Title: International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850
Author: Various
Language: English
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LITERATURE, ART AND SCIENCE, VOL. 1, NO. 3, OCT. 1, 1850***


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THE INTERNATIONAL MISCELLANY

Of Literature, Art, and Science.

Vol. 1. NEW YORK, OCTOBER 1, 1850. No. 3.



[Illustration:
HENRY BROUGHAM, LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX.
FROM A SKETCH BY ALFRED CROWQUILL, MADE IN JULY, 1850.]


LORD BROUGHAM.

It is generally understood that this most illustrious Englishman now
living, will, in the course of the present year, visit the United States.
Whatever may be the verdict of the future upon his qualities or his
conduct as a statesman, it is scarcely to be doubted that for the variety
and splendor of his abilities, the extent, diversity and usefulness of
his labors, and that restless, impatient and feverish activity which has
kept him so long and so eminently conspicuous in affairs, he will be
regarded by the next ages as one of the most remarkable personages in the
age now closing--the second golden age of England. Lord Brougham is of a
Cumberland family, but was born in Edinburgh (where his father had
married a niece of the historian Robertson), on the 19th of September,
1779. He was educated at the University of his native city, and we first
hear of him as a member of a celebrated debating society, where he
trained himself to the use of logic. He was not yet sixteen years of age
when he communicated a paper on Light to the Royal Society of London,
which was printed in their transactions; and before he was twenty he had
written discussions of the higher geometry, which, appearing  in the same
repository of the best learning, attracted the general attention of
European scholars. In 1802, with his friends Jeffrey, Francis Homer, and
Sidney Smith, he established the Edinburgh Review. In 1806 he published
his celebrated "Inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Powers,"
and soon after was called to the English bar, and settled in London,
where he rapidly rose to the highest eminence as a counselor and an
advocate. On the 16th of March, 1808, he appeared in behalf of the
merchants of London, Liverpool, Manchester, &c., before the House of
Commons, in the matter of the Orders in Council restricting trade with
America, and greatly increased his fame by one of the most masterly
arguments he ever delivered. In 1810 he became a member of Parliament,
and he soon distinguished himself here by his speeches on the slave trade
and against the Orders in Council, which, mainly through his means, were
rescinded. Venturing, at the general election of 1812, to contest the
seat for Liverpool with Mr. Canning, he was defeated, and for four years
he devoted himself chiefly to his profession. In this period he made many
of his most famous law arguments, and acquired the enmity of the Prince
Regent by his defense of Leigh Hunt, and his brother, in the case of
their famous libel in "_The Examiner_." In 1816 he commenced those
powerful and indefatigable efforts in behalf of education, by which he is
perhaps best entitled to the gratitude of mankind. As chairman of the
educational committee of forty, he drew up the two voluminous and
masterly reports which disclosed the exact condition of British
civilization, and induced such action on the part of government as
advanced it in ten years more than it had been previously advanced in a
century. In 1820 he displayed in their perfection those amazing powers of
knowledge, reason, invective, sarcasm, and elocution, on the trial of
Queen Caroline, which more than anything else have made
that trial so memorable among legal and forensic conflicts. In 1822 he
made his unparalleled speech in the case of the Dean and Chapter of
Durham against Williams, and in the following year was elected Lord
Rector of the University of Glasgow. On the downfall of the Wellington
administration, in 1830, and the consequent general election, he was
returned to Parliament as one of the members for Yorkshire, and a few
weeks afterward was made Lord High. Chancellor, and elevated to the
peerage under the title of Lord Brougham and Vaux. He continued in the
office of Lord Chancellor until the dissolution of the Melbourne cabinet,
in 1834. In 1823 he wrote his "Practical Observations on the Education of
the People," and was engaged with Dr. Birkbeck in the formation of the
first Mechanics' Institution. In 1827 he was one of the originators of
the London University, and in the same year he founded the Society for
the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, of which he was the first president,
and for which he wrote its first publication, the admirable "Treatise on
the Objects, Pleasures, and Advantages of Science." In 1830 he was
elected a member of the Institute of France, and about the time of his
resignation of the chancellorship he published his "Discourse on Natural
Theology." In 1840 he published his "Historical Sketches of the Statesmen
who flourished in the Time of George the Third;" in 1845-6, "Lives of Men
of Letters and Science who flourished in the Time of George the Third;"
and he has since given to the world works on "The French Revolution," on
"Instinct," "Demosthenes' Oration on the Crown," &c., &c. Collections  of
his Speeches and Forensic Arguments, and of his Critical Essays, as well
as the other works above referred to, have been republished in
Philadelphia, by Lea and Blanchard.

In the language of the Editor of his "Opinions", Lord Brougham is
remarkable for uniting, in a high degree of perfection, three things
which are not often found to be compatible. His learning is all but
universal: his reason is cultivated to the perfection of the
argumentative powers; and he possesses in a rare and eminent degree the
gift of eloquence.

Of his learning it may be said that there is scarcely a subject, on which
ingenuity or intellect has been exercised, that he has not probed to its
principles, or entered into with the spirit of a philosopher. That he is
a classical scholar of a high order, is shown by his criticisms on the
internal peculiarities of the works of the ancients and their styles of
composition. They evince an intimate acquaintance with the great master
pieces of antiquity. The book-worms of Universities--those scholastic
giants who are great on small questions of quantity and etymology,--who
buckle on the ponderous armor of the commentators in the contest with
more subtle wits, on the interesting doubt of a wrong reading; such men,
in the spirit of pedantry, have refused to Lord Brougham the merit of
profundity, while they allow that he possesses a sort of superficial
knowledge of the classics; they say that he can gracefully skim the
surface of the stream, but that its depths would overwhelm him. Now,
while this may be true as regards the fact, we dissent from it as regards
the inference. It is a question to be decided between the learned drones
of a by-gone school and the quicker intellects of a ripening age, which
is the better thing,--criticism on words--on accidental peculiarities of
style--or a just and sympathizing conception of the feelings of the poet
or the wisdom of the philosopher. Men are beginning to disregard the
former, while they set a high value upon the latter: so much
laboriously-earned learning is at a discount, and allowance should be
made for the petty spite, the depreciating superciliousness, of
disappointment. Lord Brougham's classical knowledge partakes more of that
intimate regard and appreciation which we accord to the great writers,
than of this pedantry of the schools. Hence the cry of want of depth,
that has been raised against him. Like many other great men of his age,
he has read the authors of Greece and Rome in a spirit that has
identified him with their thoughts and feelings, by taking into account
the circumstances of their times; and the result has been, that he has
exchanged the formalities and critical sharp-sightedness of acquaintance
for the intimacy of friendship.

In point of general political knowledge, and particularly of that branch
called political  economy, Lord Brougham stands prominently among his
contemporaries. In his speeches and writings will be found the first
principles of every new view of these subjects that has been taken by the
moderns. Of not a few he has himself been the originator. In the party
history of the last century he is well versed, as many of his speeches
show; and no public man of the present day is so well acquainted with the
theory and practice of the constitution, whether as regards the broad
principles of liberty on which it is based, or its gradual formation
during the different periods of our history. It may not be amiss here to
observe, that notwithstanding his long connection with the movement
party, and the countenance he has from time to time given to measures of
a decidedly liberal cast, he never was, and is still as far from being, a
Democrat. Throughout his career he has been a consistent Liberal: always
advocating such measures of reform as were calculated to remove abuses,
while they in no way affected the stability and integrity of the
institutions of the country. While, on the one hand, he has declared his
most unequivocal opposition to the ballot and universal suffrage, on the
other he has advocated popular education, as the ultimate panacea for all
the evils to be feared from the extension of popular influence.

The legal knowledge of Lord Brougham has been questioned by the members
of the profession whose abuses he desired to reform. It was even said,
that while his elevation to the Chancellorship was the unjustifiable act
of a party to serve party purposes, it was at the same time desirable to
Mr. Brougham in a pecuniary point of view, from a falling off in his
professional practice, caused by his hostility to those abuses. Now,
although this is a question really of more interest to lawyers, than to
the public in general, and one which might, therefore, be left to their
decision, yet there was an _animus_ at the time among this class of men,
that rendered them not disinterested judges. Their opinion therefore must
be taken with a qualification, as well on the score of particular
immediate drawbacks, as on the score of their general professional
prejudices. Lord Brougham respected too much the principles of justice,
and he too little regarded the technicalities of law, to be agreeable to
that body. He had a faculty too, for giving speedy judgments, and a
determination to prevent unnecessary expenses, that were particularly
disagreeable to men imbued with a conscientious desire that justice
should not be prejudiced by an unprecedented and informal haste in its
dispensation, or by a reduction of the number of its advocates. The new
Lord Chancellor, too, thought that when one or two intelligent barristers
had been engaged at a large expense, and had well stated the case of
their client, it was quite unnecessary that the same ground should be
again gone over by juniors, whose arguments marred more than they helped
the interests of their employers. When, therefore, he either put them
down, or was droned into a short nap, while the industrious advocate was
earning his unnecessary fee, it was a specimen of "the arrogance of an
upstart wholly unacquainted with Chancery Law," or "of an eccentricity
bordering on insanity, and wholly unfitting its exhibitor for the high
and responsible situation he held." Posterity will do justice to Lord
Brougham in this respect. It will be felt to have been impossible that a
man of such vast acquirements, who had been so successful in his
profession, and who had, in all other branches of knowledge, evinced such
clearness of intellect, could have been the inefficient lawyer his
detractors have represented him to be.

There is another great department in which he has proved his
excellence--that of physical science. With the principles of all the
sciences, his works show him to be familiar. His treatise "on the
Objects, Pleasures, and Advantages of Science" is admirable, as a
bird's-eye view of the subject, while at the same time it is an enticing
stimulant to study. The work on "Natural Theology" necessarily touches
upon the physical sciences, and their connection with the great mechanism
of nature. The geometrical and optical papers, published in the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, when he was only fifteen
years of age, show at least a firm groundwork of scientific knowledge.
And if it be said that Lord Brougham's attainments are superficial only,
we say that knowledge of detail does not of itself make a man competent.
The _principles_ of all sciences are a _sine qua non_.

Lord Brougham is eminently clear-headed; and he is distinguished for his
argumentative powers. He has peculiarly the faculty of analysis; that of
keeping in his own mind a comprehensive view of the whole bearings of a
question, even while running at large into the minutest details; no man
detects the fallacy  of an opponent's argument more easily; nor can any
man be more skillful in concocting a fallacy to suit a temporary purpose.

Lord Brougham's eloquence most distinguishes him from his contemporaries.
Learning may be acquired; the habit of reasoning may be induced by
constant dialectic contest; but eloquence is far more than these the gift
of nature. Lord Brougham's eloquence savors of the peculiar constitution
of his mind. It is eminently adapted for educated men. He was never
intended for a demagogue; for he never condescends to the art of
pandering to the populace. His speeches are specimens of argumentative
eloquence; and their only defect arises from his fertility of
illustration. The extraordinary information he possesses has induced the
habit of drawing too largely upon it; and he is apt to be led aside from
the straight road of his argument, to elucidate some minor disputed
point. But the argumentative style of which we speak is almost peculiar
to himself. There is a ripeness, a fruitfulness, in his mind, that places
him above the fetters of ordinary speakers. Such men, from the difficulty
of clearing their heads for the contest, too often present a mere
fleshless skeleton, as it were, very convincing to the judgment, but
powerless over the feelings; so that no lasting impression is produced.
But Lord Brougham, from being a master in argument, is free to pursue his
bent in illustration, and thus conjures up a whole picture that dwells on
the mind, and is remembered for its effect on the feelings or the
imagination, even by men whose levity or dullness precluded their being
fixed by the argument. The very structure of his sentences is more
adapted for this kind of speaking than any other. They sometimes appear
involved, to an ordinary mind, from their length, and the abundance of
illustration and explanation which they embrace; but the extraordinary
vigor with which the delivery is kept up, and the liveliness of fancy or
of humor that flashes at every turn of the thought, soon dispel the
temporary cloud.

In irony and in sarcasm, Lord Brougham is unrivaled among the public men
of the day. That his exuberant power of ridicule led him while Lord
Chancellor, into some excess of its use, cannot be denied, although a
ready excuse can be found in the circumstances of his situation. He might
be held to be the representative of liberal principles in a place where
almost the name of Liberal had, till then, been proscribed; and the
animosity toward  the new Chancellor, evinced by many peers, was
calculated to induce reprisals. The eccentricities, too, of men of genius
are of such value that they may well be said to atone for themselves.

A quality of Lord Brougham's mind, that is almost as extraordinary as his
extent of information, is its singular activity. His energies never seem
to flag--even for an instant; he does not seem to know what it is to be
fatigued, or jaded. Some such quality as this, indeed, the vastness and
universality of his acquirements called for, in order to make the weight
endurable to himself, and to bear him up during his long career of
political excitement. Take the routine of a day for instance. In his
early life he has been known to attend, in his place in court, on
circuit, at an early hour in the morning. After having successfully
pleaded the cause of his client, he drives off to the hustings; and
delivers, at different places, eloquent speeches to the electors. He then
sits in the retirement of his closet to pen an address to the Glasgow
students, perhaps, or an elaborate article in the Edinburgh Review. The
active labors of the day are closed with preparation for the court
business of the following morning; and then instead of retiring to rest,
as ordinary men would, after such exertions, he spends the night in
abstruse study, or in social intercourse. Yet he would be seen as early
as eight next morning, actively engaged in the Court, in defense of some
unfortunate object of government persecution; astonishing the auditory,
and his fellow lawyers no less, with the freshness and power of his
eloquence.

A fair contrast with this history of a day, in early life, would be that
of one at a more advanced period; say in 1832. A watchful observer might
see the Lord Chancellor in the Court over which he presided, from an
early hour in the morning until the afternoon, listening to the arguments
of counsel, and mastering the points of cases with a grasp that enabled
him to give those speedy and unembarrassed judgments that have so injured
him with the profession. If he followed his course, he would see him,
soon after the opening of the House of Lords, addressing their Lordships
on some intricate question of Law, with an acuteness that drew
approbation even from his opponents, or, on some all-engrossing political
topic, casting firebrands into the camp of the enemy, and awakening them
from the complacent repose of conviction to the hot contest with more
active and inquiring intellects. Then, in an hour or so, he might follow
him to the Mechanics' Institution, and hear an able and stimulating
discourse on education, admirably adapted to the peculiar capacity of
his auditors; and, toward ten perhaps, at a Literary and Scientific
Institution in Marylebone, the same Proteus-like intellect might be found
expounding the intricacies of physical science with a never tiring and
elastic power. Yet, during all these multitudinous exertions, time would
be found for the composition of a discourse on Natural Theology,
that bears no marks of haste or excitement of mind, but presents as calm
a face as though it had been the laborious production of a contemplative
philosopher.

It would be a great mistake that would suppose the man who has thus
multiplied the objects of his exertion to be of necessity superficial;
superficial, that is, in the sense of shallowness or ignorance. Ordinary
minds are bound by fetters, no doubt. Custom has rendered the pursuit of
more than one idea all but impossible to them, and the vulgar adage of
"Jack of all trades, master of none," applies to them in full force. But
it must be remembered that a public man like Lord Brougham, who has
chosen his peculiar sphere of action, and who prefers being of general
utility to the scholar-like pursuit of any one branch of science
exclusively, is not bound to present credentials of full and perfect
mastership, such as are required from a professor of a university. His
pursuit of facts must of necessity be for the purpose of illustrating
general principles in political or moral science; and where more than a
certain  amount of knowledge is not laid claim to, the absence of more is
no imputation.

Lord Brougham is thoroughly individualized as regards his talents and all
that constitutes idiosyncratic difference, even while he is identified
with the political and moral advancement of the people. During all the
agitations of a period almost unparalleled, he has remained untainted by
the influence of party spirit. That he has entered, and hotly too, into
almost every question of any moment that has come before the Legislature
during many years is true; but he has never appeared in the character of
a partisan; he has always been the consistent supporter of liberal
measures _per se_, and not because they were the means adopted by a party
to gain political power. With his political steadfastness he has
preserved his intellectual integrity from profanation. For although, had
he early devoted his powers to the study of abstract or practical
science, as a leading and not a subsidiary pursuit, the acuteness of his
mind was such, that he must have risen to eminence upon the basis of
discovery, yet it is no slight proof how little the struggles of the
world affect superior intellects, that he has all along turned aside,
with a never cloying  avidity, to the pursuits of mind--to science, to
literature, and to philosophy.

       *       *       *       *       *


THE WHITE LADY.

The readers of _The International_ may have seen some account of an
apparition said to have been seen recently in the royal palace at Berlin,
and known under the name of the "White Lady." M. Minutoli, lately chief
of the Police at Berlin, has been amusing himself by looking up the
history of this visitant from the unknown world, and has published a
variety of curious particulars respecting her, drawn in a measure from
documents preserved in the royal archives, as well as from old-time
chronicles and dissertations, Latin and German middle age doggerel, and
the records of jurists, historians and theologists. Several persons are
designated in the early history of the family of Hohenzollern as that
unquiet soul who for some three hundred years has performed the functions
of palace-ghost. Many writers agree that she was a Countess named
Orlamünde, Beatrice, or Cunigunde, and that she was desperately in love
with Count Albert of Nuremberg, and was led by her passion to a crime
which is the cause of her subsequent ghostly disquiet. Mr. Minutoli
proves that this lady cannot be the same that alarms the palace with her
untimely visitations. The accounts of the White Lady ascend to 1486, and
she was first seen at Baireuth. Subsequently two ghosts were heard of,
one white and one black. They were several times boldly interrogated and
interesting discoveries arrived at. In 1540, Count Albert the Warrior
laid in wait for the apparition, seized it with his powerful arm and
flung it head over heels down into the castle court-yard. The next
morning the chancellor, Christopher Hass, was found there with his neck
broken, and upon his person a dagger and a letter proving him to have had
treasonable designs. Notwithstanding the spirit has several times been
thus compromised, it has maintained itself to the present day. It was
first seen in Berlin January 1, 1598, eight days before the death of the
Prince Royal John George. When the French invasion took place, it
returned to Baireuth and was patriotic enough to take up its abode in the
new chateau which had never been occupied before the arrival of the
French officer. Even Napoleon called the place _ce maudit chateau_, on
account of its mysterious inhabitant, and had to give up his lodgings
to the ghost. He stopped in the chateau on his way to Russia but when he
returned next year he avoided passing the night there. With regard to the
last appearance at the palace at Berlin just before the late attempt on
the life of the king, and which has been described as "a fearful
apparition of a White Lady dressed in thin and flowing garments, moving
slowly and silently around and around the fountain to the terror of a
corporal standing near the entrance to the silver chamber," M. Minutoli
proves it to have been an old woman once a cook at the chateau who has
since lived there and is known, by the nickname of Black Minna.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: MRS. FANNY KEMBLE READING SHAKSPEARE AT THE ST. JAMES'
THEATER.]


MRS. FANNY KEMBLE'S "READINGS" IN LONDON.

MRS. KEMBLE has been giving a series of dramatic readings in London, and
her success in the scene of her early triumphs appears to have been as
decided as it was in New York. She was never in a situation more
agreeable to her temper and ambition than that represented in the above
engraving, which we have copied from one in _The Illustrated News_. She
is triumphant, and "alone in her glory."

Mrs. Kemble is now about forty years of age. Gentleness is acquired in
three generations; she is removed but two from the most vulgar condition;
and by the mother's side but one. The Kembles of the last age were
extraordinary persons. John Philip Kemble and Mrs. Siddons had both
remarkable genius, and Charles Kemble has been an actor of consummate
talent. Whatever intellect remains in the family is in his children; one
of whom is a man of learning and refinement, another a woman of some
cleverness in musical art, and Frances Anne, of whom we write more
particularly.

The first appearance of Miss Kemble on the stage was on the evening of
the 5th October, 1829, at Covent Garden, and was hazarded with the view
of redeeming the fortunes of the theater. The play was "Romeo and
Juliet," and the heroine was sustained by the debutante with unexpected
power. Her Siddonian countenance and expressive eyes were the general
theme of admiration; while the tenderness and ardor of her action went to
the soul of the spectator, and her well-instructed elocution satisfied
the most critical ear. It was then, also, that her father took the part
of "Mercutio," for the first time. It is recorded that he earned by it
thirteen rounds of applause. Nor was its merit overrated. It was then,
and continued to be, a wonderful impersonation of the poetic-comic ideal.
On the 21st of the same month of October, the performers of Covent Garden
presented to Miss Kemble a gold bracelet as a testimony of the services
which she had rendered to the company by her performance of "Juliet." It
was not until the 9th of December that she had to change her _role_. She
then performed Belvidera in "Venice Preserved," and achieved another
triumph. For some time the part was alternated with that of "Juliet." The
latter, during the season, was performed thirty-six times; the former,
twenty-three. The "Grecian Daughter," and Mrs. Beverley, Portia in "The
Merchant of Venice," Isabella, and Lady Townley, followed, and in all
she was eminently successful. Her season finished on the twenty-eighth
of May, and in it she performed altogether, one hundred and two times.
Her reputation, however, proved to be greater in the metropolis than in
the provinces. Nevertheless, on her return to London, she was greeted
with an enthusiastic reception. The next season was celebrated by the
failure of the "Jew of Aragon," and the affair with Mr. Westmacott;
however, Miss Kemble added to her _répertoire_ the characters of Mrs.
Haller, Beatrice, Lady Constance, and Bianca in "Fazio."

In 1832 she came with her father to the United States, where she played
with unprecedented success in the principal cities, confirming the
reputation she had acquired, of being the greatest British actress of the
age. While here she published her dramas, "The Star of Seville" and
"Francis the First," and at this period she was a frequent contributor
to the literary journals,--many of her best fugitive poems having
appeared in the old "New York Mirror."

In 1834 she retired from the stage, and was married to Mr. Pierce Butler
of Philadelphia, a gentleman of fortune, accomplishments, and an
honorable character. The history of this union is sufficiently notorious.
On both sides there was ambition: it was a distinction to be accepted by
a woman of so much genius; it was a great happiness to change the
dominion of a spendthrift and sometimes tyrannical father for that of a
rich and indulgent husband. But a woman accustomed to the applause of the
theater never yet was content with the repose of domestic life, and she
was of all her sex the most ill-fitted by nature for such an existence.
Her second resort to the stage in 1847, her fortunes at Manchester and in
London, her return to America, her public readings of Shakspeare here,
her divorce, and the very curious and unexplained circumstance of her
translation of a profligate French play, and disposal of it as a piece of
her own original composition, are all matters of too late occurrence to
need recapitulation.

She is a woman of masculine abilities, tastes, and energies; fitted
better for the camp than for the drawing-room, and often evincing a
degree of discontent that she is not a man. She always _acts_, and has
seldom, except when on the stage, the tact or ability even to seem
natural. Her equestrian exhibitions in Boston and New York, during her
more recent visits, illustrated the quality of her aspirations. Every
day, at a particular hour, so that a crowd might assemble to look upon
the performance, her horse was brought to the front of her hotel, and
when mounted, with affected difficulty, made to rear and pitch as if he
never before had felt the saddle or bit, and then to dash off as if upon
a race-course or to escape an avalanche. The letters to her husband, with
much tact but without any necessity displayed to the public, in her
answer to his process for divorce, were admirable as compositions, and
seemed to have been written in the very phrensy of passion; but their
effect upon the reader was changed somewhat when he reflected that she
had been sufficiently self-possessed meanwhile to make _careful copies_
before sending them, to be exhibited, as specimens of her genius, to a
mob of the pit, which never fails to recognize a _point_. Indeed, in
petticoats or in pantaloons, making a show of her "heart" in the
publication of these letters to a gentleman whom she had treated with
every species of contempt, obloquy, and insult, until she had made his
home insupportable, or courting the wondering admiration of country
bumpkins by unsexing herself for feats of horsemanship, or for other
athletic diversions, she is always anxious to produce a sensation,
anxious to stir up the gentle public to a roar.

Still, with all her infirmities of taste and temper, Mrs. Kemble is a
woman of unquestionable and very decided genius; a genius frequently
displayed in literature, where its growth may be traced, in prose, from
her foolish "Journal in America" to her more artistic "Year of
Consolation;" and in poetry, where its development is seen from its
budding in "Frances the First" to its most perfect blossoming in the
recent collection of her "Poems." As an actress, her powers and
qualifications are probably greater than those of any other _tragedienne_
now on the English stage; and her characteristics and supremacy are
likely to be far more profitably as well as distinctly evinced in her
"Shakspeare Readings" than in any appearance before the footlights.


       *       *       *       *       *


LITERATURE IN AFRICA.

The Bible has been translated into the principal language of eastern
Africa, and the American Bible Society has lately received a copy of
"EVANGELIO za avioondika LUCAS. The Gospel according to St. Luke,
translated into Kinika, by the Rev. JOHN LEWIS KRAPF, Phil. Dr.; Bombay
American Mission Press: T. Graham, printer; 1848." The Kinika language
is spoken by the tribes living south of Abyssinia, toward Zanzibar. Dr.
Krapf is a German missionary, in the service of the Church Missionary
Society. He is now in Germany for the recovery of his health. The
language resembles in some particulars the dialects used in Western
Africa. The _Independent_ copies, as a philological curiosity, the Lord's
Prayer in Kinika:

"Babawehu urie mbinguni, Rizuke zinaro. Uzumbeo uze. Malondogo gabondeke
hahikahi ya zi, za gafiohendeka mbinguni. Mukahewehu utosao, hu-ve suisui
ziku kua ziku. Hu-ussire suisui maigehu; hakika suisui kahiri
huna-mu-ussira kulla mutu akos saye zuluyehu. Si-hu-bumire suisui
magesoni, ela hu-lafie suisui wiini."


       *       *       *       *       *


[Illustration: SIR DAVID BREWSTER, PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH
ASSOCIATION.]

THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.


The British Association for the Advancement of Science assembled this
year at Edinburgh, and its first general meeting was held on Wednesday,
the 31st of July, when Sir DAVID BREWSTER, upon taking the chair,
delivered a very interesting address upon the history of the Association,
and the progress of the Sciences. On Thursday, business began in all the
sections, and in the evening Prof. Bennett delivered a lecture on the
passage of the blood through the minute vesicles of animals, in
connection with nutrition. On Friday, a party of about seventy started
under the direction of Mr. R. Chambers, to examine into the groovings on
the western face of Corstophine Hill, and the striæ on the sandstone
near Ravelstone. They afterward visited Arthur's Seat and St. Margaret's,
where they examined the striated rocks and stones. In the evening there
was a conversazione and promenade. Saturday was devoted to excursions. On
Monday afternoon upward of two hundred members dined together, Sir David
Brewster presiding. In the evening, Dr. Mantell delivered a lecture on
the extinct birds of New Zealand. On Tuesday evening there was a
full-dress promenade and _soirée_. On Wednesday, the general committee
assembled to sanction the grants that had passed the Committee of
Recommendations: and in the afternoon of the same day the concluding
general meeting of the Association, for the accustomed ceremonial
proceedings, was held. The next annual meeting is to take place at
Ipswich, and Mr. Airy, the Astronomer Royal, will preside. The meeting,
altogether, was one of unusual interest; among the persons present were
the chief lights of science, in the empire and from the continent, and
our own country was represented by Prof. Hitchcock and several other
scholars. The papers read in the various sections were numerous, and some
of them are described as of very remarkable freshness and value. They
will soon be accessible in the published Transactions, which will this
year be more voluminous than ever.

The retiring President, Dr. Robinson, at the opening meeting,
congratulated himself on being able to surrender his dominion to his
successor in a more prosperous condition than he had received it, and
spoke in glowing terms of the character and scientific achievements of
that successor, of whose labors he gave a brief but glowing history. Sir
David Brewster, who was one of the founders of the Association, is a
native of Jedburgh, in Roxburgshire; where he was born December 11, 1781.
He was educated for the Church of Scotland, of which he became a
licentiate; and in 1800 he received the honorary degree of M. A. from the
University of Edinburgh. While studying here he enjoyed the friendship
of Robison, who then filled the Chair of Natural Philosophy; Playfair, of
Mathematics; and Dugald Stewart that of Moral Philosophy. In 1808, he
undertook the editorship of the "Edinburgh Encyclopaedia," which was only
finished in 1830. In 1807 he received the honorary degree of LL. D. from
the University of Aberdeen; and in 1808 was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh. Between 1801 and 1812 he devoted his attention
greatly to the study of Optics; and the results were published in a
"Treatise on New Philosophical Instruments," in 1813. In 1815 he received
the Copley Medal of the Royal Society for one of his discoveries in
optical science; and soon after was admitted a Fellow of that body. In
1816, the Institute of France adjudged to him half of the physical prize
of 3000 francs, awarded for two of the most important discoveries made in
Europe, in any branch of science, during the two preceding years; and in
1819, Dr. Brewster received from the Royal Society the Rumford gold and
silver medals, for his discoveries on the Polarization of Light. In 1816
he invented the Kaleidoscope, the patent-right of which was evaded, so
that the inventor gained little beyond fame, though the large sale of the
instrument must have produced considerable profit. In 1819, in
conjunction with Dr. Jameson, he established the "_Edinburgh
Philosophical Journal_"; and subsequently he commenced the "_Edinburgh
Journal of Science_," of which sixteen volumes appeared. In 1825, the
Institute of France elected him a Corresponding Member; and he has
received the same honor from the Royal Academies of Russia, Prussia,
Sweden, and Denmark. In 1831, he received the Decoration of the
Hanoverian Guelphic Order; and in the following year, the honor of
Knighthood from William the Fourth.

Sir David Brewster has edited and written various works, besides
contributing largely to the _Edinburgh Review_, the _Transactions of the
British Association_, and other scientific societies, and the _North
British Review_. Among his more popular works are "A Treatise on the
Kaleidoscope;" an original Treatise on Optics for the _Cabinet
Cyclopaedia;_ and Letters on Natural Magic and a Life of Sir Isaac Newton
for the "Family Library." The latter work has been translated into
German.

Sir David Brewster is likewise one of the editors of the _London and
Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine_.

The discoveries of Sir David Brewster range from the kaleidoscope to the
law of the angle of polarization, the physical laws of metallic
reflection, and the optical properties of crystals; and the venerable
philosopher is the author of an immense number of facts and practical
applications in every branch of optics.

      *       *       *       *       *

The AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION assembled this year at New Haven, and
Was presided over by Alex. D. Bache, LL. D. of the Coast Survey. It was
attended by many of the most eminent men of science in this country,
among whom were President Woolsey, Professor Denison Olmsted, the elder
and the younger Silliman, E. C. Herrick, and E. Loomis, of Yale College;
Professors Louis Agassiz, E. N. Hosford and Benjamin Pierce of Harvard
University; Lieutenant Charles H. Davis, U. S. N.; Professor O. M.
Mitchell, Superintendent of the Cincinnati Observatory; Dr. A. L. Elwyn
of Philadelphia; Professor Walter R. Johnson of Washington; Professor
Joseph Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; William C.
Redfield of New York; and an unusual number of amateur scholars from
various parts of the Union. There were several papers of remarkable
value, among which that of Mr. Squier, our Charge d'Affaires for Central
America, was perhaps at this period of the most general interest. Others
were puerile, and as unfit in subject as in ability for presentation in
such an assembly. It is to be regretted that the Association does not
adopt the only protection against such discreditable annoyances, by
insisting upon the submission of everything offered for its consideration
to a competent private committee.

       *       *       *       *       *

A GREAT NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, is said to have
been discussed recently at the meetings of inferior societies, and we
have read a circular upon the subject, which contemplates a convention of
scholars and men of letters, at Washington, some time in the coming
winter. The American Philosophical Society, founded by Franklin, and made
respectable by the labors of many eminent men, is no longer in authority,
and its proceedings command little attention. The various societies for
the cultivation of the natural sciences, in Philadelphia, Boston, and
New York, are undoubtedly accomplishing much good, but the spheres and
degrees of their influence would be greatly enlarged under a central
organization. In such a design, the initiative should be taken by men of
nerve as well as men of abilities, so that the dead weights of mediocrity
so constantly obtruding into and making ridiculous the present societies,
should be altogether excluded.

Hitherto, in this city, the most reputable and dignified association
connected with the advancement of learning, has been the Ethnological
Society. It is to be feared that with the death of Mr. Gallatin, its
president, and the dispersion of so many of its active members in the
diplomatic service, its action hereafter will deserve less consideration
than has thus far been awarded to it.


LAMARTINE'S APOLOGY FOR HIS CONFIDENCES.

Lamartine has just commenced the publication of a second part of his
Confidences, in the feuilleton of _La Presse_, and precedes it by the
following letter to the editor of that paper, which we translate for _The
International_ from _La Presse_ of July 30. It relates to the way in
which he came to publish the work, and gives a deeply interesting account
of the pecuniary embarrassments under which he had for some time been
laboring, and then eloquently defends the publication of what is real,
and glowing in private life and experience.

_To M. de Girardin:_

In addressing to you, my dear Girardin, this third volume of private
notes, to which the public have given the name of _Confidences_, I cannot
repress an emotion of pain. What I foresaw but too well has happened. I
have opened my life, and it has evaporated. This journal of my
impressions has found grace, indulgence, interest even, with some
readers, if I may judge from the anonymous friends who have written me.
But the unsparing critics, men who mingle even our tears with their ink,
in order to give more bitterness to their sarcasms, have not pardoned
those outbursts of a soul of twenty. They have believed, or have
pretended to believe, that I was seeking a miserable celebrity in the
ashes of my own heart: they have said, that by an anticipation of vanity,
I desired to gather and enjoy in advance, while yet living, the sad
Flowers which might one day grow after me upon my tomb. They have cried
out at the profanation of the inner feeling; at the effrontery of a soul
shown naked; at the scandal of recollections made public; at the venality
of sacred things; at the _simony_ of the poet selling his own fibers to
save the roof and the tree that overshadowed his cradle. I have read and
heard in silence all their malign interpretations of an act, the true
nature of which had been revealed to you long before it was to the
public. I have answered nothing. What could I say? The appearances were
against me. You alone knew that these notes had long existed, shut up in
my casket of rosewood, along with the ten volumes of the notes of my
mother; that they were intended never to be taken thence; that I rejected
the first suggestion of publishing them, with all possible warmth of
resolution; that I refused the ransom of a king for those leaves of no
real value; and that finally, one day--a day for which I reproach
myself-constrained fatally to choose between the necessity of selling my
poor _Charmettes_--_Charmettes_, as dear and more holy than the
_Charmettes_ of the _Confessions_--and the necessity of publishing these
pages, I preferred myself to suffer rather than cause suffering to good
old servants, by selling their roofs and their vines to strangers. With
one hand I received the price of the _Confidences_, and with the other I
gave it to others in order to purchase time.

Behold here all the crime that I am expiating.

And let the critics rejoice till their vengeance is satiated. This
sacrifice was in vain. It is in vain that I have cast upon the wind these
leaves, torn from the book of my most pious memories. The time that their
price procured has not proved sufficient to conduct me to the threshold
of that abode where we cease to regret anything. My _Charmettes_ have
been sold. Let them be content. I have had the shame of publishing these
_Confidences_, but not the joy of having saved my garden. Steps of
strangers will efface there the steps of my father and mother. God is
God, and sometimes he commands the wind to uproot the oak of a hundred
years, and man to uproot his own heart. The oak and the heart are his, we
must yield them to him, and yield him therewith justice, glory, and
benedictions!

And now that my acceptance of these critics is complete, and that I
confess myself guilty, and still more, afflicted--am I as guilty as they
say, and is there no excuse, which, in the eyes of indulgent and
impartial readers, can extenuate my crime?

In order to judge as to this, I have but one question to ask you, and the
public, which deigns with distracted finger to turn these pages. My
question is this:

Is it to myself, or to others, that the published pages of these
_Confidences_ can have done injury in the view of those who have read
them? Is there a single man now living, is there a single memory of one
of the dead, on whom these recollections have cast an odious or even
unfavorable light, whether on his name, his family, his life, or his
grave? Have they brought sadness to the soul of our mother in the heaven
where she resides? Has the manly face of our father been lessened in the
respect of his descendants? Has _Graziella_, that precocious and withered
flower of my early manhood, received aught beyond a few tears of young
girls shed on a tomb at Portici? Has Julia, the worship of my young
enthusiasm, lost in the imagination of those who know the name, that
purity which she has preserved in my heart? And my masters, those pious
Jesuits, whose name I love not, but whose virtue I venerate; my friends,
dearest and first harvested, Virieu Vignet, the Abbe Dumont, could they
complain, returning here below, that I have disfigured their beautiful
natures, discolored their noble images, or soiled one place in their
lives? I appeal to all who have read. Would a single shade command me to
efface a single line? Many of whom I have spoken are still living, or
their sisters, or their sons, or their friends: have I humiliated them?
They would have told me.

No! I have embalmed only pure recollections. My shroud was poor, but it
was spotless. The modest name I have wrapped there for myself will
neither be adorned nor dishonored by it. No tenderness will reproach me;
no family will accuse me of profanation in naming it. A remembrance is an
inviolable thing because it is voiceless, and must be approached with
piety. I could never console myself if I had allowed to fall from this
life into that other life, whence no one can answer, one word which could
wound those absent immortals whom we call the dead. I desire that not a
single word, thoughtfully uttered, should remain after me against one of
the men who will one day be my survivors. Posterity is not the sewer of
our passions--it is the urn of our memories, and should preserve nothing
but perfumes.

These _Confidences_ have then done injury or caused pain to no one, among
the living or among the dead. I mistake, they have done injury to me, but
to me alone. I have depicted myself such as I was: one of those natures,
alas! so common among the children of women, wrought not of one clay
only, not of that purified and exceptional substance which forms heroes,
saints, and sages, but moulded of every earth which enters into the
formation of the weak and passionate man; of lofty aspirations, and
narrow wings; of great desires, and short hands to reach whither they are
extended; sublime in ideal, vulgar in reality; with fire in the heart,
illusion in the mind, and tears in the eyes; human statues, which attest
by the diversity of the elements that compose them, the mysterious
failings of our poor nature; in which, as in the metal of Corinth, we
find after the fire the traces of all the melted metals which were
mingled and confounded in it, a little gold and much lead. But, I repeat,
whom have I injured but myself?

But they say, these unvailed exposures of sentiments and of life offend
that virginal modesty of soul, of which outward modesty is but an
imperfect emblem? You show ourself unvailed, and you do not blush! Who
then are you?

Alas! I am what you see, a poor writer; a writer, that is to say, a
thinker, in public. I am, less their genius and virtue, what were St.
Augustine, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Chateaubriand, Montaigne, all those men
Who have silently interrogated their souls and replied aloud, so that
their dialogue with themselves might also be a useful conversation with
the century in which they lived, or with the future. The human heart is
an instrument  which has neither the same number nor quality of chords in
every bosom, and on which new notes may eternally be discovered and added
to the infinite scale of sentiments and melodies in the universe. This is
our part, poets and writers in spite of ourselves, rhapsodists of the
endless poem that nature chants to men and God! Why accuse me, if you
excuse yourselves? Are we not of the same family of the _Homeridae_, who
from door to door recount histories, of which they are by turns the
historians and the heroes? Is it, then, in the nature of thought to
become a crime in becoming public? A thought, vulgar, critical,
skeptical, dogmatic, may, according to you, be unvailed innocently:
a sentiment, commonplace, cold, not intimate, awaking no palpitation
within you, no response in others, may be revealed without violation of
modesty; but a thought that is pious, ardent, lighted at the fire of the
heart or of heaven, a sentiment burning, cast forth by an explosion of
the volcano of the soul; a cry of the inmost nature, awaking by its
accent of truth young and sympathetic voices in the present age or the
future: and above all, a tear! a tear not painted like those which flow
upon your shrouds of parade, a tear of water and salt, falling from the
eyes, instead of a drop of ink, falling from the pen! This is crime! this
is shame! this is immodesty, for you! That is to say, that whatever is
cold and artificial is innocent in the artist, but what is warm and
natural is unpardonable in the man. That is to say, modesty in a writer
consists in exposing what is false, immodesty in setting forth what is
true. If you have talent, show it, but not your soul, carrying mine away!
Oh, shame! What logic!

But after all, you are right at bottom, only you do not know how to
express it. It is perfectly true that there are mysteries, nudities,
parts of the soul not shameful but sensitive, depths, personalities, last
foldings of thought and feeling, which would cost horribly to uncover,
and which an honorable and natural scruple would never permit us to lay
bare, without the remorse of violated modesty. There is, I agree with
you, such a thing as indiscretion of heart. I felt this cruelly myself,
the first time when, having written certain poetic dreams of my soul
certain too real utterances of my sentiments, I read them to my most
intimate friends. My face was covered with blushes, and I could not
finish. I said to them: "No, I cannot go farther; you shall read it."
"And how is it," answered my friends, "that you cannot read to us what
you are about to give to all Europe to read?" "No," I said, "I cannot
tell why, but I feel no shame in letting the public read it, though I
experience an invincible repugnance to reading it myself, face to face to
only two or three of my friends."

They did not understand me--I did not understand myself. We together
exclaimed at the inconsistency of the human heart. Since then I have felt
the same instinctive repugnance at reading to a single person what cost
me not a single effort of violated modesty to give to the public: and
after having long reflected on it, I find that this apparent
inconsistency is at bottom only the perfect logic of our nature.

And why is this? The reason is, that a friend is somebody and the public
nobody; a friend has a face, the public has not; a friend is a being,
present, hearing, looking, a real being--the public is an invisible
being, a being of the reason, an abstraction; a friend has a name, and
the public is anonymous; a friend is a confidant, and the public is a
fiction. I blush before the one, because he is a man; I do not blush
before the other, because it is an idea. When I write or speak before the
public, I feel myself as free, as exempt from the susceptibilities of one
man to another, as if I were speaking or writing before God and in the
desert; the crowd is a solitude; you see it, you know that it exists, but
you know it only as a mass. As an individual it does not exist. Now this
modesty of which you speak, being the respect of one's self before some
other person, when there is no person distinct on account of the
multitude, becomes without a motive. Psyche blushed under a lamp because
the hand of a single god passed over her, but when the sun gazed at her
with his thousand rays from the height of Olympus, that personification
of the modest soul did not blush before the whole heaven. Here is the
exact image of the modesty of a writer before a single auditor, and of
the freedom of his utterance before all the world. Do you accuse me of
violating mysteries before you? You have not the right: I do not know
you, I have confided nothing to you personally. You are guilty of
impropriety in reading what is not addressed to you. You are _somebody_,
you are not the public. What do you want with me? I have not spoken to
you: you have nothing to say to me, and I nothing to reply.

So thought St. Augustine, Plato, Socrates, Cicero, Cæsar, Bernardin de
St. Pierre, Montaigne, Alfieri, Chateaubriand, and all other men who have
confided to the world the genuine palpitations of their own hearts. True
gladiators they are in the human Colosseum, not playing miserable
comedies of sentiment and style to distract an academy, but struggling
and dying in earnest on the stage of the world, and writing on the sand,
with the blood of their own veins, the heroism, the failings, or the
agonies of the human heart.

Having said this, I resume these notes where I left them, blushing for
one thing only before these critics, that is, for not having either the
soul of St. Augustine or the genius of Jean Jacques Rousseau, in order to
merit, by indiscretions as sacred and touching, the pardon of tender
hearts and the condemnation of narrow minds, that take every movement of
the soul for an obscenity, and hide their faces whenever they are shown a
heart.

       *       *       *       *       *


BALZAC.


We have news from Paris of the death of Honore De Balzac, one of the most
eminent French writers of the nineteenth century. "Eighteen months ago,"
says a Paris letter, "already attacked by dropsy, he quitted France to
contract a marriage with a Russian lady, to whom he was devotedly
attached. To her he had dedicated 'Seraphitus,' and he had accumulated in
his hotel of the Beaujoin quarters all the luxuries which could
contribute to her pleasure. He returned to France three months ago, in a
state of extreme danger. Last week he underwent an operation for abscess
in his legs: mortification ensued. On the morning of the 18th he became
speechless, and at midnight he expired. His sister, Madame de Surville,
visited his deathbed, and the pressure of her hand was the last sign he
gave of intelligence." We must defer for another occasion what we have
to say of the great novelist-the idol of women, even at seventy-the
Voltaire of our age, as he was accustomed to style himself in
private--the historian of society--French society--as it is. The author
of _Le Peau de Chagrin, Le Physiologie du Marriage, Le Dernier Chauan,
Eugene Grandet_, and the _Scenes de la Vie Parisienne_, and _Scenes de la
Vie de Province_, was one of the marks of the era, and being dead, we
will speculate upon him. At present we can only translate for the
_International_ the following funeral oration by Victor Hugo, pronounced
at his grave:

"GENTLEMEN--The man who has just descended into this tomb is one of those
whom the public sorrow follows to the last abode. In the times where we
are all fictions have disappeared. Henceforth our eyes are fixed not on
the heads that reign but on the heads that think, and the whole country
is affected when one of them disappears. At this day, the people put on
mourning for the man of talent, the nation for the man of genius.

"Gentlemen, the name of Balzac will be mingled in the luminous trace that
our epoch will leave in the future.

"M. de Balzac belonged to that potent generation of writers of the
nineteenth century who came after Napoleon, just as the illustrious
pleiades of the seventeenth century came after Richelieu, and in the
development of civilization a law caused the domination of thought to
succeed the domination of the sword.

"M. de Balzac was one of the first among the greatest, one of the highest
among the best. This is not the place to say all or that splendid and
sovereign intelligence. All his books form only one hook, living,
luminous, profound, in which we see moving all our contemporaneous
civilization, mingled with I know not what of strange and terrible; a
marvelous book, that the poet has entitled comedy, and which he might
have called history; which assumes all forms and all styles: which goes
beyond Tacitus and reaches Suetonius, which crosses Beaumarchais and
reaches Rabelais; a book which is observation itself, and imagination
itself; which is prodigal of the true, the passionate, the common, the
trivial, the material, and which at moments throws athwart realities,
suddenly and broadly torn open, the gleam of the most somber and tragic
ideal.

"Without knowing it, whether he will or not, whether he consents or not,
the author of this strange and immense work is of the mighty race of
revolutionary writers. Balzac goes directly to his object. He assails
modern society face to face. From all he forces something: from some
illusions, from others hope, from these a cry of pain, from those a mask.
He unvails vice and dissects passion. He penetrates and sounds the heart,
the soul, the sentiments, the brain, the abyss that each man has within
him. And by a gift of his free and vigorous nature, by a privilege of the
intelligences of our times,--who, having seen revolutions nearly and with
their own eyes, perceive better the end of humanity and comprehend better
the course of Providence,--Balzac came forth serene and smiling from
those redoubtable studies which produced melancholy in Moliere and
misanthropy in Rousseau.

"This is what he has accomplished among us. Such is the work he has left
us, lofty and solid, a pile of granite, a monumental edifice, from whose
summit his renown will henceforth shine. Great men make their own
pedestals: the future charges itself with their statues.

"His death has struck Paris with stupor. But a few months since he
returned to France. Feeling that he was about to die, he desired to see
his country, like one who on the eve of a long voyage comes to embrace
his mother.

"His life was brief, but crowded; fuller of labors than of days.

"Alas, the powerful and indefatigable laborer, the philosopher, the
thinker, the poet, the man of genius, lived among us the life of storms,
of struggles, of quarrels, of combats, common in all times to all great
men. Today, behold him here at peace. He leaves collisions and
hostilities. The same day he enters on glory and the tomb. Henceforth
he will shine above all the clouds over our heads, among the stars of our
country.

"And you all who are here, are you not tempted to envy him?

"Gentlemen, whatever be our sorrow in the presence of such a loss, let us
resign ourselves to these catastrophes. Let us accept them in their
poignancy and severity. It is good perhaps, and necessary, in an epoch
like ours, that from time to time a great death should communicate a
religious book to minds devoured by doubt and skepticism. Providence
knows what it does when it thus puts a whole people face to face with the
supreme mystery, and gives it Death to meditate upon, which is at once
the great equality and the great liberty.

"Providence knows what it does, for here is the highest of instructions.
There can be in all hearts only austere and serious thoughts when a
sublime spirit majestically makes its entrance upon the other life; when
one of those beings whom the visible wings of genius have long sustained
above the crowd, suddenly puts forth those other wings that we cannot
see, and disappears in the unknown!

"No, it is not the unknown! No, I have already said it on another mournful
occasion, and I shall not weary in repeating it, it is not darkness, it
is light! It is not the end, it is the beginning! It is not nothing, it
is eternity! Is not this true, I ask all that hear me? Such graves as
this are proofs of immortality. In the presence of the illustrious dead
we feel more distinctly the divine destinies of this intelligence called
man, which traverses the earth to suffer and to be purified; and we know
that those who have shone with genius during life, must be living souls
after death."

       *       *       *       *       *


DR. GUTZLAFF, THE MISSIONARY.

CHARLES GUTZLAFF the famous missionary in China is described in the
_Grenzboten_ by a writer who lately heard him preach at Vienna, as a
short, stout man, with a deep red face, a large mouth, sleepy eyes,
pointed inward and downward like those of a China man, vehement
gesticulations, and a voice more loud than melodious. He has acquired
in his features and expression something like the expression of the
people among whom he lives. His whole manners also, as well as his
face, indicate the genuine son of Jao and Chun, so that the Chinese when
they encounter him in the street salute him as their countryman. We
translate for _The International_ the following sketch of his life and
labors:

Charles Gutzlaff was born in 1803, at Pyritz, a village of Pomerania. His
zeal as an apostle was first manifested some fifteen years ago. He
married an English woman, who was animated with the same aspiration as
himself and who accompanied him on his voyages as a missionary. His
extensive acquaintance with the Chinese and kindred languages even then
made deep impression on Robert Morrison, the founder of the Evangelical
Mission in China, whom he joined in 1831 at Macao, and caused his
Acquaintance to be much sought by the merchants. In 1832 and 1833 he was
employed as an interpreter on board ships engaged in smuggling opium, but
turned this occupation, which in itself was not of a very saintly
character, to his religious ends, by the dissemination of tracts and
Bibles. A missionary journey to Japan which he undertook in 1837 was
without  any result. After Morrison's death Gutzlaff was appointed
Chinese Secretary to the British Consulate at Canton, and in 1840 founded
a Christian Union of Chinese for the propagation of the Gospel among
their countrymen. His present journey through Europe has a similar
purpose, the foundation of Missionary Societies for the spread of
Christianity in China.

His literary labors have had an almost incredible extent and variety. He
Himself gives the following enumeration of his writings: "In Dutch I have
written: a History of our Mission and of distinguished Missionaries, and
an appeal for support of the Missionary Work; in German: Sketches of the
Minor Prophets; in Latin: The Life of our Savior; in English: Sketches of
Chinese History; China Opened; Life of Kanghe, together with a great
number of articles on the Religion, History, Philosophy, Literature and
Laws of the Chinese; in Siamese: a Translation of the New Testament, with
the Psalms, and an English-Siamese Dictionary, English-Cambodian
Dictionary and English-Laos Dictionary. These works I left to my
successors to finish, but with the exception of the Siamese Dictionary
they have added nothing to them. In Cochin-Chinese: a Complete Dictionary
Cochin-Chinese-English and English-Cochin-Chinese; this work is not yet
printed. In Chinese: Forty Tracts, along with three editions of the Life
of our Savior; a Translation of the New Testament, the third edition of
which I have carried through the press. Of the Translations of the Old
Testament the Prophets and the two first books of Moses are completed. In
this language I have also written The Chinese Scientific Monthly Review,
a History of England, a History of the Jews, a Universal History and
Geography, on Commerce, a short Account of the British Empire and its
Inhabitants, as well as a number of smaller articles. In Japanese: a
Translation of the New Testament, and of the first book of Moses, two
tracts, and several scientific pamphlets. The only paper to which I now
send communications is the Hong Kong Gazette, the whole Chinese
department of which I have undertaken. Till the year 1842 I wrote for
the Chinese Archives."

The writer in the _Grenzboten_ goes on to say that "so vast a surface as
these writings cover, requires a surprising facility of mind and an
indefatigable perseverance. When you see the man engaged in his
missionary toils you understand the whole at once. He arrives in a city
and hastens to the church which is prepared for his reception. After
preaching for an hour with the greatest energy he takes up his
collection and is gone. He speaks with such rapidity that it is  hardly
possible to follow him. Such rapidity is not favorable to excellence
in the work. Of all his writings, only one work is known to me, that
published in  Munich, in 1847, under the title of 'Gutzlaffs History of
the Chinese Empire from the earnest times to the Peace of Nankin'. In our
imperfect acquaintance with Chinese history this compendium is not
without value, but it displays no critical power, and is a mere external
compilation and poorly written. From it we learn as good as nothing of
the peculiar customs and state of mental culture of the country. The
whole resembles a Christian History of the World written in the
eighteenth century, Beginning with Adam and Eve, and leaving the Greeks
and Romans out altogether because they were without a divine revelation."

Mr. Gutzlaff's family were recently for several months in the United
States, and the proceedings of the great missionary--second in eminence
only to our own Judson--have always been regarded with much interest by
the American churches.


AUTHORS AND BOOKS

The Asiatic Society at Paris has just held its twenty-eighth yearly
session. According to the report of its Secretary and Financial
Committee, this society has suffered little from the disastrous times
which have fallen on literature generally. In 1848, being uncertain as to
the future, it stopped receiving subscriptions to works with a view to
their publication, and arrested the printing of those which were already
commenced, with the single exception of the Asiatic Journal, which the
members determined not to alter in any case. The series of this journal
is of great value, containing already fifty-five volumes, to which two
new ones are added every year. For many years it has contained only
original articles, though formerly it admitted translations from other
European languages. Of course, in so voluminous a periodical work, the
contents vary in character, but the whole is of the greatest importance
to History, Belles Lettres, and Philology, and should not be wanting in
any public library. The society has now resumed the suspended
publications, beginning with the "Chronicles of Cashmir", by the Austrian
Orientalist Captain Troyer, two volumes of which were issued some time
since. Troyer is a remarkable man. As an Austrian artillery and staff
officer he served in all the wars, from the breaking out of the French
Revolution to the Peace of Paris. While in Italy, he passed some time at
the head-quarters of Lord William Bentinck, as an Austrian Commissioner,
and so gained his esteem and confidence that he was invited to go with
Lord William to Madras as his military secretary. When Lord William
resigned the government of Madras, Troyer remained for some time as
Director of the East India Company's School for Artillery and Engineers,
till finally he resigned and came to Paris. In 1829, Lord William went
again to India as Governor-General, and persuaded Troyer to go with him.
While in India at this time, among other offices Troyer filled that of
Secretary of the Hindoo College. In 1834, when Bentinck again left India,
Troyer once more resigned his functions, and has since been in Paris,
devoting an active and honorable old age to constant labors upon Persian
and Indian literature.

     *       *       *       *       *

The FRENCH ACADEMY held its annual public session on the 8th of August,
in the presence of a large audience, including almost all the literary
celebrities of the metropolis, both masculine and feminine. The prizes of
victory were given to Napoleon Hurney, who had saved the lives of
fourteen persons, and to Marguerite Briand, for having supported and
taken care for forty-five years of her mistress, who had fallen from
wealth into the extremest poverty. M. de Salvandy, who bestowed these
prizes, delivered the usual eulogy on virtue in general, winding up with
praise of Louis Philippe and his reign, a thing more creditable perhaps
to the fidelity and consistency of the speaker, who has never renounced
his allegiance to the Orleans family, than proper to the occasion.

The literary prizes were distributed by M. Villemain. The grand prize of
ten thousand francs for the best work on the history of France, was given
to Augustin Thierry. Emile Angier received a prize of seven thousand
francs for his comedy of "Gabrielle," and M. Antran one of three thousand
for his "Daughter of Æsehylus." Three ladies got prizes worth two
thousand francs each for works of a popular nature on moral subjects; M.
A. Garnier got one of one thousand for his _Morale Sociale_; M. Martin
the same for his _Philosophie Spiritualiste de la Nature_, and M. Kastus
the same for his _Psycologie d'Aristote_. The crown for the best
specimen of eloquence was awarded to M. Baudrillast for his Eulogy on
Madame de Stael, in which the literary history and character of the
subject were served up in the most florid style. The same writer once
before won the same prize by a eulogy on Turgot. His productions are more
elaborate and showy than substantial and permanent in their character.

It must be said that this Academy is rather a respectable and slow-moving
institutution. The most illustrious names of France are not always
included in the list of its members. Neither Beranger nor Lamenais belong
to it. A writer in the Paris _National_ says that after three hours at
its meeting everybody he met in the street seemed to belong to the time
of Louis XI.

       *       *       *       *       *

EDWARD EVERETT has been many years engaged in the collection and
arrangement of materials for a systematic Treatise on the Modern Law of
Nations; more especially in reference to those questions which nave been
discussed between the governments of the United States and Europe since
the Peace of 1783. This will be Mr. Everett's "life poem." Hitherto he
has written nothing very long except the "Defense of the Christian
Religion," published when he was about twenty-one years of age. We have
just received from Little & Brown their edition of the "Orations and
Speeches" of Mr. Everett, in two very large and richly-printed volumes,
which we shall hereafter notice more largely. These are to be followed,
at the author's leisure, by his Political Reports and Speeches and
Official Papers, in two large volumes, and his contributions to the
_North American Review_, which, if all included, we think will make four
others: so that his works, beside the new treatise above mentioned, will
be completed in not less than eight volumes. We are gratified at the
prospect of such a collection of these masterpieces of rhetoric, so full
of learning and wisdom, and infused by so genial a spirit. We wish some
publisher would give us in the same style all the writings of Alexander
Everett.

CHARLES MACKAY has lately published in London, a work upon which he had
long been engaged, under the title of "Progress of the Intellect." We
suspect, from the reviewals of it which appear in the journals, that it
is of the German free thinking class of philosophical histories. It
embraces dissertations on Intellectual Religion, Ancient Cosmogony, the
Metaphysical Idea of God, the Moral Notion of God, the Theory of
Mediation, Hebrew Theory of Retribution and Immortality, the Messianic
Theory prevailing in the days of Jesus, Christian Forms and Reforms, and
Speculative Christianity. And these dissertations are written with an
eloquence and power unexampled in a work of so much learning.

       *       *       *       *       *

M. AND MAD. DE LAMARTINE having returned from the East, are at present
Staying at the Villa du Prado, a branch of the Hotel des Empereurs, a
pleasant house on the banks of the Huveaune, in the midst of the most
beautiful landscape. It was in a country box, upon the Avenue du Prado,
that Lamartine wrote, in 1847, his "Histoire des Girondins." Lamartine is
pleased with his Smyrna estate; he was received there by his vassals _en
grand seigneur_, but he found that he would be obliged to expend a good
deal of money before the estate would be profitable.

       *       *       *       *       *

THEODORE PARKER'S "Massachusetts Quarterly Review," is dead, and--God be
Praised that New England refused to support it any longer. Mr. Parker
says in the farewell to his readers, that the work "has never become what
its projector designed that it should be;" and expresses a hope that
"some new journal will presently be started, in a more popular form,
which will promote the great ideas of our times, by giving them an
expression in literature, and so help them to a permanent organization in
the life of mankind."

       *       *       *       *       *

CAPT. SIR EDWARD BELCHER, R.N., known in the literary and scientific
world by his extensive voyages of survey and discovery, is now on a visit
to New York, whence he will shortly proceed to Texas. Sir Edward Belcher
is a gentleman of remarkable energy of character, and of eminent
abilities.

       *       *       *       *       *

A LETTER from M. Guizot, assigning the motives of his refusal to appear
as a candidate of the Institute for a seat in the Superior Council of
Public Instruction, is published by the _Espérance_ of Nancy. The
Principles avowed by M. Guizot lead directly to a separation of Church
and State.

       *       *       *       *       *

JOHN G. SAXE will soon publish a new poem which he delivered recently at
the commencement of Middlebury College, with the applause which crowns
all his efforts in this way.

       *       *       *       *       *

A RE-ISSUE of the Complete Works of Eliza Cook will be shortly commenced
in her Journal, and continued weekly until completed.

       *       *       *       *        *

THE INSTITUTE OF GOETHE has just been founded by the government of Saxe
Weimar. It consists simply of a prize of twenty thousand francs offered
to the competition of the literary and artistic world. The first year it
will be given to the best among the poems, romances, and dramatic works
submitted; the second year to the best picture; the third year to the
best piece of statuary; the fourth year to the best piece of music,
whether sacred or profane, opera or oratorio. This circle having been
completed, the prize will next be given as at the first year; and so on
in regular succession. The successful competitor is to remain proprietor
of his work, as are all the others. The prize will he allotted by two
committees, one at Weimar the other at Berlin. The establishment of the
fund was celebrated at Weimar on the 23d of August.

       *       *       *       *       *

GIFFORD, some five-and-twenty years ago, declared that all the fools of
the country had taken to write plays; and it would appear that all the
dull Englishmen of our day have taken to write pamphlets on the
slave-trade. The London _Times_ is very severe upon a book just issued by
Mr. W. Gore Ouseley, who was several years British Charge d'Affaires at
Rio, as such conducted a voluminous correspondence on the subject with
the government of Brazil, and might have been expected to have there
learned something on the slave-trade worth telling. According to his
reviewer he appears, however, to be one of that class of persons
described by Sterne, who, traveling from Dan to Beersheba, found all to
be barren; and no amount of observation can in any human being supply
defective reasoning faculties. So, says the _Times_, he has little or
nothing to say about the Brazilian slave-trade that has not been better
said a thousand times before; and when he does venture on a special
statement of his own, it topples down the whole superstructure of his
argument.

A work of rather more interest is "Seven Years' Service on the Slave
Coast of Africa", by Sir Henry Huntley, who, when a lieutenant in the navy
in 1831, was ordered to the scene of his observations. Shortly after his
arrival, he was appointed to the independent command of a small vessel,
in which he visited stations, looked out for slavers, chased them when he
saw them, and captured them when he could. A few years subsequently he
was nominated Governor of the settlements on the Gambia. His two volumes
contain his adventures during the whole or nearly the whole of his seven
years' service upon the station; the last closing abruptly in the middle
of preparations for a congress of black kings. The public is already
familiar with many of the topics, from the occasional narratives of
voyages and adventures along the coast. Visits to the commandants of the
so-called castles; a description of the European and native mode of life
at the settlements; accounts of the slave-stations, the slave-dealers,
the slaves, and the slave-trade, together with sketches of more
legitimate commerce, and occasional trips to the islands lying off the
coast, for change of air and fresh supplies, are frequent features. Sir
Henry Huntley's duties sometimes brought him in contact with native
chiefs, and continually with slavers, in the search, the capture, and the
pursuit. During the latter part of his career, the office of Governor
gave great variety and largeness to his subjects; consisting of public
business, palavers with native potentates, and matters connected with
home policy. In point of literary character this work very nearly
resembles the author's "Peregrine Scramble." Indeed, the "Seven Years'
Service" is a sort of continuation of that book, without the form of
fiction.

       *       *       *       *       *

M. JULES LECHEVALIER, known in this country chiefly as one of the foreign
Correspondents of _The Tribune_, but in Europe as an able writer on the
Social Sciences, has recently delivered in Paris and Berlin, and in
London, (where he is residing as a political exile,) a series of
lectures, which will soon be given to the world in a volume, upon the
subject of his favorite studies. M. Lechevalier's system, which he
denominates "New Political Economy," is based upon the principle of
association, in opposition to that of competition and _laissez-faire_,
which constitute the groundwork of the school of the present political
economists. In the course of his series he pointed out the gradual
tendency of the competitive principle to produce extremes of riches and
poverty, and ultimately revolutions, and maintained, that by the adoption
of the associative principle alone, society can be preserved from
confusion and destruction. He contends that the new political economy,
or _Socialism_, is essentially Conservative, while the present system of
unlimited competition, or buying cheap and selling dear, is destructive,
M. Lechevalier pretends to base his system on the moral principles of
Christ, and maintains that Christianity cannot be practically carried out
in any other way. His lectures abound in examples of the working of the
two opposing systems.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Doctrinal Tract and Book Society, Boston, are going forward in the
work of re-publishing the old standard works of the New-England theology.
They have issued a fine edition of Bellamy and have procured an edition
of Edwards the younger. They are now about commencing the stereotyping of
Catlin's Compendium, and the whole works of Dr. Hopkins. We wish they
would go back a century further, and give us the best works of Mather and
his contemporaries.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is a political novel by OTTO MULLER, of Manheim, announced, under
the title _Georg Volker: ein Vreiheits Roman_, which is said to give a
faithful picture of the Baden revolution, and to open with the rise of
the peasantry in the _Ottenwald_.

        *       *       *       *      *

THE DUC DE LA ROUCHEFOUCAULD's celebrated "Moral Reflections, Sentences,
and Maxims," have just appeared in a new and very much improved
translation, and with notes, pointing out similarities of sentiments in
ancient and modern authors, and sometimes proving that Rochefoucauld's
good things have been made use of without sufficient acknowledgment, by
moderns. There is also an introduction, which dissertates well on the
purpose and quality of the reflections. Such books were once very
popular; but in this country they have not been much read. We have indeed
had numerous editions of "Lacon," and Dr. Bettner's "Acton" has found a
thousand purchasers; but the Rev. Dr. Hooker's "Maxims," which, in our
opinion, are as good as anything of their kind in the English language,
we believe have not attracted attention, and Mr. Simms's "Egeria" has
been printed only in the columns of a newspaper.

       *       *       *       *       *

A new theory has just been propounded at Paris in a book called
"Armanase," (a Sanscrit word, meaning the "Reign of Capacity"). The author
asserts the present forms of administrative government are injurious
instead of useful to society, and ought to be replaced by institutions of
a new and different order. His principle is, that the sovereignty of the
individual ought to be instituted for that of governments, and that great
associations of mutual assurance may be advantageously substituted for
the existing system of management by office-holders. The author shows
also that the progress of the natural and mechanical sciences will
deliver man from the pressure of the more painful sorts of labor; and
that wealth, freed from the barriers which now hinder its circulation,
would be distributed freely throughout society. Intellectual property
would be seriously guaranteed, and would enrich the men of genius, whose
inventions and discoveries are now profitable, not to the authors, but to
the capitalists who take advantage of them. By this means an important
element of revolutions will be removed. The author proposes, that in
order to prevent all suffering, a civil list shall be set apart for the
people, who will be the king. This civil list is to be composed of a tax
of one per cent., levied on all who have property in favor of those who
have nothing. But, says he, let no one imagine that all would be
dissolution and ruin in this system, without law or government. Crimes
and offenses will be tried by juries, that is to say, by a living code.
Property will no longer be seizable for debt, and the courts will become
useless. Everybody shall have the absolute right to buy land by paying
its possessor ten per cent, on its value: this is to give a chance for
carrying on all sorts of grand public enterprises without trouble from
the proprietors of little pieces of land. It may perhaps be doubted,
whether the "Reign of Capacity" has exhibited any astonishing endowments
in that respect.

       *       *       *       *       *

THACKERAY, in _Pendennis_, has given offense, it appears, to some of the
gensd'armes of the Press, by his satirical sketches of the literary
profession. Those whose withers are unwrung will admit the truth of many
pages and laugh at the caricature in the rest. In the last number of the
_North British Review_ is a clever article upon the subject, written with
good temper and good sense. Hitherto publishers have been ridiculed and
declaimed against as "tyrants" and "tradesmen,"--made to bear the onus of
"poetical" improvidence, and to sustain the weight of a crime which no
author can pardon--the rejection of manuscripts. The _authors_ have
painted the portraits of publishers; but an ancient fable suggests that
if the _lion_ had painted a certain picture, it would not have been a
lion we should see biting the dust.

       *       *       *       *       *

M. DE LUYNES is now engaged at Paris in publishing a work on the
antiquities of Cyprus. He has discovered a number of inscriptions
in ancient Cyprian writing, and is having them engraved on copper. The
writing is that which preceded the introduction of the Phoenician
character upon the island, and seems to have no affinity either with that
or with the Assyrian, which is discovered to have been once used there.
The work of M. de Luynes will open a new problem for the philologists. It
will be difficult to decipher the inscriptions and language, unless there
can be found somewhere an ancient Cyprian inscription, with a translation
in some known tongue; but in a time which has read the riddles of the
pyramids, nothing of this sort is to be despaired of. M. de Luynes is the
last of the great French nobles who makes a worthy use of his riches.

       *       *       *       *       *

SIR ROBERT PEEL left full and specific directions in his will for the
early publication of his political memoirs; and ordered that the profits
arising from the publication shall be given to some public institution
for the education of the working-classes. He believed his manuscripts and
correspondence to be of great value, as showing the characters of the
great men of his age; and directed that his correspondence with the Queen
and Prince Albert shall not be published during their lives without their
express consent. He confided the task of preparing these memoirs to Lord
Mahon and Mr. Cardwell. Their duty will, however, be comparatively light,
though delicate, from the admirable and orderly state in which he left
his papers.

       *       *       *       *       *

MR. JOHN P. BROWN, author of "The Turkish Nights Entertainments,"
recently published by Putnam, is now on a visit to this country as the
Secretary of the Commissioner of the Sublime Porte, Captain Ammin Bey.

       *       *       *       *       *

EUGENE SUE'S new romance "The Mysteries of the People," has been
prohibited in Prussia.

       *       *       *       *      *

M. BURNET DE PESLE has just published the first part of his _Examen
Critique de la Succession des Dynasties Egyptiennes_, a work to which
competent critics assign a high value. He follows the method of
Champollion, rejecting hypotheses and admitting only the testimony of the
historians and monuments. At the same time he treats his subject with
independence and originality, though he advances nothing for the sake of
novelty. The second part of the work will be devoted to the discussion of
the ancient inscriptions, dynasty by dynasty, and reign by reign.

       *       *       *       *       *

WASHINGTON IRVING is claimed by the English as by both _birth_ and spirit
a British author. In the question of copyright lately before the Vice
Chancellor, the case rested in part upon a plea that Mr. Irving's father
was from the Orkneys and his mother from Falmouth, so that, though he was
born in New York, he was not an _alien_. Still, our "Diedrich
Knickerbocker" was _Colonel_ Irving once, and served in this capacity
against the king, and it will not he safe for him to establish the
position assumed by his publisher.

       *       *       *       *       *

M. ARAGO, having completed his love-labor in honor of Condorcet, is again
abstracting from scientific pursuits a portion of his time, to prepare a
memoir upon the acts and doings of the Provisional Government of 1848 of
which he was a member. It is said to be a curious work which will
enlighten much that is yet dark in the history of that period, throwing
additional obloquy upon some members, and relieving others of a portion
of that which they have hitherto borne. M. Chemiega is also engaged upon
his own account in similar historical labors.

       *       *       *       *       *

DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, on the 9th of September, delivered a poem,
described by a correspondent of the _Commercial Advertiser_ as one of his
finest compositions, before a large audience, assembled to dedicate a
rural cemetery at Pittsfield, Mass.

       *       *       *       *       *

M. DUGANNE, some of whose songs and dramatic pieces have the ring of true
metal, has just completed a satire entitled "Parnassus in Pillory," and
with the motto, "Lend me your ears." We have seen some advance sheets of
it, which are full of wit and spirit.

       *       *       *       *       *

SOUTH CAROLINA has always been prolific of epics. Those of Mr. Simmons,
Dr. Marks of Barhamville, and some others, have been tried, and-the
court of criticism has now before it from the same quarter "America
Discovered, in Twelve Books."

       *       *       *       *       *

JOHN NEAL has given notice of his intention to write a history of
American Literature "in two large octavo volumes," and he invites authors
who are not afraid to show their books, to send them to him at Portland
without delay.

       *       *       *       *       *

"GERMANIA, ITS COURTS, CAMPS AND PEOPLE," is the title of a brace of
volumes by "the _Baroness Blaize de Bury_." And who, pray, is the
Baroness Blaize de Bury? A writer in _The Leader_ answers after this
wise:

"Why, sir, she is somewhat of a myth, making her avatars in literature
with all the caprice and variety of Vishnou or Brougham; her maiden name
of Rose Stewart has not, that we can discover, been stained with
printer's ink, but we trace her as 'Arthur Dudley' in the _Revue des
Deux Mondes_ writing upon Bulwer and Dickens, we next find her as
'Maurice Flassan' in _Les Français Aeints par eux-mémes_. Rumor further
whispereth that she had a finger in 'Albert Lunel,' one of the
eccentricities of an eccentric law-lord, which was hurriedly suppressed,
one knows not why; in the _Edinburgh Review_ she wrote a paper on
Molière, and for Charles Knight's _Weekly Volume_ a pleasant little book
about Racine, on the title-page of which she is styled 'Madame Blaize
Bury;' since that time you observe she has blossomed into a Baroness _de_
Bury! Let us add that she is the wife of Henri Blaze, known as agreeable
critic and the translator of Faust, that she is said to be a great
favorite with the author of 'Albert Lunel,' and that she has the two
novels 'Mildred Vernon' and 'Leonie Vermont' placed to her account: how
many other shapes she may have assumed we know not; are these not enough?
Whether, after all, a flesh-and-blood Madame de Bury exists is more than
We can decide. _Une supposition!_ what if, after all, she should turn out
to be Lord Brougham himself? The restless energy of that Scottish
Phenomenon renders everything possible. _He_ does not agree with Pliny's
witty friend, that it is better to be idle than to do nothing--_satius
est otiosum esse quam nihil agere_."

       *       *       *       *       *

REV. CHARLES ELLIOT, D.D. of Cincinnati, has published, through the
Methodist printing house of that city, an important work on Slavery, in
two duodecimo volumes. Dr. Ellliot has declined the acceptance of the
Biblical Professorship in McKendree College, on the ground that he is
busily engaged in preparing works for the press, including a thorough
investigation of the Biblical argument in defense of slavery.

       *       *       *       *       *

A NEW edition of a Lexicon of the Dakota language (of an Indian tribe
near Lake Superior,) has just been completed by the missionaries. It
contains upward of fifteen thousand words. Near thirteen years or more of
labor have been expended upon it.

       *       *       *       *       *

JUDGE SYDNEY BREESE, late U.S. Senator, at the commencement of Knox
College, delivered a discourse before the Literary Societies on the
Early History of Illinois. It is said to be part of a volume he is
preparing, and had reference to the first ninety years of Illinois
history.

       *       *       *       *       *

MR. LAYARD, in excavating beneath the great pyramid at Nimroud, had
penetrated a mass of masonry, within which he had discovered the tomb and
statue of Sardanapalus, with full annals of that monarch's reign engraved
on the walls.

       *       *       *       *       *

MR. H. H. WILSON, F.R.S., has published in London, a collection of
Ancient Hindu Hymns, constituting the First Ashtaka, or Book, of the
Rig-Veda, the oldest Authority for the religious and social institutions
of the Hindus. The translation of the _Rig-Veda-Sonhita_ is valuable for
the scholar who wishes to study the most ancient belief, opinions, and
modes of the Hindus, so far as they can be gathered from hymns addressed
to the deities. At the same time, their mystery or obscurity, increased
by remoteness of years, is perhaps so considerable, that it will require
peculiar learning to profit by the materials this most ancient and
important of the Vedas contains.

