CHAPTER XI.

"THE PASSAGE OF THE RHINE."

I parted from my friend Eugene at Treves, where he remained in garrison,

while I was sent forward to Coblentz to join my regiment, at that time

forming part of Ney's division.

Were I to adhere in my narrative to the broad current of great events, I

should here have to speak of that grand scheme of tactics by which

Kleber, advancing from the Lower Rhine, engaged the attention of the

Austrian Grand Duke, in order to give time and opportunity for Hoche's

passage of the river at Strasbourg, and the commencement of that

campaign which had for its object the subjugation of Germany. I have

not, however, the pretension to chronicle those passages which history

has forever made memorable, even were my own share in them of a more

distinguished character. The insignificance of my station must,

therefore, be my apology if I turn from the description of great and

eventful incidents to the humble narrative of my own career.

Whatever the contents of Colonel Mahon's letter, they did not plead very

favorably for me with Colonel Hacque, my new commanding officer;

neither, to all seeming, did my own appearance weigh any thing in my

favor. Raising his eyes at intervals from the letter to stare at me, he

uttered some broken phrases of discontent and displeasure; at last he

said--"What's the object of this letter, sir; to what end have you

presented it to me?"

"As I am ignorant of its contents, mon colonel," said I calmly, "I can

scarcely answer the question."

"Well, sir, it informs me that you are the son of a certain Count

Tiernay; who has long since paid the price of his nobility; and that

being a special protégé of the writer, he takes occasion to present you

to me; now I ask again, with what object?"

"I presume, sir, to obtain for me the honor which I now enjoy--to become

personally known to you."

"I know every soldier under my command, sir," said he, rebukingly, "as

you will soon learn if you remain in my regiment. I have no need of

recommendatory letters on that score. As to your grade of corporal, it

is not confirmed; time enough when your services shall have shown that

you deserve promotion. Parbleu, sir, you'll have to show other claims

than your ci-devant countship."

"Colonel Mahon gave me a horse, sir, may I be permitted to retain him as

a regimental mount?" asked I, timidly.

"We want horses--what is he like?"

"Three quarters Arab, and splendid in action, sir."

"Then of course, unfit for service and field man[oe]uvres. Send him to

the Etat Major. The Republic will find a fitting mount for _you_; you

may retire."

And I did retire, with a heart almost bursting between anger and

disappointment. What a future did this opening present to me! What a

realization this of all my flattering hopes!

This sudden reverse of fortune, for it was nothing less, did not render

me more disposed to make the best of my new condition, nor see in the

most pleasing light the rough and rude fraternity among which I was

thrown. The Ninth Hussars were reputed to be an excellent service-corps,

but, off duty, contained some of the worst ingredients of the army.

Play, and its consequence dueling, filled up every hour not devoted to

regimental duty; and low as the tone of manners and morals stood in the

service generally, "Hacques Tapageurs," as they were called, enjoyed the

unflattering distinction of being the leaders. Self-respect was a

quality utterly unknown among them--none felt ashamed at the disgrace of

punishment--and as all knew that, at the approach of the enemy, prison

doors would open, and handcuffs fall off, they affected to think the

Salle de Police was a pleasant alternative to the fatigue and worry of

duty. These habits not only stripped soldiering of all its chivalry, but

robbed freedom itself of all its nobility. These men saw nothing but

licentiousness in their newly-won liberty. Their "Equality" was the

permission to bring every thing down to a base and unworthy standard;

their "Fraternity," the appropriation of what belonged to one richer

than themselves.

It would give me little pleasure to recount, and the reader, in all

likelihood, as little to hear, the details of my life among such

associates. They are the passages of my history most painful to recall,

and least worthy of being remembered; nor can I even yet write without

shame the confession, how rapidly _their_ habits became _my own_.

Eugene's teachings had prepared me, in a manner, for their lessons. His

skepticism extending to every thing and every one, had made me

distrustful of all friendship, and suspicious of whatever appeared a

kindness. Vulgar association, and daily intimacy with coarsely-minded

men, soon finished what he had begun; and in less time than it took me

to break my troop-horse to regimental drill, I had been myself "broke

in" to every vice and abandoned habit of my companions.

It was not in my nature to do things by halves; and thus I became, and

in a brief space too, the most inveterate Tapageur of the whole

regiment. There was not a wild prank or plot in which I was not

foremost, not a breach of the discipline unaccompanied by my name or

presence, and more than half the time of our march to meet the enemy, I

passed in double irons under the guard of the Provost-marshal.

It was at this pleasant stage of my education that our brigade arrived

in Strasbourg, as part of the corps d'armée under the command of General

Moreau.

He had just succeeded to the command on the dismissal of Pichegru, and

found the army not only dispirited by the defeats of the past campaign,

but in a state of rudest indiscipline and disorganization. If left to

himself, he would have trusted much to time and circumstances for the

reform of abuses that had been the growth of many months long. But

Regnier, the second in command, was made of "different stuff;" he was a

harsh and stern disciplinarian, who rarely forgave a first, never a

second offense, and who deeming the Salle de Police as an incumbrance to

an army on service, which, besides, required a guard of picked men,

that might be better employed elsewhere, usually gave the preference to

the shorter sentence of "four spaces and a fusillade." Nor was he

particular in the classification of those crimes he thus expiated: from

the most trivial excess to the wildest scheme of insubordination, all

came under the one category. More than once, as we drew near to

Strasbourg, I heard the project of a mutiny discussed, day after day.

Some one or other would denounce the "scelerat Regnier," and proclaim

his readiness to be the executioner; but the closer we drew to

head-quarters, the more hushed and subdued became these mutterings, till

at last they ceased altogether; and a dark and forboding dread succeeded

to all our late boastings and denunciations.

This at first surprised and then utterly disgusted me with my

companions. Brave as they were before the enemy, had they no courage for

their own countrymen? Was all their valor the offspring of security, or

could they only be rebellious when the penalty had no terrors for them?

Alas! I was very young, and did not then know that men are never strong

against the right, and that a bad cause is always a weak one.

It was about the middle of June when we reached Strasbourg, where now

about forty thousand troops were assembled. I shall not readily forget

the mingled astonishment and disappointment our appearance excited as

the regiment entered the town. The Tapageurs, so celebrated for all

their terrible excesses and insubordination, were seen to be a fine

corps of soldier-like fellows, their horses in high condition, their

equipments and arms in the very best order. Neither did our conduct at

all tally with the reputation that preceded us. All was orderly and

regular in the several billets; the parade was particularly observed;

not a man late at the night muster. What was the cause of this sudden

and remarkable change? Some said we were marching against the enemy; but

the real explanation lay in a few words of a general order read to us by

our colonel the day before we entered the city:

"The 9th Hussars have obtained the unworthy reputation of being an

ill-disciplined and ill-conducted regiment, relying upon their

soldier-like qualities in face of the enemy to cover the disgrace

of-their misconduct in quarters. This is a mistake that must be

corrected. All Frenchmen are brave; none can arrogate to themselves any

prerogative of valor. If any wish to establish such a belief, a campaign

can always attest it. If any profess to think so without such proof, and

acting in conformity with this impression, disobey their orders or

infringe regimental discipline, I will have them shot.

"REGNIER,

"_Adjutant-general_."

This was, at least, a very straight-forward and intelligible

announcement, and as such my comrades generally acknowledged it. I,

however regarded it as a piece of monstrous and intolerable tyranny,

and sought to make converts to my opinion by declaiming about the rights

of Frenchmen, the liberty of free discussion, the glorious privilege of

equality, and so on; but these arguments sounded faint in presence of

the drum-head; and while some slunk away from the circle around me,

others significantly hinted that they would accept no part of the danger

my doctrines might originate.

However I might have respected my comrades, had they been always the

well-disciplined body I now saw them, I confess, that this sudden

conversion from fear, was in nowise to my taste, and rashly confounded

their dread of punishment with a base and ignoble fear of death. "And

these are the men," thought I, "who talk of their charging home through

the dense squares of Austria--who have hunted the leopard into the sea!

and have carried the flag of France over the high Alps!"

A bold rebel, whatever may be the cause against which he revolts, will

always be sure of a certain ascendency. Men are prone to attribute power

to pretension, and he who stands foremost in the breach will at least

win the suffrages of those whose cause he assumes to defend. In this way

if happened that exactly as my comrades fell in my esteem, I was

elevated in theirs; and while I took a very depreciating estimate of

their courage, _they_ conceived a very exalted opinion of mine.

It was altogether inexplicable to see these men, many of them the

bronzed veterans of a dozen campaigns--the wounded and distinguished

soldiers in many a hard-fought field, yielding up their opinions and

sacrificing their convictions to a raw and untried stripling, who had

never yet seen an enemy.

With a certain fluency of speech I possessed also a readiness at picking

up information, and arraying the scattered fragments of news into a

certain consistence, which greatly imposed upon my comrades. A quick eye

for man[oe]uvres, and a shrewd habit of combining in my own mind the

various facts that came before me, made me appear to them a perfect

authority on military matters, of which I talked, I shame to say, with

all the confidence and presumption of an accomplished general. A few

lucky guesses, and a few half hints, accidentally confirmed, completed

all that was wanting; and what says "Le Jeune Maurice," was the

inevitable question that followed each piece of flying gossip, or every

rumor that rose of a projected movement.

I have seen a good deal of the world since that time, and I am bound to

confess, that not a few of the great reputations I have witnessed, have

stood upon grounds very similar, and not a whit more stable than my own.

A bold face, a ready tongue, a promptness to support, with my right

hand, whatever my lips were pledged to, and, above all, good luck, made

me the king of my company; and although that sovereignty only extended

to half a squadron of hussars, it was a whole universe to me.

So stood matters when, on the 23d of June, orders came for the whole

_corps d'armée_ to hold itself in readiness for a forward movement.

Rations for two days were distributed, and ammunition given out, as if

for an attack of some duration. Meanwhile, to obviate any suspicion of

our intentions, the gates of Strasbourg, on the eastern side, were

closed--all egress in that direction forbidden--and couriers and

estafettes sent off toward the north, as if to provide for the march of

our force in that direction. The arrival of various orderly dragoons

during the previous night, and on that morning early, told of a great

attack in force on Manheim, about sixty miles lower down the Rhine, and

the cannonade of which some avowed that they could hear at that

distance. The rumor, therefore, seemed confirmed, that we were ordered

to move to the north, to support this assault.

The secret dispatch of a few dismounted dragoons and some rifle-men to

the banks of the Rhine, however, did not strike me as according with

this view, and particularly as I saw that, although all were equipped,

and in readiness to move, the order to march was not given, a delay very

unlikely to be incurred, if we were destined to act as the reserve of

the force already engaged.

Directly opposite to us, on the right bank of the river, and separated

from it by a low flat, of about two miles in extent, stood the fortress

of Kehl, at that time garrisoned by a strong Austrian force; the banks

of the river, and the wooded islands in the stream, which communicated

with the right by bridges, or fordable passes, being also held by the

enemy in force.

These we had often seen, by the aid of telescopes, from the towers and

spires of Strasbourg; and now I remarked that the general and his staff

seemed more than usually intent on observing their movements. This fact,

coupled with the not less significant one, that no preparations for a

defense of Strasbourg were in progress, convinced me that, instead of

moving down the Rhine to the attack on Manheim, the plan of our general

was, to cross the river where we were, and make a dash at the fortress

of Kehl. I was soon to receive the confirmation of my suspicion, as the

orders came for two squadrons of the ninth to proceed, dismounted, to

the bank of the Rhine, and, under shelter of the willows, to conceal

themselves there. Taking possession of the various skiffs and fishing

boats along the bank, we were distributed in small parties, to one of

which, consisting of eight men under the orders of a corporal, I

belonged.

