time. He brought the party

to a stand-still, and, after some difficulty, I was allowed to desert, Le

Brun asking me to join him next day to dinner, to which I agreed. After I

left the joyous set I walked away fiercely, like a man with a purpose, till

they were out of sight; but, as I neared that sanctuary of the heart where

the tea would be waiting for me, the fierceness of my pace abated, and,

with hands in pockets and head depressed, I slackened my speed more and

more, till at last, when I reached my garden-gate, I came to a stand-still.

Unhappily I am tall, and my children are all wonderfully quick. I had not

stood at the gate three seconds before I was surrounded by my urchins,

whooping, and getting among my legs, and hanging to my tails, and playing

the wildest pranks off on me.

But suddenly I saw my wife leave the house and come down the garden without

her bonnet to welcome me. Oh, how I wished that, just for once, she had

been a shrew; I could have brazened out the matter then. But she smiled so

sweetly at me!

"Well," she exclaimed, heartily, putting her hands in mine, "you have had a

splendid afternoon for your walk! Have you enjoyed it?"

"Oh, yes," I said, "except for one thing."

"What's that?" she asked; "no accident I hope. You've never, surely, been

among the orchards again; I'm sure the grass swarms with adders and

snakes." And she looked so anxiously and tenderly up into my face that I

was forced to stoop and----. But this is weakness. "What was it? I saw you

took out that divine Shelley."

"Yes," I answered, jumping at any subject foreign to the one at my heart,

"he _is_ divine. I'll never deny it again; the very god of sleep."

"For shame!" she cried; "and I saw you took something else, too. But where

is it?--the parasol, I mean?" I had forgotten it! I think I must have

started and changed color, for she immediately proceeded: "Never mind, it's

too late to go into the fields for it now. It will be quite destroyed,

though, by the dew to-night--there's always so much in this weather. But,

never mind--and yet how could you forget it?"

"Oh, it's all right," I replied, somewhat pettishly; "we'll get it in the

morning. I left it in a shop at the foot of the Cote de Grace."

"Well, then, what was the drawback to your walk?"

"Oh! never mind it just now," I exclaimed. "Dear Grace, do let me have some

tea; I'll tell you by-and-by." And I bustled among the children towards the

house, she following in some surprise.

As soon as tea was over I dispatched the children into the garden and

solemnly commenced my tale. Commenced? I plunged into it heels over head,

as a timid bather plunges into the pool when he is the cynosure of the eyes

of all swimmers in it, and by appearing on the brink in Nature's undress

_uniform_, feels himself pledged to enter the liquid. Like him, too, when

once in, I did not find the water so cold as I feared, after all. I had

made my promise so strong by constantly referring to it, that Grace never

even proposed my giving it up. My brother would arrive by to-morrow's boat,

and so that the house would have a guardian she would not object--for once.

I inwardly vowed not to put it in her power to refuse or grant such a favor

again.

II.

So on the morrow, at the appointed time, I was comfortably seated at M. le

Brun's mahogany; and while, "for this occasion only," I played my old

_role_ of bachelor, I loosed the hymeneal reins, and actually told some

ancient Cider-cellar stories--in French, too,--which produced explosion

after explosion of laughter, though whether this was caused by the tales or

the telling I cannot of course guess.

By-and-by evening came, and it was time to start. Le Brun and I hastened,

therefore, to finish the bottles then in circulation; and, as soon as that

was done, rose to walk to the haunted property. And now the skeptical

blockheads who doubt every thing would say that what follows was the

consequence of our libations. Let them say what they like, I only put it to

_you_, if it is likely that a thorough-going Church and State rector would

be influenced by a few bottles of _vin ordinaire_ and a mere _thought_ of

cognac after all.

It was about nine o'clock when we arrived within sight of St. Sauveur. It

was a lovely night. Beyond the little village in the distance loomed the

hills, rising from the Eure, over which the moon was shining brilliantly.

Presently my companion turned sharply off from the main road, and we began

to ascend a narrow stony lane, so thickly fringed with bushes that the

light was excluded; but ere long we came upon a cross-path nearly as

narrow, but lighted by the rays of the bright moon; this we followed, till,

in a few minutes, we arrived before a gate, which we pushed open, and

advanced into a field.