       *       *       *       *       *

DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE, author of "Mornings at Matlock," has been
appointed, through the influence of Lord Brougham, to the office of
official assignee to the Court of Bankruptcy, in Manchester.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Fine Arts.

THE FINE ARTS IN AMERICA are not in a state of remarkable perfection, if
we may credit a writer in the Augsburg _Allgemeine Zeitung_. This critic
is evidently honest and impartial, but not perfectly well informed. He
supposes that the majority of the artists as well as of the scholars in
the country are emigrants from Europe; and affirms that artists of great
talent, who have been esteemed and encouraged in Europe, have been
reduced to misery in America, and compelled to resort to common labor for
their living. Latterly, however, fashion has brought pictures into
market; and we may now hear, in more refined circles, here and there a
misapplied artistic term, which shows that art is somewhat thought
of. It is characteristic that an American will often bargain for pictures
by the square foot. The New York Art Union has done a good deal of good
in the culture of taste for art, and from the Philadelphia Art Union much
may also be expected. The daguerreotypes taken here may be compared with
the best of Voightländer of Vienna and Williams of Liverpool. The
talbotypes of this country are better than all others. Lithographing is
done mostly by French and Germans; wood-cutting and steel-engraving by
Englishmen and Americans. The products of the latter two resemble
perfectly those of the same arts in England. Dramatic and musical art
are in a feeble condition. The theaters in the great cities have been
visited by the writer, and nothing admirable found in them. They are all
private enterprises, and no great things are to be expected in that line
without the aid of a government. The theaters are built and furnished in
the most elegant and even luxurious style. The Italian Opera in New York
is supplied by European artists whose best days are over. The actors
never rise to any commendable excellence, and the pieces they perform are
well adapted to their talents. Hardly ever is anything classical produced
upon the stage.

The German drama in the United States is spoken of as being in a
condition of even more desperate degradation. The writer's remarks on
that subject will not specially interest our readers; but we trust that
what we have given above from his strictures will be edifying to all whom
it may concern.

       *       *       *       *       *

FROM ROME we hear of an extensive undertaking about to be commenced in
the way of Catholic Art. The plan is this: Overbeck, whose designs from
Scripture history are familiar to all lovers of Art who have not
overlooked one of the most remarkable geniuses of the times, is now
employed upon fourteen compositions representing the fourteen Stations or
pauses of the Lord on his way to the cross. Part of them are already
done, and to judge from them the series will surpass all previous works
of this great master. These designs are to be multiplied to the greatest
extent and put within the means of churches, convents and even the
poorest classes of the people. They will appear of the size of the
original in colored lithography, which will probably be executed in
Germany. Engravings of half size on copper are to be executed by the
eminent engraver Bartoccini, who is familiar with Overbeck's manner, and
who has worked under him in Germany. Indeed Bartoccini is already best
known from the engravings of Overbeck's designs to the New Testament, the
best of which were from his burin. In addition there are to be editions
of these compositions in middling and small sizes as well as in wood
engravings. The object is to provide something which has real artistic
merit in place of the wretched pictures which are offered for the
devotion of the faithful in so many churches and in Catholic
prayer-books. The Pope himself, to whom the first colored drawings have
been shown, takes a lively interest in the enterprise, and will probably
recommend it in a special circular to all the bishops.

       *       *       *       *       *

CHARLES MULLER, a German sculptor, whose group, "The Singer's Curse,"
Received the second prize at the Exposition of 1849, at Paris, has
arrived in this country, where he proposes to take up his residence. The
_Tribune_ states that "The Singer's Curse" will soon be exhibited to the
public in this city. It was suggested by one of the finest of Uhland's
works.

       *       *       *       *       *

The city of Paris is about to erect along the grand avenue of the Champs
Elysées three hundred statues, in marble, of Parisians distinguished in
the administration of the city, in letters, in science, the fine arts or
commerce. The statues will alternate with beautiful little fountains, and
will form rows on each side of the avenue.

       *       *       *       *       *

POWER'S STATUE OF EVE is now-having been rescued from the waters off the
coast of Spain--on the way to New York, and it will soon be here. The
Prince Demidoff has purchased the figure of the Greek Slave, originally
commenced for Mr. Robb of New Orleans, for £700, being £100 more than Mr.
Robb was to have given for it. The Prince has placed it in a room by
itself, in his palace at St. Donato, near Florence. He is one of the
finest critics of art now living, and his collection of masterpieces
constitutes to the man of taste one of the chief attractions of Italy.
From a letter of Powers now before us, we learn that the model of his
"America" was finished, and on the first of August the marble was about
to be commenced, in the same size. This the sculptor and his friends
think will be his greatest work. We are happy in being able to mention a
fact eminently honorable to a distinguished American gentleman, in this
connection. When the statue of Eve was lost, Powers wrote to the
underwriters to pay the insurance ($6000) to Mr. J.S. Preston of South
Carolina, upon whom the loss was to fall; but Mr. Preston instantly upon
hearing the circumstance directed that every cent of the money should
be sent to the artist, expressing only a regret that the country suffered
the loss of a performance so admirable. Mr. Powers had not at this time
heard of the loss of the statue of Mr. Calhoun. This great work has not
yet been recovered, but Mr. Kellogg has still hopes of its being rescued
in perfect safety.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Venice _Statuto_ of the 13th August announces that Venice and Italy
have experienced an irreparable loss. The celebrated Barbarigo Gallery,
known for ages, comprised amongst other masterpieces seventeen paintings
of Titian, the Magdalen, Venus, St. Sebastian; the famous portraits of
the Doge Barbarigo, of Philip XIV., &c. After the extinction of the
Barbarigo family, Count Nicholas Giustiniani, the brothers Barbaco, and
the merchants Benetti, who became proprietors of the collection,
presented it to the Government. The Viceroy Raniere offered it for sale
in 1847 to the Austrian Government, which refused to buy it. It has been
lately purchased by the Court of Russia for five hundred and sixty
thousand francs.

       *       *       *       *       *

PAINTING AND SCULPTURES of the early northern artists from the eighth to
the sixteenth century have just been discovered in great numbers in
Gothland, by Dr. Marilignis, of the Stockholm Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
He was sent to search for them by the Academy, and has spent eighteen
months in his mission. A large proportion of the pictures were found in
chapels built during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and were covered
with thick coats of plaster, which had to be removed with great care. The
results of Dr. Marilignis' investigations will be published by the
Swedish Government.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF LARREY, the famous surgeon of the
Imperial army, at the Val-de-Grace, took place in Paris lately. Among the
assistants at this solemnity not the least interesting portion was a
corps of one hundred invalids upon whom Larrey had operated. The hero of
the day was Dupin, who walked in to the flourish of drums and trumpets at
the head of the commission of the monument. The statue of bronze, by
David, of Angers, was unvailed amid the clang of "sonorous metal blowing
martial sounds." Old Dupin, in a fit of happy inspiration, jumped up on
the chair from which he presided, and delivered perhaps the best speech
he ever made. He drew, in lively touches, the mission of the man whose
hospital is the battle-field, of his intrepid coolness and humane
devotion. Larrey was wounded, while binding the wounds of others, in
Egypt and at Waterloo, in the days of glory and of disaster. The
President of the Assembly spoke with much feeling, and when he came down
from his chair a general rush was made by his friends to embrace him.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE STANDISH GALLERY OF PICTURES in the Louvre was decreed by the French
courts, a few days before his death, to be the private property of the
late Louis Philippe. It was left to the king by Mr. Frank Hall Standish,
in 1838. The library of this collection is very valuable. It contains
among other rare books the Bible of Cardinal Ximenes, valued alone at
$5000. One of the last acts of Louis Philippe was to present it to the
French people. He was desirous only of vindicating his rights in the
courts. The gallery therefore will not be removed.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE ANNUAL EXHIBITION OF PICTURES by Düsseldorf artists was opened in
that city about the middle of July. Landscapes are rather predominant. In
their line the works of Alexander Michelis, August Kossler, Weba and
Fischer are the best. Ten pictures of peasant life in Norway by Adolf
Tidemond, a Norwegian artist, are said to display very remarkable merit.
They were retained in the exhibition only a few days, being destined for
the royal chateau of Oskarshall. Of historical pictures there is nothing
worth mentioning.

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Brussells Herald_ states that the artistic value of the works of art
contained in the churches of Antwerp, eleven in number, is by the late
financial report of the province estimated at 49,763,000 francs-nearly
ten millions of dollars.

       *       *       *       *       *

LEUTZE'S PICTURE of Washington Crossing the Delaware is nearly finished
at Düsseldorf, and is much praised by several letter-writers who have
seen it.

       *       *       *       *       *

MR. POWELL, at Paris, expects to finish his picture for the Capitol about
the first of February.


       *       *       *       *       *


EDGAR ALLEN POE.

By R.W. GRISWOLD.


The family of EDGAR A. POE was one of the oldest and most
reputable in Baltimore. David Poe, his paternal grandfather, was a
Quartermaster-General in the Maryland line during the Revolution, and the
intimate friend of Lafayette, who, during his last visit to the United
States, called personally upon the General's widow, and tendered her
acknowledgments for the services rendered to him by her husband. His
great-grandfather, John Poe, married in England, Jane, a daughter of
Admiral James McBride, noted in British naval history, and claiming
Kindred with some of the most illustrious English families. His father,
David Poe, jr., the fourth son of the Quartermaster-General, was several
years a law student in Baltimore, but becoming enamored of an English
actress, named Elizabeth Arnold, whose prettiness and vivacity more than
her genius for the stage made her a favorite, he eloped with her, and
after a short period, having married her, became himself an actor. They
continued six or seven years in the theaters of the principal cities, and
finally died, within a few weeks of each other, in Richmond, leaving
three children, Henry, Edgar, and Rosalie, in utter destitution.

Edgar Poe, who was born in Baltimore, in January, 1811, was at this
period of remarkable beauty, and precocious wit. Mr. John Allan, a
merchant of large fortune and liberal disposition, who had been intimate
with his parents, having no children of his own, adopted him, and it was
generally understood among his acquaintances that he intended to make him
the heir of his estate. The proud, nervous irritability of the boy's
nature was fostered by his guardian's well-meant but ill-judged
indulgence. Nothing was permitted which could "break his spirit." He must
be the master of his masters, or not have any. An eminent and most
estimable gentleman of Richmond has written to me, that when Poe was only
six or seven years of age, he went to a school kept by a widow of
excellent character, to whom was committed the instruction of the
children of some of the principal families in the city. A portion of
the grounds was used for the cultivation of vegetables, and its invasion
by her pupils strictly forbidden. A trespasser, if discovered, was
commonly made to wear, during school hours, a turnip or carrot, or
something, of this sort, attached to his neck as a sign of disgrace. On
one occasion Poe, having violated the rules, was decorated with the
promised badge, which he wore in sullenness until the dismissal of the
boys, when, that the full extent of his wrong might be understood by his
patron, of whose sympathy he was confident, he eluded the notice of the
schoolmistress, who would have relieved him of his esculent, and made the
best of his way home, with it dangling at his neck. Mr. Allan's anger was
aroused, and he proceeded instantly to the school-room, and after
lecturing the astonished dame upon the enormity of such an insult to his
son and to himself, demanded his account, determined that the child
should not again be subject to such tyranny. Who can estimate the effect
of this puerile triumph upon the growth of that morbid self-esteem which
characterized the author in after life?

In 1816, he accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Allan to Great Britain, visited the
most interesting portions of the country, and afterward passed four or
five years in a school kept at Stoke Newington, near London, by the Rev.
Dr. Bransby. In his tale, entitled "William Wilson," he has introduced a
striking description of this school and of his life here. He says:


  "My earliest recollections of a school life are connected with a
  large, rambling Elizabethan house, in a misty-looking village of
  England, where were a vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees, and
  where all the houses were excessively ancient. In truth, it was a
  dream-like and spirit-soothing place, that venerable old town. At this
  moment, in fancy, I feel the refreshing chilliness of its
  deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance of its thousand
  shrubberies, and thrill anew with undefinable delight, at the deep
  hollow note of the church-bell, breaking, each, hour, with sullen and
  sudden roar, upon the stillness of the dusky atmosphere in which the
  fretted Gothic steeple lay embedded and asleep. It gives me, perhaps,
  as much of pleasure, as I can now in any manner experience to dwell
  upon minute recollections of the school and its concerns. Steeped in
  misery as I am--misery, alas! only too real--I shall be pardoned for
  seeking relief, however slight and temporary, in the weakness of a few
  rambling details. These, moreover, utterly trivial, and even
  ridiculous in themselves, assume, to my fancy, adventitious
  importance, as connected with a period and a locality when and where I
  recognize the first ambiguous monitions of the destiny which afterward
  so fully overshadowed me. Let me then remember. The house. I have
  said, was old and irregular. The grounds were extensive, and a high
  and solid brick wall, topped with a bed of mortar and broken glass,
  encompassed the whole. The prison-like rampart formed the limit of our
  domain; beyond it we saw but thrice a week--once every Saturday
  afternoon, when, attended by two ushers, we were permitted to take
  brief walks in a body through some of the neighboring fields--and
  twice during Sunday, when we were paraded in the same formal manner to
  the morning and evening service in the one church of the village. Of
  this church the principal of our school was pastor. With how deep a
  spirit of wonder and perplexity was I wont to regard him from our
  remote pew in the gallery, as, with step solemn and slow, he ascended
  the pulpit! This reverend man with countenance so demurely benign,
  with robes so glossy, and so clerically flowing, with wig so minutely
  powdered, so rigid and so vast,--could this be he who, of late, with
  sour visage, and in snuffy habiliments, administered, ferule in hand,
  the Draconian Laws of the academy? Oh, gigantic paradox, too utterly
  monstrous for solution! At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a
  more ponderous gate. It was riveted and studded with iron bolts, and
  surmounted with jagged iron spikes. What impressions of deep awe did
  it inspire! It was never opened save for the three periodical
  egressions and ingressions already mentioned; then, in every creak of
  its mighty hinges, we found a plenitude of mystery--a world of matter
  for solemn remark, or for more solemn meditation. The extensive
  inclosure was irregular in form, having many capacious recesses. Of
  these, three or four of the largest constituted the play-ground. It
  was level, and covered with fine hard gravel. I well remember it had
  no trees, nor benches, nor anything similar within it. Of course it
  was in the rear of the house. In front lay a small parterre, planted
  with box and other shrubs; but through this sacred division we passed
  only upon rare occasions indeed--such as a first advent to school or
  final departure thence, or perhaps, when a parent or friend having
  called for us, we joyfully took our way home for the Christmas or
  Midsummer holidays. But the house!--how quaint an old building was
  this!--to me how veritably a palace of enchantment! There was really
  no end to its windings--to its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was
  difficult, at any given time, to say with certainty upon which of its
  two stories one happened to be. From each room to every other there
  were sure to be found three or four steps either in ascent or descent.
  Then the lateral branches were innumerable--inconceivable--and so
  returning in upon themselves, that our most exact ideas in regard to
  the whole mansion were not very far different from those with which we
  pondered upon infinity. During the five years of my residence here, I
  was never able to ascertain with precision, in what remote locality
  lay the little sleeping apartment assigned to myself and some eighteen
  or twenty other scholars. The school-room was the largest in the
  house--I could not help thinking, in the world. It was very long,
  narrow, and dismally low, with pointed Gothic windows and a ceiling of
  oak. In a remote and terror-inspiring angle was a square inclosure of
  eight or ten feet, comprising the _sanctum_, 'during hours,' of our
  principal, the Reverend Dr. Bransby. It was a solid structure, with
  massy door, sooner than open which in the absence of the 'Dominie,' we
  would all have willingly perished by the _peine forte et dure_. In
  other angles were two other similar boxes, far less reverenced,
  indeed, but still greatly matters of awe. One of these was the pulpit
  of the 'classical' usher, one of the 'English and mathematical.'
  Interspersed about the room, crossing and recrossing in endless
  irregularity, were innumerable benches and desks, black, ancient and
  time-worn, piled desperately with much-bethumbed books, and so
  beseamed with initial letters, names at full length, grotesque
  figures, and other multiplied efforts of the knife, as to have
  entirely lost what little of original form might have been their
  portion in days long departed. A huge bucket with water stood at one
  extremity of the room, and a clock of stupendous dimensions at the
  other.

  "Encompassed by the massy walls of this venerable academy, I passed,
  yet not in tedium or disgust, the years of the third lustrum of my
  life. The teeming brain of childhood requires no external world of
  incident to occupy or amuse it; and the apparently dismal monotony of
  a school was replete with more intense excitement than my riper youth
  has derived from luxury, or my full manhood from crime. Yet I must
  believe that my first mental development had in it much of the
  uncommon--even much of the _outre_. Upon mankind at large the events
  of very early existence rarely leave in mature age any definite
  impression. All is gray shadow--a weak and irregular remembrance--an
  indistinct regathering of feeble pleasures and phantasmagoric pains.
  With me this is not so. In childhood I must have felt with the energy
  of a man what I now find stamped upon memory in lines as vivid, as
  deep; and as durable as the _exergues_ of the Carthaginian medals. Yet
  the fact--in the fact of the world's view-how little was there to
  remember. The morning's awakening, the nightly summons to bed; the
  connings, the recitations; the periodical half-holidays and
  perambulations; the playground, with its broils, its pastimes, its
  intrigues; these, by a mental sorcery long forgotten, were made to
  involve a wilderness of sensation, a world of rich incident, an
  universe of varied emotion, of excitement the most passionate and
  spirit-stirring. '_Oh, le bon temps, que se siecle de fer!_'"

In 1822, he returned to the United States, and after passing a few
months at an academy in Richmond, he entered the University at
Charlottesville, where he led a very dissipated life; the manners which
then prevailed there were extremely dissolute, and he was known as the
wildest and most reckless student of his class; but his unusual
opportunities, and the remarkable ease with which he mastered the most
difficult studies, kept him all the while in the first rank for
scholarship, and he would have graduated with the highest honors, had
not his gambling, intemperance, and other vices, induced his expulsion
from the university.

At this period he was noted for feats of hardihood, strength, and
activity; and on one occasion, in a hot day of June, he swam from
Richmond to Warwick, seven miles and a half, against a tide running
probably from two to three miles an hour.[A] He was expert at fence, had
some skill in drawing, and was a ready and eloquent conversationist and
declaimer.


[Footnote A: This statement was first printed during Mr. Poe's lifetime,
and its truth being questioned in some of the journals, the following
certificate was published by a distinguished gentleman of Virginia:

"I was one of several who witnessed this swimming feat. We accompanied
Mr. Poe in boats. Messrs. Robert Stannard, John Lyle, (since dead) Robert
Saunders, John Munford, I think, and one or two others, were also of the
party. Mr. P. did not seem at all fatigued, and _walked_ back to Richmond
immediately after the feat--which was undertaken for a wager.

"ROBERT G. CABELL."]


His allowance of money while at Charlottesville had been liberal, but he
quitted the place very much in debt; and when Mr. Allan refused to accept
some of the drafts with which he had paid losses in gaming, he wrote to
him an abusive letter, quitted his house, and soon after left the country
with the quixotic intention of joining the Greeks, then in the midst of
their struggle with the Turks. He never reached his destination, and we
know but little of his adventures in Europe for nearly a year. By the end
of this time he had made his way to St. Petersburg, and our Minister in
that capital, the late Mr. Henry Middleton, of South Carolina, was
ummoned one morning to save him from penalties incurred in a drunken
debauch. Through Mr. Middleton's kindness he was set at liberty and
enabled to return to this country.

His meeting with Mr. Allan was not very cordial, but that gentleman
declared himself willing to serve him in any way that should seem
judicious; and when Poe expressed some anxiety to enter the Military
Academy, he induced Chief Justice Marshall, Andrew Stevenson, General
Scott, and other eminent persons, to sign an application which secured
his appointment to a scholarship in that institution.

Mrs. Allan, whom Poe appears to have regarded with much affection, and
who had more influence over him than any one else at this period, died on
the 27th of February, 1829, which I believe was just before Poe left
Richmond for West Point. It has been erroneously stated by all Poe's
biographers, that Mr. Allan was now sixty-five years of age, and that
Miss Paterson, to whom he was married afterward, was young enough to be
his granddaughter. Mr. Allan was in his forty-eighth year, and the
difference between his age and that of his second wife was not so great
as justly to attract any observation.

For a few weeks the cadet applied himself with much assiduity to his
studies, and he became at once a favorite with his mess and with the
officers and professors of the Academy; but his habits of dissipation
were renewed; he neglected his duties and disobeyed orders; and in ten
months from his matriculation he was cashiered.

He went again to Richmond, and was received into the family of Mr. Allan,
who was disposed still to be his friend, and in the event of his good
behavior to treat him like a son; but it soon became necessary to close
his doors against him forever. According to Poe's own statement he
ridiculed the marriage of his patron with Miss Paterson, and had a
quarrel with her; but a different story,[B] scarcely suitable for
repetition here, was told by the friends of the other party. Whatever the
circumstances, they parted in anger, and Mr. Allan from that time
declined to see or in any way to assist him. Mr. Allan died in the spring
of 1834, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, leaving three children to
share his property, of which not a mill was bequeathed to Poe.


[Footnote B: The writer of an eulogium upon the life and genius of Mr.
Poe, in the _Southern Literary Messenger_, for March, 1850, thus refers
to this point in his history:


"The story of the other side is different: and if true, throws a dark
shade upon the quarrel, and a very ugly light upon Poe's character. We
shall not insert it, because it is one of those relations, which we
think, with Sir Thomas Browne, should never be recorded,--being
'verities whose truth we fear and heartily wish there were no truth
therein ... whose relations honest minds do deprecate. For of sins
heteroclital, and such as want name or precedent, there is ofttimes a sin
even in their history. We do desire no record of enormities: sins should
he accounted new. They omit of their monstrosity as they fall from their
rarity; for men count it venial to err with their forefathers, and
foolishly conceive they divide a sin in its society.... In things of this
nature, silence commendeth history: 'tis the veniable part of things
lost; wherein there must never arise a Pancirollus, nor remain any
register but that of hell.'"]

Soon after he left West Point Poe had printed at Baltimore a small volume
of verses, ("Al Aaraaf," of about four hundred lines, "Tamerlane," of
about three hundred lines, with smaller pieces,) and the favorable manner
in which it was commonly referred to confirmed his belief that he might
succeed in the profession of literature. The contents of the book appear
to have been written when he was between sixteen and nineteen years of
age; but though they illustrated the character of his abilities and
justified his anticipations of success, they do not seem to me to evince,
all things considered, a very remarkable precocity. The late Madame
d'Ossoli refers to some of them as the productions of a boy of eight or
ten years, but I believe there is no evidence that anything of his which
has been published was written before he left the university. Certainly,
it was his habit so constantly to labor upon what he had produced--he was
at all times so anxious and industrious in revision--that his works,
whenever first composed, displayed the perfection of his powers at the
time when they were given to the press.

His contributions to the journals attracted little attention, and his
hopes of gaining a living in this way being disappointed, he enlisted
in the army as a private soldier. How long he remained in the service I
have not been able to ascertain. He was recognized by officers who had
known him at West Point and efforts were made, privately, but with
prospects of success, to obtain for him a commission, when it was
discovered by his friends that he had deserted.

He had probably found relief from the monotony of a soldier's life in
literary composition. His mind was never in repose, and without some such
resort the dull routine of camp or barracks would have been
insupportable. When he next appears, he has a volume of MS. stories,
which he desires to print under the title of "Tales of the Folio Club."
An offer by the proprietor of the Baltimore _Saturday Visitor_, of two
prizes, one for the best tale and one for the best poem, induced him to
submit the pieces entitled "MS. Found in a Bottle," "Lionizing," "The
Visionary," and three others, with "The Coliseum," a poem, to the
committee, which consisted of Mr. John P. Kennedy, the author of
"Horse-Shoe Robinson;" Mr. J.H.B. Latrobe, and Dr. James H. Miller. Such
matters are usually disposed of in a very off-hand way: Committees to
award literary prizes drink to the payer's health in good wines, over
unexamined MSS., which they submit to the discretion of publishers, with
permission to use their names in such a way as to promote the publishers'
advantage. So perhaps it would have been in this case, but that one of
the committee, taking up a little book remarkably beautiful and distinct
in caligraphy, was tempted to read several pages; and becoming
interested, he summoned the attention of the company to the half-dozen
compositions it contained. It was unanimously decided that the prizes
should be paid to "the first of geniuses who had written legibly." Not
another MS. was unfolded. Immediately the "confidential envelope" was
opened, and the successful competitor was found to bear the
scarcely-known name of Poe. The committee indeed awarded to him the
premiums for both the tale and the poem, but subsequently altered their
decision, so as to exclude him from the second premium, in consideration
of his having obtained the higher one. The prize tale was the "MS. found
in a Bottle." This award was published on the twelfth of October, 1833.
The next day the publisher called to see Mr. Kennedy, and gave him an
account of the author, which excited his curiosity and sympathy, and
caused him to request that he should be brought to his office.
Accordingly he was introduced. The prize-money had not yet been paid, and
he was in the costume in which he had answered the advertisement of his
good fortune. Thin, and pale even to ghastliness, his whole appearance
indicated sickness and the utmost destitution. A well-worn frock-coat
concealed the absence of a shirt, and imperfect boots disclosed the want
of hose. But the eyes of the young man were luminous with intelligence
and feeling, and his voice and conversation and manner, all won upon the
lawyer's regard. Poe told his history, and his ambition, and it was
determined that he should not want means for a suitable appearance in
society, nor opportunities for just display of his abilities in
literature. Mr. Kennedy accompanied him to a clothing-store, and
purchased for him a respectable suit, with changes of linen, and sent him
to a bath, from which he returned with the suddenly regained style of a
gentleman.

His new friends were very kind to him, and availed themselves of every
Opportunity to serve him. Near the close of the year 1834 the late Mr.
T.W. White established in Richmond the _Southern Literary Messenger_. He
was a man of much simplicity, purity, and energy of character, but not a
writer, and he frequently solicited his acquaintances' literary
assistance. On receiving from him an application for an article, early in
1835, Mr. Kennedy, who was busy with the duties of his profession,
advised Poe to send one, and in a few weeks he had occasion to inclose
the following answer to a letter from Mr. White:

"BALTIMORE, April 13, 1835.

"_Dear Sir_: Poe did right in referring to me. He is very clever with his
pen--classical and scholarlike. He wants experience and direction, but I
have no doubt he can be made very useful to you. And, poor fellow! he is
_very_ poor. I told him to write something for every number of your
magazine, and that you might find it to your advantage to give him some
permanent employ. He has a volume of very bizarre tales in the hands of
----, in Philadelphia, who for a year past has been promising to publish
them. This young fellow is highly imaginative, and a little given to the
_terrific_. He is at work upon a tragedy, but I have turned him to
drudging upon whatever may make money, and I have no doubt you and he
will find your account in each other."

In the next number of the "Messenger" Mr. White announced that Poe was
its editor, or in other words, that he had made arrangements with a
gentleman of approved literary taste and attainments to whose especial
management the editorial department would be confided, and it was
declared that this gentleman would "devote his exclusive attention to
the work." Poe continued, however, to reside in Baltimore, and it is
probable that he was engaged only as a general contributor and a writer
of critical notices of books. In a letter to Mr. White, under the date of
the thirtieth of May, he says:

"In regard to my critique of Mr. Kennedy's novel, I seriously feel
ashamed of what I have written. I fully intended to give the work a
thorough review, and examine it in detail. Ill health alone prevented me
from so doing. At the time I made the hasty sketch I sent you, I was so
ill as to be hardly able to see the paper on which I wrote, and I
finished it in a state of complete exhaustion. I have not, therefore,
done anything like justice to the book, and I am vexed about the matter,
for Mr. Kennedy has proved himself a kind friend to me in every respect,
and I am sincerely grateful to him for many acts of generosity and
attention. You ask me if I am perfectly, satisfied with your course. I
reply that I am--entirely. My poor services are not worth what you give
me for them."

About a month afterward he wrote:

"You ask me if I would be willing to come on to Richmond if you should
have occasion, for my services during the coming winter. I reply that
nothing would give me greater pleasure. I have been desirous for some
time past of paying a visit to Richmond, and would be glad of an
reasonable excuse for so doing. Indeed I am anxious to settle myself in
that city, and if, by any chance, you hear of a situation likely to suit
me, I would gladly accept it, were the salary even the merest trifle. I
should, indeed, feel myself greatly indebted to you if through your means
I could accomplish this object. What you say in the conclusion of your
letter, in relation to the supervision of proof-sheets, gives me reason
to hope that possibly you might find something for me to do in your
office. If so I should be very glad--for at present only a very small
portion of my time is employed."

He continued in Baltimore till September. In this period he wrote several
long reviews, which for the most part were rather abstracts of works than
critical discussions, and published, with others, "Hans Phall," a story
in some respects very similar to Mr. Locke's celebrated account of
Herschel's Discoveries in the Moon. At first he appears to have been ill
satisfied with Richmond, or with his duties, for in two or three weeks
after his removal to that city we find Mr. Kennedy writing to him:

"I am sorry to see you in such plight as your letter shows you in. It is
strange that just at this time, when everybody is praising you, and when
fortune is beginning to smile upon your hitherto wretched circumstances,
you should be invaded by those blue devils. It belongs, however, to your
age and temper to be thus buffeted--but be assured, it only wants a
little resolution to master the adversary forever. You will doubtless do
well henceforth in literature, and add to your _comforts_ as well as to
your reputation, which it gives me great pleasure to assure you is
everywhere rising in popular esteem."

But he could not bear his good fortune. On receiving a month's salary he
gave himself up to habits which only necessity had restrained at
Baltimore. For a week he was in a condition of brutish drunkenness, and
Mr. White dismissed him. When he became sober, however, he had no
recourse but in reconciliation, and he wrote letters and induced
acquaintances to call upon Mr. White with professions of repentance and
promises of reformation. With his usual considerate and judicious
kindness that gentleman answered him:

"_My dear Edgar_: I cannot address you in such language as this occasion
and my feelings demand: I must be content to speak to you in my plain
way. That you are sincere in all your promises I firmly believe. But when
you once again tread these streets, I have my fears that your resolutions
will fail, and that you will again drink till your senses are lost. If
you rely on your strength you are gone. Unless you look to your Maker for
help you will not be safe. How much I regretted parting from you is known
to Him only and myself. I had become attached to you; I am still; and I
would willingly say return, did not a knowledge of your past life make me
dread a speedy renewal of our separation. If you would make yourself
contented with quarters in my house, or with any other private family,
where liquor is not used, I should think there was some hope for you.
But, if you go to a tavern, or to any place where it is used at table,
you are not safe. You have fine talents, Edgar, and you ought to have
them respected, as well as yourself. Learn to respect yourself, and you
will soon find that you are respected. Separate yourself from the bottle,
and from bottle companions, forever. Tell me if you can and will do so.
If you again become an assistant in my office, it must be understood that
all engagements on my part cease the moment you get drunk. I am your true
friend, T. W. W."

A new contract was arranged, but Poe's irregularities frequently
interrupted the kindness and finally exhausted the patience of his
generous though methodical employer, and in the number of the "Messenger"
for January, 1837 he thus took leave of its readers:

"Mr. Poe's attention being called in another direction, he will decline,
with the present number, the editorial duties of the Messenger. His
Critical Notices for this month end with Professor Anthon's Cicero-what
follows is from another hand. With the best wishes to the magazine, and
to its few foes as well as many friends, he is now desirous of bidding
all parties a peaceful farewell."

While in Richmond, with an income of but five hundred dollars a year, he
had married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a very amiable and lovely girl,
who was as poor as himself, and little fitted, except by her gentle
temper, to be tho wife of such a person. He went from Richmond to
Baltimore; and after a short time, to Philadelphia, and to New York. A
slight acquaintance with Dr. Hawks had led that acute and powerful writer
to invite his contributions to the "New York Review," and he had
furnished for the second number of it (for October, 1837) an elaborate
but not very remarkable article upon Stephens's then recently published
"Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petrea, and the Holy Land." His
abilities were not of the kind demanded for such work, and he never wrote
another paper for this or for any other Review of the same class. He had
commenced in the "Literary Messenger," a story of the sea under the title
of "Arthur Gordon Pym"[A], and upon the recommendation of Mr. Paulding
and others, it was printed by the Harpers. It is his longest work, and is
not without some sort of merit, but it received little attention. The
publishers sent one hundred copies to England, and being mistaken at
first for a narrative of real experiences it was advertised to be
reprinted, but a discovery of its character, I believe, prevented such a
result. An attempt is made in it, by simplicity of style, minuteness of
nautical descriptions, and circumstantiality of narration, to give it
that air of truth which constitutes the principal attraction of Sir
Edward Seaward's narrative, and Robinson Cursoe; but it has none of the
pleasing interest of these tales; it is as full of wonders as Munchausen,
has as many atrocities as the Book of Pirates, and as liberal an array of
paining and revolting horrors as ever was invented by Anne Radcliffe or
George Walker. Thus far a tendency to extravagance had been the most
striking infirmity of his genius. He had been more anxious to be intense
than to be natural; and some of his _bizarréries_ had been mistaken for
satire, and admired for that quality. Afterward he was more judicious,
and if his outlines were incredible it was commonly forgotten in the
simplicity of his details and their cohesive cumulation.


[Footnote A: THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM, OF NANTUCKET; comprising
the Details of a Mutiny and Atrocious Butchery on board the American Brig
Grampus, on her way to the South Seas--with an account of the Re-capture
of the Vessel by the Survivors; their Shipwreck, and subsequent Horrible
Sufferings from Famine; their Deliverance by means of the British
schooner Jane Gray; the brief Cruise of this latter Vessel in the
Antarctic ocean; her Capture, and the Massacre of the Crew among a Group
of Islands in the 84th parallel of southern latitude; together with the
incredible Adventures and Discoveries still further South, to which that
distressing calamity gave rise.--I vol. 12mo. pp. 198 New-York, Harper &
Brothers, 1838.]


Near the end of the year 1838 he settled in Philadelphia. He had no very
Definite purposes, but trusted for support to the chances of success as a
magazinist and newspaper correspondent. Mr. Burton, the comedian, had
recently established the "Gentleman's Magazine," and of this he became a
contributor, and in May, 1839, the chief editor, devoting to it, for ten
dollars a week, two hours every day, which left him abundant time for
more important labors. In the same month he agreed to furnish such
reviewals as he had written for the "Literary Messenger," for the
"Literary Examiner," a new magazine at Pittsburgh. But his more congenial
pursuit was tale-writing, and he produced about this period some of his
most remarkable and characteristic works in a department of imaginative
composition in which he was henceforth alone and unapproachable. "The Fall
of the House of Usher" and "Legeia", are the most interesting
illustrations of his mental organization--his masterpieces in a peculiar
vein of romantic creation. They have theunquestionable stamp of genius.
The analyses of the growth of madness in one, and the thrilling
revelations of the existence of a first wife in the person of a second,
in the other, are made with consummate skill; and the strange and solemn
and fascinating beauty which informs the style and invests the
circumstances of both, drugs the mind, and makes us forget the
improbabilities of their general design.

An awakened ambition and the healthful influence of a conviction that his
works were appreciated, and that his fame was increasing, led him for a
while to cheerful views of life, and to regular habits of conduct. He
wrote to a friend, the author of "Edge Hill," in Richmond, that he had
quite overcome "the seductive and dangerous besetment" by which he had so
often been prostrated, and to another friend that, incredible as it might
seem, he had become a "model of temperance," and of "other virtues,"
which it had sometimes been difficult for him to practice. Before the
close of the summer, however, he relapsed into his former courses, and
for weeks was regardless of everything but a morbid and insatiable
appetite for the means of intoxication.

In the autumn he published all the prose stories he had then written, in
two volumes, under the title of "Tales of the Grotesque and the
Arabesque." The work was not salable, perhaps because its contents were
too familiar from recent separate publication in magazines; and it was
not so warmly praised, generally, as I think it should have been, though
in point of style the pieces which it embraced are much less perfect than
they were made subsequently.

He was with Mr. Burton until June, 1840--more than a year. Mr. Burton
Appreciated his abilities and would have gladly continued the connection;
but Poe was so unsteady of purpose and so unreliable that the actor was
never sure when he left the city that his business would be cared for. On
one occasion, returning after the regular day of publication, he found
the number unfinished, and Poe incapable of duty. He prepared the
necessary copy himself, published the magazine, and was proceeding with
arrangements with for another month, when he received a letter from his
assistant, of which the tone may be inferred from this answer:

"I am sorry you have thought it necessary to send me such a letter. Your
troubles have given a morbid tone to your feelings which it is your duty
to discourage. I myself have been as severely handled by the world as you
can possibly have been, but my sufferings have not tinged my mind with
melancholy, nor jaundiced my views of society. You must rouse your
energies, and if care assail you, conquer it. I will gladly overlook the
past. I hope you will as easily fulfill your pledges for the future. We
shall agree very well, thought I cannot permit the magazine to be made a
vehicle for that sort of severity which you think is so 'successful with
the mob.' I am truly much less anxious about making a monthly 'sensation'
than I am upon the point of fairness. You must, my dear sir, get rid of
your avowed ill-feelings toward your brother authors. You see I speak
plainly; I cannot do otherwise upon such a subject. You say the people
love havoc. I think they love justice. I think you yourself would not
have written the article on Dawes, in a more healthy state of mind. I am
not trammeled by any vulgar consideration of expediency; I would rather
lose money than by such undue severity wound the feelings of a
kind-hearted and honorable man. And I am satisfied that Dawes has
something the true fire in him. I regretted your word-catching spirit.
But I wander from my design. I accept your proposition to recommence your
interrupted avocations upon the _Maga_. Let us meet as if we had not
exchanged letters. Use more exercise, write when feelings prompt, and be
assured of my friendship. You will soon regain a healthy activity of
mind, and laugh at your past vagaries."

This letter was kind and judicious. It gives us a glimpse of Poe's theory
of criticism, and displays the temper and principles of the literary
comedian in an honorable light. Two or three months afterward Burton went
out of town to fulfill a professional engagement, leaving material and
directions for completing the next number of the magazine in four days.
He was absent nearly a fortnight, and on returning he found that his
printers in the meanwhile had not received a line of copy; but that Poe
had prepared the prospectus of a new monthly, and obtained transcripts of
his subscription and account books, to be used in a scheme for
supplanting him. He encountered his associate late in the evening at one
of his accustomed haunts, and said, "Mr. Poe, I am astonished: Give me my
manuscripts so that I can attend to the duties you have so shamefully
neglected, and when you are sober we will settle." Poe interrupted him
with "Who are you that presume to address me in this manner? Burton, I
am--_the editor--of the Penn.--Magazine_--and you are--hiccup--_a fool_."
Of course this ended his relations with the "Gentleman's."

In November, 1840, Burton's miscellany was merged in "The Casket," owned
by Mr. George R. Graham, and the new series received the name of its
proprietor, who encouraged Poe in its editorship. His connection with
"Graham's Magazine" lasted about a year and a half, and this was one of
the most active and brilliant periods of his literary life. He wrote in
it several of his finest tales and most trenchant criticisms, and
challenged attention by his papers entitled "Autography," and those on
cryptology and ciphers. In the first, adopting a suggestion of Lavater,
he attempted the illustration of character from handwriting; and in the
second, he assumed that human ingenuity could construct no secret writing
which human ingenuity could not resolve; a not very dangerous
proposition, since it implied no capacity in himself to discover every
riddle of this kind that should be invented. He however succeeded with
several difficult cryptographs that were sent to him, and the direction
of his mind to the subject led to the composition of some of the tales of
ratiocination which so largely increased his reputation. The infirmities
which induced his separation from Mr. White and Mr. Burton at length
compelled Mr. Graham to seek for another editor; but Poe still remained
in Philadelphia, engaged from time to time in various literary
occupations, and in the vain effort to establish a journal of his own to
be called "The Stylus." Although it requires considerable capital to
carry on a monthly of the description he proposed, I think it would not
have been difficult, with his well-earned fame as a magazinist, for him
to have found a competent and suitable publisher, but for the unfortunate
notoriety of his habits, and the failure in succession of three persons
who had admired him for his genius and pitied him for his misfortunes, by
every means that tact or friendship could suggest, to induce the
consistency and steadiness of application indispensable to success in
such pursuits. It was in the spring of 1848--more than a year after his
dissociation from Graham--that he wrote the story of "The Gold Bug," for
which he was paid a prize of one hundred dollars. It has relation to
Captain Kyd's treasure, and is one of the most remarkable illustrations
of his ingenuity of construction and apparent subtlety of reasoning. The
interest depends upon the solution of an intricate cypher. In the autumn
of 1844 Poe removed to New York.

It was while he resided in Philadelphia that I became acquainted with
him. His manner, except during his fits of intoxication, was very quiet
and gentlemanly; he was usually dressed with simplicity and elegance; and
when once he sent for me to visit him, during a period of illness caused
by protracted and anxious watching at the side of his sick wife, I was
impressed by the singular neatness and the air of refinement in his home.
It was in a small house, in one of the pleasant and silent neighborhoods
far from the center of the town, and though slightly and cheaply
furnished, everything in it was so tasteful and so fitly disposed that it
seemed altogether suitable for a man of genius. For this and for most of
the comforts he enjoyed in his brightest as in his darkest years, he was
chiefly indebted to his mother-in-law, who loved him with more than
maternal devotion and constancy.

He had now written his most acute criticisms and his most admirable
tales. Of tales, beside those to which I have referred, he had produced
"The Descent into the Maelström," "The Premature Burial," "The Purloined
Letter," "The Murders of the Rue Morgue," and its sequel, "The Mystery of
Marie Roget." The scenes of the last three are in Paris, where the
author's friend, the Chevalier Auguste Dupin, is supposed to reveal to
him the curiosities of his experience and observation in matters of
police. "The Mystery of Marie Roget" was first published in the autumn of
1842, before an extraordinary excitement, occasioned by the murder of a
young girl named Mary Rogers, in the vicinity of New York, had quite
subsided, though several months after the tragedy. Under the pretense of
relating the fate of a Parisian _grisette_, Mr. Poe followed in minute
detail the essential while merely paralleling the inessential facts of
the real murder. His object appears to have been to reinvestigate the
case and to settle his own conclusions as to the probable culprit. There
is a great deal of hair-splitting in the incidental discussions by Dupin,
throughout all these stories, but it is made effective. Much of their
popularity, as well as that of other tales of ratiocination by Poe, arose
from their being in a new key. I do not mean to say that they are not
ingenious; but they have been thought more ingenious than they are, on
account of their method and air of method. In "The Murders of the Rue
Morgue," for instance, what ingenuity is displayed in unraveling a web
which has been woven for the express purpose of unraveling? The reader is
made to confound the ingenuity of the supposititious Dupin with that of
the writer of the story. These works brought the name of Poe himself
somewhat conspicuously before the law courts of Paris. The journal, _La
Commerce_, gave a _feuilleton_ in which "The Murders of the Rue Morgue"
appeared in translation. Afterward a writer for _La Quotidienne_ served
it for that paper under the title of "_L'Orang-Otang_." A third party
accused _La Quotidienne_ of plagiary from _La Commerce_, and in the
course of the legal investigation which ensued, the _feuilletoniste_ of
_La Commerce_ proved to the satisfaction of the tribunal that he had
stolen the tale entirely from Mr. Poe,[A] whose merits were soon after
canvassed in the "_Revue des Deux Mondes_," and whose best tales were
upon this impulse translated by Mme. Isabelle Meunier for the _Democratic
Pacifique_ and other French gazettes.


[Footnote A: The controversy is wittily described in the following
extract from a Parisian journal, _L'Entr*ficte_, of the 20th of October,
1846:

"Un grand journal accusait l'autre jour M. Old-Nick d'avoir volé un
orang-outang. Cet intéressant animal flânait dans le feuilleton de _la
Quotidienne_, lorsque M. Old-Nick le vit, le trouvâ à son goût et s'en
empara. Notre confrère avait sans doute besoin d'un groom. On sait que
les Anglais ont depuis long-temps colonisé les orangs-outangs, et les ont
instruits dans Part de porter bottes. Il paraitrait, toujours suivant le
meme grand journal, que M. Old-Nick, après avoir derobé cet orang-outang
à _la Quotidienne_, l'aurait ensuite cédé au _Commerce_, comme propriété
à lui appartenant. Je sais que M. Old-Nick est un garçon plein d'esprit
et plein d'honneur, assez riche de son propre fond pour ne pas
s'approprier les orangs-outangs des autres; cette accusation me surprit.
Aprés tout, me dis-je, il y a éu des monomanies plus extraodinaires que
celle-là; le grand Bacon ne pouvait voir un bâton de cire à cacheter sans
se l'approprier: dans une conférence avec M. de Metternich aux Tuileries,
l'Empereur s'aperçut que le diplomate autrichien glissait des pains a
cacheter dans sa poche. M. Old-Nick a une autre manic, il fait les
orangs-outangs. Je m'attendais toujours á ce que la _Quotidienne_ jeât
feu et flammes et demandat a grads cris son homme des bois. Il faut vous
dire ques j'avaís la son histoire dans _le Commerce_, elle était
charmante d'esprit et de style, pleine de rapidité et de desinvolture;
_la Quotidienne_ l'avait également publiée, mais en trois feuilletons.
L'orang-outang du _Commerce_ n'avait que neuf colonnes. Il s'agissait
done d'un autre quadrumane litteraire. Ma foi non! c'etait le même;
seulement il n'appartenait ni à _la Quotidienne_, ni au _Commerce_. M.
Old-Nick l'avait emprunté a un romancier Américan qu'il est en train
d'inventer dans la _Revue des Deux-Mondes_. Ce romancier s'appelle Poë;
je ne dis pas contraire. Voilà done un écrivain qui use du droit légitime
d'arranger les nouvelles d'un romancier Américan qu'il a inventé, et on
l'accuse de plagiat, de vol au feuilleton; on alarme ses amis en leu
faisant croire que set ecrivain est possédé de la monomaine des
orangs-outangs. Par la Courchamps! voilà qui me parait léger. M. Old Nick
a écrit au journal en question une réponse pour rétablir sa moralité,
attaquée à l'endroit des orangs-outangs. Cet orang-outang a mis, ces
jours derniers, toute la littérature en émoi; personne n'a cru un seul
instant à l'accusation qu'on a essayé, de faire peser sur M. Old Nick,
d'autant plus qu'il avait pris soin d'indiquer luiméme la cage ou il
avait pris son orang-outang. Ceci va fournir de nouvelles armes à la
secte qui ereit aux romanciers Américans. Le préjugé de l'existence de
Cooper en prendra des nouvelles forces. En attendant que la vérité se
decouvre, nous sommes forcés de convenir que ce Poë est un gaillard bien
fin, bien spirituel, quand il est arré par M. Old-Nick."]


In New York Poe entered upon a new sort of life. Heretofore, from the
Commencement of his literary career, he had resided in provincial
towns. Now he was in a metropolis, and with a reputation which might have
served as a passport to any society he might desire. For the first time
he was received into circles capable of both the appreciation and the
production of literature. He added to his fame soon after he came to the
city by the publication of that remarkable composition "The Raven," of
which Mr. Willis has observed that in his opinion "it is the most
effective single example of fugitive poetry ever published in this
country, and is unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception,
masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent sustaining of
imaginative lift;" and by that of one of the most extraordinary
instances of the naturalness of detail---the verisimilitude of minute
narrative--for which lie was preeminently distinguished, his "Mesmeric
Revelation," purporting to be the last conversation of a somnambule, held
with his magnetizer just before his death, which was followed by the yet
more striking exhibition of abilities in the same way, entitled "The
Facts in the case of M. Vaklemar," in which the subject is represented as
having been mesmerized in _articulo mortis_. These pieces were reprinted
throughout the literary and philosophical world, in nearly all languages,
everywhere causing sharp and curious speculation, and where readers could
be persuaded that they were fables, challenging a reluctant but genuine
admiration.

He had not been long in New York before he was engaged by Mr. Willis and
General Morris as a critic and assistant editor of _The Mirror_. He
remained in this situation about six months, when he became associated
with Mr. Briggs in the conduct of _The Broadway Journal_, which, in
October 1845, passed entirely into his possession. He had now the long
sought but never before enjoyed absolute control of a literary gazette,
and, with much friendly assistance, he maintained it long enough to show,
that whatever his genius, he had not the kind or degree of talent
necessary to such a position. His chief critical writing in _The Broadway
Journal_, were a paper on Miss Barrett's Poems, and a long discussion of
the subject of plagiarism, with especial reference to Mr. Longfellow. In
March, 1845, he had given a lecture at the Society Library upon the
American poets, composed, for the most part, of fragments of his
previously published reviewals; and in the autumn he accepted an
invitation to read a poem before the Boston Lyceum. A week after the
event, he printed in _The Broadway Journal_ the following account of it,
in reply to a paragraph in one of the city papers, founded upon a
statement in the _Boston Transcript_.

"Our excellent friend, Major Noah, has suffered himself to be cajoled by
that most beguiling of all beguiling little divinities, Miss Walter, of
_The Transcript_. We have been looking all over her article with the aid
of a taper, to see if we could discover a single syllable of truth in
it--and really blush to acknowledge that we cannot. The adorable creature
has been telling a parcel of fibs about us, by way of revenge for
something that we did to Mr. Longfellow (who admires her very much) and
for calling her 'a pretty little witch' into the bargain. The facts of
the case seem to be these: We _were_ invited 'deliver'(stand and deliver)
a poem before the Boston Lyceum. As a matter of course, we accepted the
invitation. The audience was 'large and distinguished.' Mr Cushing[B]
preceded us with a very capital discourse. He was much applauded. On
arising we were most cordially received. We occupied some fifteen minutes
with an apology for not 'delivering,' as is usual in such cases, a
didactic poem: a didactic poem, in our opinion, being precisely no poem
at all. After some farther words--still of apology--for the
'indefiniteness' and 'general imbecility' of what we had to offer--all
so unworthy a _Bostonian_ audience--we commenced, and with many
interruptions of applause, concluded. Upon the whole, the approbation was
considerably more (the more the pity too) than that bestowed upon Mr.
Cushing. When we had made an end the audience of course arose to depart;
and about one-tenth of them, probably, had really departed, when Mr.
Coffin, one of the managing committee, arrested those who remained, by
the announcement that we had been requested to deliver 'The Raven.' We
delivered 'The Raven' forthwith--(without taking a receipt)--were very
cordially applauded again--and this was the end of it--with the exception
of the sad tale invented to suit her own purposes, by that amiable little
enemy of ours, Miss Walter. We shall never call a woman 'a pretty little
witch' again as long as we live.


[Footnote B: Hon. Caleb Cushing, then recently returned from his mission
to China.]


"We like Boston. We were born there--and perhaps it is just as well not
to mention that we are heartily ashamed of the fact. The Bostonians are
very well in their way. Their hotels are bad. Their pumpkin pies are
delicious. Their poetry is not so good. Their common is no common
thing--and the duck-pond might answer-if its answer could be heard for
the frogs. But with all these good qualities, the Bostonians have no
soul. They have always evinced toward us, individually, the basest
ingratitude for the services we rendered them in enlightening them about
the originality of Mr. Longfellow. When we accepted, therefore, an
invitation to 'deliver' a poem in Boston, we accepted it simply and
solely, because we had a curiosity to know how it felt to be publicly
hissed--and because we wished to see what effect we could produce by a
neat little _impromptu_ speech in reply. Perhaps, however, we overrated
our own importance, or the Bostonian want of common civility--which is
not quite so manifest as one or two of their editors would wish the
public to believe. We assure Major Noah that he is wrong. The Bostonians
are well-bred--as _very_ dull persons very generally are. Still, with
their vile ingratitude staring us in the eyes, it could scarcely be
supposed that we would put ourselves to the trouble of composing for the
Bostonians anything in the shape of an _original_ poem. We did not. We
had a poem, of about 500 lines, lying by us--one quite as good as
new--one, at all events, that we considered would answer sufficiently
well for an audience of Transcendentalists. _That_ we gave them--it was
the best that we had--for the price--and it _did_ answer remarkably
well. Its name was _not_ 'The Messenger-Star'--who but Miss Walter would
ever think of so delicious a little bit of invention as that? We had no
name for it at all. The poem is what is occasionally called a 'juvenile
poem,' but the fact is it is anything but juvenile now, for we wrote it,
printed it, and published it, in book form, before we had completed our
tenth year. We read it _verbatim_, from a copy now in our possession, and
which we shall be happy to show at any moment to any of our inquisitive
friends. We do not, ourselves, think the poem a remarkably good one: it
is not sufficiently transcendental. Still it did well enough for the
Boston audience--who evinced characteristic discrimination in
understanding, and especially applauding all those knotty passages which
we ourselves have not yet been able to understand.

"As regards the auger of _The Boston Times_, and one or two other
absurdities--as regards, we say the wrath of Achilles--we incurred it-or
rather its manifestation--by letting some of our cat out of the bag a few
hours sooner than we had intended. Over a bottle of champagne, that
night, we confessed to Messrs. Cushing, Whipple, Hudson, Fields, and a
few other natives who swear not altogether by the frog-pond-we
confessed, we say, the soft impeachment of the hoax. _Et hine ille iræ_.
We should have waited a couple of days."

It is scarcely necessary to suggest that this must have been written
before he had quite recovered from the long intoxication which maddened
him at the time to which it refers--that he was not born in Boston-that
the poem was not published in his tenth year, and that the "hoax" was all
an after-thought. Two weeks later he renewed the discussion of the
subject in _The Broadway Journal_, commenting as follows upon allusions
to it by other parties:

"Were the question demanded of us--'What is the most exquisite of
sublunary pleasures?' we should reply, without hesitation, the making a
fuss, or in the classical words of a western friend, the 'kicking up a
bobbery.' Never was a 'bobbery' more delightful than that which we have
just succeeded in 'kicking up' all around about Boston Common. We never
saw the Frogpondians so lively in our lives. They seem absolutely to be
upon the point of waking up. In about nine days the puppies may get open
their eyes. That is to say, they may get open their eyes to certain facts
which have long been obvious to all the world except themselves-the
facts that there exist other cities than Boston--other men of letters
than Professor Longfellow--other vehicles of literary information than
the _Down-East Review_.'

"We had _tact_ enough not to be 'taken in and done for' by the
Bostonians. _Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes_--(for _timeo_ substitute
_contemno_ or _turn-up-your-nose-o_.) We knew very well that among a
certain _clique_ of the Frogpondians, there existed a predetermination to
abuse us under _any_ circumstances. We knew, that write what we would,
they would swear it to be worthless. We knew, that were we to compose for
them a 'Paradise Lost,' they would pronounce it an indifferent poem. It
would have been very weak in us, then, to put ourselves to the trouble of
attempting to please these people. We preferred pleasing ourselves. We
read before them a 'juvenile'--a _very_ 'juvenile' poem--and thus the
Frogpondians were _had_--were delivered up to the enemy bound hand and
foot. Never were a set of people more completely demolished. They have
blustered and flustered--but what have they done or said that has not
made them more thoroughly ridiculous? What, in the name of Momus, is it
_possible_ for them to do or say? We 'delivered' them the 'juvenile
poem,' and they received it with applause. This is accounted for by the
fact, that the _clique_ (contemptible in numbers as in everything else)
were overruled by the rest of the assembly. These malignants did not
_dare_ to interrupt by their preconcerted hisses, the respectful and
profound attention of the majority. We have been told, indeed, that as
many as three or four of the personal friends of the little old lady
entitled Miss Walter, did actually leave the hall during the
recitation--but, upon the whole, this was the very best thing they could
do. We have been told this, we say--we did not _see_ them take their
departure:--the fact is, they belong to a class of people that we make it
a point _never to see_. The poem being thus well received, in spite of
this ridiculous little cabal--the next thing to be done was to abuse it
in the papers. Here, they imagined, they were sure of their game. But
what have they accomplished? The poem, they say, is bad. We admit it. We
insisted upon this fact in our prefatory remarks, and we insist upon it
now, over and over again. It _is_ bad--it is wretched--and what then? We
wrote it at ten years of age--had it been worth even a pumpkin-pie,
undoubtedly we should not have 'delivered' it to _them_. To demonstrate
its utter worthlessness, _The Boston Star_ has copied the poem in full,
with two or three columns of criticism (we suppose), by way of explaining
that we should have been hanged for its perpetration. There is no doubt
of it whatever--we should. The _Star_, however, (a dull luminary,) has
done us more honor than it intended; it has copied our _third_ edition of
the poem, revised and improved. We considered this too good for the
occasion by one-half, and so 'delivered' our _first_ edition with all its
imperfections on its head. It is the first--the original edition--the
_delivered_ edition--which we now republish in our collection of Poems."

When he accepted the invitation of the Lyceum he intended to write an
original poem, upon a subject which he said had haunted his imagination
for years; but cares, anxieties, and feebleness of will, prevented; and a
week before the appointed night he wrote to a friend imploring
assistance. "You compose with such astonishing facility," he urged in his
letter, "that you can easily furnish me, quite soon enough, a poem that
shall be equal to my reputation. For the love of God I beseech you to
help me in this extremity." The lady wrote him kindly, advising him
judiciously, but promising to attempt the fulfillment of his wishes
She was, however, an invalid, and so failed.[C] At last, instead of
pleading illness himself, as he had previously done on a similar
occasion, he determined to read his poem of "Al Aaraaf," the original
publication of which, in 1829, has already been stated.

The last number of the _Broadway Journal_ was published on the third of
January,1846, and Poe soon after commenced the series of papers entitled
"The Literati of New-York City," which was published in _The Lady's Book_
in six numbers, from May to October. Their spirit, boldness, and
occasional causticity caused them to be much talked about, and three
editions were necessary to supply the demand for some numbers of the
magazine containing them. They however led to a disgraceful quarrel, and
this to a premature conclusion. Dr. Thomas Dunn English, who had at one
time sustained the most intimate relations with Poe, chose to evince his
resentment of the critic's unfairness by the publication of a card in
which he painted strongly the infirmities of Poe's life and character,
and alleged that he had on several occasions inflicted upon him personal
chastisement. This was not a wise confession, for a gentleman never
appeals to his physical abilities except for defense. But the entire
publication, even if every word of it were true, was unworthy of Dr.
English, unnecessary, and not called for by Poe's article, though that,
as every one acquainted with the parties might have seen, was entirely
false in what purported to be its facts. The statement of Dr. English
appeared in the New York _Mirror_ of the twenty-third of June, and on the
twenty-seventh Mr. Poe sent to Mr. Godey for publication in the _Lady's
Book_ his rejoinder, which would have made about five of the large pages
of that miscellany. Mr. Godey very properly declined to print it, and
observed, in the communication of his decision, that the tone of the
article was regarded as unsuitable for his work and as altogether wrong.
In compliance with the author's wishes, however, he had caused its
appearance in a daily paper. Poe then wrote to him:

"The man or men who told you that there was anything wrong in _the tone_
of my reply, were either my enemies, or your enemies, or asses. When you
see them, tell them so, from me. I have never written an article upon
which I more confidently depend for _literary_ reputation than that
Reply. Its merit lay in its being precisely adapted to its purpose. In
this city I have had upon it the favorable judgments of the best men. All
the error about it was yours. You should have done as I
requested--published it in the _Book_. It is of no use to conceive a plan
if you have to depend upon another for its execution."

Nevertheless, I agree with Mr. Godey. Poe's article was as bad as that of
English. Yet a part of one of its paragraphs is interesting, and it is
here transcribed:

--"Let me not permit any profundity of disgust to induce, even for an
instant, a violation of the dignity of truth. What is _not false_, amid
the scurrility of this man's statements, it is not in my nature to brand
as false, although oozing from the filthy lips of which a lie is the
only natural language. The errors and frailties which I deplore, it
cannot at least be asserted that I have been the coward to deny. Never,
even, have I made attempt at _extenuating_ a weakness which is (or, by
the blessing of God, was) a calamity, although those who did not know me
intimately had little reason to regard it otherwise than a crime. For,
indeed, had my pride, or that of my family permitted, there was
much--very much--there was everything to be offered in extenuation.
Perhaps, even, there was an epoch at which it might not have been wrong
in me to hint--what by the testimony of Dr. Francis and other medical
men I might have demonstrated, had the public, indeed, cared for the
demonstration--that the irregularities so profoundly lamented were the
_effect_ of a terrible evil rather than its cause.--And now let me thank
God that in redemption from the physical ill I have forever got rid of
the moral."

Dr. Francis never gave any such testimony. On one occasion Poe borrowed
fifty dollars from a distinguished literary woman of South Carolina,
promising to return it in a few days, and when he failed to do so, and
was asked for a written acknowledgment of the debt that might be
exhibited to the husband of the friend who had thus served him, he denied
all knowledge of it, and threatened to exhibit a correspondence which he
said would make the woman infamous, if she said any more on the subject.
Of course there had never been any such correspondence, but when Poe
heard that a brother of the slandered party was in quest of him for the
purpose of taking the satisfaction supposed to be due in such cases, he
sent for Dr. Francis and induced him to carry to the gentleman his
retraction and apology, with a statement which seemed true enough for the
moment, that Poe was "out of his head." It is an ungracious duty to
describe such conduct in a person of Poe's unquestionable genius and
capacities of greatness, but those who are familiar with the career of
this extraordinary creature can recall but too many similar anecdotes;
and as to his intemperance, they perfectly well understand that its
pathology was like that of ninety-nine of every hundred cases of the
disease.


[Footnote C: This lady was the late Mrs. Osgood, and a fragment of what
she wrote under these circumstances may be found in the last edition of
her works under the title of "Lullin, or the Diamond Fay."]


As the autumn of 1846 wore on, Poe's habits of frequent intoxication and
his inattention to the means of support reduced him to much more than
common destitution. He was now living at Fordham, several miles from the
city, so that his necessities were not generally known even among his
acquaintances; but when the dangerous illness of his wife was added to
his misfortunes, and his dissipation and accumulated causes of anxiety
had prostrated all his own energies, the subject was introduced into the
journals. The _Express_ said:

"We regret to learn that Edgar A. Poe and his wife are both dangerously
ill with the consumption, and that the hand of misfortune lies heavy
upon their temporal affairs. We are sorry to mention the fact that they
are so far reduced as to be barely able to obtain the necessaries of
life. This is indeed a hard lot, and we hope that the friends and
admirers of Mr. Poe will come promptly to his assistance in his bitterest
hour of need."

Mr. Willis, in an article in the _Home Journal_ suggesting a hospital for
disabled laborers with the brain, said--

"The feeling we have long entertained on this subject, has been freshened
by a recent paragraph in the _Express_, announcing that Mr. Edgar A. Poe
and his wife were both dangerously ill, and suffering for want of the
common necessaries of life. Here is one of the finest scholars, one of
the most original men of genius, and one of the most industrious of the
literary profession of our country, whose temporary suspension of labor,
from bodily illness, drops him immediately to a level with the common
objects of public charity. There was no intermediate stopping-place-no
respectful shelter where, with the delicacy due to genius and culture, he
might secure aid, unadvertised, till, with returning health, he could
resume his labors and his unmortified sense of independence. He must
either apply to individual friends--(a resource to which death is
sometimes almost preferable)--or _suffer down_ to the level where Charity
receives claimants, but where Rags and Humiliation are the only
recognized Ushers to her presence. Is this right? Should there not be, in
all highly civilized communities, an Institution designed expressly for
educated and refined objects of charity--a hospital, a retreat, a home of
seclusion and comfort, the sufficient claims to which would be such
susceptibilities as are violated by the above mentioned appeal in a daily
newspaper."

The entire article from which this paragraph is taken, was an ingenious
apology for Mr. Poe's infirmities; but it was conceived and executed in a
generous spirit, and it had a quick effect in various contributions,
which relieved the poet from pecuniary embarrassments. The next week he
published the following letter:

"_My Dear Willis_:--The paragraph which has been put in circulation
respecting my wife's illness, my own, my poverty, etc., is now lying
before me; together with the beautiful lines by Mrs. Locke and those by
Mrs. ----, to which the paragraph has given rise, as well as your kind
and manly comments in _The Home Journal_. The motive of the paragraph I
leave to the conscience of him or her who wrote it or suggested it. Since
the thing is done, however, and since the concerns of my family are thus
pitilessly thrust before the public, I perceive no mode of escape from a
public statement of what is true and what erroneous in the report alluded
to. That my wife is ill, then, is true; and you may imagine with what
feelings I add that this illness, hopeless from the first, has been
heightened and precipitated by her reception at two different periods, of
anonymous letters,--one inclosing the paragraph now in question; the
other, those published calumnies of Messrs. ----, for which I yet hope to
find redress in a court of justice.

"Of the facts, that I myself have been long and dangerously ill, and that
my illness has been a well-understood thing among my brethren of the
press, the best evidence is afforded by the innumerable paragraphs of
personal and literary abuse with which I have been latterly assailed.
This matter, however, will remedy itself. At the very first blush of my
new prosperity, the gentlemen who toadied me in the old, will recollect
themselves and toady me again. You, who know me, will comprehend that I
speak of these things only as having served, in a measure, to lighten the
gloom of unhappiness, by a gentle and not unpleasant sentiment of mingled
pity, merriment and contempt. That, as the inevitable consequence of so
long an illness, I have been in want of money, it would be folly in me to
deny--but that I have ever materially suffered from privation, beyond the
extent of my capacity for suffering, is not altogether true. That I am
'without friends' is a gross calumny, which I am sure _you_ never could
have believed, and which a thousand noble-hearted men would have good
right never to forgive me for permitting to pass unnoticed and undenied.
Even in the city of New York I could have no difficulty in naming a
hundred persons, to each of whom--when the hour for speaking had
arrived--I could and would have applied for aid with unbounded
confidence, and with absolutely _no_ sense of humiliation. I do not
think, my dear Willis, that there is any need of my saying more. I am
getting better, and may add--if it be any comfort to my enemies--that I
have little fear of getting worse. The truth is, I have a great deal to
do; and I have made up my mind not to die till it is done. Sincerely
yours,

"December 30th, 1846. EDGAR A. POE."

This was written for effect. He had not been ill a great while, nor
dangerously at all; there was no literary or personal abuse of him in the
journals; and his friends in town had been applied to for money until
their patience was nearly exhausted. His wife, however, was very sick,
and in a few weeks she died. In a letter to a lady in Massachusetts, who,
upon the appearance of the newspaper articles above quoted, had sent him
money and expressions of sympathy, he wrote, under date of March 10,
1847:

"In answering your kind letter permit me in the first place to absolve
myself from a suspicion which, under the circumstances, you could
scarcely have failed to entertain--a suspicion of discourtesy toward
yourself, in not having more promptly replied to you.... I could not help
feeling that should you see my letter to Mr. Willis--in which a natural
pride, which I feel you could not blame, impelled me to shrink from
public charity, even _at the cost of truth, in denying those necessities
which were but too real_--I could not help fearing that, should you see
this letter, you would yourself feel pained at having caused me pain-at
having been the means of giving further publicity to an unfounded
report--at all events to the report of a wretchedness which I had thought
it prudent (since the world regards wretchedness as a crime) so publicly
to disavow. In a word, venturing to judge your noble nature by my own, I
felt grieved lest my published denial might cause you to regret what you
had done; and my first impulse was to write you, and assure you, even at
the risk of doing so too warmly, of the sweet emotion, made up of respect
and gratitude alone, with which my heart was filled to overflowing. While
I was hesitating, however, in regard to the propriety of this step, I was
overwhelmed by a sorrow so poignant as to deprive me for several weeks of
all power of thought or action. Your letter, now lying before me, tells
me that I had not been mistaken in your nature, and that I should not
have hesitated to address you; but believe me, my dear Mrs. L----, that I
am already ceasing to regard those difficulties or misfortunes which have
led me to even this partial correspondence with yourself."

For nearly a year Mr. Poe was not often before the public, but he was as
industrious, perhaps, as he had been at any time, and early in 1848
advertisement was made of his intention to deliver several lectures, with
a view to obtain an amount of money sufficient to establish his
so-long-contemplated monthly magazine. His first lecture--and only one at
this period--was given at the Society Library, in New York, on the ninth
of February, and was upon the cosmogony of the Universe: it was attended
by an eminently intellectual auditory, and the reading of it occupied
about two hours and a half; it was what he afterward published under the
title of "Eureka, a Prose Poem."

To the composition of this work he brought his subtlest and highest
capacities, in their most perfect development. Denying that the arcana of
the universe can be explored by induction, but informing his imagination
with the various results of science, he entered with unhesitating
boldness, though with no guide but the divinest instinct,--that sense of
beauty, in which our great Edwards recognizes the flowering of all
truth--into the sea of speculation, and there built up of according laws
and their phenomena, as under the influence of a scientific inspiration,
his theory of Nature. I will not attempt the difficult task of condensing
his propositions; to be apprehended they must be studied in his own terse
and simple language; but in this we have a summary of that which he
regards as fundamental: "The law which we call _Gravity_," he says,
"exists on account of matter having been radiated, at its origin,
atomically, into a _limited_ sphere of space, from one, individual,
unconditional irrelative, and absolute Particle Proper,
by the sole process in which it was possible to satisfy, at the same
time, the two conditions, radiation and equable distribution throughout
the sphere--that is to say, by a force varying in _direct_ proportion
with the squares of the distances between the radiated atoms,
respectively, and the particular center of radiation."

Poe was thoroughly persuaded that he had discovered the great secret:
that the propositions of "Eureka" were true; and he was wont to talk of
the subject with a sublime and electrical enthusiasm which they cannot
have forgotten who were familiar with him at the period of its
publication. He felt that an author known solely by his adventures in the
lighter literature, throwing down the gauntlet to professors of science,
could not expect absolute fairness, and he had no hope but in discussions
led by wisdom and candor. Meeting me, he said, "Have you read 'Eureka?'"
I answered, "Not yet: I have just glanced at the notice of it by Willis,
who thinks it contains no more fact than fantasy, and I am sorry to
see--sorry if it be true--suggests that it corresponds in tone with that
gathering of sham and obsolete hypotheses addressed to fanciful tyros,
the 'Vestiges of Creation;' and our good and really wise friend Bush,
whom you will admit to be of all the professors, in temper one of the
most habitually just, thinks that while you may have guessed very
shrewdly, it would not be difficult to suggest many difficulties in the
way of your doctrine." "It is by no means ingenuous," he replied, "to
hint that there are such difficulties, and yet to leave them unsuggested.
I challenge the investigation of every point in the book. I deny that
there are any difficulties which I have not met and overthrown. Injustice
is done me by the application of this word 'guess:' I have assumed
_nothing_ and proved _all_." In his preface he wrote: "To the few who
love me and whom I love; to those who feel rather than to those who
think; to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the only
realities--I offer this book of truths, not in the character of
Truth-Teller, but for the beauty that abounds in its truth: constituting
it true. To these I present the composition as an Art-Product
alone:---let us say as a Romance; or, if it be not urging too lofty a
claim, as a Poem. What I here propound is true: therefore it cannot die:
or it by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will rise
again to the life everlasting."

When I read "Eureka" I could not help but think it immeasurably superior
as an illustration of genius to the "Vestiges of Creation;" and as I
admired the poem, (except the miserable attempt at humor in what purports
to be a letter found in a bottle floating on the _Mare tenebrarum_,) so I
regretted its pantheism, which is not necessary to its main design. To
some of the objections to his work be made this answer in a letter to Mr.
C.F. Hoffman, then editor of the _Literary World_:

"_Dear Sir_:--In your paper of July 29, I find some comments on 'Eureka,'
a late book of my own; and I know you too well to suppose for a moment,
that you will refuse me the privilege of a few words in reply. I feel,
even, that I might safely claim, from Mr. Hoffman, the right, which every
author has, of replying to his critic _tone for tone_--that is to say, of
answering your correspondent, flippancy by flippancy and sneer by
sneer--but in the first place, I do not wish to disgrace the _World_;
and, in the second, I feel that I never should be done sneering, in the
present instance, were I once to begin. Lamartine blames Voltaire for the
use which he made of (_ruse_) misrepresentation, in his attacks on the
priesthood; but our young students of Theology do not seem to be aware
that in defense or what they fancy to be defense, of Christianity, there
is anything wrong in such gentlemanly peccadillos as the deliberate
perversion of an author's text--to say nothing of the minor _indecora_ of
reviewing a book without reading it and without having the faintest
suspicion of what it is about.

"You will understand that it is merely the _misrepresentations_ of the
_critique_ in question to which I claim the privilege of reply:--the mere
_opinions_ of the writer can be of no consequence to me--and I should
imagine of very little to himself--that is to say if he knows himself,
personally, as well as _I_ have the honor of knowing him. The first
misrepresentation is contained in this sentence:--'This letter is a keen
burlesque on the Aristotelian or Baconian methods of ascertaining Truth,
both of which the writer ridicules and despises, and pours forth his
rhapsodical ecstasies in a glorification of the third mode--the noble art
of _guessing_.' What I _really_ say is this:--That there is no absolute
_certainty_ either in the Aristotelian or Baconian process--that, for
this reason, neither Philosophy is so profound as it fancies itself--and
that neither has a right to sneer at that _seemingly_ imaginative process
called Intuition (by which the great Kepler attained his laws); since
'Intuition,' after all, 'is but the conviction arising from those
_in_ductions or _de_ductions of which the processes are so shadowy as to
escape our consciousness, elude our reason or defy our capacity of
expression.' The second misrepresentation runs thus:--'The developments
of electricity and the formation of stars and suns, luminous and
nonluminous, moons and planets, with their rings, &c., is deduced, very
much according to the nebular theory of Laplace, from the principle
propounded above.' Now the impression intended to be made here upon the
reader's mind, by the 'Student of Theology,' is evidently, that my theory
may all be very well in its way, but that it is nothing but Laplace over
again, with some modifications that he (the Student of Theology) cannot
regard as at all important. I have only to say that no gentleman can
accuse me of the disengenuousness here implied; inasmuch as, having
proceeded with my theory up to that point at which Laplace's theory
_meets_ it, I then _give Laplace's theory in full_, with the expression
of my firm conviction of its absolute truth _at all points_. The _ground_
covered by the great French astronomer compares with that covered by my
theory, as a bubble compares with the ocean on which it floats; nor has
he the slightest allusion to the 'principle propounded above,' the
principle of Unity being the source of all things--the principle of
Gravity being merely the Reaction of the Divine Act which irradiated all
things from Unity. In fact _no_ point of _my_ theory has been even
so much as alluded to by Laplace. I have not considered it necessary,
here to speak of the astronomical knowledge displayed in the 'stars _and_
suns' of the Student of Theology, nor to hint that it would be better to
say that 'development and formation _are_, than that development and
formation _is_. The third misrepresentation lies in a foot-note, where
the critic says:--'Further than this, Mr. Poe's claim that he can account
for the existence of all organized beings--man included--merely from
those principles on which the origin and present appearance of suns and
worlds are explained, must be set down as mere bald assertion, without a
particle of evidence. In other words we should term it _arrant fudge_.'
The perversion at this point is involved in a willful misapplication of
the word 'principles.' I say 'wilful' because, at page 63, I am
_particularly_ careful to distinguish between the principles proper,
Attraction and Repulsion, and those merely resultant _sub_-principles
which control the universe in detail. To these sub-principles, swayed by
the immediate spiritual influence of Deity. I leave, without examination,
_all that_ which the Student of Theology so roundly asserts I account for
on the _principles_ which account for the constitution of suns, &c.