About an hour's march brought us to the river side, in a little clump of

alder willows, where, moored to a stake, lay a fishing boat with two

short oars in her. Lying down beneath the shade, for the afternoon was

hot and sultry, some of us smoked, some chatted, and a few dozed away

the hours that somehow seemed unusually slow in passing.

There was a certain dogged sullenness about my companions, which

proceeded from their belief, that we and all who remained at Strasbourg,

were merely left to occupy the enemy's attention, while greater

operations were to be carried on elsewhere.

"You see what it is to be a condemned corps," muttered one; "it's little

matter what befalls the old ninth, even should they be cut to pieces."

"They didn't think so at Enghein," said another, "when we rode down the

Austrian cuirassiers."

"Plain enough," cried a third, "we are to have skirmishers' duty here,

without skirmishers' fortune in having a force to fall back upon."

"Eh! Maurice, is not this very like what you predicted for us?" broke in

a fourth ironically.

"I'm of the same mind still," rejoined I, coolly, "the general is not

thinking of a retreat; he has no intention of deserting a

well-garrisoned, well-provisioned fortress. Let the attack on Manheim

have what success it may, Strasbourg will be held still. I overheard

Colonel Guyon remark, that the waters of the Rhine have fallen three

feet since the drought set in, and Regnier replied, 'that we must lose

no time, for there will come rain and floods ere long.' Now what could

that mean, but the intention to cross over yonder?"

"Cross the Rhine in face of the fort of Kehl!" broke in the corporal.

"The French army have done bolder things before now!" was my reply, and

whatever the opinion of my comrades, the flattery ranged them on _my_

side. Perhaps the corporal felt it beneath his dignity to discuss

tactics with an inferior, or perhaps he felt unable to refute the

specious pretensions I advanced; in any case he turned away, and either

slept, or affected sleep, while I strenuously labored to convince my

companions that my surmise was correct.

I repeated all my former arguments about the decrease in the Rhine,

showing that the river was scarcely two-thirds of its habitual breadth,

that the nights were now dark, and well suited for a surprise, that the

columns which issued from the town took their departure with a pomp and

parade far more likely to attract the enemy's attention than escape his

notice, and were, therefore, the more likely to be destined for some

secret expedition, of which all this display was but the blind. These,

and similar facts, I grouped together with a certain ingenuity, which,

if it failed to convince, at least silenced my opponents. And now the

brief twilight, if so short a struggle between day and darkness deserved

the name, passed off, and night suddenly closed around us--a night black

and starless, for a heavy mass of lowering cloud seemed to unite with

the dense vapor that arose from the river, and the low-lying grounds

alongside of it. The air was hot and sultry, too, like the precursor of

a thunder-storm, and the rush of the stream as it washed among the

willows sounded preternaturally loud in the stillness.

A hazy, indistinct flame, the watch-fire of the enemy, on the island of

Eslar, was the only object visible in the murky darkness. After a while,

however, we could detect another fire on a smaller island, a short

distance higher up the stream. This, at first dim and uncertain, blazed

up after a while, and at length we descried the dark shadows of men as

they stood around it.

It was but the day before that I had been looking on a map of the Rhine,

and remarked to myself that this small island, little more than a mere

rook in the stream, was so situated as to command the bridge between

Eslar and the German bank, and I could not help wondering that the

Austrians had never taken the precaution to strengthen it, or at least

place a gun there, to enfilade the bridge. Now, to my extreme

astonishment, I saw it occupied by the soldiery, who, doubtless, were

artillery, as in such a position small arms would prove of slight

efficiency. As I reflected over this, wondering within myself if any

intimation of our movements could have reached the enemy, I heard along

the ground on which I was lying the peculiar tremulous, dull sound

communicated by a large body of men marching. The measured tramp could

not be mistaken, and as I listened I could perceive that a force was

moving toward the river from different quarters. The rumbling roll of

heavy guns and the clattering noise of cavalry were also easily

distinguished, and awaking one of my comrades I called his attention to

the sounds.

"Parbleu!" said he, "thou'rt right; they're going to make a dash at the

fortress, and there will be hot work ere morning. What say you now,

corporal, has Maurice hit it off this time?"

"That's as it may be," growled the other, sulkily; "guessing is easy

work ever for such as thee! but if he be so clever, let him tell us why

are we stationed along the river's bank in small detachments. We have

had no orders to observe the enemy, nor to report upon any thing that

might go forward; nor do I see with what object we were to secure the

fishing boats; troops could never be conveyed across the Rhine in skin's

like these!"

"I think that this order was given to prevent any of the fishermen

giving information to the enemy in case of a sudden attack," replied I.

"Mayhap thou wert at the council of war when the plan was decided on,"

said he, contemptuously. "For a fellow that never saw the smoke of an

enemy's gun thou hast a rare audacity in talking of war!"

"Yonder is the best answer to your taunt," said I, as in a little bend

of the stream beside us, two boats were seen to pull under the shelter

of the tall alders, from which the clank of arms could be plainly heard;

and now another larger launch swept past, the dark shadows of a dense

crowd of men showing above the gunwale.

"They are embarking, they are certainly embarking," now ran from mouth

to mouth. As the troops arrived at the river's bank they were speedily

"told off" in separate divisions of which some were to lead the attack,

others to follow, and a third portion to remain as a reserve in the

event of a repulse.

The leading boat was manned entirely by volunteers, and I could hear

from where I lay the names called aloud as the men stepped out from the

ranks. I could hear that the first point of attack was the island of

Eslar. So far there was a confirmation of my own guessing, and I did not

hesitate to assume the full credit of my skill from my comrades. In

truth, they willingly conceded all or even more than I asked for. Not a

stir was heard, not a sight seen, not a movement made of which I was not

expected to tell the cause and the import; and knowing that to sustain

my influence there was nothing for it but to affect a thorough

acquaintance with every thing, I answered all their questions boldly and

unhesitatingly. I need scarcely observe that the corporal in comparison

sunk into down-right insignificance. He had already shown himself a

false guide, and none asked his opinion further, and I became the ruling

genius of the hour. The embarkation now went briskly forward, several

light field guns were placed in the boats, and two or three large rafts,

capable of containing two companies each, were prepared to be towed

across by boats.

Exactly as the heavy hammer of the cathedral struck one, the first boat

emerged from the willows, and darting rapidly forward, headed for the

middle of the stream; another and another in quick succession followed,

and speedily were lost to us in the gloom; and now, two four-oared

skiffs stood out together, having a raft, with two guns, in tow; by some

mischance, however, they got entangled in a side current, and the raft

swerving to one side, swept past the boats, carrying them down the

stream along with it. Our attention was not suffered to dwell on this

mishap, for at the same moment the flash and rattle of fire-arms told us

the battle had begun. Two or three isolated shots were first heard, and

then a sharp platoon fire, accompanied by a wild cheer, that we well

knew came from our own fellows. One deep mellow boom of a large gun

resounded amid the crash, and a slight streak of flame, higher up the

stream, showed that the shot came from the small island I have already

spoken of.

"Listen, lads," said I, "that came from the 'Fels Insel.' If they are

firing grape yonder, our poor fellows in the boats will suffer sorely

from it. By Jove there is a crash!"

As I was speaking a rattling noise like the sound of clattering timber

was heard, and with it a sharp, shrill cry of agony, and all was hushed.

"Let's at them, boys; they can't be much above our own number. The

island is a mere rock," cried I to my comrades.

"Who commands this party?" said the corporal, "you or I?"

"You, if you lead us against the enemy," said I; "but I'll take it if

my comrades will follow me. There goes another shot, lads--yes or

no--now is the time to speak."

"We're ready," cried three, springing forward, with one impulse.

At the instant I jumped into the skiff, the others took their places,

and then came a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and a seventh, leaving the

corporal alone on the bank.

"Come along, corporal," cried I, "we'll win your epaulets for you;" but

he turned away without a word; and not waiting further, I pushed out the

skiff, and sent her skimming down the stream.

"Pull steady, boys, and silently," said I; "we must gain the middle of

the current, and then drop down the river without the least noise. Once

beneath the trees, we'll give them a volley, and then the bayonet.

Remember, lads, no flinching; it's as well to die here as be shot by old

Regnier to-morrow."

The conflict on the Eslar island was now, to all seeming, at its height.

The roll of musketry was incessant, and sheets of flame, from time to

time, streaked the darkness above the river.

"Stronger and together, boys--once more--there it is--we are in the

current, now; in with you, men, and look to your carbines--see that the

priming is safe; every shot soon will be worth a fusilade. Lie still

now, and wait for the word to fire."

The spreading foliage of the nut-trees was rustling over our heads as I

spoke, and the sharp skiff, borne on the current, glided smoothly on

till her bow struck the rock. With high-beating hearts we clambered up

the little cliff; and as we reached the top, beheld immediately beneath

us, in a slight dip of the ground, several figures around a gun, which

they were busy in adjusting. I looked right and left to see that my

little party were all assembled, and without waiting for more, gave the

order--fire!

We were within pistol range, and the discharge was a deadly one. The

terror, however, was not less complete; for all who escaped death fled

from the spot, and dashing through the brushwood, made for the shallow

part of the stream, between the island and the right bank.

Our prize was a brass eight pounder, and an ample supply of ammunition.

The gun was pointed toward the middle of the stream, where the current

being strongest, the boats would necessarily be delayed; and in all

likelihood some of our gallant comrades had already experienced its

fatal fire. To wheel it right about, and point it on the Eslar bridge,

was the work of a couple of minutes; and while three of our little party

kept up a steady fire on the retreating enemy, the others loaded the gun

and prepared to fire.

Our distance from the Eslar island and bridge, as well as I could judge

from the darkness, might be about two hundred and fifty yards; and as we

had the advantage of a slight elevation of ground, our position was

admirable.

"Wait patiently, lads," said I, restraining, with difficulty, the

burning ardor of my men. "Wait patiently, till the retreat has commenced

over the bridge. The work is too hot to last much longer on the island:

to fire upon them there, would be to risk our own men as much as the

enemy. See what long flashes of flame break forth among the brushwood:

and listen to the cheering now. That was a French cheer! and there goes

another! Look! look, the bridge is darkening already! That was a

bugle-call, and they are in full retreat. Now, lads--now!"

As I spoke; the gun exploded, and the instant after we heard the

crashing rattle of the timber, as the shot struck the bridge, and

splintered the wood-work in all directions.

"The range is perfect, lads," cried I. "Load and fire with all speed."

Another shot, followed by a terrific scream from the bridge, told how

the work was doing. Oh! the savage exultation, the fiendish joy of my

heart, as I drank in that cry of agony, and called upon my men to load

faster.

Six shots were poured in with tremendous precision and effect, and the

seventh tore away one of the main supports of the bridge, and down went

the densely crowded column into the Rhine; at the same instant, the guns

of our launches opened a destructive fire upon the banks, which soon

were swept clean of the enemy.

High up on the stream, and for nearly a mile below also, we could see

the boats of our army pulling in for shore; the crossing of the Rhine

had been effected, and we now prepared to follow.

_To be continued._

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

AN AERIAL VOYAGE.