Le Brun paused to light a fresh cigar from the smoking ruins of the last,

and, as I walked on, I suddenly became reflective. "Your life, my dear and

reverend sir," I ejaculated, "has just been like this evening's walk. Your

school and college life were all bright and silvery as the highway flooded

by the glorious beams, and so forth. Then came the stony lane of

curateship, and then you gained a cross-lane, stony still, but lighted by

the smiles of Grace, and the prospect of a reversion, which your father got

you cheap, because the occupant was young. And then this youthful rector

joined the Church of Rome, leaving the gate open for you; and so you

stepped into your twelve hundred a year, of which you only need to

sacrifice seventy for a hack to do the work. So that after a somewhat

pleasant life you can enjoy yourself in foreign parts, and----"

"Halloa!" cried a voice behind.

I started. In a moment I remembered that I was upon haunted ground, and

motioned to fly. I am no coward, but I hate a surprise, and thought that

perhaps the hero of this enchanted ground was close beside me. Le Brun's

voice, however, dissipated those fears. I had strolled from the right path

in my dream, and he wished me to re-rejoin him. I did so, and we pursued

our walk.

We soon arrived before the house. It was approachable at the rear by a road

which led to St. Sauveur, after winding about the country some two or three

miles more than necessary, as French roads are apt to do: but the main

entrance was from the fields, as we had come. It was a shabby place, and

looked in the staring moonlight as seedy as a bookseller's hack would look

in the glare of an Almack's ball. The windows were mostly broken, and the

portico, like its Greek model, was in ruins. Rude evergreens grew downward

from the rails which had fixed them, when young, in the way they were to

go, and were sprawling about the nominal garden, which was likewise overrun

by weeds and plots of grass, and fallen shrubs and flowers. The moon never

looked on a poorer spot, and yet there was an air about the tattered old

house which seemed to indicate that it had been good-looking once; as we

may see, despite the plaster-work among the wrinkles of some of our

dowagers, that they were not altogether hideous, as they now are, in the

days of the "Greatest Gentleman" in Europe.

We entered. It was too late and too dark in-doors to survey the mansion;

so, as Le Brun had been directed to the habitable room, we struck a light,

and ascended directly to it. It was handsomely furnished, and a basket

containing that refreshment which we had looked forward to stood on the

table. The windows were whole; still I thought it well to close the

shutters, as I hate Midsummer nights' draughts as much as I love the

"Midsummer Night's Dream." This done, I sank on a sofa; Le Brun drew some

wine; we fell to at an early supper, and fared well.

When we had finished we lighted cigars, and our conversation grew

frivolous. Le Brun was in the midst of a description of Esther, when I

heard a groan, and said so. He pooh-poohed me, and, half annoyed at the

interruption, proceeded. He had not got on very far before the groan was

repeated. I started up.

"Pooh!--wind!" said my companion, retaining his seat and emitting his

smoke.

"If so, it must be wind on the stomach, or wind in the lungs," I said.

"Hark!"

I heard a faint noise. We both listened intently for some minutes, I

standing. It was not repeated, however; so, growing tired, I said that I

must have been mistaken, and sat down. Le Brun agreed with me, and resumed

his description. I followed with a tale; he was reminded by it of another;

and so we continued, till our repeated potations, much speaking, and the

late hour, made both of us prosy, and then we fell, as with one accord,

asleep.

I must have slept for a considerable time, as, when I woke, I found that

the lamp had burned very low, and looked the worse for having been kept up

so late. I woke with a start, caused, as I imagined, by hearing the

room-door suddenly opened. That was a sound which, as a father of a large

family, I had got to know very well, especially about the smaller hours. I

looked towards the door, but my eyes were dim with sleep, and it was not

till Le Brun's boot was projected against my shin that I became

sufficiently awake to see if my idea was correct or no. It was.

Not only was the door open but a person was evidently standing on the

threshold. In the sickly light his face was not visible; nothing, in fact,

but an outline of him. I rose, and with as much steadiness of voice as I

could command, requested the visitor to come in. He made a deep bow, set

his hat modestly upon the floor, came across the room, and stood as if

awaiting further orders.

I had, however, none to give him. I had not sufficient impudence to bid him

sit down and help himself to wine, or what he liked; but I kicked Le Brun,

in payment for his attack on me, and motioned to him to do the honors. He

met the advance of my foot, however, in an unexpected way.