"In the third column of his 'review' the critic says:--'He asserts that
each soul is its own God--its own Creator.' What I _do_ assert is, that
'each soul is, _in part_, its own God--its own Creator.' Just below, the
critic says:--'After all these contradictory propoundings concerning God
we would remind him of what he lays down on page 23--'of this Godhead in
itself he alone is not imbecile--he alone is not impious who propounds
_nothing_. A man who thus conclusively convicts himself of imbecility and
impiety needs no further refutation.' Now the sentence, _as I wrote it_,
and as _I find it_ printed on that very page which the critic refers to
and which _must have been lying before him_ while he quoted my words,
runs thus:--'Of this Godhead, _in itself_, he alone is not imbecile, &c.,
who propounds nothing.' By the italics, as the critic well knew, I design
to distinguish between the two possibilities--that of a knowledge of God
through his works and that of a knowledge of Him in his _essential
nature_. The Godhead, _in itself_, is distinguished from the Godhead
observed _in its effects_. But our critic is zealous. Moreover, being a
divine, he is honest--ingenuous. It is his _duty_ to pervert my meaning
by omitting my italics--just as, in the sentence previously quoted, it
was his Christian duty to falsify my argument by leaving out the two
words, 'in part,' upon which turns the whole force--indeed the whole
intelligibility of my proposition.

"Were these 'misrepresentations' (_is_ that the name for them?) made for
any less serious a purpose than that of branding my book as 'impious'
and myself as a 'pantheist,' a 'polytheist,' a Pagan, or a God knows what
(and indeed I care very little so it be not a 'Student of Theology'),
I would have permitted their dishonesty to pass unnoticed, through pure
contempt of the boyishness--for the _turn-down-shirt-collar-ness_ of
their tone:--but, as it is, you will pardon me, Mr. Editor, that I have
been compelled to expose a 'critic' who courageously preserving his own
_anonymosity_, takes advantage of my absence from the city to
misrepresent, and thus vilify me, _by name_.    EDGAR A. POE.

"Fordham, September 20, 1848."

From this time Poe did not write much; he had quarreled with the
conductors of the chief magazines for which he had previously written,
and they no longer sought his assistance. In a letter to a friend, he
laments the improbabilities of an income from literary labor, saying:

"I have represented ---- to you as merely an ambitious simpleton, anxious
to get into society with the reputation of conducting a magazine which
somebody behind the curtain always prevents him from quite damning with
his stupidity; he is a knave and a beast. I cannot write any more for the
Milliner's Book, where T----n prints his feeble and _very_ quietly made
Dilutions of other people's reviews; and you know that ---- can afford to
pay but little, though I am glad to do anything for a good fellow like
----. In this emergency I sell articles to the vulgar and trashy ----,
for $5 a piece. I inclose my last, cut out, lest you should see by my
sending the paper in what company I am forced to appear."

His name was now frequently associated with that of one of the most
brilliant women of New England, and it was publicly announced that they
were to be married. He had first seen her on his way from Boston, when he
visited that city to deliver a poem before the Lyceum there. Restless,
near the midnight, he wandered from, his hotel near where she lived,
until he saw her walking in a garden. He related the incident afterward
in one of his most exquisite poems, worthy of himself, of her, and of the
most exalted passion.

  "I saw thee--once only--years ago;
  I must not say _how_ many--but not many.
  It was a July midnight; and from out
  A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
  Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
  There fell a silvery-silken vail of light,
  With quietude, and sultriness and slumber,
  Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand
  Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
  Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe--
  Fell on upturn'd faces of these roses
  That gave out, in return for the love-light,
  Their odorous souls in an estatic death--
  Fell on upturn'd faces of these roses
  That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
  By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

  "Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
  I saw thee half reclining; while the moon
  Fell on upturn'd faces of these roses,
  And on thine own, upturn'd--alas, in sorrow!

  "Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight--
  Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,)
  That bade me pause before the garden-gate,
  To breathe the incense of those Slumbering roses?
  No footstep stirred; the hated world all slept,
  Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!--oh, God!
  How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)
  Save only thee and me. I paused--I looked--
  And in an instant all things disappeared.
  (Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)
  The pearly luster of the moon went out:
  The mossy banks and the meandering paths,
  The happy flowers and the repining trees,
  Were seen no more: the very roses' odors
  Died in the arms of the adoring airs,
  All--all expired save thee--save less than thou:
  Save only the divine light in thine eyes--
  Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.
  I saw but them--they were the world to me.
  I saw but them--saw only them for hours--
  Saw only them until the moon went down.
  What wild heart histories seemed to lie enwritten
  Upon those crystalline celestial spheres!
  How dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope!
  How silently serene a sea of pride!
  How daring an ambition! Yet how deep--
  How fathomless a capacity for love!

  "But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight
  Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;
  And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
  Didst glide away. _Only thine eyes remained_.
  They _would not_ go--they never yet have gone.
  Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,
  _They_ have not left me (as my hopes have) since.
  They follow me--they lead me through the years
  They are my ministers--yet I their slave.
  Their office is to illumine and enkindle--
  My duty, _to be saved_ by their bright light,
  And purified in their electric fire,
  And sanctified in their elysian fire.
  They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope,)
  And are far up in Heaven--the stars I kneel to
  In the sad, silent watches of my night;
  While even in the meridian glare of day
  I see them still--two sweetly scintillant
  Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!"

They were not married, and the breaking of the engagement affords a
striking illustration of his character. He said to an acquaintance
in New York, who congratulated with him upon the prospect of his union
with a person of so much genius and so many virtues--"It is a mistake: I
am not going to be married." "Why, Mr. Poe, I understand that the bans
have been published." "I cannot help what you have heard, my dear Madam:
but mark me, I shall not marry her." He left town the same evening, and
the next day was reeling through the streets of the city which was the
lady's home, and in the evening--that should have been the evening before
the bridal--in his drunkenness he committed at her house such outrages as
made necessary a summons of the police. Here was no insanity leading to
indulgence: he went from New York with a determination thus to induce an
ending of the engagement; and he succeeded.

Sometime in August, 1849, Mr. Poe left New York for Virginia. In
Philadelphia he encountered persons who had been his associates in
dissipations while he lived there, and for several days he abandoned
himself entirely to the control of his worst appetites. When his money
was all spent, and the disorder of his dress evinced the extremity of his
recent intoxication, he asked in charity means for the prosecution of his
journey to Richmond. There, after a few days, he joined a temperance
society, and his conduct showed the earnestness of his determination to
reform his life. He delivered in some of the principal towns of Virginia
two lectures, which were well attended, and renewing his acquaintance
with a lady whom he had known in his youth, he was engaged to marry her,
and wrote to his friends that he should pass the remainder of his days
among the scenes endeared by all his pleasantest recollections of youth.

On Thursday, the 4th of October, he set out for New York, to fulfill a
literary engagement, and to prepare for his marriage. Arriving in
Baltimore he gave his trunk to a porter, with directions to convey it to
the cars which were to leave in an hour or two for Philadelphia, and went
into a tavern to obtain some refreshment. Here he met acquaintances who
invited him to drink; all his resolutions and duties were soon forgotten;
in a few hours he was in such a state as is commonly induced only by
long-continued intoxication; after a night of insanity and exposure, he
was carried to a hospital; and there, on the evening of Sunday, the 7th
of October, 1849, he died, at the age of thirty-eight years.

It is a melancholy history. No author of as much genius had ever in this
country as much unhappiness; but Poe's unhappiness was in an unusual
degree the result of infirmities of nature, or of voluntary faults in
conduct. A writer who evidently knew him well, and who comes before us in
the "Southern Literary Messenger" as his defender, is "compelled to admit
that the blemishes in his life were effects of character rather than of
circumstances."[A] How this character might have been modified by a
judicious education of all his faculties I leave for the decision of
others, but it will be evident to those who read this biography that the
unchecked freedom of his earlier years was as unwise as its results were
unfortunate.


[Footnote A: _Southern Literary Messenger_, March, 1850, p. 179.]


It is contended that the higher intelligences, in the scrutiny to which
they appeal, are not to be judged by the common laws; but I apprehend
that this doctrine, as it is likely to be understood, is entirely wrong.
All men are amenable to the same principles, to the extent of the
parallelism of these principles with their experience; and the line of
duty becomes only more severe as it extends into the clearer atmosphere
of truth and beauty which is the life of genius. _De mortuis nil nisi
bonum_ is a common and an honorable sentiment, but its proper application
would lead to the suppression of the histories of half of the most
conspicuous of mankind; in this case it is impossible on account of the
notoriety of Mr. Poe's faults; and it would be unjust to the living
against whom his hands were always raided and who had no resort but in
his outlawry from their sympathies. Moreover, his career is full of
instruction and warning, and it has always been made a portion of the
penalty of wrong that its anatomy should be displayed for the common
study and advantage.

The character of Mr. Poe's genius has been so recently and so admirably
discussed by Mr. Lowell, with whose opinions on the subject I for the most
part agree, that I shall say but little of it here, having already
extended this notice beyond the limits at first designed. There is a
singular harmony between his personal and his literary qualities. St.
Pierre, who seemed to be without any nobility in his own nature, in his
writings appeared to be moved only by the finest and highest impulses.
Poe exhibits scarcely any virtue in either his life or his writings.
Probably there is not another instance in the literature of our language
in which so much has been accomplished without a recognition or a
manifestation of conscience. Seated behind the intelligence, and
directing it, according to its capacities, Conscience is the parent of
whatever is absolutely and unquestionably beautiful in art as well as in
conduct. It touches the creations of the mind and they have life; without
it they have never, in the range of its just action, the truth and
naturalness which are approved by universal taste or in enduring
reputation. In Poe's works there is constantly displayed the most
touching melancholy, the most extreme and terrible despair, but never
reverence or remorse.

His genius was peculiar, and not, as he himself thought, various. He
remarks in one of his letters:

"There is one particular in which I have had wrong done me, and it may
not be indecorous in me to call your attention to it. The last selection
of my tales was made from about seventy by one of our great little
cliquists and claquers, Wiley Putnam's reader, Duyckinck. He has what he
thinks a taste for ratiocination, and has accordingly made up the book
mostly of analytic stories. But this is not _representing_ my mind in its
various phases--it is not giving me fair play. In writing these tales one
by one, at long intervals. I have kept the book unity always in
mind--that is, each has been composed with reference to its effect as
part of a _whole_. In this view, one of my chief aims has been the widest
diversity of subject, thought, and especially _tone_ and manner of
handling. Were _all_ my tales now before me in a large volume, and as the
composition of another, the merit which would principally arrest my
attention would be their wide _diversity and variety_. You will be
surprised to hear me say that, (omitting one or two of my first efforts,)
I do not consider any one of my stories _better_ than another. There is a
vast variety of kinds, and, in degree of value, these kinds vary-but
each tale is equally good of _its kind_. The loftiest kind is that of the
highest imagination--and for this reason only 'Ligeia' may be called my
best tale."

But it seems to me that this selection of his tales was altogether
judicious. Had it been submitted to me I might indeed have changed
it in one or two instances, but I should not have replaced any tale by
one of a different tone. One of the qualities upon which Poe prides
himself was his humor, and he has left us a large number of compositions
in this department, but except a few paragraphs in his "Marginalia,"
scarcely anything which it would not have been injurious to his
reputation to republish. His realm was on the shadowy confines of human
experience, among the abodes of crime, gloom, and horror, and there he
delighted to surround himself with images of beauty and of terror, to
raise his solemn palaces and towers and spires in a night upon which
should rise no sun. His minuteness of detail, refinement of reasoning,
and propriety and power of language--the perfect keeping (to borrow a
phrase from another domain of art) and apparent good faith with which he
managed the evocation and exhibition of his strange and spectral and
revolting creations--gave him an astonishing mastery over his readers, so
that his books were closed as one would lay aside the nightmare or the
spells of opium. The analytical subtlety evinced in his works has
frequently been overestimated, as I have before observed, because it has
not been sufficiently considered that his mysteries were composed with
the express design of being dissolved. When Poe attempted the
illustration of the profounder operations of the mind, as displayed in
written reason or in real action, he frequently failed entirely.

In poetry, as in prose, he was eminently successful in the metaphysical
treatment of the passions. Hia poems are constructed with wonderful
ingenuity, and finished with consummate art. They display a somber and
weird imagination, and a taste almost faultless in the apprehension of
that sort of beauty which was most agreeable to his temper. But they
evince little genuine feeling, and less of that spontaneous ecstasy which
gives its freedom, smoothness and naturalness to immortal verse. His own
account of the composition of "The Raven," discloses his methods--the
absence of all impulse, and the absolute control of calculation and
mechanism. That curious analysis of the processes by which he wrought
would be incredible if from another hand.

He was not remarkably original in invention. Indeed some of his
plagiarisms are scarcely paralleled for their audacity in all literary
history: For instance, in his tale of "The Pit and the Pendulum," the
complicate machinery upon which the interest depends is borrowed from a
story entitled "Vivenzio, or Italian Vengeance," by the author of "The
First and Last Dinner," in "Blackwood's Magazine." And I remember having
been shown by Mr. Longfellow, several years ago, a series of papers which
constitute a demonstration that Mr. Poe was indebted to him for the idea
of "The Haunted Palace," one of the most admirable of his poems, which he
so pertinaciously asserted had been used by Mr. Longfellow in the
production of his "Beleaguered City." Mr. Longfellow's poem was written
two or three years before the first publication of that by Poe, and it
was during a portion of this time in Poe's possession; but it was not
printed, I believe, until a few weeks after the appearance of "The
Haunted Palace." "It would be absurd," as Poe himself said many times,
"to believe the similarity of these pieces entirely accidental." This was
the first cause of all that malignant criticism which for so many years
he carried on against Mr. Longfellow. In his "Marginalia" he borrowed
largely, especially from Coleridge, and I have omitted in the
republication of these papers, numerous paragraphs which were rather
compiled than borrowed from one of the profoundest and wisest of our own
scholars.[D]


[Footnote D: I have neither space, time, nor inclination for a
continuation of this subject, and I add but one other instance, in the
words of the Philadelphia "Saturday Evening Post," published while Mr.
Poe was living:

"One of the most remarkable plagiarisms was perpetrated by Mr. Poe, late
of the Broadway Journal, whose harshness as a critic and assumption of
peculiar originality make the fault in his case more glaring. This
gentleman, a few years ago, in Philadelphia, published a work on
Conchology as original, when in reality it was a copy, near verbatim, of
'The Text-book of Conchology, by Captain Thomas Brown,' printed in
Glasgow in 1833, a duplicate of which we have in our library, Mr. Poe
actually took out a copyright for the American edition of Captain Brown's
work, and, omitting all mention of the English original pretended, in the
preface, to have been under great obligations to several scientific
gentlemen of this city. It is but justice to add, that in the second
edition of this book, published lately in Philadelphia, the name of Mr.
Poe is withdrawn from the titlepage, and his initials only affixed to the
preface. But the affair is one of the most curious on record."]


In criticism, as Mr. Lowell justly remarks, Mr. Poe had "a scientific
precision and coherence of logic;" he had remarkable dexterity in the
dissection of sentences; but he rarely ascended from the particular to
the general, from subjects to principles; he was familiar with the
microscope but never looked through the telescope. His criticisms are of
value to the degree in which they are demonstrative, but his unsupported
assertions and opinions were so apt to be influenced by friendship or
enmity, by the desire to please or the fear to offend, or by his constant
ambition to surprise, or produce a sensation, that they should be
received in all cases with distrust of their fairness. A volume might be
filled with literary judgments by him as antagonistical and inconsistent
as the sharpest antitheses. For example, when Mr. Laughton Osborn's
romance, "The Confessions of a Poet," came out, he reviewed it in "The
Southern Literary Messenger," saying:

"There is nothing of the _vates_ about the author. He is no poet-and
most positively he is no prophet. He avers upon his word of honor that
in commencing this work he loads a pistol and places it upon the table.
He further states that, upon coming to a conclusion, it is his intention
to blow out what he supposes to be his brains. Now this is excellent.
But, even with so rapid a writer as the poet must undoubtedly be, there
would be some little difficulty in completing the book under thirty days
or thereabouts. The best of powder is apt to sustain injury by lying so
long 'in the load.' We sincerely hope the gentleman took the precaution
to examine his priming before attempting the rash act. A flash in the
pan--and in such a case--were a thing to be lamented. Indeed there would
be no answering for the consequences. We might even have a second series
of the 'Confessions.'"--_Southern Literary Messenger_, i. 459.

This review was attacked, particularly in the Richmond "Compiler," and
Mr. Poe felt himself called upon to vindicate it to the proprietor of the
magazine, to whom he wrote:

"There is no necessity of giving the 'Compiler' a reply. The book is
_silly enough of itself_, without the aid of any controversy concerning
it. I have read it, from beginning to end, and was very much amused at
it. My opinion of it is pretty nearly the opinion of the press at large.
I have heard no person offer one serious word in its defense."--_Letter
to T.W. White_.

Afterward Mr. Poe became personally acquainted with the author, and he
then wrote, in his account of "The Literati of New-York City," as
follows:

"The Confessions of a Poet made much noise in the literary world, and no
little curiosity was excited in regard to its author, who was generally
supposed to be John Neal.... The 'Confessions,' however, far surpassed
any production of Mr. Neal's.... _He_ has done nothing which, as a whole,
is _even respectable_, and 'The Confessions' are quite remarkable for
their artistic unity and perfection. But on higher regards they are to be
commended. _I do not think, indeed, that a better book of its kind has
been written in America_....Its scenes of passion are intensely wrought,
its incidents are striking and original, its sentiments audacious and
suggestive at least, if not at all times tenable. In a word, it is that
rare thing, a fiction of _power_ without rudeness."

I will adduce another example of the same kind. In a notice of the
"Democratic Review," for September, 1845, Mr. Poe remarks of Mr. William
A. Jones's paper on American Humor:

"There is only one really bad article in the number, and that is
insufferable: nor do we think it the less a nuisance because it inflicts
upon ourselves individually a passage of maudlin compliment about our
bring a most 'ingenious critic' 'and prose poet,' with some other things
of a similar kind. We thank for his good word no man who gives palpable
evidence, in other cases than our own, of his _incapacity_ to distinguish
the false from the true--the right from the wrong. If we _are_ an
ingenious critic, or a prose poet, it is not because Mr. William Jones
says so. The truth is that this essay on 'American Humor' is
Contemptible both in a moral and literary sense--is the composition of an
_imitator and a quack_--and disgraces the magazine in which it makes its
appearance."--_Broadway Journal_, Vol. ii. No. 11.

In the following week he reconsidered this matter, opening his paper for
a defense of Mr. Jones; but at the close of it said--

"If we have done Mr. Jones injustice, we beg his pardon: but we do not
think we have."

Yet in a subsequent article in "Graham's Magazine," on "Critics and
Criticism," he says of Mr. Jones, referring only to writings of his that
had been for years before the public when he printed the above
paragraphs:

"Our most analytic, _if not altogether our best critic_, (Mr. Whipple,
perhaps, excepted,) is Mr. _William A. Jones_, author of 'The Analyst.'
How he would write elaborate criticisms I cannot say; but his summary
judgments of authors are, in general, discriminative and profound. In
fact, his papers on _Emerson_ and on _Macaulay_, published in 'Arcturus.'
are better than merely 'profound,' if we take the word in its now
desecrated sense; for they are at once pointed, lucid, and just:--as
summaries leaving nothing to be desired."

I will not continue the display of these inconsistencies. As I have
Already intimated, a volume might be filled with passages to show that
his criticisms were guided by no sense of duty, and that his opinions
were so variable and so liable to be influenced by unworthy
considerations as to be really of no value whatever.

It was among his remarkable habits that he preserved with scrupulous care
everything that was published respecting himself or his works, and
everything that was written to him in letters that could be used in any
way for the establishment or extension of his reputation. In
Philadelphia, in 1843, he prepared with his own hands a sketch of his
life for a paper called "The Museum." Many parts of it are untrue, but I
refer to it for the purpose of quoting a characteristic instance of
perversion in the reproduction of compliments:

"Of 'William Wilson,' Mr. Washington Irving says: 'It is managed in a
highly picturesque style, and its singular and mysterious interest is
ably sustained throughout. In point of mere style, it is, perhaps, even
superior to 'The House of Usher.' It is simpler. In the latter
composition, he seems to have been distrustful of his effects, or,
rather, too solicitous of bringing them forth fully to the eye, and thus,
perhaps, has laid on too much coloring. He has erred, however, on the
safe side, that of exuberance, and the evil might easily be remedied, by
relieving the style of some of its epithets;' [since done.] 'There would
be no fear of injuring the graphic effect, _which is powerful_.' The
italics are Mr. Irving's own."

Now Mr. Irving had said in a private letter that he thought the "House of
Usher" Was clever, and that "a volume of similar stories would be well
received by the public." Poe sent him a magazine containing "William
Wilson," asking his opinion of it, and Mr. Irving, expressly declining to
_publish_ a word upon the subject, remarked in the same manner, that "the
singular and mysterious interest is well sustained," and that in point of
style the tale was "much better" than the "House of Usher," which, he
says, "might be improved by relieving the style from some of the
epithets: there is no danger of destroying the graphic effect, which
is powerful." There is not a word in _italics_ in Mr. Irving's letter,
the meaning of which is quite changed by Mr. Poe's alterations. And this
letter was not only published in the face of an implied prohibition, but
made to seem like a deliberately-expressed judgment in a public reviewal.
In the same way Mr. Poe published the following sentence as an extract
from a letter by Miss Barrett:

"Our great poet, Mr. Browning, the author of 'Paracelsus,' etc., _is
enthusiastic in his admiration_ of the rhythm."

But on turning to Miss Barrett's letter, I find that she wrote:

"Our great poet, Mr. Browning, author of 'Paracelsus,' and 'Bells and
Pomegranates,' was struck much by the rhythm of that poem."

The piece alluded to is "The Raven."

It is not true, as has been frequently alleged since Mr. Poe's death,
that his writings were above the popular taste, and therefore without a
suitable market in this country. His poems were worth as much to
magazines as those of Bryant or Longfellow, (though none of the
publishers paid him half as large a price for them,) and his tales were
as popular as those of Willis, who has been commonly regarded as the best
magazinist of his time. He ceased to write for _The Lady's  Book_ in
consequence of a quarrel induced by Mr. Godey's justifiable refusal to
print in that miscellany his "Reply to Dr. English," and though in the
poor fustian published under the signature of "George R. Graham," in
answer to some remarks upon Poe's character in _The Tribune_, that
individual is made to assume a passionate friendship for the deceased
author that would have become a Pythias, it is known that the personal
ill-will on both sides was such that for some four or five years _not a
line by Poe was purchased for Graham's Magazine_. To quote again the
"Defense of Mr. Poe" in the _Southern Literary Messenger_:

"His changeable humors, his irregularities, his caprices, his total
disregard of everything and body, save the fancy in his head, prevented
him from doing well in the world. The evils and sufferings that poverty
brought upon him, soured his nature, and deprived him of faith in human
beings. This was evident to the eye--he believed in nobody, and cared for
nobody. Such a mental condition of course drove away all those who would
otherwise have stood by him in his hours of trial. He became, and was, an
Ishmaelite."

After having, in no ungenerous spirit, presented the chief facts in Mr.
Poe's history, not designedly exaggerating his genius, which none held in
higher admiration, not bringing into bolder relief than was just and
necessary his infirmities. I am glad to offer a portraiture of some of
his social qualities, equally beautiful, and--so changeable and
inconsistent was the man--as far as it goes, truthful. Speaking of him
one day soon after his death, with the late Mrs. Osgood, the beauty of
whose character had made upon Poe's mind that impression which it never
failed to produce upon minds capable of the apprehension of the finest
traits in human nature, she said she did not doubt that my view of Mr.
Poe, which she knew indeed to be the common view, was perfectly just, as
it regarded him in his relations with men; but to women he was different,
and she would write for me some recollections of him, to be placed beside
my harsher judgments in any notice of his life that the acceptance of the
appointment to be his literary executor might render it necessary for me
to give to the world. She was an invalid--dying of that consumption by
which in a few weeks she was removed to heaven, and calling for pillows
to support her while she wrote, she drew this sketch:

"You ask me, my friend, to write for you my reminiscences of Edgar Poe.
For you, who knew and understood my affectionate interest in him, and my
frank acknowledgment of that interest to all who had a claim upon my
confidence, for you, I will willingly do so. I think no one could know
him--no one _has_ known him personally--certainly no woman-without
feeling the same interest. I can sincerely say, that although I have
frequently _heard_ of aberrations on his part from the 'straight and
narrow path,' I have never _seen_ him otherwise than gentle, generous,
well-bred, and fastidiously refined. To a sensitive and
delicately-nurtured woman, there was a peculiar and irresistible charm in
the chivalric, graceful, and almost tender reverence with which he
invariably approached all women who won his respect. It was this which
first commanded and always retained my regard for him.

"I have been told, that when his sorrows and pecuniary embarrassments had
driven him to the use of stimulants, which a less delicate organization
might have borne without injury, he was in the habit of speaking
disrespectfully of the ladies of his acquaintance. It is difficult for me
to believe this; for to _me_, to whom he came during the year of our
acquaintance for counsel and kindness in all his many anxieties and
griefs, he never spoke irreverently of any woman save one, and then only
in _my_ defense; and though I rebuked him for his momentary
forgetfulness of the respect due to himself and to me, I could not but
forgive the offense for the sake of the generous impulse which prompted
it. Yet even were these sad rumors true of him, the wise and
well-informed knew how to regard, as they would the impetuous anger of a
spoiled infant, balked of its capricious will, the equally harmless and
unmeaning phrensy of that stray child of Poetry and Passion. For the few
unwomanly and slander-loving gossips who have injured _him_ and
_themselves_ only by _repeating_ his ravings, when in such moods they
have accepted his society. I have only to vouchsafe my wonder and my
pity. They cannot surely harm the true and pure, who, reverencing his
genius, and pitying his misfortunes and his errors, endeavored, by their
timely kindness and sympathy, to soothe his sad career.

"It was in his own simple yet poetical home, that to me the character of
Edgar Poe appeared in its most beautiful light. Playful, affectionate,
witty, alternately docile and wayward as a petted child-for his young,
gentle, and idolized wife, and for all who came, he had, even in the
midst of his most harassing literary duties, a kind word, a pleasant
smile, a graceful and courteous attention. At his desk, beneath the
romantic picture of his loved and lost Lenore, he would sit, hour after
hour, patient, assiduous, and uncomplaining, tracing, in an exquisitely
clear chirography, and with almost superhuman swiftness, the lightning
thoughts--the 'rare and radiant' fancies as they flashed through his
wonderful and ever-wakeful brain. I recollect, one morning, toward the
close of his residence in this city, when he seemed unusually gay and
light-hearted. Virginia, his sweet wife, had written me a pressing
invitation to come to them; and I, who never could resist her
affectionate summons, and who enjoyed his society far more in his own
home than elsewhere, hastened to Amity-street. I found him just
completing his series of papers entitled 'The Literati of New York.'
'See,' said he, displaying, in laughing triumph, several little rolls of
narrow paper, (he always wrote thus for the press,) 'I am going to show
you, by the difference of length in these, the different degrees of
estimation in which I hold all you literary people. In each of these, one
of you is rolled up and fully discussed. Come, Virginia, help me!' And
one by one they unfolded them. At last they came to one which seemed
interminable. Virginia laughingly ran to one corner of the room with one
end, and her husband to the opposite with the other. 'And whose
lengthened sweetness long drawn out is that?' said I. 'Hear her!' he
cried, 'just as if her little vain heart didn't tell her it's herself!'

"My first meeting with the poet was at the Astor House. A few days
previous. Mr. Willis had handed me, at the _table d'hote_, that strange
and thrilling poem entitled 'The Raven,' saying that the author wanted my
opinion of it. Its effect upon me was so singular, so like that of 'weird
unearthly music,' that it was with a feeling almost of dread, I heard he
desired an introduction. Yet I could not refuse without seeming
ungrateful, because I had just heard of his enthusiastic and partial
eulogy of my writings, in his lecture on American Literature. I shall
never forget the morning when I was summoned to the drawing-room by Mr.
Willis to receive him. With his proud and beautiful head erect, his dark
eyes flashing with the elective light of feeling and of thought, a
peculiar, an inimitable blending of sweetness and hauteur in his
expression and manner, he greeted me, calmly, gravely, almost coldly; yet
with so marked an earnestness that I could not help being deeply
impressed by it. From that moment until his death we were friends;
although we met only during the first year of our acquaintance. And in
his last words, ere reason had forever left her imperial throne in that
overtasked brain, I have a touching memento of his undying faith and
friendship.

"During that year, while traveling for my health, I maintained a
correspondence with Mr. Poe, in accordance with the earnest entreaties of
his wife, who imagined that my influence over him had a restraining and
beneficial effect. It _had_, as far as this--that having solemnly
promised me to give up the use of stimulants, he so firmly respected his
promise and me, as never once, during our whole acquaintance, to appear
in my presence when in the slightest degree affected by them. Of the
charming love and confidence that existed between his wife and himself,
always delightfully apparent to me, in spite of the many little poetical
episodes, in which the impassioned romance of his temperament impelled
him to indulge; of this I cannot speak too earnestly--too warmly. I
believe she was the only woman whom he ever truly loved; and this is
evinced by the exquisite pathos of the little poem lately written, called
Annabel Lee, of which she was the subject, and which is by far the most
natural, simple, tender and touchingly beautiful of all his songs. I have
heard it said that it was intended to illustrate a late love affair of
the author; but they who believe this, have in their dullness evidently
misunderstood or missed the beautiful meaning latent in the most lovely
of all its verses--where he says,

  "'A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
   My beautiful Annabel Lee,
  So that her _high-born kinsmen_ came,
   And bore her away from me.'

"There seems a strange and almost profane disregard of the sacred purity
and spiritual tenderness of this delicious ballad, in thus overlooking
the allusion to the _kindred angels_ and the heavenly _Father_ of the
lost and loved and unforgotten wife.

"But it was in his conversations and his letters, far more than in his
published poetry and prose writings, that the genius of Poe was most
gloriously revealed. His letters were divinely beautiful, and for hours I
have listened to him, entranced by strains of such pure and almost
celestial eloquence as I have never read or heard elsewhere. Alas! in the
thrilling words of Stoddard,

  "'He might have soared in the morning light,
  But he built his nest with the birds of night;
  But he lie in dust, and the stone is rolled
  Over the sepulcher dim and cold;
  He has canceled the ill he has done or said,
  And gone to the dear and holy dead.
  Let us forget the path he trod,
  And leave him now to his Maker, God.'"

The influence of Mr. Poe's aims and vicissitudes upon his literature, was
more conspicuous in his later than in his earlier writings. Nearly all
that he wrote in the last two or three years--including much of his best
poetry,--was in some sense biographical: in draperies of his imagination,
those who take the trouble to trace his steps, will perceive, but
slightly concealed, the figure of himself. The lineaments here disclosed,
I think, are not different from those displayed in his biography, which
is but a filling up of the picture. Thus far the few criticisms of his
life or works that I have ventured have been suggested by the immediate
examination of the points to which they referred. I add but a few words
of more general description.

In person he was below the middle height, slenderly but compactly formed,
and in his better moments he had in an eminent degree that air of
gentlemanliness which men of a lower order seldom succeed in acquiring.

His conversation was at times almost supramortal in its eloquence. His
voice was modulated with astonishing skill, and his large and variably
expressive eyes looked repose or shot fiery tumult into theirs who
listened, while his own face glowed, or was changeless in pallor, as his
imagination quickened his blood or drew it back frozen to his heart. His
imagery was from the worlds which no mortals can see but with the vision
of genius. Suddenly starting from a proposition, exactly and sharply
defined, in terms of utmost simplicity and clearness, he rejected the
forms of customary logic, and by a crystalline process of accretion,
built up his ocular demonstrations in forms of gloomiest and ghastliest
grandeur, or in those of the most airy and delicious beauty--so minutely
and distinctly, yet so rapidly, that the attention which was yielded to
him was chained till it stood among his wonderful creations--till he
himself dissolved the spell, and brought his hearers back to common and
base existence, by vulgar fancies or exhibitions of the ignoblest
passion.

He was at all times a dreamer--dwelling in ideal realms--in heaven or
hell--peopled with the creatures and the accidents of his brain. He
walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in
indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayer, (never for
himself, for he felt, or professed to feel, that he was already damned,
but) for their happiness who at the moment were objects of his
idolatry;--or, with his glances introverted to a heart gnawed with
anguish, and with a face shrouded in gloom, he would brave the wildest
storms; and all night, with drenched garments and arms beating the winds
and rains, would speak as if to spirits that at such times only could be
evoked by him from the Aidenn, close by whose portals his disturbed soul
sought to forget the ills to which his constitution subjected him--close
by the Aidenn which were those he loved--the Aidenn which he might never
see, but in fitful glimpses, as its gates opened to receive the less
fiery and more happy natures whose destiny to sin did not involve the
doom of death. He seemed, except when some fitful pursuit subjugated his
will and engrossed his faculties, always to bear the memory of some
controlling sorrow. The remarkable poem of "The Raven" was probably much
more nearly than has been supposed, even by those who were very intimate
with him, a reflection and an echo of his own history. _He_ was that
bird's

  "----unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
  Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden
  bore--
  Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
                            Of 'Never--never more.'"

Every genuine author, in a greater or less degree, leaves in his works,
whatever their design, traces of his personal character; elements of his
immortal being, in which the individual survives the person. While we
read the pages of the "Fall of the House of Usher," or of "Mesmeric
Revelations," we see in the solemn and stately gloom which invests one,
and in the subtle metaphysical analysis of both, indications of the
idiosyncracies--of what was most remarkable and peculiar--in the author's
intellectual nature. But we see here only the better phases of his
nature, only the symbols of his juster action, for his harsh experience
had deprived him of all faith, in man or woman. He had made up his mind
upon the numberless complexities of the social world, and the whole
system with him was an imposture. This conviction gave a direction to his
shrewd and naturally unamiable character. Still, though he regarded
society as composed altogether of villains, the sharpness of his
intellect was not of that kind which enabled him to cope with villany,
while it continually caused him by overshots to fail of the success of
honesty. He was in many respects like Francis Vivian, in Bulwer's novel
of "The Caxtons." Passion, in him, comprehended many of the worst
emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not contradict
him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of wealth, but his
cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing natural advantages of this
poor boy--his beauty, his readiness, the daring spirit that breathed
around him like a fiery atmosphere--had raised his constitutional
self-confidence into an arrogance that turned his very claims to
admiration into prejudices against him. Irascible, envious--bad enough,
but not the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with
a cold repellant cynicism, his passions vented themselves in sneers.
There seemed to him no moral susceptibility; and, what was more
remarkable in a proud nature, little or nothing of the true point of
honor. He had, to a morbid excess, that desire to rise which is
vulgarly called ambition, but no wish for the esteem or the love of his
species; only the hard wish to succeed--not shine, not serve--succeed,
that he might have the right to despise a world which galled his
self-conceit.

       *       *       *       *       *

"LAUGH AND GET FAT!"

BY JOHN KENYON

Lack we motives to laugh? Are not all things, anything, everything, to be
laughed at? And if nothing were to be seen, felt, heard, or understood,
we would laugh at it too! _Merry Beggars._

  I.
  There's nothing here on earth deserves
    Half of the thought we waste about it,
  And thinking but destroys the nerves,
    When we could do so well without it:
  If folks would let the world go round,
    And pay their tithes, and eat their dinners,
  Such doleful looks would not be found,
    To frighten us poor laughing sinners.
  Never sigh when you can sing,
  But laugh, like me, at everything!

  II.

  One plagues himself about the sun,
    And puzzles on, through every weather,
  What time he'll rise,--how long he'll run,--
    And when he'll leave us altogether;
  Now matters it a pebble-stone,
    Whether he shines at six or seven?
  If they don't leave the sun alone,
    At last they'll plague him out of heaven!
  Never sigh when you can sing
  But laugh, like me, at everything!

  III.

  Another spins from out his brains
    Fine cobweb, to amuse his neighbors,
  And gets, for all his toils and pains,
    Reviewed, and laughed at for his labors:
  Fame is _his_ star! and fame is sweet;
    And praise is pleasanter than honey,--
  I write at just so much a sheet,
    And Messrs Longman pay the money!
  Never sigh when you can sing,
  But laugh, like me, at everything!

  IV.

  My brother gave his heart away
    To Mercandests[*illegible], when he met her,
  She married Mr. Ball one day--
    He's gone to Sweden to forget her
  I had a charmer, too--and sighed,
    And raved all day and night about her;
  She caught a cold, poor thing! and died,
    And I--am just as fat without her
  Never sigh when you can sing,
  But laugh, like me, at everything!

  V.

  For tears are vastly pretty things,
    But make one very thin and taper;
  And sighs are music's sweetest strings,
    But sound most beautiful--on paper!
  "Thought" is the Sage's brightest star,
    Her gems alone are worth his finding;
  But as I'm not particular,
    Please God! I'll keep on "never minding."
  Never sigh when you can sing,
  But laugh, like me, at everything!

  VI.

  Oh! in this troubled world of ours,
    A laughter-mine's a glorious treasure;
  And separating thorns from flowers,
    Is half a pain and half a pleasure:
  And why be grave instead of gay?
    Why feel a-thirst while folks are quaffing?--
  Oh! trust me, whatsoe'er they say,
    There's nothing half so good as laughing!
  Never sigh when you can sing,
  But laugh, like me, at everything!

       *       *       *       *       *

  FROM THE GERMAN OF LENAU.

  Over that ancient story grass has grown;
    Myself, I scarce recall my own transgression;
  Yet, when at twilight hour, I stray alone,
    At times I feel as I could make confession.
  But turning from the Past as all unknown.
    I harbor in the Present! Such opression
  Of futile sad remorse by me be flown!
    Why summon bootless woes to Memory's session?
  When Death, that scythesman stern, thy frame destroyeth,
    He'll lop the grass, too, which thing actions covers.
  And that forgotten deed shall cling about thee!
  Back to the Past! Not vainly Care employeth
  Labor and pain to pierce where Darkness hovers;
  Till sin is slain within, it cannot die without thee!

THE LEADER.

       *       *       *       *       *

EBBA:
OR THE EMIGRANTS IN SWEDEN.

TRANSLATION FOR THE INTERNATIONAL, FROM THE FRENCH OF X. MARMIER.

BY FAYETTE ROBINSON.

Toward the end of November, in the year 1831, one of those rude sleighs,
met with in winter on all the roads of Sweden, passed rapidly along the
shores of the Gulf of Bothnia. For several hours the pale winter sun had
been like a lamp extinguished beneath the horizon. The skies, however,
had that transparent clearness which is one of the charms of the nights
of the north. Myriads of stars covered its surface with a network of
gold, and glittered again on the snow which covered the surface of the
earth. The wind was calm: space was silent. Nothing was heard but the
sounds of the hoofs of two horses attached to a light vehicle, and
occasionally the voice of the Swedish postillion, who from time to time
urged them on by a word of affectionate reproach, or a joyous eulogium. A
traveler sat in the sleigh, wrapped up in heavy furs, and from time to
time cast aside the folds of the cloak which covered him, to take a
thoughtful glance around him. A stranger in Sweden, he was traveling
through it, and during the last month had experienced a multitude of
emotions, altogether unexpected, and which seemed to increase as he drew
near the north. After having crossed the southern provinces of that
kingdom bounded by the Baltic, and those on the vast silver basin of Lake
Milar, seen Stockholm in all its pride, Upsal, the city of the ancient
gods, and Gébel, the active and industrious, he found himself amid a
region entirely silent, inanimate, and wrapped in a snowy pall. Soon he
penetrated the bosom of a long pine forest, the shafts of which seemed,
as it were, giants wrapped in cloaks of white. Now he ascended steep
hills, then rapidly hurried to the Gulf, the shores of which the waves
had made to look like point-lace, and looked up at the immense rocks on
which the waters broke.

Everywhere the same silence existed. Far in the distance a light was seen
to shine, either the glitter of a woodman's fire, or the midnight torch
kindled by some invalid. This light, fixed like a point in space, was but
another evidence of the isolation of man in these regions.

In this inanimateness of nature, in this sad uniformity of plains of
snow, in this desert of fields and woods, such sadness, such distress was
evident, that the heart of the traveler, who however was young and brave,
was filled with a kind of mysterious fear. Before him, among all the
other stars, shone that of the pole, that faithful light which is nightly
kindled like a pharos, and in the seasons of storm, smiles on the pilgrim
who has gone astray, and guides the navigator's steps. The stranger, for
a few instants, kept his eyes fixed on this benevolent light, as if to
find some relief to the impressions he had received from the melancholy
appearance of the earth. He then tapped the postillion on the shoulder,
and said to him, with the laconism compulsory on him from his knowledge
of the Swedish tongue, "_Aland?_" This was the name of the halting-place.
"_Intet tu,_" (not yet,) replied the postillion, as he took his arm from
the sheepskin which surrounded his shoulders. At the same time he cracked
his whip, as if to show how impatient he was to reach his halting-place.
The animals, thus excited, set forth at a long gallop across that portion
of the Gulf where the frequent passage of the fishermen had to a degree
leveled the snow, and ascended with much difficulty a hill covered by
trees at least a hundred years old. At the extremity of this forest, the
postillion turned toward the traveler, and with his finger pointed out to
him a spot so distant that it could be distinguished with difficulty.
"_Aland!_" said he; and with his voice and gestures he encouraged his
horses, who doubled their ardor, as if they comprehended that this was
the last effort which would be required of them before they reached their
destination.

The sleigh soon halted at the foot of a vast wooden house. When the
driver cracked his whip, when the sound of the bells was heard, the door
opened, and the stranger, it was evident to see, was expected. A servant
advanced to meet him, with a lantern in his hand, and led him through a
long corridor, introducing him into a room where a man with gray hair sat
in an arm-chair.

"My uncle!" said the traveler, rushing toward him.

"Ireneus, my dear child!" said the old man. They stood in silence,
clasped in each other's arms, until the old man, taking the young one by
the hand, led him to a table on which two lights were burning, looked at
him with complaisance, and said, "It is indeed yourself--it is the
likeness of my poor brother: the same eyes, the same proud and resolute
air. You look as he did thirty years ago, when he was about to cast
himself amid the dangers of war; when, unfortunately, he embraced me for
the last time."

"My dear uncle," said Ireneus, "instead of the brother you have lost, a
son comes to you. In my early youth, my mother taught me to love you.
That duty I shall be glad to discharge."

"The very sound of his voice!" continued the old man, who still looked at
him; "the very sparkle of his eye! No painter could have made a more
exact portrait. May you, however, have a far different destiny. Fatality
weighs on the family of Vermondans. May you, the only vigorous offshoot
of that old race of soldiers, already stricken by misfortune, already an
exile from your country, never learn, as your father and I did, how
bitter is the bread of the stranger--how difficult it is to go up and
down the stranger's staircase. But what do I say? You are in another
father's house. You come to it like a long-expected child, and you meet
with two sisters." Then going toward the door of another room, he said,
"Ebba, Alete, come to welcome your cousin."

Two young girls entered immediately. One of them was lively and active,
with black eyes and a ruddy complexion; the other pale, fair, and
delicate. The first gave her hand gaily to Ireneus, and kissed him on
both cheeks; the other advanced timidly, and with downcast eyes, leaning
her brow forward to be kissed.

"My dear cousins," said Ireneus, "my mother would have been delighted, as
I am, to have seen you; but being unable to make this long journey in
Sweden, has sent you at least a token of her affection." As he spoke, he
took from his pocket a little morocco box, which the agile Alete took and
opened with eagerness.

"What pretty ear-rings!" said she; "what a charming ring! See that little
blue cross, and the bracelet set with emeralds. Such jewels are made only
in Paris. Come look at them, Ebba!"

During all this time, Ebba stood aside motionless and silent. She then
approached the table on which her sister had displayed the jewels, and
looked at them without speaking.

"Is not this pretty?" said Alete. "We must divide them; and as I have a
lover who will make it a point of honor to give me as many ornaments as
my whim dictates and his fortune will permit, I wish you to take the
larger part."

"No," said Ebba, with a voice soft as that of a child, "as you are about
to be married you should have all as a wedding present. If you will
however let me keep this little cross, I shall be very grateful."

Alete, who under the mask of frivolity concealed a tender and delicate
heart, sought in vain to overcome the modesty of her sister; and finally,
with much reluctance, received three-quarters of the jewel-case.

"Now, young ladies," said their father, who had been an observer of this
contest of generosity, "remember that your cousin has made a long
journey. See if his room is in order and if supper is ready; for when one
has passed the whole day in crossing our snow-plains, some comfort is
required."

"They are good and affectionate children," continued the father, when
they had gone out. "The eldest is a gipsy who delights me with her
gayety; the youngest often moves me even to tears. Her mother died in
giving birth to her. The poor girl seems constantly under the influence
of the misfortune which presided over her birth.

"None of the things in which girls of her age delight, please or excite
her. Her silent and retiring life, seems one long act of resignation.
She finds interest in story and books alone. She has learned three or
four languages, and read all the books either here or at the parsonage.
When, however, she is in society, one would fancy her a very ignorant
person, so little does she say and so anxious does she appear to conceal
her information. Her modesty is disturbed by no vanity, and the placidity
of her meditations is interrupted by no vulgar commotion. One might
almost fancy her a stranger to this world, indifferent to its
calculations, lost to its joys, and submitting without effort to its
sorrows. I have never seen her smile, but I have never heard her
complain. Delicate and weak, the paleness of her face, the languor of her
appearance, betray a physical suffering she herself denies.

"As soon as she perceives that I remark any indisposition in her, her
countenance becomes illuminated by a gentle light, her lips are gilded
with a sweet smile, as if she begged me to excuse the uneasiness she had
inspired me with.

"Forgive me, dear Ireneus, for this unscrupulous thrusting on you of my
paternal egotism. I should first have inquired after you and your hopes
which were crushed so soon. Ebba, however, is ever a cause of anxiety to
me."

Ireneus replied to this confidence by cordially clasping his hand. Just
at that moment it was announced that the table was served.

"Come," said the old man, "you will not find here the gastronomical
niceties of Paris. Like plain country people, we live on the produce of
the soil. A good bottle of old beer, however, has some merit, and
varieties of game are found in our forests, for which the _gourmets_ of
Paris would willingly exchange their hares and partridges."

Ireneus sat between his two cousins, and his youthful appetite, sharpened
by the journey he had made, delighted the old man. As he ate large slices
of the haunch of a reindeer, and drank cup after cup of a savory beer,
prepared with particular care by Alete, he contrived to look at the young
girls on each side of him.

The eldest, always in motion, waited on her cousin and her father, went
to the kitchen, sat again at the table, and when she laughed disclosed
two rows of pearl between her rose-colored lips. She was indeed a
charming girl, round and dimpled as a child, fresh and gay as a bird,
with every gesture graceful, though she was a little espiegle and
coquettish. Her coquetry, however, was naive and chaste, of a kind which
in many women is but the amiable manifestation of a sentiment of
benevolence, and an innocent desire to be agreeable.

Ireneus took pleasure in looking at her, and as she immediately acquired
self-possession, she conferred the same privilege on others. She already
jested with him as if he had been an old friend, and he felt himself
as unconstrained as if he had passed his whole life with her. When,
however, he looked at Ebba, it was with strange emotion. Nothing in his
whole life had ever touched him so. The countenance of the young girl
had a cold marble whiteness, making it assume the appearance of a statue,
wrought in the most artistic manner.

Two long tresses of yellow hair fell over her cheeks, and disclosed a
brow of ideal serenity. Her pale face was lit up with eyes clear as
crystal, and blue and deep as lakes reflecting the skies. Any one who had
once looked into her eyes could not forget them. Often they drooped
beneath the lids, like a heart overcome with grief sheltering itself
beneath a cloud. When they were lifted up no earthly desire animated
them, and in their vague radiation they seemed to look into the infinite.

There are plants which the dew and sun do not completely develop. There
are beings like weak plants, attached to earth by but feeble roots, and
who from their very birth seem predestined to misfortune, and who, by
a kind of second-sight, made aware of the fate which awaits them, attach
themselves with fear and trembling to a world in which they anticipate
only an ephemeral existence and cruel deception. Their sadness is
reflected on those who approach them. There is as it were a fatal circle
around them, in which all feel themselves seized with indescribable fear,
and with the evidences of sympathy entertained for them is mingled a kind
of commiseration.

Ireneus experienced at the appearance of Ebba this sentiment of
uneasiness and melancholy sympathy. When after supper he bade adieu to
his uncle and cousins, when he was alone in his room, he smiled when he
remembered the amiable gayety of Alete, but became sad and pensive when
he recalled the dreamy look of her young sister, the sad melancholy
glance which shone over her face like the twilight of an autumn day.

Ireneus was not however one of those sentimental beings belonging to the
Byronic or German school. His mind was rather energetic than tender; it
was rather ardent than despairing. The son of a brave country gentleman
who had devoted fortune and life to the cause of legitimacy, and after
having followed the princes in their various emigrations, had died for
them in the wilderness of la Vendée. Ireneus had been the inheritor of
that obstinate will which never deviates from the end it proposes to
itself, and of a chivalric worship of the Royal family, which to him
seemed by a law divine to be invested with the imprescriptible right to
govern France. Of the large fortune which formerly belonged to his
family, the revolution had left him but a dilapidated castle, a few
fields and forests, the revenue of which scarcely sufficed to support his
mother in comfort.

The condition of his fortune did not permit him to lead an idle life. His
birth made his profession certain. He entered Saint-Cyr, and left it with
the best possible recommendations. He could also appeal to the traditions
of his fathers services. Through the union of these two claims he was so
rapidly advanced that at twenty-eight he was already Captain of the
Lancers of the Guard, with an honorable name, a handsome person, some
intelligence and that elegance of manners inherent in the class to which
he belonged, and which to us is known as the aristocracy, the young
nobleman might without presumption anticipate a brilliant future. His
mother amid the silence of her provincial castle followed him step by
step, with pride, and her solitary dreams saw him the husband of a rich
heiress, Colonel and aide-de-camp of a prince, deputy and peer of France.
Who can tell how vague were the hopes entertained in relation to that
child in whom all her hopes were centered!

His mother was lost in this study and observation of castles in the air,
when the revolutions of July burst forth like a thunderbolt, and at one
blow overturned all her aerial edifices.

Ireneus was at Paris when this terrible contest, the result of which was
the overturning of a monarchy, began with the crushing of a throne. He
fought with the ardor inspired at once by his love of legitimacy and his
innate horror of the revolutionary flag. On the first day he had the
honor of resisting with his company a numerous body of insurgents, and
succeeded in protecting the post which had been confided to him. On the
second day, after a desperate contest, the danger of which served only to
magnify his courage, he fell from his horse with a ball through his
chest. His soldiers who were devoted to him bore him to a house where he
was kindly treated. A few hours after, a General who had seen him in the
battle, sent him the brevet of Major. It was an empty honor, for the hand
which signed this promotion soon renounced all human grandeur and all
command.

The wound of Ireneus was severe. The kind attentions however which
surrounded, protected him from danger of death. As soon as he was
beginning to grow well, he went to his mother's house, where his cure
was completed. There he heard of the new exile of those for whom his
father had shed his blood and of the establishment of the new monarchy.
Many of his friends were soon induced to connect themselves with the new
monarchy which retained them in service, and even conferred special
compliments on them, and they wrote to induce him to follow their
example. Such a thought never entered his mind. Without partaking of the
exaggerated hatred of many of the Legitimists against the new monarchy,
he had stated that he would never serve it. He was not a man to violate a
promise. But he was subject to the danger of inactivity, the greatest
torment of active and strong minds. As an ambitious man examines with
great uneasiness the path which leads him to power, as the speculator
contemplates the capricious whims of fortune, as the young officer
waiting orders looks in every direction for action, did Ireneus. More
than once he resolved to join his fortunes with those of the exiled
princes in the arena of public opinion. They however had submitted to
their fate, and no longer appealed to their faithful servants. The time
of Royal crusades had gone by. Sovereigns made uneasy by the
effervescence of revolutions, which like a contagion spread over Europe,
had enough to do to secure their own thrones, and had no disposition to
ruin themselves in lifting up that of a neighbor.

Madame de Vermondans, after striving in vain to amuse her son, induced
him to visit his uncle in Sweden, hoping that travel would restore quiet
to his mind. It was one of those healthful remedies which often escape
the observation of science, and are suggested only by the ingenuity of
tenderness. Nothing in certain moral diseases is more efficacious than
travel. He who after having enjoyed all the emotions of active life,
finds himself at once condemned to the sterility of idleness, suffers
under a perpetual fever. Within him there is as it were an ever-acting
spring he strives with a constant effort to repress.

His intellectual and physical faculties, his imagination, his senses seek
to resume their old power. If the forces with which he is endowed, if the
abundant grasp of his mind are paralyzed in their motion, these forces
weigh on him like a useless burden. Soon in consequence of the internal
contest he has undergone, the constant desires he has given vent to, from
the very exuberance of life, which finding no outlet, recoils on itself,
he becomes a victim of the demon of satiety. To escape from its rude
grasp, air and space are required. The victim must be borne from the
narrow circle within which he is riveted as by a chain, which clasps his
frame. He must shake from himself every chimera, and to enable him to
forget himself, the aspect of strange lands, of scenes and pictures
which one after the other exhibit themselves before him, all that
forcibly attracts the attention, all that occupies the mind in a new
land, material cares, unexpected incidents, the surprises of travel, and
yet more the magical influence of nature, are required to restore tone to
the sick soul.

Ireneus had really experienced the effect of this moral remedy. In his
journey across Germany and the North, he had not recovered his early
impetus, his natural ardor, but he at least felt himself master of
himself. He reached his uncle's house in the happiest possible
disposition of mind.

When he arose on the next day, he took occasion to remark the delicate
Precaution taken to render his sojourn pleasant as possible. The
furniture of maple or birch was plain, but wonderfully neat; the bed
linen was of snowy whiteness and purity; and perfumed by aromatic plants
with which in the drawers it had been strewed. Here and there were a few
choice engravings, and on the floor was a carpet woven by his two
cousins.

At the very dawn of day a servant came to open the earthen stove, which
stood on the hearth like a vast column, and placed in it an armfull of
the pitch pine, which sent out jets of flame and a perfume which filled
the whole room. Double windows protected this room also against the
severity of the weather. Between them was a bed of flocks of wool on
which the young girls had placed artificial flowers, as if to preserve in
the nudity of winter the smiling image of spring. Here windows looked out
on a landscape which in the summer time must have presented a charming
aspect. The house of M. Vermondans stood on a hill, on the brow of which
was a breast of pines. In front of the principal façade was a garden with
a proclivity toward the lake, which was surrounded and sheltered by a
belt of trees. In the distance the peasants' houses were seen, the tall
clock spire of Aland, and far in the distance the chimneys of the furnace
belonging to M. de Vermondans. At this moment, the plain, the
snow-covered woods, the frozen lake presented one uniform color. Any one,
however, might see they would present beautiful landscapes, when the sun
called forth the field-flowers, made the forests lifeful, and gilded the
water.

Ireneus went to his uncle's room. He found the old man rested in an arm
chair, with his legs crossed and a long pipe in his mouth.

M. de Vermondans was not one of those persons who willingly distress
themselves about what the poets call the miseries of human life. He took
things as they came, and enjoyed prosperity without imagining future
troubles.

While young, he had fought with his brothers the battles of legitimacy.
Like his brother, he entertained a mortal hatred for revolutionary
rabble: gradually, like many others, he had begun to reason on the
matter, and become so tolerant that his doctrines reached the point
almost of carelessness. Just as her [sic] nephew came in, he was
reflecting and _quasi_ confirmed in the wisdom of his principles. "Yes,"
said he, as if he continued a conversation already begun, "yes, my
friend, I am as much opposed as you are to a stormy revolution. I left my
father's house, I abandoned my patrimony to accompany our princes into
exile. I have fought for them, in their holy cause I received a sabre cut
on the arm, which every now and then, by a very disagreeable sensation,
recalls my youthful patriotism to me. Soon, however, the idle pretensions
of my comrades, the disputes of our chiefs, repressed my ardor. I left
one of the cohorts in which reason was treated as treachery, and where
boasting alone was listened to with complacency. There firmness and
complaisance were paralyzed now by erroneous movements and next by
contradictory orders. A faithful servant contrived to save a portion of
my estate, and at the peril of his own life brought me twenty thousand
francs in gold. With this sum I came to Sweden, knowing that here
everything was cheap, and determined to buy a small estate on which I
might live, until I could find an opportunity of serving to some purpose
that cause to which my heart was devoted, and which I had never yet
entirely abandoned.

"At Stockholm one of those strange rencontres which we attribute to
chance, but which the pious with more propriety think originate in
Providence, made me acquainted with a land-holder in Angermania, named
Guldberg, as good a man as ever lived. I am indebted to him for all my
prosperity, and I bless his memory. M. Guldberg had discovered a rich
mineral deposit on his estate, was anxious to establish a furnace, and
sought for some one to aid him in his enterprise. In the course of my
studies I had acquired some ideas of hydraulics and mechanics, trifling
enough it is true, but one day conversation having been directed to these
matters, Guldberg, who knew even less than I did, appeared delighted with
my explanations, and asked me to aid him in his projected enterprise.
Without reflecting more than he did when he made the offer, I consented.
I came hither with him: I superintended the construction and the first
labor of the furnace you see glowing there. I was not unlike the ignorant
teacher who  studies in the morning the lesson he teaches in the
afternoon. I made more than one unfortunate experiment. I committed more
than one error, but at last I got our establishment under way. Guldberg
had suffered patiently, and never complained of the mistakes I had made,
and now appeared most grateful for my success. He very generously offered
me a share of the profits of an enterprise which from the very
commencement promised the most favorable results. From this time
commences a series of derogations I now look on as so many wise
resolutions, but which many would look on as acts of apostasy. Here I am,
a French noble, with I know not how many illustrious quarters,
compromising my escatcheon in an industrial occupation. This was the
first derogation. Guldberg had an only daughter, very interesting, and
who pleased me. She had the kindness to show that I was not disagreeable;
she however had not a drop of noble blood, not even a single quartering.
I married her, much to your father's discontent. That was my second
derogation. This woman during her life was the very impersonation of
virtue, but was a protestant, and asked me as a favor that if our
children were female, they might be educated in her faith. My two
daughters believe as their mother did. That is the third derogation.

"An honest young fellow has courted the eldest of these girls. He is the
son of a priest, and will go into orders himself if he does not become
professor of a college. I saw my dear Alete had confidence in him. I
consented that she should marry a plebeian and a heretic. In this was
comprised the fourth and fifth derogation. I suffered the revolutionary
crisis of France to pass without exciting me: I have learned through the
papers that our dear country, the most intelligent in the world, has
successively adulated and cursed the bloody tyranny of Robespiere, the
gallantry of Barras, the Consulate, Empire and the Revolution.

"When the lilies replaced the tricolor, and the amiable people of Paris
cast themselves before the troops of the white-horse of Monsieur, with
the same enthusiasm they had a few years before manifested at the
appearance of the proud charger of the conqueror of Wagram and Jena, I
remained here and never changed my colors: I never cried 'down with the
Corsican Ogre.' Smoking my pipe in peace, I watched my furnace, smiled on
my children and my harvests, in the sunlight of Sweden, which would be so
delightful if it were a little less rare. This was another and a terrible
derogation.

"Gradually, however, dear Ireneus, I built up a faith to suit myself,
found, I think, in the works of no philosopher (I read but little), but
which yet seems to me a very good rule of conduct, inasmuch as it leaves
the conscience at ease and makes me as happy as any one can be in this
valley of tears. I therefore think, dear Ireneus, that in our benevolence
we make monsters of certain ideas which we imbibe when we are children,
and to which, without examination, we always submit ourselves. I think
that without violating any true principle of morality, without ceasing to
be, in any respect, a moral man, we may break some links of that network
of traditions spun for us by our teachers at so much an hour, and which
throws a hood over us as it is thrown over a falcon, to keep it from
flying in the infinitude of space. I respect every sincere belief, even
hat which I look on as a prejudice, and I insist that my own be
respected. As a conclusion of my profession of faith, I am willing to
admit that even a republican convinced of the justness of his opinions
appears as reasonable to me as a monarchist, and that a quaker or
Calvinist is as near heaven as the devout Catholic.

"When my mind lifts itself up toward God, I imagine him the
representative and originater of all good, and I am convinced that the
surest way to approach him, to merit his favor and win his blessing, is,
in the circle in which we are, whether large or small, to do as much good
as possible. I say, that the workingman, who toils for a short time to
assist his invalid neighbor, acquires more merit than the rich man, who
with an icy hand casts his coin into the lap of the indigent. I have the
audacity to think that a king, who in the splendor of his court is
forgetful of the suffering of his people; that a noble, who abandons
himself to all the enjoyments of his fortune, forgetful of misery
languishing at his castle gate, are great criminals; and that God will
punish their misdeeds, either on them, or, as the Bible says, 'on their
children even until the fourth and fifth generation.'"

Ireneus, who had listened in silence to this long profession of faith,
asked himself if it was worth while to contradict it. The words of his
uncle were contradictory of one of those doctrines, which are the more
difficult to shake, as they have their hold in the philosophy of the
heart, and are fenced around with many noble sentiments. His loyalty,
however, seemed to require some reply, and he spoke as follows:

"I understand well enough, my dear uncle, the chain of circumstances
which has led you almost to lay aside the principles which now seem
prejudices to you. I myself willingly immolate on the altar of new ideas
that pride of nobility which delights in the study of old parchments, and
makes a kind of fetish of scutcheons carved on the walls of an ancient
castle. I condemn as a foolish error, the airs of superiority affected by
old nobles in respect to merit sprung from the people; and if, in the
opinion of my father, your marriage with the daughter of your friend,
seemed a degradation, forgive him. Remember that he died at an epoch of
strife and convulsion in which every noble defended, with the greatest
possible ardor, the prerogatives of his rank, which he saw were attacked
by the maddest passion, and were in danger of being lost. Since then we
have made much progress. The barriers which formerly divided society into
two classes have been destroyed, space has been opened for every one to
carve his own way, and the people participate in governments, and in the
royal councils.

"The majority of the ministers of the Restoration were chosen from among
the people. In relation to this, I admit all the reasonings of the
philosophers of the eighteenth century, and of the liberals of our own
times. In them I find expansion of heart, intelligence, and I care not
for genealogy. The qualities of mind, grace and beauty seem to me signs
of distinction marked by the finger of God, who is wiser far than
D'Hozier.[A] I cannot, however, forget that this race of nobles, so
cruelly persecuted thirty years ago, so often trampled on in our own
times, was the glory and the power of France. I was forced with pain to
see with what incessant malignity this race, though stripped of its
ancient power, was attacked. I have often said that in sapping the
foundations of the aristocratic edifice, that in crushing the legitimacy
of the nobles, an attack was made on the legitimacy of monarchy. The
revolution just over has but too well justified my apprehensions. This
revolution which by a species of criminal conversion, selects one of the
old royal blood to occupy the throne of the exile, which selects the one
nearest the throne, is perhaps but the first of a series of convulsions,
in which will be engulfed, by ambition and pride, the wisdom and
experience of the past."


[Footnote A: A genealogist of great repute in France, twenty years
since.]


This conversation between the uncle and nephew was interrupted by the
sound of a horse's hoofs, dragging a sleigh rapidly toward the door of
the house.

"That is beyond doubt my future son-in-law," said M. de Vermondans,
"another philosopher, who, like yourself, does not in every respect agree
with you. He is, however, a good fellow, who under a by no means
aristocratic exterior conceals the noblest qualities."

When she heard the sleigh, Alete ran to the door sill; and Ebba followed
him. At the appearance of the two sisters, like a rose and a lily, the
young man hastened to divest himself of the thick fur which enwrapped
him, sprang from the sleigh, and hastened to his betrothed. He had not,
however, remembered the caprice of Alete, who, instead of giving him her
hand as usual, looked sternly at him, and said:

"Sir, you are incorrigible. How comes that waistcoat to be buttoned
wrong? And why has that cravat wings, like those of a crow? Why does your
shirt-collar come up to your ears? Is this the fruit of the lessons on
the toilette, which I have so often given you? Did I not also order you
to attend to your hair, and not let it fall on your shoulder, like two
bundles of flax, in disorder? You do not know that we have here a cousin
from Paris, who will take you for a Goth, or the Lord knows what."

The poor young man, stupefied at this reception, looked down
mechanically, with his hand on his waistcoat and his cravat, and did not
dare to approach his rigorous mistress.

"Alete, Alete," said Ebba, with a voice of supplication, "how can you be
so cruel!"

Alete, satisfied beyond doubt by the respectful submission with which her
Reproaches had been received, sprang to the neck of her betrothed, and
said,

"But I love my dear Eric truly. If I sometimes play the magnificent with
him, it is to make him think that he has himself, in a noble epistle,
called me his sovereign. Is not this so, Eric?" added she, leaning toward
him like a petted child. "Do you not weary of my little wickednesses? At
present, you see, I use the remnant of my liberty: when we are married,
however, I shall be a model of obedience."

The face of Eric had already become lighted up, and he kissed with
pleasure the little hand placed in his.

Alete seemed to fear nothing so much as these sentimental manifestations,
and took him into the room where the uncle and nephew had their political
contest, and pausing before Ireneus, said,

"Cousin, permit me to introduce to you M. Eric Goldberg, Doctor of the
University of Upsal, and a learned Grecian, who never in his life read a
single line of the _Journal des Modes_, and cannot conceive of the
difference between a good and bad tailor; who would not know how to hold
a fan; or to perform a contradance, but who, in spite of all that, is one
of the best fellows in the world, and is devoted to your cousin."

After this singular introduction, a faint blush spread over the face of
the young doctor. A clasp of the hand, and an affectionate word, however,
from Ireneus, put an end to all embarrassment.

"A strange girl," said M. de Vermondans, following Alete with his eye as
she hurried to the kitchen to take charge of the preparations for dinner.
"Is not that an odd introduction of her husband and lover? She never does
things, however, like other people. Be seated, dear Eric, though, and
tell me why we have not seen you for three days. We had began to be
uneasy about you, and Alete often looked toward the window. Had you not
come to-day, I should have sent to ask the reason."

"My father has been a little unwell," replied  Eric; as he placed his
hands, made red by the cold, near the stove. "I had to remain to assist
him in some of his duties, and to amuse him by reading to him. This
morning, as I learned that Monsieur--Monsieur--"

"Say at once your cousin," said Ireneus, frankly.

"That my cousin" resumed the timid Eric, with more confidence, "had
arrived, I was unwilling to remain longer away, and my father was kind
enough not to wish to retain me."

As the Upsal student pronounced these few simple words, Ireneus observed
him, and discovered in his face such an expression of kindness, and in
his clear blue eyes such intelligence that he felt a real sympathy for
him.

"I thank you," said he, "for thinking of me before you knew me. I hope
that when we shall be acquainted you will grant me a portion of the love
you have conferred on my family. I am already disposed to love you as a
cousin."

"Ah!" cried Eric, springing up, and glancing at Ireneus with an
expression of radiant joy, "how happy I am at what you say! I was afraid.
I will confess, that I might find in you one of those careless men of the
world, as we hear most of the Parisians are. I see, however, you are a
worthy nephew of him I shall soon call uncle."

"Gentlemen," said Alete, who from the door had, with a pleasant smile on
her face, heard this amicable exchange of sentiments, "will you be
pleased to come to dinner?"

"Have they any caviar?" asked M. de Vermondans.

"Certainly, and as good as possible."

"Then we can give this Parisian a complete specimen of the gastronomical
refinements of our out-kitchen."

"You must know, Ireneus," said he, as he led his nephew to a little table
placed in the corner of the dining-room, "that we do not commerce our
meal as the rest of the world does. Our good ancestors certainly
discovered, that the walls of the stomach being contracted by cold,
needed to be refreshed by something spirituous, and from time to time
this estimable precaution has been perpetuated in the country. We will
therefore first take a glass of this brandy, and then a cake of this
caviar, a few anchovies, and a slice or two of ham, after which we will
really sit at the festal board, where the soup, to which you assign the
first rank, appears only as a secondary entree, after many culinary
preparations."

This was done to the great amusement of Ireneus, who really would have
taken for the dinner itself the prelude to it.

When they had sat down, Alete undertook to put him through a course of
national gastronomy.

"What do you think," asked she, "of the fish to which my father has just
helped you?"

"They are very good," replied Ireneus, "and resemble smelts."

"What do you mean by smelts? They are doubtless some tasteless product of
your warm rivers. Know, Monsieur, that these are stroemlings, the finest
and most delicate fish in the icy waters of the north. This other fish,
which glows like a piece of gold in its porcelain plate, you would find
it difficult to call by the correct name. It is a salmon, caught by a
skillful hand, and smoked with particular care. Near you is the tongue of
a reindeer, prepared by a Laplander, unrivaled in this useful art. This
bird, which yet looks fixedly at you with open eyes, though it died two
days ago, you might fancy a barn-door fowl, fattened up by the cook. Not
so: it is the briar-cock, the honor of our forests. The two fowls in that
dish are not a pair of vulgar pullets, but succulent grouse. I will not
mention that haunch of sanglier, which, however, is worthy of a royal
table; nor of those vegetables, which strangers say are nowhere as finely
flavored as they are in our loved Sweden; nor of those berries, gathered
last fall on the sides of our hills. Pay some attention, however, to that
bread which you break so carelesely with your fingers. It is not coarse
and heavy, like that of other countries. It is our _kneach-brad_,
delicate and light as a sheet of paper, and white as the purest flour."

"Have you done?" said M. de Vermondans; "and can you not, as an
accompaniment to so many exquisite things, bring us a bottle of claret?"

"Wrong again." said Alete; "as if this beer, prepared from the best
barley, the most perfumed hops, yellow as the Baltic, amber and pure as
spring-water, was not more valuable than the coarse red fluid you send to
such a distance for."

"I agree with you," said Ireneus, who in his turn wished to laugh at the
young girl. "It seems to me, that when seated in front of the riches of
the north, it would be a profanation to pour out a libation in a foreign
beverage. This beer has besides so excellent a flavor, that were there
anything like it in France, it is probable that the owners of the Clos de
Vaugeot and Medoc would root out their vines to make room for hops and
barley."

"You are laughing at me, dear cousin," said Alete; "take care, however."

"Peste!" said M. de Vermondans, "any one who knows you would be rash
indeed to excite your ceaseless babble. I do not think that Ireneus, who
has more than once proved his courage, is bold enough for that."

"Two royal officers contending against a poor country-girl," said Alete.
"We are not fairly matched, and I will go for the claret."

It was wrong for Alete to leave just then, for the conversation, which
hitherto had been gaily sustained, immediately began to languish, and
assumed a direction which compelled her to silence.

Ireneus complained of the inroad of democratic ideas, of the trembling
and fall of aristocratic institutions, of the authority of right divine,
which in his chivalric enthusiasm he looked on as the basis of society.

"Ah," replied Eric, with a tone of voice which seemed aroused by a
feeling of affection, "this holy authority will lift itself up from the
level of the popular waves which threaten to overwhelm it. It will appear
clear and brilliant as our polar star, above the clouds which now
surround it. It would subsist in all its power, if it were exercised by
men who comprehended the holy duties it imposed on them. Everything
connected with this primitive law, with this noble image of patriarchal
government, would yet exist, if each member of the great social family
would contemplate from a just point of view his own condition, and carry
out the consequences in a Christian-like manner.

"Charity, that is to say love and compassion, the two expressions in
which are summed up all the joys and miseries of human life, are two
virtues, ennobling and consoling man. Let the rich man be charitable to
the servant he has subjected to his will, toward the poor man who begs of
him. Let him say every day, as he awakes, every night as he prepares
himself for repose, that the more powerful he has been made by
Providence, the greater is the obligation he is under to aid and protect
those around him. In his turn, let the poor man be charitable to the
rich; let him know that no rock of marble, no gilded platform can rescue
the prince from mortal anxiety, and that human grief is found beneath the
imperial purple as well as wrapped in rags, and that often the noble,
surrounded by riches and at the festal board, is forced to envy the
humble hut and obscure repose of the coal-burner.

"If ever," pursued Eric, with an accent of enthusiasm, "I shall be called
to expound the word of God, this especially shall be the text of my
sermons: Charity! Charity! By charity I do not mean the habit of
extending the hand, which by a kind of instinctive motion, lets alms fall
in the blind man's basket, nor the graceful action of a lady who at
certain hours leaves the saloon to visit the garret. True charity
consists not so much in material aid as in the gifts of the heart; and
every individual, humble as he may be, may perform a precious act of
charity. To pay correct esteem to a poor man who has been calumniated;
to revive hope in a mind overpowered by misfortune and tortured by doubt;
to console by kind words a soul mistaken and suffering from errors; each
of these is a charity. To be mild and kind to all who approach you, to be
indulgent to those blinded by the glitter of prosperity, to be kind and
affectionate even when an effort is required to be so, to open a
sympathizing heart to all complainings, to all diseases, to all human
errors, is the way to gain daily the choicest opportunities of charity.
To be charitable is to be good. One of your illustrious writers,
Bernardin de Saint Pierre, said, 'Were every one to regulate his own
house, order would be the law of nature.' We may also say, were each one
to do good, universal happiness would be certain."

"Dear, dear Eric," said Alete, clasping his hand. Then as if she
reproached herself for this emotion, she suddenly withdrew it and said,
"You need not get into the pulpit to preach a very edifying sermon. You
treat us already as your future parishioners, and honor my cousin in the
same manner. Since you have begun, will you not complete his education?
That beautiful France, the wit and learning of which is so much extolled,
exhibits a haughty disdain of the science of other lands. I am sure my
cousin knows very little of the history of Sweden,--that magnificent
chronicle which in its royal genealogies dates from the deluge. You can
teach him. My learned sister Ebba will also teach him Swedish, the most
beautiful and harmonious tongue in the world, and certainly the oldest,
since savans have proven that Adam and Eve spoke it in Paradise. I also
wish to do my duty, and will guide my cousin in the study of natural
history of grouse and briar-cock, and the aromatic plants which grow on
our hillsides."

"You jest," said Ireneus, "but I seriously adopt your proposition."