Of all the wonderful discoveries which modern science has given birth

to, there is perhaps not one which has been applied to useful purposes

on a scale so unexpectedly contracted as that by which we are enabled to

penetrate into the immense ocean of air with which our globe is

surrounded, and to examine the physical phenomena which are manifested

in its upper strata. One would have supposed that the moment the power

was conferred upon us to leave the surface of the earth, and rise above

the clouds into the superior regions, a thousand eager inquirers would

present themselves as agents in researches in a region so completely

untrodden, if such a term may here be permitted.

Nevertheless, this great invention of aerial navigation has remained

almost barren. If we except the celebrated aerial voyage of Gay-Lussac

in 1804, the balloon, with its wonderful powers, has been allowed to

degenerate into a mere theatrical exhibition, exciting the vacant and

unreflecting wonder of the multitude. Instead of being an instrument of

philosophical research, it has become a mere expedient for profit in

the hands of charlatans, so much so, that, on the occasion to which we

are now about to advert, the persons who engaged in the project incurred

failure, and risked their lives, from their aversion to avail themselves

of the experience of those who had made aerostation a mere spectacle for

profit. They thought that to touch pitch they must be defiled, and

preferred danger and the risk of failure to such association.

It is now about two months since M. Barral, a chemist of some

distinction at Paris, and M. Bixio, a member of the Legislative Assembly

(whose name will be remembered in connection with the bloody

insurrection of June, 1848, when, bravely and humanely discharging his

duty in attempting to turn his guilty fellow-citizens from their course,

he nearly shared the fate of the Archbishop, and was severely wounded),

resolved upon making a grand experiment with a view to observe and

record the meteorological phenomena of the strata of the atmosphere, at

a greater height and with more precision than had hitherto been

accomplished. But from the motives which we have explained, the project

was kept secret, and it was resolved that the experiment should be made

at an hour of the morning, and under circumstances, which would prevent

it from degenerating into an exhibition. MM. Arago and Regnault

undertook to supply the aerial voyagers with a programme of the proposed

performance, and instruments suited to the projected observations. M.

Arago prepared the programme, in which was stated clearly what

observations were to be made at every stage of the ascentional movement.

It was intended that the balloon should be so managed as to come to rest

at certain altitudes, when barometric, thermometric, hygrometric,

polariscopic, and other observations, were to be taken and noted; the

balloon after each series of observations to make a new ascent.

The precious instruments by which these observations were to be made

were prepared, and in some cases actually fabricated and graduated, by

the hands of M. Regnault himself.

To provide the balloon and its appendages, recourse was had to some of

those persons who have followed the fabrication of balloons as a sort of

trade, for the purposes of exhibition.

In this part of their enterprise the voyagers were not so fortunate, as

we shall presently see, and still less so in having taken the resolution

to ascend alone, unaccompanied by a practiced æronaut. It is probable

that if they had selected a person, such as Mr. Green, for example, who

had already made frequent ascents for the mere purpose of exhibition,

and who had become familiar with the practical management of the

machine, a much more favorable result would have ensued. As it was, the

two voyagers ascended for the first time, and placed themselves in a

position like that of a natural philosopher, who, without previous

practice, should undertake to drive a locomotive, with its train on a

railway at fifty miles an hour, rejecting the humble but indispensable

aid of an experienced engine-driver.

The necessary preparations having been made, and the programme and the

instruments prepared, it was resolved to make the ascent from the garden

behind the Observatory at Paris, a plateau of some elevation, and free

from buildings and other obstacles, at day-break of Saturday, the 29th

June. At midnight the balloon was brought to the spot, but the inflation

was not completed until nearly 10 o'clock, A.M.

It has since been proved that the balloon was old and worn, and that it

ought not to have been supplied for such an occasion.

It was obviously patched, and it is now known that two seamstresses were

employed during the preceding day in mending it, and some stitching even

was found necessary after it had arrived at the Observatory.

The net-work which included and supported the car was new, and not

originally made with a view to the balloon it inclosed, the consequences

of which will be presently seen.

The night, between Friday and Saturday, was one of continual rain, and

the balloon and its netting became thoroughly saturated with moisture.

By the time the inflation had been completed, it became evident that the

net-work was too small; but in the anxiety to carry into effect the

project, the consequences of this were most unaccountably overlooked. We

say unaccountably, because it is extremely difficult to conceive how

experimental philosophers and practiced observers, like MM. Arago and

Regnault, to say nothing of numerous subordinate scientific agents who

were present, did not anticipate what must have ensued in the upper

regions of the air. Nevertheless, such was the fact.

On the morning of Saturday, the instruments being duly deposited in the

car, the two enterprising voyagers placed themselves in it, and the

balloon, which previously had been held down by the strength of twenty

men, was liberated, and left to plunge into the ocean of air, at

twenty-seven minutes after ten o'clock.

The weather, as we have already stated, was unfavorable, the sky being

charged with clouds. As it was the purpose of this project to examine

much higher regions of the atmosphere than those which it had been

customary for aeronautic exhibitors to rise to, the arrangements of

ballast and inflation which were adopted, were such as to cause the

ascent to be infinitely more rapid than in the case of public

exhibitions; in short, the balloon darted upward with the speed of an

arrow, and in two minutes from the moment it was liberated, that is to

say, at twenty-nine minutes past ten, plunged into the clouds, and was

withdrawn from the anxious view of the distinguished persons assembled

in the garden of the Observatory.

While passing through this dense cloud, the voyagers carefully observed

the barometer, and knew by the rapid fall of the mercury that they were

ascending with a great velocity. Fifteen minutes elapsed before they

emerged from the cloud; when they did so, however, a glorious spectacle

presented itself. The balloon, emerging from the superior surface of the

cloud, rose under a splendid canopy of azure, and shone with the rays of

a brilliant sun. The cloud which they had just passed, was soon seen

several thousand feet below them. From the observations taken with the

barometer and thermometer, it was afterward found that the thickness of

the cloud through which they had passed, was 9800 feet--a little less

than two miles. On emerging from the cloud, our observers examined the

barometer, and found that the mercury had fallen to the height of 18

inches; the thermometer showed a temperature of 45° Fahr. The height of

the balloon above the level of the sea was then 14,200 feet. At the

moment of emerging from the cloud, M. Barral made polariscopic

observation, which established a fact foreseen by M. Arago, that the

light reflected from the surface of the clouds, was unpolarized light.

The continued and somewhat considerable fall of the barometer informed

the observers that their ascent still continued to be rapid. The rain

which had previously fallen, and which wetted the balloon, and saturated

the cordage forming the net-work, had now ceased, or, to speak more

correctly, the balloon had passed above the region in which the rain

prevailed. The strong action of the sun, and almost complete dryness of

the air in which the vast machine now floated, caused the evaporation of

the moisture which enveloped it. The cordage and the balloon becoming

dry, and thus relieved of a certain weight of liquid, was affected as

though a quantity of ballast had been thrown out, and it darted upward

with increased velocity.

It was within one minute of eleven, when the observers finding the

barometer cease the upward motion, and finding that the machine

oscillated round a position of equilibrium by noticing the bearing of

the sun, they found the epoch favorable for another series of

observations. The barometer there indicated that the balloon had

attained the enormous height of 19,700 feet. The moisture which had

invested the thermometer had frozen upon it, and obstructed, for the

moment, observations with it. It was while M. Barral was occupied in

wiping the icicles from it, that, turning his eye upward, he beheld what

would have been sufficient to have made the stoutest heart quail with

fear.

To explain the catastrophe which at this moment, and at nearly 20,000

feet above the surface of the earth, and about a mile above the highest

strata of the clouds, menaced the voyagers, we must recur to what we

have already stated in reference to the balloon and the net-work. As it

was intended to ascend to an unusual altitude, it was of course known,

that in consequence of the highly rarefied state of the atmosphere, and

its very much diminished pressure, the gas contained in the balloon

would have a great tendency to distend, and, consequently, space must be

allowed for the play of this effect. The balloon, therefore, at

starting, was not nearly filled with gas, and yet, as we have explained

it, very nearly filled the net-work which inclosed it. Is it not strange

that some among the scientific men present did not foresee, that when it

would ascend into a highly rarefied atmosphere, it would necessarily

distend itself to such a magnitude, that the netting would be utterly

insufficient to contain it? Such effect, so strangely unforeseen, now

disclosed itself practically realized to the astonished and terrified

eyes of M. Barral.

The balloon, in fact, had so swelled as not only completely to fill the

netting which covered it, but to force its way, in a frightful manner,

through the hoop under it, from which the car, and the voyagers were

suspended.

In short, the inflated silk protruding downward through the hoop, now

nearly touched the heads of the voyagers. In this emergency the remedy

was sufficiently obvious.

The valve must be opened, and the balloon breathed, so as to relieve it

from the over-inflation. Now, it is well known, that the valve in this

machine is placed in a sort of sleeve, of a length more or less

considerable, connected with the lower part of the balloon, through

which sleeve the string-of the valve passes. M. Barral, on looking for

this sleeve, found that it had disappeared. Further search showed that

the balloon being awkwardly and improperly placed in the inclosing

net-work, the valve-sleeve, instead of hanging clear of the hoop, had

been gathered up in the net-work above the hoop; so that, to reach it,

it would have been necessary to have forced a passage between the

inflated silk and the hoop.

Now, here it must be observed, that such an incident could never have

happened to the most commonly-practiced balloon exhibitor, whose first

measure, before leaving the ground, would be to secure access to, and

the play of the valve. This, however, was, in the present case, fatally

overlooked. It was, in fine, now quite apparent, that either of two

effects must speedily ensue--viz.: either the car and the voyagers would

be buried in the inflated silk which was descending upon them, and thus

they would he suffocated, or that the force of distention must burst the

balloon. If a rupture were to take place in that part immediately over

the car, then the voyagers would be suffocated by an atmosphere of

hydrogen; if it should take place at a superior part, then the balloon,

rapidly discharged of its gas, would be precipitated to the earth, and

the destruction of its occupants rendered inevitable.

Under these circumstances the voyagers did not lose their presence of

mind, but calmly considered their situation, and promptly decided upon

the course to be adopted. M. Barral climbed up the side of the car, and

the net-work suspending it, and forced his way through the hoop, so as

to catch hold of the valve-sleeve. In this operation, however, he was

obliged to exercise a force which produced a rent in a part of the silk

below the hoop, and immediately over the car. In a moment the hydrogen

gas issued with terrible force from the balloon, and the voyagers found

themselves involved in an atmosphere of it.

Respiration became impossible, and they were nearly suffocated. A glance

at the barometer, however, showed them that they were falling to the

ground with the most fearful rapidity.

During a few moments they experienced all the anguish attending

asphyxia. From this situation, however, they were relieved more speedily

than they could then have imagined possible; but the cause which

relieved them soon became evident, and inspired them with fresh terrors.

M. Barral, from the indications of the barometer, knew that they were

being precipitated to the surface of the earth with a velocity so

prodigious, that the passage of the balloon through the atmosphere

dispelled the mass of hydrogen with which they had been surrounded.

It was, nevertheless, evident that the small rent which had been

produced in the lower part of the balloon, by the abortive attempt to

obtain access to the valve, could not have been the cause of a fall so

rapid.

M. Barral, accordingly, proceeded to examine the external surface of the

balloon, as far as it was visible from the car, and, to his astonishment

and terror, he discovered that a rupture had taken place, and that a

rent was made, about five feet in length, along the equator of the

machine, through which, of course, the gas was now escaping in immense

quantities. Here was the cause of the frightful precipitation of the

descent, and a source of imminent danger in the fall.