"Diable!" he cried, "Est-ce que----"

He stopped as if a gag had been thrust between his jaws; for our visitor,

doubtless applying the epithet to himself, suddenly turned his back on us,

walked to the door, picked up his hat, and, though I cried after him, as

the Master of Ravenswood cried after his dead Lucia's ghost, to stop, paid

no more heed than that virgin does to Mario, but retired quickly, his boots

screaming as he trod upon them like veritable souls in pain. We made no

motion to follow, but remained as if glued to our places, looking on each

other from our semi-sleepy eyes in a somewhat foolish manner.

"He'll come back," said Le Brun. "Hush!"

The boots had stopped at the bottom of the stairs; we heard no sound.

"If he does, don't name Sathanas, for Heaven's sake," I said. "He doesn't

like it. It may recall unpleasant things--seem personal, in fact----"

"Hush!" he exclaimed.

We listened. The screaming boots were remounting the stairs. The visitor

had got over the personality, and was coming back. "What should be done? I

am no coward; I've said so before; but I seriously thought of running to,

shutting, fastening, and setting chairs against the door. But I did not

move. The footsteps approached, and then began to recede again. This

suspense of the interest--or, rather, dragging out of it--was most

tormenting. What if he should go on walking all night? But the steps were

ere long heard once more coming near the room, and once more the visitor

stood at the door. But he did not enter now. He looked steadfastly towards

us; beckoned slowly; then, turning, began to leave us again. I drew a long,

well-satisfied breath as he disappeared and leaned back on the sofa.

"I trust he's gone for good now," I said.

"He beckoned. We must follow," said Le Brun.

"Follow! Pooh, pooh!" I exclaimed. "Let us sit still and be glad."

"Not I," was his brave response. "Be he man, or be he----"

"Hush!" I cried. "He may hear. He doesn't like the word----"

"I do not understand the impulse," said Le Brun; "but we must follow."

"I do not _feel_ the impulse," I rejoined. "Still, if you do, and obey it,

I will not desert you."

"Come," he answered. And with quick steps we chased the vocal boots down

the corridor, and ere long saw the wearer of them, having descended the

stairs, cross the hall, and wait at the door of the house.

The moon was still shining brightly, and its rays came through the broken

windows on the ground-floor, and fell on the figure of the mysterious one.

He was of middle height, and of broad and muscular build. He seemed more

like an English farmer than a French ghost. His garments were seedy, and

his hat was old; but his boots were like the boots of Thaddeus of Warsaw,

the son of Miss Porter, who was so mortally offended when asked the name of

the maker of his Bluchers, and they gleamed like boots of polished steel.

All, however, did not seem right about the stranger. His head appeared

awry, and his arms out of their places. But perhaps these blemishes were

attributable to the moonlight, and not to the man; for he showed that he

could turn his head and look at us, and use his arms to open the door. We

followed him out into the air.

He led us through the field we had already traversed, but in a rather

different direction. The night was chilly, and the long grass damp, and I

began to grow weary of the adventure. Suddenly, however, our conductor

stopped before what appeared to be a ruined cow-shed. He looked at it

earnestly for a few moments, then at us, who kept a respectful distance;

then, making an abrupt motion of his arm towards it, too rapid for us to

understand, he seemed to me to spring into the air. Whether he did so or

not, I cannot declare; but I know that when I rubbed my eyes, and looked

round about for him, he was nowhere to be seen. We examined the spot, but

he had left no traces. Boots, and hat, and all his trappery had gone with

him. He had come like a dream, and vanished like a morning dream.

We stood for a few moments uncertain what to do, and then it occurred to me

that the room we had left was warm and comfortable, and this field cold and

dreary; so I proposed to return, especially as, the stranger having

vanished, there did not appear to be any business in hand. Le Brun agreed,

and we did so, and, after talking awhile over our adventure, went to sleep

over our talk; and I did not wake again till morning was staring into the

chamber, as Le Brun threw open the shutters.

The conversation that took place is as well to be imagined as transcribed.

Enough to say that I determined to have no share in Le Brun's narrative,

but left him to heighten it for himself. I parted with him at my house,

where I found Grace looking out for me; and he promised to return in the

course of the morning to pay his respects to her.

To my surprise, however, when he came, he asked me for five minutes'

conversation, and we went together into the field belonging to my house,

which sloped down to the Seine. His countenance was _both_ joyous and

anxious, and I saw that he had something heavier on his mind than last

night's frolic.

"I have spoken to you of M. Gray," he said, "and of Mademoiselle Raymond. I

have learnt this morning that M. Gray has her father in his power."