"Bah! bah!" cried M. de Vermondans. "He would be a pretty Captain of
Lancers if he were to subject himself to pedagogues, like a school-boy,
and study themes and versions like a college lad."

"Excuse me, my dear uncle, the most unpleasant thing in the world to me
is to be idle. Since circumstances condemn me to inactivity, I would, if
possible, employ my time usefully. I shall be very grateful to Eric and
my cousins, if they will give me the instruction I need so much. I shall
be delighted to study the history of Sweden, a language spoken by persons
I love better than any in the world, and the products of the soil of
Which Alete is the amiable Buffon."

"So be it," said M. de Vermondans, who, in spite of his eclecticism in
politics, had, with a strange mental contradiction, preserved in relation
to certain things very deeply rooted ideas, "So be it. In my time people
took up no such fancies--more than one _emigre_ passed ten years of his
life in a foreign country, and never learned to speak its language. The
young men of our times are not like those of to-day. The world, which
when I knew it was so gay and careless, which from its very recklessness
and its choleric daring was so interesting, now looks to me like a vast
school. Its atmosphere, formerly impregnated with perfumes, is now
saturated with the atmosphere of dusty tomes and damp newspapers. We meet
with no one but persons anxious either to teach or learn. What will
become of us if we give way to this pedantic pride? If we surrender to
this anxiety to analyze everything? If we go on so, to suit us, God will
be compelled to make a new world, to give occupation to the lofty fancies
of naturalists and physical philosophers, who seem to me to have weighed
and examined this thoroughly.

"Bah! bah! Mademoiselle the philosopher," said M. de Vermondans, as he
saw Ebba smile, "I am not ignorant that just now I talk very much like a
heretic. You have delighted in reading a multitude of books. I excuse
you, however, because you never boast of your acquisitions.

"You do not belong to those blue-stockings, and I have met many such,
who, as soon as you approach them, throw at your head the name of a poet
like a bomb-shell, and exhibit the wealth of their arsenal by firing a
philosophical cannon, or algebraic chain shot.

"May God almighty keep me from those women who forget in this manner the
natural graces of their sex. Let him protect me from those Laureates who
can see no natural phenomenon without crying out with stupid
satisfaction, 'I know the reason.'

"Imagine how delighted I should be, if when enjoying the delicious luxury
of sunset, some bachelor of arts should say--

"'Monsieur, will you suffer me to explain how various clouds assume the
colors which so vividly impress you, and with what rapidity light comes
to the eye?'

"For heaven's sake let me enjoy in peace all the gifts of Providence,
admire its works in the innocence of my heart, and discover by what
geometrical process God has regulated the form of the globe, and to what
pallet, to use the painter's phrase, he has ground his colors."

"There you express a pious and respectable sentiment, which, however,
permit me to say, cannot be admitted without some qualification. We must
not forget that the greatest gift with which God has endowed man is
intelligence, and that one of our first duties is to attempt to develop
that intelligence by means of every faculty and all the means of
application with which he has endowed us."

"Good. If you were sure that you would not lose yourself amid temptation,
or, if like Tobias, you had an angel to guide you in the stormy voyage
you undertake. Into what derangement of pride has not man fallen, from
the fabulous Prometheus, who sought to snatch fire from heaven, to the
Philosophers of the eighteenth century, who extinguished fire in the
lights of their reason. Prove to me that what you call human reason has
in any manner purified or ennobled the moral sentiment, and I will bow
myself before your logicians and rhetoricians. To what direction soever I
turn I see only vain puerilities, useless labor, doubtful hypotheses,
presumption and falsehood. I admit that you may count amid the multitude
of books lumbering the shelves of your libraries many innocent and
instructive works. Those books, however, prove your impotence.

"Act as you please, and you will never be able to develop equally the
various mental powers. To expand one it is necessary to repress the
others. By giving your reason the rude aliment of scholastic argument,
you neglect your imagination. By illuminating your mind you overshadow
your heart. You congratulate yourself at the discovery of a problem, the
solution of which you have long sought for. Scientific journals become
filled with numerous dissertations about it, academies decree crowns and
medals to the author of the precious discovery. No one remembers, that
each of these solutions breaks one of the wonderful chains of charming
symbols, of naive ideas which once animated and vivified the people. That
it strips it of poetry, of the emotions of the heart, and the delightful
and fairy-like creations of the imagination.

"The ancients were not so learned as we, yet they were wiser. They did
not explain the phenomena of nature, but described with a graceful and
imposing imagery. The rainbow, reduced in our colleges to a mere
conformation of matter, was the scarf of Iris; the light-footed hours
preceded the car of night, and the rosy-fingered Aurora opened the
horizon to permit the car of Jove to pass. When the thunder rolled,
Jupiter spoke to attentive mortals. When volcanic mountains trembled, the
old Titans sought to throw off the mass of rocks which weighed on them as
an eternal punishment of crime. The middle age, yet more naïve and
poetical, peopled the air, fields, woods, and waters with a crowd of
mysterious beings who spoke to the senses and thought, and awakened in
the human mind a mild sentiment of faith or healthful fear.

"Now, thanks to your haughty reason, we have banished, like idle fancies,
all these creations of our forefathers. Now we know that the air has no
other voice than that of the wind and tempest; that the wood has no
animals other than those the structure of whom has been minutely
described; that there are no fairies in the green fields, and no
invisible spirits watching over the hearth and fireside. Man, relying on
his reason, would be ashamed to suffer himself to be excited by tales of
ghosts. He has cast aside all supernatural apprehensions; and I see the
coming of the time when even Saint Nicholas will not impose on children.
What have we gained by thus shaking off the network of smiling and
serious fancies, which both enlivened and restrained our fancy? Are we
happier, stronger, or better? Alas! for my own part, even were I to pass
for a mind behind the times, I would confess that I regret those days of
candid credulity in which each dark forest had its legend, every chapel
its history. One of the reasons why I love the Swedes, amid whom I found
a peaceful home, is, that they have not yet sacrificed to the teachings
of modern times their old poetry; and that in the majority of their
woodland homes are a multitude of popular songs, of traditional faiths,
of domestic customs, which recall the poetic days of the middle age. Is
not this true, Ebba? You know something of this matter, for you
participate in my predilections in relation to them; and more than once
I have seen you listen anxiously to the stories of the old women of
Aland."

"Yes, father," said Ebba; who had listened with eager sympathy to the
long dissertation of the old man, while Eric and Ireneus listened
modestly to all he had said.

"When you give me a lesson in Swedish," said Ireneus, "will you be kind
enough to add to it some of those histories, which, I assure you,
interest me in no small degree?"

"If you wish it," said Ebba, "I will." Whenever she spoke she seemed with
difficulty to surmount her timidity.

"Well, my dear nephew," said M. de Vermondans, with Eric on one side,
Ebba on the other, and the practical knowledge of Alete, "it seems to me
you can employ your time very profitably; for my own part I can only
induct you into the mysteries of bear-hunting, and the chase of the stag
and reindeer. It is so rude that I shall not be able to keep up with you.
Among my people, however, I shall be able to find a guide, who finds game
like a blood-hound, and follows it like a lion."

"That will do wonderfully well, uncle; with so attractive an offer, I
fear only that amid my amusements I shall forget my country and my
regiment, and become faithless to my king."



PART II.

Even if Ireneus had not willingly accepted the plan worked out for the
Employment of his leisure in study, the rigorous climate of Sweden would,
in some manner, have made it compulsory for him to do so. To the cold and
dry days, which, during the winter, enlightened and animated the people
of the north, succeeded storms and hurricanes. Tempests of snow floated
in the air, covered the paths, and blocked up the doors of the houses. A
cloudy horizon and black sky seemed to close around every house, like a
girdle of iron. At a little distance not even a hill could be
distinguished from a forest; all was, as it were, drowned and overwhelmed
in a misty ocean, in movable columns of snow, which were impetuous, and
irresistible as the sand-whirlpools of the desert. About midday a light
purple tint, like a dying twilight, glittered in somber space: a ray
thrown by the sun across the clouds, gave an uncertain light. All,
however, soon became dark again. One might have fancied that the god of
day had retired over-wearied from regions he had in vain attempted to
subdue. Nowhere does the symbolical dogma of the contests of darkness
and light manifest itself in more characteristic traits than in the
Scandinavian mythology; and nowhere does it appear physically under a
more positive image than in the regions which have been for centuries
devoted to this mythology. During the summer at the north, the sun reigns
like an absolute sovereign over nature, and ceaselessly lights it with
his crown of fire; he ever watches it, like a jealous lover. If he
inclines toward the horizon, if his burning disk disappears behind the
purple mountain brows, he leaves for only a moment those polar regions,
and leaves even then a clearness behind like the dawn. He soon reappears
in his spotless splendor.

In the winter, however, he yields to night, which, with her dark cortege,
occupies the northern world. She envelops space with her black wings, and
casts the ice and snow from her bosom. Sometimes, for weeks, the storms
are so violent, that one cannot, without danger, venture into the fields;
and cruel necessity alone induces the peasant to take the road, either to
offer something for sale in the nearest market, or to gain a few
shillings as a guide to some adventurous traveler. Sometimes, even the
peasants of this country are afraid to cast their nets in the river, and
gulf, which in the greatest degree contribute to their subsistence.
During the greater portion of the time, the poor people of the north,
secluded in their homes by masses of snow, isolated from their neighbors,
pass whole winters by the fireside. The men occupy themselves in
repairing the harness of their horses, in mending the iron work of their
carriages--for in that country the homes of people are so far from each
other, that each family is forced to provide for its daily wants, and
every peasant is at once saddler, wagon-maker, and carpenter. Women are
busy in weaving and spinning. In many provinces, especially in that in
which the uncle of Ireneus had established himself, there was in
existence an _industry_, which, during the last twenty years, has been
much developed. Every peasant's house is a perfect workshop, for the
manufacture of linen. Woofs, white and fine as those of Holland, and
quite as good, are there produced. This variety of work commences after
harvest. In the autumn evenings, women, young girls, &c., assemble at
different houses, with their distaff or bundle of flax, which they place
before the hearth. It is pleasant, indeed, to see this collection of
industrious women, busied in the performance of the task prescribed to
them, laughing, talking, without sometimes taking time even to listen to
the young lovers who hover around them.

Often a respectable grandmother, the fingers of whom were wrinkled by
age, and which neither weave nor spin, would bid the wild troop be
silent, as she told one of the mad  histories of old times. Then, one of
the work-women would merrily ring out the peasant songs, the chorus of
which her companions would re-echo. After a few hours of toil, a young
man would arise, and give a pleasant signal. All chairs and benches would
at once be removed; the work-shop would be changed into a ball-room. To
supply the deficiency of an orchestra, one of the spectators defined the
modulations of a dance by some old traditionary song. Young men and women
took each other by the hand, and formed together one of those country
groups which are the elements of the chorographic art. They then parted,
making a rendezvous for the next day, for another hearth-side, but for
similar amusements. All the work-women, returned to their own houses,
where they gaily retailed all the episodes of the evening's events, some
recording merely a silent glance, which met their own, or a furtive clasp
of the hand which had aroused a blush. More than one happy acquaintance
originates in one of those northern evenings--and more than one girl,
who, in the autumn, has a heart free as air, in the spring wears on her
finger the ring of a promised bride.

When the weather was good, Ebba went out sometimes alone, to be present
at these re-unions. All rose to welcome her with a sentiment of respect
and attention, for she was kind to the poor.

The young people silently withdrew, and the matron of the house gave her
the most pleasant seat by the hearth-side. The children, however, to whom
she brought every day fruits and presents, leaped and danced around her.
The old village story-tellers were also glad when she came, for no one
Questioned them with more kindness, or listened with more attention to
their popular tales. Her delicate tournure, her graceful form, her pale
and melancholy look, were in striking contrast with those around her. To
see her motionless and mute amid the merry girls and the robust young
persons, would have induced a belief that she was one of those
supernatural beings, one of those fairy inhabitants of woods and
waters--strange legends about whom she so much delighted in. She entered
and retired silently, and her light feet seemed scarcely to touch the
ground. She flitted away like an aerial being, leaving with all those
whom she visited an indefinable impression, and arousing in some the
vague remembrance of a superstitious being.

One evening, when she was about to leave, a woman, who had looked
Attentively at her, said, "Dear young lady; how feeble and ill she
seems!"

"Yes," said a timid voice, "one might almost think she had joined in the
elfin dance."

"What is the elfin dance?" asked a young man; "I have seen many, but
never that."

"God grant you never may," said the one to whom he spoke; "the elves are
wonderful beings, who come we know not whence; and live, we know not how,
in the mountain gorges and woods. Probably they are the descendants of
some race accursed of God, and sentenced to live on earth, deprived of
every joy and hope. They never enter towns; do not associate with us; but
when they see a solitary wanderer, they seek to win him to them, and
exercise a most unhappy influence over him.

"You sometimes have seen large circles of grass in the meadows trampled
down. They are traced by the elves, as they dance in the summer night
when the moon is shining. Wo to the wanderer, wo to the young girl, who
at that time passes near them. The elves invite them to join in the
dance, and sometimes drag them by force away. Into the veins of any one
who comes within their circle, a secret poison is infused, which makes
him languish and die. I tell you, I fear that Ebba, good and charitable
as she is, has been surprised by those accursed beings; for she has the
pale face and languid air of those who suffer from philtre of the elves."

Sitting one morning in the room of her father, Ebba was discharging the
task she had proposed to herself in jest. She was teaching Ireneus the
elements of the beautiful Swedish language, of the Islandic from which it
is derived, and which has its ulterior origin in the old tongues of
India, the cradle of the great Gothic races. "It is pleasant," says
Byron, "to learn a foreign tongue from the eyes and lips of a woman."
Ireneus enjoyed all the luxury of such a system of instruction.

Without having what is called a poetical nature, he was not a little
under the influence of the poetry of his situation, of the beautiful girl
who taught him, of her sweet smile, and the affectionate voice which
stimulated his zeal or reproved his mistakes. Any accidental question,
any quotation, a single word often would hurry the young girl's mind to
her favorite theme, the mythology of the north.

In her early youth, she had studied the curious dogmas of the old
Scandinavians, a singular assemblage of terrible symbols and smiling
images borrowed from the flowery regions of the east, and of dark
conceptions produced in the cloudy north.

Not only did she know all the tales, but in some sort she lived in the
memory of the heroic and religious traditions sung in the solemn
dithyrambics of the Edda, and met with in every page of the Islandic
sagas. Though her heart was always Christian, she was amazed, from time
to time, at hearing herself speak, like a pagan, of the beneficent
Baldus, of Loki, the spirit of evil, and of Freya, the golden tears of
whom formed the Baltic amber. To her, the world was yet peopled by the
mythological beings, created by the naïve faith of the north, and to them
she had learned to adapt the phenomena of nature. When she heard the
thunder, she thought of Thor, and his mighty hammer, driving across the
heavens in his iron car. If the sky was clear, she thought the luminous
Alfis lighted up the horizon.

In the pantheism of Scandinavian mythology, which, though less seductive,
is less comprehensive than that of the Greeks, all that she heard assumed
a mysterious existence. Plants were watered by the foam the horse of
night shakes on the earth, as he tosses his mane and champs his bit.

Crows had a prophetic power. The eagle sailing through the air, recalled
 to her that deathless bird which sits on the boughs of Ygdrasil, the
tree of the world. A secret spring, hidden amid the woods, seemed to her
the emblem of that deep spring in which the Nornas spin and cut the
thread of life. To these traditions, far older than Christianity, she
united the popular legends of the middle age. If night, the whistling of
the wind, the rattling of the rain, the murmur of the trees, made a
confused murmur in her ears, she fancied that she heard the barking of
dogs, the sound of horns, and the cry of the wild huntsman sentenced to
wander forever from vale to vale, from mountain to mountain, because he
had violated a Sabbath or saints' day. If, on some calm day, she looked
at the golden and purple surface of the lake, she fancied that she saw,
in the depth of the water, the spires and roofs of the houses of some
city which God had punished for impiety, by burying it beneath the waves.

If she stood on the banks of a rapid stream, at the foot of a cascade,
she said that the sounds she heard came from Stromkarl. The Stromkarl has
a silver harp, on which he plays wild melodies. If his favor be gained,
by any present, he teaches the listener his songs. Wo, however, to the
man who hears him for the ninth time. He cannot shake off the
supernatural charm, and becomes a victim to his imprudent temerity.

One evening all the family was collected around the earthen stove. Eric
was there. Suddenly the sky, which in the morning had been dark and
cloudy, was lit up as if by the blaze of a immense conflagration. The
aurora-borealis, that wonderful phenomenon of the north, glittered in the
horizon, and gradually extended its evolutions from the east to the west.
Sometimes all the colors of the rainbow were visible, and again it
glittered like a mass of fusees, or transformed itself into a vast white
cloud, sparkling like the milky-way. Again it would assume the most
splendid blaze, and appear like a mantle of purple and gold. For one
moment the rays would be alligned, and gradually disappear in the
distance; then they would cross each other like network. Again they would
arrange themselves in bows, dart out with arrowing points, shoot into
towers and form crowns. It might have been fancied the creation of a
kaleidescope, into which the hand of a magician had cast jets of life,
oscillating and floating under every form. At the same time, there was
heard in the air a sound like that accompanying the discharge of
fireworks.

Eric, who had been asked to give an explanation of this phenomenon,
analyzed the various theories of philosophers on the subject. He
especially referred to those of the Society of Copenhagen. He said this
was one of the phenomena which no philosopher had as yet explained; that
of all the hypotheses on the matter, the most specious was that which
ascribes the aurora-borealis to the reflection of the northern ices.

"My wise daughter, what do you think of it?" said M. Vermondans, speaking
to Ebba, who, with her hands crossed over her chest with religious
silence, sat looking at a phenomenon she had witnessed every winter,
and which on every occasion awakened a new emotion.

Ebba said, "I do not know the dissertations of academies, like Eric.
Since, however, they do not explain the cause and motion of the aurora
borealis, I had rather rely on the simple and religious traditions of an
ignorant people, to that of the Greenlanders, who say that the rays of
the aurora come from the glare of souls which wander over the skies."

"On my soul," said M. Vermondans, "that idea pleases me. Like the
problems of the natural philosophers, it does not explain the problem of
the aurora-borealis, but it is much more poetical. This tradition
contributes to the assistance of an idea I advanced the other day, on the
vanity of scientific speculations, especially when we compare them with
the delicious conceptions of the ignorant."

"True," replied Eric, "in the infancy of nations, as in the childhood of
the individual, there is a graceful poetry, an ideal and intellectual
understanding of nature, which does not resist grave impressions or the
reason of mature age. Thus, amid the wild nations of North America, the
poor mother who has lost a child, fancies that she scents the perfume of
its breath in the flowers, and hears its sigh in the voices of the birds.
Thus is it that our Lapland neighbors attach a touching faith to many
physical incidents.

"When one of them becomes ill, they say that his soul has been called to
a better world by the loving beings he has lost; and that his soul is
about to depart to yield to their prayers, and seek its final home with
them. Then they send for a sorcerer, who casts himself on his face on the
ground, and in mysterious words beseeches the wandering soul to return.
If it yields to the supplications, if it returns to the tabernacle it has
inhabited, the invalid recovers breath and strength; if not, he dies.
Such, and a variety of other examples, we find in every direction, in the
wonderful tales of the east, in the popular traditions of the north, and
they prove clearly enough that there are flowers of poetry and
spring-like perfumes full of inimitable grace in all primitive societies,
even where gross ignorance and coarse usages distress us.

"Think you though that science also is without poetry? If you understand
by poetry, what I think you do, every ennobling of thought, every
exaltation of mind, do you think there is no lofty and grand poetry in
that geology which searches into the bowels of the earth, and exhibits to
you the different layers of which it is composed, and the revolutions it
has undergone; in the researches of the naturalist, who exhibits the
creations of an antediluvian world; in the observations of the
astronomer, who explains the configuration and harmonious movements of
those luminous orbs removed millions of miles from that on which we
dwell? Do you think there is no poetry in the material development of
civilized societies, in the industrious activity which digs canals,
pierces mountains, subdues the elements, and moves all to man's will?"

"Ah, certainly I experience a very agreeable emotion, when in an old
custom I find the traces of the religious spirit of our fathers, and
listen to their legends and songs. This emotion, however, does not
prevent me from thinking of that which should be created by the imposing
spectacle of the progress of civilization, more than the pleasure I would
enjoy if I reposed by the side of a fresh spring, mysteriously concealed
amid a forest, would prevent me from loving to look on a majestic river,
down which floated the canvas of some ship, or the boilers of a steamer.
The perfection of matters would be to kindle our soul with the lights of
science, and at the same time preserve the innocent candor of our hearts.
Thus will we obey the Bible-text which says, 'You shall not enter the
Kingdom of heaven, unless you be as little children.' To be a child in
simple-heartedness, a man in toil and labor, is the end we should propose
to ourselves."

"Yes," said M. de Vermondans, "that is a truly noble object. We cannot
however expect to attain it. Pride unnoticed, is created by the very
labor of our minds, and when that poison has inoculated our hearts,
farewell to innocence. I will agree with you as to the indisputable
benefits of science. Confess, however, that all the learning of your
philosophers and mathematicians can I never confer on any people the
precious customs of the days of old. When we look back on what has been
done by the would-be wise men of antiquity to ennoble the moral state
of man, I will not speak of the mad ceremonial of the burlesque festivals
invented by the revolutionists of 1793. They were but scenes of disorder
and frenzy. Imagine, however, the purest and most solemn of the
discoveries of science, and compare it with the Christmas festival which
the Swedish peasant will celebrate in a few days, and tell me which
contributes to true emotion, to the moral good. Alete, give me my pipe."

The last words were the usual signal given by the good old man when he
felt the length of the conversation fatiguing, or felt his favorite ideas
paradoxical, though they sometimes were pressed on by arguments the tenor
of which he found it difficult to resist.

Alete went to get the long pipe, with its stem of maple-root, and filled
it with tobacco with her own pretty fingers. A sweet smile and a
deferential look from Eric recompensed her. When he saw M. de Vermondans
seated in his chair, and inhaling the aroma of tobacco through the amber
mouthpiece, he said,

"Since you remember our Christmas festival, you will not forget that we
expect you, Ebba, Alete, and Ireneus to keep it at our house."

"Yes, Eric," said M. de Vermondans, "I like your father, and shall be
happy to pass a day with him."

"Yes, dear Eric," said Alete, "I love your father. Pay however some
attention to old Marguerite's preparations. I wish to be received like a
princess, and if all the plate is not produced to do me honor, if the
table be not covered with the finest linen and loaded with delicacies, if
the furniture does not glitter like glass, and the passage-hall and
corridor are not bright as if for a wedding, I will turn all the house
upside down."

"Well well," said Eric, "there you are a queen. My father will turn over
all power to you, and you may make as many reforms as you please."


Part III.

A few days after the visit of Eric, the groom of M. de Vermondans took
from the carriage-house two sleighs, trimmed with wolf and bear-skins,
and harnessed to each of them a spirited horse, the activity of which
seemed enhanced by the cold morning air. In the first sleigh sat M. de
Vermondans and Alete; and Ireneus and Ebba entered the second.

"Are we ready?" said the old man, as he took the reins in one hand, and
the whip in the other.

"Yes," said Ireneus, after he had wrapped up the delicate frame confided
to him in a large Astracan-skin.

"Well, let us start." The horses, as soon as the reins were loosed, left
the house at a gallop.

"I am glad," said Ebba to Ireneus, "that you are in Sweden at this
season, which to us is so solemn."

"Do you then celebrate Christmas with so much pomp?"

"I do not think it is celebrated in any country of the world with so much
joy and unanimity, from the northern extremity of the realm to the
southern boundary, in town and country, in palace and peasant's hut."

"I am sure that in this festival there are touching usages, with which
you are thoroughly acquainted. I shall be delighted if you will explain
them to me. All you have told me of your popular legends and
superstitions, opens to me, as it were, a new world, in which, I assure
you, I am glad to wander."

"Were I not afraid that I would appear pedantic to you." said Ebba, "I
would tell you what Eric has told me about our Christmas festival. It
appears to date back to a remote day before the Christian era. At this
season our pagan ancestors celebrated the winter solstice, just as on the
25th of June they did that of summer. The early name of this festival,
which we yet preserve, indicates an astronomical idea. It was called
_Julfest_. (the feast of the wheel,) certainly because the sun, the
evolutions of which are on the 25th December marked by the shortest day,
and June 25th by the longest. Whatever may have been, the primitive
nature of this festival, Christianity gave it an august character. To us
it is not a material symbol, but tho commemoration of the day on which
the Savior of earth was born in a stable. That day seems to announce glad
tidings to the Swedish peasant, as it did to the shepherds of Bethlehem,
for each seem to rejoice. The courts and schools have recess, parents and
friends visit each other, not to discharge the common duty of politeness,
to leave a card with the porter, but to pass whole hours in gayety and
frank intercourse."

On all the high and cross-roads, you see sleighs filled with travelers.
One will contain a daughter married at a distance from home, who at this
time of universal enjoyment wishes to visit the old hearth-side, The
other contains a son, who comes from the University, or from the city
where he is employed, to kiss his mother. The soldier who all the year
has borne in patience the severity of garrison duty, is satisfied with
his profession, if he can at that season obtain a leave of absence for a
few weeks. The sailor returned from a distant voyage, looks anxiously at
the sea and sky, and increases his zeal and activity, to be enabled to
reach Sweden by Christmas. The houses everywhere are open, and the table
is always spread. All is made scrupulously clean, for at this season,
every housewife loves to display her order and carefulness. The rich
display damask and rich hangings. The poor strew pine branches on the
floor, and white curtains newly bleached, deck the windows. You reach the
family-hearth. One of the servants takes your horse to the stable,
another hangs your valise before the fire to dry it. The mistress of the
house, while dinner is being prepared, offers you a glass of brandy, or
of beer prepared expressly for Christmas, and called JULÆL. The young
women bring you cakes prepared by themselves. Your hands are shaken
cordially, presents are made, it matters not whether trifling or rich,
they are Christmas remembrances and a pledge of love.

In many of the peasants' houses, all the shoes of the family are, as a
sign of this union, placed side by side of each other. In many also
before and after meals, a hymn is sung. Then when dinner is over, old
men, women and children dance together. Servants and masters mingle
together, and even the mendicant is kindly received. On that day the
God of mercy descended to save indiscriminately the rich and the poor,
and to teach the proud and the humble the brotherhood of the Gospel. At
this season of universal sympathy, even the animals are not forgotten,
a larger ration of grain and hay is carried to the stable, and barley is
strewn on the snow for the birds, who are then unable to glean in the
fields, and who, delighted by this unexpected provender, in their cries
seem to warble forth a Christmas hymn. In some villages the little
tomtegubbar or invisible genii, protecting the household, are yet
remembered, and vases of milk are placed on the floor for them. Other
superstitions are also joined to this religious festival. Thus in many
peasant houses, a straw-bed is made on the floor, and on it the children
and servants sleep during the night. On the next day, this bed is taken
to the court-yard, or barn, and it is thought to preserve the fowls from
birds of prey, and the cattle from disease. This straw is also strewn on
the fields around fruit trees, which it is thought to make healthy. At
evening, two torches are lit to burn all night; if one of them becomes
extinguished or is burned out before day, it is a sign of trouble, that
during the course of the year there will be a death in the house. All
fancy that in Christmas a revelation of the future is found. To read this
prophecy however, it is necessary to rise before dawn, to go fasting and
in silence into the wood, without speaking or looking around. If too at
sunrise, the church is reached before the crowing of the cock, the
coffins of those who will die during the year will be seen, and by
turning the head around, it may be learned if the harvest will be good or
bad, or whether there will be a conflagration in the village.

While Ebba was describing these usages and superstitions of Sweden, the
sleighs passed rapidly along the snow plains, which had been previously
leveled by other vehicles. The spire of the church in which the father
of Eric for thirty years had officiated as PROST with honor and dignity
was seen. About fifty houses were arranged in a circle around the ascent
of a hill. There was one among them of comparatively large dimensions, of
two stories, and built of stone, a rare thing in Sweden, whose country
houses usually have but one story and an attic, and are built of wood.
One side of this house adjoined a large and beautiful church, and the
other on an inclosure. Two rows of windows in the principal façade looked
out on the gulf, and before the principal door was a terrace commanding a
most extensive view. At this moment the sun lit up the polished windows,
and the plain, covered with an immense sheet of snow, shone brilliantly.
The sea with a fringe of ice close to the shore, rolled in the distance
its free and azure waves, and the forests which appeared here and there
in their somber verdure and mute majesty, the vast and silent space, the
little village, the motion of the population of which was already
visible, presented to Ireneus a picture which differed so much from all
he had seen, that it filled him with wonder and surprise.

"The house," said Ebba, "which I see has attracted your attention, is
that of Eric's father, a good and venerable old man, the whole of the
life of whom has been an example of prudence and usefulness. He does
much good around him, by means of his religious exhortations and
agricultural industry. In Sweden, many of the clergy act in this double
capacity. The greater portion of the revenue of many livings consists
entirely of the revenue of the lands with which they are endowed. If the
priest does not take pleasure in rural occupations, he farms out the
lands, and quietly receives the rent. They render important services to
the districts amid which they live. They are teachers of labor, and often
introduce systems of agricultural improvement revealed to them by science
or a new machine.

"The father of Eric is one of those farmer priests; for more than twenty
years without neglecting any of his sacerdotal duties, he has cultivated
a large farm attached to the presbytery. He has given lessons in
agriculture to the peasants, and enforced them by success, for no fields
are more productive than his own, and no yard has seen fine cattle. How
great is his activity!

"How often have his people seen him brave, with a vigor they could not
but admire, the summer's heat and winter's ice. At present the
infirmities of age render this rude toil impossible. He, however, does
not cease to correspond with many agricultural societies, and encourage
those who have recourse to his counsels. He is one of those rare men
gifted with meditative faculties, and with great practical capacity."

"How pleasant is it." said Ireneus, "to suffer my mind to repose in the
asylum you have opened for it. Since my coming hither I have met with
none but pure hearts, and have beheld only the mild pictures of a pure
and peaceable existence. How different is it from the agitation of all
parties in my own land! Yet, however, even amid the calm and repose I
here enjoy, how I regret it. I saw it so great and prosperous, and
thought its destiny so certain!"

"Console yourself, cousin," said Ebba, "you will see that country again,
which it is both a necessity and a duty for you to love. You will see it
in that normal condition from which it has by a great crisis been thrown.
Moral diseases, like physical ones, sometimes attack men, and God, to
punish the errors of a people, to abase its pride, strikes it with one of
these mental contagions, yields it up to the effervescence of its bad
thoughts, until the people humiliates and corrects itself, bending before
the arm of the Avenger in penitence, and returns to the path from which
it has wandered."

Ireneus was amazed to hear her speak thus. The timid young girl seemed
like a prophetess animated with a mighty inspiration. A flush was on her
pale face, and in her glance was the light of enthusiasm.

"You are a noble creature," said Ireneus, taking her by the hand. The
hand of Ebba lay motionless and pale in his, her blush passed away, and
the dark shadows of her habitual melancholy returned.

Just then the sleigh of M. de Vermondans arrived at its destination. Eric
was waiting for them at the threshold, clasped the hand of his
father-in-law, and helped Alete out, as Ireneus did as much for Ebba. The
servants took care of the foaming horses.

The little party, as soon as they entered the house, could see that the
faithful Eric had sought to avoid the reproaches of his betrothed. The
entrance of the corridor was so completely washed and dried that one
might fancy the joiner had just finished the floor. Through the open
kitchen door a large brazier was seen in a glow, and the ringing of
plates and dishes was heard. The antechamber was covered with a woolen
carpet, and the Christmas pine brought on the day before from the
neighboring forest, decked with garland and moss, rose proudly from a
large box, as if it knew how proud a part it played in the festival.

As she passed from the antechamber to the drawing-room, Alete paused to
look at the arrangement of the table. Seeing a false plait in one of the
napkins, she was probably about to give vent to her epigrams. The door of
the other room however was opened, and a handsome old man dressed in a
long frock appeared. His head was covered with a cap of black velvet,
from beneath which his white hair escaped. This was Eric's father, and
Alete paid much respect to him.

"Come, my daughter," said the pastor, as with much kind dignity he kissed
her forehead. "You too, my friend, and my gentle Ebba (speaking to M. de
Vermondans and his other daughter), are welcome. You too, Monsieur," said
he, turning to Ireneus, "though I have not before had the honor to see
you, I welcome as a friend. You are all welcome to the hearthside of the
poor priest, and may the festival of to-day be to us a commemoration of
the past, and a happier tie for the future."

The old man took his guests into his own room, in which there was an
Inconsiderable library, a few models of utensils for agricultural
purposes, testifying to both his taste and his occupation. He sat on a
sofa, which debility in his limbs made necessary to him, and placed his
guests beside him. Alete, who could not sit quiet long, soon arose and
took Eric to the window. While, as was the custom with her, she tested
the patient character of her husband that was to be, the old man
conversed with Ireneus, who from the very first had been attracted by his
venerable and pleasing face.

"From these instruments of labor collected around you, I see," said
Ireneus, "that you have contrived a sure method of making your solitude
active. Ebba has already told me how usefully you employ your time."

"Usefully," replied M. Guldberg, with sincere modesty. "Alas! let us act
usefully as we may, how much weakness is there in our will, and
forgetfulness in our best resolutions. If by the grace of God we
accomplish any good, what is that in comparison with what we should do. I
love toil, but I can make no merit of it. In my youth it was a necessity.
The son of a laborer, who earned with his own hands the money which
supported me at school, I was compelled, at every risk, to repay him for
his paternal tenderness by my success. Gradually labor became a habit,
and then a _quasi_ dogma of religion. I thought it my duty, as soon as
possible, to release him from the necessity of sacrifice. I feel myself
attracted by a brotherly sympathy to all who toil. I look with respect on
the sweaty brow and toil-stained hand. God himself prescribed labor to us
as a law, and his infinite goodness unites with obedience to it the
enjoyment of much happiness. Certainly no person with a heart can repress
sympathy at the sight of the poor laborer, who is busy from morning to
night to earn his moderate wages, who braves every weather to sow and
harvest his crop. This laborer, however, is often happier than the
majority of the rich, who, as they pass, look on him with pity. He has
done his duty. When his task is done he sits contented at his humble
hearth. The sparkling wood, the bread on his table, he has earned
himself. He educates his child by his own exertions, and as he seeks his
bed, may say he has done his duty. He is ignorant of the troubles which
fill the hearts of the opulent. Ceaseless toil to him is a cuirass
warding off stormy passions. The door of his soul is shut to dark
chimeras, to the mad fancies which people the area of the palace, and on
his rude pillow he enjoys a peaceful repose, which the lord of his
village often asks for in vain. When I thus praise the efficaciousness of
toil, I do not speak only of manual labor. The labor of thought is often
most painful, and its fruits infinitely more valuable."

"Take care," said Ireneus, "you touch a sensitive string of my uncle's
breast."

"Yes," said the old man, "Eric has told me of your discussions on this
subject. I however know my friend M. de Vermondans, and whatever disdain
of science he may affect, I believe he would be distressed if he did not
know all that he has turned to so good a purpose in life. In attacking in
your conversations books and writers, he did not tell you how much he had
borrowed from them, and how earnestly he had read them."

"What books?" asked M. de Vermondans; "a few incomplete histories, and
some odd volumes of philosophy. One must examine closely the reveries of
human pride to be able to judge of them."

"Traitor!" said M. Guldberg, shaking his finger affectionately at his
friend, "you not only persist in hypocrisy, but you attack the character
of my library. A few incomplete histories! a few odd volumes! Must I then
recall to you the admiration with which you looked at my books, and
studied all that I had collected? Some incomplete histories! a few odd
volumes! Must I recall to you the delight with which you often have
studied my collection? Must I defend it against you? Know, that to attack
my books is to make war against myself. I passed forty years of my life
in collecting them, and to each one is attached some pleasant
remembrance. From some I date my student life, and my entry into the
priesthood. From some I fix the epoch of my marriage, and the various
phases of my existence; some I found in a country cabin, where they were
forgotten; some I brought from Stockholm, where I had been to see my
bishop and an old friend. All therefore recall to me kind teachers,
skillful guides, and are the memorials of different events, which are the
great items of my life. Gradually I have collected around me those books
which interest me the most. When I am here in my woodland home they are
company to me, and the most instructive friends man can meet with. Here
I have the philosophers, who aid me in the examination of the mysteries
of the soul; the historians, who record the revolutions of nations; the
geologists and natural philosophers, who expound to me the organic laws
of nature; the poets, who sing the joyous or sad emotions of the heart.
Whatever may be my moral disposition, I need only to reach my hand toward
one of them to seize on some brilliant intellect, to enlighten,
strengthen, and console me."

"How that delights me!" said Ebba, in a low tone.

"Listen," said M. de Vermondans, with emphasis, and with an intonation of
grief entirely contradicted by his face, "see, this woman has been
bewitched: the poison of your pernicious doctrines has reached the very
interior of my house. I fancied I would be able to educate my daughter in
the love of good principles, but I have warmed a very serpent at my
heart. Luckily, I see my faithful Alete attending only to the positive
and who now says that dinner is ready or Christmas-day. Christmas comes
but once a year."

The dinner was in truth solemn and splendid, the whole table being loaded
with enormous dishes.

"What a luxuriance of richness!" said M. de Vermondans. "Thank God, a
love of books does not make us forget material things."

Ireneus said, "This is in truth a banquet, with which, in France, a
candidate for the Chamber might win over many electors."

"Luckily," said the old priest, "we have no electors here to lead astray.
When, though, we leave the table, my farmer-boys will make merry over
what we have not eaten, and with them many poor people who on Christmas
are in the habit of coming to the parsonage. You do not to-day dine with
me, but with my people. On Christmas, in Sweden, we make presents to each
other as in France is done on New-Year's day. This game, these fish, have
been brought to me by the huntsmen and fishermen of my people. A peasant
gave me a quarter of veal, another gave me cream, a third the butter.
Even one woman has brought me an egg or two, saying that they should be
boiled only for myself. Before long the house will be filled with a
crowd, and many strange stories will be told around the firesides. Whole
pitchers of beer will be emptied to the health of the old pastor and his
friends."

"They will dance?" asked Alete.

"No, mademoiselle, you will not have that profane amusement. But Nils the
schoolmaster has a very fine voice. Olaf the fisherman, and his brother
Christian, will be there also, and your cousin will be able to hear some
of the popular songs. He never heard anything like them in Paris."

"So be it," said Alete; "one or two rounds with those merry figures would
however have been amusing enough. Hark! it seems to me I hear hurras at
Nils's arrival. If the two others are come, may I bring him?"

"Do so, my child," said the pastor.

"Yes, go, Alete," said Ebba, gaily.

Alete went out, and came in shortly with three young men, who modestly
looked down, and twirled their hats between their fingers.

"Good morning, friends," said the pastor. "Alete has told you I had a
favor to ask. I have a friend here who does not know our old Swedish
songs, and I rely on you to give him a good idea."

The three young men looked toward Ireneus and then toward each other.
Then, being encouraged by signs from Ebba, and having drunken a glass of
wine which was offered them, they sang a song which was designated.

They sang, one after the other, the romance of Agnete, who was surprised
on the shore and borne beneath the water by the amorous _Neck_. That of
fair Carine, the victim of her virtue, the soul of whom flew to heaven in
the shape of a white dove, where it was again transformed into a joyous
harp, the sweet sounds of which won the crown of queen. Much to his
regret, Ireneus could not understand the sense of these songs, which are,
so to say, idyls and charming dramas. He however listened with
undefinable emotion to those simple and artless melodies, which, in their
expression of grief and joy, were so pure that they seemed to spring from
the very heart of the people. He begged Ebba to say to the singers how
delighted he was, and they then went to the kitchen to tell how pleased
the Parisian had been.

After dinner Alete and Ebba went into the drawing-room, and having
carefully shut the door, might have been heard going and coming, and
giving orders, while the pastor entertained his guests. Alete seemed very
busy. She called the servants--had the position of the furniture
changed--sometimes talked loudly, and then whispered. Some mysterious
scene occupying the thoughts of Ireneus was taking place there.

Toward evening the mystery was explained. Alete came to take the arm of
the pastor in triumph, and he, M. de Vermondans, and Ireneus, went toward
the room. Drapery of many colors covered the wall, and bouquets of moss
and artificial flowers, candelabras reflected from the mirrors, boughs of
trees, all made the light soft as that which penetrates the forest. On a
large table was the Christmas tree, full of lights, and adorned with bows
of ribbon. The pastor had asked Alete to arrange everything as she chose,
and to place in the best possible light the presents intended for his
friends. With them Alete and Ebba had placed those they intended to make,
and all had been arranged most tastefully. Of the pine branch she had
made a tree, miraculously bearing silk dresses, portfolios, slippers,
embroidered collars, gold ear-rings, &c. The branches bent beneath the
weight.

M. de Vermondans gathered a meerschaum mounted with silver: Ireneus
several pieces of silk worked by his cousins, and a wooden cup, very
beautifully carved by an Angermanian peasant. Exclamations were made as
the different objects were detached from the mystic tree, for Alete had
taken care to wrap each article with a double and triple envelope, in
order to prolong the expectation of the spectators, and to enjoy their
surprise. Afterward the servants came in, and also the farmer's boys,
none of whom were forgotten, and who kissed the hands of the old priest.
The Christmas tree was stripped of its treasures, and all deserted it, as
barren and useless. Alas, for human ingratitude!

The pastor, taking advantage of a moment when none were looking, went to
the solitary tree, and took from it a letter with a red seal. Then
calling his future daughter-in-law, he said, "Since when, dear Alete,
have you become so careless of the good things of this world, or so
negligent, as to abandon the Christmas tree, without ascertaining all
that hangs from it?"

"I do not know that I can get anything from it, except a few pieces of
ribbon and half-burnt lights."

"You think so, do you? Well, look here."

"What?" said Alete; "a letter, with Eric's name on it. This is a surprise
for him. What is it? That puzzles me. Look, Eric--one day I shall have a
right to open your letters, but now be quick and open this yourself."

Eric unsealed the letter; and scarcely had he read it, then casting
himself at the feet of the old priest, he said--"Ah, father, how I thank
you! Then turning to Alete, he said--

"It is an appointment by the Bishop of Hernos and of myself as vicar of
this parish. We waited only for that to be able to marry. Now there is no
obstacle to our happiness. We will live here with my father, near your
own family. May God grant that our hearts may not be disunited. May God
grant us new pleasures without robbing us of those of the past. Now, when
shall we be married--tell me?"

"How you go on!" said Alete. "Must I, because it has seemed fit to our
venerable prelate to make you a vicar--(after all it is a sensible
appointment)--put on my wedding dress and go to the altar? Do you know I
expect a letter from Hernosand or Stockholm! Do you know------"

The artless girl, however, sought in vain to conceal, beneath pretended
laughter, her deep emotion. She was unable to finish her sentence. She
threw herself in her father's arms, then into the old priest's, and gave
her hand with dignity to Eric. She said:

"Whenever you please, dear Eric, though I am much amazed. I trust you
will never have occasion to repent having given me your love and honor."

This episcopal letter the pastor had received on the previous evening,
and he had been courageous enough to keep the secret until Christmas
night, in order to give it more solemnity. It was now the sole subject of
conversation, and they talked only of preparations for the marriage, and
of the day on which it was to be celebrated. At the instance of Alete he
consented to prolong the delay, and the wedding was postponed for a
fortnight.

"Confess," said Alete to Ireneus, "that you were fortunate in arriving
here in the middle of winter, when you could witness our dark tempests,
our Christmas festivals, and be present at a Swedish wedding. You will
then have only to behold our delicious summer nights; and then, when you
return to France, you will be able to speak more learnedly of Sweden than
other travelers, who wrote long volumes about it."

"I owe to this country some of the pleasantest hours of my life. I owe to
it a calmness which I cannot any longer find in France. I am indebted to
it for good and healthful emotions. I owe to it, exile as I am, a tender
asylum, a family; and I shall feel your wedding-day one of the happiest
of my life."

On the very next day all the house of M. de Vermondans was occupied with
preparations for the approaching marriage. Dressmakers were busy, and
cabinet-makers were preparing furniture, platforms, &c., for the
wedding-day.

Alete had enough to do to watch over the different works. Smiling and
merry as she used to be, a change had come over her, and she seemed
already dignified and matronly.

Ebba assisted her with great devotion, and ceased to give Ireneus lessons
in Swedish.

M. de Vermondans smoked his pipe with an air of thought, and sometimes of
sorrow, for the idea of separation from his daughter weighed heavily on
him, much as he desired that she should marry so near him.

For the first time since he had reached his uncle's house, Ireneus was
alone. A few days before the merry chat of Alete, the philosophical
conversation of the old gentleman, the dreamy poetry of Ebba, and the
activity and motion of all the household had diverted the young officer's
attention from himself. Now his thoughts involuntarily returned, in
consequence of news he had received from his country. His mother, who
shared all his secrets, sought to encourage him, and to unfold a new
horizon. In spite of this, however, every letter increased his
unhappiness. Some of his friends also wrote to him; and this
correspondence surprised him painfully. He heard, in this manner, of
political defections which he, in his chivalric exaggeration looked on as
felony, and at which he was most indignant.

"Villains!" said he, one day, as he read to his uncle a letter which he
had just received. "Now, this man owed everything to the kindness of
Charles X., yet for the sake of office he has cast himself at the foot of
a new master. Here is one who, on the 28th of July, applauded the
ordinances, and swore that the hydra of liberalism should he destroyed:
and said that he would pour out the last drop of his blood in defense of
legitimacy. He is now a partisan of the revolution. We live in a
scandalous age. All principles of honor and religion are forgotten.
Office has great value, indeed, when honor and conscience are sacrificed
to it."

As he spoke thus, Ireneus strode up and down the room, and crushed the
letter in his hands.

"My boy," said M. de Vermondans, with his kind philosophy, "your feeling
springs from a sentiment which does you honor. Unfortunately, however, it
can but injure you without benefiting those for whom you have so much
sympathy. To-day is not the first time that man has violated his oath,
and made a traffic of obligation; one need only open a history, and read
on every page amid some noble actions, countless base intrigues and
unworthy cowardice. The Roman senate erected statues to monsters it had
dignified with the imperial purple. The middle age, which we are pleased
to look on as an epoch of faith and chivalric devotion, is everywhere
sullied by acts of felony and the consequences of mad ambition.
Civilization, while it corrected the gross errors of rude nations, also
restrained their virtues. Love of prosperity, the sensations of luxury,
bear to the wall the energetic principles of self-denial. Some
individuals, who, by their elevated position, attract attention to
themselves; here and there break a link of the moral chain; others
imitate them, and by fracture after fracture the whole series of austere
ideas is interrupted and dislocated. A few of the faithful may attempt to
preserve the remnants, but others look on them with pity, and treat this
religious faith as an anachronism. The worship of the great is destroyed,
and replaced by that of sensual enjoyments. We do not ask God to give us
the heavenly manna. We have made another God from which no prophet
can win us. We prostrate ourselves before the calf of gold. This, dear
Ireneus, must be a sad prospect for a heart like yours. That all the
respect for the past, for religion and misfortune, which exists in your
heart, should rise at the prospect of what you have read to me, I can
well enough understand. Can you however, repress the wrong which offends
you? Can the evils of which you complain be prevented? No, do what you
will, there must ever be men, over whom the passion for power will
exercise vast influence, and this feeling will always induce them to turn
from the sinking to the rising star. Even if you go to the depth of a
desert, to the jungles of an Indian archipelago, to the woods at
Caffraria, to the desert plains of North America, or to the Cordilleras,
you will not escape from the miserable spectacles of human hypocrisy. The
Turks have a proverb which says, 'Cure the hand you cannot spare.' Now we
can add to this maxim, 'Cure the hand which can serve you, satisfy your
pride, avarice and egotism.' Young and happy when you first entered on
life, dear Ireneus, you have seen much. A sudden revolution has covered
your eyes with a cloud, and unexpected treachery has pierced your heart.
Time will show you many others, and if you do not give yourself up to
useless misanthropy, the most foolish and idle of all maladies, you will
learn to resign yourself to chagrins you cannot avoid. In your time of
distress you will draw near to those who do not deceive your esteem. You
will, without hatred and anger, be able to look at those whom base
calculation or cowardice has led astray, and if you congratulate yourself
that you have not followed their example, you will be glad that heaven
has endowed you with more firmness and a loftier ambition."

The wisdom of these reasonings touched the heart of Ireneus, but could
not subdue it. The ardent young man continued to curse those whom he had
seen in the ranks of legitimacy, and who now had linked themselves with
the revolution. Often, to avoid the remonstrances of his uncle, or not to
annoy him by recrimination, he wandered alone across the desert plains,
calling all the deserters of the cause he loved by name, and sometimes he
even resolved, like a true knight-errant, to set out and demand an
account of their crime. When he returned from these solitary walks, his
uncle, thinking that all argument would at such times be useless, said
nothing. Ebba however looked at him with eager sympathy.



PART IV.


The marriage of Alete, for a while, however, diverted him from his moody
thoughts. The pastor and M. de Vermondans wished the marriage to be
contracted according to the custom of the country. Invitations had
already been given to many in the neighborhood, to the friends of the
pastor and of the two families. At the appointed time, a great number of
carriages had collected at the house of M. de Vermondans. Beds had been
made in every room. The house was full of guests, the stable of horses,
not to remain a few hours, for a wedding in Sweden lasts a whole week. M.
de Vermondans, assisted by Eric and Ireneus, did the honors of the house.
Ebba dressed her sister, and this alone was not a trifling task, for in
Sweden brides are richly decked, and the daughter of the humblest peasant
borrows or hires jewels to dress her like a lady.

The toilet, according to the old usage of the country, was at last
finished, under the inspection of the matrons of the village. Alete
entered the drawing-room in a dress of rose-colored silk, covered with
flounces, rosettes, a mass of ribbons, etc., and with a girdle, suspended
to which were many ornaments of different devices, all of silver, and
which, as she walked, rang like bells. Nothing can be more ungraceful
than such a dress, which, however, Alete wore with grace. When she
appeared, a cry of admiration escaped from every mouth, and the
spectators' eyes turned involuntarily to Eric to congratulate him.

Alete took her father's arm to walk to the church, and the guests
followed her. At the head of the procession were musicians, playing the
flute and violin; next came about thirty young girls, two by two, in
their richest dresses; then the guests and the women and children of the
village.

After the ceremony, the young girls stood on each side of the altar; the
bridegroom advanced to the altar; then the bride was led thither by her
father, who handed her to Eric, and withdrew a few paces, as if he thus
transferred to another all his own rights. The old pastor then, with an
earnest voice and with tears in his eyes, pronounced the nuptial
benediction, and gave his children a touching exhortation. A religious
chant terminated the ceremonies, and the couple left the church amid the
sound of horns and the firing of guns. On their return home, M. de
Vermondans, after an old custom, handed each a glass of beer, which they
drank at the same time, as if to show that thenceforth all was common
between them.

Dinner was soon served. The newly-married people sat side by side under a
canopy, prepared as if to shelter their happiness. At the end of the
repast a carpet was spread representing the nuptial bed. The two knelt
together, and the company sang a hymn. Then the priest, speaking to the
company, invoked every blessing on the couple about to enter a new walk
of life, and bespoke the kind wishes of all their friends. He asked every
guest to give them some token of sympathy, and no one sought to avoid
this invitation. Each one paid tribute: relations gave the married couple
a sum of money; their friends gave them furniture, stuffs, and jewels. In
similar cases, at peasants houses, corn, wool, etc., utensils of
household use, are presented, so that often the house of the
newly-married couple is provided for a long time with provisions in this
manner. It is however true, that they are dearly purchased by the
hospitality they have to extend for a long time to many guests.

From the house of M. de Vermondans the guests went to that of the Pastor,
where similar festivals were gone through with. Alete remained there, and
M. de Vermondans returned with Ebba and Ireneus. As he placed his foot on
the threshold of the door where he had hitherto always been welcomed by
his smiling daughter, he was attacked by a sadness which he could not
overcome, and went to his room to weep.

Ebba also was sad, for though her character was very different from
Alete's, she loved her sister dearly, and was most unhappy at the idea of
a separation.

Ireneus sought to console her.

"I thank you," said the young girl, "for your kind expressions. I am not
unhappy only on my own account at this separation. My father will never
be able to use himself to it. Alete was always happy. Joy left our
household with her. I wish I could replace her. Do however what I may, I
never shall succeed. You and all who know me, are aware that my nature is
of altogether a different character. I am melancholy."

"Gentle, Ebba, gentle," said Ireneus.

"Gentle perhaps, and surely inoffensive, but I repeat melancholy. Why
does this sadness continue? Alas, it is the law of God. Do not look at
me, I beg you, as on one of those women whom I have seen and of whom I
have read, who create imaginary misfortunes for themselves, and deck
themselves with ideal suffering and melancholy. I have neither sorrow nor
passionate regrets and I do not know the meaning of deception.

"My life has passed without storms, but without noise, like the spring
which bubbles from the hill. Father and mother have sought to make me
happy, and no untimely event has interrupted the course of my life.
Melancholy, however, I was born, and will die. That is all.

"Listen to me," added she, fixing on Ireneus a look impressed with
strange grief and affection. "Heaven which denied me a brother seemed to
supply its neglect in yourself. The attachment you evince toward me
appeals to my heart, and I will make you a confession.

"When I say nothing has troubled my thoughts, I do not say all. There is
one impression which to me has been an event, a circumstance, the
influence of which I cannot speak of. I wish, however, to ask you, if you
believe in presentiments?"

"What a question!" replied Ireneus, "no one ever addressed me thus
before, and I do not know what to say."

"You do not"--said Ebba, with as much evidence of surprise, as if she had
said you do not believe in the sun or moon. "I do, and I think this
matter plain and evident as the existence of God, to whom we are indebted
for all our faculties. God endows us with that intuition of secret
events, that species of devotion, sometimes as an act of mercy to prepare
us for a misfortune which will overtake us, sometimes in mercy to point
out to us the consequences of the concealed peril in which we are
engaged.

"Even you, who seem not to believe in presentiments, have more than once
been seized with an involuntary apprehension. This dread, this sadness,
is the antecedent of the tempest. It announces regret, accident, and
unforeseen distress. Nay, I think we thus are informed of dangers which
menace one we love. I think there is a real link between souls which love
each other, a mysterious tie, an invisible union, so powerful however,
that how great soever the distance may be, one cannot suffer without the
other being unhappy; I will even say, that I think these bonds exist
between the living and the dead, that the chilly grave does not crush all
love, that the dead are touched by the tears we shed for them, and by the
fidelity of our affections to them. I will not in this connection repeat
to you stories of apparitions, ghost stories, etc. If you do not believe
what I say, you will also doubt all popular anecdotes. There are
sentiments which cannot be demonstrated, inductions and revelations which
austere reason rejects, and casts amid the empire of dreams, which exert
a great influence over the heart. I saw one night my mother standing at
the foot of my bed. She died when I was born. She leaned over me and
kissed my forehead. Her lips seemed cold as ice, yet her kiss burned me.
She looked at me for a moment in silence, and her large blue eyes were
filled with tears. She then slowly withdrew, and as she did so, opened
her arms to call me to her. Once again, as I opened a door I saw myself,
pale as my father used to describe my mother to me, and clad in a
long, white robe, which fell about me like a shroud. Old people will tell
you there is no more certain sign of death, and I am sure I shall not
live long. For that reason I do not attach myself to this world, nor
indulge as others do in reveries about the future."

This conviction of Ebba was evidently deeply rooted that Ireneus knew not
how reply to it. He, however, sought to represent to Ebba that these
impressions should not be taken too seriously to heart, and that at her
age, and with her qualities, she should not anticipate a sacrifice of
existence, nor give up the joys and hopes of life.

Ebba said nothing. She, however, looked long and moodily at him, clasped
his hand and left him.

Ireneus was yet more desolate than he had been during the days preceding
Alete's marriage. A letter from one of his friends greatly excited him.
This friend informed him that the legitimist party was about to attempt
the reconquest of the realm. The Duchess de Berry had left Scotland, for
Massa, thence she had opened a correspondence with many provinces. La
Vendée and the south opened their arms to her, and crowds of devoted
servants had pledged themselves to her.

All announced an approaching conflict, and all seemed to promise success.
Will you not, said his enthusiastic correspondent, join in our
enterprise, and share in our glory? I have always known you faithful to
your principles, and determined to defend them. You will not suffer
yourself to be led astray by a repose which is unworthy of you, and
slumber in peasant life. Shall I write to you some day as the valliant
Beornere did, "go hang yourself, Crellon, for there was a battle at
Arques, and you were away?"--No, the color under which you first fought
is about to be flung to the wind, and your friends will not expect you in
vain.

When he heard this news, when he heard the trumpet call, Ireneus felt all
his military ardor revived. Often in the peaceable days he passed in his
uncle's house, he reproached himself with a happiness to which he did not
think himself entitled. Now he could not absent himself from the arena,
in which his friends were about to enter; he could not desert them. In
the ardor of his monarchical sentiments he forgot that this enterprise
was civil war, in which brothers would be arrayed against each other, and
the soil of France steeped in the blood of its own children. He only
thought of his oath of allegiance and his banner. His first idea was to
go. When, however, he reflected more calmly, he thought it his duty to
inform his uncle of his plans, and, under the pretext of hunting,
wandered over the fields with his gun on his shoulder, forming his
schemes and dreaming of the glory that awaited him.

An accident delayed the execution of his plans, and at the same time gave
him an additional excuse for leaving Sweden. M. de Vermondans, who saw
him come home every night with an empty game bag, said to him:

"I must, dear Ireneus, recompense you for your useless wanderings; and I
will procure you the pleasure of a bear-hunt. There are two young men in
the village, who will take you to a good place; and, in case of accident,
will assist you with a sure aim. Shall I send for them?"

Ireneus, who was anxious to be actively engaged during the few days he
expected to pass in Sweden, accepted the proposition with eagerness. The
two huntsmen, having been sent for, said that they knew the lair of an
old bear they had hunted during the last winter. It was arranged, that on
the next morning, they should come for Ireneus.

Ebba had heard this conversation with evident uneasiness; but had said
nothing. When the huntsmen left, she said, with an emotion which was
evident in every glance, tone and gesture.

"Cousin, bear-hunting here is a very serious affair, and none but the
boldest of the villagers undertake it. When one of these ferocious
animals is killed, it is borne home in triumph, and the victory is
celebrated with shouts of joy and traditional ceremonies. He who kills
one of these old northern forest-kings, drives a brass nail in the stock
of his gun. Our peasants have various superstitions about the bear. They
will not pronounce his name aloud for fear of offending him, but style
him the 'old man' and the 'grandfather.' When they have killed one, they
ask forgiveness, and speak kindly to him, and beg him to come with them,
where he will he gladly welcomed. All these customs, and many others,
which it would be too long to relate, evince the idea of danger attached
to the pursuit of the bear. I do not wish to divert you from a plan, the
very danger of which, perhaps, pleases you. Be prudent, however, my dear
Ireneus, and take care of yourself. I beg you."

These words were uttered with an accent, the tenderness of which the
young officer had not previously remarked. He looked at Ebba and saw that
she was troubled. A loud laugh, an exclamation of M. de Vermondans,
dissipated the vague impression which Ireneus had received.
"Pardon," said the old man, "women are strange things. If one yielded to
their terrors, the front-door would never be passed, and a gun would be
useless. Because our peasants will not call a bear, should a brave young
fellow hang up his gun, and never venture to pursue the animal? I trust,
Ireneus, that you will refute the dreams of this girl by success, and
bring me home tomorrow a fine skin, to make a new hearth-rug of."

Ireneus said, "I have listened to my cousin, but having a sure foot and a
quick eye, I shall be rash enough to wait until the bear reaches the
muzzle of my gun, or I shall seek him out in his lair."

Before dawn, on the next day, the young officer, being well armed and
equipped, took the field with his two companions. A servant had arisen to
give him breakfast. Every one else in the house slept. As, however, he
was about to leave the house, Ireneus heard a faint noise on the first
story. He looked up and saw a window. A white figure advanced to the
glass, and then withdrew, as if afraid of being seen. Doubtless this was
Ebba. Under other circumstances, Ireneus would have called to bid her
adieu. Since the conversation  of the evening before, however, Ireneus
felt annoyed, when he thought of her, and left without seeming to have
seen her.

His guides led him across hills and ravines to a forest some leagues from
the village. When they had reached it, there was an eager discussion
between them.

Thenceforth they differed about the course to be followed. One wished to
go directly forward, and the other insisted that a detour should be made.
After a long discussion, they resolved to place Ireneus between them, and
advance in three lines, keeping, however, near enough together to be able
to unite against the enemy. They made Ireneus understand them by signs,
and he assented to their plan. One of them took a bottle of brandy from
his pouch, and offered it to the young officer, who, _par complaisance_,
placed it to his lips, and handed it to his companion; he gave it an
embrace, and passed it on to the third, from whom it received equal
attention. Ireneus, who also had brought some provisions, drank a glass
of generous wine to their health.

The three huntsmen then entered the forest. The boughs of the pines were
sufficiently far apart not to impede their passage. The ground, however,
was covered with underwood, and trunks of trees covered with snow on
which his foot slipped every minute. After a short time the peasants
slackened their pace, and sought for the tracks of the bear. Ireneus went
on, without observing that he was in advance. He soon found that he was
far ahead, and halted for them. As he looked round for them, he saw
something at the foot of a tree.

It was the bear, and an immense one. His paws were bent under his body,
his head was concealed in the snow, and he seemed asleep.

Ireneus rejoiced at this discovery, and recalling what Ebba had said,
smiled at the idea of acquiring, in the first attempt, the honor so much
desired in the country, of having a brass nail in the stock of his gun.

To make his shot surer, he ascended a little eminence still nearer the
animal. He cocked his gun, and advanced carefully. The eminence, however,
was formed only of a mass of leaves and twigs, the interstices being
concealed by the snow. As he put his foot on it, it gave way, he fell,
and his gun was discharged.

Before he could rise the animal was awake, and rushed on him. It placed
its two paws on the shoulder, and having him thus in its power, with its
eye sparkling with rage, joked at its victim. Unable to move, Ireneus
closed his eyes, and commended his soul to the mercy of God.

The claws of the animal had already pierced his flesh, when he heard the
report of a gun both on his right and left. Each had reached the animal's
head, which fell dead on the meditated victim, covering him with blood,
and lacerating Ireneus's breast and chest in its convulsive agony.

At the same moment, with a cry of triumph, the two peasants ran to him.
They found him paralyzed by the weight of the animal, and bathed in
blood. They lifted him up, rubbed his temples with brandy, and holding
him by the belt, made him take a step or two, to see if he could walk. He
could do so.

It was necessary to take him out of the forest, where no assistance could
be had. With great care, and frequent pauses, they at last reached the
open country. There the strength of Ireneus completely gave way, his
wounds bleeding, and his limbs failing him. One of his companions took
off his vest, laid it on the ground, and assisted Ireneus to stretch
himself on it, with touching kindness of heart and solicitude. The other
ran toward the high-road, and seeing a car loaded with hay, induced the
driver by tears, threats and promises to come to Ireneus's aid. They
placed him in it, and thus went to the village.

When there, one of the hunters sent for his wife, and said:

"Go, fast as you can, to M. de Vermondans, and say that his nephew is
ll, but in no danger, and hurry back to prepare the table. We have made a
famous hunt. To-morrow we will have the bear-feast."

The old gentleman, when he heard the news, hurried to his nephew. Then
Looking into the huntsman's face, he passed his hand over Ireneus's body.

"Nothing serious, that is good."

Soon after came Ebba, pale and trembling, who, when she saw her cousin's
blood, fell half dead in her father's arms.

The physician said that the wounds of the young officer were trifling.
He, however, enjoined a few days of rest and repose.

Immediately, on hearing of the accident, Eric and Alete hurried to see
Ireneus, evincing  the tenderest sympathy for him. M. de Vermondans, by
his assiduous care, proved how he loved his nephew. He also gave the two
preservers a munificent reward.

Ebba seemed completely crushed. Her sister found her seated in a chair,
with her eye fixed, her lips motionless, and her face pale. Completely
wrapped in thought, the young girl did not rouse, except at the sound of
Ireneus's name, and when she heard the various reports of the physician.
Often, during the day, she went to the invalid's chamber, passing timidly
up the steps, and placing her ear to the door. She would then to her
father, and sink again into her morbid sadness.

One night, when the nurse who sat with him had seen him sink to sleep and
retired, the young officer awoke under the impression that a delicate
hand was passed lightly over his forehead. He opened his eyes, and saw
the shadow of a woman flit behind the curtains. It was Ebba, who, unable
even to sleep at night, had furtively come, when she thought no one would
be aware of it, to be certain that his medicine was prepared, and to look
into his position.

Through the care of the physician and the affectionate friends who
surrounded him, Ireneus regained his strength.

The day he returned to the table was a very festival. M. de Vermondans
had invited  his daughter, son-in-law, the doctor, and the two huntsmen
to dine with him. The latter brought the skin of the bear they had
killed, and which they wished to present to their less fortunate
companion.

They then told gaily all the incidents of that memorable day; and when,
during the course of conversation, they heard how lightly Ireneus had
considered the bear-hunt, one of them said:

"Ah, I am not surprised at what has happened. One should not trifle with
a bear. He is cunning and proud, and understands everything said of him.
If he is not treated with respect, he takes a cruel revenge. I would not
be surprised if, having heard what Monsieur said, he laid at the foot of
the tree expressly to teach him a lesson."

Ireneus, to whom Ebba translated this, laughed at the superstition. The
huntsmen, seeing him laugh, shook their heads, as if to say, "There is an
imprudent fellow, who will not profit by experience."

As he regained strength, Ireneus again felt the necessity of action. The
last letters he received informed him that the legitimist movement had
become more serious, the Duchess de Berry preparing to leave Massa. He
also heard that she had gone successively to the south, and had unfurled
the white flag in La Vendée. Ireneus resolved to go. When he saw the
conduct of Ebba, her deep distress when he was sick and the joy which
had burst forth when he recovered, he could not conceal from himself that
she entertained sentiments toward him which he did not reciprocate. He
loved the young girl, and experienced much pleasure from the
contemplation of her delicate grace and melancholy beauty. He loved the
sound of her melodious voice. More than once since the discovery he had
made, he asked himself if he should not look on what had happened as a
signal interposition of Heaven in his favor. A quiet life, a comfortable
home, the love of friends and of a pretty woman, certainly deserved some
thanks. He however was soon hurried from this idyllic existence by the
ardor of his youth, and the prospect of an adventurous career. To some
men a peaceable life does not seem existence. They are like certain
birds, which show themselves only in the tempest.

Ireneus was of this character. When he carefully scrutinized his heart,
he saw that but a portion of it could belong to Ebba: that with her he
would constantly be persecuted  by repinings at fate, and would long for
the excitement of battle and camp. Should he then accept a pure heart
from the young girl? Should he deceive her? Honor required him to leave
her.

M. de Vermondans was painfully surprised when he heard of this
determination. He had grown to look on Ireneus as a son, and perhaps, in
the fondness of his heart, had made a happy dream for the future career
of Ebba and himself. He attempted to persuade him to lay aside the plan,
but in vain.

"Take care, dear Ireneus, that you do not become dazzled by the prestige
of a sentiment, generous and noble it is true, but which may result in
misfortune to yourself, without benefiting others. How many men thus
neglect their advantages, and attribute the blame to Providence, which
places happiness within their grasp, but which they do not see, so
dazzled are they by some imaginary attraction. If this attraction fades
away, they tell how they looked behind; they regret what they have lost
when it is too late. Fortune has granted what they wished but neglected
to others."

"But duty, uncle! duty!"

"God forbid that I cease to respect that word. Suffer me only to observe,
that in the ardor of youth one easily mistakes that obligation. There are
circumstances in which duty appears so clearly and distinctly, and speaks
so loudly, that it must be obeyed at all risks. Our force must be devoted
to it--our soul, our life. Ordinarily, however, we are forced to decide
between conflicting duties, and the one which seems the best is
ordinarily the least praiseworthy. The man who devotes himself to daily
toil has family affections, and diffuses good around him. Does not he
discharge his duty? Does not he occupy an honorable place in the social
system? Does virtue exist only in extraordinary actions? Is there no
crown to be gathered except in adventurous enterprises or in the battle
field? And is not he a good citizen, who toils usefully, and properly
educates his children?"

Ireneus did justice to his uncle's arguments, and was moved by the
touching kindness he evinced. His mind was however made up, and nothing
could divert him.

Alete, her husband, and the old pastor, sought to retain him. When Ebba
heard he was about to leave, she said nothing: her head sunk on her
bosom, and tears stole into her eyelids.

Ireneus left not without effort and distress. At sunset the rays of the
sun have singular beauty, and life is never so attractive as to the dying
man. Just at the moment of separation a strange reaction also takes
place. In an instant we see a kind of dazzling light, unfolding to us
what we love and what we abandon. We regret in anticipation what we are
about to leave. The door is not yet passed, the farewell is not spoken.
We pause and hesitate. We may return, and joyfully cast ourselves into
arms still open to us. This is the last contest of the heart, perhaps the
last remonstrance of a good genius. Passion however conquers, and the
bark is launched upon a sea without a port, beneath a sky without a star.
May God guide it!

Thus Ireneus departed, deserting domestic peace, leaving a family in
distress, and crushing a young heart. He was himself unhappy, but was
sustained by the idea that he hearkened to the voice of honor, and that
the sacrifice was noble in proportion as it was painful.

It was the beginning of summer. The earth had become green, and the woods
Were filled with the sound of birds. A pure sky, silvery lakes, all the
varied beauty of the north, seemed revived as if by magic at the first
breath of spring. Had anything been able to retain him, nature would.

Thanks to the clearness of the nights which permitted him to travel, he
soon reached Stockholm, where he embarked on the Lubeck steamer, went to
see his mother, and hurried to La Vendée, where he joined the flag he had
come so far to stand beneath.

During his voyage, he wrote more than once to his uncle. Three weeks,
however, rolled by and they received no news. M. de Vermondans complained
of his silence--Alete sought to excuse him. Ebba suffered in silence.
After the departure of her cousin, the delicate young girl had sunken
into a state of sadness which daily assumed a more dangerous character.
She loved to sit alone, looking toward the south, as if there lay her
last hope. She sometimes tried to read, but from her very look it was
plain that her mind was unoccupied. If she saw her father, she sought to
smile and appear gay to soothe him; as soon, however, as he left, she
became prostrate again. Her cheeks grew thin and flushed, she was ill,
and the physicians were sent for--one said she had a slow fever, another
that she was consumptive. Ebba carefully followed their advice, and did
all that her father and sister recommended. When alone, she shook her
head as if she thought all remedies in vain.

Two weeks passed without a word from Ireneus. What was he about? It was
Known that he had passed through Paris, and should be in La Vendée. Could
he not correspond with his friends? Could his letters have been
intercepted? Might he not already have fallen a victim to his chivalric
ardor, and be wounded, a prisoner, perhaps dead!

The post was looked for with anxiety. The newspapers were read anxiously.
Vain hope! those of Sweden gave very meager details of the legitimist
movement.

At last M. de Vermondans became angry and humiliated at suffering his
impatience to become manifest, and forbade Ireneus or La Vendée to be
mentioned. He could not, however, stifle thought in his own mind or in
Ebba's.

One morning the young girl arose in great distress, and with a feverish
agitation which made her look better. She dressed hastily, and went to
her father's room. She said she wanted to see her sister.

"Really," said the old man, deceived by this deceitful animation, and
quivering with joy at the idea of her recovery. "Do you wish to go? I
will go with you."

He hurried to the stable, had his horse harnessed, and in a few minutes,
seated in his cabriolet, was crossing the fields. On her way, Ebba, with
peculiar tenderness, pointed out various scenes of her childhood and
youth, the home of old servants, spots where she had been with Alete, and
made memorable by various little incidents.

Suddenly she ceased to speak--looked at the scenery with deep interest
glancing at the sea and the sky, and seemed absorbed in a melancholy
reminiscence.

Her father had listened to her with pleasure, and turned to ask why she
was silent. He was filled with delight. Had he been able, however, to
look into her mind, he would have seen a deep sentiment of sadness and
resignation, united with resignation and hopelessness.

In the silent meditation of the poor invalid there might be read a last
adieu to the blue wave, the green wood, the distant prospects which so
often had occupied her reverie. The warm summer breeze, which played in
her hair, the clear sky, the whole tapestry of nature she was about to
leave, instinct as it was with poetic fancy. By her half open lips, by
her wondering eye, she bade adieu to the scenes amid which she had lived,
to the flowers which smiled on her as a sister, and where birds sang
their matin lays as if she had been one of their kindred.

When he reached the parsonage, her father stopped to chat with the old
pastor. Ebba took Alete by the hand, and hurried her into the chamber.

"Dear sister," said she, "I wished to see you again."

"Again, Ebba--I hope you will, and for many a year."

"Yes--yes--but not here, in another world." She grew pale as she spoke.

"What an idea!" said Alete. "I was so agreeably surprised by your visit.
Have you come to distress me?"

As she spoke, Alete covered her face, now suffused with tears, with her
hands.

"Excuse me, Alete. I was wrong to give way so. Let us talk of something
else."

"Yes, yes," said Alete, smiling amid her tears. "Has anything been heard
of Ireneus?"

"Ireneus is--dead!" said Ebba sadly.

"Dead!" exclaimed Alete; "how so?"

"I know he is. I saw him last night."

"Ah, I have sometimes dreamed of a person's death, whom on the next
morning I met perfectly well."

"I tell you I saw him struck by a ball in the breast, the blood running
from the wound, looking staringly around, and smiling in the agonies of
death."

"Madness! my dear Ebba," said Alete, with a burst of strange unnatural
laughter, for in spite of herself she was impressed by the words of her
sister. "Come, Eric and his father expect us. Let us pass our evening
happily together, and shake off all these presentiments, which I pray to
God may never be realized."

"Yes, come," and attempting to look gay, she said, "Madness! we will
see."

During the next week, a letter from the mother of Ireneus informed them
that the young officer had died on the very day of Ebba's dream, of a
wound received at the siege of the Castle of Penissiere.

Ebba soon died, pronouncing the names of her father and sister, who wept
at her bedside. Her last breath uttered one other name, that of Ireneus.

       *       *       *       *       *


POEMS BY THE AUTHOR OF LILLIAN.

The following pieces by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED, have never before, we
believe, been printed in this country.

THE LEGEND OF THE TEUFEL-HAUS.