M. Barral promptly decided on the course to be taken.

It was resolved to check the descent by the discharge of the ballast,

and every other article of weight. But this process, to be effectual,

required to be conducted with considerable coolness and skill. They were

some thousand feet above the clouds. If the ballast were dismissed too

soon, the balloon must again acquire a perilous velocity before it would

reach the earth. If, on the other hand, its descent were not moderated

in time, its fall might become so precipitate as to be ungovernable.

Nine or ten sand-bags being, therefore, reserved for the last and

critical moment, all the rest of the ballast was discharged. The fall

being still frightfully rapid, the voyagers cast out, as they descended

through the cloud already mentioned, every article of weight which they

had, among which were the blankets and woolen clothing which they had

brought to cover them in the upper regions of the atmosphere, their

shoes, several bottles of wine, all, in fine, save and except the

philosophical instruments. These they regarded as the soldier does his

flag, not to be surrendered save with life. M. Bixio, when about to

throw over a trifling apparatus, called an aspirator, composed of

copper, and filled with water, was forbidden by M. Barral, and obeyed

the injunction.

They soon emerged from the lower stratum of the cloud, through which

they had fallen in less than two minutes, having taken fifteen minutes

to ascend through it. The earth was now in sight, and they were dropping

upon it like a stone. Every weighty article had been dismissed, except

the nine sand-bags, which had been designedly reserved to break the

shock on arriving at the surface. They observed that they were directly

over some vine-grounds near Lagny, in the department of the Seine and

Marne, and could distinctly see a number of laborers engaged in their

ordinary toil, who regarded with unmeasured astonishment the enormous

object about to drop upon them. It was only when they arrived at a few

hundred feet from the surface that the nine bags of sand were dropped by

M. Barral, and by this man[oe]uvre the lives of the voyagers were

probably saved. The balloon reached the ground, and the car struck among

the vines. Happily the wind was gentle; but gentle as it was it was

sufficient, acting upon the enormous surface of the balloon, to drag the

car along the ground, as if it were drawn by fiery and ungovernable

horses. Now arrived a moment of difficulty and danger, which also had

been foreseen and provided for by M. Barral. If either of the voyagers

had singly leaped from the car, the balloon, lightened of so much

weight, would dart up again into the air. Neither voyager would consent,

then, to purchase his own safety at the risk of the other. M. Barral,

therefore, threw his body half down from the car, laying hold of the

vine-stakes, as he was dragged along, and directing M. Bixio to hold

fast to his feet. In this way the two voyagers, by their united bodies,

formed a sort of anchor, the arms of M. Barral playing the part of the

fluke, and the body of M. Bixio that of the cable.

In this way M. Barral was dragged over a portion of the vineyard

rapidly, without any other injury than a scratch or contusion of the

face, produced by one of the vine-stakes.

The laborers just referred to meanwhile collected, and pursued the

balloon, and finally succeeded in securing it, and in liberating the

voyagers, whom they afterward thanked for the bottles of excellent wine

which, as they supposed, had fallen from the heavens, and which,

wonderful to relate, had not been broken from the fall, although, as has

been stated, they had been discharged above the clouds. The astonishment

and perplexity of the rustics can be imagined on seeing these bottles

drop in the vineyard.

This fact also shows how perpendicularly the balloon must have dropped,

since the bottles dismissed from such a height, fell in the same field

where, in a minute afterward, the balloon also dropped.

The entire descent from the altitude of twenty thousand feet was

effected in seven minutes, being at the average rate of fifty feet per

second.

In fine, we have to report that these adventurous partisans of science,

nothing discouraged by the catastrophe which has occurred have resolved

to renew the experiment under, as may he hoped, less inauspicious

circumstances; and we trust that on the next occasion they will not

disdain to avail themselves of the co-operation and presence of some one

of those persons, who having hitherto practiced aerial navigation for

the mere purposes of amusement, will, doubtless, be too happy to invest

one at least of their labors with a more useful and more noble

character.

(From the Dublin University Magazine.)

ANDREW CARSON'S MONEY; A STORY OF GOLD.

The night of a bitter winter day had come; frost, and hail, and snow

carried a sense of new desolation to the cold hearths of the moneyless,

while the wealthy only drew the closer to their bright fires, and

experienced stronger feelings of comfort.

In a small back apartment of a mean house, in one of the poorest

quarters of Edinburgh, a young man sat with a pen in his fingers,

endeavoring to write, though the blue tint of his nails showed that the

blood was almost frozen in his hands. There was no fire in the room; the

old iron grate was rusty and damp, as if a fire had not blazed in it for

years; the hail dashed against the fractured panes of the window; the

young man was poorly and scantily dressed, and he was very thin, and

bilious to all appearance; his sallow, yellow face and hollow eyes told

of disease, misery, and the absence of hope.

His hand shook with cold, as, by the light of the meanest and cheapest

of candles, he slowly traced line after line, with the vain thought of

making money by his writings. In his boyish days he had entered the

ranks of literature, with the hopes of fame to lead him on, but

disappointment after disappointment, and miserable circumstances of

poverty and suffering had been his fate: now the vision of fame had

become dim in his sick soul--he was writing with the hope of gaining

money, any trifle, by his pen.

Of all the ways of acquiring money to which the millions bend their best

energies, that of literature is the most forlorn. The artificers of

necessaries and luxuries, for the animal existence, have the world as

their customers; but those who labor for the mind have but a limited

few, and therefore the supply of mental work is infinitely greater than

the demand, and thousands of the unknown and struggling, even though

possessed of much genius, must sink before the famous few who

monopolize the literary market, and so the young writer is overlooked.

He may be starving, but his manuscripts will be returned to him; the

emoluments of literature are flowing in other channels; he is one added

to the thousands too many in the writing world; his efforts may bring

him misery and madness, but not money.

The door of the room opened, and a woman entered; and advancing near the

little table on which the young man was writing, she fixed her eyes on

him with a look in which anger, and the extreme wretchedness which

merges on insanity, were mingled. She seemed nearly fifty; her features

had some remaining traces of former regularity and beauty, but her whole

countenance now was a volume filled with the most squalid suffering and

evil passions; her cheeks and eyes were hollow, as if she had reached

the extreme of old age; she was emaciated to a woeful degree; her dress

was poor dirty, and tattered, and worn without any attempt at proper

arrangement.

"Writing! writing! writing! Thank God, Andrew Carson, the pen will soon

drop from your fingers with starvation."

The woman said this in a half-screaming, but weak and broken-down voice.

"Mother, let me have some peace," said the young writer, turning his

face away, so that he might not see her red glaring eyes fixed on him.

"Ay, Andrew Carson, I say thank God that the force of hunger will soon

now make you drop that cursed writing. Thank God, if there _is_ the God

that my father used to talk about in the long nights in the bonnie

highland glen, where it's like a dream of lang syne that I ever lived."

She pressed her hands on her breast, as if some recollections of an

overpowering nature were in her soul.

"The last rag in your trunk has gone to the pawn; you have neither

shirt, nor coat, nor covering now, except what you've on.

Write--write--if you can, without eating; to-morrow you'll have neither

meat nor drink here, nor aught now to get money on."

"Mother, I am in daily expectation of receiving something for my writing

now; the post this evening may bring me some good news."

He said this with hesitation, and there was little of hope in the

expression of his face.

"Good news! good news about your writing! that's the good news 'ill

never come; never, you good-for-nothing scribbler!"

She screamed forth the last words in a voice of frenzy. Her tone was a

mixture of Scotch and Irish accents. She had resided for some years of

her earlier life in Ireland.

As the young writer looked at her and listened to her, the pen shook in

his hand.

"Go out, and work, and make money. Ay, the working people can live on

the best, while you, with that pen in your fingers, are starving

yourself and me."

"Mother, I am not strong enough for labor, and my tastes are strongly,

very strongly, for literature."

"Not strong enough! you're twenty past. It's twenty long years since the

cursed night I brought you into the world." The young writer gazed

keenly on his mother, for he was afraid she was under the influence of

intoxication, as was too often the case; but he did not know how she

could have obtained money, as he knew there was not a farthing in the

house. The woman seemed to divine the meaning of his looks--

"I'm not drunk, don't think it," she cried; "it's the hunger and the

sorrow that's in my head."

"Well, mother, perhaps this evening's post may have some good

intelligence."

"What did the morning's post bring? There, there--don't I see it--them's

the bonnie hopes of yours."

She pointed to the table, where lay a couple of returned manuscripts.

Andrew glanced toward the parcel, and made a strong effort to suppress

the deep sigh which heaved his breast.

"Ay, there it is--there's a bundle of that stuff ye spend your nights

and days writing; taking the flesh off your bones, and making that face

of yours so black and yellow; it's your father's face, too--ay--well

it's like him now, indeed--the ruffian. I wish I had never seen him, nor

you, nor this world."

"My father," said Andrew, and a feeling of interest overspread his

bloodless face. "You have told me little of him. Why do you speak of him

so harshly?"

"Go and work, and make money, I say. I tell you I must get money; right

or wrong, I must get it; there's no living longer, and enduring what

I've endured. I dream of being rich; I waken every morning from visions

where my hands are filled with money; that wakening turns my head, when

I know and see there is not a halfpenny in the house, and when I see

you, my son, sitting there, working like a fool with pen and brain, but

without the power to earn a penny for me. Go out and work with your

hands, I say again, and let me get money--do any thing, if it brings

money. There is the old woman over the way, who has a working son; his

mother may bless God that he is a shoemaker and not a poet; she is the

happy woman, so cozily covered with warm flannel and stuff this weary

weather, and her mutton, and her tea, and her money jingling in her

pocket forever; that's what a working son can do--a shoemaker can do

that."

At this some noise in the kitchen called Mrs. Carson away, to the great

relief of Andrew. He rose, and closed the door gently after her. He

seated himself again, and took up his pen, but his head fell listlessly

on his hand; he felt as if his mother's words were yet echoing in his

ears. From his earliest infancy he had regarded her with fear and

wonder, more than love.

Mrs. Carson was the daughter of a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman, who

was suspected by his brethren in the ministry of entertaining peculiar

views of religion on some points, and also of being at intervals rather

unsound in his mind. He bestowed, however, a superior education on his

only daughter, and instructed her carefully himself until his death,

which occurred when she was not more than fourteen. As her father left

her little if any support, she was under the necessity of going to

reside with relations in Ireland, who moved in a rather humble rank. Of

her subsequent history little was known to Andrew; she always maintained

silence regarding his father, and seemed angry when he ventured to

question her. Andrew was born in Ireland, and resided there until about

his eighth year, when his mother returned to Scotland.

It was from his mother Andrew had gained all the little education that

had been bestowed on him. That education was most capriciously imparted,

and in its extent only went the length of teaching him to read

partially; for whatever further advances he had made he was indebted to

his own self-culture. At times his mother would make some efforts to

impress on him the advantages of education: she would talk of poetry,

and repeat specimens of the poets which her memory had retained from the

period of her girlhood in her father's house; but oftenest the language

of bitterness, violence, and execration was on her lips. With the

never-ceasing complaints of want--want of position, want of friends,

but, most of all, want of money--sounding in his ears, Andrew grew up a

poet. The unsettled and aimless mind of his mother, shadowed as it was

with perpetual blackness, prevented her from calmly and wisely striving

to place her son in some position by which he could have aided in

supporting himself and her. As a child, Andrew was shy and solitary,

caring little for the society of children of his own years, and taking

refuge from the never-ceasing violence of his mother's temper in the

privacy of his own poor bedroom, with some old book which he had

contrived to borrow, or with his pen, for he was a writer of verses from

an early age.