"You learnt that from her?" I asked.

He blushed and did not answer.

I went on. I had compared notes with my brother about this Gray, and found

my suspicions correct. I therefore told Le Brun what I had overheard on the

zigzag, and he in reply told me that Raymond had accepted a bill for the

amount of the debt to Gray.

"That's serious," I said. "But before we say more, monsieur, are you

engaged to Mademoiselle Esther?"

He replied in the affirmative.

"Can you live--excuse the question--with her without dowry?"

He replied in the affirmative again.

"Then," I said, "though it may sound oddly from one of my cloth, you must

either elope with her----"

"But then M. Raymond?--But his family?"

"He must suffer for his folly; not you. And you are only going to marry one

daughter, not all of them. The other alternative is--you must pay Raymond's

acceptance, as he cannot."

"It would be ruin. I cannot, either," he replied.

"Then you must lose Esther."

"I will not. No. And yet if I was to shoot Gray----"

"Shoot?" I interrupted, with the virtuous horror of a man who has never

been tempted to fight a duel--"and would you then outrage the laws of

divine and human?"

"No; it wouldn't do to shoot him," he pursued. "But oh, monsieur, can you

not suggest something to help me--to help us?"

A thought suddenly came into my head. "Gray is pledged to spend to-night in

the haunted house, is he not?" I asked.

He answered that it was so.

"I believe the man to be an arrant coward," I went on. "To be sure, he shot

a dear friend of mine in a duel, and behaved, as the world says, like a

brave man before his witnesses. But he's a coward for all that, and we'll

test it. I don't believe in our friend the Goblin Farmer; I don't believe

we saw any body, or any spirit last night at all. Well, never mind beliefs;

don't interrupt me. I think our eyes were made the fools of other senses,

and that there's no such thing. Gray has to spend the night there--we'll go

again to-night, that is, if my wife will let me, and perhaps get my brother

to help us--eh? Suppose we give him a lesson." And I laughed.

He laughed too; and after a few more observations, he accompanied me into

my drawing-room. Grace and James, with his wife Emma, were sitting talking

there.

I have said that I am a lazy rector. During my curatehood, however, I had

learned to preach sufficiently well for the parish where I worked. To be

sure my congregation was neither large or wakeful, except in winter, when

the church was like a Wenham ice depot, and people could not sleep. But I

was brief, and no faults were ever found in my time with brevity. My

experience in exposition and appeal now stood me in good stead.

I introduced Le Brun, and then plunged into matters. I gave a brief account

of Esther and her father. I eulogized Le Brun. After that I spoke of Gray,

and reminded James of the life and times--the death, too, of John Finnis,

whom he saved from being plucked alive in St. James's, only that he might

be shot in Hampstead. These dispatched, I opened my plans, which were

listened to with great interest; the only alteration proposed was that

James should go to find the authorities (if there were any, which he

doubted), and give notice of Gray's character to them; after which he was

to return to my house, and stay there till Le Brun and I came back from our

nocturnal expedition, as Grace and Emma feared to be left alone. Poor Emma,

indeed, declared that this was the most romantic thing she had ever heard

of, except one which happened in the village where she was born; but as

neither James or I liked to hear her speak of her origin, we cut her

narrative short.

The cresset moon was up in heaven--at least, Emma said it was--when we

started. It seemed to me nearly full; but she was poetical. I told her that

if it was a cresset, it was tilting up, and ought, therefore, to be pouring

out oil, and not light, on the earth. We started, I repeat, and a short

time after, in the language of a favorite novelist, two travellers might

have been seen slowly wending on their way, bundle in hand, towards the

haunted house.

In another hour or so, when the wind had sunk into repose, and the birds

had ceased their songs, and all things save the ever-watching stars were

sleeping (as that favorite historian might go on, if he were telling this

tale and not I), a tall and ecclesiastical form crept slowly from a place

of concealment near the house, approached it, and gently knocked at the

door. It was opened, and he entered cautiously. A few whispered sentences

passed with some friend within, which being over, he proceeded, though with

some hesitation, to mount the stairs and pace along the corridor.

My boots (for I was the ecclesiastic) creaked and crackled like mad boots.

Onward I went, like the Ghost in Hamlet, only with very vocal buskins. I

reached Gray's room and opened the door. A strange sight met my eyes

through the green glass goggles which I wore over them.