  The way was lone, and the hour was late,
  And Sir Rudolph was far from his castle gate.
  The night came down, by slow degrees,
  On the river stream, and the forest-trees;
  And by the heat of the heavy air,
  And by the lightning's distant glare,
  And by the rustling of the woods,
  And by the roaring of the floods,
  In half an hour, a man might say,
  The Spirit of Storm would ride that way.
  But little he cared, that stripling pale,
  For the sinking sun, or the rising gale;
  For he, as he rode, was dreaming now,
  Poor youth, of a woman's broken vow,
  Of the cup dashed down, ere the wine was tasted,
  Of eloquent speeches sadly wasted,
  Of a gallant heart all burnt to ashes.
  And the Baron of Katzberg's long mustaches,
  So the earth below, and the heaven above,
  He saw them not;--those dreams of love,
  As some have found, and some will find,
  Make men extremely deaf and blind.
  At last he opened his great blue eyes,
  And looking about in vast surprise,
  Found that his hunter had turned his back,
  An hour ago on the beaten track,
  And now was threading a forest hoar,
  Where steed had never stepped before.

  "By Caesar's head," Sir Rudolph said,
      "It were a sorry joke.
  If I to-night should make my bed
      On the turf, beneath an oak!
  Poor Roland reeks from head to hoof;--
      Now, for thy sake, good roan,
  I would we were beneath a roof,
      Were it the foul fiend's own!"

  Ere the tongue could rest, ere the lips could close
  The sound of a listener's laughter rose.
  It was not the scream of a merry boy
  When harlequin waves his wand of joy;
  Nor the shout from a serious curate, won
  By a bending bishop's annual pun;
  Nor the roar of a Yorkshire clown;--oh, no!
  It was a gentle laugh, and low;
  Half uttered, perhaps, perhaps, and stifled half,
  A good old-gentlemanly laugh;
  Such as my uncle Peter's are,
  When he tells you his tales of Dr. Parr.
  The rider looked to the left and the right,
  With something of marvel, and more of fright:
  But brighter gleamed his anxious eye,
  When a light shone out from a hill hard by.
  Thither be spurred, as gay and glad
  As Mrs. Maquill's delighted lad,
  When he turns away from the Pleas of the Crown,
  Or flings, with a yawn, old Saunders down,
  And flies, at last, from all the mysteries
  Of Plaintiffs' and Defendants' histories,
  To make himself sublimely neat,
  For Mrs. Camac's in Mansfield Street.
    At a lofty gate Sir Rudolph halted;
  Down from his seat Sir Rudolph vaulted:
  And he blew a blast with might and main,
  On the bugle that hung by an iron chain.
  The sound called up a score of sounds;--
  The screeching of owls, and the baying of hounds,
  The hollow toll of the turret bell,
  The call of the watchful sentinel.
  And a groan at last, like a peal of thunder,
  As the huge old portals rolled asunder,
  And gravely from the castle hall
  Paced forth the white-robed seneschal.
  He stayed not to ask of what degree
  So fair and famished a knight might be;
  But knowing that all untimely question
  Ruffles the temper, and mars the digestion,
  He laid his hand upon the crupper.
  And said,--"You're just in time for supper."
     They led him to the smoking board.
  And placed him next to the castle's lord.
  He looked around with a hurried glance:
  You may ride from the border to fair Penzance,
  And nowhere, but at Epsom Races,
  Find such a group of ruffian faces,
  As thronged that chamber; some were talking
  Of feats of hunting and of hawking,
  And some were drunk, and some were dreaming,
  And some found pleasure in blaspheming.
  He thought, as he gazed on the fearful crew,
  That the lamps that burned on the walls burned blue.
  They brought him a pasty of mighty size,
  To cheer his heart, and to charm his eyes;
  They brought the wine, so rich and old,
  And filled to the brim the cup of gold;
  The knight looked down, and the knight looked up,
  But he carved not the meat, and he drained not the cup.

  "Ho ho," said his host with angry brow,
      "I wot our guest is fine;
  Our fare is far too coarse, I trow,
      For such nice taste as thine:
  Yet trust me I have cooked the food,
      And I have filled the can,
  Since I have lived in this old wood,
      For many nobler man."--
  "The savory buck and the ancient cask
      To a weary man are sweet;
  But ere he taste, it is fit he ask
      For a blessing on bowl and meat.
  Let me but pray for a minute's space,
      And bid me pledge ye then;
  I swear to ye, by our Lady's grace,
      I shall eat and drink like ten!"

  The lord of the castle in wrath arose,
      He frowned like a fiery dragon;
  Indignantly he blew his nose,
      And overturned the flagon.
  And, "Away," quoth he, "with the canting priest.
  Who comes uncalled to a midnight feast,
  And breathes through a helmet his holy benison,
  To sour my hock, and spoil my venison!"

  That moment all the lights went out;
  And they dragged him forth, that rabble rout,
  With oath, and threat, and foul scurrility,
  And every sort of incivility.
  They barred the gates: and the peal of laughter,
  Sudden and shrill that followed after,
  Died off into a dismal tone,
  Like a parting spirit's painful moan.
  "I wish," said Rudolph, as he stood
  On foot in the deep and silent wood;
  "I wish, good Roland, rack and stable
  May be kinder to-night than their master's table!"

  By this the storm had fleeted by;
    And the moon with a quiet smile looked out
  From the glowing arch of a cloudless sky,
    Flinging her silvery beams about
  On rock, tree, wave, and gladdening all
    With just as miscellaneous bounty,
  As Isabel's, whose sweet smiles fall
    In half an hour on half the county.
  Less wild Sir Rudolph's pathway seemed,
    As he fumed from that discourteous tower;
  Small spots of verdure gaily gleamed
    On either side; and many a flower,
  Lily, and violet, and heart's-ease,
    Grew by the way, a fragrant border;
  And the tangled boughs of the hoary trees
    Were twined in picturesque disorder:
  And there came from the grove, and there came from
       the hill,
    The loveliest sounds he had ever heard,
  The cheerful voice of the dancing rill,
    And the sad, sad song of the lonely bird.
  And at last he stared with wondering eyes,
    As well he might, on a huge pavilion:
  'Twas clothed with stuffs of a hundred dyes,
    Blue, purple, orange, pink, vermilion;
  And there were quaint devices traced
    All round in the Saracenic manner;
  And the top, which gleamed like gold, was graced
    With the drooping folds of a silken banner;
  And on the poles, in silent pride,
    There sat small doves of white enamel;
  And the vail from the entrance was drawn aside,
    And flung on the humps of a silver camel.
  In short it was the sweetest thing
    For a weary youth in a wood to light on:
  And finer far than what a king
    Built up, to prove his taste, at Brighton.
    The gilded gate was all unbarred;
  And, close beside it, for a guard,
  There lay two dwarfs with monstrous noses,
  Both fast asleep upon some roses.
  Sir Rudolph entered; rich and bright
  Was all that met his ravished sight;
  Soft tapestries from far countries brought,
  Rare cabinets with gems inwrought,
  White vases of the finest mould,
  And mirrors set in burnished gold.
  Upon a couch a grayhound slumbered;
  And a small table was encumber'd
  With paintings, and an ivory lute,
  And sweetmeats, and delicious fruit.
  Sir Rudolph lost not time in praising;
  For he, I should have said was gazing,
  In attitude extremely tragic,
  Upon a sight of stranger magic;
  A sight, which, seen at such a season,
  Might well astonish Mistress Reason,
  And scare Dame Wisdom from her fences
  Of rules and maxims, moods and tenses.
  Beneath a crimson canopy
    A lady, passing fair, was lying;
  Deep sleep was on her gentle eye,
    And in her slumber she was sighing
  Bewitching sighs, such sighs as say
    Beneath the moonlight, to a lover,
  Things which the coward tongue by day
    Would not, for all the world, discover:
  She lay like a shape of sculptured stone,
  So pale, so tranquil:--she had thrown,
    For the warm evening's sultriness,
  The broidered coverlet aside
  And nothing was there to deck or hide
    The glory of her loveliness,
  But a scarf of gauze, so light and thin
  You might see beneath the dazzling skin,
  And watch the purple streamlets go
  Through the valleys of white and stainless snow,
  Or here and there a wayward tress
  Which wandered out with vast assurance
  From the pearls that kept the rest in durance,
  And fluttered about, as if 'twould try
  To lure a zephyr from the sky.
  "Bertha!"--large drops of anguish came
  On Rudolph's brow, as he breathed that name,--
  "Oh fair and false one, wake, and fear;
  I, the betrayed, the scorned, am here."
  The eye moved not from its dull eclipse,
  The voice came not from the fast-shut lips;
  No matter! well that gazer knew
  The tone of bliss, and the eyes of blue.
    Sir Rudolph hid his burning face
  With both his hands for a minute's space,
  And all his frame in awful fashion
  Was shaken by some sudden passion.
  What guilty fancies o'er him ran?--
    Oh, pity will be slow to guess them;
  And never, save the holy man,
    Did good Sir Rudolph e'er confess them
  But soon his spirit you might deem
  Came forth from the shade, of the fearful dream;
  His cheek, though pale, was calm again.
  And he spoke in peace, though he spoke in pain
    "Not mine! not mine! now, Mary mother.
  Aid me the sinful hope to smother!
  Not mine, not mine!--I have loved thee long
  Thou hast quitted me with grief and wrong.
  But pure the heart of a knight should be,--
  Sleep on, sleep on, thou art safe for me.
  Yet shalt thou know, by a certain sign,
  Whose lips have been so near to thine,
  Whose eyes have looked upon thy sleep,
  And turned away, and longed to weep,
  Whole heart,--mourn,--madden as it will,--
  Has spared thee, and adored thee, still!"
    His purple mantle, rich and wide,
  From his neck the trembling youth untied,
  And flung it o'er those dangerous charms,
  The swelling neck, and the rounded arms.
  Once more he looked, once more he sighed;
  And away, away, from the perilous tent,
    Swift as the rush of an eagle's wing,
    Or the flight of a shaft from Tartar string,
  Into the wood Sir Rudolph went:
  Not with more joy the school-boys run
  To the gay green fields, when their task is done;
  Not with more haste the members fly,
  When Hume has caught the Speaker's eye.
    At last the daylight came; and then
  A score or two of serving men,
  Supposing that some sad disaster
  Had happened to their lord and master,
  Went out into the wood, and found him,
  Unhorsed, and with no mantle round him.
  Ere he could tell his tale romantic,
  The leech pronounced him clearly frantic,
  So ordered him at once to bed,
  And clapped a blister on his head.
    Within the sound of the castle-clock
  There stands a huge and rugged rock,
  And I have heard the peasants say,
  That the grieving groom at noon that day
  Found gallant Roland, cold and stiff,
  At the base of the black and beetling cliff.
    Beside the rock there is an oak,
  Tall, blasted by the thunder-stroke,
  And I have heard the peasants say,
  That there Sir Rudolph's mantle lay,
  And coiled in many a deadly wreath
  A venomous serpent slept beneath.

       *       *       *       *       *

STANZAS,
WRITTEN UNDER A DRAWING OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE.

EXTRACTED FROM AN ALBUM IN DEVONSHIRE.

  Most beautiful!--I gaze and gaze
   In silence on the glorious pile;
  And the glad thoughts of other days
   Come thronging back the while.
  To me dim Memory makes more dear
   The perfect grandeur of the shrine;
  But if i stood a stranger here,
   The ground were still divine.

  Some awe the good and wise have felt,
   As reverently their feet have trod
  On any spot where man hath knelt,
   To commune with his God;
  By haunted spring, or fairy well,
   Beneath the ruined convent's gloom,
  Beside the feeble hermit's cell,
   Or the false prophet's tomb.

  But when was high devotion graced
   With lovelier dwelling, loftier throne,
  Than thus the limner's art hath traced
   From the time-honored stone?
  The spirit here of worship seems
   To hold the heart in wondrous thrall,
  And heavenward hopes and holy dreams,
   Came at her voiceless call;--

  At midnight, when the lonely moon
   Looks from a vapor's silvery fold;
  Or morning, when the sun of June
   Crests the high towers with gold;
  For every change of hour and form
   Makes that fair scene more deeply fair;
  And dusk and day-break, calm and storm,
   Are all religion there.

       *       *       *       *       *


  A FRAGMENT OF A BALLAD:

  TEACHING HOW POETRY IS BEST PAID FOR.

  Non voglio cento scudi.--Song.


  Oh say not that the minstrel's art,
    The pleasant gift of verse,
  Though his hopes decay, though his friends depart,
    Can ever be a curse;--
  Though sorrow reign within his heart,
    And Penury hold his purse.

  Say not his toil is profitless;--
    Though he charm no rich relation,
  The Fairies all his labors bless
    With such remuneration,
  As Mr. Hume would soon confess
    Beyond his calculation.

  Annuities, and three per cents,
    Little cares he about them;
  And India bonds, and tithes, and rents,
    He rambles on without them:
  But love, and noble sentiments,--
    Oh, never bid him doubt them!

       *       *       *       *       *

  Young Florice rose from his humble bed,
    And prayed as a good youth should;
  And forth he sped, with a lightsome tread,
    Into the neighboring wood;
  He knew where the berries were ripe and red,
    And where the old oak stood.

  And as he lay, at the noon of day,
    Beneath the ancient tree,
  A grayhaired pilgrim passed that way;
    A holy man was he,
  And he was wending forth to pray
    At a shrine in a far countrie.

  Oh, his was a weary wandering,
    And a song or two might cheer him.
  The pious youth began to sing,
    As the ancient man drew near him;
  The lark was mute as he touched the string,
    And the thrush said, "Hear him, hear him!"

  He sand high tales of the martyred brave;
    Of the good, and pure, and just;
  Who have gone into the silent grave,
    In such deep faith and trust,
  That the hopes and thoughts which sain and save
    Spring from their buried dust.

  The fair of face, and the stout of limb,
    Meek maids, and grandsires hoary;
  Who have sung on the cross their rapturous hymn,
    As they passed to their doom of glory;--
  Their radiant fame is never dim,
    Nor their names erased from story.

  Time spares the stone where sleep the dead
    With angels watching round them;
  The mourner's grief is comforted,
     As he looks on the chains that bound them;
  And peace is shed on the murderer's head,
    And he kisses the thorns that crowned them.

  Such tales he told; and the pilgrim heard
    In a trance of voiceless pleasure;
  For the depths of his inmost soul were stirred,
    By the sad and solemn measure:
  "I give thee my blessing,"--was his word;
    "It is all I have of treasure!"

       *       *       *       *       *

  A little child came bounding by;
    And he, in a fragrant bower,
  Had found a gorgeous butterfly,
    Rare spoil for a nursery dower,
  Which, with fierce step, and eager eye,
    He chased from flower to flower.

  "Come hither, come hither," 'gan Florice call;
    And the urchin left his fun;
  So from the hall of poor Sir Paul
     Retreats the baffled dun;
  So Ellen parts from the village ball,
    Where she leaves a heart half won

  Then Florice did the child caress,
    And sang his sweetest songs:
  Their theme was of the gentleness,
    Which to the soul belongs,
  Ere yet it knows the name or dress
    Of human rights and wrongs.

  And of the wants which make agree
    All parts of this vast plan;
  How life is in whate'er we see,
    And only life in man:--
  What matter where the less may be,
    And where the longer span?

An  d how the heart grows hard without
    Soft Pity's freshing dews;
  And how when any life goes out
    Some little pang ensues;--
  Facts which great soldiers often doubt,
    And wits who write reviews.

  Oh, Song hath power o'er Nature's springs
    Though deep the Nymph has laid them!
  The child gazed, gazed, on the gilded wings,
    As the next light breeze displayed them;
  But he felt the while that the meanest things
    Are dear to him that made them!

       *       *       *       *       *

  The sun went down behind the hill,
    The breeze was growing colder
  But there the minstrel lingered still;
    And amazed the chance beholder,
  Musing beside a rippling rill,
    With a harp upon his shoulder.

  And soon, on a graceful steed and tame,
    A sleek Arabian mare,
  The Lady Juliana came,
    Riding to take the air,
  With Lords of fame, at whose proud name
    A radical would swear.

  The minstrel touched his lute again.--
    It was more than a Sultan's crown,
  When the lady checked her bridle rein,
    And lit from her palfrey down:--
  What would you give for such a strain,
    Rees, Longman, Orme, and Brown?

  He sang of Beauty's dazzling eyes,
    Of Beauty's melting tone;
  And how her praise is a richer prize
    Then the gems of Persia's throne:
  And her love a bliss which the coldly wise
    Have never, never, known.
  He told how the valiant scoff at fear,
    When the sob of her grief is heard;
  How they couch the spear for a smile or tear
    How they die for a single word;--
  Things which, I own, to me appear
    Exceedingly absurd.

  The Lady soon had heard enough:
    She turned to hear Sir Denys
  Discourse, in language vastly gruff,
    About his skill at Tennis--
  While smooth Sir Guy described the stuff
    His mistress wore at Venice.

  The Lady smiled one radiant smile,
    And the Lady rode away.--
  There is not a lady in all our Isle,
    I have heard a Poet say,
  Who can listen more than a little while
    To a poet's sweetest lay.

       *       *       *       *       *

  His mother's voice was fierce and shrill,
    As she set the milk and fruit:
  "Out on thine unrewarded skill,
    And on thy vagrant lute;
  Let the strings be broken an they will,
    And the beggar lips be mute!"

  Peace, peace!--the Pilgrim as he went
    Forgot the minstrel's song;
  But the blessing that his wan lips sent
    Will guard the minstrel long;
  And keep his spirit innocent,
    And turn his hand from wrong.

  Belike the child had little thought
    Of the moral the minstrel drew;
  But the dream of a deed of kindness wrought--
    Brings it not peace to you?
  And doth not a lesson of virture taught
    Teach him that reaches too?

  And if the Lady sighed no sigh
    For the minstrel or his hymn;--
  But when he shall lie 'neath the moonlit sky,
    Or lip the goblet's brim,
  What a star in the mist of memory
    Her smile will be to him!

       *       *       *       *       *


THE COVENANTER'S LAMENT FOR BOTHWELL BRIGG.


  The men of sin prevail!
    Once more the prince of this world lifts his horn:
  Judah is scattered, as the chaff is borne
    Before the stormy gale.

    Where are our brethren? where
  The good and true, the terrible and fleet?
  They whom we loved, with whom we sat at meat,
    With whom we kneeled in prayer?

    Mangled and marred they lie,
  Upon the bloody pillow of their rest:
  Stern Dalzell smiles, and Clavers with a jest
    Spurs his fierce charger by.

    So let our foes rejoice;--
  We to the Lord, who hears their impious boasts.
  Will call for comfort: to the God of Hosts
    We will lift up our voice.

    Give ear unto our song;
  For we are wandering o'er our native land,
  As sheep that have no shepherd: and the hand
    Of wicked men is strong.

    Only to thee we bow.
  Our lips have drained the fury of thy cup;
  And the deep murmurs of our hearts go up
    To heaven for vengeance now.

    Avenge--oh, not our years
  Of pain and wrong; the blood of martyrs shed;
  The ashes heaped upon the hoary head;
    The maiden's silent tears;

    The babe's bread torn away'
  The harvest blasted by the war-steed's hoof;
  The red flame wreathing o'er the cottage roof;
    Judge not for those to-day!

    Is not thine own dread rod
  Mocked by the proud, thy holy book disdained,
  Thy name blasphemed, thy temple's courts profaned?
    Avenge thyself, O God!

    Break Pharoah's iron crown;
  Bind with new chains their nobles and their kings;
  Wash from thy house the blood of unclean things;
    And hurl their Dagon down!

    Come in thine own good time!
  We will abide: we have not turned from thee;
  Though in a world of grief our portion be,
    Of bitter grief, and crime.

    Be thou our guard and guide!
  Forth from the spoiler's synagogue we go.
  That we may worship where the torrents flow,
    And where the whirlwinds ride.

    From lonely rocks and caves
  We will pour forth our sacrifice of prayer.--
  On, brethren, to the mountains! Seek we there
    Safe temples, quiet graves!

       *       *       *       *       *

HOPE AND LOVE.


  One day, through fancy's telescope,
    Which is my richest treasure,
  I saw, dear Susan, Love and Hope
    Set out in search of Pleasure:
  All mirth and smiles I saw them go;
    Each was the other's banker;
  For Hope took up her brother's bow,
    And Love, his sister's anchor.

  They rambled on o'er vale and hill,
    They passed by cot and tower;
  Through summer's glow and winter's chill,
    Through sunshine and through shower,
  But what did those fond playmates care
    For climate, or for weather?
  All scenes to them were bright and fair,
    On which they gazed together.

  Sometimes they turned aside to bless
    Some Muse and her wild numbers,
  Or breathe a dream of holiness
    On Beauty's quiet slumbers;
  "Fly on," said Wisdom, with cold sneers:
    "I teach my friends to doubt you;"
  "Come back," said Age, with bitter tears,
    "My heart is cold without you."

  When Poverty beset their path,
    And threatened to divide them,
  They coaxed away the beldame's wrath,
    Ere she had breath to chide them,
  By vowing all her rags were silk,
    And all her bitters, honey,
  And showing taste for bread and milk,
    And utter scorn of money.

  They met stern Danger in their way,
    Upon a ruin seated;
  Before him kings had quaked that day,
    And armies had retreated:
  But he was robed in such a cloud,
    As Love and Hope came near him,
  That though he thundered long and loud,
    They did not see or hear him.

  A gray-beard joined them, Time by name;
    And Love was nearly crazy,
  To find that he was very lame,
    And also very lazy:
  Hope, as he listened to her tale,
    Tied wings upon his jacket;
  And then they far outran the mail,
    And far outsailed the packet.

  And so, when they had safely passed
    O'er many a land and billow,
  Before a grave they stopped at last,
    Beneath a weeping willow:
  The moon upon the humble mound
    Her softest light was flinging;
Sad nightingales were singing.

  "I leave you here," quoth Father Time,
    As hoarse as any raven;
  And Love kneeled down to spell the rhyme
    Upon the rude stone graven:
  But Hope looked onward, calmly brave;
    And whispered, "Dearest brother,
  We're parted on this side the grave,--
    We'll meet upon the other."

       *       *       *       *       *

PRIVATE THEATRICALS.

LADY ARABELLA FUSTIAN TO LORD CLARENCE FUSTIAN.

  --Sweet, when Actors first appear
  The loud collision of applauding gloves!
  MOULTRIE.


  Your labors, my talented brother,
    Are happily over at last;
  They tell me that, some how or other,
    The bill is rejected,--or past:
  And now you'll be coming, I'm certain,
    As fast as four posters can crawl,
  To help us draw up our curtain,
    As usual, at Fustian Hall.

  Arrangements, are nearly completed;
    But still we've a lover or two,
  Whom Lady Albina entreated,
    We'd keep, at all hazards, for you:
  Sir Arthur makes horrible faces,--
    Lord John is a trifle too tall,--
  And yours are the safest embraces
    To faint in, at Fustian Hall.

  Come, Clarence;--it's really enchanting
    To listen and look at the rout;
  We're all of us puffing, and panting,
    And raving, and running about;
  Here Kitty and Adelaide bustle;
    There Andrew and Anthony bawl;
  Flutes murmur, chains rattle, robes rustle,
    In chorus, at Fustian Hall.

  By the bye, there are two or three matters
    We want you to bring us from town;
  The Inca's white plumes from the hatter's,
    A nose and a hump for the Clown:
  We want a few harps for our banquet,
    We want a few masks for our ball;
  And steal from your wise friend Bosanquet
    His white wig, for Fustian Hall.

  Huncamunca must have a huge saber,
    Friar Tuck has forgotten his cowl;
  And we're quite at a stand-still with Weber,
    For want of a lizard and owl:
  And then, for our funeral procession,
    Pray get us a love of a pall;
  Or how shall we make an impression
    On feelings, at Fustian Hall?

  And, Clarence, you'll really delight us,
    If you'll do your endeavor to bring
  From the Club a young person to write us
   Our prologue, and that sort of thing;
  Poor Crotchet, who did them supremely,
    Is gone, for a Judge, to Bengal;
  I fear we shall miss him extremely,
    This season, at Fustian Hall.

  Come, Clarence;--your idol Albina
    Will make a sensation, I feel;
  We all think there never was seen a
    Performer, so like the O'Neill.
  At rehearsals, her exquisite fancy
    Has deeply affected us all;
  For one tear that trickles at Drury,
    There'll be twenty at Fustian Hall.

  Dread objects are scattered before her,
    On purpose to harrow her soul;
  She stares, till a deep spell comes o'er her,
    At a knife, or a cross, or a bowl.
  The sword never seems to alarm her,
    That hangs on a peg to the wall,
  And she doats on thy rusty old armor
    Lord Fustian, of Fustian Hall.

  She stabbed a bright mirror this morning,--
    Poor Kitty was quite out of breath,--
  And trampled, in anger and scorning,
    A bonnet and feathers to death.
  But hark,--I've a part in the Stranger,--
    There's the Prompter's detestable call:
  Come, Clarence,--our Romeo and Ranger,
    We want you at Fustian Hall.

       *       *       *       *       *

ALEXANDER AND DIOGENES

Diogenes Alexandro roganti ut diccret, Si quid opus caset, "nunc quidem
paullulum," inquit, "a sole."--_Cicero Tusc. Disp._


  Slowly the monarch turned aside;
  But when his glance of youthful pride
  Rested upon the warriors gray
  Who bore his lance and shield that day,
  And the long line of spears that came
  Through the far grove like waves of flame,
  His forehead burned, his pulse beat high,
  More darkly flashed his shifting eye,
  And visions of the battle-plain
  Came bursting on his soul again.

  The old man drew his gaze away
  Right gladly from that long array,
  As if their presence were a blight
  Of pain and sickness to his sight;
  And slowly folding o'er his breast
  The fragments of his tattered vest,
  As was his wont, unasked, unsought
  Gave to the winds his muttered thought,
  Naming no name of friend or foe,
  And reckless if they heard or no.

  "Ay, go thy way, thou painted thing,
  Puppet, which mortals call a king,
  Adorning thee with idle gems,
  With drapery and diadems,
  And scarcely guessing, that beneath
  The purple robe and laurel wreath,
  There's nothing but the common slime
  Of human clay and human crime:--
  My rags are not so rich,--but they
  Will serve as well to cloak decay.

  "And ever round thy jeweled brow
  False slaves and falser friends will bow;
  And Flattery,--as varnish flings
  A baseness on the brightest things,--
  Will make the monarch's deeds appear
  All worthless to the monarch's ear,
  Till thou wilt turn and think that Fame,
  So vilely drest, is worse than shame!--
  The gods be thanked for all their mercies,
  Diogenes hears naught but curses!

  "And thou wilt banquet!--air and sea
  Will render up their hoards for thee;
  And golden cups for thee will hold
  Rich nectar, richer than the gold.
  The cunning caterer still must share
  The dainties which his toils prepare;
  The page's lip must taste the wine
  Before he fills the cup for thine!--
  Wilt feast with me on Hecate's cheer?
  I dread no royal hemlock here!

  "And night will come; and thou wilt lie
  Beneath a purple canopy,
  With lutes to lull thee, flowers to shed
  Their feverish fragrance round thy bed,
  A princess to unclasp thy crest,
  A Spartan spear to guard thy rest.--
  Dream, happy one!--thy dreams will be
  Of danger and of perfidy;--
  The Persian lance,--the Carian club!--
  I shall sleep sounder in my tub!

  "And thou wilt pass away, and have
  A marble mountain o'er thy grave,
  With pillars tall, and chambers vast,
  Fit palace for the worm's repast!--
  I too shall perish!--let them call
  The vulture to my funeral;
  The Cynic's staff, the Cynic's den,
  Are all he leaves his fellow men,--
  Heedless how this corruption fares,--
  Yea, heedless though it mix with theirs!"

          *       *         *         *

[From Household Words.]

THE LAST OF A LONG LINE.

CHAPTER I.


Sir Roger Rockville of Rockville was the last of a very long line. It
Extended from the Norman Conquest to the present century. His first known
ancestor came over with William, and must have been a man of some mark,
either of bone and sinew, or of brain, for he obtained what the Americans
would call a prime location. As his name does not occur in the Roll of
Battle Abbey, he was, of course, not of a very high Norman extraction;
but he had done enough, it seems, in the way of knocking down Saxons, to
place himself on a considerable eminence in this kingdom. The center of
his domains was conspicuous far over the country, through a high range of
rock overhanging one of the sweetest rivers in England. On one hand lay a
vast tract of rich marsh land, capable, as society advanced, of being
converted into meadows; and on the other, as extensive moorlands, finely
undulating, and abounding with woods and deer.

Here the original Sir Roger built his castle on the summit of the range
of rock, with huts for his followers; and became known directly all over
the country as Sir Roger de Rockville, or Sir Roger of the hamlet on the
Rock. Sir Roger, no doubt, was a mighty hunter before the lord of the
feudal district: it is certain that his descendants were. For generations
they led a jolly life at Rockville, and were always ready to exchange the
excitement of the chase for a bit of civil war. Without that the country
would have grown dull, and ale and venison lost their flavor. There was
no gay London in those days, and a good brisk skirmish with their
neighbors in helm and hauberk was the way of spending their season. It
was their parliamentary debate, and was necessary to thin their woods.
Protection and Free Trade were as much the great topics of interest as
they are now, only they did not trouble themselves so much about Corn
bills. Their bills were of good steel, and their protective measures were
arrows a cloth-yard long. Protection meant a good suit of mail; and a
castle with its duly prescribed moats, bastions, portcullises, and donjon
keep. Free Trade was a lively inroad into the neighboring baron's lands,
and the iportation thence of goodly herds and flocks. Foreign cattle for
home consumption was as _sticking an article_ in their markets as in
ours, only the blows were expended on one another's heads, instead of the
heads of foreign bullocks--that is, bullocks from over the Welch or
Scotch marches, as from beyond the next brook.

Thus lived the Rockvilles for ages. In all the iron combats of those iron
times they took care to have their quota. Whether it were Stephen against
Matilda, or Richard against his father, or John against the barons;
whether it were York or Lancaster, or Tudor or Stuart, the Rockvilles
were to be found in the _mêlée_, and winning power and lands. So long as
it required only stalwart frames and stout blows, no family cut a more
conspicuous figure. The Rockvilles were at Bosworth Field. The Rockvilles
fought in Ireland under Elizabeth. The Rockvilles were staunch defenders
of the cause in the war of Charles I. with his Parliament. The Rockvilles
even fought for James II. at the Boyne, when three-fourths of the most
loyal of the English nobility and gentry had deserted him in disgust and
indignation. But from that hour they had been less conspicuous.

The opposition to the successful party, that of William of Orange, of
course brought them into disgrace: and though they were never molested on
that account, they retired to their estate, and found it convenient to be
as unobtrusive as possible. Thenceforward you heard no more of the
Rockvilles in the national annals. They became only of consequence in
their own district. They acted as magistrates. They served as high
sheriffs. They were a substantial county family, and nothing more.
Education and civilization advanced; a wider and very different field of
action and ambition opened upon the aristocracy of England. Our fleets
and armies abroad, our legislature at home, law and the church, presented
brilliant paths to the ambition of those thirsting for distinction, and
the good things that follow it. But somehow the Rockvilles did not expand
with this expansion. So long as it required only a figure of six feet
high, broad shoulders, and a strong arm, they were a great and
conspicuous race. But when the head became the member most in request,
they ceased to go a-head. Younger sons, it is true, served in army and in
navy, and filled the family pulpit, but they produced no generals, no
admirals, no archbishops. The Rockvilles of Rockville were very
conservative, very exclusive, and very stereotype. Other families grew
poor, and enriched themselves again by marrying plebeian heiresses. New
families grew up out of plebeian blood into greatness, and intermingled
the vigor of their fresh earth with the attenuated aristocratic soil. Men
of family became great lawyers, great statesmen, great prelates and even
great poets and philosophers. The Rockvilles remained high, proud,
bigoted, and _borné_.

The Rockvilles married Rockvilles, or their first cousins, the
Cesgvilles, simply to prevent property going out of the family. They kept
the property together. They did not lose an acre, and they were a fine,
tall, solemn race--and nothing more. What ailed them?

If you saw Sir Roger Rockville,--for there was an eternal Sir Roger
filling his office of high sheriff,--he had a very fine carriage, and a
very fine retinue in the most approved and splendid antique costumes; if
you saw him sitting on the bench at quarter sessions, he was a tall,
stately, and solemn man. If you saw Lady Rockville shopping, in her
handsome carriage, with very handsomely attired servants; saw her at the
county ball, or on the race-stand, she was a tall, aristocratic, and
stately lady. That was in the last generation--the present could boast of
no Lady Rockville.

Great outward respect was shown to the Rockvilles on account of the
length of their descent, and the breadth of their acres. They were
always, when any stranger asked about them, declared, with a serious and
important air, to be a very ancient, honorable, and substantial family.
"Oh! a great family are the Rockvilles, a very great family."

But if you came to close quarters with the members of this great and
highly distinguished family, you soon found yourself fundamentally
astonished: you had a sensation come over you, as if you were trying,
like Moses, to draw water from a rock, without his delegated power. There
was a goodly outside of things before you, but nothing came of it. You
talked, hoping to get talking in return, but you got little more than
"noes" and "yeses," and "oh! indeeds!" and "reallys," and sometimes not
even that, but a certain look of aristocratic dignity or dignification,
that was meant to serve for all answers. There was a sort of resting on
aristocratic oars or "sculls," that were not to be too vulgarly handled.
There was a feeling impressed on you, that eight-hundred years of descent
and ten thousand a-year in landed income did not trouble themselves with
the trifling things that gave distinction to lesser people--such as
literature, fine arts, politics, and general knowledge. These were very
well for those who had nothing else to pride themselves on, but for the
Rockvilles--oh! certainly they were by no means requisite.

In fact, you found yourself, with a little variation, in the predicament
of Cowper's people,

                      --who spent their lives
  In dropping buckets into empty wells,
  And _growing tired_ of drawing nothing up.

Who hasn't often come across these "dry wells" of society; solemn gulfs
out of which you can pump nothing up? You know them; they are at your
elbow every day in large and brilliant companies, and defy the best
sucking-buckets ever invented to extract anything from them. But the
Rockvilles were each and all of this adust description. It was a family
feature, and they seemed, if either, rather proud of it. They must be so;
for proud they were, amazingly proud; and they had nothing besides to be
proud of, except  their acres, and their ancestors.

But the fact was, they could not help it. It was become organic. They had
acted the justice of peace, maintained the constitution against upstarts
and manufacturers, signed warrants, supported the church and the house of
correction, committed poachers, and then rested on the dignity of their
ancestors for so many generations, that their skulls, brains,
constitutions, and nervous systems, were all so completely moulded into
that shape and baked into that mould, that a Rockville would be a
Rockville to the end of time, if God and Nature would have allowed it.
But such things wear out. The American Indians and the Australian nations
wear out; they are not progressive, and as Nature abhors a vacuum, she
does not forget the vacuum wherever it may be, whether in a hot desert,
or in a cold and stately Rockville;--a very ancient, honorable, and
substantial family that lies fallow till the thinking faculty literally
dies out.

For several generations there had been symptoms of decay about the
Rockville family. Not in its property, that was as large as ever; not in
their personal stature and physical aspect. The Rockvilles continued, as
they always had been, a tall and not bad-looking family. But they grew
gradually less prolific. For a hundred and fifty years past there had
seldom been more than two, or at most three, children. There had
generally been an heir to the estate, and another to the family pulpit,
and sometimes a daughter married to some neighboring squire. But Sir
Roger's father had been an only child, and Sir Roger himself was an only
child. The danger of extinction to the family, apparent as it was, had
never induced Sir Roger to marry. At the time that we are turning our
attention upon him, he had reached the mature age of sixty. Nobody
believed that Sir Roger now would marry; he was the last, and likely to
be, of his line.

It is worth while here to take a glance at Sir Roger and his estate. They
wore a strange contrast. The one bore all the signs of progress, the
other of a stereotyped feudality. The estate, which in the days of the
first Sir Roger de Rockville had been half morass and half wilderness,
was now cultivated to the pitch of British agricultural science. The
marshlands beyond the river were one splendid expanse of richest meadows,
yielding a rental of four solid pounds per acre. Over hill and dale on
this side for miles, where formerly ran wild deer, and grew wild
woodlands of furze-bushes, now lay excellent farms and hamlets, and along
the ridge of the ancient cliffs rose the most magnificent woods. Woods,
too, clothed the steep hillsides, and swept down to the noble river,
their very boughs hanging far out over its clear and rapid waters. In the
midst of these fine woods stood Rockville Hall, the family seat of the
Rockvilles. It reared its old brick walls above the towering mass of
elms, and travelers at a distance recognized it for what it was, the
mansion of an ancient and wealthy family.

The progress of England in arts, science, commerce, and manufacture, had
carried Sir Roger's estate along with it. It was full of active and
moneyed farmers, and flourished under modern influences. How lucky it
would have been for the Rockville family had it done the same!

But amid this estate there was Sir Roger solitary, and the last of the
line. He had grown well enough--there was nothing stunted about him, so
far as you could see on the surface. In stature, he exceeded six feet.
His colossal elms could not boast of a properer relative growth. He was
as large a landlord, and as tall a justice of the peace, as you could
desire: but, unfortunately, he was, after all, only the shell of a man.
Like many of his veteran elms, there was a very fine stem, only it was
hollow. There was a man, just with the rather awkward deficiency of a
soul.

And it were no difficult task to explain, either, how this had come
about. The Rockvilles saw plainly enough the necessity of manuring their
lands, but they scorned the very idea of manuring their family. What!
that most ancient, honorable, and substantial family, suffer any of the
common earth of humanity to gather about its roots! The Rockvilles were
so careful of their good blood, that they never allied it to any but
blood as pure and inane as their own. Their elms flourished in the rotten
earth of plebeian accumulations, and their acres produced large crops of
corn from the sewage of towns and fat sinks, but the Rockvilles
themselves took especial care that no vulgar vigor from the real heap
of ordinary human nature should infuse a new force of intellect into
their race. The Rockvilles needed nothing; they had all that an ancient,
honorable, and substantial family could need. The Rockvilles had no need
to study at school--why should they? They did not want to get on. The
Rockvilles did not aspire to distinction for talent in the world--why
should they? They had a large estate. So the Rockville soul, unused from
generation to generation, grew--

    Fine by degrees, and _spiritually_ less,

  till it tapered off into nothing.

Look at the last of a long fine in the midst of his fine estate. Tall he
was, with a stoop in his shoulders, and a bowing of his head on one side,
as if he had been accustomed to stand under the low boughs of his woods,
and peer after intruders. And that was precisely the fact. His features
were thin and sharp; his nose prominent and keen in its character; his
eyes small, black, and peering like a mole's, or a hungry swine's. Sir
Roger was still oracular on the bench, and after consulting his clerk, a
good lawyer,--and looked up to by the neighboring squires in election
matters, for he was an unswerving tory. You never heard of a rational
thing that he had said in the whole course of his life; but that mattered
little, he was a gentleman of solemn aspect, of stately gait, and of a
very ancient family.

With ten thousand a-year, and his rental rising, he was still, however, a
man of overwhelming cares. What mattered a fine estate if all the world
was against him? And Sir Roger firmly believed that he stood in that
predicament. He had grown up to regard the world as full of little
besides upstarts, radicals, manufacturers, and poachers. All were banded,
in his belief, against the landed interest. It demanded all the energy of
his very small faculties to defend himself and the world against them.

Unfortunately for his peace, a large manufacturing town had sprung up
within a couple of miles of him. He could see its red-brick walls, and
its red-tiled roofs, and its tall smoke-vomiting chimneys, growing and
extending over the slopes beyond the river. It was to him the most
irritating sight in the world; for what were all those swarming weavers
and spinners but arrant radicals, upstarts, sworn foes of ancient
institutions and the landed interests of England? Sir Roger had passed
through many a desperate conflict with them for the return of members to
parliament. They brought forward men that were utter wormwood to all his
feelings, and they paid no more respect to him and his friends on such
occasions than they did to the meanest creature living. Reverence for
ancient blood did not exist in that plebeian and rapidly multiplying
tribe. There were master manufacturers there actually that looked and
talked as big as himself, and _entre nous_, a vast deal more cleverly.
The people talked of rights and franchises, and freedom of speech and of
conscience, in a way that was really frightful. Then they were given most
inveterately to running out in whole and everlasting crowds on Sundays
and holidays into the fields and woods; and as there was no part of the
neighborhood half so pleasant as the groves and river banks of Rockville,
they came swarming up there in crowds that were enough to drive any man
of acres frantic.

Unluckily, there were roads all about Rockville; foot roads, and high
roads and bridle roads. There was a road up the river side, all the way
to Rockville woods, and when it reached them, it divided like a fork, and
one pony or foot-path led straight up a magnificent grove of a mile long,
ending close to the hall; and another ran all along the river side, under
the hills and branches of the wood.

Oh, delicious were these woods! In the river there were islands, which
were covered in summer with the greenest grass, and the freshest of
willows, and the clear waters rushed around them in the most inviting
manner imaginable. And there were numbers of people extremely ready to
accept this delectable invitation of these waters. There they came in
fine weather, and as these islands were only separated from the main-land
by a little and very shallow stream, it was delightful for lovers to get
across--with laughter, and treading on stepping-stones, and slipping off
the stepping-stones up to the ankles into the cool brook, and pretty
screams, and fresh laughter, and then landing on those sunny, and to them
really enchanted islands. And then came fishermen; solitary fishermen,
and fishermen in rows; fishermen lying in the flowery grass, with
fragrant meadow-sweet and honey-breathing clover all about their ears;
and fishermen standing in file, as if they were determined to clear all
the river of fish in one day. And there were other lovers, and troops of
loiterers, and shouting roysterers, going along under the boughs of the
wood, and following the turns of that most companionable of rivers. And
there were boats going up and down; boats full of young people, all
holiday finery and mirth, and boats with duck-hunters, and other, to Sir
Roger, detestable marauders, with guns and dogs, and great bottles of
beer. In the fine grove, on summer days, there might be found hundreds
of people. There were picnic parties, fathers and mothers with whole
families of children, and a great promenade of the delighted artisans and
their wives or sweethearts.

In the times prior to the sudden growth of the neighboring town, Great
Stockington, and to the simultaneous development of the love-of-nature
principle in the Stockingtonians, nothing had been thought of all these
roads. The roads were well enough till they led to these inroads. Then
Sir Roger aroused himself. This must be changed. The roads must be
stopped. Nothing was easier to his fancy. His fellow-justices, Sir
Benjamin Bullockshed and Squire Sheepshank, had asked his aid to stop the
like nuisances, and it had been done at once. So Sir Roger put up notices
all about, that the roads were to be stopped by an Order of Sessions, and
these notices were signed, as required by law, by their worships of
Bullockshed and Sheepshank. But Sir Roger soon found that it was one
thing to stop a road leading from Oneman-Town to Lonely-Lodge, and
another to attempt to stop those from Great-Stockington to Rockville.

On the very first Sunday after the exhibition of those notice-boards,
there was a ferment in the grove of Rockville, as if all the bees in the
county were swarming there, with all the wasps and hornets to boot. Great
crowds were collected before each of these obnoxious placards, and the
amount of curses vomited against them was really shocking for any day,
but more especially for a Sunday. Presently there was a rush at them;
they were torn down, and simultaneously pitched into the river. There
were great crowds swarming all about Rockville all that day, and with
looks so defiant that Sir Roger more than once contemplated sending off
for the Yeoman Cavalry to defend his house, which he seriously thought in
danger.

But so far from being intimidated from proceeding, this demonstration
only made Sir Roger the more determined. To have so desperate and
irreverent a population coming about his house and woods now presented
itself in a much more formidable aspect than ever. So, next day, not only
were the placards once more hoisted, but rewards offered for the
discovery of the offenders, attended with all the maledictions of the
insulted majesty of the law. No notice was taken of this, but the whole
of Great Stockington was in a buzz and an agitation. There were posters
plastered all over the walls of the town, four times as large as Sir
Roger's notices, in this style:--

"Englishmen! your dearest rights are menaced! The Woods of Rockville,
your ancient, rightful, and enchanting resorts, are to be closed to you.
Stockingtonians! The eyes of the world are upon you. 'Awake! arise! or be
forever fallen!' England expects every man to do his duty! And your duty
is to resist and defy the grasping soil-lords, to seize on your ancient
Patrimony!"

"Patrimony! Ancient and rightful resort of Rockville!" Sir Roger was
astounded at the audacity of this upstart, plebeian race. What! They
actually claimed Rockville, the heritage of a hundred successive
Rockvilles, as their own. Sir Roger determined to carry it to the
Sessions; and at the Sessions was a magnificent muster of all his
friends. There was Sir Roger himself in the chair; and on either hand, a
prodigious row of county squirearchy. There was Sir Benjamin Bullockshed,
and Sir Thomas Tenterhook, and all the squires,--Sheepshank, Ramsbottom,
Turnbull, Otterbrook, and Swagsides. The Clerk of Sessions read the
notice for the closing of all the footpaths through the woods of
Rockville, and declared that this notice had been duly, and for the
required period publicly, posted. The Stockingtonians protested by their
able lawyer Daredeville, against any order for the closing of these
ancient woods--the inestimable property of the public.

"Property of the public!" exclaimed Sir Roger. "Property of the public!"
echoed the multitudinous voices of indignant Bullocksheds, Tenterhooks,
and Ramsbottoms. "Why, sir, do you dispute the right of Sir Roger
Rockville to his own estate?"

"By no means;" replied the undaunted Daredeville; "the estate of
Rockville is unquestionably the property of the honorable baronet, Sir
Roger Rockville; but the roads through it are the as unquestionable
Property of the public."

The whole bench looked at itself; that is, at each other, in wrathful
astonishment. The swelling in the diaphragms of the squires Otterbrook,
Turnbull, and Swagsides, and all the rest of the worshipful row, was too
big to admit of utterance. Only Sir Roger himself burst forth with an
abrupt--

"Impudent fellows! But I'll see them ---- first!"

"Grant the order!" said Sir Benjamin Bullockshed; and the whole bench
nodded assent. The able lawyer Daredeville retired with a pleasant smile.
He saw an agreeable prospect of plenty of grist to his mill. Sir Roger
was rich, and so was Great Stockington. He rubbed his hands, not in the
least like a man defeated, and thought to himself, "Let them go at
it--all right."

The next day the placards on the Rockville estate were changed for others
Bearing "STOPPED BY ORDER OF SESSIONS!" and alongside of them were huge
carefully painted boards, denouncing on all trespassers prosecutions
according to law. The same evening came a prodigious invasion of
Stockingtonians--tore all the boards and placards down, and carried them
on their shoulders to Great Stockington, singing as they went, "See, the
Conquering Heroes come!" They set them up in the center of Stockington
market-place, and burnt them, along with an effigy of Sir Roger
Rockville.

That was grist at once to the mill of the able lawyer Daredeville. He
looked on, and rubbed his hands. Warrants were speedily issued by the
baronets of Bullockshed and Tenterhook, for the apprehension of the
individuals who had been seen carrying off the notice-boards, for
larceny, and against a number of others for trespass. There was plenty
of work for Daredeville and his brethren of the robe; but it all ended,
after the flying about of sundry mandamuses and assize trials, in Sir
Roger finding that though Rockville was his, the roads through it were
the public's.

As Sir Roger drove homeward from the assize, which finally settled the
question of these footpaths, he heard the bells in all the steeples of
Great Stockington burst forth with a grand peal of triumph. He closed
first the windows of his fine old carriage, and sunk into a corner; but
he could not drown the intolerable sound. "But," said he, "I'll stop
their picnic-ing. I'll stop their fishing. I'll have hold of them for
trespassing and poaching!" There was war henceforth between Rockville and
Great Stockington.

On the very next Sunday there came literally thousands of the jubilant
Stockingtonians to Rockville. They had brought baskets, and were for
dining, and drinking success to all footpaths. But in the great grove
there were keepers, and watchers, who warned them to keep the path, that
narrow well-worn line up the middle of the grove. "What! were they not to
sit on the grass?"--"No!"--"What! were they not to picnic?"--"No! not
there!"

The Stockingtonians felt a sudden damp on their spirits. But the river
bank! The cry was "To the river bank! There they _would_ picnic." The
crowd rushed away down the wood, but on the river bank they found a whole
regiment of watchers, who pointed again to the narrow line of footpath,
and told them not to trespass beyond it. But the islands! they went over
to the islands. But there too were Sir Roger's forces, who warned them
back! There was no road there--all found there would be trespassers, and
be duly punished.

The Stockingtonians discovered that their triumph was not quite so
complete as they had flattered themselves. The footpaths were theirs, but
that was all. Their ancient license was at an end. If they came there,
there was no more fishing; if they came in crowds, there was no more
picnic-ing; if they walked through the woods in numbers, they must keep
to Indian file, or they were summoned before the county magistrates for
trespass, and were soundly fined; and not even the able Daredeville would
undertake to defend them.

The Stockingtonians were chopfallen, but they were angry and dogged; and
They thronged up to the village and the front of the hall. They filled
the little inn in the hamlet-they went by scores, and roving all over the
churchyard, read epitaphs

  That teach the rustic moralists to die,

but don't teach them to give up their old indulgences very
good-humoredly. They went and sat in rows on the old churchyard wall,
opposite to the very windows of the irate Sir Roger. They felt themselves
beaten, and Sir Roger felt himself beaten. True, he could coerce them to
the keeping of the footpaths--but, then, they had the footpaths! True,
thought the Stockingtonians, we have the footpaths, but then the
picnic-ing, and the fishing, and the islands! The Stockingtonians were
full of sullen wrath, and Sir Roger was--oh, most expressive old Saxon
phrase--HAIRSORE! Yes, he was one universal round of vexation and
jealousy of his rights. Every hair in his body was like a pin sticking
into him. Come within a dozen yards of him; nay, at the most, blow on
him, and he was excruciated--you rubbed his sensitive hairs at a
furlong's distance.

The next Sunday the people found the churchyard locked up, except during
service, when beadles walked there, and desired them not to loiter and
disturb the congregation, closing the gates, and showing them out like
a flock of sheep the moment the service was over. This was fuel to the
already boiling blood of Stockington. The week following, what was their
astonishment to find a much frequented ruin gone! it was actually gone!
not a trace of it; but the spot where it had stood for ages, turfed,
planted with young spruce trees, and fenced off with post and rail! The
exasperated people now launched forth an immensity of fulminations
against the churl Sir Roger, and a certain number of them resolved to
come and seat themselves in the street of the hamlet and there dine; but
a terrific thunderstorm, which seemed in league with Sir Roger, soon
routed them, drenched them through, and on attempting to seek shelter in
the cottages, the poor people said they were very sorry, but it was as
much as their holdings were worth, and they dare not admit them.

Sir Roger had triumphed! It was all over with the old delightful days at
Rockville. There was an end of picnic-ing, of fishing, and of roving in
the islands. One sturdy disciple  of Izaak Walton, indeed, dared to fling
a line from the banks of Rockville grove, but Sir Roger came upon him and
endeavored to seize him. The man coolly walked into the middle of the
river, and, without a word, continued his fishing.

"Get out there!" exclaimed Sir Roger, "that is still on my property." The
man walked through the river to the other bank, where he knew that the
land was rented by a farmer. "Give over," shouted Sir Roger, "I tell you
the water is mine."

"Then," said the fellow, "bottle it up, and be hanged to you! Don't you
see it is running away to Stockington?"

There was bad blood between Rockville and Stockington-green. Stockington
was incensed, and Sir Roger was hairsore.

A new nuisance sprung up. The people of Stockington looked on the
cottagers of Rockville as sunk in deepest darkeness under such a man as
Sir Roger and his cousin the vicar. They could not picnic, but they
thought they could hold a camp-meeting; they could not fish for roach,
but they thought they might for souls. Accordingly there assembled crowds
of Stockingtonians on the green of Rockville, with a chair and a table,
and a preacher with his head bound in a red handkerchief; and soon there
was a sound of hymns, and a zealous call to come out of the darkness of
the spiritual Babylon. But this was more than Sir Roger could bear; he
rushed forth with all his servants, keepers, and cottagers, overthrew
the table, and routing the assembly, chased them to the boundary of his
estate.

The discomfited Stockingtonians now fulminated awful judgments on the
unhappy Sir Roger, as a persecutor and a malignant. They dared not enter
again on his park, but they came to the very verge of it, and held weekly
meetings on the highway, in which they sang and declaimed as loudly as
possible, that the winds might bear their voices to Sir Roger's ears.

To such a position was now reduced the last of the long line of
Rockville. The spirit of a policeman had taken possession of him. He had
keepers and watchers out on all sides, but they did not satisfy him. He
was perpetually haunted with the idea that poachers were after his game,
that trespassers were in his woods. His whole life was now spent in
stealing to and fro in his fields and plantations, and prowling along his
river side. He looked under hedges, and watched for long hours under the
forest trees. If any one had a curiosity to see Sir Roger, they had only
to enter his fields by the wood side, and wander a few yards from the
path, and he was almost sure to spring out over the hedge, and in angry
tones demand their name and address. The descendant of the chivalrous and
steelclad De Rockvilles was sunk into a restless spy on his own ample
property. There was but one idea in his mind--encroachment. It was
destitute of all other furniture but the musty technicalities of warrants
and commitments. There was a stealthy and skulking manner in everything
that he did. He went to church on Sundays, but it was no longer by the
grand iron gate opposite to his house, that stood generally with a large
spider's web woven over the lock, and several others in different corners
of the fine iron tracery, bearing evidence of the long period since it
had been opened. How different to the time when the Sir Roger and the
Lady of Rockville had had these gates thrown wide on a Sunday morning,
and with all their train of household servants after their back, with
true antique dignity, marched with much proud humility into the house of
God. Now, Sir Roger--the solitary, suspicious, undignified Sir Roger, the
keeper and policeman of his own property--stole in at a little side gate
from his paddock, and back the same way, wondering all the time whether
there was not somebody in his pheasant preserves, or Sunday trespassers
in his grove.

If you entered his house it gave you as cheerless a feeling as its owner.
There was the conservatory, so splendid with rich plants and flowers in
his mothers time--now a dusty receptacle of hampers, broken hand-glasses,
and garden tools. These tools could never be used, for the gardens were
grown wild. Tall grass grew in the walks, and the huge unpruned shrubs
disputed the passage with you. In the wood above the gardens, reached by
several flights of fine, but now moss-grown, steps, there stood a
pavilion, once clearly very beautiful. It was now damp and ruinous-its
walls covered with greenness and crawling insects. It was a great
lurking-place of Sir Roger when on the watch for poachers.

The line of the Rockvilles was evidently running fast out. It had reached
the extremity of imbecility and contempt--it must soon reach its close.

Sir Roger used to make his regular annual visit to town; but of late,
when there, he had wandered restlessly about the streets, peeping into
the shop-windows; and if it rained, standing under entries for hours
after, till it was gone over. The habit of lurking and peering about was
upon him; and his feet bore him instinctively into those narrow and
crowded alleys where swarm the poachers of the city--the trespassers and
anglers in the game preserves and streams of humanity. He had lost all
pleasure in his club; the most exciting themes of political life retained
no piquancy for him. His old friends ceased to find any pleasure in him.
He was become the driest of all dry wells. Poachers, and anglers, and
Methodists, haunted the wretched purlieus of his fast fading-out mind,
and he resolved to go to town no more. His whole nature was centered in
his woods. He was forever on the watch; and when at Rockville again, if
he heard a door clap when in bed, he thought it a gun in his woods, and
started up, and was out with his keepers.

Of what value was that magnificent estate to him?--those superb woods;
those finely-hanging cliffs; that clear and _riant_ river coming
traveling on, and taking a noble sweep below his windows--that glorious
expanse of neat verdant meadows, stretching almost to Stockington, and
enlivened by numerous herds of the most beautiful cattle--those old farms
and shady lanes overhung with hazel and wild rose; the glittering brook,
and the songs of woodland birds--what were they to that worn-out old man,
that victim of the delusive doctrine of blood, of the man-trap of an
hereditary name?

There the poet could come, and feel the presence of divinity in that
noble scene, and hear sublime whispers in the trees, and create new
heavens and earths from the glorious chaos of nature around him, and in
one short hour live an empyrean of celestial life and love. There could
come the very humblest children of the plebeian town, and feel a throb of
exquisite delight pervade their bosoms at the sight of the very flowers
on the sod, and see heaven in the infinite blue above them. And poor Sir
Roger, the holder, but not the possessor of all, walked only in a region
of sterility, with no sublimer ideas than poachers and trespassers-no
more rational enjoyment than the brute indulgence of hunting like a
ferret, and seizing his fellow-men like a bulldog. He was a specimen of
human nature degenerated, retrograded from the divine to the bestial,
through the long operating influences of false notions and institutions,
continued beyond their time. He had only the soul of a keeper. Had he
been only a keeper, he had been a much happier man.

His time was at hand. The severity which he had long dealt out toward all
sorts of offenders made him the object of the deepest vengeance. In a
lonely hollow of his woods, watching at midnight with two of his men,
there came a sturdy knot of poachers. An affray ensued. The men perceived
that their old enemy, Sir Roger, was there: and the blow of a hedge-stake
stretched him on the earth. His keepers fled--and thus ignominiously
terminated the long line of the Rockvilles. Sir Roger was the last of his
line, but not of his class. There is a feudal art of sinking, which
requires no study; and the Rockvilles are but one family among thousands
who have perished in its practice.



CHAPTER II.


In Great Stockington there lived a race of paupers. From the year of the
42d of Elizabeth, or 1601, down to the present generation, this race
maintained an uninterrupted descent. They were a steady and unbroken line
of paupers, as the parish books testify. From generation to generation
their demands on the parish funds stand recorded. There were no _lacunæ_
in their career; there never failed an heir to these families; fed on the
bread of idleness and legal provision, these people flourished, increased
and multiplied. Sometimes compelled to work for the weekly dole which
they received, they never acquired a taste for labor, or lost the taste
for the bread for which they did not labor. These paupers regarded this
maintenance by no means as a disgrace. They claimed it as a right,--as
their patrimony. They contended that one-third of the property of the
Church had been given by benevolent individuals for the support of the
poor, and that what the Reformation wrongfully deprived them of, the
great enactment of Elizabeth rightfully--and only rightfully--restored.

Those who imagine that all paupers merely claimed parish relief because
the law ordained it, commit a great error. There were numbers who were
hereditary paupers, and that on a tradition carefully handed down, that
they were only manfully claiming their own. They traced their claims from
the most ancient feudal times, when the lord was as much bound to
maintain his villein in gross, as the villein was to work for the lord.
These paupers were, in fact, or claimed to be, the original _adscripti
glebæ_, and to have as much a claim to parish support as the landed
proprietor had to his land. For this reason, in the old Catholic times,
after they had escaped from villenage by running away and remaining
absent from their hundred for a year and a day, dwelling for that period
in a walled town, these people were amongst the most diligent attendants
at the Abbey doors, and when the Abbeys were dissolved, were, no doubt,
amongst the most daring of these thieves, vagabonds, and sturdy rogues,
who, after the Robin Hood fashion, beset the highways and solitary farms
of England, and claimed their black mail in a very unceremonious style.
It was out of this class that Henry VIII. hanged his seventy-two thousand
during his reign, and, as it is said, without appearing materially to
diminish their number.

That they continued to "increase, multiply, and replenish the earth,"
overflowing all bounds, overpowering by mere populousness all the severe
laws against them of whipping, burning in the hand, in the forehead or in
the breast, and hanging, and filling the whole country with alarm, is
evident by the very act itself of Elizabeth.

Amongst these hereditary paupers who, as we have said, were found in
Stockington, there was a family of the name of Deg. This family had never
failed to demand and enjoy what it held to be its share of its ancient
inheritance. It appeared from the parish records, that they had practiced
in different periods the crafts of shoemaking, tailoring, and
chimney-sweeping; but since the invention of the stocking-frame, they
had, one and all of them, followed the profession of stocking weavers, or
as they were there called, stockingers. This was a trade which required
no extreme exertion of the physical or intellectual powers. To sit in a
frame, and throw the arms to and fro, was a thing that might either be
carried to a degree of extreme diligence, or be let down into a mere
apology for idleness. An "idle stockinger" was there no very uncommon
phrase, and the Degs were always classed under that head. Nothing could
be more admirably adapted than this trade for building a plan of parish
relief upon. The Degs did not pretend to be absolutely without work, or
the parish authorities would soon have set them to some real labor,--a
thing that they particularly recoiled from, having a very old adage in
the family, that "hard work was enough to kill a man." The Degs were
seldom, therefore out of work, but they did not get enough to meet and
tie. They had but little work if the times were bad, and if they were
good, they had large families, and sickly wives or children. Be times
what they would, therefore, the Degs were due and successful attendants
at the parish pay-table. Nay, so much was this a matter of course, that
they came at length not even trouble themselves to receive their pay, but
sent their young children for it; and it was duly paid. Did any parish
officer, indeed, turn restive, and decline to pay a Deg, he soon found
himself summoned before a magistrate, and such pleas of sickness, want
of work, and poor earnings brought up, that he most likely got a sharp
rebuke from the benevolent but uninquiring magistrate, and acquired a
character for hard-heartedness that stuck to him.

So parish overseers learnt to let the Degs alone; and their children
regularly brought up to receive the parish money for their parents, were
impatient as they grew up to receive it for themselves. Marriages in the
Deg family were consequently very early, and there were plenty of
instances of married Degs claiming parish relief under the age of twenty,
on the plea of being the parent of two children. One such precocious
individual being asked by a rather verdant officer why he had married
before he was able to maintain a family, replied, in much astonishment,
that he had married in order to maintain himself by parish assistance.
That he never had been able to maintain himself by his labor, nor ever
expected to do it; his only hope, therefore, lay in marrying, and
becoming the father of two children, to which patriarchal rank he had now
attained, and demanded his "pay."

Thus had lived and flourished the Degs on their ancient patrimony, the
parish, for upward of two hundred years. Nay, we have no doubt whatever
that, if it could have been traced, they had enjoyed an ancestry of
paupers as long as the pedigree of Sir Roger Rockville himself. In the
days of the most perfect villenage, they had, doubtless, eaten the bread
of idleness, and claimed it as a right. They were numerous, improvident,
ragged in dress, and fond of an alehouse and of gossip. Like the blood of
Sir Roger, their blood had become peculiar through a long persistence of
the same circumstances. It was become pure pauper blood. The Degs
married, if not entirely among Degs, yet amongst the same class. None but
a pauper would dream of marrying a Deg. The Degs, therefore, were in
constitution, in mind, in habit, and in inclination, paupers. But a pure
and unmixed class of this kind does not die out like an aristocratic
stereotype. It increases and multiplies. The lower the grade, the more
prolific, as is sometimes seen on a large and even national scale. The
Degs threatened, therefore, to become a most formidable clan in the lower
purlieus of Stockington, but luckily there is so much virtue even in
evils, that one, not rarely, cures another. War, the great evil, cleared
the town of Degs.

Fond of idleness, of indulgence, of money easily got, and as easily
spent, the Degs were rapidly drained off by recruiting parties during the
last war. The young men enlisted, and were marched away; the young women
married soldiers that were quartered in the town from time to time, and
marched away with them. There were, eventually, none of the once numerous
Degs left except a few old people, whom death was sure to draft off at
no distant period with his regiment of the line which has no end. Parish
overseers, magistrates, and master manufacturers, felicitated themselves
at this unhoped-for deliverance from the ancient family of the Degs.

But one cold, clear, winter evening, the east wind piping its sharp
sibilant ditty in the bare shorn hedges, and poking its sharp fingers
into the sides of well broad-clothed men by the way of passing jest, Mr.
Spires, a great manufacturer of Stockington, driving in his gig some
seven miles from the town, passed a poor woman with a stout child on
her back. The large ruddy-looking man in the prime of life, and in the
great coat and thick worsted gloves of a wealthy traveler, cast a glance
at the wretched creature trudging heavily on, expecting a pitiful appeal
to his sensibilities, and thinking it a bore to have to pull off a glove
and dive into his pocket for a copper; but to his surprise there was no
demand, only a low courtesy, and the glimpse of a face of singular
honesty of expression, and of excessive weariness.

Spires was a man of warm feelings; he looked earnestly at the woman, and
Thought he had never seen such a picture of fatigue in his life. He
pulled up and said,

"You seem very tired, my good woman."

"Awfully tired, sir."

"And are you going far to-night?"

"To Great Stockington, sir, if God give me strength."

"To Stockington!" exclaimed Mr. Spires. "Why, you seem ready to drop.
You'll never reach it. You'd better stop at the next village."

"Ay, sir, it's easy stopping, for those that have money."

"And you've none, eh?"

"As God lives, sir, I've a sixpence, and that's all."

Mr. Spires put his hand in his pocket, and held out to her, the next
instant, half-a-crown.

"There stop, poor thing--make yourself comfortable--it's quite out of the
question to reach Stockington. But stay--are your friends living in
Stockington--what are you?"

"A poor soldier's widow, sir. And may God Almighty bless you!" said the
poor woman, taking the money, the tears standing in her large brown eyes
as she courtesied very low.

"A soldier's widow!" said Mr. Spires. She had touched the softest place
in the manufacturer's heart, for he was a very loyal man, and vehement
champion of his country's honor in the war. "So young," said he, "how did
you lose your husband?"

"He fell, sir," said the poor woman; but she could get no further; she
suddenly caught up the corner of her gray cloak, covered her face with
it, and burst into an excess of grief.

The manufacturer felt as if he had hit the woman a blow by his careless
question; he sat watching her for a moment in silence, and then said,
"Come, get into the gig, my poor woman; come, I must see you to
Stockington."

The poor woman dried her tears, and heavily climbed into the gig,
expressing her gratitude in a very touching and modest manner. Spires
buttoned the apron over her, and taking a look at the child, said in a
cheerful tone to comfort her, "Bless me, but that is a fine thumping
fellow, though. I don't wonder that you are tired, carrying such a load."

The poor woman pressed the stout child, apparently two years old, to her
breast, as if she felt it a great blessing and no load: the gig drove
rapidly on.

Presently Mr. Spires resumed his conversation.

"So you are from Stockington?"

"No, sir, my husband was."

"So: what was his name?"

"John Deg, sir."

"Deg?" said Mr. Spires. "Deg, did you say?"

"Yes, sir."

The manufacturer seemed to hitch himself off toward his own side of the
gig, gave another look at her, and was silent. The poor woman was
somewhat astonished at his look and movement, and was silent too.

After awhile Mr. Spires said again, "And do you hope to find friends in
Stockington? Had you none where you came from?"

"None, sir, none in the world!" said the poor woman, and again her
feelings seemed too strong for her. At length she added, "I was in
service, sir, at Poole, in Dorsetshire, when I married; my mother only
was living, and while I was away with my husband, she died. When-when
the news came from abroad--that when I was a widow, sir, I went back to
my native place, and the parish officers said I must go to my husband's
parish lest I and my child should become troublesome."

"You asked relief of them?"

"Never; Oh, God knows, no, never! My family have never asked a penny of a
parish. They would die first, and so would I, sir; but they said I might
do it, and I had better go to my husband's parish at once--and they
offered me money to go."

"And you took it, of course?"

"No, sir; I had a little money, which I had earned by washing and
laundering, and I sold most of my things, as I could not carry them, and
came off. I felt hurt, sir; my heart rose against the treatment of the
parish, and I thought I should be better amongst my friends--and my child
would, if anything happened to me; I had no friends of my own."

Mr. Spires looked at the woman in silence. "Did your husband tell you
anything of his friends? What sort of a man was he?"

"Oh, he was a gay young fellow, rather, sir; but not bad to me. He always
said his friends were well off in Stockington."

"He did!" said the manufacturer, with a great stare, and as if bolting
the words from his heart in a large gust of wonder.

The poor woman again looked at him with a strange look. The manufacturer
Whistled to himself, and giving his horse a smart cut with the whip,
drove on faster than ever. The night was fast settling down; it was
numbing cold; a gray fog rose from the river as they thundered over the
old bridge; and tall engine chimneys, and black smoky houses loomed
through the dusk before them. They were at Stockington.

As they slackened their pace up a hill at the entrance of the town, Mr.
Spires again opened his mouth.

"I should be sorry to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Deg," he said, "but I have
my fears that you are coming to this place with false expectations. I
fear your husband did not give you the truest possible account of his
family here."

"Oh, sir! what--what is it?" exclaimed the poor woman; "in God's name,
tell me!"

"Why, nothing more than this," said the manufacturer, "that there are
very few of the Degs left here. They are old, and on the parish, and can
do nothing for you."

The poor woman gave a deep sigh, and was silent.

"But don't be cast down," said Mr. Spires. He would not tell her what a
pauper family really was, for he saw that she was a very feeling woman,
and he thought she would learn that soon enough. He felt that her husband
had from vanity given her a false account of his connections; and he was
really sorry for her.

"Don't be cast down," he went on; "you can wash and iron, you say; you
are young and strong: those are your friends. Depend on them, and they'll
be better friends to you than any other."

The poor woman was silent, leaning her head down on her slumbering child,
and crying to herself; and thus they drove on, through many long and
narrow streets, with gas flaring from the shops, but with few people in
the streets, and these hurrying shivering along the pavement, so intense
was the cold. Anon they stopped at a large pair of gates; the
manufacturer rung a bell, which he could reach from his gig, and the
gates presently were flung open, and they drove into a spacious yard,
with a large handsome house, having a bright lamp burning before it, on
one side of the yard, and tall warehouses on the other.

"Show this poor woman and her child to Mrs. Craddock's, James," said Mr.
Spires, "and tell Mrs. Craddock to make them very comfortable; and if you
will come to my warehouse to-morrow," added he, addressing the poor
woman, "perhaps I can be of some use to you."

The poor woman poured out her heartfelt thanks, and following the old
man-servant, soon disappeared, hobbling over the pebbly pavement with her
living load, stiffened almost to stone by her fatigue and her cold ride.

We must not pursue too minutely our narrative Mrs. Deg was engaged to do
the washing and getting up of Mr. Spires' linen, and the manner in which
she executed her task insured her recommendations to all their friends.
Mrs. Deg was at once in full employ. She occupied a neat house in a yard
near the meadows below the town, and in those meadows she might be seen
spreading out her clothes to whiten on the grass, attended by her stout
little boy. In the same yard lived a shoemaker, who had two or three
children of about the same age as Mrs. Deg's child. The children, as time
went on, became playfellows. Little Simon might be said to have the free
run of the shoemaker's house, and he was the more attracted thither by
the shoemaker's birds, and by his flute, on which he often played after
his work was done.

Mrs. Deg took a great friendship for this shoemaker; and he and his wife,
a quiet, kind-hearted woman, were almost all the acquaintances that she
cultivated. She had found out her husband's parents, but they were not of
a description that at all pleased her. They were old and infirm, but they
were of the true pauper breed, a sort of person whom Mrs. Deg had been
taught to avoid and to despise. They looked on her as a sort of second
parish, and insisted that she should come and live with them, and help to
maintain them out of her earnings. But Mrs. Deg would rather her little
boy had died than have been familiarized with the spirit and habits of
those old people. Despise them she struggled hard not to do, and she
agreed to allow them sufficient to maintain them on condition that they
desisted from any further application to the parish. It would be a long
and disgusting story to recount all the troubles, annoyance, and
querulous complaints, and even bitter accusations that she received from
these connections, whom she could never satisfy; but she considered it
one of the crosses in her life, and patiently bore it, seeing that they
suffered no real want, so long as they lived, which was for years; but
she would never allow her little Simon to be with them alone.

The shoemaker neighbor was a stout protection to her against the greedy
demands of these old people, and of others of the old Degs, and also
against another class of inconvenient visitors, namely, suitors, who saw
in Mrs. Deg a neat and comely young woman, with a flourishing business
and a neat and soon well-furnished house, a very desirable acquisition.
But Mrs. Deg had resolved never again to marry, but to live for her boy,
and she kept her resolve in firmness and gentleness.

The shoemaker often took walks in the extensive town meadows, to gather
groundsell and plantain for his canaries and gorse-linnets, and little
Simon Deg delighted to accompany him with his own children. There William
Watson, the shoemaker, used to point out to the children the beauty of
the flowers, the insects, and other objects of nature; and while he sat
on a style and read in a little old book of poetry, as he often used to
do, the children sat on the summer grass, and enjoyed themselves in a
variety of plays.

The effect of these walks and the shoemaker's conversation on little
Simon Deg was such as never wore out of him through his whole life, and
soon led him to astonish the shoemaker by his extraordinary conduct. He
manifested the utmost uneasiness at their treading on the flowers in the
grass; he would burst with tears if they persisted in it; and when asked
why, he said they were so beautiful, that they must enjoy the sunshine,
and be very unhappy to die. The shoemaker was amazed, but indulged the
lad's fancy. One day he thought to give him a great treat, and when they
were out in the meadows, he drew from under his coat a bow and arrow, and
shot the arrow high up in the air. He expected to see him in an ecstasy
of delight: his own children clapped their hands in transport, but Simon
stood silent, and as if awe-struck.

"Shall I send up another?" asked the shoemaker.

"No, no," exclaimed the child, imploringly. "You say God lives up there,
and he mayn't like it."

The shoemaker laughed, but presently he said, as if to himself, "There is
too much imagination there. There will be a poet, if we don't take care."

The shoemaker offered to teach Simon to read, and to solidify his mind,
as he termed it, by arithmetic, and then to teach him to work at his
trade. His mother was very glad, and thought shoemaking would be a good
trade for the boy; and that with Mr. Watson she should have him always
near her. He was growing now a great lad, and was especially strong, and
of a frank and daring habit. He was especially indignant at any act of
oppression of the weak by the strong, and not seldom got into trouble by
his championship of the injured in such cases among the boys of the
neighborhood.

He was now about twelve years of age; when, going one day with a basket
of clothes on his head to Mr. Spires's for his mother, he was noticed by
Mr. Spires himself from his counting-house window. The great war was
raging; there was much distress among the manufacturers; and the people
were suffering and exasperated against their masters. Mr. Spires, as a
staunch tory, and supporter of the war, was particularly obnoxious to the
workpeople, who uttered violent threats against him. For this reason his
premises were strictly guarded, and at the entrance of his yard, just
within the gates, was chained a huge and fierce mastiff, his chain
allowing him to approach near enough to intimidate any stranger, though
not to reach him. The dog knew the people who came regularly about, and
seemed not to notice them, but on the entrance of a stranger, he rose up,
barked fiercely, and came to the length of his chain. This always drew
the attention of the porter, if he were away from his box, and few
persons dared to pass till he came.

Simon Deg was advancing with the basket of clean linen on his head, when
the dog rushed out, and barking loudly, came exactly opposite to him,
within a few feet. The boy, a good deal startled at first, reared himself
with his back against the wall, but at a glance perceiving that the dog
was at the length of his tether, he seemed to enjoy his situation, and
stood smiling at the furious animal, and lifting his basket with both
hands above his head, nodded to him, as if to say, "Well, old boy, you'd
like to eat me, wouldn't you?"

Mr. Spires, who sat near his counting-house window at his books, was
struck with the bold and handsome bearing of the boy, and said to a
clerk:

"What boy is that?"