Andrew was small-sized, sickly, emaciated, and feeble in frame; his mind

had much of the hereditary weakness visible in his mother; his

imagination and his passions were strong, and easily excited to such a

pitch as to overwhelm for the moment his reason. With a little-exercised

and somewhat defective judgment; with no knowledge of the world; with

few books; with a want of that tact possessed by some intellects, of

knowing and turning to account the tendencies of the age in literature,

it was hardly to be expected that Andrew would soon succeed as a poet,

though his imagination was powerful, and there was pathos and even

occasional sublimity in his poetry. For five long years he had been

toiling and striving without any success whatever in his vocation, in

the way of realizing either fame or emolument.

Now, as he sat with his eyes fixed on the two returned manuscripts on

his table, his torturing memory passed in review before him the many

times his hopes had been equally lost. He was only twenty years of age,

yet he had endured so many disappointments! He shook and trembled with a

convulsive agony as he recalled poem after poem, odes, sonnets, epics,

dramas--he had tried every thing; he had built so many glorious

expectations on each as, night after night, shivering with cold and

faint with sickness, he had persisted in gathering from his mind, and

arranging laboriously, the brightest and most powerful of his poetical

fancies, and hoped, and was often almost sure, they would spread

broadly, and be felt deeply in the world. But there they had all

returned to him--there they lay, unknown, unheard of--they were only so

much waste paper.

As each manuscript had found its way back to him, he had received every

one with an increasing bitterness and despair, which gradually wrought

his brain almost to a state of mental malady. By constitution he was

nervous and melancholy: the utmost of the world's success would hardly

have made him happy; he had no internal strength to cope with

disappointment--no sanguine hopes pointing to a brighter future: he was

overwhelmed with present failures. One moment he doubted sorely the

power of his own genius: and the thought was like death to him, for

without fame--without raising himself a name and a position above the

common masses--he felt he could not live. Again, he would lay the whole

blame on the undiscerning publishers to whom his poetry had been sent;

he would anathematize them all with the fierce bitterness of a soul

which was, alas! unsubdued in many respects by the softening and

humbling influences of the religion of Christ. He had not the calm

reflection which might have told him that, young, uneducated, utterly

unlearned in the world and in books as he was, his writings must of

necessity have a kind of inferiority to the works of those possessed of

more advantages. He had no deep, sober principles or thoughts; his

thoughts were feelings which bore him on their whirlwind course to the

depths of agony, and to the brink of the grave, for his health was

evidently seriously impaired by the indulgence of long-continued

emotions of misery.

He took up one of the rejected manuscripts in his hand: it was a

legendary poem, modeled something after the style of Byron, though the

young author would have violently denied the resemblance. He thought of

the pains he had bestowed on it--of the amount of thought and

dreams--the sick, languid headaches, the pained breast, the weary mind

it had so often occasioned him; then he saw the marks of tears on

it--the gush of tears which had come as if to extinguish the fire of

madness which had kindled in his brain. When he saw that manuscript

returned to him, the marks of the tears were there staining the outside

page. He looked fixedly on that manuscript, and his thin face became

darker, and more expressive of all that is hopeless in human sorrow;

the bright light of success shone as if so far away from him now--away

at an endless distance, which neither his strength of body or mind could

ever carry him over.

At that moment the sharp, rapid knock of the postman sounded in his

ears. His heart leaped up, and then suddenly sank with suffocating fear,

for the dark mood of despair was on him--could it be another returned

manuscript? He had only one now in the hands of a publisher; the one on

which he had expended all his powers--the one to which he had trusted

most: it was a tragedy. He had dreamed the preceding night that it had

been accepted; he had dreamed it had brought him showers of gold; he had

been for a moment happy beyond the bounds of human happiness, though he

had awoke with a sense of horror on his mind, he knew not why. The

publisher to whom he had sent his tragedy was to present it to the

manager of one of the London theatres. Had it been taken, performed,

successful?--a dream of glory, as if heaven had opened on him,

bewildered his senses.

The door was rudely pushed open; his mother entered, and flung the

manuscript of the returned tragedy on the table.

"There--there's another of them!" she cried, rage choked her voice for a

moment.

Andrew was stunned. Despair seemed to have frozen him all at once into a

statue. He mechanically took up the packet, and, opening it, he read the

cold, polite, brief note, which told of the rejection of his play both

by theatres and publishers.

"Idiot--fool--scribbling fool!"

The unfortunate poet's mother sank into a chair, as if unable to support

the force of her anger.

"Fool!--scribbling madman! will ye never give over?"

Andrew made no answer; but every one of his mother's furious words sank

into his brain, adding to the force of his unutterable misery.

"Will ye go now, and take to some other trade, will ye?--will ye, I

say?"

Andrew's lips moved for a moment, but no sound came from them.

"Will ye go out, and make money, I say, at some sensible work? Make

money for me, will you? I'll force you out to make money at some work by

which there's money to be made; not the like of that idiot writing of

yours, curse it. Answer me, and tell me you'll go out and work for money

now?"

She seized his arm, and shook it violently; but still he made no

response.

"You will not speak. Listen, then--listen to me, I say; I'll tell it all

now; you'll hear what you never heard before. I did not tell you before,

because I pitied you--because I thought you would work for me, and earn

money; but you will not promise it. Now, then, listen. You are the very

child of money--brought into existence by the influence of money; you

would never have been in being had it not been for money. I always told

you I was married to your father; I told you a falsehood--he bound me to

him by the ties of money only."

A violent shudder passed over Andrew's frame at this intelligence, but

still he said nothing.

"You shall hear it all--I shall tell you particularly the whole story.

It was not for nothing you were always afraid of being called a bastard.

It's an ugly word, but it belongs to you--ay, ay, ye always trembled at

that word, since ye were able to go and play among the children in the

street. They called ye that seven years ago--ten years ago, when we came

here first, and you used to come crying to me, for you could not bear

it, you said. I denied it then--I told you I was married to your father;

I told you a lie: I told you that, because I thought you would grow up

and work for me, and get me money. You won't do it; you will only

write--write all day and all night, too, though I've begged you to quit

it. You have me here starving. What signifies the beggarly annuity your

father left to me, and you, his child? It's all spent long before it

comes, and here we are with nothing, not a crust, in the house, and it's

two months till next paying time.

"Listen--I'll tell you the whole story of your birth; maybe that will

put you from writing for a while, if you have the spirit you used to

have when they told you what you were."

She shook his arm again, without receiving any answer; his head had

fallen on his hands, and he remained fixed in one position. His mother's

eyes glared on him with a look in which madness was visible, together

with a tigress-like expression of ferocity which rarely appears on the

face of a mother, or of any human being, where insanity does not exist.

When she spoke, however, her words were collected, and her manner was

impressive and even dignified; the look of maniac anger gradually wore

away from her face, and in every sentence she uttered there were proofs

that something of power had naturally existed in her fallen and clouded

mind.

"Want of money was the earliest thing I remember to feel," she said, as

she seated herself, with something more of composure in her manner.

"There was never any money in my father's house. I wondered at first

where it could all go; I watched and reflected, and used all means of

finding out the mystery. At last I knew it--my father drank; in the

privacy of his room, when no eye was on him, he drank, drank. He paid

strict enough attention to my education. I read with him much; he had

stores of books. I read the Bible with him, too; often he spent long

evenings expounding it to me. But I saw the hollowness of it all--he

hardly believed himself; he doubted--doubted all, while he would fain

have made me a believer. I saw it well: I heard him rave of it in a

fever into which drink had thrown him. All was dark to him, he said,

when he was near dying; but he had taught his child to believe; he had

done his best to make her believe. He did not know my heart; I was his

own child; I longed for sensual things; my heart burned with a wish for

money, but it all went for drink. Had I but been able then to procure

food and clothes as others of my rank did, the burning wish for money

that consumed my heart then and now might never have been kindled, and I

might have been rich as those often become who have never wished for

riches. Yes, the eagerness of my wishes has always driven money far away

from me; that cursed gold and silver, it flows on them who have never

worshiped it--never longed for it till their brain turned; and it will

not come to such as me, whose whole life has been a desire for it. Well,

my father died, and I was left without a penny; all the furniture went

to pay the spirit-merchant. I went to Ireland; I lived with relations

who were poor and ignorant: I heard the cry of want of money there too.

A father and mother and seven children, and me, the penniless orphan: we

all wanted money--all cried for it. At last my cry was answered in a

black way; I saw the sight of money at last; a purse heaped, overflowing

with money, was put into my hands. My brain got giddy at the sight; sin

and virtue became all one to me at the sight. Gold, gold! my father

would hardly ever give me one poor shilling; the people with whom I

lived hardly ever had a shilling among them. I became the mistress of a

rich man--a married man; his wife and children were living there before

my eyes--a profligate man; his sins were the talk of the countryside. I

hated him; he was old, deformed, revolting; but he chained me to him by

money. Then I enjoyed money for a while; I kept that purse in my hand; I

laid it down so as my eyes would rest on it perpetually. I dressed; I

squandered sum after sum; the rich man who kept me had many other

expenses: his money became scantier; we quarreled; another offered me

more money--I went to him."

A deep groan shook the whole frame of the unfortunate young poet at this

statement--a groan which in its intensity might have separated soul and

body.

"Let me go--let me go!" he cried, raising himself for a moment, and then

sinking back again in his chair in a passive state.

His mother seemed a little softened by his agitation, though she made no

comment on it, but continued her narrative as if no interruption had

taken place.

"Money took me to a new master; he was richer than the first; he bound

my heart to him by the profusion of his money. He was old and withered,

but his gold and silver reflected so brightly on his face, I came to

think him handsome; he was your father; you were born; after your birth

I think I even loved him. I urged him to marry me; he listened; he even

promised--yes, marriage and money--money--they were almost in my very

grasp. I was sure--sure--when he went to England to arrange some

business, he said; he wrote fondly for a while; I lived in an elysium;

money and an honorable marriage were my own. I had not one doubt; but he

ceased to write to me--all at once he ceased; had it been a gradual

drawing off, my brain would not have reeled as it did. At last, when

fear and anxiety had almost thrown me into a fever, a letter came. It

announced in a few words that your father was married to a young,

virtuous, and wealthy lady; he had settled a small annuity on me for

life, and never wished to see or hear from me again. A violent illness

seized me then; it was a kind of burning fever. All things around me

seemed to dazzle, and assume the form of gold and silver; I struggled

and writhed to grasp the illusion; they were forced to tie my hands--to

bind me down in my bed. I recovered at last, but I had grown all at once

old, withered, stricken in mind and body by that sickness. For a long

time--for years--I lived as if in a lingering dream; I had no keen

perceptions of life; my wishes had little energy; my thoughts were

confused and wandering; even the love of money and the want of money

failed to stir me into any kind of action. I have something of the same

kind of feeling still," she said, raising her hand to her head. "The

burning fever into which I was thrown when your father's love vanished

from me, is often here even yet, though its duration is brief; but it is

sufficient to make me incapable of any exertion by which I could make

money. I have trusted to you; I have hoped that you might be the means

of raising me from my poverty; I have long hoped to see the gold and

silver of your earning. I did not say much at first, when I saw you

turning a poet; I had heard that poetry was the sure high-road to

poverty, but I said little then. I was hardly able to judge and know

rightly what you should do when you commenced writing in your boyhood;

but my head is a little cooler now; the scorching fire of the money your

father tempted me with, and then withdrew, is quenched a little by

years. Now at last I see that you are wasting your time and health with

that pen; you have not made one shilling--one single sixpence for me,

yet, with that pen of yours; your health is going fast; I see the color

of the grave on your thin cheeks. Now I command you to throw away your

pen, and make money for me at any trade, no matter how low or mean."