Gray was pacing up and down, in evident fear. A quantity of half-burnt

cigars, some bottles of wine, glasses, the lamp, and, above all, two

pistols were on the table. As I opened the door, and the light fell on me,

I feared that I should be discovered. But the gambler was afraid--and fear

has no eyes. I advanced into the room, and solemnly waved to him to follow.

He must have caught up a pistol ere he did so. I led the way.

It was my determination to lead him a long chase, and leave him in a ditch

if possible, Le Brun being near at hand to cudgel him. He had readily

understood my pantomime (I studied under Jones the player when in training

for orders), for I found he followed me, though at a distance.

But all my plans were disconcerted. As I reached the stair-head I heard a

noise, and stopped; so did Gray. It was as of some one forcing the house

door. Directly afterwards I heard the loud cries of the real goblin's

boots, and the sound of Le Brun in swift pursuit.

"Take care, monsieur," he cried up the stairs to me.

"By heaven they are robbers--murderers! Help! help!" roared Gray from

behind; and as the real apparition came gliding up, he fired his pistol at

it. The unexpected sound of the weapon, so close to my ear, too, stunned me

for a moment; but I recovered myself directly, and flung myself on him, in

fear lest he had his second pistol, too, and might fire at _me_. The real

goblin continued to advance, and I felt Gray tremble with terror in my arms

as _it_ survived the shot.

An unwonted boldness came over me. I felt myself committed to be brave.

"Villain!" I muttered in his ear, "you would swindle my descendant out of

all he has?"

"No--forgive me. I will not take a sou."

"His acceptance--where is it? Give it me." He shuddered.

"I will give it to you," he said.

I released him, and followed to the lamp-lighted chamber. The other

apparition creaked after him, too, and at the door I gave it the

precedence. It was well I did so. The sudden light seemed to make Gray

bold, for snatching up the other pistol he levelled it at the Simon Pure,

and before I could utter a word, fired. The shot must have passed clean

through the breast of the Mysterious Stranger--he only bowed.

Gray was now in mortal fear.

"Give up that bill," I said in solemn, pedal tones. He drew it frantically

from his pocket, and, leaping up, gave it to the mysterious one.

"Go to th----" he began, with a sort of ferocious recklessness. The next

moment he was sprawling on the floor. The Goblin reached out his hand, and

struck Gray, as it seemed, lightly with it. I would have raised him. I

motioned to do so; but my original touched me on the shoulder, handed me

the bill, and motioned to me to follow. I did not like his notes of

hand--his signature by mark on Gray's face--I therefore at once obeyed. Le

Brun had vanished.

The stranger led me by the old route till we were again close to the

tottering cow-house. Here he paused, as on the last occasion, and was,

perhaps, preparing to disappear again.

"One moment, sir," I said. "Be good enough to explain yourself more plainly

than you did last night. However much I may admire your acting, and it has

_beaucoup de l'Esprit_ about it, family arrangements will prevent me from

again assisting----"

He nodded as though he quite understood me, advanced to the side of the

shed, stopped under a sort of window, and then, deliberately sitting down

on the grass, began to pull off his boots. I gazed at him in amazement, and

was about to address him again, when a little cloud sailed across the moon,

and for a moment shaded all the place. As it passed away, and I looked to

our mysterious visitant and my mysterious Original, no remains of him were

to be seen--except the boots.

At this moment Le Brun joined me. I was the first (as before and as ever)

to throw aside my natural fears, and I advanced to the spot. There were two

highly polished Bluchers, side by side, as if they waited till the occupant

of the cow-house was out of bed and shaved. I took one of them up.

Something inside chinked. I reversed it, and three Napoleons fell upon the

turf.

I was wondering why a French farmer-ghost should choose a Blucher to

deliver Napoleons into an Englishman's hands, when Le Brun, finding nothing

in the other boot, suggested that it would be well to get Gray out of the

neighborhood, and perhaps the three Napoleons might be useful to him. To

this I agreed at once, though I was somewhat dissatisfied with the little

fellow for the small share he had taken in the risks of the evening.

I went to the room where the gambler was; he was evidently in mortal fear.

I put down the Napoleons on the table, and then in those deep, pedal, and

ecclesiastical notes, which have so often hymned my congregation to repose,

informed him that friends of John Finnis were in the town, that he was

proclaimed to the authorities, and that he had better leave the

neighborhood for ever. With this I left him, joined Le Brun, and was soon

on my way back to Honfleur.