"It is Jenny Deg's," was the answer.

"Ha! that boy! Zounds! how boys do grow! Why that's the child that Jenny
Deg was carrying when she came to Stockington: and what a strong,
handsome, bright-looking fellow he is now!"

As the boy was returning, Mr. Spires called him to the counting-house
door, and put some questions to him as to what he was doing and learning,
and so on.

Simon, taking off his cap with much respect, answered in such a clear and
Modest way, and with a voice that had so much feeling and natural music
in it, that the worthy manufacturer was greatly taken with him.

"That's no Deg," said he, when he again entered the counting-house, "not
a bit of it. He's all Goodrick, or whatever his mother's name was, every
inch of him."

The consequence of that interview was, that Simon Deg was very soon after
Perched on a stool in Mr. Spires's counting-house, where he continued
till he was twenty-two. Mr. Spires had no son, only a single daughter;
and such were Simon Deg's talents, attention to business, and genial
disposition, that at that age Mr. Spires gave him a share in the concern.
He was himself now getting less fond of exertion than he had been, and
placed the most implicit reliance on Simon's judgment and general
management. Yet no two men could be more unlike in their opinions beyond
the circle of trade. Mr. Spires was a staunch tory of the staunch old
school. He was for Church and King, and for things remaining forever as
they had been. Simon, on the other hand, had liberal and reforming
notions. He was for the improvement of the people, and their admission to
many privileges. Mr. Spires was therefore liked by the leading men of the
place, and disliked by the people. Simon's estimation was precisely in
the opposite direction. But this did not disturb their friendship; it
required another disturbing cause--and that came.

Simon Deg and the daughter of Mr. Spires grew attached to each other; and
as the father had thought Simon worthy of becoming a partner in the
business, neither of the young people deemed that he would object to a
partnership of a more domestic description. But here they made a
tremendous mistake. No sooner was such a proposal hinted at, than Mr.
Spires burst forth with the fury of all the winds from the bag of
Ulysses.

"What! a Deg aspire to the hand of the sole heiress of the enormously
opulent Spires?"

The very thought almost cut the proud manufacturer off with an apoplexy.
The hosts of a thousand paupers rose up before him, and he was black in
the face. It was only by a prompt and bold application of leeches and
lancet that the life of the great man was saved. But there was an end of
all further friendship between himself and the expectant Simon. He
insisted that he should withdraw from the concern, and it was done.
Simon, who felt his own dignity deeply wounded too, for dignity he had,
though the last of a long line of paupers--his own dignity, not his
ancestors'--took silently, yet not unrespectfully, his share--a good,
round sum, and entered another house of business.

For several years there appeared to be a feud and a bitterness between
the former friends; yet it showed itself in no other manner than by a
careful avoidance of each other. The continental war came to an end; the
manufacturing distress increased exceedingly. There came troublous times,
and a fierce warfare of politics. Great Stockington was torn asunder by
rival parties. On one side stood preeminent, Mr. Spires; on the other
towered conspicuously, Simon Deg. Simon was grown rich, and extremely
popular. He was on all occasions the advocate of the people. He said that
he had sprung from, and was one of them. He had bought a large tract of
land on one side of the town; and intensely fond of the country and
flowers himself, he had divided this into gardens, built little
summer-houses in them, and let them to the artisans. In his factory he
had introduced order, cleanliness, and ventilation. He had set up a
school for the children in the evenings, with a reading-room and
conversation-room for the work-people, and encouraged them to bring their
families there, and enjoy music, books, and lectures. Accordingly, he was
the idol of the people, and the horror of the old school of
manufacturers.

"A pretty upstart and demagogue I've nurtured," said Mr. Spires often, to
his wife and daughter, who only sighed, and were silent.

Then came a furious election. The town, for a fortnight, more resembled
the worst corner  of Tartarus than a Christian borough. Drunkenness,
riot, pumping on one another, spencering one another, all sorts of
violence and abuse ruled and raged till the blood of all Stockington was
at boiling heat. In the midst of the tempest were everywhere seen, ranged
on the opposite sides, Mr. Spires, now old and immensely corpulent, and
Simon Deg, active, buoyant, zealous, and popular beyond measure. But
popular though he was, the other and old tory side still triumphed. The
people were exasperated to madness; and when the chairing of the
successful candidate commenced, there was a terrific attack made on the
procession by the defeated party. Down went the chair, and the new
member, glad to escape into an inn, saw his friends mercilessly assailed
by the populace. There was a tremendous tempest of sticks, brickbats,
paving-stones, and rotten eggs. In the midst of all this, Simon Deg and a
number of his friends, standing at the upper window of an hotel, saw Mr.
Spires knocked down and trampled on by the crowd. In an instant, and
before his friends had missed him from amongst them, Simon Deg was seen
darting through the raging mass, cleaving his way with a surprising
vigor, and gesticulating, and no doubt shouting vehemently to the
rioters, though his voice was lost in the din. In the next moment his hat
was knocked off, and himself appeared in imminent danger: but, another
moment, and there was a pause, and a group of people were bearing
somebody from the frantic mob into a neighboring shop. It was Simon Deg,
assisting in the rescue of his old friend and benefactor, Mr. Spires.

Mr. Spires was a good deal bruised, and wonderfully confounded and
bewildered by his fall. His clothes were one mass of mud, and his face
was bleeding copiously; but when he had had a good draught of water,
and his face washed, and had time to recover himself, it was found that
he had received no serious injury.

"They had like to have done for me, though," said he.

"Yes, and who saved you?" asked a gentleman.

"Ay, who was it? who was it?" asked the really warm-hearted manufacturer;
"let me know? I owe him my life."

"There he is!" said several gentlemen, at the same instant, pushing
forward Simon Deg.

"What, Simon!" said Mr. Spires, starting to his feet. "Was it thee, my
boy?" He did more, he stretched out his hand; the young man clasped it
eagerly, and the two stood silent, and with a heart-felt emotion, which
blended all the past into forgetfulness, and the future into a union more
sacred than esteem.

A week hence, and Simon Deg was the son-in-law of Mr. Spires. Though Mr.
Spires had misunderstood Simon, and Simon had borne the aspect of
opposition to his old friend, in defense of conscientious principle,
the wife and daughter of the manufacturer had always understood him, and
secretly looked forward to some day of recognition and reunion.

Simon Deg was now the richest man in Stockington. His mother was still
living to enjoy his elevation. She had been his excellent and wise
housekeeper, and she continued to occupy that post still.

Twenty-five years afterward, when the worthy old Spires was dead, and
Simon Deg had himself two sons attained to manhood; when he had five
times been mayor of Stockington, and had been knighted on the
presentation of a loyal address; still his mother was living to see it;
and William Watson, the shoemaker, was acting as a sort of orderly at Sir
Simon's chief manufactory. He occupied the lodge, and walked about, and
saw that all was safe, and moving on as it should do.

It was amazing how the most plebeian name of Simon Deg had slid, under
the hands of the heralds, into the really aristocratical one of Sir Simon
Degge. They had traced him up a collateral kinship, spite of his own
consciousness, to a baronet of the same name of the county of Stafford,
and had given him a coat of arms that was really astonishing.

It was some years before this, that Sir Roger Rockville had breathed his
last. His title and estate had fallen into litigation. Owing to two
generations having passed without any issue of the Rockville family
except the one son and heir, the claims, though numerous, were so mingled
with obscuring circumstance, and so equally balanced, that the lawyers
raised quibbles and difficulties enough to keep the property in Chancery,
till they had not only consumed all the ready money and rental, but had
made frightful inroads into the estate itself. To save the remnant, the
contending parties came to a compromise. A neighboring squire, whose
grandfather had married a Rockville, was allowed to secure the title, on
condition that the rest carried off the residuum of the estate. The woods
and lands of Rockville were announced for sale!

It was at this juncture that old William Watson reminded Sir Simon Degge
of a conversation in the great grove of Rockville, which they had held at
the time that Sir Roger was endeavoring to drive the people thence.

"What a divine pleasure might this man enjoy," said Simon Deg to his
humble friend, "if he had a heart capable of letting others enjoy
themselves."

"But we talk without the estate," said William Watson; "what might we do
if we were tried with it?"

Sir Simon was silent for a moment; then observed that there was sound
philosophy in William Watson's remark. He said no more, but went away;
and the next day announced to the astonished old man that he had
purchased the groves and the whole ancient estate of Rockville!

Sir Simon Degge, the last of a long line of paupers, was become the
possessor of the noble estate of Sir Roger Rockville, of Rockville,
the last of a long line of aristocrats!

The following summer, when the hay was lying in fragrant cocks in the
great meadows of Rockville, and on the little islands in the river, Sir
Simon Degge, Baronet, of Rockville--for such was now his title-through
the suggestion of a great lawyer, formerly Recorder of the Borough of
Stockington, to the crown--held a grand fête on the occasion of his
coming to reside at Rockville Hall, henceforth the family seat of the
Degges. His house and gardens had all been restored to the most
consummate order. For years Sir Simon had been a great purchaser of works
of art and literature, paintings, statuary, books, and articles of
antiquity, including rich armor and precious works in ivory and gold.

First and foremost he gave a great banquet to his wealthy friends, and no
man with a million and a half is without them--and in abundance. In the
second place, he gave a substantial dinner to all his tenantry, from the
wealthy farmer of five hundred acres to the tenant of a cottage. On this
occasion he said, "Game is a subject of great heart-burning and of great
injustice to the country. It was the bane of my predecessors: let us take
care it is not ours. Let every man kill the game on the land that he
rents--then he will not destroy it utterly, nor allow it to grow into a
nuisance. I am fond of a gun myself, but I trust to find enough for my
propensity to the chase in my own fields and woods--if I occasionally
extend my pursuit across the lands of my tenants, it shall not be to
carry off the first fruits of their feeding, and I shall still hold the
enjoyment as a favor."

We need not say that this speech was applauded most vociferously.
Thirdly, and lastly, he gave a grand entertainment to all his work
people, both of the town and the country. His house and gardens were
thrown open to the inspection of the whole assembled company. The
delighted crowd admired immensely the pictures and the pleasant gardens.
On the lawn, lying between the great grove and the hall, an enormous tent
was pitched, or rather a vast canvas canopy erected, open on all sides,
in which was laid a charming banquet; a military band from Stockington
barracks playing during the time. Here Sir Simon made a speech as
rapturously received as that to the farmers. It was to the effect, that
all the old privileges of wandering in the grove, and angling, and
boating  on the river were restored. The inn was already rebuilt in a
handsome Elizabethan style, larger than before, and to prevent it ever
becoming a fane of intemperance, he had there posted as landlord, he
hoped for many years to come, his old friend and benefactor, William
Watson. William Watson should protect the inn from riot, and they
themselves the groves and river banks from injury.

Long and loud were the applauses which this announcement occasioned. The
young people turned out upon the green for a dance, and in the evening,
after an excellent tea, the whole company descended the river to
Stockington in boats and barges decorated with boughs and flowers, and
singing a song made by William Watson for the occasion, called "The
Health of Sir Simon, last and first of his Line!"

Years have rolled on. The groves and river banks and islands of Rockville
are still greatly frequented, but are never known to be injured: poachers
are never known there, for four reasons. First, nobody would like to
annoy the good Sir Simon; secondly, game is not very numerous there;
thirdly, there is no fun in killing it, where there is no resistance; and
fourthly, it is vastly more abundant in other proprietors' demesnes, and
it is fun to kill it there, where it is jealously watched, and there is a
chance of a good spree with the keepers.

And with what different feelings does the good Sir Simon look down from
his lofty eyrie, over the princely expanse of meadows, and over the
glittering river, and over the stately woods to where Great Stockington
still stretches farther and farther its red brick walls, its red-tiled
roofs, and its tall smoke-vomiting chimneys. There he sees no haunts of
crowded enemies to himself or any man. No upstarts, nor envious
opponents, but a past family of human beings, all toiling for the good of
their families and their country. All advancing, some faster, some
slower, to a better education, a better social condition, a better
conception of the principles of art and commerce, and a clearer
recognition of their rights and duties, and a more cheering faith
in the upward tendency of humanity.

Looking on this interesting scene from his distant and quiet home, Sir
Simon sees what blessings flow--and how deeply he feels them in his own
case--from a free circulation, not only of trade, but of human relations.
How this corrects the mischiefs, moral and physical, of false systems and
rusty prejudices;--and  he ponders on schemes of no ordinary beauty and
beneficence yet to reach his beloved town through them. He sees lecture
halls and academies, means of sanitary purification, and delicious
recreation, in which baths, wash-houses, and airy homes figure largely;
while public walks extend all round the great industrial hive, including
wood, hills, meadow and river in their circuit of many miles. There he
lived and labored; there live and labor his sons; and there he trusts his
family will continue to live and labor to all future generations: never
retiring to the fatal indolence of wealth, but aiding onward its active
and ever-expanding beneficence.

Long may the good Sir Simon live and labor to realize these views. But
already in a green corner of the pleasant churchyard of Rockville may be
read this inscription on a marble headstone:--"Sacred to the memory of
Jane Deg, the mother of Sir Simon Degge, Bart., of Rockville. This stone
is erected in honor of the best of Mothers by the most grateful of sons."

       *       *       *       *       *

[From Fraser's Magazine.]

THE SPOTTED BOWER-BIRD.

FROM LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.


Elegant and ingenious as are the structures and collections of the satin
bower-bird, the species of the allied genus _Chlamydera_ display still
greater architectural abilities, and more extensive, collective, and
decorative powers.

The spotted bower-bird[A] is an inhabitant of the interior. Its probable
range, in Mr. Gould's opinion, is widely extended over the central
portions of the Australian continent; but the only parts in which he
observed it, or from which he procured specimens, were the districts
immediately to the north of the colony of New South Wales. During his
journey into the interior he saw it in tolerable abundance at Brezi, on
the river Mokai, to the northward of the Liverpool plains; and it was
also equally numerous in all the low scrubby ranges in the neighborhood
of the Namoi, as well as in the open brushes that intersect the plains on
its borders. Mr. Gould is gifted with the eye of an observer; but from
the extreme shyness of its disposition, it generally escapes the
attention of ordinary travelers, and it seldom allows itself to be
approached near enough for the spectator to discern its colors. Its
'harsh, grating, scolding note,' betrays its haunts to the intruder; but,
when disturbed, it seeks the tops of the highest trees, and, generally,
flies off to another locality.


[Footnote A: _Chlamydera maculala_.--GOULD.]


Mr. Gould obtained his specimens most readily by watching at the
water-holes where they come to drink; and on one occasion, near the
termination of a long drought, he was guided by a native to a deep basin
in a rock where water, the produce of many antecedent months, still
remained. Numbers of the spotted bower-birds, honeysuckers, and parrots,
sought this welcome reservoir, which had seldom, if ever before,
reflected a white face. Mr. Gould's presence was regarded with suspicion
by the winged frequenters of this attractive spot; but while he remained
lying on the ground perfectly motionless, though close to the water,
their wants overpowered their misgivings, and they would dash down past
him and eagerly take their fill, although an enormous black snake was
lying coiled upon a piece of wood near the edge of the pool. At this
interesting post Mr. Gould remained for three days. The spotted
bower-birds were the most numerous of the thirsty assemblage there
congregated, and the most shy, and yet he had the satisfaction of
frequently seeing six or eight of them displaying their beautiful necks
as they were perched within a few feet of him. He states that the scanty
supply of water remaining in the cavity must soon have been exhausted by
the thousands of birds that daily resorted to it, if the rains which had
so long been suspended had not descended in torrents.

Mr. Gould discovered several of the bowers of this species during his
journey to the interior, the tiniest of which, now in the National
Museum, he brought to England. He found the situations of these runs or
bowers to be much varied. Sometimes he discovered them on the plains
studded with Myalls (_Acacia pendula,_) and sometimes in the brushes with
which the lower hills were clothed. He describes them as considerably
longer, and more avenue-like, than those of the satin bower-bird,
extending in many instances to three feet in length. Outwardly they were
built with twigs, and beautifully lined with tall grasses, so disposed
that their upper ends nearly met. The decorations were very profuse,
consisting of bivalve shells, skulls of small animals, and other bones.

Evident and beautiful indications of design (continues Mr. Gould) are
manifest throughout the whole of the bower and decorations formed by this
species, particularly in the manner in which the stones are placed within
the bower, apparently to keep the grasses with which it is lined fixed
firmly in their places, these stones diverge from the mouth of the run on
each side so as to form little paths, while the immense collection of
decorative materials, bones, shells, &c., are placed in a heap before the
entrance of the avenue, this arrangement being the same at both ends. In
some of the larger bowers, which had evidently been resorted to for many
years, I have seen nearly half a bushel of bones, shells, &c., at each of
the entrances. In some instances, small bowers, composed almost entirely
of grasses, apparently the commencement of a new place of rendezvous,
were observable. I frequently found these structures at a considerable
distance from the rivers, from the borders of which they could alone have
procured the shells, and small, round pebbly stones; their collection and
transportation must, therefore, be a task of great labor and difficulty.
As these birds feed almost entirely upon seeds and fruits, the shells and
bones cannot have been collected  for any other purpose than ornament;
besides, it is only those which have been bleached perfectly white in the
sun, or such as have been roasted by the natives, and by this means
whitened, that attract their attention. I fully ascertained that these
runs, like those of the satin bower-bird, formed the rendezvous of many
individuals; for, after secreting myself for a short space of time near
one of them, I killed two males which I had previously seen running
through the avenue.

The plumage of this species is remarkable. A rich brown pervades the
crown of the head, the ear-coverts and the throat, each feather being
bordered by a narrow black line; and, on the crown, the feathers are
small and tipped with silver gray. The back of the neck is crossed by a
beautiful, broad, light, rosy pink band of elongated feathers, so as to
form a sort of occipital crest. The wings, tail, and upper surface, are
deep brown, every feather of the back, rump, scapularies, and
secondaries, having a large round spot of full buff at the tip. Primaries
slightly tipped with white. All the tail-feathers with buffy white
terminations. Under parts grayish white. Flank-feathers zigzagged with
faint transverse light brown lines. Bill and feet dusky brown. At the
corner of the mouth the bare, thick, fleshy, prominent skin, is of a
pinky flesh colour, and the irides are dark brown.

The rosy frill adorns the adults of both sexes: but the young male and
female of the years have it not.

Another species, the great bower-bird,[B] was probably the architect of
the bowers found by Captain Grey during his Australian rambles, and which
interested him greatly in consequence of the doubts entertained by him
whether they were the works of a bird or of a quadruped,--the inclination
of his mind being that their construction was due to the four-footed
animal. They were formed of dead grass and parts of bushes, sunk a slight
depth into two parallel furrows, in sandy soil, and were nicely arched
above; they were always full of broken sea-shells, large heaps of which
also protruded from the extremity of the bower. In one of these bowers,
the most remote from the sea of those discovered by Captain Grey, was a
heap of the stones of some fruit that evidently had been rolled therein.
He never saw any animal in or near these bowers; but the abundant
droppings of a small species of kangaroo close to them, induced him to
suppose them to be the work of some quadruped.


[Footnote B: _Chlamydora nuchalis_.]


Here, then, we have a race of birds whose ingenuity is not merely
directed to the usual; ends of existence, self-preservation, and the
continuation of the species, but to the elegancies and amusements of
life. Their bowers are their ball and assembly rooms; and we are very
much mistaken if they are not, like places of meeting,

  For whispering lovers made.

The male satin bower-bird, in the garden at the Regent's Park, is
indefatigable in his assiduity toward the female; and his winning
ways to coax her into the bower conjure up the notion that the soul of
some Damon in the course of his transmigration, has found its way into
his elegant form. He picks up a brilliant feather, flits about with it
before her, and when he has caught her eye adds it to the decorations.

  Haste, my Nanette, my lovely maid,
  Haste to the bower thy swain has made.

No enchanted prince could act the deferential lover with more delicate or
graceful attention. Poor fellow, the pert, intruding sparrows plague him
abominably; and really it becomes almost an affair of police that some
measures should be adopted for their exclusion. He is subject to fits,
too, and suddenly, without the least apparent warning, falls senseless,
like an epileptic patient; but presently recovers, and busies himself
about the bower. When he has induced the female to enter it, he seems
greatly pleased; alters the disposition of a feather or a shell, as if
hoping that the change may meet her approbation; and looks at her as she
sits coyly under the overarching twigs, and then at the little
arrangement which he has made, and then at her again, till one could
almost fancy that one hears him breathe a sigh. He is still in his
transition dress, and has not yet donned his full Venetian suit of black.

In their natural state, the satin bower-birds associate in autumn in
small parties; and Mr. Gould states that they may then often be seen on
the ground near the sides of rivers, particularly where the brush
feathers the descending bank down to the water's edge. The male has a
loud liquid call; and both sexes frequently utter a harsh, gutteral note,
expressive of surprise and displeasure.

Geffrey Chaucer, in his argument to _The Assemblie of Foules_, relates
that, "All foules are gathered before Nature on St. Valentine's day, to
chose their makes. A formell egle beyng beloved of three tercels,
requireth a yeeres respite to make her choise: upon this triall, _Qui
bien aime tard oublie_-'He that loveth well is slow to forget.'" The
female satin-bower bird in the Regent's Park seems to have taken a leaf
out of the 'formell egle's' book: for I cannot discover that her humble
and most obsequious swain has been rewarded for his attentions though
they have been continued through so many weary months; but we shall never
be able entirely to solve these mysteries till we become possessed of the
rare ring sent to the King of Sarra by the King of Arable, 'by the vertue
whereof' his daughter understood 'the language of all foules,' unless we
can

    Call up him that left untold
  The story of Cambuscan bold,
  Of Camball and of Algersife,
  And who had Canace to wife,
  That own'd the virtuous ring and glass,
  And of the wondrous horse of brass,
  On which the Tartar king did ride.

Edmund Spenser, with due reverence for

   Dan Chauser (well of English undefiled),

has indeed done his best to supply the defect,[C] and has told us that

  Cambello's sister was fair Canacee,
  That was the learnedst lady in her days,
  Well seem in every science that mote be,
  And every secret work of nature's ways,
  In witty riddles, and in wise soothsays,
  In power of herbs and tunes of beasts and birds:

but we learn from him no more of the ring than 'Dan Chaucer' tells us:--

  The vertue of this ring, if ye woll here,
  Is this, that if she list it for to were
  Upon her thombe, or in her purse it bere,
  There is no foule that fleeth under heven
  That she no shall understand his steven,[D]
  And know his meaning openly and plaine,
  And answer him in his language againe:

as Canace does in her conversation with the falcon in _The Squires Tale_.
Nor is the 'vertue' of the ring confined to bird-intelligence, for the
knight who came on the 'steed of brasse,' adds,--

  And every grasse that groweth upon root
  She shall well know to whom it will do boot,
  And be his wounds never so deep and wide.

But we must return from these realms of fancy to a country hardly less
wonderful; for Australia presents, in the realities of its quadrupedal
forms, a scene that might well pass for one of enchantment.


[Footnote C: _Fairy Queen_, book iv. cant. 2, _et seq_.]

[Footnote D: Sound.]


       *       *       *       *       *

The French Society of Geography have just given their grand gold medal to
two brothers, Antoine and Arnaud d'Abadie, for the progress which
geography has received from their travels in Abyssinia, which were begun
in 1837 and finished in 1848. This period they spent in exploring
together, not only Abyssinia, but the whole eastern part of Africa. Their
enterprise was wholly at their own expense, and was undertaken from the
love of science and adventure.

       *       *       *       *       *

The French Government are now publishing at Algiers the History of the
Berbers, by Ibn Chaldun, the greatest of Arabian historians. It is
printed in quarto form, with the types of the National Printing
Establishment, sent from Paris for the purpose. The French translation
will appear as soon as the second volume of the original, which is now
in press, is completed.


       *       *       *       *       *



[From Fraser's Magazine.]

MADAME DE POMPADOUR.

In the gallery of the Louvre at Paris there is, or was some few years
ago, a crayon drawing by La Tour, which represents Madame de Pompadour in
all the pride and luster of her early beauty. The marchioness is seated
near a table covered with books and papers, among which may be
distinguished Montesquieu's _Spirit of Laws_ and the _Encyclopædia_, two
of the remarkable works which appeared during her reign of favor. An open
album shows an engraving of Gay, chiseling some portrait of Louis XV., or
his mistress. The marchioness is represented with her hair slightly
powdered; she is clad in an open, flowered brocade robe, and wears
red-heeled shoes, of a delicacy, as regards size, worthy of an Oriental
foot. In this portrait there is much to admire: the neck, which is
slender and well-shaped, springs most gracefully from the shoulders; the
head, which is also admirably proportioned, is a model of feminine
beauty; the brow is lofty and severe; the lips, slightly compressed,
express at the same time decision and irony; the eyes are of a most vivid
brilliancy, and the nose is perfection itself: in short, there reigns
throughout every lineament of this most striking countenance an air of
nobility, and even of dignity, which qualifies in some measure the
accounts left us by history of the share she bore in the _petits soupers_
of Versailles, the masked balls of the Hôtel de Ville, and the thousand
other orgies got up for the entertainment of the most dissolute monarch
of (at that period) one of the most dissolute courts of Europe.

The history of Madame de Pompadour is not generally known in all its
particulars, though much has been written of her by persons of every
shade of opinion. Some have exalted her virtues, while others have
multiplied her crimes. Both parties are right, and both wrong. A
courtier, and a man seeking to be revenged, are not historians when they
write. With a little patience, and by a careful study of the writers of
the eighteenth century, we are enabled to seize here and there a faithful
trait of this extraordinary, yet most fascinating woman, and by
diligently sifting conflicting opinions arrive at something approaching
the truth. That Madame de Pompadour was a woman endowed with great
talents, many virtues, and as many vices, is not to be denied; that she
employed those talents in general for her country's good we think is
equally true, though many writers have unjustly contended that all the
defeats and reverses of France are to be traced to the influence
exercised by her over the mind of Louis XV. Beyond a doubt the ruling
passion of her heart was ambition, and yet even this passion, which
according to many writers of her day was boundless, she kept so
skillfully concealed from all her intimates, that not one of the many
courtiers, philosophers, and men of letters, who thronged her
antechambers--with the exception, perhaps, of the Abbé de Bernis, of whom
more anon--was ever enabled to discover the secrets of that heart, which,
in the words of a writer of the time, "she ever kept closely hidden
beneath an eternal smile."

Madame de Pompadour was born in Paris in the year 1720. She herself
always said, in 1722. We are told that Poisson, her father, at least her
mother's husband, was employed in the commissariat department of the
French army: some historians affirm that her father was a butcher of the
Invalides, who was condemned to be hung; according to Voltaire she was
the daughter of a farmer of the Ferté-sous-Jouarre. But this is of slight
consequence, as her true father was the Fermier-général, Lenorman de
Tourneheim. This individual having taken a fancy to Poisson's daughter
when she was quite an infant, took her to his house, and brought her up
as his own child. Having from her earliest years displayed quite passion
for music and drawing, the first masters of the day were engaged by
Lenorman de Tourneheim for his adopted child. Under a diligent course of
study the little Jeanne Antoinette made rapid strides toward perfection
in the arts she loved, and her intellectual acquirements were vaunted by
all who knew her. Fontenelle, Voltaire, Duclos, and Crebillon, who, in
their character of _beaux esprits_, had the _entrée_ of the house, spread
everywhere abroad throughout the fashionable world the praises of her
beauty, her grace, and her talents.

Madame de Pompadour offered in her person the model of a woman, at the
same time beautiful in the strict acceptation of the word, and simply
pretty. The lines of her features possessed all the purity of one of
Raphael's creations, but there it must be said the resemblance ceased;
the spirit which animated these features was of the world, worldly: in
short, it was the true spirit of a Parisian woman. All that gives
brilliancy, charm, and play to the physiognomy she possessed in the
happiest degree. Not a single court lady could at that period boast an
air at the same time so noble and yet so coquettish, features so imposing
and yet so delicate and playful, or a figure at once so elegant and yet
so supple and undulating: her mother used always to say that a king alone
was worthy of her daughter. Jeanne, it is said, had at in early age what
might be called the presentiment of the throne, at first on account of
this frequently-expressed opinion of her mother's, and afterward because
she fancied she loved the king. "She owned to me," says Voltaire, in his
_Memoirs_, "that she had a s[*illegible] presentiment that she would be
loved by [*illegible] king, and that she had herself a violent
inclination for him." There are certain [*illegible] in life in which
destiny permits itself for a moment, as it were, to be divined.
[* illegible] those who have succeeded in climbing [*illegible] rugged
mountain of human vanities [*illegible ] that from their earliest youth
certain visions and presentiments have ever warned them of their future
glory.

But how was she to attain to this throne of France, the object of her
ambition? This was a difficult question to solve. In the meanwhile she
familiarized herself with what might be considered the life of a queen, a
part which, it must be allowed, she could play to admiration. Beautiful,
witty, intellectual, ever admired and ever listened to, she soon beheld
at her feet all the courtiers of her father's fortune; she gathered
around her, consequently, a brilliant crowd of poets, artists, and
philosophers, over whom she reigned with all the dignity of majesty.

The Fermier-général had a nephew named Lenorman d'Etioles, a young man of
Amiable character, and with the feelings and habits of a gentleman. This
was the reputed heir of the immense wealth of the old Fermier-général,
according to the established laws, though Jeanne had on her side also
some claims to a share of the property. A very simple means was however
devised to prevent all after litigation, namely, by arranging a marriage
between the two young people. Jeanne, as we have already seen, loved the
king, and she married d'Etioles without her feelings in this respect
undergoing any change. Versailles was her horizon, the goal to which she
aspired. D'Etioles, it is said, became deeply enamored of his young
bride; but this passion, which amounted almost to fanaticism, never
touched her heart. To use her own words, she "accepted him with
resignation, as a misfortune which was not to last long."

The hôtel of the new-married couple was organized upon a lordly footing;
the best society in Paris was there to be found, for all those whose
company was worth having deserted the _salons_ of the fashionable world
for those of Madame d'Etioles. Never until then had such a lavish display
of luxury been seen. The young bride hoped by these means to make a noise
at court, and thus pique the curiosity of the king. The days passed in
fêtes and entertainments of every kind. The celebrated comedians of the
day, the popular poets, artists, foreigners of distinction, all had ready
access to the splendid mansion of Lenorman d'Etioles, of which the
mistress was the life and ornament; every one visited there, in short,
except the king.

Ever since the celebrated _réunions_ of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, there
have always been in France a succession of circles of _beaux esprits_,
presided over by some queen of fashion. Louis XIV. hated these
_réunions_, saying that the court was spread abroad into all [*illegible]
hôtels of Paris. In fact, for many, the [*illegible ] of the Duchesse de
Main or of the [*illegible ]ise de Lambert, of Madame de Tencin
[*illegible] Madame Géoffrin, possessed far greater [*illegible ]ons than
the already superannuated [*illegible ] of Versailles. The French
Revolution [*illegible ] its rise in these very circles, for in them they
laughed a little at the great powers of the earth, and there philosophy
and liberty were allowed elbow-room. Thus, at Madame d'Etioles' might be
seen old Fontenelle, who believed in nothing, not even in his own heart;
Voltaire, still young, and armed with the keen weapons of his ready wit,
prepared to make war upon those whose reign was of this world, above all
upon the Jesuits; Montesquieu and Maupertuis, born skeptics and mockers;
along with many others of a kindred spirit who had beheld the decline of
royalty and religion, when Louis XIV., in the latter years of his reign,
had permitted Scarron's widow to make religion fashionable, by cloaking
France with the mask of hypocritical piety--a mask soon, however, to be
torn aside by Philippe of Orleans in the wild saturnalia of the Regency.
The Abbé de Bernis was also a constant visitor at the house of Madame
d'Etioles; he was, in the parlance of the time, the _Abbé de la
Maison_--it is true he had no other benefice--but little thought then,
either the abbé of the house or the mistress of the house, that within
ten years from that time they would reign over France as absolute
ministers. There was one other individual of this brilliant circle worthy
of a passing notice, and this was an amiable and simple-minded poet, of
good appearance and the best temper in the world, named Gentil
Bernard.[A] Madame d'Etioles used to pet him like a spoiled child. Some
said he was her lover. However that may be, Madame de Pompadour, who,
whether she had or had not a secret penchant for the poet, never forgot
her old friends, procured for him, as soon as she came into power, the
appointment of librarian to the king at the château de Choisy, where she
built him, at her own expense, a little cottage _ornée_, named by the
poets of the time, the Parnassus of the French Anacreon. This appointment
was a complete sinecure, for we know that the king never opened a book,
and we are equally assured that Bernard never put his foot inside the
library.


[Footnote A: Pierre Bernard, nicknamed Gentil Bernard by Voltaire[1] was
born at Grenoble about the same time as Louis XV. "It is strange," said
Madame de Pompadour later, "that two lovers should be born for me during
the same season--a king and a poet." Bernard ever refused all favors, and
was singularly devoid of ambition. "What can I do for you, my dear poet?"
Madame de Pompadour is reported to have said on her coming into Power.
Bernard contented himself with kissing the hand of the marchioness. "Go
to," returned she, "you will never get on in the world."

  [Footnote 1: This nickname was given in a poetical invitation to
  a supper-party at Madame Duchatelet's, sent by Voltaire to the poet:

    "Au nom du Pinde et de Cythère
      Gentil Bernard est averti,
      Que l'Art d'Aimer doit Samedi
    Venir souper chez l'Art de Plaire."]]


We have already named the Abbé, afterward Cardinal, de Bernis; and as he
was the only individual who ever succeeded in being admitted into the
entire confidence of the royal favorite, a brief notice of his birth, and
rise and fall at court, may not be altogether out of place, so closely
linked for many years were his fortunes with those of Madame de
Pompadour.


Joachim de Pierres, abbé de Bernis, was born at Saint-Marcel, near
Narbonne, in the month of May, 1715. His family, which was of the most
ancient _noblesse_, was allied to the king through the house of Rohan; a
circumstance, however, which did not prevent it being one of the poorest
in the kingdom. As his relatives had nothing to give Joachim, they made
him an abbé. Like Bernard, he came when very young to Paris, confiding in
his lucky planet, smiling on every one, and reaping a plentiful harvest
of smiles in return. He was then a handsome young man, with a bright eye
and an animated mouth. In figure he was herculean, and here we find, in
contradiction of Buffon's saying, that the style was _not_ the man, no
more than it was with Bernard, who was also of large stature.

Joachim passed the winter at Saint-Sulpice, but, like Boufflers a little
later, far from singing the Canticles, he employed his time in the more
mundane occupation of scribbling love-songs. At the end of the winter he
was appointed vicar in a little town of his native department. "Vicar!"
said Joachim; "I'll not disturb myself for such a trifle." Shortly
afterward he was nominated Abbé de Bernis; but not a step would he budge
from the capital. In Paris then he remained, penniless it is true, but
without a care or thought for the future, and full of confidence in his
lucky planet--a confidence which, it must be said, was not misplaced. His
acquaintance with Madame d'Etioles began through an intrigue which he had
with a certain _marchande des modes_, who worked for the future favorite.
Having perceived the young girl one night at the theater in company with
her lover, Madame d'Etioles summoned her the following morning to her
house, and in the course of conversation inquired if that handsome young
man she had with her at the theater was her cousin.

"No, madame," replied the milliner; "he is my lover."

"Ah, indeed! he is your lover is he? And what does he do?"

"No great things, madame; he makes verses."

"A maker of verses!" said Madame d'Etioles; "that is amusing. Do not
forget my cap, and tell your young poet to come and see me."

In consequence of this invitation Bernis called on Madame d'Etioles, who
Received him with all the graces in the world, and from that hour
commenced a friendship which lasted for many years, and was the origin of
De Bernis' future advancement in the world.

Despite his great acquaintances, our abbé was none the richer; but he
laughed gaily at his poverty, and waited for better times. According to
all accounts the garret which he inhabited was in a wretchedly
dilapidated condition; his furniture consisted of a "bad bed covered with
some mules' saddle-cloths, which M. de Ferriol had brought from
Constantinople, a rickety table covered with books and papers and faded
bouquets, and an old worm-eaten arm-chair." Our abbé's purse was no
better garnished than his lodgings; and so well-known was this fact in
the world, that Senac de Meilhan tells us, that "when the Abbé de Bernis
supped out some one of the party always gave him a crown to pay his
coach-hire. At first this gift had been invented as a pleasantry, on the
abbé invariably refusing to stay to supper, alleging as an excuse that he
had no carriage; but it was a pleasantry which continued for some time."

In society, however, De Bernis was a general favorite, and was everywhere
Welcomed with open arms. They doated on Bernard, and they doated also on
on Bernis. Voltaire wrote in verse to both, Duclos spoke of their wit,
Helvetius gave them suppers, and the women did their best to spoil them.

From Cardinal de Fleury, however, our abbé received a rebuff. Having, in
order to humor his relative the Princess de Rohan, who had lately taken
him by the hand, applied to the minster for a convent, the latter sternly
replied,--

"Monsieur l'Abbé, your debaucheries render you unworthy of the favors of
the church. As long as I remain in power you shall obtain nothing."

"Well, Monseigneur," replied De Bernis, "I'll wait."

This repartee was an event; it was repeated and applauded everywhere
until it reached the ears of royalty itself.

On Madame de Pompadour coming to power, the Princess de Rohan deigned to
write to her in behalf of her dear abbé. "Madame la Marquis," she wrote,
"you have not forgotten M. l'Abbé de Bernis; you will deign, I trust, to
do something for him, he is worthy of your favors." Apropos of this
letter, Madame de Pompadour wrote the following to some minister of the
day: "I forgot, my dear Nigaud, to ask you what you have done for the
Abbé de Bernis; write me word, I beg of you, as I shall see him on
Sunday." Like Voltaire, Madame de Pompadour had the mania of nicknaming
her friends and acquaintances; even the king himself figured more than
once in her grotesque vocabulary.[B]


[Footnote B: She always called De Bernis her _pigeon pattu_
(splay-footedpigeon--on account of his large feet and his love-songs).
Voltaire had previously nicknamed him _Babet le bouquetiére_, at first
because the abbé always introduced flowers into his poetry; afterward, on
account of the resemblance he bore to a flower girl who used to sell
bouquets at the doors of the Opera.]


Madame de Pompadour presented her dear poet to the king, with a smile
which so charmed Louis XV. that he offered De Bernis, in the first
instance, an apartment in the Tuileries, and a pension of 1500 livres a
year; and so cleverly did the future cardinal play his cards, by
insinuating himself into the good graces of both the king and his
mistress, that, after a sojourn of two years at the château, he was
appointed ambassador from the court of France at Venice.

But it would appear that the Queen of the Adriatic did not suit the
inclinations of our abbé; he sighed for Versailles, and the _petits
soupers_ of Louis XV. After a very short sojourn in Venice he demanded
his recall from Madame de Pompadour, and on his return composed an
epistle to his fair protectress, the opening lines of which we give as a
fair specimen of his powers of versification:--

  On avait dit que l'enfant do Cythère
  Prés du Lignon avait perdu le jour;
  Mais je l'ai vu dans le bois solitaire
  Où va rever la jeune Pompadour.
  Il etait seul; le flambeau qui l'éclair
  Ne brillait plus; mais les près d'alentour
  L'onde, les bois, tout annonçait l'amour.

For the space of ten years the Abbé de Bernis was the shadow of Madame de
Pompadour; he followed her everywhere, sometimes even too far. Louis XV.
would meet him in all parts of the palace, in the private as well as the
state apartments, which would make him say sometimes,--"Where are you
going, Monsieur l'Abbé?" Our abbé would bow and smile, but say nothing.
True to his character of abbé, he would listen at all the doors, saying
that the chateau of the Tuileries was for him but one huge confessional.
He ended, however, by knowing all things, and by sitting in council with
the king and his mistress; and a precious trio it must be owned they
made.

But evil times were coming on our abbé. In the ministry he was assailed
by showers of _chansons_ and epigrams. The Count de Tressan, above all,
overwhelmed him with a violent satire. He could no longer hold his
ground. Every one began to grow tired of him, even the fair president of
the council; this was the _coup de grace_. The Duc de Choiseul, after
replacing him in the good graces of Madame de Pompadour, succeeded also
to his portfolio as minister. As some compensation, however, they gave
him the cardinal's hat; a circumstance which elicited from some wit of
the day the following couplet:--

  On dirait que Son Eminence
  N'eut le chapeau de cardinal
  Que pour tirer sa révérence.

Shortly afterward he was appointed Archbishop of Alby; but, according to
custom, he never appeared in his diocese. In 1769 he departed for Rome,
being nominated ambassador at the conclave for the nomination of Clement
XIV., that priest so gay, so gentle, and so witty, who has written that
sad people are like shrubs which never flower. Pope and cardinal
understood each other admirably well. Our cardinal never returned to
France; he had found in Rome a second fatherland, as sweet to his old ago
as France had been to his youth. He inhabited a magnificent palace, which
was for a length of time the hospitable refuge for all French travelers.
All had ready welcome, from the humble priest and poor artist to the
Princes and princesses of the blood royal. To use his own words,--"He
kept an _auberge_ of France in a square of Europe." He died in 1794,
faithful to his God and to his king, and bitterly denouncing the French
Revolution, which had despoiled him of his half million of francs per
annum, and had swept disdainfully away all the pretty artificial flowers
of his most artificial poetry. He died solitary and poor,--a strong
contrast to the style in which he had lived. But to return.

Madame d'Etioles passed in the eyes of the world as a perfect model of a
virtuous wife. She swore eternal fidelity to her husband, unless Louis
XV. should fall in love with her,--a reservation her husband was the
first to laugh at. At first this strange condition was spoken of as an
excellent joke in the house; from thence it spread abroad, and finally
reached Versailles. But the king, wishing to joke in return, contented
himself by saving,--"I should like very much to see this husband."

M. d'Etioles possessed an abandoned château in the forest of Senart;
Madame d'Etioles having learned that the king frequently hunted in the
forest, persuaded her husband to have the chateau newly furnished, and
put into a habitable state, alleging that the physicians had recommended
a change of air for her vapors. The husband, suspecting nothing, had the
château re-furnished an decorated in the most superb style. Once
installed in her new abode, Madame d'Etioles gave orders for the building
of three or four carriages of a most fairy-like lightness and elegance of
form, in which she might drive away her vapors. According to her
expectations, she frequently met the king in the forest; at first Louis
XV. passed her by without bestowing the slightest attention, either on
her or her equipage: afterward he remarked her or her equipage; afterward
he remarked her horses,--"What a pretty phaeton!" said he, on meeting her
for the third time. At length he remarked the lady herself, but it was
merely to bestow a passing remark upon her beauty.

Madame d'Etioles, however, was not to be repelled; she continued to pass
before the eyes of the royal sportsman: "sometimes as a goddess from
Olympus, sometimes as an earthly queen; at one time she would appear in
an azure robe seated in a rose-colored phaeton, at another in a robe of
rose color in a phaeton of pale blue."[C]


[Footnote C: Soulavie, _Mèmoires Historiques de la Cour de France pendant
le faveur de Madame de Pompadour_.]


In after days, Madame de Pompadour recalling to mind all these
follies--serious though for her--said to the Prince de Soubise--"I can
imagine myself reading a strange book; my life is an impossible romance,
I cannot believe in it."

At Etioles, private theatricals were the fashion; Madame d'Etioles was
the Clairon, the Camargo, and the Dangeville of the troop, which counted
among its members some of the most illustrious personages of the day.
Marshal de Richelieu, who was to be found wherever gallantry flourished,
was an assiduous and constant spectator at these _réunions_. Madame
d'Etioles, it is said, endeavored on more than one occasion to entice the
king behind the scenes; but Louis, kept constantly in view by Madame de
Chateauroux, never once left the royal box.

Two summers thus passed away without Madame d'Etioles obtaining aught
from the king save a cold and distant glance, or a passing word or two;
and this, for a woman of her ambition, was not sufficient. She returned
to Paris at the close of the summer season, determined to change once
more her plan of attack. A good opening was now before her, for Madame de
Chateauroux was dead, the throne of the favorite vacant; not an hour was
to be lost, for, with Louis XV. who could tell how soon a successor might
be appointed?

The wished-for opportunity at length presented itself. In the month of
December, 1744, a series of magnificent _fêtes_ were given at the Hôtel
de Ville; the women were masqued. In the course of the evening Madame
d'Etioles succeeded in approaching the king,--

"Sire," she said, "you must explain to me, if you please, a strange
dream. I dreamt that I was seated on a throne for an entire day; I do not
affirm that this throne was the throne of France, yet I dare assert that
it was a throne of purple, of gold, and of diamonds: this dream torments
me--it is at once the joy and torment of my life. Sire, for mercy's sake,
interpret it for me."

"The interpretation is very simple," replied the king; "but, in the first
place it is absolutely necessary that that velvet masque should fall."

"You have seen me."

"Where?"

"In the forest of Senart."

"Then," said the king, "you can divine that we should like to see you
again."

About a month or two after this interview, according to some biographers,
Madame d'Etioles, being determined by a _coup de main_ to attain her
grand object, namely, the securing a permanent footing at Versailles,
arrived one morning at the palace in a state of violent agitation, and
demanded an audience of the king. One of the gentleman ushers, a certain
M. de Bridge, who had been a guest at Etioles during the festivities of
the preceding season, conducted her into the presence of Louis XV.

"Sire," she exclaimed, "I am lost; my husband knows my glory and my
misfortune. I come to demand a refuge at your hands. If you shelter me
not from his anger he will kill me."

From that hour she took up her residence at Versailles to quit it no
more.

We know that Louis XV. passed his life in a state of constant lassitude
and _ennui_, from which it was almost impossible to arouse him;
indolence, indeed, may be said to have been the predominant trait in his
character: he hated politics and political matters, and all allusions to
state affairs were most irksome to him.

"Your people suffer, sire," said the Duke de Choiseul to him one day,
after a long political harangue.

"_Je m'ennuie!_" replied the king.

By skillfully and constantly varying the amusements of her royal lover,
with hunting-parties, promenades, fêtes, spectacles, and _petits
soupers_, Madame d'Etioles was enabled to strengthen her empire over the
heart of Louis XV., by making him feel how necessary she had become to
his happiness. One striking advantage she had over her predecessors, and
this was, the art she possessed of being able to metamorphose herself at
all hours of the day. No one could better vary the play of her
physiognomy than Madame de Pompadour. At one time she would appear
languishing and sentimental as a madonna; at another, lively, gay, and
coquettish, as a Spanish peasant girl. She possessed also, in a marvelous
degree, the gift of tears: none knew better than she did when to weep, or
how many tears it was necessary to shed. As a poet of the time has said,
"She wept with so much art that she was enabled to give to her tears the
value of pearls." Those who had seen her in the morning, superb,
imperious, a queen in all the splendor of power, would find her in the
evening, gay, whimsical, capricious, presiding over one of these _petits
soupers_ with all the exuberant and madcap gayety of an actress after the
theater. The Abbé Soulavie, who saw her often, has left us a well-studied
portrait of the favorite;--

"In addition to the charms of a beautiful and animated countenance,
Madame de Pompadour possessed also, in an eminent degree, the art of
transforming her features; and each new combination, equally beautiful,
was another result of the deep study she had made of the affinity between
her mind and her physiognomy. Without in the least altering her position,
her countenance would become a perfect Proteus."

With intuitive tact, Madame de Pompadour very quickly perceived, that in
order to amuse a king who took neither interest nor pleasure in arts and
letters, other and more material enjoyments were necessary. She
commenced, then, by transforming herself into an actress. The king was
there like a wearied spectator of life; she felt, that in order to
interest and enliven him, it was necessary to diversify frequently her
character, and the spirit of her character. Twenty times a day would she
change her dress, her appearance, and even her manner of walking and
speaking; passing from gayety to gravity, from songs and smiles to love
and sentiment. With syren-like voice, and a heart as light as the bird of
the air, she would invent a thousand graceful blandishments for the
amusement of her royal lover. Her beauty, which was marvelous, served her
well in all these metamorphoses. She dressed, too, with exquisite art.
Among the many costumes which she has invented, we may cite one which
made quite a _furore_ in its day, and this was the _negligé a la
Pompadour_; a robe in the form of a Turkish vest, which designed with
peculiar grace the _contour_ of the figure. She would frequently pass
entire mornings at her toilet in company with Louis XV., who would stand
by giving his opinion and advice respecting the different costumes she
adopted. The king, however, grew tired at length of having but one
comedian. In vain would she disguise herself sometimes as a farm-girl,
sometimes as a shepherdess; at one time as a peasant-girl, at another as
a nun, in order to surprise him, or rather, to allow herself to be
surprised by him in some one or other of the many turnings and windings
of the park of Versailles. The king had at first been charmed by the
novelty of the amusement, but by degrees he discovered that it was always
one and the same woman under a thousand different disguises.

Perceiving that the king began to grow tired of this species of comedy,
she had a theater constructed in the medal-room of the palace, she
herself nominating the actors and actresses whom she considered worthy of
performing with her on a stage which was to have but the king and a few
favorite courtiers for audience. The Duc de Vallière was appointed
stage-manager and director; for prompter they took an abbé, most probably
the Abbé de Bernis; the company consisted of the Duc d'Orleans, the Duc
d'Agen, the Duc de Nivernais, the Duc de Duras, the Comte de Maillebois,
the Duc de Coigny, the Marquis d'Entraigues, the Duchesse de Brancas, the
Comtesse d'Estrade, and Madame d'Angevilliers. The theater opened with a
_pièce de circonstance_, by Dufresny the poet, entitled _Le Mariage fait
et rompu_, in allusion to the marriage of Madame de Pompadour with M.
d'Etioles. The little troupe commenced with comedy, but soon descended to
opera and ballet. In song and dance, as well as in the representation of
the passions, Madame de Pompadour was the only actress of real talent. In
the characters of peasant-girls she was unsurpassed; but her _chef
d'oeuvre_ was the part of Collette in Rousseau's _Devin de Village_,
which she played with a _naïveté_ and tenderness that won all hearts.

Nothing was more difficult than to gain admission to this theater of
dukes and duchesses, the tickets of admission for which were given by the
king alone; and it must be said that Louis showed himself a much more
rigorous janitor of his theater than he was of his palace: consequently
it was no slight favor for Voltaire, who had for a length of time aspired
to the pleasures of Versailles, to see his _Enfant Prodigue_ played on
the boards of the court theater. Voltaire had, like all men the weakness
of wishing to govern the state; intoxicated with literary successes, he
now aspired to political honors. He hoped to become minister or
ambassador through the favor of Madame de Pompadour; and with a little
more tact he might have become ambassador, minister, or even cardinal,
had he wished it, but at the very moment when he fancied he had attained
the object of his ambition, he lost it forever by writing the famous
lines, commencing,--

  Pompadour, vous embellisez
  La cour, le Parnasse, et Cythère.

These verses, as we know, provoked a little remonstrance from the queen
and her daughters: all was lost for Voltaire, despite the goodwill of
Madame de Pompadour, who, for the rest, seeing that the cause was a bad
one, cared not to risk her own favor by imprudent attempts. Voltaire
never pardoned the marchioness her lukewarm intercession; and like a true
poet, revenged himself by a succession of madrigals, chansons, and
rhymes, without number,--all leveled, though in a playful way, at the
head of the favorite.

Duclos and Rousseau were more severe. Duclos, fully impressed with the
idea that he was a great historian, as impartial as he was passionless,
judged her harshly. He feared passing for a courtier, and he was unjust,
She bad attempted to attach Rousseau to herself; but the proud Genevese
Republican wrote her a letter which cut short all further
negotiations.[D] She always esteemed him, however, in a high degree. One
day, when Marshal de Mirepoix, in the course of conversation, advised her
not to trouble her head about that owl, she replied,--

"It is an owl, certainly, but it is Minerva's owl."


[Footnote D: Madame,--I had fancied for a moment that it was through
error that your messenger had remitted me one hundred louis for copies
which are charged but twelve francs. He has undeceived me. Permit me to
undeceive you in my turn. My savings enable me at present to enjoy a
revenue of about 540 livres, all deductions made. My work brings me in
annually a sum almost equal to this amount; I have then a considerable
superfluity; I employ it to the best of my power, though I scarcely give
any alms. If, contrary to all appearances, age or infirmities should some
day incapacitate me from following my usual occupations, I have a friend.
                                       J. J. ROUSSEAU
PARIS, August 18, 1762.]


Madame de Pompadour, with the design of still further strengthening her
power at court, conceived the idea of calling in the powers of the Church
to her aid. The Prince de Soubise, who was one of her most devoted
courtiers, took upon himself the task of procuring an indulgent Jesuit,
who would consent to confess and absolve her from all the sins she had
committed at court. Père de Sacy, the priest alluded to, had, though a
Jesuit, preserved in some sort the habits and feelings of a man of the
world; he could, when it suited his purpose, be of his century, and would
occasionally laugh a little at the severities of his order. To him, then,
the Prince do Soubise proceeded. At first he showed himself rather
restive.

"Recollect," said the prince to him, "from the confessional of the
marchioness to the confessional of the king there is but a step."

Père de Sacy could not resist the temptation of such an attractive
position; he went to the marchioness. Madame de Pompadour, proud of
having for a confessor a man who had been appointed Procureur-gènèral of
the Missions, received him most graciously. She had other reasons also
for seeking to conciliate the Jesuit--her principal one was this:--Up
to this time the Jesuitical party that had risen against her at
Versailles, the queen, the dauphin, Père Griffet, Cardinal de Luynes,
the Bishop of Verdun, and M. de Nicolai, had hoped to drive her from
court as a miscreant. Now, once declared worthy of heaven by a Jesuit of
such high standing as Père de Sacy, would she not become in some sort
inviolable and sacred? With these designs, then, she put in force all her
arts of seduction against her confessor; never did she display more
grace, wit, or beauty. Père de Sacy, who allowed himself to be taken
captive unresistingly by the battery of charms thus brought to bear upon
him, visited her seven or eight times to speak of confession, without,
however, coming to any conclusion upon the subject. As the good city of
Paris had not at the moment any matter of graver importance wherewith to
occupy its attention, it began to grow witty on the subject of this
confession; a thousand chansons were composed upon the father confessor
and his fair penitent. Piron arrived one evening at the Cafè Procope,
exclaiming that he had news from Versailles.

"Well," inquired some one, "has the marchioness confessed?"

"No," replied Piron; "Madame de Pompadour cannot agree with Père de Sacy
as to the style of confession."

The following day there was a great uproar among the Jesuits; the
procureur-général of the missions was summoned before their Council of
Ten, and was obliged to confess himself. He received a severe
reprimand from the superior of the order, and, as the price of his
absolution, was commanded to refuse his counsels to the marchioness, and
to excuse himself in the best manner he could for his previous delay.

Père de Sacy accordingly presented himself for the last time before
Madame de Pompadour, and the following conversation took place:--

"We cannot grant you, madame," began the holy father, "the absolution you
desire; your sojourn at court far from your husband, the public scandal
relative to the favor which it is alleged the king accords you, does not
permit of your approaching the holy table. The priest who would sanction
such a proceeding, in place of absolving you, would pronounce a double
condemnation--yours and his own; whilst the public, accustomed to judge
harshly the conduct of the great, would confirm the sentence beyond
appeal. You have testified to me, madame, that you are desirous of
fulfilling the duties of a good Christian; but example is the first of
these duties, and in order to obtain and merit absolution, your first
proceeding must be to return to M. d'Etioles, or at least quit the court
and seek, by penitence and charity, to repair the sins you have committed
against that society whose laws you have outraged, and which, declares
itself scandalized at your separation, from your husband."

Madame de Pompadour heard these words with the calmness and immobility of
a statue; but as soon as the priest had terminated she burst forth,--

"Père de Sacy," she exclaimed, violently, "you are a fool, an impostor, a
true Jesuit. Do you understand me? You have sought to enjoy a triumph
over me by witnessing the state of embarrassment in which you imagined I
was placed; you would gladly, you and yours, see me far from the king:
but, poor short-sighted mortals that you are! Know that I am here as
powerful as you imagine me weak and tottering; and in spite of you, in
spite of all the Jesuits in the world, I shall remain at court, whilst
you and your pack will not only be banished from court, but driven
ignominiously out of the kingdom."

From that hour the fall of the Jesuits was decreed. The holy fathers
imagined that the marchioness, like Madame de Chateauroux, was but the
queen of a day; but they were mistaken. To do them justice, it must be
allowed they believed that nothing was to be feared from such an enemy;
for it is very certain that had they seen the power of this woman, who
had all the firmness and decision of character of a man, or rather of a
revengeful woman, they would, beyond a doubt, have permitted her to
approach the holy table, or even have canonized her had she been desirous
of the honor.

Madame de Pompadour was born with noble instincts; her bitterest enemies
have never denied that she possessed the most refined taste in all
matters connected with the arts or letters. She sought to make of Louis
XV. an artist-king; and it must be said to her praise that she ever
strove to rouse him from his habitual indolence and lassitude by leading
his inclinations into healthy channels. But, unfortunately, Louis XV.,
unlike his predecessor, could never understand that great monuments often
make the glory of kings.

The _petits soupers_ of Versailles would occasionally shed a ray of
sunshine, or rather lamp light, over Louis the Fifteenth's habitual
ennui. After supper, chansons, sallies, and repartee, would be the order
of the night. Occasionally at these supper-parties some brilliant things
would be said. One evening, when some one sang a complaint upon the
misfortunes of our first father Adam, the king improvised the following
couplet worthy of the best chansons of Collé:--

  Il n'eut qu'une femme avec lui,
    Encor c'etait la sienne;
  Ici je vois celles d'autrui,
    Et ne vois pas la mienne.

Louis XV. had, as we see, his moments of poetical inspiration. Anacreon
could not have sung better than this.

Madame de Pompadour, born in the ranks of the people, and seating herself
unceremoniously on the throne of Blanche of Castille--Madame de
Pompadour, protecting philosophers and suppressing Jesuits, treating the
great powers of the earth with the same _sans façon_ as she did artists
and men of letters,--was one of the thousand causes, petty and, trifling
in themselves, which eventually accelerated the great French Revolution.
Madame Dubarry but imitated her predecessor when she called a noble duke
a _sapajou_ (ape). The _mot_ is pretty well known: "_Annoncez le sapajou
de Madame la Comtesse Dubarry_," said a great lord of the court of Louis
XV. one day. It would be a curious and most amusing task to enrich the
French peerage with all the _sobriquets_ bestowed by the mistresses of
Louis XV. as titles of nobility upon the courtiers of Versailles. More
than one illustrious name, which has been cited by France with pride, has
lost its luster in the tainted atmosphere of Versailles.

"Not only," said Madame de Pompadour; one day to the Abbé de
Bernis,--"not only have I all the nobility at my feet, but even my
lap-dog is weary of their fawnings." In short, Madame de Pompadour
reigned so imperiously, that once at Versailles, about the conclusion of
dinner, an old man approached the king, and begged him to have the
goodness to recommend him to Madame de Pompadour. All present laughed
heartily at this conceit; except, however, the marchioness.

Madame de Maintenon had not more difficulty in amusing Louis XIV. when
grown old and devout, than had Madame de Pompadour in diverting his
successor, who, though still young, seemed like a man who had exhausted
all the pleasures and enjoyments of life. About the time when the
marchioness used to transform herself into milkmaids and peasant girls,
she commenced building a very romantic hermitage in the park of
Versailles, on the outskirts of the wood near the Saint Germain's road:
viewed from without it seemed a true hermitage, worthy in all points of
an anchorite's abode; but within it was a dwelling more suited to some
old _roué_ of the Regency. Vanloo, Boucher, and Latour had covered the
walls and ceilings with all the images of pagan art. The garden was a
_chef d'oeuvre_; it was a grove rather than a garden; a grove peopled
with statues, intersected by a multitude of winding paths and alleys, and
abounding with a number of arbors, recesses, and "shady blest retreats."
In the middle of the garden there was a farm--a true model-farm--with its
cattle, goats, and sheep, and all the paraphernalia of husbandry. The
marchioness presided daily at the construction of this hermitage.

"Where are you going, marchioness?" Louis XV. would say on seeing her
going out so frequently.

"Sire," she would reply, "I am building myself a hermitage for my old
age. You know I am rather devout: I shall end my days in solitude."

"Yes," replied the king, "like all those who have loved deeply, or who
have been loved deeply."

About the time when spring gives place to the first advances of summer;
when the trees were in leaf, and the plants in flower; when the bright
greensward, enameled with its countless flowrets, carpeted the alleys of
the park, Madame de Pompadour one morning begged Louis XV. to come and
breakfast with her at the hermitage.

The king was conducted thither by his valet. His surprise was great. At
first, before entering, at the sight of the humble thatched roof, he
imagined that he was about to breakfast like a true anchorite, and began
to fear seriously that the marchioness had not displayed much taste in
the adornment of her retreat. He entered the court and proceeded straight
to the door of the hermitage. At this instant a young peasant girl
advanced to meet him; as she was well made, delicate, and pretty looking,
the king began to find the hermitage more to his taste. With deep
reverence his guide begged of him to follow her to the farm.

As he approached the farm, another peasant girl, more delicate still than
the former, advanced to meet him, and, with a thousand reverences,
presented him with a bowl of milk. At the sight of this pretty milkmaid,
with her little straw hat coquettishly disposed on one side of her head,
her white corset and blue petticoat, the king was charmed. Before taking
the milk from her hands, he gazed at her a second time from head to foot.
Her arms, which were uncovered, were white as lilies; she wore suspended
from her neck a little gold cross, which seemed to lose itself in a
magnificent bouquet of flowers which she wore in her bosom; but what
above all astonished the king were two little stockingless feet incased
in a pair of the most rustic _sabots_. With a motion of innocent
coquetry, the pretty milkmaid drew one of her feet out of its wooden
prison and placed it on the _sabot_. All at once the king recognized the
marchioness, and avowed to her that for the first time in his life he had
felt the desire of kissing a pretty foot. Madame de Pompadour returned
with her royal lover to the hermitage, where he could not sufficiently
admire the refined taste which had been displayed by the fair architect
in the planning and arrangement of the building and grounds. This was the
origin of what was afterward known as the notorious Parc-aux-cerfs.

It would be a difficult matter to study the political system of Madame de
Pompadour, if, indeed, she can be said to have acted on a system. It
cannot be denied that she possessed ideas, but more frequently her mind
was a perfect chaos of caprices. It is well known, however, that the Duc
de Choiseul, who united in his own person the portfolios of three
departments of the ministry, and who disposed of all power, followed to
the letter the policy of Madame de Pompadour; namely, in reversing the
system of Louis XIV., in allying himself to Austria, and in forming a
league, or rather a family pact, between the Bourbons of France, Italy,
and Spain. The policy of Madame de Pompadour it was which annexed Corsica
to France, and, consequently, Bonaparte, who was born at the decease of
the marchioness, owed to her his title of French citizen.

Women look not to the future; their reign is from day to day; women of
genius, who have at various epochs sought to govern the world, have never
contemplated the clouds which might be gathering in the distance; they
have been able to see clearly enough within a narrow circle traced around
them, but have never succeeded in piercing the shadows of futurity.
"_Après moi le déluge_," was Madame de Pompadour's motto.

The eighteenth century was a century of striking contrasts. The prime
minister after Cardinal de Fleury was Madame de Pompadour. With the
cardinal a blind religion protected the throne against the parliament;
with the rise of the marchioness's power we perceive the first dawnings
of philosophy, tormenting in turns both the clergy and the parliament.
Under Madame de Pompadour's direction the king, had he been only as bold
and determined as his mistress, would have become a greater king than
ever. The cardinal was miserly and avaricious, the marchioness liberal to
prodigality; she always said, and justly too, that money ought to flow
freely from the throne like a generous stream, fertilizing and humanizing
the entire State. The cardinal had been hostile to Austria, and favorable
to Prussia; the marchioness made war with Frederick to humor
Marie-Thérèse. The battle of Rosbach certainly belied her policy, but, to
use her own words, "Had she the privilege of making heroes?"

And after all, is the historian justified in accusing this woman of all
the dishonors and defeats of the reign of Louis XV.? She attained to
power just as the old legitimate royalty--the royalty, as the French
would call it, _par la grace de Dieu_--was fast giving way before the
royalty of opinion. There was nothing left to be done at Versailles,
simply because in Paris the power was already in the hands of Voltaire,
Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Diderot. And so well did Madame de Pompadour
comprehend this future royalty, that far from seeking to arrest its
progress, she, on the contrary, sought to meet it half way. For we do not
find her openly protecting and encouraging the philosophers of the day;
those very men who, by the mere force of ideas, were destined to
overthrow that throne on which she herself was seated! Thus we find also
the various painters of the time, in their several portraits of the
favorite, never failing to represent her surrounded with all the more
celebrated revolutionary books of the day, such as the _Encyclopaedia_,
the _Philosophical Dictionary_, the _Spirit of Laws_, and the _Social
Contract_.

Madame de Pompadour, woman-like, loved revenge; and this, it must be
said, was her worst vice. For a word she sent Latude to the Bastille; for
a couplet she exiled the minister Maurepas. Frederick of Prussia took it
into his head one day, in a moment of gayety, to call her Cotillon II.,
instead of Madame la Marquise de Pompadour, and styled her reign of favor
_le régne de Cotillon_; a witticism which so incensed her, that,
according to some writers, we may trace to this petty cause the origin of
the disastrous seven years' war.

The position of Madame de Pompadour at court as first favorite was, by
all accounts, far from being an enviable one; as years rolled on she
found herself necessitated to stoop to all kinds of meannesses, and to
endure all sorts of humiliations, to preserve her already tottering
empire. In order to make friends for herself in the parliament, she
suppressed the Jesuits; and she afterward exiled the parliament in order
to conciliate the clergy. Again, to prevent her royal, but most fickle
minded lover, from choosing another mistress out of the ranks of the
court ladies, she contrived that seraglio, the notorious Parc-aux-cerfs,
"the pillow of Louis the Fifteenth's debaucheries," as Chateaubriand
called it; at the last, hated and despised by all France, Madame de
Pompadour said to Louis XV., "For mercy's sake, keep me near you: I
protect you; I take upon myself all the hatred of France; evil times are
come for kings; so soon as I am gone, all the insults which are now
leveled at Madame de Pompadour will be addressed to the king."

Among the many desperate attempts which were made from time to time to
dethrone her, the following is the most curious:--

M. d'Argenson and Madame d'Estrade had resolved upon raising to the
throne of the favorite the young and beautiful Madame de Choiseul, wife
of the court usher. The intrigue was conducted with so much art that the
king granted an interview. At the hour fixed upon for the meeting a great
agitation reigned in the cabinet of the minister. M. d'Argenson and
Madame d'Estrade awaited the event with anxiety; Quesnai, physician to
the king and to the favorite, was also present. All at once Madame de
Choiseul rushed into the room; Madame d'Estrade ran to meet her with open
arms.

"Well!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," replied Madame de Choiseul; "I am loved; _she_ is going to be
dismissed. He has given me his royal word on it."

A burst of joy resounded through the cabinet. Quesnai was, as we know,
the friend of Madame de Pompadour; but he was at the same time the friend
of Madame d'Estrade. M. d'Argenson imagined that in this revolution he
would remain neuter at least, but he was mistaken.

"Doctor," said he, "nothing changes for you; we trust that you will
remain with us."

"Monsieur le Comte," coldly replied Quesnai, rising from his seat, "I
have been attached to Madame de Pompadour in her prosperity, and I shall
remain so in her disgrace;" and so saying he left the room.

This Quesnai, of whom we have just made mention, was a man of uncouth and
rustic manners, a true Danubian peasant. He inhabited a little _entresol_
above the apartments of Madame de Pompadour at Versailles, where he would
pass the whole of his time absorbed in schemes of political economy.
Quesnai, however, did not want for friends, as he could boast of the
esteem of all the most illustrious philosophers of the day. For those
persons who did not go to court would come once a month to dine with the
court physician. Marmontel, in his _Memoirs_, relates that he has dined
there in company with Diderot, D'Alembert, Duclos, Helvetius, Turgot, and
Buffon,--a goodly array of intellect. Thus on the ground floor they
deliberated on peace and war, on the choice of ministers, the suppression
of the Jesuits, the exile of the parliament, and the future destinies of
France; while above stairs those who had not power, but who possessed
ideas, labored unwittingly at the future destinies of the world. What was
concocted in the _rez-de-chaussée_ was demolished in the _entresol_. It
would frequently happen, too, that Madame de Pompadour who could not
receive the guests of Quesnai in her own apartments, would ascend to
those of her physician to see and chat with them.

Every Sunday morning Madame de Pompadour received at her toilet all the
artists, literary men, and great personages of the court, who had the
_entrée_ of her apartments. Marmontel relates that on the arrival of
Duclos and De Bernis, who never missed a single Sunday, she would say to
the first, with a light air, "_Bon jour, Duclos_;" to the second, with an
air and voice more amiable, "_Bon jour_, abbé:" accompanying her words
occasionally with a little tap on his cheek. Artists and men of letters
were invariably better received than the titled courtiers of France;
while many of the nobility were truly lords-in-waiting, the two Vanloos,
De la Tour, Boucher, and Cochin, had never to remain in the antechamber.
The account of her first and only interview with Crebillon is
interesting. Some one had informed her that the old tragic poet was
living in the Marais, surrounded by his cats and dogs, in a state of
poverty and neglect. "What say you!" she exclaimed; "in poverty and
neglect?" She ran to seek the king, and asked for a pension for the poet
of one hundred louis a-year from her privy purse. When Crebillon came to
Versailles to thank her, she was in bed. "Let him come in," she
exclaimed, "that I may see the gray-headed genius." At the sight of
the fine old man--Crebillon was then eighty years of age--so poor and yet
so proud, she was affected to tears. She received him with so touching a
grace that the old poet was deeply moved. As he leaned over the bed to
kiss her hand, the king appeared. "Ah, madame," exclaimed Crebillon, "the
king has surprised us! I am lost!" This sally amused Louis XV. vastly;
Crebillon's success was decided.

Madame de Pompadour passed her last days in a state of deep dejection. As
she was now in the decline both of her favor and of her reign, she no
longer had friends; even the king himself, though still submitting to her
guidance, loved her no more. The Jesuits, too, whom she had driven from
court, overwhelmed her with letters, in which they strove to depict to
her the terrors of everlasting punishment.[E] Every hour that struck
seemed to toll for her the death-knell of all her hopes and joys. On her
first appearance at court, proud of her youth, her beauty, and her
brilliant complexion, she had proscribed rouge and patches, saying that
life was not a masked ball. She had now reached that sad period of life
when she would be compelled to choose between rouge or the first wrinkles
of incipient old age. "I shall never survive it," she used to say,
mournfully,


[Footnote E: The fear of losing her power, and of becoming once more a
_bourgeoise_ of Paris, perpetually tormented her. After she had succeeded
in suppressing the Jesuits, she fancied she beheld in each monk of the
order as assassin and a poisoner.--_Mémoires historiques de la Cour de
France_.]


One night, during the year 1760, she was seized with a violent trembling,
and sitting up in bed, called Madame du Hausset.

"I am sure," she said, "I am going to die. Madame de Vintimille and
Madame de Chateauroux both died _as young as myself_: it is a species of
fatality which strikes all those who have loved the king. What I regret
least is life,--I am weary of flatteries and insults, of friendships and
hatreds; but I own to you that I am terrified at the idea of being cast
into some ditch or other, whether it be by the clergy, by Monseigneur the
Dauphin, or by the people of Paris."

Madame du Hausset took her hands within her own, and assured her that if
France had the misfortune to lose her, the king would not fail to give
her a burial worthy of her rank and station.

"Alas!" rejoined Madame de Pompadour, "a burial worthy of me!--when we
recollect that Madame de Mailly, repenting of having been his first
mistress, desired to be interred in the cemetery of the Innocents; and
not only that, but even under the common water-pipe."

She passed the night in tears. On the following morning, however, she
resumed a little courage, and hastened to call to her aid all the
resources of art to conceal the first ravages of time; but in vain did
she seek to recover that adorable smile which twenty years before had
made Louis XV. forget that he was King of France.

From this time forth she showed herself in Paris no more; and at court
she would only appear by candle-light, and then in the apparel of a Queen
of Golconda, crowned with diamonds, her arms covered with bracelets, and
wearing a magnificent Indian robe, embroidered with gold and silver. She
was always the beautiful Marchioness de Pompadour, but a closer
inspection would show that the lovely face of former days was now but a
made-up face, still charming, but like a restored painting, showing
evident symptoms of having been here and there effaced and retouched.
It was in the mouth that she first lost her beauty. She had in early life
acquired the habit of biting her lips to conceal her emotions, and at
thirty years of age her mouth had lost all its vivid brilliancy of color.

Some persons have stated that Madame de Pompadour died from the effects
of poison, administered either by the Jesuits, who never ceased
persecuting her with anonymous letters, or by her enemies at Versailles;
but this story is not deserving of credit. Most persons are agreed that
Madame de Pompadour died simply because she was five and forty years of
age; and owing as she did all her power but to the charm of her beauty,
its loss she was unable to survive. She suffered for a length of time in
silence, hiding ever under a pallid smile the death she already felt in
her heart. At length she took to her bed--that bed from which she was
fated to rise no more. She was then at the Chateau of Choisy; neither the
king nor his courtiers imagined that her disease was serious, but she
herself well knew that her hour was come. She entreated the king to have
her removed to Versailles; she wished to die upon the throne of her
glory--to die as a queen in the royal palace, still issuing her orders to
the troop of servile courtiers who were accustomed to wait humbly at her
footstool.

Like Diana de Poitiers, Gabrielle d'Estrées, and Madame de Maintenon, she
died in April. The curé of the Madeleine was present during her last
moments. As the old man was preparing to retire, after giving her the
benediction, she rallied for a moment, for she was then almost dead, and
said to him, "Wait a bit, Monsieur le Curé, we will go together." These
were her last words.

Up to this time the king had testified at least the semblance of
friendship and gratitude toward Madame de Pompadour, but no sooner had
she breathed her last than he began to consider how he could, in the
speediest manner possible, get rid of her mortal remains. He gave
immediate orders for the removal of the body to her house in Paris. As
the conveyance was about to start, the king, who was standing at one of
the windows of the Chateau, seeing a violent hailstorm breaking over
Versailles, said, with a smile, half sad, half ironical, "The marchioness
will have bad weather for her journey!"

That same day Madame de Pompadour's will was opened in his presence.
Although she had long since been far from his heart, he could not
restrain a tear at the reading of the document.

The marchioness, in her will, had forgotten none of her friends, nor any
of her servants; the king himself was named. "I entreat the king," she
wrote, "to accept the gift I make him of my hôtel in Paris, in order that
it may become the palace of one of his children: it is my desire that it
may become the residence of Monseigneur le Comte de Provence." This hotel
of Madame de Pompadour has since then been inhabited by illustrious
hosts, for it is better known at the present day under the designation of
the Elysée Bourbon, or rather the Elysée National.