As she spoke, there was a look approaching to dignity in her wasted

face, and her tones were clear and commanding--the vulgar Irishism and

Scoticism of dialect which, on common occasions, disfigured her

conversation, had disappeared, and it was evident that her intellect had

at one period been cultivated, and superior to the ordinary class of

minds.

Andrew rose without saying one syllable in answer to his mother's

communication; he threw his manuscripts and the sheets which he had

written into a desk; he locked it with a nervous, trembling hand, and

then turned to leave the room. His face was of the most ghastly

paleness; his eyes were calm and fixed; he seemed sick at heart by the

disclosure he had heard; his lips trembled and shook with agitation.

"Where are you going, Andrew? It's a bitter night."

"Mother, it is good enough for me--for a--"

He could not speak the hated word which rose to his lips; he had an

early horror of that word; he had dreaded that his was a dishonorable

birth: even in his boyish days he had feared it; his mother had often

asserted to the contrary, but now she had dispelled the belief in which

he had rested.

He opened the door hastily, and passed out into the storm, which was

rushing against the windows.

A feeling of pity for him--a feeling of a mother's affection and

solicitude, was stirred in Mrs. Carson's soul, as she listened to his

departing footsteps, and then went and seated herself beside the embers

of a dying fire in the kitchen; it was a small, cold,

miserably-furnished kitchen; the desolation of the severe season met no

counterbalancing power there; no cheering appearances of food, or fire,

or any comforts were there. But the complaining spirit which cried and

sighed perpetually was for once silent within Mrs. Carson's mind;

something--perhaps the death-like aspect of her son, or a voice from her

long stifled conscience--was telling her how ill she had fulfilled the

duties of a mother. She felt remorse for the reproaches she had heaped

on him before he had gone out in the storm.

She waited to hear his knock at the door; she longed for his returning

steps; she felt that she would receive him with more of kindness than

she had for a length of time displayed to him; she kept picturing to

herself perpetually his thin face and emaciated figure, and a fear of

his early death seized on her for the first time; she had been so

engrossed by her own selfish wants, that she had scarcely remarked the

failing health of her son. She started with horror at the probabilities

which her naturally powerful fancy suggested. She resolved to call in

medical aid immediately, for she was sure now that Andrew's constitution

was sinking fast. But how would she pay for medical aid? she had not one

farthing to procure advice. At this thought the yearning, burning desire

for money which had so long made a part of her existence came back with

full force; she sat revolving scheme after scheme, plan after plan, of

how she could procure it. Hours passed away, but still she sat alone,

silently cowering over the cinders of the fire.

At length she started up, fully awake, to a sense of wonder and dread at

Andrew's long absence. She heard the sound of distant clocks striking

twelve. It was unusual for Andrew to be out so late, for he had

uniformly kept himself aloof from evil companions. The high poetical

spirit within him, a spirit which utterly engrossed him, had kept him

from the haunts of vice. His mother went to the door, and opening it,

gazed on the narrow, mean street. The storm had passed away; the street

was white with hail and snow; the moon shone clearly down between the

tall but dilapidated houses of which the street or lane was composed;

various riotous-looking people were passing by; and from a neighboring

house the brisk strains of a violin came, together with the sound of

voices and laughter. The house had a bad repute in the neighborhood, but

Mrs. Carson never for an instant suspected her son was there. She looked

anxiously along the street, and at every passing form she gazed

earnestly, but none resembled her son.

For a long time she stood waiting and watching for the appearance of

Andrew, but he did not come. At last, sinking with cold and weariness,

and with a host of phantom fears rising up in her bewildered brain, and

almost dragging her mind down into the gulf of utter madness, on the

brink of which she had so long been, Mrs. Carson returned to the

kitchen. As she looked on the last ember dying out on the hearth, a

feeling of frenzy shook her frame. Andrew would soon return, shivering

with cold, and she had no fire to warm him--no money to purchase fire.

She thought of the wealthy--of their bright fires--and bitter envy and

longing for riches gnawed her very heart and life. A broken deal chair

was in a corner of the kitchen; she seized it, and after some efforts

succeeded in wrenching off a piece, which she placed on the dying ember,

and busied herself for some time in fanning; then she gathered every

remaining fragment of coals from the recess at one side of the

fire-place, in which they were usually kept, and with the pains and

patience which poverty so sorely teaches, she employed herself in making

some appearance of a fire. Had she been in her usual mood, she would

have sat anathematizing her son for his absence at such an hour; but now

every moment, as she sat awaiting his return, her heart became more

kindly disposed toward him, and an uneasy feeling of remorse for her

past life was each instant gaining strength amidst the variety of

strange spectral thoughts and fancies which flitted through her diseased

mind. At some moments she fancied she saw her father seated opposite to

her on the hearth, and heard him reading from the Bible, as he did so

often in her girlish days: then again he was away in the privacy of his

own room, and she was watching him through a crevice of the door, and

she saw him open the cabinet he kept there, and take out liquor, ardent

spirits, and he drank long and deep draughts, until gradually he sank

down on his bed in the silent, moveless state of intoxication which had

so long imposed on her, for she had once believed that her father was

subject to fits of a peculiar kind. She groaned and shuddered as this

vision was impressed on her; she saw the spirit of evil which had

destroyed her father attaching itself next to her own fate, and leading

her into the depths of guilt, and she trembled for her son. Had he now

fallen in sin? was some evil action detaining him to such an hour? He

was naturally inclined to good, she knew--strangely good and pure had

his life been, considering he was her child, and reared so carelessly as

she had reared him; but now he had been urged to despair by her endless

cry for money, and, perhaps, he was at that very instant engaged in some

robbery, by which he would be able to bring money to his mother.

So completely enslaved had her mind become to a lust for money, that the

thought of his gaining wealth by any means was for some time delightful

to her; she looked on their great poverty, and she felt, in her darkened

judgment, that they had something of a right to take forcibly a portion

of the superabundant money of the rich. Her eyes glared with eagerness

for the sight of her son returning with money, even though that money

was stolen; the habitual mood of her mind prevailed rapidly over the

impressions of returning goodness and affection which for a brief period

had awoke within her.

In the midst of the return of her overwhelming desire for money,

Andrew's knock came to the door. The eager inquiry whether he had

brought any money with him was bursting from her lips the moment she

opened the door and beheld him, but she was cheeked by the sight of two

strangers who accompanied him. Andrew bade the men follow him, and

walked rapidly to the kitchen; the tones of his voice were so changed

and hollow that his mother hardly recognized him to be her son.

He requested the men to be seated, telling them that when the noise on

the street would be quiet and the people dispersed they would get that

for which they had come. At that moment a drunken broil on the street

had drawn some watchmen to the neighborhood.

He bade his mother follow him, and proceeded hastily to his own room. By

the aid of a match he lighted the miserable candle by which, some hours

previously, he had been writing.

"Mother, here is money--gold--here--your hand." He pressed some gold

coins into her hand. "Gold! ay, gold, gold, indeed!" gasped his mother,

the intensity of her joy repressing for the instant all extravagant

demonstrations of it.

"Go, go away to the kitchen; in about five or ten minutes let the men

come here, and they will get what I have sold them."

"Money! money at last; gold--gold!" cried his mother, altogether

unconscious of what her son was saving, and only awake to the blessed

sense of having at last obtained money.

"Away, I say; go to the kitchen. I have no time to lose."

"Money! blessings, blessings on you and God--money!" She seemed still in

ignorance of Andrew's request that she would withdraw.

"Away, I say, I must be alone; away to the kitchen, and leave me alone;

but let the men come here in a few minutes and take what they have

purchased."

He spoke with a strange energy. She obeyed him at last, and left the

room: she remembered afterward that his face was like that of a dead man

when he addressed her.

She returned to the kitchen. The two men were seated where she had left

them, and were conversing together: their strong Irish accent told at

once their country. Mrs. Carson paid no attention to them; she neither

spoke to them nor looked at them; she held tightly clasped in her hand

the few gold coins her son had given her; she walked about like one half

distracted, addressing audible thanksgiving to God one instant, and the

next felicitating herself in an insane manner on having at last obtained

some money. The two men commented on her strange manners, and agreed

that she was mad, stating their opinions aloud to each other, but she

did not hear them.

The noise and quarreling on the street continued for some time, and the

men manifested no impatience while it lasted. All became quiet after a

time; the desertion and silence of night seemed at last to have settled

down on the street. The two men then manifested a strong wish to finish

the business on which they had come.

"I say, whereabouts is it--where's the snatch, my good woman?" said one

of the men, addressing Mrs. Carson.

She looked on him and his companion with amazement mingled with

something of fear, for the aspects of both were expressive of low

ruffianism.

"She's mad, don't you see," said the one who had not addressed her.

The other cursed deeply, saying that as they had given part payment,

they would get their errand, or their money back again.

At this, a gleam of recollection crossed Mrs. Carson's mind, and she

informed them that her son had mentioned about something they had

purchased, which was in his room. She thought at the instant, that

perhaps he had disposed of one of his manuscripts at last, though she

wondered at the appearance of the purchasers of such an article.

"That's it," cried the men; "show us the way to the room fast; it's all

quiet now."

Anxious to get rid of the men, Mrs. Carson proceeded hastily to her

son's room, followed closely by the men. The first object she saw, on

opening the door, was Andrew, leaning on his desk; the little desk stood

on the table, and Andrew's head and breast were lying on it, as if he

was asleep. There was something in his fixed attitude which struck an

unpleasant feeling to his mother's heart.

"Andrew!" she said; "Andrew, the men are here."

All was silent. No murmur of sleep or life came from Andrew. His mother

ran to his side, and grasped his arm: there was no sound, no motion. She

raised his head with one hand, while at the same time she glanced at an

open letter, on which a few lines were scrawled in a large, hurried

hand. Every word and letter seemed to dilate before her eyes, as in a

brief instant of time she read the following:

"Mother, I have taken poison. I have sold my body to a doctor for

dissection; the money I gave you is part of the price. You have

upbraided me for never making money: I have sold all I possess--my

body--and given you money. You have told me of the stain on my birth; I

can not live and write after that; all the poetical fame in this world

would not wash away such a stain. Your bitter words, my bitter fate, I

can bear no longer; I go to the other world; God will pardon me. Yes,

yes, from the bright moon and stars this night, there came down a voice,

saying, God would take me up to happiness amid his own bright worlds.

Give my body to the men who are waiting for it, and so let every trace

of Andrew Carson vanish from your earth."

With a lightning rapidity Mrs. Carson scanned each word; and not until

she had read it all, did a scream of prolonged and utter agony, such as

is rarely heard even in this world of grief burst from her lips; and

with a gesture of frenzied violence she flung the money she had kept

closely grasped in her hand at the men. One of them stooped to gather it

up, and the other ran toward Andrew, and raised his inanimate body a

little from its recumbent position. He was quite dead, however; a

bottle, marked "Prussic Acid," was in his hand. The two men, having

recovered the money, hurried away, telling Mrs. Carson they would send

immediate medical aid, to see if any thing could be done for the

unfortunate young man. Mrs. Carson did not hear them; a frenzied

paroxysm seized her, and she lay on the floor screaming in the wild

tones of madness, and utterly incapable of any exertion. She saw the

money she had received with such rapture carried away from before her

eyes, but she felt nothing: money had become terrible to her at last.

Her cries attracted a watchman from the street. A doctor was soon on the

spot; but Andrew Carson was no more connected with flesh, and blood, and

human life; he was away beyond recall, in the spirit-world.