"It was well I drew the shot from his pistols," said Le Brun, as we were

parting. I did not then see any latent meaning in his words, nor would he

ever afterwards answer any questions on the subject. I had forgotten to

remove my ghostly dresses and decorations, and Grace and Emma both uttered

gentle screams as I stalked into their presence. My tale was soon told, and

we retired to rest.

Here the whole tale ends. As the events I recorded recede into the past, I

begin almost to doubt the truth of them. But I have one living

evidence--now I am glad to say not single--and Le Brun may fairly lay it to

me that he has at this moment the most agreeable little lady in all

Normandy for his wedded wife. I am not aware if Boots still visits the

glimpses of the moon at St. Sauveur, for soon after these events I was

obliged to return to my parish to put down the Popish fooleries which I

found my hack had begun to introduce. If, however, he does, I only hope his

reappearance will be as useful as in the above little narrative, but the

Brown, the Gray--and the narrator have now done with him for ever.

CREBILLON, THE FRENCH AESCHYLUS.

From Fraser's Magazine.

About the year 1670, there lived at Dijon a certain notary, an original in

his way, named Melchior Jolyot. His father was an innkeeper; but of a more

ambitious nature than his sire, the son, so soon as he had succeeded in

collecting a little money, purchased for himself the office of head clerk

in the Chambres des Comptes of Dijon, with the title of Greffier of the

same. During the following year, having long been desirous of a title of

nobility, he acquired, at a very low price, a little abandoned and almost

unknown fief, that of Crebillon, situated about a league and a half from

the city.

His son, Prosper Jolyot, the future poet, was at that time a young man of

about two-and-twenty years of age, a student at law, and then on the eve of

being admitted as advocate at the French bar. From the first years of his

sojourn in Paris, we find that he called himself Prosper Jolyot _de

Crebillon_. About sixty years later, a worthy philosopher of Dijon, a

certain Monsieur J. B. Michault, writes as follows to the President de

Ruffey:--"Last Saturday (June 19th, 1762), our celebrated Crebillon was

interred at St. Gervais. In his _billets de mort_ they gave him the title

of _ecuyer_; but what appears to me more surprising, is the circumstance of

his son adopting that of _messire_."

Crebillon had then ended by cradling himself in a sort of imaginary

nobility. In 1761, we find him writing to the President de Brosse: "I have

ever taken so little thought respecting my own origin, that I have

neglected certain very flattering elucidations on this point. M. de Ricard,

maitre des comptes at Dijon, gave my father one day two titles he had

found. Of these two titles, written in very indifferent Latin, the first

concerned one Jolyot, chamberlain of Raoul, Duke of Burgundy; the second, a

certain Jolyot, chamberlain of Philippe le Bon. Both of these titles are

lost. I can also remember having heard it said in my youth by some old

inhabitants of Nuits, my father's native place, that there formerly existed

in those cantons a certain very powerful and noble family, named Jolyot."

O vanity of vanities! would it be believed that, under the democratic reign

of the Encyclopoedia, a man like Crebillon, ennobled by his own talents

and genius, could have thus hugged himself in the possession of a vain and

deceitful chimera! For truth compels us to own that, from the fifteenth to

the end of the seventeenth century, the Jolyots were never any thing more

or less than honest innkeepers, who sold their wine unadulterated, as it

was procured from the black or golden grapes of the Burgundy hills.

Meanwhile Crebillon, finding that his titles of nobility were uncontested,

pushed his aristocratic weakness so far as to affirm one day that his

family bore on its shield an eagle, or, on a field, azure, holding in its

beak a lily, proper, leaved and sustained, argent. All went, however,

according to his wishes; his son allied himself by an unexpected marriage

to one of the first families of England. The old tragic poet could then

pass into the other world with the consoling reflection that he left behind

him here below a name not only honored in the world of letters, but

inscribed also in the golden muster-roll of the French nobility. But

unfortunately for poor Crebillon's family tree, about a century after the

creation of this mushroom nobility--which, like the majority of the

nobilities of the eighteenth century, had its foundation in the sand--a

certain officious antiquary, who happened at the time to have nothing

better to do, bethought himself one day of inquiring into the validity of

his claim. He devoted to this strange occupation several years of precious

time. By dint of shaking the dust from off the archives of Dijon and

Nuits, and of rummaging the minutes of the notaries of the department, he

succeeded at length in ferreting out the genealogical tree of the Jolyot

family. Some, the most glorious of its members, had been notaries, others

had been innkeepers. Shade of Crebillon, pardon this impious archaeologist,

who thus, with ruthless hands, destroyed "at one fell swoop" the brilliant

scaffolding of your vanity!

Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon was born at Dijon, on the 13th of February,

1674; like Corneille, Bossuet, and Voltaire, he studied at the Jesuits'

college of his native town. It is well known that in all their seminaries,

the Jesuits kept secret registers, wherein they inscribed, under the name

of each pupil, certain notes in Latin upon his intellect and character. It

was the Abbe d'Olivet who, it is said, inscribed the note referring to

Crebillon:--"_Puer ingeniosus sed insignis nebulo._" But it must be said

that the collegiate establishments of the holy brotherhood housed certain

pedagogues, who abused their right of pronouncing judgment on the scholars.

Crebillon, after all, was but a lively, frolicksome child, free and

unreserved to excess in manners and speech.

His father, notary and later _greffier en chef_ of the "Chambre des

Comptes" at Dijon, being above all things desirous that his family should

become distinguished in the magistracy, destined his son to the law, saying

that the best heritage he could leave him was his own example. Crebillon

resigned himself to his father's wishes with a very good grace, and

repaired to Paris, there to keep his terms. In the capital, he divided his

time between study and the pleasures and amusements natural to his age. As

soon as he was admitted as advocate, he entered the chambers of a procureur

named Prieur, son of the Prieur celebrated by Scarron, an intimate friend

of his father, who greeted him fraternally. One would have supposed that

our future poet, who bore audacity on his countenance, and genius on his

brow, would, like Achilles, have recognized his sex when they showed him

arms; but far from this being the case, not only was it necessary to warn

him that he _was_ a poet, but even to impel him bodily, as it were, and

despite himself, into the arena.

The writers and poets of France have ever railed in good set terms against

procureurs, advocates, and all such common-place, every-day personages; and

in general, we are bound to confess they have had right on their side. We

must, however, render justice to one of them, the only one, perhaps, who

ever showed a taste for poetry. The worthy man to whom, fortunately for

himself, Crebillon had been confided, remarked at an early stage of their

acquaintanceship, the romantic disposition of his pupil. Of the same

country as Piron and Rameau, Crebillon possessed, like them, the same frank

gayety and good-tempered heedlessness of character, which betrayed his

Burgundian origin. Having at an early age inhaled the intoxicating perfumes

of the Burgundian wines, his first essays in poetry were, as might be

expected, certain _chansons a boire_, none of which, however, have

descended to posterity. The worthy procureur, amazed at the degree of power

shown even in these slight drinking-songs, earnestly advised him to become

a poet by profession.

Crebillon was then twenty-seven years of age; he resisted, alleging that he

did not believe he possessed the true creative genius; that every poet is

in some sort a species of deity, holding chaos in one hand, and light and

life in the other; and that, for his part, he possessed but a bad pen,

destined to defend bad causes in worse style. But the procureur was not to

be convinced; he had discovered that a spark of the creative fire already

shone in the breast of Crebillon. "Do not deny yourself becoming a poet,"

he would frequently say to him; "it is written upon your brow; your looks

have told me so a thousand times. There is but one man in all France

capable of taking up the mantle of Racine, and that man is yourself."

Crebillon exclaimed against this opinion; but having been left alone for a

few hours to transcribe a parliamentary petition, he recalled to mind the

magic of the stage--the scenery, the speeches, the applause; a moment of

inspiration seized him. When the procureur returned, his pupil extended his

hand to him, exclaiming, enthusiastically, "You have pointed out the way

for me, and I shall depart." "Do not be in a hurry," replied the procureur;

"a _chef d'oeuvre_ is not made in a week. Remain quietly where you are,

as if you were still a procureur's clerk; eat my bread and drink my wine;

when you have completed your work, you may then take your flight."

Crebillon accordingly remained in the procureur's office, and at the very

desk on which he transcribed petitions, he composed the five long acts of a

barbarous tragedy, entitled, "The Death of Brutus." The work finished, our

good-natured procureur brought all his interest into play, in order to

obtain a reading of the piece at the Comedie Francaise. After many

applications, Crebillon was permitted to read his play: it was unanimously

rejected. The poet was furious; he returned home to the procureur's, and

casting down his manuscript at the good man's feet, exclaimed, in a voice

of despair, "You have dishonored me!"