Madame de Pompadour had several residences: she had received from the
king an hôtel at Paris and one at Fontainebleau; the estate of Crecy, the
château of Aulnay, Brimborion sur Bellevue, the seigniories of Marigny
and of Saint-Rémy; an hotel at Compiegne, and one at Versailles; without
counting the millions of francs in money bestowed at various times in
addition to her regular income, for they never counted francs at
Verseilles then.[F] For all this, we find Louis XV. giving the Marquis de
Marigny, her brother, an order for two hundred and thirty thousand
francs, _to assist him in paying the debts of the marchioness_. (_Journal
of Louis XV._, published at the trial of Louis XVI.)


[Footnote F: Except Louis XV., who, it is said, used to amuse himself by
making a private treasury. When he lost at play, he used always to pay
out of the royal treasury.]


The marchioness was interred in a vault of the church of the Capuchins;
by dint of interest and money her family had obtained the privilege of
having a funeral oration pronounced over her mortal remains. This oration
was a _chef d'oeuvre_, which ought most certainly to have been preserved
for the honor of the Church. Unfortunately, this curious and most
remarkable piece of eloquence was never printed, and history has
inscribed but a few lines in its annals. When the priest approached the
bier, he sprinkled the holy water, made the sign of the cross, and
commenced his discourse in the following terms:--"I receive the body of
the most high and powerful lady, Madame le Marquise de Pompadour, maid of
honour to the queen. She was in the school of all virtues," &c. The
remainder of this most edifying discourse is lost in oblivion, but surely
the force of humbug could no further go.

Montesquieu's prediction concerning two remarkable personages of the
eighteenth century (Voltaire and Madame de Pompadour) is
curious,--curious alike for its truth, and for the knowledge of the world
displayed by it.

One day, while on a visit to Ferney, Montesquieu being alone in
Voltaire's magnificent saloon, which opened on the Lake of Geneva, was
surprised by Marshal Richelieu (who had come over from Lyons to see how
Voltaire would play in the _Orphan of China_) standing in deep thought
before a pair of portraits which hung upon the wall.

"Well, Monsieur le President," said he, "you are studying, I perceive,
Wit and Beauty."

"Wit and Beauty, Marshal!" replied Montesquieu; "you see before you the
portraits of a man and a woman who will be the representatives of our
century."

And has not this prediction of Montesquieu's been in some sort
fulfilled?--Historians have styled the seventeenth century the century of
Louis XIV. Could not the eighteenth be with more justice designated the
century of Voltaire and Madame de Pompadour? For if these two characters
be carefully studied, the entire spirit of the age will in them be found
faithfully depicted.

But, O vanity of vanities! Madame de Pompadour, with all her wit, and
grace, and beauty, after having strutted and fretted her little hour on
life's fitful stage, has vanished from the theater of the world into
utter oblivion, leaving, literally speaking, scarcely a trace behind. In
the words of Diderot we may ask, "What now remains of this woman, the
dispenser of millions, who overthrew the entire political system of
Europe, and left her country dishonored, powerless, and impoverished,
both in mind and resources? The Treaty of Versailles, which will last as
long as it can; a statue by Bouchardon, which will be always admired; a
few stones engraved by Gay, which will astonish a future generation of
antiquarians; a pretty little picture by Vanloo; and a handful of ashes."

       *       *       *       *       *

From Eliza Cook's Journal.

THE CHURCH OF THE VASA D'AGUA.


One very hot evening, in the year 1815, the curate of San Pedro, a
village distant but a few leagues from Seville, returned very much
fatigued to his poor home; his worthy housekeeper, Senora Margarita,
about seventy years of age, awaited him. However much any one might have
been accustomed to distress and privation among the Spanish peasantry, it
was impossible not to be struck with the evidence of poverty in the house
of the good priest. The nakedness of the walls, and scantiness of the
furniture, were the more apparent, from a certain air about them of
better days. Senora Margarita had just prepared for her master's supper
an olla podrida, which notwithstanding the sauce, and high sounding name,
was nothing more than the remains of his dinner, which she had disguised
with the greatest skill. The curate, gratified at the odor of this savory
dish, exclaimed,--

"Thank God, Margarita, for this dainty dish. By San Pedro, friend, you
may well bless your stars to find such a supper in the house of your
host."

At the word host, Margarita raised her eyes, and beheld a stranger who
Accompanied her master. The face of the old dame assumed suddenly an
expression of wrath and disappointment; her angry glances fell on the new
comer, and again on her master, who looked down, and said with the
timidity of a child who dreads the remonstrance of his parent:--

"Peace, Margarita, where there is enough, for two, there is always enough
for three, and you would not have wished me to leave a Christian to
starve? he has not eaten for three days."

"Santa Maria! he a Christian, he looks more like a robber," and muttering
to herself, the housekeeper left the room. During this parley, the
stranger remained motionless at the threshold of the door; he was tall,
with long black hair, and flashing eyes, his clothes were in tatters, and
the long rifle which he carried excited distrust rather than favor.

"Must I go away?" he inquired.

The curate replied, with an emphatic gesture, "never shall he, whom I
shelter, be driven away, or made unwelcome: but sit down, put aside your
gun, let us say grace, and to our repast."

"I never quit my weapon; as the proverb says, two friends are one, my
rifle is my best friend; I shall keep it between my knees. Though you may
not send me from your house till it suits me, there are others who would
make me leave theirs against my will, and perhaps head-foremost. Now to
your health, let us eat." The curate himself, although a man of good
appetite, was amazed at the voracity of the stranger, who seemed to bolt
rather than eat almost the whole of the dish, besides drinking the whole
flask of wine, and leaving none for his host, or scarcely a morsel of the
enormous loaf which occupied a corner of the table. Whilst he was eating
so voraciously, he started at the slightest noise; if a gust of wind
suddenly closed the door, he sprang up and leveling his rifle, seemed
determined to repel intrusion; having recovered from his alarm, he again
sat down, and went on with his repast. "Now," said he, speaking with his
mouth full, "I must tax your kindness to the utmost. I am wounded in the
thigh, and eight days have passed without its being dressed. Give me a
few bits of linen, then you shall be rid of me."

"I do not wish to rid myself of you," replied the curate, interested in
his guest in spite of his threatening demeanor, by his strange exciting
conversation. "I am somewhat of a doctor; you will not have the
awkwardness of a country barber, or dirty bandages to complain of, you
shall see." so speaking, he drew forth, from a closet a bundle containing
all things needed, and turning up his sleeves, prepared himself to
discharge the duty of a surgeon.

The wound was deep, a ball had passed through the stranger's thigh, who,
to be able to walk, must have exerted a strength and courage more than
human. "You will not be able to proceed on your journey to-day," said the
curate, probing the wound with the satisfaction of an amateur artist.
"You must remain here to-night; good rest will restore your health and
abate the inflammation, and the swelling will go down."

"I must depart to-day, at this very hour," replied the stranger, with a
mournful sigh. "There are some who wait for me, others who seek me," he
added with a ferocious smile. "Come, let us see, have you done your
dressing? Good: here am I light and easy, as if I never had been wounded.
Give me a loaf--take this piece of gold in payment for your hospitality,
and farewell." The curate refused the tendered gold with emphasis. "As
you please, pardon me--farewell." So saying, the stranger departed,
taking with him the loaf which Margarita had so unwillingly brought at
her master's order. Soon his tall figure disappeared in the foliage of
the wood about the village.

An hour later, the report of fire-arms was heard. The stranger
reappeared, bleeding, and wounded in the breast. He was ghastly, as if
dying.

"Here," said he, presenting to the old priest some pieces of gold. "My
children--in the ravine--in the wood--near the little brook."

He fell, just as half a dozen soldiers rushed in, arms in hand; they met
with no resistance from the wounded man, whom they closely bound, and,
after some time, allowed the priest to dress his wound; but in spite of
all his remarks on the danger of moving a man so severely wounded, they
placed him on a cart.

"Basta," said they, "he can but die. He is the great robber, Don Josè
della Ribera." Josè thanked the good priest, by a motion of his head,
then asked for a glass of water, and as the priest stooped to put it to
his lips, he faintly said, "You remember."

The curate replied with a nod, and when the troop had departed, in spite
of the remonstrances of Margarita, who represented to him the danger of
going out in the night, and the inutility of such a step, he quickly
crossed the wood toward the ravine, and there found the dead body of a
woman, killed, no doubt, by some stray shot from the guards. A baby lay
at her breast, by her side a little boy of about four years old, who was
endeavoring to wake her, pulling her by the sleeve, thinking she had
fallen asleep, and calling her mamma. One may judge of Margarita's
surprise when the curate returned with two children on his arms.

"Santa Madre! What can this mean! What will you do in the night? We have
not even sufficient food for ourselves, and yet you bring two children. I
must go and beg from door to door, for them and ourselves. And who are
these children? The sons of a bandit--a gipsy; and worse, perhaps. Have
they ever been baptized?"

At this moment, the infant uttered a plaintive cry: "What will you do to
feed this baby? we cannot afford a nurse; we must use the bottle, and you
have no idea of the wretched nights we shall have with him."

"You will sleep in spite of all," replied the good curate.

"O! santa Maria, he cannot be more than six months old! Happily I have a
little milk here, I must warm it," and forgetting her anger, Margarita
took the infant from the priest, kissed it, and soothed it to rest. She
knelt before the fire, stirred the embers to heat the milk quicker, and
when this little one had had enough, she put him to sleep, and the other
had his turn. Whilst Margarita gave him some supper, undressed him, and
made him a bed for the night, of the priest's cloak, the good old man
related to her how he had found the children; in what manner they had
been bequeathed to him.

"O! that is fine and good," said Margarita, "but how can they and we be
fed?"

The curate took the Bible, and read aloud--

"Whosoever shall give, even a cup of cold water, to one of the least,
being a disciple; verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward."

"Amen," responded the housekeeper.

The next day, the good father ordered the burial of the poor woman, and
he himself read the service over her grave.

Twelve years from this time, the curate of San-Pedro, then seventy years
of age, was warming himself in the sun, in front of his house. It was
winter, and there had been no sunshine for two days.

Beside him stood a boy, ten or twelve years old, reading aloud the daily
prayers, and from time to time casting a look of envy on a youth of about
sixteen, tall, handsome, and muscular, who labored in the garden
adjoining that of the priest. Margarita, being now blind, was listening
attentively, when the youngest boy exclaimed, "O! what a beautiful
coach," as a splendid equipage drove up near the door.

A domestic, richly dressed, dismounted, and asked the old priest to give
him a glass of water for his master.

"Carlos," said the priest to the younger boy, "give this nobleman a glass
of water, and add to it a glass of wine, if he will accept it. Be quick!"

The gentleman alighted from the coach. He seemed about fifty.

"Are the children your nephews?" inquired he.

"Much better," said the priest, "they are mine by adoption, be it
understood."

"How so?"

"I shall tell you, for I can refuse nothing to such a gentleman; for poor
and inexperienced in the world as I am, I need good advice, how best to
provide for these two boys."

"Make ensigns of them in the king's guards, and in order to keep up a
suitable appearance, he must allow them a pension of six thousand
ducats."

"I ask your advice, my lord, not mockery."

"Then you must have your church rebuilt, and by the side of it, a pretty
parsonage house, with handsome iron railings to inclose the whole. When
this work will be complete, it shall be called the church of the _Vasa
d'Agua_, (Glass of Water.) Here is the plan of it, will it suit you?"

"What can this mean?"

"What vague remembrance is mine; these features--this voice mean that I
am Don Josè della Ribera. Twelve years ago, I was the brigand Josè. I
escaped from prison, and the times have changed; from the chief of
robbers, I have become the chief of a party. You befriended me. You have
been a father to my children. Let them come to embrace me--let them
come," and he opened his arms to receive them. They fell on his bosom.

When he had long pressed them, and kissed them by turns, with tears, and
half-uttered expressions of gratitude, he held out his hand to the old
priest--

"Well, my father, will you not accept the church?"

The curate, greatly moved, turned to Margarita, and said: "Whosoever
shall give even a cup of cold water unto one of the least, being my
disciple; verily I say to you, he shall not lose his reward."

"Amen," responded the old dame, who wept for joy at the happiness of her
master, and his children by adoption, at whose departure she also
grieved.

Twelve months afterward, Don Josè della Ribera and his two sons attended
at the consecration of the church of San Pedro, one of the prettiest
churches in the environs of Seville.

       *       *       *       *       *

SONG--BY MISS JEWSBURY.

  There once was a brave cavalier,
    Commanded by Cupid to bow;
  And his mistress, though lovely, I hear
    Had a very Sultana-like brow;
  In battles and sieges he fought
    With many a Saracen Nero,
  Till back to his mistress he brought
    The fame and the heart of a hero:
  But when he presumed to demand
    The hero's reward in all story,
  His mistress, in accents most bland--
    Desired him to gather more glory
                     Poor Camille!

  So back went the young cavalier,
    (Where dwells such obedience now?)
  And he wove amid pennant and spear,
    A wreath for that fair cruel brow;
  How crimson the roses he sent,
    But not with the summer sun's glow;
  'Twas the crimson of battle--and lent
    By a brave heart forever laid low!
  Now if such a lover I knew,
    And if I might be his adviser,
  I would bid him be tender and true,
    But certainly bid him be wiser.
                     Poor Camille!

       *       *       *       *       *

FROM PETRARCH.

  Weeping for all my long lost years, I go,
    And for that love which to this world confined
    A spirit whose strong flight, for heaven designed,
  No mean example might one man bestow.
  Thou, who didst view my wonderings and my woe,
    Great King of heaven! unseen, immortal mind!
    Succor this weary being, frail and blind;
  And may thy grace o'er all my failings flow!
  Then, though my life through warring tempests passed;
    My death may tranquilly and slowly come;
  And my calm soul may flee in peace at last:
    While o'er that space which shuts me from the tomb,
  And on my death-bed, be thy blessing cast--
    From Thee, in trembling hope, I wait my doom.

       *       *       *       *       *

[From Bentley's Miscellany]

THE FEMALE WRECKER; AND THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY.

A BRACE OF GHOST STORIES.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE EXPERIENCES OF A GAOL CHAPLAIN."

It was a glorious summer's evening in July. The sun, robed in a thousand
hues of gorgeous brilliancy, was setting behind the noble hill which
towers over the little hamlet of Shaldon; light pleasure-skiffs, with
tiny sail, were dotted over the bay;[A] the ebb tide was gently laving
the hissing strand; and at intervals, wafted by the breeze, came from
some merry party afloat, a ringing, joyous laugh, or some slight snatch
of song. It was an evening which breathed serenity and repose.


[Footnote A: Teignmouth, Devon.]


Seated on one of the benches which skirt that pleasant promenade[B] were
two feeble-looking men, with whom the summer of life had apparently
passed. They conversed slowly and at intervals. That the theme interested
both was clear from the earnest tone of the one, and the attention
rendered by the other. It was connected too in some way with the sea:
for, from time to time, the speaker paused and eyed wistfully the
slumbering monster at his feet; and more than once the ejaculation was
audible--"the secret is buried there!"


[Footnote B: The Denne.]


"And you believe this?" said the listener, half incredulously, half
respectfully, when his elderly companion ceased.

"I do--firmly."

The other smiled, and then continued in a lower tone--

"All delusion! the result of a heated fancy--all delusion from beginning
to end!"

"What is delusion?" said a tall military-looking figure, striding up and
joining the group. "We all have, at one period or other of our lives, to
battle with delusion and succumb to it. Now. sir," turning to the elder
gentleman (his name was Ancelôt) and making a courteous bow--"pray favor
me with your case and symptoms."

The party addressed looked nettled, and replied--

"Mine was no delusion; it was a stern and solemn reality."

"Well, give it what name you please," returned his companion, "only let
Major Newburgh hear the tale as you narrated it to me."

"To be again discredited? Excuse me, Trevor, no."

"Oh! but," interposed the major, "I'm of a very confiding disposition. I
believe everything and every body. The more extraordinary the narrative,
the more faith am I inclined to place in it. Trevor, there, as we all
know," added he, laughingly, "has a twist. He's a 'total abstinence'
man--a homeopathic man--a Benthamite, and secretly favors Mesmerism. With
such abounding faith upon some points, we will allow him to be somewhat
skeptical upon others. Come, your narrative."

"At the sober age of two-and-forty, a period when the season of delusion
is pretty well over," said Mr. Ancelôt, pointedly, "I found myself in
charge of a notorious fishing-village on the coast of Lincolnshire. It
was famous, or rather infamous, for the smuggling carried on in its
creeks, and for the vigilant and relentless wreckers which it numbered in
its hovels. 'Rough materials!' said the bishop, Dr. Prettyman, when I
waited upon him to be licensed to the curacy--rough materials to work
upon; but by care and diligence, Mr. Ancelôt, wondrous changes may be
effected. Your predecessor, a feeble-minded man, gave but a sorry account
of your flock; but under your auspices, I hope they will become a
church-going and a church-loving people! Make them churchmen--you
understand me? Make them churchmen!'... Heaven help me! They needed first
to be made honest and temperate--to be humanized and Christianized!
'Church-loving and church-going!' The chaplaincy of Newgate is not,
perhaps, a sinecure; that of the Model Prison at Pentonville has,
probably, its hours of toil; and that attached to Horsemonger Lane is not
entirely a bed of roses; but if you wish to wear a man's heart and soul
out; to depress his spirits and prostrate his energies--if you would make
him long to exchange his lot with the day-laborer who whistles at the
plow,--station him as a curate, far apart from his fellows, in a village
made up of prize-fighters, smugglers, and wreckers!" To my lonely cure,
with a heavy heart, I went; and by a most reckless and rebellious crew I
speedily found myself surrounded--a crew which defied control.
Intoxicating liquors of all kinds abounded. The meanest hovel smelt of
spirits. Nor was there any want of contraband tobacco. Foreign luxuries,
in a word, were rife among them. And yet they were always in want--always
craving from their clergyman temporal aid--in his spiritual capacity they
were slow to trouble him; had ever on their lips the entreaty
'give'--'give;' and always protested that they 'were come to their
furthest, and had not a shilling in the world to help themselves withal.'

"For recklessness, drunkenness, and midnight brawls, all England could
not match that parish.

"To the general and prevailing aspect of poverty, there was one, and that
a marked exception. It presented itself in the person of Abigail
Lassiter--a widow--who was reputed to be wealthy, and with whose means,
unscrupulously acquired, a tale of murder was strangely blended.
Abigail's husband had been a smuggler, and she herself was a daring and
keen-eyed wrecker. For a season both throve. He had escaped detection in
many a heavy run of contraband goods; and she had come in for many a
valuable 'waif and stray' which the receding waters left upon the slimy
strand. It was, however, her last venture, which, in her neighbors'
language, _had made her_. Made her, indeed, independent of her fellows,
but a murderer before her God!... About day-break in a thick misty
morning in April, a vessel, heavily laden, was seen to ground on 'The
Jibber Sand;' and after striking heavily for some hours, suddenly to part
asunder. The sea was so rough, and the wind so high, that no help could
be rendered from the shore. Midday drew on--came--passed, and the
villagers assembled on the heights (their eyes fixed the while on the
devoted vessel like vultures watching for their prey) had at length the
satisfaction of seeing the laboring bark yield to the war of the
elements, and her timbers float, piecemeal, over the waters.

"But nothing of any consequence came ashore. A stray spar or two,
a hen-coop, two or three empty barrels, a child's light straw hat, and a
sailor's cap--these were all.

"The gale held: the wind blew off shore, and at nightfall the
wrecking-party, hungry, weary, and out of humor, retired to their cabins.
About an hour after midnight heavy rain fell; the wind shifted, and blew
inshore. With the first appearance of dawn, Abigail's cottage door was
seen slowly to unclose, and she herself to emerge from it, and stealthily
creep down to the shore. Once there, a steep sea-wall--thrown up to
protect the adjoining lowlands from inundation--screened her from
observation. She was absent about an hour, returned apparently
empty-handed, reentered her cottage, nor passed its threshold again
during the remainder of the day.

"But that was a memorable day for the _industrious_. My villagers were
early astir. Their muddy shore was strewed with fragments of the wreck;
and when the tide went down, and the gale moderated, half imbedded in the
Jibber Sand was found 'goodly spoil.' Packages of costly shawls, hampers
of Dutch liqueurs, bales of linen, several kegs of brandy, and two small
canvas-bags containing bullion, were a few of the 'waifs and strays'
which keen eyes speedily detected, and stalwart arms as speedily
appropriated.

"Later on in the afternoon a very bustling personage made his appearance,
much blown and overheated, who announced himself as 'acting under
authority from Lloyd's,' and 'representing the under-writers.' At his
heels, uttering volleys of threats, and menacing every soul he met with
hideous 'penalties according to act of parliament,' followed a very
lady-like young gentleman, with a thin reedy voice, and light down upon
his chin, 'charged with protecting the public revenue.' Well for him in a
dark night if he could protect himself!

"Worthy souls! They might as well have spared their well-fed nags, and
have remained at home snugly housed in their chimney-corner. ''Tis the
early bird that gets the worm.' They had missed it by hours. The spoil
was housed. It was buried in cottage gardens, and cabbages planted over
it. It was secreted among the thatch, where even the best trained
bird-nesting urchin would have missed it. It was stored away under more
than one hollow hearth-stone, on which a cheerful wood-fire was crackling
and blazing. When were the 'womenkind' in a wrecker's village at a loss
for expedients?

"But a discovery was made that afternoon, which, for the moment, made the
boisterous gentleman from Lloyd's falter in his denunciations, and hushed
the menaces of the indignant and well-dressed personage who protected the
revenue, and saddened the few hearts amongst us not entirely devoid of
feeling.

"On a little knoll--called in memory of an unfortunate suicide, 'The Mad
Maiden's Knoll,'--was found the body of a lady, youthful and fair, and by
her side that of a little infant, a few weeks old. The babe, carefully
swathed in countless warm wrappers, was lying in a rude cradle of
wicker-work; this was firmly fastened to the lady's waist, who, on her
part, had been securely lashed to a spar. 'Twas a piteous sight! But
one's sympathies were called into still more painful exercise when it was
found that the unfortunate lady's corpse had been rifled by some
unprincipled marauder; that both ears had been torn, and two of her
fingers had been crushed and broken in the attempt to plunder them of the
rings with which they had been laden. Nor was this all. Every part of her
dress had been carefully examined. Her stays had been ripped open, and a
packet, assumed to be of value, had apparently been taken thence. What
strengthened this surmise was the fact that a fragment of a purple
morocco note-case still adhered to her dress. This fragment bore the
words in gilt letters, 'Bank Notes;' below were the initials 'F.H.B.' The
sight drew forth general expressions of pity: but pity gave place to
indignation when the district surgeon joined the group, and after a
careful examination of the body, said slowly, 'I suspect--I more than
suspect--I am almost positive, that this lady reached the shore alive.
The winds and waves have not destroyed her. She has perished by the hand
of another. Look here,' and he pointed to a small dark rim round the
neck, 'this is the effect of strangulation; and my belief is that the
corpse before us is that of _a murdered woman_.'

"The coroner of the district was summoned, a jury empanneled, and the
simple facts relative to the discovery of the bodies of the woman and
infant were briefly placed on record. Few cared to speak openly. All
had an interest in saying as little as possible. 'Return an open verdict,
gentlemen; return an open verdict by all means,' suggested the wary
official; 'that is the shortest course you can adopt; safe and perfectly
legal; it decides nothing, contradicts nothing, concludes nothing.' No
advice could be more palatable to the parties he addressed. 'Found dead,'
was the ready response; 'but by what means, drowning or otherwise; there
is no evidence to show.'

"The coroner was delighted.

"'Precisely so; quite sufficient. My gig, and a glass of brandy and
water.'"

       *       *       *       *       *

"No one claimed the bodies. Early interment was necessary; and a few
hours after the inquest was concluded, mother and child were consigned to
their parent earth.

"Six weeks afterward, an elderly man, with a most imperious manner and a
foreign accent, came down to the village and asked countless questions
relative to the shipwreck. The unhappy lady, he said, was his niece; and
earnest were the inquiries he made touching a large sum of money, which,
to his certain knowledge, she had about her when she went on shipboard.
Of this money, as a matter of course, no satisfactory tidings were
forthcoming. He then became violent; called the village a nest of
pirates; cursed the inhabitants without mercy; hoped that heaven's
lightnings would speedily fall, and raze the hamlet to the ground; and
indulged in a variety of comments, some just, some foolish, and all
angry.

"But with all his anxiety about his niece, and all his burning
indignation against her plunderers, he never visited the unhappy lady's
grave; never directed a stone to be placed over her; never deplored her
fate; never uttered a remark about her infant, save and except an avowal
of his unbounded satisfaction that it had perished with the mother-his
ever-recurring subject of regret was, not that he had lost his niece, but
that he had lost her money!

"Oh world! how base are thy calculations, how sordid thy conclusions! The
young, the fair, the helpless, the innocent may perish, it matters not.
Loss of relatives, of children, of country, of character, all may be
borne with complacency but--loss of money!

"Meanwhile the party who was suspected to have benefited most largely by
the shipwreck, went about her daily occupations with her usual subdued
and poverty-stricken air. There was nothing in Abigail Lassiter's dress
or manner to indicate the slightest improvement in her worldly
circumstances. She toiled as earnestly, dressed as simply, and lived as
sparingly as ever. But quietly and almost imperceptibly a vast change was
wrought in the aspect of her dwelling. It was carefully repaired and
considerably enlarged, a small piece of pasture land was bought, and then
a handsome Alderney cow made her appearance. A garden of some extent, at
the rear of the cottage, was next laid out, and stocked, and last of all
a commodious spring cart and clever cob were seen on the little
homestead. But comfort there was none. An invisible hand fought against
its inmates. Their career of success was closed. A curse and not a
blessing was henceforth to track them. On a sudden the husband, Mark
Lassiter, was betrayed in one of his smuggling expeditions, encountered
the coast-guard where he least expected them, was fired at, captured, and
died in jail of his wounds. The eldest son--'Black Ben,' the
pugilist--killed his man, was accused of foul play, and compelled to fly
the country. Robin, second mate of a merchant vessel then lying in Hull
Docks, still remained to her, and him she hastily summoned home for
counsel. Vain precaution! A final separation had already taken place
between them. While wondering at his tardy movements, a brief unfeeling
letter apprised her that, 'returning to his ship at midnight decidedly
the worse for liquor,' Robin Lassiter had missed his footing on the
narrow plank connecting the vessel with the shore, fallen into deep
water, and had sunk to rise no more.

"These successive bereavements paralyzed her. For the first time the idea
seems to have presented itself, that it was possible adversity might
overwhelm her. She confined herself rigidly to her home; said that _the
moan of the sea wearied and worried her_, and blocked up every window
which _looked upon the ocean!_ For hours she would sit, abstractedly, in
silence. Then, wringing her hands, would wake up with a wistful cry, and
repeat--'Wrong never comes right! Wrong never comes right!'

"Much as I knew she hated religion, its ministers, its sanctuary, and
every object which, by possibility, could remind her that _there was a
coming future_, I yet felt it my duty to make another and a third attempt
at an interview. She received me ungraciously enough, but not insolently.
Her fair, soft, feminine features betrayed evident annoyance at my visit,
but still there was an absence of that air of menace and hatred which
characterized her in former days.

"'You visit me?' was her inquiry; 'why?'

"'To condole with you on the ravages which death has made in your
family.'

"Her reply was instant and firmly uttered.

"'Yes; two are gone. Their part is played and over. I presume they are at
rest.'

"A passing remark followed, in which a hope was expressed that I should
see her at church.

"'Never, until I'm brought there. I shouldn't know myself in such a
place, nor would those who assemble there know me.'

"While framing my reply she continued--

"'Your visit, sir, is wholly unexpected; I have never troubled the
clergy, and I hope they will not trouble me; I have my sorrows, and I
keep them to myself.'

"'They will overwhelm you unless aid be granted--'

"She interrupted me.

"'I seek it not, and therefore have no right to expect it. But why should
I detain you sir,' said she, rising from her seat; 'there are others who
may prize your presence more than I do.'

"One of Wilson's little volumes was in my hand. I proffered it with the
remark--'You will perhaps read this in my absence?'

"She declined it with a gesture of impatience.

"'No! no! I seldom read, and my hourly endeavor _now_ is not to think!
This way lies your road, sir. Farewell.'

"A more thoroughly unsatisfactory interview it is scarcely possible to
imagine.

"Two years had rolled away, when, one morning, a message reached me that
'Dame Lassiter was ill,' and wished I would 'call in the course of the
day.' Within the hour came another summons: 'Dame Lassiter was much
worse,' and begged to 'see me without delay.' Before midday I was at the
cottage. Her sole attendant,--a bold, saucy, harsh looking girl of
eighteen,--awaited me at the threshold.

"'Right glad am I you're come,' was her greeting; 'the mistress, sir, has
been asking for you ever since day-break.'

"'She is worse then?'

"She lowered her voice to a whisper, and continued:--

"'She's going! She'll not hold it long. The doctors have given her up,
and there's no more medicine to be gone for. This last is a sure sign.'

"'Is she sensible?'

"The girl hesitated.

"'_In_ times she be,' was her reply, rather doubtfully given! 'in times
she be; but there's something about her I don't quite fancy; the plain
fact is, she's rather _quair_, and I shall go up to the village. You'll
not mind being alone, I dare say?'

"And without waiting for a reply this careful and considerate attendant
hurriedly opened the door; went out; and then locked it briskly and
firmly on the outside. I was a prisoner, and my companion a dying woman!
For the moment I felt startled; but a hollow moan of anguish, sadly and
painfully reiterated in the chamber above, at once recalled me to my
duties, and bade me seek the sufferer. In a room of fair dimensions lay,
stricken and emaciated, the once active and dauntless Abigail. On
entering I could with difficulty disguise my surprise at the variety
of articles which it contained, and at the costliness and splendor of
many of them. The curtains of the sick woman's bed were of figured silk
damask; and though here and there a dark spot was visible where
sea-water, or some other destructive agency, had penetrated, enough still
remained to vindicate the richness of the fabric and the brilliancy of
the color. The linen on the bed was of the finest texture, apparently the
production of a Dutch loom, while the vessel which held her night-drink
was an antique goblet, indisputably of foreign workmanship,--its
materials silver and mother-of-pearl. Under the window, which commanded
her flower garden, stood a small work-table of birds'-eye maple, which
methought had once stood in the lady's cabin of some splendidly appointed
steamer. Her wash-stand was of mahogany richly carved: on the shelf above
it stood an ebony writing-desk, inlaid with silver; below was a lady's
dressing case--ivory--and elaborately carved. Two cases of foreign birds
of exquisite plumage completed the decoration of the apartment. It is
true necessitous sailors and carousing smugglers might have contributed
some of the costly articles I saw around me; but as I gazed on them the
thought recurred, are not these the wages of iniquity? Have they not been
rifled from the grasp of the helpless, the drowning, and the dying?

"I spoke. She was in full possession of her faculties; but manifestly
near her end. I expressed my sorrow at finding her so feeble; told her
that I had readily obeyed her summons; and asked her whether I should
read to her.

"'Neither read to me,' was her distinct reply: 'nor pray with me; but
listen to me. They tell me I have not many hours to live. If so, I have
something to disclose; and some money which I should wish--I should
wish'--she hesitated and became silent--'the point is, am I beyond
recovery? If so I should desire that this money--'

"'Under any circumstances,' was my reply, 'confess all; restore all'

"She looked up quickly and said sharply; 'Why restore?'

"'To prove the sincerity of your regrets.'

"'Ah, well!' said she, thoughtfully, 'if I could only satisfy myself that
recovery was impossible. I have much to leave behind me; and there are
some circumstances--'

"She hesitated and was silent. A minute or two elapsed and I urged--

"'Be candid and be just,--make reparation while you possess the power.'

"'You advise well,' said she, faintly. 'I would fain relieve my mind. It
is sorely oppressed, for with regard to my property--my--my savings--'

"As she spoke there arose, close to us, clear and painfully audible, a
low, mocking laugh. It was not akin to mirth. There was no gladness in
its tone. It betokened enmity, triumph, scorn. The dying woman heard it,
and cowered beneath its influence. An expression of agonizing fear passed
over her countenance. Some minutes elapsed before she could sufficiently
command herself to speak or even listen.

"'Carry out forthwith,' said I, in a tone of resolution I could with
difficulty command, 'carry out your present determination. Make
restitution to the utmost of your power. Restore all; confess all.'

"'I will do so and now,' was her reply.

"Again that bitter, scornful, chilling laugh; and closer to us! To no
ebullition of any earthly emotion can I compare it. It resembled none. It
conveyed scorn, exultation, defiance, hatred. It seemed an uncontrollable
burst of triumph over a parting and ruined soul. Again, I gazed
steadfastly on the dying woman. A spasm convulsed her countenance. She
pointed feebly to some unseen object--unseen at least by me--and
clasped her hands with an imploring gesture. Another spasm came on-a
second-a third--and all was silence. I was _alone_ with the dead."

       *       *       *       *       *

"And you are persuaded that these sounds were real and not fanciful, that
imagination had nothing to do with the scene?" said the younger of the
three when the aged speaker had concluded.

The reply was immediate.

"I state simply what I heard; that, and no more. No opportunity for trick
existed. The cottage had one door, _and but one_. The dying woman and
myself were the only parties within its walls. We were locked in from
without: until the attendant returned and unclosed the door there was no
possibility of either entering or quitting the dwelling. I was alone with
the dead for upward of an hour--no enviable vigil--when it pleased her
unfeeling and gossiping retainer to return and release me. Believe it,
say you? I do believe it--and most firmly--as fact and not fancy."

"And what say you, Major?" pursued the questioner, turning to his
military companion.

"I believe it also, and the more readily from recollecting what once
occurred to myself. Soon after my awkward hit at Vittoria, where I
received a bullet, which I carry about with me to this hour, I was
ordered home on sick leave. Landing at Falmouth from a filthy transport,
feeble, feverish, solitary and wretched, I was recognized by a former
intimate, who followed me to my inn and insisted upon taking me down with
him into ----shire. Rest and country air, he was sure, would recruit me.
In vain I explained the wretched cripple I was. In vain I submitted that
the 'hospital mates,' one and all, entertained the worst opinion of my
injury. He would take no denial. It was a case, he contended, not for the
knife or the doctor; but for beef-steaks and Barclay's stout. And this
opinion he would make good, in my instance, against the whole hospital
staff at home and abroad. Too weak to contest the point, I gave in; and
promised that, if living, that day week should find me at ---- House. The
first part of my journey I made out with comparatively little suffering.
The latter part, where I was obliged to have recourse to a hack chaise,
neither wind nor weather tight--ill hung, and badly driven, was torture.
At length, unable to endure longer agony, I got out; and bidding the
postboy drive with my luggage to ---- House, limped along across the
fields under the pilotage of an old laborer--it was a work of time--to my
destination.

"My gray-haired guide, who commiserated my situation, was very
inquisitive about 'the war and Lord Wellington;' asked whether _all_ the
Spaniards lived on 'mules' flesh fried with onions,' as he 'had been told
for truth;' inquired what 'our side' thought of 'Boney's covenant with
the devil,' a covenant, (according to his reading,) to this effect, that
'the devil had given Boney _a lease of luck_ for threescore and three
years, and that when it was up he was to be shot by a Spanish maiden with
a silver bullet.' Many folks, he said, believed all this to be true and
_sartain_; but that he, for his part, 'did not _hold_ with it: what did I
think?' But however talkative about the war, my venerable pilot was
reserved about ---- House. I asked him if he knew it. 'These fifty years
and more,' was his answer. 'The House of Mystery; good people live there
now,--yes, good people, kind people,--a blessed change for all about and
around the House of Mystery. More he would not utter. At length I reached
the winning post, hobbled in, received a cordial welcome, and retired
early to bed.

"None but those who have lain for weeks in a crowded military hospital,
who have battled day by day with death, now flushed with fever, now
racked with agonizing spasmodic action in every nerve, can conceive the
effect of the quiet, the pure air, the bracing freshness of the country.
The stillness which reigned around,--the peaceful landscape beneath my
window,--the balmy fragrance of the flowers,--the hush of woods reposing
in all the stillness of a summer's twilight,--the faint tinkling of the
distant sheep-bell,--the musical murmur of the rill which gurgled gaily
and gladly from beneath the base of the sun-dial,--the deer dotted over
the park, and grazing lazily in groups beneath the branching oaks, made
up a picture which soothed and calmed me. I went to bed satisfied that _I
should sleep_. I did so without a single twinge till after midnight. Then
I was roused by a grating sound at a distance. It drew nearer, became
more and more distinct, and presently at a pelting pace, up drove a
carriage and four. I say four, because a man used to horses all his life,
can, by their tramp, judge, though blindfold, pretty accurately as to
their numbers. I heard the easy roll of the carriage, the grating of the
wheels on the gravel, the sharp pull-up at the main entrance, the
impatient pawing of the animals on the hard and well-rolled road. All
this I caught most distinctly. But though I listened keenly I heard no
bell ring, no door unclose, no servant hasten to these new arrivals. I
thought it odd. I struck my repeater. 'A quarter to one. Strange hour,
surely, for visitors to arrive! However, no business of mine. I have not,
happily, to rise and do the honors.' And, after a yawn or two, and a
hurried, though I trust grateful acknowledgment for the comparative ease
I was enjoying, I turned upon my side and dozed off. I had slept about
two hours when a similar noise again aroused me. Up came another carriage
at the same slapping pace. Pat, pat, pat, went the hoofs upon the hard
avenue. The wheels rattled; the gravel grated on the ear; there was the
same quick, sharp, knowing pull-up at the main door, and the same
impatient stamp of high-fed steeds anxious to be off, and eager for the
rest and feed of the stable. I became irritated and angry. 'A pretty
house,' said I, 'for an invalid! Guests arriving at all hours! Moreover,
a precious lot of fresh faces shall I have to encounter at the breakfast
table. A nice figure I am! My walk particularly straight and lively! I
shall be "the observed of all observers" with a vengeance. I wish with
all my soul I had remained at Exeter. I had there my hospitable friends,
the Greens, in "the Barn-field," to keep an eye to me, while _here_,
carriages are driving up at a splitting pace from midnight to
cock-crowing.' And fuming and fretting, chafed and annoyed, I lay
feverish and discontented till daybreak.

"The next morning, having taken peculiar pains with my toilet, and having
arrived at the inevitable conclusion that I hobbled worse than ever, and
was as infirm as an old gentleman of eighty, I presented myself in the
breakfast room.

"I expected to find it lined with fresh faces. I was mistaken. The party
assembled was the same, without diminution or addition, which I had
quitted the preceding evening. After an interchange of civilities I
hazarded an inquiry:--

"'Where are the new arrivals?'

"'There are no new arrivals,' said my hostess; 'I hope you are not tired
of us already?'

"'You allude to an utter impossibility,' was my rejoinder; 'but beyond
all doubt two carriages drove up to the main entrance early this
morning.'

"'You are our only guest,' observed my hostess with an air of peculiar
gravity, and even perceptible annoyance in her manner.

"'You see us as we are, a quiet family party, Mr. Newburgh,' observed the
youngest daughter hastily, and then adroitly changed the conversation.

"'Oh,' thought I, 'I'm on unsafe ground. Some disagreeable people,
self-invited, and dismissed at all hazards. Very well. _Moi c'est égal!_
What concern have I with the family arrangements of another?'

"The second night of my visit drew on. I slept well and soundly till
about three in the morning, when my slumbers were suddenly broken by a
rapid rush of horsemen across the lawn, directly under my dressing-room
window. 'Hunting at three in the morning is a rank absurdity,' was my
comment; 'but if I ever heard the sound of horses and horsemen I did
then. The park gates must have been left open, and the farm horses have
broken loose. Utter destruction to the lawn, and to the flower beds, and
the glorious rhododendrons! What negligent menials.' And while murmuring
my abhorrence of such atrocious carelessness, and my deep regret at its
results, my eyes closed. The next morning I peeped with apprehension from
my window, on what I presumed would prove a scene of devastation. All was
fair and smiling, gaze where I would. Here was the trim and smoothly
shaven lawn--there the blooming parterre--beyond the early flowering
shrubs not a twig, not a leaf injured. I left my room in amazement.

"Below, the papers had arrived. They gave the details of another and
decisive battle. _That_, and an expedition during the morning to a
neighboring Roman encampment, banished the horsemen of the preceding
night, nor did they recur till I found myself in my room, exhausted and
bent down with pain, at eleven. The fact was I had played the fool and
overwalked myself, and my avenger, the bullet, began to remind me of his
presence in my system. For three mortal hours no poor wretch, save in his
death struggle, endured greater agony than I did. At last, a 'compassion
that never faileth,' bestowed on me an interval of ease, and I slept.
Heavily, I imagine, since for some time a strange booming noise droned
continuously in my ears before it waked me. At last I was roused. I
listened. The sound was like nothing I had ever heard before. It seemed
as if a heavy-sledge hammer, or huge wooden mallet, carefully muffled in
wadding, was at work in the room _below me_. The stable clock struck
four. 'No mason,' thought I, 'no mason would commence his day's work at
four in the morning. Burglars, perhaps,' and I resolved to give alarm.
The noise suddenly ceased, and some three minutes afterward as suddenly
recommenced in the children's play-room immediately _above me_. 'Be they
whom they may they shall be disturbed.' And I began to dress in the dark
with all possible expedition. Some partial progress was made when the
noise ceased in the upper room and descended forthwith to my own. An
instant afterward it seemed to proceed from the library. In about twenty
minutes it ceased altogether.

"'No mason, no burglar,' was my conclusion. 'This noise has nothing in
common with either the one or the other. Did my old guide speak
accurately when he called this "The House of Mystery?" Whether it be such
or no, it is not the house for me. I can't sleep in it. I must flit; and
I will do so with the morning's light.'

"But with the morning's light came bright and cheerful faces, kindly
inquiries, and renewed hospitality, and with them an abandonment of my
menaced departure. During the day an opportunity presented itself of
mentioning to my young host the harassing disturbances of the night, and
asking for an explanation.

"'I can give none,' was his reply: 'after many years residence in the
house, and ceaseless endeavors to ascertain the cause of these
annoyances, you are as much _au fait_ of their origin as myself.'

"'Is their[*sic] no motive, adequate or inadequate,' I continued, 'which
can be assigned for these nightly visitations?'

"'None beyond the tradition--apparently authentic--that an ancestor of
ours, a man whose character will not bear investigation, met his death,
unfairly, in an old house on the site of which this is built. He was a
miser, and presumed to be extremely wealthy. He lived secluded from
society; his factotum and agent being an Italian valet, who was perfectly
aware of the ample means of his master. On a sudden my vicious kinsman
disappeared, and shortly afterward the valet. But the story
runs--tradition it must still be called--that the former was robbed,
brutally beaten, and finally _walled up_ in some recess by his desperate
retainer. So immured he died of actual starvation; but according to the
legend, much of the miser's wealth continued hidden about the mansion
which the Italian's fears prevented his carrying off, and which still
remains, snug and safe, in some dusty repository, ready to reward "a
fortunate speculator." I only wish,' continued he merrily, 'I could light
upon the hoard! Give me a clew, dear Newburgh, and I'll buy you a troop.'

"'At any rate,' said I, 'from the mirth with which you treat it, the
visitation is not unpleasant.'

"'You are in error,' said my entertainer; 'the subject is unquestionably
annoying, and one which my mother and the family studiously avoid. As for
your bed-room--the porch-room--I am aware that parties occupying it have
occasionally heard the strangest noises on the gravel-walk immediately
below them. Your hostess was most averse to those quarters being assigned
you; but I thought that the room being large and lofty, and the steps to
it few, you would occupy it with comfort. I am grieved that my
arrangement has proved disagreeable.' And then, finishing off with a
hearty laugh, in which, for the life of me I couldn't join, my host
added, '_if he be walled up_, I am sure you will say, Newburgh, that he's
a persevering old gentleman, and makes the most laudable efforts to get
out of his cell.'"

"The levity of some persons," was the major's grave aside, "how
inconceivable, how indescribable!"

"My visit," continued he, "lasted about a fortnight, during the whole of
which period, at intervals, the rapping was audible in different parts of
the house. It appeared to me however--I watched attentively--to come with
the greatest frequency from the hall. Thence it sounded as if an immense
mallet, muffled in feathers or cotton, was striking heavily on the floor.
The noise was generally heard between twelve and two. The blows sometimes
followed each other with great rapidity; at other times more slowly and
leisurely. One singularity of the visitation was this--that in whatever
part of the house you might be listening, the noise seemed to come from a
remote direction. If you heard the blows in the drawing-room, they
appeared to be given in the library. And if you heard them in the
library, they seemed to be falling in the nursery. The invisible workman
was busy always _at a distance_. Another feature was its locomotive
powers. It moved with the most extraordinary rapidity. Nothing that I
could think of--mice, rats, drains, currents of air, dropping of
water--would explain it. If the noise had been caused by the agency of
any one of these causes, it would have been heard in the day time. _It
never was_. Night was the season, and the only season in which the
ponderous, but invisible, mallet was wielded. Nothing could exceed the
kindness with which I was treated. No words can do justice to the
thoughtful and delicate hospitality which I received. But I declare to
you this mysterious visitation was too much for me. It was impossible to
listen to it at night without depression. Perhaps my nerves were
unstrung. The tone of my system might be enfeebled. The fault, I dare
say, was in myself. But to lie awake, as I often did, during long hours
from pain, and to hear this muffled, hollow, droning, mysterious noise
passing from room to room about the house--to listen to it now above me,
now below me, now quite close to my chamber door, and in a couple of
seconds rising up from the very center of the hall, and to be all the
while utterly unable to account for it, fevered me. I curtailed my visit;
but the nursing and kindness I received are graven in my memory. Bearing
all these matters in remembrance," said the major firmly; "recollecting
my own strange experience, how can I discredit Mr. Ancelôt's narrative?
_I firmly believe it_. We are surrounded by mysteries. The invisible
world enshrouds us. Spirits have their regards intently fixed on us, and
a very slight vail divides us. Spurn the vulgar error," said the old
veteran stoutly, "that a soldier must be a scoffer. I remember the holy
record, and its thrilling declaration; 'We are a spectacle unto angels
and unto men.'" A pause ensued, which neither of the listeners cared to
terminate. At length he spoke again. "The dews are falling. The last
pleasure-boat has landed its fair freight upon the Denne. The breeze from
the sea blows keenly, and warns us elderlies to think of our
night-possets and our pillows. Trevor, give me your arm. Happy dog! You
have no bullet in your back! May you never know the agony of existence
when even to move some dozen yards is torture!"

       *       *       *       *       *

We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful, for the Useful
encourages itself.--_Goethe_.


       *       *       *       *       *


[From the Ladies' Companion.]

THE LADY LUCY'S SECRET.

BY MRS. NEWTON CROSLAND.

  "With clamourous demands of debt, broken bonds,
   And the detention of long due debts,
   Against my honor."--TIMON OF ATHENS

  "How in the turmoil of life can love stand,
   Where there is not one heart, and one mouth, and one hand?"
   LONGFELLOW

In a charming morning-room of a charming London house, neighboring
Hyde-Park, there lounged over the breakfast-table a wedded pair,--the
rich merchant Farrars, and his young wife, the Lady Lucy. Five years of
married life had, in most respects, more than realized the brightest
hopes which had been born and cherished in the dreaming days of
courtship. Till the age of forty, the active mind of Walter Ferrars had
been chiefly occupied by business,--not in mean shuffling, speculative
dealings, but on the broad basis of large transactions and an almost
chivalrous system of integrity.

Then, when a secured position and the privileges of wealth had introduced
him to that inner circle of English society which not wealth _alone_ can
penetrate, but where wealth in some due proportion is an element
necessary to hold fast a place, it was thought most natural and proper
that he should choose a wife from the class which seems set apart from
the rest of womankind like the choice flowers of a conservatory, on whom
no rude breath must blow. The youthful, but nearly portionless, daughter
of a poor Earl seemed the very bride decreed by some good angel for the
merchant-prince.

But though the nuptials fulfilled nearly all the requirements of a
_mariage de convenance_, there was in reality very much more of the
ingredients in their hearts which amalgamate into very genuine "love,"
than always meet at the altar; though of course "the World" resolutely
refused to believe anything of the sort--the World, which is capable of
so much kindness, and goodness, and justice, among its individuals, taken
"separately and singly," and yet is such a false, malignant, many-headed
monster in its corporate body! Walter Ferrars had a warm heart, that
yearned for affection, as well as a clear head; and, fascinated as he had
been by the youthful grace and beauty, the high-bred repose of manner and
cultivated talents of the Lady Lucy, he set himself resolutely to win and
keep her girlish heart, not expecting that the man of forty was to obtain
it without an effort. Thus, when he assumed a husband's name, he did not
"drop the lover." His was still the watchful care, made up of the
thousand little thoughtful kindnesses of daily life, neither relaxed in a
_tête-à-tête_, nor increased in public. He was the pleased and ready
escort for every occasion, save only when some imperative business
claimed his time and presence; and these calls now were rare, for he had
long since arrived at the position when efficient servants and assistants
carry out the plans a superior has organized.

Is there wonder that the wife was grateful? Few--few women indeed are
insensible to the power of continued kindness; they may have a heart of
stone for the impetuous impulsive lover, but habitual tenderness-that
seems so unselfish--touches the finest chords of their nature, and
awakens affection that might have lain dormant through a long life, but
for this one sweet influence. Thus it was that the wife of five years
loved her husband with an almost adoring worship. She had felt her own
mind expand in the intimate communion with his fine intellect; she had
felt her own weaknesses grow less, as if she had absorbed some of his
strength of character; and she had recognised the very dawn of principles
and opinions which had been unknown to her in the days of her
thoughtless, ignorant, inexperienced girlhood. And yet with all her love,
with all her matured intelligence, she had never lost a certain awe of
her husband, which his seniority had perhaps first implanted, and alas!
one fatal circumstance had gone far to render morbid.

They sat at breakfast. It was early spring, and though the sunshine
streamed through the windows, and from one of them there crept the odors
of the conservatory, a bright fire gleamed and crackled in the grate; and
shed a charm of cheerfulness through the room. Mr. Ferrars had a
newspaper in his hand, but not yet had he perused a line, for his son and
heir, a brave boy of three years old, a very model of patrician beauty,
was climbing his large chair, playing antics of many sorts, and even
affecting to pull his father's still rich and curling hair, so little awe
had the young Walter of the head of the house--while Mr. Farrars'
parental glee was like a deep bass to the child's crowing laugh. Lady
Lucy smiled too, but she shook her head, and said more than once,
"Naughty papa is spoiling Watty." It was a pretty scene; the room was
redolent of elegance, and the young mother, in her exquisitely simple but
tasteful morning dress, was one of its chief ornaments. Who would think
that beneath all this sweetness of life there was still a serpent!

A post was just in, and a servant entered with several letters; among
those delivered to Lady Lucy were two or three large unsightly,
ill-shaped epistles, that seemed strange company for the others. An
observing stranger might have noticed that Lady Lucy's cheek paled, and
then flushed; that she crushed up her letters together, without
immediately opening them, and that presently she slid the ugly ones into
the pocket of her satin apron. Mr. Ferrars read his almost with a
glance--for they were masculine letters, laconic, and to the point,
conveying necessary information, in three lines and a half--and he
smiled, as after a while he observed his wife apparently intent on a
truly feminine epistle--four sides of delicate paper closely crossed--and
exclaimed gaily:

"My dear Lucy, there's an hour's reading for you, at least; so I shall
ring and send Watty to the nursery, and settle steadily to the _Times_."

But though Lady Lucy really perused the letter, her mind refused to
retain the pleasant chit-chat gossip it contained. Her thoughst[*sic]
were far away, and had she narrowly examined her motives she would have
known that she bent over the friendly sheet chiefly as an excuse for
silence, and to conceal her passing emotions. Meanwhile the newspaper
crackled in her husband's hand as he moved its broad leaves.

Presently Mr. Ferrars started with an exclamation of grief and
astonishment that completely roused his absent wife.

"My dear Walter, what has happened?" she asked, with great anxiety.

"A man a bankrupt, whom I thought as safe as the Bank of England. Though
it is true people talked about him months ago--spoke suspiciously of his
personal extravagance, and, above all, said that his wife was ruining
him."

"His wife!"

"Yes;--but I cannot understand that sort of thing. A few hundreds a year
more or less could be of little moment to a man like Beaufort, and I
don't suppose she spent more than you do, my darling. At any rate she was
never better dressed. Yet I believe the truth was, that she got
frightfully into debt unknown to him; and debt is a sort of thing that
multiplies itself in a most astonishing manner, and sows by the wayside
the seeds of all sorts of misery. Then people say that when pay-day came
at last, bickerings ensued, their domestic happiness was broken up.
Beaufort grew reckless, and plunged into the excitement of the maddest
speculations."

"How dreadful!" murmured Lady Lucy.

"Dreadful, indeed! I don't know what I should do with such a wife."

"Would not you forgive her if you loved her very much?" asked Lady Lucy,
and she spoke in the singularly calm tone of suppressed emotion.

"Once, perhaps, once; and if her fault were the fault of youthful
inexperience,--but so much falseness, mean deception, and mental
deterioration must have accompanied such transactions, that--in short, I
thank Heaven that I have never been put to the trial."

As he spoke, the eyes of Mr. Farrars were fixed on the leading article of
the _Times_, not on his wife. Presently Lady Lucy glided from the room,
without her absence being at the moment observed. Once in her
dressing-room she turned the key, and sinking into a low chair, gave vent
to her grief in some of the bitterest tears she had ever shed. She, too,
was in debt; "frightfully," her husband had used the right word;
"hopelessly," so far as satisfying her creditors even out of the large
allowance Mr. Farrars made her; and still she had not the courage
voluntarily to tell the truth, which yet she knew must burst upon him ere
long. From what small beginnings had this Upas shadow come upon her! And
what "falseness, mean deception, and mental deterioration" had truly been
hers!

Even the fancied relief of weeping was a luxury denied to her, for she
feared to show the evidence of tears; thus after a little while she
strove to drive them back, and by bathing her face before the glass, and
drawing the braids of her soft hair a little nearer her eyes, she was
tolerably successful in hiding their trace. Never, when dressing for
court or gala, had she consulted her mirror so closely; and now, though
the tears were dried; she was shocked at the lines of anguish--those
delvers of the wrinkles of age--which marked her countenance. She sat
before her looking-glass, one hand supporting her head, the other
clutching the hidden letters which she had not yet the courage to open.
There was a light tap at the door.

"Who is there?" inquired Lady Lucy.

"It is I, my lady," replied Harris, her faithful maid. "Madame Dalmas is
here."

Lady Lucy unlocked her door and gave orders that the visitor should be
shown up. With the name had come a flush of hope that some trifling
temporary help would be hers. Madame Dalmas called herself a
French-woman, and signed herself "Antoinette," but she was really an
English Jewess of low extraction, whose true name was Sarah Solomons.
Her "profession" was to purchase--and sell--the cast-off apparel of
ladies of fashion; and few of the sisterhood have carried the art of
double cheating to so great a proficiency. With always a roll of bank
notes in her old leathern pocket-book, and always a dirty canvas bag full
of bright sovereigns in her pocket, she had ever the subtle temptation
for her victims ready.

Madame Dalmas--for she must be called according to the name engraved on
her card--was a little meanly-dressed woman of about forty, with bright
eyes and a hooked nose, a restless shuffling manner, and an ill-pitched
voice. Her jargon was a mixture of bad French and worse English.

"Bon jour, miladi Lucy," she exclaimed, as she entered Lady Lucy's
sanctum, "need not inquire of health, you look si charmante. Oh, si
belle!--that make you wear old clothes so longer dan oder ladies, and
have so leetel for me to buy. Milady Lucy Ferrars know she look well in
anything, but yet she should not wear old clothes: no right--for
example--for de trade, and de hoosband always like de wife well
dressed--ha--ha!"

Poor Lady Lucy! Too sick at heart to have any relish for Madame Dalmas'
nauseous compliments, and more than half aware of her cheats and
falsehoods, she yet tolerated the creature from her own dire necessities.

"Sit down, Madame Dalmas," she said, "I am dreadfully in want of money;
but I really don't know what I have for you."

"De green velvet, which you not let me have before Easter, I still give
you four pounds for it, though perhaps you worn it very much since then."

"Only twice--only seven times in all--and it cost me twenty guineas,"
sighed Lady Lucy.

"Ah, but so old-fashioned--I do believe I not see my money for it.
Voyez-vous, de Lady Lucy is one petite lady--si jolie mais très petite.
If she were de tall grand lady, you see de great dresses could fit small
lady, but de leetle dresses fit but ver few."

"If I sell the green velvet I must have another next winter," murmured
Lady Lucy.

"Ah! vous avez raison--when de season nouveautés come in. I tell you
what--you let me have also de white lace robe you show me once, the same
time I bought from you one little old pearl brooch."

"My wedding-dress? Oh no, I cannot sell my wedding-dress!" exclaimed poor
Lady Lucy, pressing her hands convulsively together.

"What for not?--you not want to marry over again--I give you twenty-two
pounds for it."

"Twenty-two pounds!--why it is Brussels point, and cost a hundred and
twenty."

"Ah, I know--but you forget I perhaps keep it ten years and not sell--and
besides you buy dear; great lady often buy ver dear!" and Madame Dalmas
shook her head with the solemnity of a sage.

"No, no; I cannot sell my wedding-dress," again murmured the wife. And be
it recorded, the temptress, for once, was baffled; but at the expiration
of an hour, Madame Dalmas left the house, with a huge bundle under her
arm, and a quiet satisfaction revealed in her countenance, had any one
thought it worth while to study the expression of her disagreeable face.

Again Lady Lucy locked her door; and placing a bank-note and some
sovereigns on the table, she sank into a low chair, and while a few large
silent tears flowed down her cheeks, she at last found courage to open
the three letters which had hitherto remained unread in her apron pocket.
The first--the second, seemed to contain nothing to surprise her, however
much there might be to annoy--but it was different with that last: here
was a gross overcharge, and perhaps it was not with quite a disagreeable
feeling that Lady Lucy found something of which she could justly
complain. She rose hurriedly and unlocked a small writing-desk, which had
long been used as a receptacle for old letters and accounts.

To tell the truth, the interior of the desk did not present a very
orderly arrangement. Cards of address, bills paid and unpaid, copies of
verses, and papers of many descriptions, were huddled together, and it
was not by any means surprising that Lady Lucy failed in her search for
the original account, by which to rectify the error in her shoemaker's
bill. In the hurry and nervous trepidation which had latterly become
almost a constitutional ailment with her, she turned out the contents of
the writing-desk into an easy chair, and then kneeling before it, she set
herself to the task of carefully examining the papers. Soon she came to
one letter which had been little expected in that place, and which still
bore the marks of a rose, whose withered leaves also remained, that had
been put away in its folds. The rose Walter Ferrars had given her on the
eve of their marriage, and the letter was in his handwriting, and bore
but a few days earlier date. With quickened pulses she opened the
envelope; and though a mist rose before her eyes, it seemed to form into
a mirror in which she saw the by-gone hours. And so she read--and read.

It is the fashion to laugh at love-letters, perhaps because only the
silly ones come to light. With the noblest of both sexes such effusions
are sacred, and would be profaned by the perusal of a third person: but
when a warm and true heart is joined to a manly intellect; when reason
sanctions and constancy maintains the choice which has been made, there
is little doubt but much of simple, truthful, touching eloquence is often
to be found in a "lover's" letter. That which the wife now perused with
strange and mingled feelings was evidently a reply to some girlish
depreciation of herself, and contained these words:--

"You tell me that in the scanty years of your past life, you already look
back on a hundred follies, and that you have unnumbered faults of
character at which I do not even guess. Making some allowance for a
figurative expression, I will answer 'it may be so.' What then? I have
never called you an angel, and never desired you to be perfect. The
weaknesses which cling, tendril-like, to a fine nature, not unfrequently
bind us to it by ties we do not seek to sever. I know you for a
true-hearted girl, but with the bitter lessons of life still unlearned;
let it be my part to shield you from their sad knowledge,--yet whatever
sorrow or evil falls upon you, I must or ought to share. Let us have no
secrets; and while the Truth which gives its purest luster to your eye,
and its richest rose to your cheek, still reigns in your soul, I cannot
dream of a fault grave enough to deserve harsher rebuke than the kiss of
forgiveness."

What lines to read at such a moment! No wonder their meaning reached her
mind far differently than it had done when they were first received. Then
she could have little heeded it; witness how carelessly the letter had
been put away--how forgotten had been its contents.

Her tears had flowed in torrents, but Lucy Ferrars no longer strove to
check them. And yet there gleamed through them a brighter smile than had
visited her countenance for many a month. A resolve approved by all her
better nature was growing firm within her heart; and that which an hour
before would have seemed too dreadful to contemplate was losing half its
terrors. How often an ascent, which looks in the distance a bare
precipice, shows us, when we approach its face, the notches by which we
may climb!--and not a few of the difficulties of life yield to our will
when we bravely encounter them.

"Why did I fear him so much?" murmured Lady Lucy to herself. "I ought not
to have needed such an assurance as this to throw myself at his feet, and
bear even scorn and rebuke, rather than prolong the reign of falsehood
and deceit. Yes--yes," and gathering a heap of papers in her hand with
the "love-letter" beneath, she descended the stairs.

There is no denying that Lady Lucy paused at the library door--no denying
that her heart beat quickly, and her breath seemed well-nigh spent; but
she was right to act on the good impulse, and not wait until the new-born
courage should sink.

Mr. Ferrars had finished the newspaper, and was writing an unimportant
note; his back was to the door, and hearing the rustle of his wife's
dress, and knowing her step, he did not turn his head sufficiently to
observe her countenance, but he said, good-humoredly,

"At last! What have you been about? I thought we were to go out before
luncheon to look at the bracelet I mentioned to you."

"No, Walter--no bracelet--you must never give me any jewels again;" and
as Lady Lucy spoke she leaned against a chair for support. At such words
her husband turned quickly round, started up, and exclaimed.

"Lucy, my love!--in tears--what has happened?" and, finding that even
when he wound his arm around her she was still mute, he continued,
"Speak--this silence breaks my heart--what have I done to lose your
confidence?"

"Not you--I--" gasped the wife. "Your words at breakfast--this
letter--have rolled the stone from my heart--I must confess--the
truth--I am like Mrs. Beaufort--in debt--frightfully in debt." And with a
gesture, as if she would crush herself into the earth, she slipped from
his arms and sank literally on the floor.

Whatever pang Mr. Ferrars felt at the knowledge of her fault, it seemed
Overpowered by the sense of her present anguish--an anguish that proved
how bitter had been the expiation; and he lifted his wife to the sofa,
bent over her with fondness, called her by all the dear pet names to
which her ear was accustomed, and nearer twenty times than once gave her
the "kiss of forgiveness."

"And it is of you I have been frightened!" cried Lady Lucy, clinging to
his hand. "You who I thought would never make any excuses for faults you
yourself could not have committed!"

"I have never been tempted."

"Have I? I dare not say so."

"Tell me how it all came about," said Mr. Farrars, drawing her to him;
"tell me from the beginning."

But his gentleness unnerved her--she felt choking--loosened the collar of
her dress for breathing space-and gave him the knowledge he asked in
broken exclamations.

"Before I was married--it--began. They persuaded me so many--oh, so
many--unnecessary things--were--needed. Then they would not send the
bills--and I--for a long time--never knew--what I owed--and then--and
then--I thought I should have the power--but--"

"Your allowance was not sufficient?" asked Mr. Ferrars, pressing her hand
as he spoke.

"Oh, yes, yes, yes! most generous, and yet it was always forestalled to
pay old bills: and then--and then my wants were so many. I was so weak.
Madame Dalmas has had dresses I could have worn when I had new ones on
credit instead, and--and Harris has had double wages to compensate for
what a lady's maid thinks her perquisites; even articles I might have
given to poor gentlewomen I have been mean enough to sell. Oh, Walter! I
have been very wrong; but I have been miserable for at least three years.
I felt as if an iron cage were rising around me,--from which you only
could free me--and yet, till to-day, I think I could have died rather
than confess to you."

"My poor girl! Why should you have feared me? Have I ever been harsh?"

"Oh, no!--no--but you are so just--so strict in all these things--"

"I hope I am; and yet not the less do I understand how all this has come
about. Now, Lucy,--now that you have ceased to fear me--tell me the
amount."

She strove to speak, but could not.

"Three figures or four? tell me."

"I am afraid--yes, I am afraid four," murmured Lady Lucy, and hiding her
face from his view; "yes, four figures, and my quarter received last week
gone every penny."

"Lucy, every bill shall be paid this day; but you must reward me by being
happy."

"Generous! dearest! But, Walter, if you had been a poor man, what then?"

"Ah, Lucy, that would have been a very different and an infinitely sadder
story. Instead of the relinquishment of some indulgence hardly to be
missed, there might have been ruin, and poverty, and disgrace. You have
one excuse,--at least you knew that I could pay at last."

"Ah, but at what a price! The price of your love and confidence."

"No, Lucy--for your confession has been voluntary; and I will not ask
myself what I should have felt had the knowledge come from another. After
all, you have fallen to a temptation which besets the wives of the rich
far more than those of poor or struggling gentlemen. Tradespeople are
shrewd enough in one respect--they do not press their commodities and
long credit in quarters where ultimate payment seems doubtful--though--"

"They care not what domestic misery they create among the rich."

"Stay: there are faults on both sides, not the least of them being that
girls in your station are too rarely taught the value of money, or that
integrity in money matters should be to them a point of honor second only
to one other. Now listen, my darling, before we dismiss this painful
subject forever. You have the greatest confidence in your maid, and
_entre nous_ she must be a good deal in the secret. We shall bribe her to
discretion, however, by dismissing Madame Dalmas at once and forever. As
soon as you can spare Harris, I will send her to change a check at
Coutts', and then, for expedition and security, she shall take on the
brougham and make a round to these tradespeople. Meanwhile, I will drive
you in the phaeton to look at the bracelet."

"Oh, no-no, dear Walter, not the bracelet."

"Yes--yes--I say yes. Though not a quarrel, this is a sorrow which has
come between us, and there must be a peace-offering. Besides I would not
have you think that you had reached the limits of my will, and of my
means to gratify you."

"To think that I could have doubted--that I could have feared you!"
sobbed Lady Lucy, as tears of joy coursed down her cheeks. "But, Walter,
it is not every husband who would have shown such generosity."

"I think there are few husbands, Lucy, who do not estimate truth and
candor as among the chief of conjugal virtues:--ah, had you confided in
me when first you felt the bondage of debt, how much anguish would have
been spared you!"

       *       *       *       *       *

JONES ON CHANTREY.[A]


[Footnote A: _Sir Francis Chantrey, R. A.; Recollections of his Life,
Practice and Opinions_. By George Jones, R. A. London, Moxon, 1849.]


The criticisms of Literature in the _London Times_ are as clever in their
way as the other articles of that famous journal. It keeps a critic of
the Poe school for pretenders, and the following review of a recent life
of Chantrey the sculptor is in his vein. It embodies a just estimate of
the artist.

A good life of Chantrey would be a welcome and a serviceable contribution
to the general store. Chantrey was a national sculptor in the sense that
Burns was a national poet. His genius, of the highest order, indicated
throughout his career the nature of the soil in which it had been
cherished. As man and artist he was essentially British. By his own
unassisted strength he rose from the ranks, and achieved the highest
eminence by the simplest and most legitimate means. His triumph is at
once a proof of his power, and an answer to all who, instead of putting
shoulder to the wheel, console their mediocrity by railing against the
cold exclusiveness of aristocratic institutions.

Chantrey began life in a workshop. A friend, toward the close of the
artist's life, passing through his studio, was struck by a head of
Milton's Satan lying in a corner. "That head," said Chantrey to his
visitor, "was the very first thing that I did after I came to London.
I worked at it in a garret, with a paper cap on my head, and, as I could
then afford only one candle, I stuck that one in my cap that it might
move along with me, and give me light whichever way I turned." A still
severer school of discipline had, previously to his appearance in the
London garret, given his mind the practical turn chiefly characteristic
of his life and works. He was born in 1782, at Norton, in Derbyshire, and
when eight years old lost his father. His mother married again, and in
1798 proposed to apprentice him to a solicitor in Sheffield. Whilst
walking through that town the boy saw some wood carving in a shop window.
His good angel was with him at the moment, and stood his friend. Chantrey
begged to be made a carver, and he was accordingly apprenticed to a Mr.
Ramsay, a wood carver in Sheffield.

At the house of his master the apprentice often met Mr. Raphael Smith,
known for his admirable crayon drawings. The acquaintance led to a more
refined appreciation of art, and excited in the youth so strong a desire
to cultivate it in a higher sphere, that at the age of 21 he gave to his
master the whole of his wealth, amounting to £50, to cancel his
indentures. Had he waited patiently for six months longer, his liberty
would have been his own, unbought. Leaving the carver's shop Chantrey
began to study in earnest. He painted a few portraits, which brought him
in a little money, and, with a little more borrowed from his friends, he
started for London. Here, guided by common sense, he sought employment as
an assistant carver. He might have starved had he started as a
professional painter.

Whilst laboring for subsistence Chantrey still used his brush, and also
laid the foundation of his coming success by making models in clay of the
human figure. He would hang, says his present biographer, pieces of
drapery on these models, "that he might get a perfect knowledge of the
way, and the best way, that it should be represented. In this manner he
was accustomed to work, and when he had completed one figure or mass of
drapery he pulled it down and began to model another from drapery
differently arranged; for at that time he never did anything without
nature or the material being before him." In 1808 Chantrey's first
imaginative work was exhibited. We have already mentioned it. It was the
head of Satan produced in the garret.

For eight years, according to Chantrey himself, he did not gain £5 by his
modeling. A fortunate commission, however--the bust of Horne
Tooke--finally obtained for him other commissions, amounting altogether
To £12,000. In 1811 "he married his cousin Miss Wale; with this lady he
received £10,000; this money enabled him to pay off some debts he had
contracted, to purchase a house and ground, on which he built two houses,
a studio and offices, and also to buy marble to proceed in the career he
had begun." In 1812 he executed for the city of London a statue in marble
of George III., placed in the council-chamber of Guildhall, and in 1817
he produced the exquisite monument--not to be surpassed for tenderness of
sentiment and poetic beauty--of the two children whose death this piece
of sculpture now commemorates in Lichfield cathedral. With this
achievement the race was won. In 1818 he was elected an associate of the
Royal Academy, and as soon after as the practice of the Academy admitted
he was elevated to the rank of Academican.

From this period until his death, in 1841, the career of the sculptor was
a series of noble and well rewarded efforts. He amassed a fortune, which
at his death he bequeathed to the Royal Academy for the promotion of
British art. He was a favored subject of three successive Sovereigns, and
the friend and companion of the most illustrious among his
contemporaries. His death was somewhat singular. For two years he had
been in a declining state of health, but his condition had given his
friends no immediate alarm. On the 22d of November he wrote to Sir
Charles Clarke, from Norwich, expressing his intention to go to town on
the following day, and announcing an invitation to Audley-end, which he
had accepted for the 8th of the following month. On Thursday, the 25th of
November, a friend called at his house in London, between 5 and 6
o'clock, and was pressed to dine. As he could not do so, Chantrey
accompanied his visitor on his way home as far as Buckingham Palace,
complaining on the way of a slight pain in the stomach, but at the same
time receiving his friend's condolences with jokes and laughter. The
clock struck 7 when the friends shook hands and parted. At 9 Chantrey was
dead.

Let us regard Chantrey from what point we may, the features that present
themselves to the observer bear the same unmistakable stamp. As sculptor
and as man, at home or abroad, in his serious recreations or pleasurable
pursuits, in his temper and social bearing, Francis Chantrey was a
thorough Englishman. Heaven endowed him with genius, and his sound sense
enabled him to take the precious gift as a blessing. Sheffield, that
reared him, had no cause to be uneasy on his account; the prudence and
shrewdness of the North were admirably mingled with the aesthetic
qualities of the South. In the pocketbook which accompanied the sculptor
on his Italian tour, notes were found referring to the objects of art
visited on the way, and in the same tablet were accurate accounts of
expenditure and the current prices of marble. Avoiding as much as
possible the treatment of purely poetical subjects, Chantrey by the
force of simplicity idealized the most ordinary topics. He shrank from
allegory by a natural instinct, yet his plain unadorned forms have the
elevation and charm of a figurative discourse. "Chantrey," says Mr.
Jones.

"Cast aside every extrinsic recommendation, and depended entirely on form
and effect. He took the greatest care that his shadows should tell boldly
and in masses. He was cautious in introducing them, and always reduced
them as much as might be compatible with the complete development of the
figure. He never introduced a fold that could be dispensed with, rarely
deviated from long lines, and avoided abrupt foldings. His dislike to
ornament in sculpture was extreme."

In architecture he liked it no better. Superfluous embellishment in this
branch of art he held to be either concealment of inability or a
development of puerile taste. Fine buildings, he asserted, must still be
fine, if divested of every ornament and left altogether bare. Apparent
artlessness is the consummation of art. The busts of Chantrey bear
immortal testimony to the fact.

The manly and courageous view which Chantrey took of his duties as an
artist sustained  him in every attempt he made to impress that view upon
his works. He is described as "shrinking from no difficulty," as being
"deterred by no embarrassment that labor, assiduity, and good sense could
surmount." His independence was as great as his energy, and both smacked
of the Saxon blood in his veins. The manner of the sculptor was rough and
unceremonious, but he exhibited as little coarseness in his demeanor as
in the massive figures of his chisel, which might offend some by their
heaviness, but which gratified all by their undoubted grandeur and
dignity. The quiet yet splendid generosity of Chantrey was equally
characteristic of his country. He assisted the needy largely and
unobtrusively. Instances of his bounty are on record which would do honor
to the wealthiest patron of art. How much more luster do they shed upon
the indefatigable day-laborer? If we follow the sculptor from his studio
to the open fields, he is still national to the backbone. He escapes from
London to pass days with his rod at the river side, or to walk with his
gun on his arm "from 10 o'clock until half-past 4 without feeling the
least fatigue." Yesterday he killed two salmon in the Conway, at
Llanrwst, and to-day he kills "28 hares, 8 pheasants, 4
partridges--total, 40 head, all from my own gun." Visit him at home and
e is the prince of hospitality. His dinners are of the best, and he is
never happier than when presiding at them. Like an Englishman, he was
proud of the illustrious society his success enabled him to summon around
him, and, like an Englishman too, he had greater pride still in dwelling
upon the humbleness of his origin, and in recounting the history of his
difficult journey from struggling obscurity to worldwide renown.