An inquest was held on the body, and a verdict of temporary insanity

returned, as is usual in such cases of suicide. The young poet was

buried, and soon forgotten.

Mrs. Carson lingered for some weeks; her disease assumed something of

the form of violent brain-fever; in her ravings she fancied perpetually

that she was immersed in streams of fluid burning gold and silver. They

were forcing her to drink draughts of that scorching gold, she would

cry; all was burning gold and silver: all drink, all food, all air, and

light, and space around her. At the very last she recovered her senses

partially, and calling, with a feeble but calm voice, on her only

beloved child, Andrew, she died.

[Illustration: Neander in the Lecture Room.]

NEANDER.

Germany has just lost one of her greatest Protestant theologians,

AUGUSTUS NEANDER. He was born at Göttingen, Jan. 16, 1789, and died at

Berlin, July 13, 1850, in his sixty-second year. He was of Jewish

descent, as his strongly-marked features sufficiently evidence; but at

the age of seventeen he embraced the Christian religion, to the defense

of which his labors, and to the exemplification of which his life, were

thenceforth devoted. Having studied theology at Halle, under

Schleiermacher, he was appointed private lecturer at Heidelberg in 1811,

and in the following year the first Professor of Theology at the Royal

University of Berlin, which post he held to the time of his death, a

period of thirty-eight years. Deservedly high as is his reputation

abroad, it is still higher in his own country, where he was known not

only as an author, but as a teacher, a preacher, and a man. The

following is a list of his published works: The Emperor Julian and his

Times, 1812; Bernard and his Times, 1813; Genetical Development of the

Principal Gnostic Systems, 1818; Chrysostom and the Church in his Times,

1820 and 1832; Memorabilia from the History of Christianity and the

Christian Life, 1822 and 1845-46; A Collection of Miscellanies, chiefly

exegetical and historical, 1829; A Collection of Miscellanies, chiefly

biographical, 1840; The Principle of the Reformation, or, Staupitz and

Luther, 1840; History of the Planting and Training of the Christian

Church, 4th ed., 1847; The Life of Jesus Christ in its Historical

Connection and Historical Development, 4th ed., 1845; General History of

the Christian Religion and Church, 1842-47. Neander is best known to

readers of English by the last two works, both of which have been made

accessible to them by American scholars.

The Life of Christ was undertaken to counteract the impression made by

STRAUSS'S "Life of Christ," in which the attempt was made to apply the

mythical theory to the entire structure of evangelical history.

According to Strauss, the sum of the historical truth contained in the

narratives of the evangelists is, that Jesus lived and taught in Judea,

where he gathered disciples who believed that he was the Messiah.

According to their preconceived notions, the life of the Messiah, and

the period in which he lived, were to be illustrated by signs and

wonders. Messianic legends existed ready-made, in the hopes and

expectations of the people, only needing to be transferred to the person

and character of Jesus. The appearance of this work produced a great

sensation in Germany. It was believed by many that the book should be

prohibited; and the Prussian government was inclined to this measure.

Neander, however, advised that the book should rather be met by

argument. His Life of Christ which was thus occasioned, wears, in

consequence, a somewhat polemical aspect. It has taken the rank of a

standard authority, both in German and in English, into which it has

been admirably translated by Professors M'CLINTOCK and BLUMENTHAL.

The great work of Neander's life, and of which his various writings in

the departments of Ecclesiastical History, Biography, Patristics, and

Dogmatics are subsidiary, is the General History of the Christian

Religion and Church. The first part of this, containing the history of

the first three centuries, was published in 1825, and, improved and

enlarged, in 1842--43. The second part, which brings the history down to

the close of the sixth century, appeared originally in 1828, and in a

second edition in 1846--47. These two parts, comprising four volumes of

the German edition, are well known to English readers through the

excellent version of Professor TORREY. This is a history of the inner

development of Christian doctrines and opinions rather than of the

external progress of the Church, and in connection with GIESELER'S

Text-Book, furnishes by far the best apparatus for the study of

ecclesiastical history now extant.

A correspondent of the _Boston Traveler_, writing under date of Berlin,

July 22, gives the following graphic sketch of the personal

characteristics of Neander:

"NEANDER is no more! He who for thirty-eight years has defeated the

attacks upon the church from the side of rationalism and

philosophy--who, through all the controversies among theologians in

Germany, has remained true to the faith of his adoption, the pure and

holy religion of Jesus Christ--Neander, the philosopher, the

scholar--better, the great and good man--has been taken from the world.

"He was never married, but lived with his maiden sister. Often have I

seen the two walking arm in arm upon the streets and in the parks of the

city. Neander's habit of abstraction and short-sightedness rendered it

necessary for him to have some one to guide the way whenever he left his

study for a walk or to go to his lecture room. Generally, a student

walked with him to the University, and just before it was time for his

lecture to close, his sister could be seen walking up and down on the

opposite side of the street, waiting to accompany him home.

"Many anecdotes are related of him illustrative of his absence of mind,

such as his appearing in the lecture room half dressed--if left alone,

always going to his old residence, after he had removed to another part

of the city--walking in the gutter, &c, &c. In the lecture room, his

manner was in the highest degree peculiar. He put his left arm over the

desk, clasping the book in his hand, and after bringing his face close

to the corner of his desk, effectually concealed it by holding his notes

close to his nose.

"In one hand was always a quill, which, during the lecture, he kept

constantly twirling about and crushing. He pushed the desk forward upon

two legs, swinging it back and forth, and every few minutes would plunge

forward almost spasmodically, throwing one foot back in a way leading

you to expect that he would the next moment precipitate himself headlong

down upon the desks of the students. Twirling his pen, occasional

spitting, jerking his foot backward, taken with his dress, gave him a

most eccentric appearance in the lecture room. Meeting him upon the

street, with his sister, you never would have suspected that such a

strange looking being could be Neander. He formerly had two sisters, but

a few years ago the favorite one died. It was a trying affliction, and

for a short interval he was quite overcome, but suddenly he dried his

tears, calmly declared his firm faith and reliance in the wise purpose

of God in taking her to himself, and resumed his lectures immediately as

if nothing had over taken him to disturb his serenity.

"Neander's charity was unbounded. Poor students were not only presented

with tickets to his lectures, but were also often provided by him with

money and clothing. Not a farthing of the money received for his

lectures ever went to supply his own wants; it was all given away for

benevolent purposes. The income from his writings was bestowed upon the

Missionary, Bible, and other societies, and upon hospitals. Thoughts of

himself never seemed to have obtruded upon his mind. He would sometimes

give away to a poor student all the money he had about him at the moment

the request was made of him, even his new coat, retaining the old one

for himself. You have known this great man in your country more on

account of his learning, from his books, than in any other way; but

here, where he has lived, one finds that his private character, his

piety, his charity, have distinguished him above all others.

"It would be difficult to decide whether the influence of his example

has not been as great as that of his writings upon the thousands of

young men who have been his pupils. Protestants, Catholics, nearly all

the leading preachers throughout Germany, have attended his lectures,

and all have been more or less guided by him. While philosophy has been

for years attempting to usurp the place of religion, Neander has been

the chief instrument in combating it, and in keeping the true faith

constantly before the students.

"He was better acquainted with Church History and the writings of the

Fathers than any one of his time. It has been the custom upon the

recurrence of his birth-day, for the students to present to him a rare

edition of one of the Fathers, and thus he has come to have one of the

most complete sets of their writings to be found in any library. Turning

from his great literary attainments, from all considerations suggested

by his profound learning, it is pleasant to contemplate the pure

Christian character of the man. Although born a Jew, his whole life

seemed to be a sermon upon the text, 'That disciple whom Jesus loved

said unto Peter, _It is the Lord!'_ Neander's life resembled more 'that

disciple's' than any other. He was the loving John, the new Church

Father of our times.

"His sickness was only of a few days' duration. On Monday he held his

lecture as usual. The next day he was seized with a species of cholera.

A day or two of pain was followed by a lucid interval, when the

physicians were encouraged to hope for his recovery. During this

interval he dictated a page in his Church History, and then said to his

sister--'I am weary--let us go home.' He had no time to die. He needed

no further preparation; his whole life had been the best preparation,

and up to the last moment we see him active in his master's service. The

disease returned with redoubled force; a day or two more of suffering,

and on Sunday, less than a week from the day of attack, he was dead.

"On the 17th of July I attended the funeral services. The procession of

students was formed at the university, and marched to his dwelling. In

the meantime, in the house, the theological students, the professors

from Berlin, and from the University of Halle, the clergy, relatives,

high officers of government, etc., were assembled to hear the funeral

discourse. Professor Strauss, for forty-five years an intimate friend of

Neander, delivered a sermon. During the exercises, the body, not yet

placed in the coffin, was covered with wreaths and flowers, and

surrounded with burning candles.

"The procession was of great length, was formed at 10 A.M. and moved

through Unter den Linden as far as Frederick-street, and then the whole

length of Frederick-street as far as the Elizabeth-street Cemetery. The

whole distance, nearly two miles, the sides of the streets, doors and

windows of the houses were filled with an immense concourse of people

who had come to look upon the solemn scene. The hearse was surrounded

with students, some of them from Halle, carrying lighted candles, and in

advance was borne the Bible and Greek Testament which had ever been used

by the deceased.

"At the grave, a choir of young men sang appropriate music, and a

student from Halle made an affecting address. It was a solemn sight to

see the tears gushing from the eyes of those who had been the pupils and

friends of Neander. Many were deeply moved, and well might they join

with the world in mourning for one who had done more than any one to

keep pure the religion of Christ here in Germany.

"After the benediction was pronounced, every one present, according to

the beautiful custom here, went to the grave and threw into it a handful

of dirt, thus assisting at the burial. Slowly, and in scattered groups

the crowd dispersed to their various homes.

"How insignificant all the metaphysical controversies of the age, the

vain teachings of man, appeared to us as we stood at the grave-side of

Neander. His was a far higher and holier faith, from which, like the

Evangelist, he never wavered. In his life, in his death, the belief to

which he had been converted, his watchword remained unchanged: 'It is

the Lord!' His body has been consigned to the grave, but the sunset

glory of his example still illumines our sky, and will forever light us

onward to the path he trod."

THE DISASTERS OF A MAN WHO WOULDN'T TRUST HIS WIFE.

A TALE OF A TAILOR.

BY WM. HOWITT.

There are a multitude of places in this wide world, that we never heard

of since the day of creation, and that never would become known to a

soul beyond their own ten miles of circumference, except to those

universal discoverers, the tax-gatherers, were it not that some sparks

of genius may suddenly kindle there, and carry their fame through all

countries and all generations. This has been the case many times, and

will be the case again. We are now destined to hear the sound of names

that our fathers never dreamed of; and there are other spots, now

basking in God's blessed sunshine, of which the world knows and cares

nothing, that shall, to our children, become places of worship, and

pilgrimage. Something of this sort of glory was cast upon the little

town of Rapps, in Bohemia, by the hero whose name stands conspicuously

in this article, and whose pleasant adventures I flatter myself that I

am destined to diffuse still further. HANS NADELTREIBER was the son of

Mr. Strauss Nadeltreiber, who had, as well as his ancestors before him,

for six generations, practiced, in the same little place, that most

gentlemanly of all professions, a tailor--seeing that it was before all

others, and was used and sanctioned by our father Adam.