D'Alembert says, "Crebillon's fury burst upon the procureur's head; he

regarded him almost in the light of an enemy who had advised him only for

his own dishonor, swore to listen to him no more, and never to write

another line of verse so long as he lived."

Crebillon, however, in his rage maligned the worthy procureur; he would not

have found elsewhere so hospitable a roof or as true a friend. He returned

to the study of the law, but the decisive step had been taken; beneath the

advocate's gown the poet had already peeped forth. And then, the procureur

was never tired of predicting future triumphs. Crebillon ventured upon

another tragedy, and chose for his subject the story of the Cretan king,

Idomeneus. This time the comedians accepted his piece, and shortly

afterwards played it. Its success was doubtful, but the author fancied he

had received sufficient encouragement to continue his new career.

In his next piece, "Atree," Crebillon, who had commenced as a school-boy,

now raised himself, as it were, to the dignity of a master. The comedians

learned their parts with enthusiasm. On the morning of the first

representation, the procureur summoned the young poet to his bedside, for

he was then stricken with a mortal disease: "My friend," said he, "I have a

presentiment that this very evening you will be greeted by the critics of

the nation as a son of the great Corneille. There are but a few days of

life remaining for me; I have no longer strength to walk, but be assured

that I shall be at my post this evening, in the pit of the Theatre

Francaise." True to his word, the good old man had himself carried to the

theatre. The intelligent judges applauded certain passages of the tragedy,

in which wonderful power, as well as many startling beauties, were

perceptible; but at the catastrophe, when Atreus compels Thyestes to drink

the blood of his son, there was a general exclamation of horror--(Gabrielle

de Vergy, be it remarked, had not then eaten on the stage the heart of her

lover). "The procureur," says D'Alembert, "would have left the theatre in

sorrow, if he had awaited the judgment of the audience in order to fix his

own. The pit appeared more terrified than interested; it beheld the curtain

fall without uttering a sound either of approval or condemnation, and

dispersed in that solemn and ominous silence which bodes no good for the

future welfare of the piece. But the procureur judged better than the

public, or rather, he anticipated its future judgment. The play over, he

proceeded to the green-room to seek his pupil, who, still in a state of the

greatest uncertainty as to his fate, was already almost resigned to a

failure; he embraced Crebillon in a transport of admiration: 'I die

content,' said he. 'I have made you a poet; and I leave a man to the

nation!'"

And, in fact, at each representation of the piece, the public discovered

fresh beauties, and abandoned itself with real pleasure to the terror which

the poet inspired. A few days afterwards, the name of Crebillon became

celebrated throughout Paris and the provinces, and all imagined that the

spirit of the great Corneille had indeed revisited earth to animate the

muse of the young Burgundian.

Crebillon's father was greatly irritated on finding that his son had, as

they said then, abandoned Themis for Melpomene. In vain did the procureur

plead his pupil's cause--in vain did Crebillon address to this true father

a supplication in verse, to obtain pardon for him from his sire; the

_greffier en chef_ of Dijon was inexorable; to his son's entreaties he

replied that he cursed him, and that he was about to make a new will. To

complete, as it were, his downfall in the good opinion of this individual,

who possessed such a blind infatuation for the law, Crebillon wrote him a

letter, in which the following passage occurs: "I am about to get married,

if you have no objection, to the most beautiful girl in Paris; you may

believe me, sir, upon this point, for her beauty is all that she

possesses."

To this his father replied: "Sir, your tragedies are not to my taste, your

children will not be mine; commit as many follies as you please, I shall

console myself with the reflection that I refused my consent to your

marriage; and I would strongly advise you, sir, to depend more than ever on

your pieces for support, for you are no longer a member of my family."

Crebillon, for all that, married, as he said, the most beautiful girl in

Paris--the gentle and charming Charlotte Peaget, of whom Dufresny has

spoken. She was the daughter of an apothecary, and it was while frequenting

her father's shop that Crebillon became acquainted with her. There was

nothing very romantic, it is true, in the match; but love spreads a charm

over all that it comes in contact with. Thus, a short time before his

marriage, Crebillon perceived his intended giving out some marshmallow and

violets to a sick customer: "My dear Charlotte," said he, "we will go

together, some of these days, among our Dijonnaise mountains, to collect

violets and marshmallows for your father."