Now Hans, from boyhood up, was a remarkable person. His father had known

his share of troubles, and having two sons, both older than Hans,

naturally looked in his old age to reap some comfort and assistance from

their united labors. But the two elder sons successively had fled from

the shop-board. One had gone for a soldier, and was shot; the other had

learned the craft of a weaver, but being too fond of his pot, had

broken his neck by falling into a quarry, as he went home one night from

a carousal. Hans was left the sole staff for the old man to lean upon;

and truly a worthy son he proved himself. He was as gentle as a dove,

and as tender as a lamb. A cross word from his father, when he had made

a cross stitch, would almost break his heart; but half a word of

kindness revived him again--and he seldom went long without it; for the

old man, though rendered rather testy and crabbed in his temper, by his

many troubles and disappointments, was naturally of a loving,

compassionate disposition, and, moreover, regarded Hans as the apple of

his eye.

Hans was of a remarkably light, slender, active make, full of life and

mettle. This moment he was on the board, stitching away with as much

velocity as if he were working for a funeral or a wedding, at an hour's

notice; the next, he was dispatching his dinner at the same rate; and

the third beheld him running, leaping, and playing, among his

companions, as blithe as a young kid. If he had a fault, it was being

too fond of his fiddle. This was his everlasting delight. One would have

thought that his elbow had labor enough, with jerking his needle some

thirty thousand times a day; but it was in him a sort of universal

joint--it never seemed to know what weariness was. His fiddle stood

always on the board in a corner by him, and no sooner had he ceased to

brandish his needle, than he began to brandish his fiddlestick. If ever

he could be said to be lazy, it was when his father was gone out to

measure, or try on; and his fiddle being too strong a temptation for

him, he would seize upon it, and labor at it with all his might, till he

spied his father turning his next corner homeward. Nevertheless, with

this trifling exception, he was a pattern of filial duty; and now the

time was come that his father must die--his mother was dead long before;

and he was left alone in the world with his riddle. The whole house,

board, trade--what there was of it--all was his. When he came to take

stock, and make an inventory--in his head--of what he was worth, it was

by no means such as to endanger his entrance into heaven at the proper

time. Naturally enough, he thought of the Scripture simile of the rich

man, and the camel getting through the eye of a needle; but it did not

frighten him. His father never had much beforehand, when he had the

whole place to himself; and now, behold! another knight of the steel-bar

had come from--nobody knew where--a place often talked of, yet still a

_terra incognita_; had taken a great house opposite, hoisted a

tremendous sign, and threatened to carry away every shred of Hans's

business.

In the depth of his trouble, he took to his fiddle, from his fiddle to

his bed, and in his bed he had a dream--I thought we had done with these

dreams!--in which he was assured, that could he once save the sum of

fifty dollars, it would be the seed of a fortune; that he should

flourish far beyond the scale of old Strauss; should drive his

antagonist, in utter despair, from the ground; and should, in short,

arrive eventually at no less a dignity than--Bürgermeister of Rapps!

Hans was, as I believe I have said, soon set up with the smallest spice

of encouragement. He was, moreover, as light and nimble as a

grasshopper, and, in his whole appearance, much such an animal, could it

be made to stand on end. His dream, therefore, was enough. He vowed a

vow of unconquerable might, and to it he went. Springing upon his board,

he hummed a tune gayly:

There came the Hippopotamus,

A sort of river-bottom-horse,

Sneezing, snorting, blowing water

From his nostrils, and around him

Grazing up the grass--confound him!

Every mouthful a huge slaughter!

Beetle, grasshopper, and May-fly,

From his muzzle must away fly,

Or he swallowed them by legions,

His huge foot, it was a pillar;

When he drank, it was a swiller!

Soon a desert were those regions.

But the grasshoppers so gallant

Called to arms each nimble callant,

With their wings, and stings, and nippers,

Bee, and wasp, and hornet, awful;

Gave the villain such a jawful,

That he slipped away in slippers!

"Ha! ha!--slipped down into the mud that he emerged from!" cried Hans,

and, seizing his fiddle, dashed off the Hippopotamus in a style that did

him a world of good, and makes us wish that we had the musical notes of

it. Then he fell to, and day and night he wrought. Work came; it was

done. He wanted little--a crust of bread and a merry tune were enough

for him. His money grew; the sum was nearly accomplished, when,

returning one evening from carrying out some work--behold! his door was

open! Behold! the lid of his pot where he deposited his treasure was

off! The money was gone!

This was a terrible blow. Hans raised a vast commotion. He did not even

fail to insinuate that it might be the interloper opposite--the

Hippopotamus. Who so likely as he, who had his eye continually on Hans's

door? But no matter--the thief was clear off; and the only comfort he

got from his neighbors, was being rated for his stinginess. "Ay," said

they, "this comes of living like a curmudgeon, in a great house by

yourself, working your eyes out to hoard up money. What must a young man

like you do with scraping up pots full of money, like a miser? It is a

shame!--it is a sin!--it is a judgment! Nothing better could come of it.

At all events, you might afford to have a light burning in the house.

People are ever likely to rob you. They see a house as dark as an oven;

they see nobody in it; they go in and steal; nobody can see them come

out--and that is just it. But were there a light burning, they would

always think there was somebody in. At all events, you might have a

light."

"There is something in that," said Hans. He was not at all unreasonable:

so he determined to have a light in future: and he fell to work again.

Bad as his luck had been, he resolved not to be cast down: he was as

diligent and as thrifty as ever; and he resolved, when he became

Bürgermeister of Rapps, to be especially severe on sneaking thieves, who

crept into houses that were left to the care of Providence and the

municipal authorities. A light was everlastingly burning in his window;

and the people, as they passed in the morning, said, "This man must have

a good business that requires him to be up thus early;" and they who

passed in the evening, said, "This man must be making a fortune, for he

is busy early and late." At length Hans leaped down from his board with

the work that was to complete his sum, a second time; went; returned,

with the future Bürgermeister growing rapidly upon him; when, as he

turned the corner of the street--men and mercies!--what a spectacle! His

house was in a full burst of flame, illuminating, with a ruddy glow,

half the town, and all the faces of the inhabitants, who were collected

to witness the catastrophe. Money, fiddle, shop-board--all were

consumed! and when poor Hans danced and capered, in the very ecstasy of

his distraction--"Ay," said his neighbors, "this comes of leaving a

light in an empty house. It was just the thing to happen. Why don't you

get somebody to take care of things in your absence?"

Hans stood corrected; for, as I have said, he was soon touched to the

quick, and though in his anger he did think it rather unkind that they,

who advised the light, now prophesied after the event; when that was a

little abated, he thought there was reason in what they now said. So,

bating not a jot of his determination to save, and to be Bürgermeister

of Rapps, he took the very next house, which luckily happened to be at

liberty, and he got a journeyman. For a long time, his case appeared

hard and hopeless. He had to pay three hundred per cent, for the piece

of a table, two stools, and a couple of hags of hay, which he had

procured of a Jew, and which, with an odd pot, and a wooden spoon or

two, constituted all his furniture. Then, he had two mouths to feed

instead of one wages to pay; and not much more work done than he could

manage himself. But still--he had dreamed; and dreams, if they are

genuine, fulfill themselves. The money grew--slowly, very slowly, but

still it grew; and Hans pitched upon a secure place, as he thought, to

conceal it in. Alas! poor Hans! He had often in his heart grumbled at

the slowness of his _Handwerks-Bursch_, or journeyman; but the fellow's

eyes had been quick enough, and he proved himself a hand-work's fellow

to some purpose, by clearing out Hans's hiding-place, and becoming a

journeyman in earnest. The fellow was gone one morning; no great

loss--but then the money was gone with him, which _was_ a terrible

loss.

This was more than Hans could bear. He was perfectly cast down,

disheartened, and inconsolable. At first, he thought of running after

the fellow; and, as he knew the scamp could not go far without a

passport, and as Hans had gone the round of the country himself, in the

three years of his _Wandel-Jahre_, as required by the worshipful guild

of tailors, he did not doubt but that he should some day pounce upon the

scoundrel. But then, in the mean time, who was to keep his trade

together? There was the Hippopotamus watching opposite! No! it would not

do! and his neighbor, coming in to condole with him, said--"Cheer up,

man! there is nothing amiss yet. What signify a few dollars? You will

soon get plenty more, with those nimble fingers of yours. You want only

somebody to help you to keep them. You must get a wife! Journeymen were

thieves from the first generation. You must get married!"

"Get married!" thought Hans. He was struck all on a heap at the very

mention of it "Get married! What! fine clothes to go a-wooing in, and

fine presents to go a-wooing with; and parson's fees, and clerk's fees;

and wedding-dinner, and dancing, and drinking; and then, doctor's fees,

and nurse's fees, and children without end! That is ruin!" thought

Hans--"without end!" The fifty dollars and the Bürgermeistership--they

might wait till doomsday.

"Well, that is good!" thought Hans, as he took a little more breath.

"They first counseled me to get a light--then went house and all in a

bonfire; next, I must get a journeyman--then went the money; and now

they would have me bring more plagues upon me than Moses brought upon

Egypt. Nay, nay!" thought Hans; "you'll not catch me there, neither."

Hans all this time was seated upon his shop-board, stitching, at an

amazing rate, upon a garment which the rascally Wagner should have

finished to order at six o'clock that morning, instead of decamping with

his money; and, ever and anon, so far forgetting his loss in what

appeared to him the ludicrousness of this advice, as freely to laugh

out. All that day, the idea continued to run in his head; the next, it

had lost much of its freshness; the third, it appeared not so odd as

awful; the fourth, he began to ask himself whether it might be quite so

momentous as his imagination had painted it; the fifth, he really

thought it was not so bad neither; the sixth, it had so worked round in

his head, that it had fairly got on the other side, and appeared clearly

to have its advantages--children did not come scampering into the world

all at once, like a flock of lambs into a meadow--a wife might help to

gather, as well as spend--might possibly bring something of her own--ay!

a new idea!--would be a perpetual watch and storekeeper in his

absence--might speak a word of comfort, in trouble when even his fiddle

was dumb; on the seventh--he was off! Whither?

Why, it so happened that in his "wander-years," Hans had played his

fiddle at many a dance--a very dangerous position; for his chin resting

on "the merry bit of wood," as the ancient Friend termed that

instrument, and his head leaned on one side, he had had plenty of

opportunity to watch the movements of plenty of fair maids in the dance,

as well as occasionally to whirl them round in the everlasting waltz

himself. Accordingly, Hans had left his heart many times, for a week or

ten days or so, behind him, in many a town and dorf of Bohemia and

Germany; but it always came after him and overtook him again, except on

one occasion. Among the damsels of the Böhmer-Wald who had danced to the

sound of his fiddle, there was a certain substantial bergman's or

master-miner's daughter, who, having got into his head in some odd

association with his fiddle, was continually coming up as he played his

old airs, and could not be got out again, especially as he fancied that

the comely and simple-hearted creature had a lurking fondness for both

his music and himself.

Away he went: and he was right. The damsel made no objection to his

overtures. Tall, stout, fresh, pleasant growth of the open air and the

hills, as she was, she never dreamed of despising the little skipping

tailor of Rapps, though he was shorter by the head than herself. She had

heard his music, and evidently had danced after it. The fiddler and

fiddle together filled up her ambition. But the old people!--they were

in perfect hysterics of wrath and indignation. Their daughter!--with the

exception of one brother, now absent on a visit to his uncle in Hungary,

a great gold-miner in the Carpathian mountains, the sole remnant of an

old, substantial house, which had fed their flocks and their herds on

the hills for three generations, and now drew wealth from the heart of

these hills themselves! It was death! poison! pestilence! The girl must

be mad; the hop-o'-my-thumb scoundrel must carry witch-powder!