Now, what we contend for is--without presuming ourselves to attempt
anything like a worthy portraiture of Francis Chantrey--that here,
ready-made to the hand of any man competent to the task of illustrating a
life full of instruction for the rising brotherhood of art, is a subject
which it behooved the Royal institution that has so largely profited by
Chantrey's liberality and fame, not to neglect, much less throw away. The
book which we have taken for the foundation of this notice, written by a
Royal Academician, is a disgrace to the Royal Academy. Is then, we ask,
no single member of that gifted body competent to say a word or two in
plain English for the departed sculptor, that such a melancholy
exhibition of helplessness must needs be sent forth as a tribute from
excellence to excellence? The life of Chantrey properly written could not
but prove of the utmost value to Englishmen, and simply because it is the
career of a man attaining the highest distinction by means thoroughly
understood by his countrymen, and by the exercise of an intellect at all
times under the salutary influence of a wholesale national bias. Jones on
Chantrey is Jenkins on Milton; the poet of Moses and Son upon the
_Inferno_ of Dante--the ridiculous limping after the sublime.

The great aim of Mr. George Jones, R.A., in his present undertaking,
seems to have been to exhibit his own vast erudition and his great
command of the hard words of his native tongue. Indeed, he quotes so much
Greek and Latin, and talks so finely, that it is only to be regretted
that he does not now and then come down from his stilts in order to
gratify himself with a little intelligible English and his readers with
some homely grammar. It will be our painful duty to submit to the
reader's notice a specimen or two of Mr. Jones' peculiar style, which,
together with the profound simplicity of his original remarks, make up as
curious a production as it has ever fallen to our lot to read and to
criticise.

When our old friend, M. Soyer, declared his conviction that "to die is a
religious duty which every human being owes to his Creator," and that
when the parents of a family are suddenly cut off, the unfortunate event
"not only affects the children personally, but their future generations,
by destroying all the social comfort which generally exists in such
families, and probably would cause misery to exist instead of happiness,"
it occurred to us that sterner truisms in more naked guise it would be
difficult to produce. We had not then read Jones. _His_ self-evident
propositions are perfectly astounding. Here are a few of them.

"Chantrey believed that the mind and morals are improved by the
contemplation of beautiful objects." Who could have supposed it?
"Chantrey was convinced that variety in building, if under the guidance
of good sense and propriety, tends much to the beauty of a country." Is
it possible? "Chantrey believed that all which has been done may be
exceeded _when genius and ability are equal to the task_, for as Raphael
has surpassed the lay-figure art of most of his predecessors, so no
reason exists why Raphael should not be surpassed." Had he never spoken
again, this idea would have procured him a niche next to Francis Bacon.
The sculptor actually believed that even the glories of the past may be
outdone when there are genius and ability enough in the world to surpass
them! Will Mr. Jones favor us with the day and precise moment at which
this wonderful conception entered the great sculptor's mind? We should
like to record it. "Chantrey felt that the blind adoration of right and
wrong was likely to mislead the public." We really think we have heard
the remark before. "Chantrey referred every object to the Creator of all,
and admired without limit the works of the Great Artificer, from the
smallest leaf to the noblest production, and in his mundane calling
aimed at an imitation of that excellence of beauty which nature has
displayed." There is nothing like getting at the idiosyncrasies of the
famous. Since Chantrey, according to Jones, has set the example of
referring creation to a creator, and of studying nature when be wished to
imitate her, we can only trust that the practice may henceforward be
universally adopted. Chantrey was of opinion--no, we mistake, this is
Jones' own--Jones is of opinion that "although the literary education of
artists ought to be as extensive as possible, yet they may sometimes
require the assistance of those whose opportunities and abilities have
enabled them to make a deeper research." Finely said. Jones is a case in
point. We do not know the extent of his literary education, but whatever
it be, the assistance of Lindley Murray would, we are certain, be of
infinite service to him at this moment.

We forget how many thousands of pounds, poor Chantrey left to the Royal
Academy. Jones never tires of lauding the Academy by referring to the
munificent bequests; yet this, we repeat, is the return made by that
favored institution, in the person of one of its chief members, to the no
less distinguished and generous donor. The life of Chantrey would not
have been difficult in the hands of a moderately informed artist. "Dear
Jones, we wanted a man of taste (d--n taste), we mean judgment," and your
professed regard for your friend should not have rested content until it
had found one.

       *       *       *       *       *


SONG.

BY R. H. STODDARD.

  I've left my native home afar,
    Beyond the dark blue main;
  And many a mouth may come and go
    Ere I return again:
  But months and years must come and go
    As rolling waves depart,
  Ere I forget to give you all
    A home within my heart!

  I come to you as swallows come,
    Across the stormy foam;
  My chief delight in alien lands,
    To sing my songs of home:
  Nor will I once regret my home
    And all the sea that parts,
  If you will only give me now
    A home within your hearts!

       *       *       *       *       *


[From the Athenaeum.]

VIRGINIA TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO.[A]


[Footnote A: The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia;
expressing the Cosmographie and Comodities of the Country, togither with
the Manners and Customes of the People. Gathered and observed as well by
those who went first thither as collected by William Strachey, Gent, the
first Secretary of the Colony. Now first edited from the original
Manuscript, in the British Museum, by R. H. Major, Esq., of the British
Museum. Printed for the Hakluyt Society.]


This is a suggestive book, with its prophetic motto,--its dedication to
Lord Bacon, the fit patron of discoverers,--and its curious map,
"described by Captayn John Smith," adorned with ships, and huge whales,
and all the land so closely dotted over with tall trees and
molehill-sized mountains, and here and there the mark of an Indian
settlement just visible. Worthy William Strachey, Gent., what would be
his surprise to look over a map of Virginia Britannia,-that "ample tract
of land" with "sufficient space and ground enough to satisfie the most
covetous,"--in the year 1850; and to mark the teeming and busy
population, the steamboats that navigate the "five faire and delightfull
navigable rivers" within the Chesapeake Bay, the railroads that intersect
the whole country and the vast human tide still pouring westward?
"This shall be written for the generation to come," is his motto; and
interesting it is to the reader to follow him in his narrative of the
toils and privations of the good company to which he was secretary, and
in his full and minute account of the produce of the country, and its
strange inhabitants. Who William Strachey was, Mr. Major, notwithstanding
all his diligence, has not been able to ascertain. In his dedication to
Lord Bacon, he describes himself as having been "one of the Graies-Inne
Societe," and his narrative affords ample proof of his being a man of
learning and worth: but of his family, the date of his birth or of his
death, we have no record.

The earlier attempts to colonize North America were numerous, but all
unfavorable. "Divers voyages" were made thither from the year 1578 to the
close of the reign of Elizabeth, but without success; nor were the first
adventurers in the reign of her successor more fortunate.

"At the time of the death of Queen Elizabeth, one hundred and eleven
years subsequent to the great discovery of the Western World by Columbus,
the Spaniards, on whose behalf his discovery had been made, were the sole
permanent settlers in this wide and wealthy continent. In 1606, the
French began to make settlements in Canada and Acadie, now Nova Scotia,
but it was not till 1607 that the enterprise, which was finally destined
to lay the foundation of British occupancy of American soil, was
undertaken. Twenty-three years had expired since the patent has been
granted to Sir Walter Raleigh to discover and take possession, with
little less than royal privileges, of remote heathen and barbarous lands,
hitherto not actually possessed by any Christian prince; and yet not an
acre of American soil had hitherto become the property of the
English..... It was shortly after this period, viz., A° 1605-6, that
Richard Hakluyt, the '_presidium et dulce decus_' of our Society, to
whom, as Robertson justly remarks, 'England is more indebted for its
American possessions than to any man of that age,' used influential
arguments with various gentlemen of condition, to induce them to present
a petition to King James to grant them patents for the settlement of two
plantations on the coast of North America. This petition issued in the
concession of a charter, bearing date the 10th of April 1606, by which
the tract of country lying between the thirty-forth and forty-fifth
degrees of latitude was to be divided into nearly equal portions, between
two companies; that occupying the southern portion to be called the first
colony (subsequently named the London Company), and that occupying the
northern, to be called the second colony (subsequently named the Plymouth
Company). The patent also vested in each colony a right of property over
fifty miles of the land, extending along the coast each side of the point
of first occupation, and a hundred miles inland. The chief adventurers
in the London or South Virginian Company, with which as the first
settlement we now have principally to do, were Sir Thomas Gates, Sir
George Somers, Richard Hakluyt, and Edward Maria Wingfield. The command
of the expedition was committed to Captain Newport."

"By a strange caprice of the king, these instructions were sent carefully
sealed up and inclosed in a box, not to be opened till their arrival in
Virginia." Thus, destitute of a leader at the time when they most needed
one, they chose the gallant Captain John Smith, so well known from "the
romantic tale of his own life and Englishmen's lives, for his sake, being
saved once and again, by the personal devotion of the generous but
ill-requited Pocahontas." Under him the first permanent settlement of the
English in America was effected, and James Town built. In 1609 the
expedition under Lord Delaware set out; and "under his enlightened and
beneficent auspices the colony soon assumed a wholesome and active
appearance." Ill health, however, compelled him within two years to
return to England: but Sir Thomas Dale arriving soon after, with a fresh
supply of emigrants, the colony continued prosperous, its affairs
subsequently retrograded; and Lord Delawarr again went out in the year
1618,--but unfortunately only to die, near the bay which still bears his
name.

"Finally it was not till 1620, after so many abortive efforts had been
made both by Government and powerful bodies to form an establishment in
North Virginia, that at length it received, under unexpected
circumstances, an influx of settlers which soon rendered it by far the
most prosperous of all colonies in North America. This was the emigration
of a large band of Puritans, who suffering under the intolerance of the
English Government, on account of non-conformity, first passed into
Holland, and afterward found an asylum in America."

The "Historie" very properly begins with a description of the land.-the
fruitfulness of which is dwelt on; and a hint is given of the probability
that even gold may be discovered,--and "sure it is that some mineralls
have ben there found." "The temperature of the country" "doth well agree
with the English constitutions;" and moreover, not only all "needful
fruits and vegetables which we transport from hence and plant there
thrive and prosper well," but vines and tobacco and oranges, and probably
sugar-canes, will grow there,--for the soil is "aromaticall," and
moreover abounds with medicinal plants and drugs. All this is the
favorable side of the picture;--but then, "the savages and men of Ind"
whose strange appearance and barbarous usages had excited so much fearful
curiosity at home!--Why, says Master Strachey. "let me truly saie, how
they never killed man of ours, but by our men's owne folly and
indiscretion, suffering themselves to be beguiled and enticed up into
their howses without their armes; for fierce and cunning as they are,
still they stand in great awe of us." Among them the Sasquesahanougs
"came to the discoverers with skynns, bowes, arrowes, and tobacco
pipes"--doubtless the calumet of peace "for presents." But the chief
object of interest is, "the great King Powhatan."--already well known by
the name as the father of the interesting Indian girl, Pocahontas; "the
greatnes and boundes of whose empire, by reason of his powerfulnes and
ambition in his youth, hath larger lymitts than ever had any of his
predicessors."

"The great King" was not deficient in that important mark of royalty-and
which doubtless corroborated the opinion, then widely prevailing, that
these Indians were of eastern origin--a goodly number of wives. Indeed,
"he is supposed to have many more than one hundred, all of which he doth
not keepe, yet as the Turk, in one seraglia or howse, but hath an
appointed number, which reside still in every their severall places,
amongst whome, when he lyeth on his bedd, one sittith at his head and
another at his feet; but when he sitteth at meat, or in presenting
himself to any straungers, one sittetn on his right hand, and another on
his leaft." And here we have the picture of the great Powhatan, sitting
pipe in hand, "the very moral," feather-head-dress and all, of the
protecting genius of the tobacconist's shop, with a rather pretty-looking
wife on each side and twenty more, laughingly huddled round a huge fire,
at his feet. His family was rather patriarchal; consisting at this time
of twenty sons and ten daughters, besides "a young one, a great darling,"
and Pocahontas, "now married to a private captain." Some of his
"weroances," or under governors, took somewhat of kingly state on them,
and so did their favorite wives. One, a very handsome "savadge woman,"
took on her "a shewe of greatnes" in this manner.--

"I was once early at her howse (yt being sommer tyme), when she was layed
without dores, under the shadowe of a broad-leaved tree, upon a pallet of
osiers, spred over with four or five fyne gray matts, herself covered
with a fare white drest deare skynne or two; and when she rose, she had a
mayd who fetcht her a frontall of white currall, and pendants of great
but imperfect couloured and worse drilled pearles, which she put into her
eares, and a chayne, with long lyncks of copper, which they call
Tapoantaminais, and which came twice or thrice about her neck, and they
accompt a jolly ornament; and sure thus attired, with some variety of
feathers and flowers stuck in their haires, they seeme as _debonaire_
quaynt, and well pleased as (I wis) a daughter of the howse of Austria
behune [decked] with all her jewells; likewise her mayd fetcht her a
mantell, which, they call puttawus, which is like a side cloak, made of
blew feathers, so arteficyally and thick sewed togither, that it seemed
like a deepe purple satten, and is very smooth and sleeke; and after she
brought her water for her hands, and then a braunch or twoo of fresh
greene asshen leaves, as for a towell to dry them. I offend in this
digression the willinger, since these were ceremonyes which I did little
looke for, carrying so much presentetnent of civility."

The description of the Indian dress does not differ from the modern
accounts; the style of the "ear-rings," however, seems to have interested
Strachey greatly,--especially the "wild beast's claws" stuck in, and,
above all, "a small greene and yellow-colored live snake, neere half a
yard in length, crawling and lapping himself about his neck." Truly, we
can scarcely be surprised that the early settlers looked with suspicion
on men who wore such unchristian-like ornaments, and that they more than
suspected them to be in league with "the old serpent." A full description
is given of their modes of hunting and fishing; and also of their
amusements,--especially their dances, which resemble those of "frantique
and disquieted bachanalls." The writer was not able to obtain much
information as to their religion. From some scattered hints, it seems to
have resembled the Mexican, both in the human sacrifices and in the
secrecy attending them. They also used a sort of embalming for their
kings, whose bodies were kept in one of their temples.

Their principal temple "is at Vtamussack, proper to Powhatan, upon the
top of certaine red sandy hills; and it is accompanied by two others
sixty feet in length, filled with images of their kings and deviles, and
tombes of the predecessors. This place they count so holy as that none
but the priests and kings dare come therein." They are not observed to
keep any specific days of devotion; but from time to time the whole
population assemble "to make a great fier in the house or fields, and all
to sing and daunce about yt, in a ring like so many fayries, with rattles
and showtes." This points to an eastern source: so does the following:

"They have also divers conjurations: one they made at what tyme they had
taken Captain Smyth prisoner, to know, as they reported, if any more of
his countrymen would arrive there, and what they intended; the manner of
yt Captain Smyth observed to be as followeth: first, soe sone as daie was
shut in, they kindled a faire great fier in a lone howse, about which
assembled seven priests, takinge Captain Smyth by the hand, and
appointing him his seat; about the fier they made a kynd of enchanted
circle of meale; that done, the chiefest priest, attyred as is expressed,
gravely began to sing and shake his rattle, solemly rownding and marching
about the fier, the rest followed him silently untill his song was done,
which they all shutt up with a groane. At the end of the first song the
chief priest layd downe certaine graines of wheat, and so continuyed
howling and invoking their okeus to stand firme and powerful to them in
divers varieties of songs, still counting the songs by their graynes,
untill they had circled the fier three tymes, then they devided the
graynes by certaine number with little sticks, all the while muttering
some ympious thing unto themselves, oftentymes looking upon Captain
Smyth. In this manner they contynued ten or twelve howers without any
other ceremonies or intermission, with such violent stretching of their
armes, and various passions, jestures, and simptoms, as might well seeme
stang to him before whom they so conjured, and who every hower expected
to be the hoast and one of their sacrifice. Not any meat did they eat
untill yt was very late, and the night far spent. About the rising of the
morning starr they seemed to have finished their work of darknes, and
then drew forth such provision as was in the said howse, and feasted
themselves and him with much mirth."

Some part of this narrative reminds us of the conjurations of the
Scandinavian prophetess--before she poured forth "the Runic rhyme," as
related by Bartolinus; we wish the writer had mentioned whether they
moved eastward or westward. The prophetess we have just alluded to,
grasped her staff carved with Runic characters, all the time, and singing
a low monotonous chant, she proceeded, _contrary_ to the course of the
sun, round and round the charmed fire. The coincidence is, however,
striking.

The first book ends with a high eulogy on the capabilities of the
country; the probability of its containing great mineral wealth, as well
as the certainty of its yielding abundant produce, "for yt hath (even
beside necessary helpes, and commodities for life) apparent proufs of
many naturall riches." The second book gives a very interesting account
of the various attempts to colonize this portion of America, from the
time of the discovery to the expedition of Lord Delawarr,--of which Mr.
Major has given an excellent epitome in his introduction.

Looking at the period when this work was probably written, and especially
at the arguments used by the earnest writer, we cannot but think it
likely that it may have aided the Pilgrim Fathers in their determination
to seek on the farther shores of the Atlantic that freedom which was
denied them here. Although in manuscript, it may have been well known;
for we have several instances of copies being made of works not intended
for the press. In this instance, two copies are still extant; and the
circumstance of that in the Ashmolean Collection being dedicated to Sir
Allen Apsley, Lucy Hutchinson's father, affords strong probability that
it would soon become known to the Puritans, since the wife of Sir
Allen,--as we learn from her daughter's delightful memoir,--was a warm
adherent to their cause. The incidental benefits which Strachey
anticipates for the natives by their intercourse with civilized and
Christian people were strongly dwelt on by the exiles at Amsterdam; and
the very motto on the title-page of the work before us--"This shall be
written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created
shall praise the Lord"--was so often used by them, that in the record of
their settlement at Plymouth it might almost have been taken for _their_
motto. If such were the case, if the book before us gave, indeed, the
impulse to that devoted band of settlers, how mighty was its
influence:--for seldom have greater destinies been enshrined in a frail
bark than those that freighted the May-flower!--Mr. Major merits much
commendation for his careful editorship and his illustrative notes: nor
should the excellent etchings by his lady be overlooked, inasmuch as they
give additional interest to a very interesting volume.

       *       *       *       *       *

[From the Times.]

THE GREAT LORD MANSFIELD.


Lord Campbell has learned to take a broad and manly view of the
Profession which his own erudition adorns. In his temporary retirement he
paid homage to literature; and literature, as is her wont, rewards her
worshiper by extending his vision and emancipating his mind. A more
intimate acquaintance with the transactions and passions of the past, a
disinterested and unbiased survey of the lives and triumphs of his
illustrious predecessors, has prepared our present Chief Justice for his
eminence by teaching him, above all things, that judicial fame does not
arise from a dull though perfect knowledge of the technicalities of law,
and that there is all the difference in the world between a splendid
ambition and the groveling prosecution of an ignoble trade.

It is certainly not extraordinary that the life of the great Earl of
Mansfield has been contemplated by his biographer until a sense of
humility has been engendered, and eloquent admiration for transcendent
intelligence evoked. From among a host this luminary stands forth.
Faultless he was not, as we shall presently see; but his failings,
whatever they may have been, in no way obscured the luster of a genius
that gave sublimity to the most prosaic of pursuits, and, in the teeth of
prejudice, vindicated law against the toils of the narrow-minded and the
opprobrium of ages. What Bacon proved to philosophy Mansfield in his day
became, in a measure, to his own cherished science; and, as Coke affected
commiseration for the author of the _Novum Organum_, so the fettered
slaves of forms and rules in later times pitied and reproached Lord
Mansfield for his declared unconquerable preference for the spirit of
justice to the unilluminated letter of the law.

Nature and education prepared William Murray for the very highest
forensic distinction, and his career is chiefly remarkable for the
certain, though gradual steps, by which he reached it. His success was
the legitimate and logical result of the means sedulously taken to obtain
it. Had William Murray failed to win his race, it would have been because
he had dropped down dead on the course, or violent hands had forbidden
his progress. The conditions of victory were secured at starting, in his
own person, let the competitors be whom they might. The spirit of the boy
was as ambitious of worldly glory as the spirit of the man looked for
undying fame; from first to last, from the beginning of the century until
the close of it, the same application, the same aptitude, the same
self-devotion, and the same clear, unruffled, penetrating judgment, were
visible in Mansfield's useful and protracted life.

The younger son of a poor Scotch lord, whose family favored the Stuart
cause, William Murray quitted his school at Perth on the 15th of March,
1718, being then thirteen years of age, and started on the back of a pony
for the city of London. His destination was the house of an apothecary,
who, emigrating from Perth, had settled in London, and was now
commissioned to see the son of his former patron safely deposited at
Westminster School, where it was hoped the young student would win, in
due time, his Oxford scholarship. Upon the 8th of May, just two months
after the journey was commenced, the pony completed his task, and the
rider resolutely began his own. He soon distinguished himself by his
classical attainments, and, according to Mr. Welsby, "his superiority was
more manifest in the declamations than in any of the other exercises
prescribed by the regulations of the school." In May, 1723, after a
severe examination, William Murray took his place as first on the list
of King's scholars who were to proceed to Christ Church.

At Oxford the student determined to go to the bar, and through the
generosity of the first Lord Foley, who supplied him with funds, he was
enabled to follow a profession for which, as he himself said, he felt "a
calling." He had not been at Oxford a year before he became a member of
the Hon. Society of Lincoln's inn, although he did not begin to keep his
terms there until he had taken his bachelor's degree. At college William
Murray was as diligent as he had been at school, and, intent upon renown,
he took care to make all study subservient to the one great object of his
life. He read whatever had been written on the subject of
oratory,--translated into English every oration of Cicero, and
retranslated it into Latin, until every thought and expression of the
illustrious example was familiar to his mind. He applied himself
vigorously to original composition, and strengthened his intellect by the
perusal of works which do not ordinarily fall within the college course.
He was still at Oxford in 1727, the year of George the First's death, and
became the successful competitor for a prize when the students of the
University were called upon, in the name of the Muses, to mourn over the
urn of the departed Cæsar,--"of that Cæsar," as Mr. Macaulay has it, "who
could not read a line of Pope, and who loved nothing but punch and fat
women." A rival poet upon this occasion was a lad from Eton.
Disappointment and vexation at defeat, it is said, rankled in this boy's
bosom, and opened a wound which closed only with life. Be this as it may,
the classic rivalry begun at school between Pitt and Murray became fiery
strife between Chatham and Mansfield, fit for a civilized world to
witness and to profit by.

From Christ Church to Lincoln's-inn was a transfer of abode, scarcely a
change of habits or of life. Murray was four years nearer to his goal,
but that goal had still to be reached, and could only be won by untiring,
patient, and ceaseless endeavor. At Oxford he had attended lectures on
the _Pandects of Justinian_, "which gave him a permanent taste for that
noble system of jurisprudence." In his chambers he made himself
thoroughly acquainted with ancient and modern history, applied himself
diligently to ethics, to the study of Roman civil law, the foundation of
jurisprudence, of international law, and of English municipal law. No
drudgery was too laborious, no toil too dull. Expecting, from his
northern connections, to be employed in appeals from Scotland, he made
himself master of the law of that country, and when he was not engaged in
these and similar pursuits, or at the Courts of Westminster listening to
judgments, he would take his chief of all delights in the company of the
juridical writers of France, "that he might see how the Roman and feudal
laws had been blended in the different provinces of that kingdom." Not a
moment was lost in making preparations for the victory which it was the
purpose of his life to win.

Technical knowledge, however, came to enlighten and inform, not to burden
and oppress. The mind of Murray rejoiced in freedom and exercised itself
in light. Text-books were his handmaidens, he was not their slave. The
exclusive labors of the great masters of his craft occupied his hours,
but he still found time for other more interesting lore common to
mankind. Craig, Bracton, Littleton, and Coke, all in their turns were
trusty counselors and dear companions, but as welcome as any to his
studious hearth was the living presence of Alexander Pope. Murray, while
at Westminster, had been introduced to the great poet, and had been
charmed by his exquisite powers of conversation. Pope was no less struck
by the accomplished genius of the young Scot, "the silvery tones of whose
voice," it is said, fell like a charm upon every ear. Pope, anxious for
the success of the youth, visited him at his chambers, in order to teach
him elocution. Once, says Lord Campbell, the young lawyer "was surprised
by a gay Templar in the act of practicing the graces of a speaker at a
glass, whilst Pope sat by in the character of preceptor." Teacher and
pupil would spend hours together thus occupied. Mr. Pope, writes Bishop
Warburton, "had all the warmth of affection for the great lawyer, and
indeed no man ever more deserved to have a poet for his friend."

In 1730 Murray paid a short visit to the continent, and on the 23d of
November in that year he was called to the bar in Lincoln's-inn hall.
Never was lawyer better armed for the battle of life. How he had
qualified himself for the practice of his profession we have attempted in
our narrow space to show. With a rooted attachment to that profession,
with a lofty ambition and noble desire to serve his country, and a
consciousness of strength equal to the bravest undertaking; with a mind
thoroughly imbued with the literature of Greece and Rome, as well as of
his own country; with a perfect understanding of the codes of every
civilized nation, ancient and modern; with an intimate knowledge and an
accurate appreciation of the peculiarities of our mixed constitution;
with a natural dignity of manner that commanded instant respect; with a
clear persuasive power of oratory that never failed to win the sympathy
of all to whom it was addressed; with a voice that in earlier days had
been compared to the note of the nightingale; with almost every
intellectual and physical gift which nature could confer, and with every
gift gratefully received and assiduously improved, William Murray stood
at the threshold of his career and waited calmly for his opportunity. It
is sufficient to say that the opportunity came. Twelve years after Murray
was called to the bar, he was appointed Solicitor-General by the
Government which had risen upon the downfall of Sir Robert Walpole, and
which knew how to estimate the value of so rare an acquisition.

The success of Murray in the House of Commons justified the reputation
which the new Solicitor-General had already attained at the bar. His
first speech, as member for Boroughbridge, fixed his position. He
maintained it for fourteen years, when he quitted the lower house upon
his elevation to the bench. When Murray accepted office under the
Pelhams, another much more ardent and unscrupulous politician already in
the House of Commons was writhing under the vexation of neglect. The
Solicitor-General had met the ambitious youth before, and the
recollection of their last parting was hardly likely to insure a cordial
or a friendly recognition. Murray's first task in Parliament was to
defend the employment of Hanoverian troops, 16,000 of whom had recently
been taken into British pay. Pitt, at the head of the "Boys," as Walpole
called the burning patriots whose services he had himself respectfully
declined, and hounded on by the Jacobites and Tories, denounced the steps
as "illegal, unconstitutional, a sacrifice of British to electoral
interests, and a prelude to the introduction of despotism into this
country." Pitt was created to denounce, Murray to defend. Overwhelming
as the torrent of declamation and invective might be which Pitt knew so
well how and when to pour forth, the barrier set up against it by the
calm dignity, the perfect reasoning, the marvelous self-government, the
exquisite tones, and conciliatory manner of Murray, was more than
sufficient to protect him against submersion. A division taking place
upon the Hanoverian question, Government found themselves in a large
majority. Murray was pronounced to be a match for his rival, and George
II. became suddenly as attached to the one as he had long hated and
feared the other.

On the 3d of March, 1754, Mr. Pelham, the Prime Minister, died, and, had
Murray's ambition soared in that direction, he might at once have stepped
into the vacant office. He had long been the prop of the Ministry in the
House of Commons, and was by far the most sagacious member of the
Government. Throughout his Parliamentary career, what has happily been
called his "clear, placid, mellow splendor" had suffered no tarnish, and
had not been obscured by a single cloud. Always ready, well informed,
lucid in argument, and convincing in manner, he had virtually assumed the
leadership in the House of Commons, and his elevation would in no way
have altered the aspect or proceedings of that assembly. The nation
respected him, and the monarch regarded him with more than common favor.
Murray, however, coveted not the prize. Mr. Macaulay, referring to this
period in one of his masterly essays, attributes the conduct of the
Solicitor-General to moral infirmity. "The object of Murray's wishes," he
says, "was the judicial bench. The situation of Chief Justice might not
be so splendid as that of First Lord of the Treasury, but it was
dignified, it was quiet, it was secure; and therefore it was the favorite
situation of Murray." Lord Campbell states the case more creditably, and,
as we think, more fairly to Lord Mansfield. "From a high feeling," says
the biographer, "that his destiny called him to reform the jurisprudence
of his country, he sincerely and ardently desired to be placed on the
bench, and the especial object of his ambition was to be Chief Justice of
England." We remember that, whilst a lad, and destined by his parents for
the church. Murray, of his own motion, dedicated himself to the study of
the law, feeling a "calling" for that profession. Why Lord Mansfield had
resisted every temptation in order to secure the eminence for which, it
is not too much to say, he was in all respects better fitted than any who
have won it, became evident enough within a year of his appointment to
the bench. Moral courage he lacked; something nobler than its want led
him to renounce the Premiership.

What Murray rejected the less capable and not over nice Duke of Newcastle
Greedily seized. The Attorney-General, Sir Dudley Ryder, was elevated to
the bench, and Murray, gaining a step in professional rank, was by so
much nearer to the consummation of his hopes. Never was Ministry so
thoroughly weak and so wretchedly unfortunate. The whole burden of
defending it rested in the House of Commons upon the shoulders of the
Attorney-General, and the feebleness of the Government was all the more
painful from the manifest strength of the great master of sarcasm and
invective, their unflinching opponent, growing in favor throughout the
country, merciless in his attack at all times, but terrific in his
onslaughts upon a foe worthy of his hatred, and capable of defense.
Imagination cannot linger upon a finer picture than is presented in the
persons of these mighty combatants; nor is the effect diminished by the
fact that of their great achievements little remains beyond the bare
tradition. We know that by a word, a gesture, a glance of his eagle eye,
Pitt awed the House of Commons, and chilled it into death-like silence.
We have heard how like a torrent his unpremeditated and impassioned
oratory rushed into the hearts of men, expelling rooted convictions, and
whatever else possessed them at the moment; how readily he spoke on all
emergencies, how daring were his strange digressions, how apposite his
illustrations, how magnificent and chivalric the form and structure of
his thoughts--how madly spirit-stirring his high and stern appeals. We
have read of the proud bearing of the austere yet gentle commoner, to
whom it was a matter of sublime indifference whether in a debate he rose
late or early, first or last, and who ever contented himself with simply
following the current, and obeying the fine instinct of his own rapt
mind, regardless of the speakers who had gone before, or were about to
follow him. We have pictured to ourselves the commanding countenance, the
characteristic action, the patrician manner that belonged to William Pitt
as exclusively as his own wild and wayward genius; but records are
wanting to establish all that we feel and know. Fragments of Pitt's
oratory only have reached us, and of these but few can be pronounced
wholly authentic. What that oratory must have been we learn from its
effects. More is not vouchsafed us. What remains to us of Murray's
speeches in Parliament is equally meager and unsatisfactory, but we may
judge of his power by reflecting upon the character of the assailant with
whom he successfully wrestled. There must surely have been wonderful
capability of argument, vast knowledge, a faculty of persuasion
irresistible in its winning grace, all combined in the man able, by the
mere force of quiet intellectual skill, to bear the brunt of an assault
which threatened demolition in its furious advance, and to turn aside
blows intended for annihilation. Lord Chesterfield addressing his son,
points to Pitt and Murray as to two great models for imitation.
Contemporary history assigns to them the highest place among their
fellows.

In 1756 Sir Dudley Ryder died, and Murray immediately claimed the vacant
Chief Justiceship. The Duke of Newcastle was panic-stricken by the
announcement. It has it said that from the beginning the Attorney-General
had been the mainstay of the Government; but at this particular crisis
his adherence was essential to its life. The nation was discontented and
sullen, as well it might be. War, carried on in almost every part of the
world, had resulted in lasting disgrace to England. Minorca had been lost
to her through the folly or cowardice of an English admiral, and
elsewhere ignominious defeat had attended her arms. Addresses from the
Throne poured in, intimations of stopping the supplies were thrown out,
and unmistakable references made to the conduct of the chiefs of the
Government. Fox, the only capable Minister, resigned his office in fear
and disgust, and, at the very moment when Newcastle turned to Murray as
to his last hope and refuge in the coming storm, that cautious and
resolute official respectfully demanded the promotion to which he had a
right. Alarmed for his place and his head, the Duke promised the
Attorney-General enough to make the fortunes of six if he would but
forego his purpose. He should have the Duchy of Lancaster for life,
tellerships and reversions without end for himself and his nephew, Lord
Stormont; if he would only stay in the House of Commons until the address
was carried he should have a pension of 6,000l. a-year; offers rose as
Murray showed himself more firm. Temptation came in vain. Murray averred
that he "would on no terms agree to remain in the House of Commons for
one session longer, or one month, or one day, even to support the
address;" he "never again would enter that assembly." If he could not be
Chief Justice he would not be Attorney-General. That peremptory avowal
was enough. To keep Murray from opposition, Newcastle conferred upon the
country the only great boon he ever bestowed upon it, and made the
Attorney-General Chief Justice of the King's Bench. The poor Duke gained
little by the move. Forced in his naked helplessness to resign, he was
succeeded by the Duke of Devonshire, who took care to appoint Pitt
Secretary of State, and to give him the lead in the House of Commons.

Upon the 8th day of November, 1756, Murray was sworn in before Lord
Chancellor Hardwicke, and created a peer by the title of Baron Mansfield,
of Mansfield, in the county of Nottingham, and three days afterward he
sat for the first time in the Court of King's Bench. "Over that great
court," says Lord Brougham, "he presided for thirty years, and his
administration of its functions during that long period shed a luster
alike upon the tribunal and the judge." During that period, too, but two
cases occurred in which his opinion was not unanimously adopted by his
brethren; and of the many thousand judgments which he pronounced but two
were reversed. In all his time no bill of exceptions was ever tendered to
his direction, and "all suitors sanguine in their belief of being
entitled to succeed" were eager to bring their causes to be tried before
him. There were drawbacks to Murray's complete success in the House of
Commons; there were qualities which he lacked whilst practicing at the
bar. Mansfield wanted nothing to make up the perfect portrait of a
British judge. In the Legislature he was helpless in attack; and both in
the House of Commons and in the House of Lords he exhibited on more than
one occasion a want of moral courage as humiliating to his friends as it
proved profitable to his foes; at the bar, learned and able though he
always was, yet wary circumspection even there cramped his powers and
deprived him of the transcendent reputation which other advocates have
earned. On the bench there was neither fear nor hesitation, neither undue
caution nor lack of energy, to impede his great intelligence. There he
sat, as above the common passions of humanity, surveying its doings with
a mind unobscured by prejudice, as wide in its grasp as it was masculine
it capability. His clearness of apprehension, his perspicuity of
statement, his perfect self-command, his vast knowledge of every kind,
were amongst the least of his qualifications for his high station. More
preeminently than all was his heroic and almost chivalric devotion to the
judicial office; his stern and unflinching love of justice, as
distinguished from "the puny technicalities of an obscure walk;" his
superiority to the favors of the great or to the clamors of the many, and
his unquestioned spotless integrity. During a portion of his lengthened
judicial career Lord Mansfield held a seat in the Cabinet, but nobody
thought of questioning the purity of his judgments on that account.
Toward the close of his judicial life Lord George Gordon was tried for
Inciting the rioters who set fire to Lord Mansfield's house and destroyed
his property. Lord Mansfield was the presiding judge on that memorable
occasion, and it was upon his exposition of the law of high treason to
the jury, and after his summing up, that Lord George Gordon was
acquitted.

"The benefits conferred by this accomplished judge upon the Court and
upon its suitors," says one of his biographers,--

"Were manifold and substantial. He began by at once so regulating the
distribution of the business, as to remove all uncertainty of the matters
which should be taken up each day, and to diminish both the expense, and
the delay, and the confusion of former times. He restored to the whole
bar the privilege of moving in turn, instead of confining this to the
last day of the term. He almost abolished the tedious and costly practice
of having the same case argued several times over, restricting such
rehearings to questions of real difficulty and adequate importance." The
benefits conferred upon the country were far greater. Burke, once quoting
an argument of Solicitor-General, Murray, said that "the ideas of Murray
go to the growing melioration of the law by making its liberality keep
pace with the demands of justice and the actual concerns of the
world--not restricting the infinitely diversified occasions of men and
the rules of natural justice within artificial circumscriptions, but
conforming our jurisprudence to the growth of our commerce and our
empire."

The statement is just, and a finer panegyric it were impossible to write.
Our limits, unfortunately, enable us only to indicate the achievements of
Chief Justice Mansfield; but such indications must be given, however
briefly. He found the common law of England a reproach, and, according to
Professor Story, "he put England, America, and the whole civilized world
under the deepest obligations" by the permanent improvement which he
effected in the system. During the reign of George II. England had become
the greatest manufacturing and commercial country in the world, but her
jurisprudence had, in the meanwhile, made no provision whatever for the
regulation of commercial dealings. When questions arose affecting
purchases and sales, the affreightment of ships, marine insurances, bills
of exchange, and promissory notes, it was impossible to decide them;
there were no cases to refer to, no treatises to consult. Lord Mansfield
grappled with the difficulty and overcame it. His judicial decisions
supplied the deficiencies of law and became themselves law. His mode
of procedure was as philosophical as it was bold. From every case that
came before him he extracted a general principle of universal
application, and availed himself of it not only to rule the particular
case under consideration, but to serve as a guide in all similar cases
hereafter; and he would enlarge upon the principle thus brought out
until, as his contemporaries declare, all listeners were lost in
admiration at the strength and stretch of his understanding. Lord
Campbell tells us that the common law of England which Lord Mansfield had
to administer upon his elevation to the bench, "was a system admirably
adapted to the condition of England in the Norman and early Plantagenet
reigns, whence it sprang up." As high an authority in America declares
that

"Wherever commerce shall extend its social influences, wherever justice
shall be administered by enlightened and liberal rules, wherever
contracts shall be expounded upon the eternal principles of right and
wrong, wherever moral delicacy and judicial refinement shall be infused
into the municipal code, at once to persuade men to be honest and to keep
them so; wherever the intercourse of mankind shall aim at something more
elevating than that groveling spirit of barter in which meanness, and
avarice, and fraud strive for the mastery over ignorance, credulity, and
folly, the name of Lord Mansfield will be reverenced, not only for
adapting the inefficient system which he found to the exigencies of his
own age in his own country, but for furnishing forever the great laws
founded upon everlasting truth and justice to the whole family of man."

In 1760 George III. ascended the throne, and Mansfield became a member of
the Cabinet, of which Bute was at the head. Ten years afterward the Chief
Justice prudently withdrew from the intimate connection with the
Government, into which he ought never to have entered, and seven years
Before his retirement the brief, though magnificent authority of Bute,
had been shattered to pieces, and the Minister himself disgraced. But,
although Cabinet Councils were henceforward held without the Chief
Justice, Lord Mansfield in his place in Parliament stood by the
Government, and vigorously defended them against a virulent Opposition.
Pitt, "blasting his character," according to Horace Walpole, "for the
sake of a paltry annuity and a long-necked peeress," had followed his
ancient rival into the House of Lords, and by this suicidal act given
Mansfield an immense advantage. Chatham, eager enough to tie his victim
to the stake, was doomed to bitter disappointment in an arena utterly
unfitted for the exercise of his peculiar powers. The atmosphere of the
House of Peers, admirably suited to the calm dignity and sublime
moderation of Mansfield, proved too often nipping frost to the burning
declamation of the man whose very look could rouse a more popular
assembly, and whose words oftener than once had inspired it with the
noblest sentiments. It was not in the House of Lords that at this period
of his history Lord Mansfield found his most dangerous opponent. A secret
enemy had arisen in the outside world amongst the people, one even more
unscrupulous than Chatham in his animosity: one who reveled in his
questionable privilege of striking in the dark, and who justified abuse
that knew no mercy, and acknowledged no law, by reiterated and fervid
appeals to God and his country. The moral courage of Murray had once
given way in the House of Commons, when Pitt, speaking daggers to him,
and suddenly exclaiming, "Judge Festus trembles, he shall hear me another
day," quietly sat down. But his sufferings were nothing compared with the
torture his weakness underwent beneath the repeated inflictions of the
unsparing Junius.

Toward the close of the year 1769 Junius sent forth his celebrated letter
to the King, for the publication of which criminal informations were laid
against Woodfall, as well as against Almon and Miller, who immediately
reprinted the libel. "Rex v. Almon" was the first case brought to trial,
and the jury found a general verdict of guilty. The defense set up in the
trial against Woodfall was, that the letter was not libellous. The part
which Lord Mansfield took is well known. He contended that

"All the jury had to consider was, whether the defendant had published
the letter set out in the information, and whether the inuendos, imputing
a particular meaning to particular words, as that 'the K----' meant His
Majesty King George III., but that they were not to consider whether the
publication was 'false and malicious,' these being mere formal words, and
that whether the letter was libellous or innocent was a pure question of
law, upon which the opinion of the court might be taken by a demurrer, or
a motion in arrest of judgment."

The jury retired, and after some hours deliberation returned a verdict of
"Guilty of the printing and publishing only." The attempt of Lord
Mansfield to withdraw the cognizance of the question of libel from the
jury to vest it in the court, contrary, as it unquestionably was, both to
liberty and law, had high authorities for its justification, and was
supported by the unanimous opinion of the judges who sat at his side.
Posterity will acquit the otherwise upright judge of the moral obliquity
of which his living enemies, with regard to this proceeding, pronounced
him guilty, and for which Junius would have crushed the Chief Justice,
had his ability been equal to his will.

It behooves the present generation to approach the lucubrations of the
redoubted Junius in a spirit of enlightened discrimination. We must bear
in mind that the poisoned arrows of the unseen combatant were discharged
at a period peculiarly favorable for the exercise of his destructive
skill; when startling invective was in fashion; when the mercenary acts
of the foremost public man excused, if they did not justify, wholesale
and unreflecting chastisement; when the public press was in its earliest
infancy, and public writers had not yet educated the audience whose good
sense now holds the libertinism of even the public censor in check, and
provides its own best remedy against the crimes or follies of the pen.
Junius but imitated the example of his betters when he fastened upon a
foe, guilty or innocent, and heaped upon his head every opprobrious term
a heated imagination could supply. A statesman's policy had but to be
inconvenient to his adversary in order to prove the Minister "hateful,"
"execrable," "abominable," "wicked," a traitor to his country, and a
conspirator against the liberties of the people. Pitt honored Walpole
with such vituperation, and when Walpole went out, and Carteret came in
without Pitt, the same expressive language was transferred by the
illustrious commoner from Minister to Minister, as though no virtue
could possibly be found in any Government without his presence. When
Junius affected to regard Lord Mansfield as the incarnation of all that
is odious in humanity, his praise of Lord Chatham knew no bounds; yet it
is well known that under another disguise Junius dealt far severer blows
against the patriot than he ever inflicted upon a man born, as he says,
to abet despotism in its hateful attempts to trample upon the people's
rights. Nothing can be more inconsistent than the accusations brought by
Junius against Lord Mansfield. In one and the same breath he charges him
with assuming an arbitrary power of doing right; so that if he does wrong
it lies only between him and his conscience; and with condescending to
evasive, indirect courses, in the temper of a quibbler. Now the Chief
Justice is something more than a lawyer, now considerably less. At one
moment he is setting common law at defiance, at another he is twisting
the law to the purposes of corruption, and taking refuge behind the forms
which he is expressly charged with heroically setting at defiance. Had
Lord Mansfield been less timorous, Junius might have been less daring. At
the close of one of his letters the reckless assailant writes "Beware how
you indulge the first emotions of your resentment. This paper is
delivered to the world, and cannot be recalled. The prosecution of an
innocent printer cannot alter facts nor refute arguments. Do not furnish
me with further materials against yourself." Another venomous diatribe
ends with a similar threat. Dare "to represent this charge as a contempt
of the authority of the House of Peers, and move their Lordships to
censure the publisher of this paper, and I affirm that you support
injustice by violence; that you are guilty of a heinous aggravation, of
your offense; and that you contribute your utmost influence to promote,
on the part of the highest court of judicature, a positive denial of
justice to the nation!" Junius traded up on the invincible infirmity of a
judge, who might have been destroyed by his weakness had he not been
upheld by his unsullied purity and fame.

The attacks of Junius were not without effect on Parliament. A motion was
made in the House of Commons for "a committee to inquire into the
proceedings of the judges in Westminster Hall, particularly in cases
relating to the liberty of the press." In the House of Lords Lord Chatham
and Lord Camden re-echoed the charges of the House of Commons, and while
the latter warned noble lords how they received the opinions in that
House of the "most experienced lawyers" upon questions of law, the
former, in his accustomed style, threatened to ring again and again "the
alarm-bell of liberty," until he "could rouse the people to a proper
sense of their injuries." Stung by persecution Lord Mansfield suffered
himself to be betrayed into unaccountable error. Intimating one day that
he had something of importance to bring to the notice of the House, he
moved that their Lordships should be summoned to receive the
communication. The appointed day arrived, and the attendance of peers was
unusually large. Lord Mansfield rose amidst profound and anxious silence.
Lord Chatham and Lord Camden had calumniated the judges, and they were
now no doubt to be the objects of a vote of censure. Nothing of the kind.
Lord Mansfield simply informed the House that he had left a paper with
the clerk assistant containing the judgment of the Court of King's Bench
in the case of "the King against Woodfall," and then, to the astonishment
of every one, resumed his seat. Lord Camden rose and inquired whether the
noble lord intended hereafter to found any motion on his paper? Lord
Mansfield answered "No," and the House proceeded to other business. The
very next day Lord Camden resumed the subject. He regarded the conduct of
the Chief Justice as a challenge against himself, and he at once accepted
it. In direct contradiction to Lord Mansfield he maintained that his
doctrine was not the law of England. He had considered the noble lord's
"paper," and had not found it very intelligible. He begged to propose
four questions to the noble and learned lord, to which he required
categorical answers, that their lordships might know precisely the points
they had to discuss. The questions were submitted, and Lord Mansfield,
instead of meeting them, "with most abject soothings," as Horace Walpole
gleefully says, "paid the highest compliments to Lord Camden." He had the
highest esteem for the noble and learned lord who thus attacked him, and
had ever courted his esteem in return. He had not expected this treatment
from his candor. It was unfair; he would not answer interrogatories. The
reply was a signal for relentless torment. Not a peer interposed on his
behalf. Distressed by his misery, Lord Mansfield sat down, remained
still, and in sheer pity for their prey the dogs were called off.

In 1778 Lord Chatham died, and from the departure of the great commoner
until his own decease Lord Mansfield occupied a more conspicuous place as
a judge than as a politician in the public eye. He continued to display
upon the bench, as heretofore, the keenest perception, a resolute
obedience to the dictates of justice, high incorruptibility, great
learning, and thorough self-devotion to his beloved and chosen
occupation. He has been largely accused of favoring, in his early
manhood, the designs of the Pretender, yet, from the beginning to the
close of his public life, his fidelity to the reigning family could not
be called in question. He has been charged with gratifying prerogative at
the expense of law, yet the liberty of the law was never more perfect,
the rights of the subject  were never more secure, than during his long
tenure of the judicial office. He has been stigmatized by Junius as an
oppressor of men's consciences, yet no man of his time regulated his
conduct with a stricter regard to the humanizing principle of religious
toleration. Had Lord Mansfield been faithless to the people his death
would never have been regarded as an irreparable loss by the whole
country; had he been a bigot, the world would never have lost the
treasures which it is said were consumed in the house burnt to the ground
by zealous Protestants eager to take the life as well as to destroy the
goods of Lord Mansfield, for no other reason than that he chose to hold
the scales of justice fairly and steadily between Protestant and
Catholic.

In his 82d year, having been absent scarcely a day from court, Lord
Mansfield retired to Tunbridge Wells for the benefit of his health. The
year following he resigned his office. For six years longer he lived in
dignified retirement, occupying himself in his garden, or refreshing his
mind with the works that had charmed and instructed his youth. To the
last he retained his memory, and, dying without a pain at the close of
the century, the man who had spent his happiest evenings with Pope was
destined to listen to all the horrors of the French Revolution, in common
with thousands living at the present hour. Lord Mansfield's death was
mourned as a national calamity; his remains were deposited in Westminster
Abbey, and they lie close to those of the Earl of Chatham. After the
stormy conflict of a glorious life, the two schoolboy rivals lie side by
side in silent and everlasting repose.

We have freely stated the one great deformity of Lord Mansfield's
character; his quailing before Lord Camden is but a solitary instance of
the fault that tarnished his otherwise brilliant career. When we have
said that the Chief Justice acted unconstitutionally in continuing in the
Cabinet whilst he held the Judicial office, and that, admitted to the
friendship and confidence of his sovereign, he did not scruple to
exercise power without official responsibility, we have confessed to the
most serious offenses with which he is chargeable. It is not, however, to
dwell upon these blemishes of true greatness, or to indulge in idle
panegyric, that we have occupied so large a portion of valuable space,
and intermixed with the living doings of today one striking record of the
buried past. The life of Lord Mansfield is nothing to us if it yields no
profitable instruction and contains no element of usefulness for the
generation to whom our labors are addressed. Is it wholly unnecessary to
place at this moment before the bar of England so noble a model for
imitation so sublime an ideal for serious contemplation as that offered
in the person of the Earl of Mansfield? Is it impertinent to warn our
lawyers, that, without confirmed habits of industry, temperance,
self-subjugation, unsullied honor, vast knowledge, enlightened and lofty
views of their difficult yet fascinating profession, and a love of the
eternal principles of truth and justice, incompatible with meanness and
degrading practice, true eminence is impossible, and imperishable renown
not to be obtained? Never, at any other period of our history, has it
been so necessary to urge upon the students of the law the example of
their worthiest predecessors. The tendency of the age is to lower, not to
elevate, the standard set up by our ancestors for the attainment of
preeminence. That our giants may not be stunted in their growth--that the
legal stock may not hopelessly degenerate--Chief Justice Campbell does
well to impress upon his brethren the patient and laborious course--the
high and admirable qualities--by which Chief Justice Mansfield secured
his greatness and his fame.


       *       *       *       *       *


[From Blackwood's Magazine.]

MY NOVEL;
OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.


BOOK 1.--INITIAL CHAPTER; SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE WRITTEN.

SCENE, _The Hall in Uncle Roland's Tower_. TIME,_Night_--SEASON,
_Winter_.

Mr. Caxton is seated before a great geographical globe, which he is
turning round leisurely, and "for his own recreation," as, according to
Sir Thomas Browne, a philosopher should turn round the orb, of which that
globe professes to be the representation and effigies. My mother having
just adorned a very small frock with a very smart braid, is holding it
out at arm's length, the more to admire the effect. Blanche, though
leaning both hands on my mother's shoulder, is not regarding the frock,
but glances toward _Pisistratus_, who, seated near the fire leaning back
in his chair, and his head bent over his breast, seems in a very bad
humor. Uncle Roland, who has become a great novel reader, is deep in the
mysteries of some fascinating Third Volume. Mr. Squills has brought _The
Times_ in his pocket for his own especial profit and delectation, and is
now bending his brows over "the state of the money market," in great
doubt whether railway shares can possibly fall lower. For Mr. Squills,
happy man! has large savings, and does not know what to do with his
money; or, to use his own phrase, "how to buy in at the cheapest, in
order to sell out at the dearest."

_Mr. Caxton_, musingly.--"It must have been a monstrous long journey. It
would be somewhere hereabouts I take it, that they would split off."

_My Mother_, mechanically, and in order to show Austin that she paid, him
the compliment of attending to his remarks--"Who split off, my dear?"

"Bless me, Kitty," said my father, in great admiration, "you ask just the
question which it is most difficult to answer. An ingenious speculator on
races contends that the Danes, whose descendants make the chief part of
our northern population, (and indeed if his hypothesis could be correct,
we must suppose all the ancient worshipers of Odin,) are of the same
origin as the Etrurians. And why, Kitty, I just ask you, why?"

My mother shook her head thoughtfully, and turned the frock to the other
side of the light.

"Because, forsooth," cried my father, exploding--"because the Etrurians
called their gods 'the Æsar,' and the Scandinavians called  theirs 'the
Æsir, or Aser! And where do you think he puts their cradle?"

"Cradle!" said my mother, dreamingly--"it  must be in the nursery."

_Mr. Caxton_.--"Exactly--in the nursery of the human race--just here,"
and my father pointed to the globe; "bounded, you see, by the River
Halys, and in that region which, taking its name from Ees or As, (a word
designating light or fire) has been immemorially called _Asia_. Now,
Kitty, from Ees or As our ethnological speculator would derive not only
Asia, the land, but Æsar or Aser, its primitive inhabitants. Hence he
supposes the origin of the Etrurians and the Scandinavians. But, if we
give him so much, we must give him more, and deduce from the same origin
the Es of the Celt, and the Ized of the Persian, and--what will be of
more use to him, I dare say, poor man, than all the rest put
together--the Æs of the Romans, that is, the God of Copper-Money--a very
powerful household god he is to this day!"

My mother looked musingly at her frock, as if she were taking my father's
Proposition into serious consideration.

"So, perhaps," resumed my father, "and not unconformably with sacred
records, from one great parent horde came all these various tribes,
carrying with them the name of their beloved Asia; and whether they
wandered north, south, or west, exalting their own emphatic designation
of 'Children of the Land of Light' into the title of gods. And to think,
(added Mr. Caxton pathetically, gazing upon that speck in the globe on
which his forefinger rested,)--to think how little they changed for the
better when they got to the Don, or entangled their rafts amidst the
icebergs of the Baltic--so comfortably off as they were here, if they
could but have stayed quiet!"

"And why the deuce could not they?" asked Mr. Squills.

"Pressure of population, and not enough to live upon, I suppose," said my
father.

_Pisistratus_, sulkily.--"More probably they did away with the Corn Laws,
sir."

"Papæ!" quoth my father, "that throws a new light on the subject."

_Pisistratus_, full of his grievances, and not caring three straws about
the origin of the Scandinavians.--"I know that if we are to lose £500
every year on a farm which we hold rent free, and which the best judges
allow to be a perfect model for the whole country, we had better make
haste and turn Æsar or Aser, or whatever you call them, and fix a
settlement on the property of other nations, otherwise I suspect our
probable settlement will be on the parish."

_Mr. Squills_, who, it must be remembered, is an enthusiastic
Free-trader.--"You have only got to put more capital on the land."

_Pisistratus_.--"Well, Mr. Squills, as you think so well of that
investment, put _your_ capital on it. I promise that you shall have every
shilling of profit."

_Mr. Squills_, hastily retreating behind _The Times_.--"I don't think the
Great Western can fall any lower; though it is hazardous--I can but
venture a few hundreds--"


_Pisistratus_.--"On our land, Squills? Thank you."

_Mr. Squills_.--"No, no--anything but that-on the Great Western."

Pisistratus relapses into gloom. Blanche steals up coaxingly, and gets
snubbed for her pains. A pause.

_Mr. Caxton_--"There are two golden rules of life; one relates to the
mind, and the other to the pockets. The first is--If our thoughts get
into a low, nervous, aguish condition, we should make them change the
air; the second is comprised in the proverb, 'it is good to have two
strings to one's bow.' Therefore, Pisistratus, I tell you what you must
do--Write a Book!"

_Pisistratus_.--"Write a Book!--Against the abolition of the Corn Laws?
Faith, sir, the mischief's done. It takes a much better pen than mine to
write down an Act of Parliament."

_Mr. Caxton_.--"I only said, 'Write a Book.' All the rest is the addition
of your own headlong imagination."

_Pisistratus_, with the recollection of The Great Book rising before
him.--"Indeed, sir I should think that would just finish us!"

_Mr. Caxton_, not seeming to heed the interruption.--"A book that will
sell! A book that will prop up the fall of prices! A book that will
distract your mind from its dismal apprehensions, and restore your
affection to your species, and your hopes in the ultimate triumph of
sound principles--by the sight of a favorable balance at the end of the
yearly accounts. It is astonishing what a difference that little
circumstance makes in our views of things in general. I remember when the
bank in which Squills had incautiously left £1000 broke, one remarkably
healthy year, that he became a great alarmist, and said that the country
was on the verge of ruin; whereas, you see now, when, thanks to a long
succession of sickly seasons, he has a surplus capital to risk in the
Great Western--he is firmly persuaded that England was never in so
Prosperous a condition."

_Mr. Squills_, rather sullenly.--"Pooh, pooh."

_Mr. Caxton_.--"Write a book, my son--write a book. Need I tell you that
Money or Moneta, according to Hyginus, was the mother of the Muses? Write
a book."

_Blanche_ and my _Mother_, in full chorus.--"Oh yes, Sisty--a book-a
book! you must write a book."

"I am sure," quoth my Uncle Roland, slamming down the volume he had just
concluded, "he could write a devilish deal better book than this; and how
I come to read such trash, night after night, is more than I could
Possibly explain to the satisfaction of any intelligent jury, if I were
put into a witness-box, and examined in the mildest manner by my own
counsel."

_Mr. Caxton_.--"You see that Roland tells us exactly what sort of a book
it shall be."

_Pisistratus_.--"Trash, sir?"

_Mr. Caxton_.--"No--that is not necessarily trash--but a book of that
class which, whether trash or not, people can't help reading. Novels have
become the necessity of the age. You must write a novel."

_Pisistratus_, flattered, but dubious.--"A novel! But every subject on
which novels can be written is preoccupied. There are novels on low life,
novels of high life, military novels, naval novels, novels philosophical,
novels religious, novels historical, novels descriptive of India, the
Colonies, Ancient Rome, and the Egyptian Pyramids. From what bird, wild
eagle, or barn-door fowl, can I

  "'Pluck one unwearied plume from Fancy's wing!'"

_Mr. Caxton_, after a little thought.--"You remember the story which
Trevanion (I beg his pardon, Lord Ulswater) told us the other night. That
gives you something of the romance of real life for your plot--puts you
chiefly among scenes with which you are familiar, and furnishes you with
characters which have been sparingly dealt with since the time of
Fielding. You can give us the country squire, as you remember him in your
youth: it is a specimen of a race worth preserving--the old
idiosyncrasies of which are rapidly dying off, as the railways bring
Norfolk and Yorkshire within easy reach of the manners of London. You can
give us the old-fashioned parson, as in all essentials he may yet be
found--but before you had to drag him out of the great Puseyite sectarian
bog; and, for the rest, I really think that while, as I am told, many
popular writers are doing their best, especially in France, and perhaps a
little in England, to set class against class, and pick up every stone in
the kennel to shy at a gentleman with a good coat on his back, something
useful might be done by a few good-humored sketches of those innocent
criminals a little better off than their neighbors, whom, however we
dislike them, I take it for granted we shall have to endure, in one shape
or another, as long as civilization exists; and they seem, on the whole,
as good in their present shape as we are likely to get, shake the dice
box of society how we will."

_Pisistratus_.--"Very well said, sir; but this rural country gentleman
life is not so new as you think. There's Washington Irving--"

_Mr. Caxton_.--"Charming--but rather the manners of the last century than
this. You may as well cite Addison and Sir Roger de Coverley."

_Pisistratus_.--"_Tremaine_ and _De Vere_."

_Mr. Caxton_.--"Nothing can be more graceful, nor more unlike what I
mean. The Pales and Terminus I wish you to put up in the fields are
familiar images, that you may cut out of an oak tree--not beautiful
marble statues on porphyry pedestals twenty feet high."

_Pisistratus_.--"Miss Austin; Mrs. Gore in her masterpiece of _Mrs.
Armytage_; Mrs. Marsh, too; and then (for Scottish manners) Miss
Ferrier!"

_Mr. Caxton_, growing cross.--"Oh, if you cannot treat on bucolics but
what you must hear some Virgil or other cry 'Stop thief,' you deserve to
be tossed by one of your own 'short-horns.'--(Still more
contemptuously)--I am sure I don't know why we spend so much money on
sending our sons to school to learn Latin, when that Anchronism of yours,
Mrs. Caxton, can't even construe a line and a half of Phædrus. Phædrus,
Mrs. Caxton--a book which is in Latin what Goody Two Shoes is in the
vernacular!"

_Mrs. Caxton_, alarmed and indignant.--"Fie, Austin! I am sure you can
construe Phædrus, dear!"

Pisistratus prudently preserves silence.

_Mr. Caxton_.--"I'll try him--

  "'Sua cuique quum sit animi cogitatio
  Colorque proprius.'

"What does that mean?"

_Pisistratus_, smiling.--"That every man has some coloring matter within
him, to give his own tinge to--"

"His own novel," interrupted my father! "_Contentus peragis_."

During the latter part of this dialogue, Blanche had sewn together three
quires of the best Bath paper, and she now placed them on a little table
before me, with her own inkstand and steel pen.

My mother put her finger to her lip, and said, "Hush!" my father returned
to the cradle of the Æsar; Captain Roland leant his cheek on his hand,
and gazed abstractedly on the fire; Mr. Squills felt into a placid doze;
and, after three sighs that would have melted a heart of stone, I rushed
into--MY NOVEL.

       *       *       *       *       *


CHAPTER II.

"There has never been occasion to use them since I have been in the
Parish," said Parson Dale.

"What does that prove?" quoth the Squire sharply, and looking the Parson
full in the face.

"Prove!" repeated Mr. Dale--with a smile of benign, yet too conscious
superiority--"What does experience prove?"

"That your forefathers were great blockheads, and that their descendant
is not a whit the wiser."

"Squire," replied the Parson, "although that is a melancholy conclusion,
yet if you mean it to apply universally, and not to the family of the
Dales in particular, it is not one which my candor as a reasoner, and my
Humility as a mortal, will permit me to challenge."

"I defy you," said Mr. Hazledean triumphantly. "But to stick to the
subject, which it is monstrous hard to do when one talks with a parson, I
only just ask you to look yonder, and tell me on your conscience--I don't
even say as a parson, but as a parishioner--whether you ever saw a more
disreputable spectacle?"

While he spoke, the Squire, leaning heavily on the Parson's left
shoulder, extended his cane in a line parallel with the right of that
disputatious ecclesiastic, so that he might guide the organ of sight to
the object he had thus flatteringly described.

"I confess," said the Parson, "that, regarded by the eye of the senses,
it is a thing that in its best day had small pretensions to beauty, and
is not elevated into the Picturesque even by neglect and decay. But, my
friend, regarded by the eye of the inner man--of the rural philosopher
and parochial legislator--I say it is by neglect and decay that it is
rendered a very pleasing feature in what I may call 'the moral topography
of a parish.'"

The Squire looked at the Parson as if be could have beaten him; and
indeed, regarding the object in dispute not only with the eye of the
outer man, but the eye of law and order, the eye of a country gentleman
and a justice of the peace, the spectacle _was_ scandalously
disreputable. It was moss-grown; it was worm-eaten; it was broken right
in the middle; through its four socketless eyes, neighbored by the
nettle, peered the thistle:--the thistle!--a forest of thistles!--and, to
complete the degradation of the whole, those thistles had attracted the
donkey of an itinerant tinker; and the irreverent animal was in the very
act of taking his luncheon out of the eyes and jaws of--THE PARISH
STOCKS.

The Squire looked as if he could have beaten the Parson; but as he was
not without some slight command of temper, and a substitute was luckily
at hand, he gulped down, his resentment and made a rush--at the donkey!

Now the donkey was hampered by a rope to its fore feet, to the which was
attached a billet of wood called technically "a clog," so that it had no
fair chance of escape from the assault its sacrilegious luncheon had
justly provoked. But, the ass turned round with unusual nimbleness at the
first stroke of the cane, the Squire caught his foot in the rope, and
went head over heels among the thistles. The donkey gravely bent down,
and thrice smelt or sniffed its prostrate foe; then, having convinced
itself that it had nothing farther to apprehend for the present, and very
willing to make the best of the reprieve, according to the poetical
admonition, "Gather your rosebuds while you may," it cropped a thistle in
full bloom, close to the ear of the Squire; so close indeed, that the
Parson thought the ear was gone; and with the more probability, inasmuch
as the Squire, feeling the warm breath of the creature, bellowed out with
all the force of lungs accustomed to give a view-hallo!

"Bless me, is it gone?" said the Parson, thrusting his person between the
ass and the Squire.

"Zounds and the devil!" cried the Squire, rubbing himself as be rose to
his feet.

"Hush!" said the Parson gently. "What a horrible oath!"

"Horrible oath! If you had my nankeens on," said the Squire, still rubbing
himself, "and had fallen into a thicket of thistles with a donkey's teeth
within an inch of your ear!"

"It is not gone--then?" interrupted the Parson.

"No--that is, I think not," interrupted the Squire dubiously; and he
clapped his hand to the organ in question. "No, it is not gone."

"Thank heaven!" said the good clergyman kindly.

"Hum," growled the Squire, who was now once more engaged in rubbing
himself. "Thank heaven indeed, when I am as full of thorns as a
porcupine! I should just like to know what use thistles are in the
world."

"For donkeys to eat, if you will let them, Squire," answered the Parson.

"Ugh, you beast!" cried Mr. Hazeldean, all his wrath reawakened,
whether by the reference to the donkey species, or his inability to
reply to the Parson, or perhaps by some sudden prick too sharp for
humanity--especially humanity in nankeens--to endure without kicking;
"Ugh, you beast!" he exclaimed, shaking his cane at the donkey, who, at
the interposition of the Parson, had respectfully recoiled a few paces,
and now stood switching his thin tail, and trying vainly to lift one of
its fore legs--for the flies teased it.

"Poor thing!" said the Parson pityingly. "See, it has a raw place on the
shoulder, and the flies have found out the sore."

"I am devilish glad to hear it," said the Squire vindictively.

"Fie, fie!"

"It is very well to say 'Fie, fie.' It was not you who fell among the
thistles. What's the man about now, I wonder?"

The Parson had walked toward a chestnut tree that stood on the village
green--he broke off a bough--returned to the donkey, whisked off the
flies, and then tenderly placed the broad leaves over the sore, as a
protection from the swarms. The donkey turned round its head, and looked
at him with mild wonder.

"I would bet a shilling," said the Parson, softly, "that this is the
first act of kindness thou hast met with this many a day. And slight
enough it is, Heaven knows."

With that the Parson put his hand into his pocket, and drew out an apple.
It was a fine large rose-cheeked apple: one of the last winter's store,
from the celebrated tree in the parsonage garden, and he was taking it as
a present to a little boy in the village who had notably distinguished
himself in the Sunday-school. "Nay, in common justice, Lenny Fairfield
should have the preference," muttered the Parson. The ass pricked up one
of his ears, and advanced its head timidly. "But Lenny Fairfield would be
as much pleased with twopence: and what could twopence do to thee?" The
ass's nose now touched the apple. "Take it in the flame of charity,"
quoth the Parson, "Justice is accustomed to be served last:" And the ass
took the apple. "How had you the heart?" said the Parson, pointing to the
Squire's cane.

The ass stopped munching, and looked askant at the Squire.

"Pooh! eat on; he'll not beat thee now!"

"No," said the Squire apologetically. "But, after all, he is not an ass
of the parish; he is a vagrant, and he ought to be pounded. But the pound
is in as bad a state as the stocks, thanks to your new-fashioned
doctrines."

"New-fashioned!" cried the Parson almost indignantly, for he had a great
disdain of new fashions. "They are as old as Christianity; nay, as old as
Paradise, which you will observe is derived from a Greek, or rather a
Persian word, and means something more than a 'garden,' corresponding
(pursued the Parson rather pedantically) with the Latin _vivarium_--viz.
grove or park full of innocent dumb creatures. Depend on it, donkeys were
allowed to eat thistles there."

"Very possibly," said the Squire drily. "But Hazeldean, though a very
pretty village, is not Paradise. The stocks shall be mended to-morrow
day, and the pound too--and the next donkey found trespassing shall go
into it, as sure as my name is Hazeldean."

"Then," said the Parson gravely, "I can only hope that the next parish
may not follow your example; or that you and I may never be caught
straying!"

       *       *       *       *       *



CHAPTER III.


Parson Dale and Squire Hazeldean parted company; the latter to inspect
his sheep, the former to visit some of his parishioners, including Lenny
Fairfield, whom the donkey had defrauded of his apple.

Lenny Fairfield was sure to be in the way, for his mother rented a few
acres of grass land from the Squire, and it was now hay-time. And
Leonard, commonly called Lenny, was an only son, and his mother a widow.
The cottage stood apart, and somewhat remote, in one of the many nooks of
the long green village lane. And a thoroughly English cottage it
was--three centuries old at least; with walls of rubble let into oak
frames, and duly whitewashed every summer, a thatched roof, small panes
of glass, and an old doorway raised from the ground by two steps. There
was about this little dwelling all the homely rustic elegance which
peasant life admits of: a honeysuckle was trained over the door; a few
flower-pots were placed on the window-sills; the small plot of ground in
front of the house was kept with great neatness, and even taste; some
large rough stones on either side the little path having been formed into
a sort of rock-work, with creepers that were now in flower; and the
potatoe ground was screened from the eye by sweet peas and lupine. Simple
elegance all this, it is true; but how well it speaks for peasant and
landlord, when you see that the peasant is fond of his home, and has some
spare time and heart to bestow upon mere embellishment. Such a peasant is
sure to be a bad customer to the ale-house, and a safe neighbor to the
Squire's preserves. All honor and praise to him, except a small tax upon
both, which is due to the landlord!

Such sights were as pleasant to the Parson as the most beautiful
landscapes of Italy can be to the dilettante. He paused a moment at the
wicket to look around him, and distended his nostrils voluptuously to
inhale the smell of the sweet peas, mixed with that of the new-mown hay
in the fields behind, which a slight breeze bore to him. He then moved
on, carefully scraped his shoes, clean and well polished as they
were--for Mr. Dale was rather a beau in his own clerical way--on the
scraper without the door, and lifted the latch.

Your virtuoso looks with artistical delight on the figure of some nymph
painted on an Etruscan vase, engaged in pouring out the juice of the
grape from her classic urn. And the Parson felt as harmless, if not as
elegant a pleasure in contemplating Widow Fairfield brimming high a
glittering can, which she designed for the refreshment of the thirsty
hay-makers.

Mrs. Fairfield was a middle-aged tidy woman, with that alert precision of
movement which seems to come from an active orderly mind; and as she now
turned her head briskly at the sound of the Parson's footsteps, she
showed a countenance prepossessing, though not handsome,--a countenance
from which a pleasant hearty smile, breaking forth at that moment,
effaced some lines that, in repose, spoke "of sorrows, but of sorrows
past;" and her cheek, paler than is common to the complexions even of the
fair sex, when born and bred amidst a rural population, might have
favored the guess that the earlier part of her life had been spent in the
languid air and "within doors" occupation of a town.

"Never mind me," said the Parson, as Mrs. Fairfield dropped her quick
courtesy, and smoothed her apron; "if you are going into the hayfield, I
will go with you; I have something to say to Lenny--an excellent boy."

_Widow._--"Well, sir, and you are kind to say it--but so he is."

_Parson._-"He reads uncommonly well, he writes tolerably; he is the best
lad in the whole school at his catechism and in the Bible lessons; and I
assure you, when I see his face at church, looking up so attentively, I
fancy that I shall read my sermon all the better for such a listener!"

_Widow_, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron.--"Deed, sir, when
my poor Mark died, I never thought I could have lived on as I have done.
But that boy is so kind and good, that when I look at him sitting there
in dear Mark's chair, and remember how Mark loved him, and all he used to
say to me about him, I feel somehow or other as if my goodman smiled on
me, and would rather I was not with him yet, till the lad had grown up,
and did not want me any more."

_Parson_, looking away, and after a pause.--"You never hear anything of
the old folks at Lansmere?"

"'Deed, sir, sin' poor Mark died, they han't noticed me, nor the boy;
but," added the widow, with all a peasant's pride, "it isn't that I wants
their money; only it's hard to feel strange like to one's own father and
mother!"

_Parson._--"You must excuse them. Your father, Mr. Avenel, was never
quite the same man after that sad event,--but you are weeping, my friend,
pardon me:--your mother is a little proud; but so are you, though in
another way."

_Widow._--"I proud! Lord love ye, sir, I have not a bit of pride in me!
and that's the reason they always looked down on me."

_Parson._--"Your parents must be well off; and I shall apply to them in a
year or two in behalf of Lenny, for they promised me to provide for him
when he grew up, as they ought."

_Widow_, with flashing eyes.--"I am sure, sir, I hope you will do no such
thing; for I would not have Lenny beholden to them as has never given him
a kind word sin' he was born!"

The Parson smiled gravely and shook his head at poor Mrs. Fairfield's
hasty confutation of her own self-acquittal from the charge of pride; but
he saw that it was not the time or moment for effectual peace-making in
the most irritable of all rancors, viz., that nourished against one's
nearest relations. He therefore dropped the subject, and said,--"Well,
time enough to think of Lenny's future prospects; meanwhile we are
forgetting the haymakers. Come."

The widow opened the back door, which led across a little apple orchard
into the fields.

_Parson._--"You have a pleasant place here; and I see that my friend
Lenny should be in no want of apples. I had brought him one, but I have
given it away on the road."

_Widow._--"Oh, sir, it is not the deed--it is the will; as I felt when
the Squire, God bless him! took two pounds off the rent the year he-that
is, Mark--died."

_Parson._--"If Lenny continues to be such a help to you, it will not be
long before the Squire may put the two pounds on again."

"Yes, sir," said the widow simply; "I hope he will."

"Silly woman!" muttered the Parson. "That's not exactly what the
schoolmistress would have said. You don't read nor write, Mrs. Fairfield;
yet you express yourself with great propriety."

"You know Mark was a schollard, sir, like my poor, poor, sister; and
though I was a sad stupid girl afore I married, I tried to take after him
when we came together."

       *       *       *       *       *



CHAPTER IV.

They were now in the hayfield, and a boy of about sixteen, but, like most
country lads, to appearance much younger than he was, looked up from his
rake, with lively blue eyes, beaming forth under a profusion of brown
curly hair.

Leonard Fairfield was indeed a very handsome boy--not so stout nor so
ruddy as one would choose for the ideal of rustic beauty; nor yet so
delicate in limb and keen in expression as are those children of cities,
in whom the mind is cultivated at the expense of the body; but still he
had the health of the country in his cheeks, and was not without the
grace of the city in his compact figure and easy movements. There was in
his physiognomy something interesting from its peculiar character of
innocence and simplicity. You could see that he had been brought up by a
woman, and much apart from familiar contact with other children; and such
intelligence as was yet developed in him, was not ripened by the jokes
and cuffs of his coevals, but fostered by decorous lecturings from his
elders, and good little boy maxims in good little boy books.

_Parson._--"Come hither, Lenny. You know the benefit of school, I see: it
can teach you nothing better than to be a support to your mother."

_Lenny_, looking down sheepishly, and with a heightened glow over his
face.--"Please, sir, that may come one of these days."

_Parson._--"That's right, Lenny. Let me see! why you must be nearly a
man. How old are you?"

Lenny looks up inquiringly at his mother.

_Parson._--"You ought to know, Lenny, speak for yourself. Hold your
tongue, Mrs. Fairfield."

_Lenny_, twirling his hat, and in great perplexity.--"Well, and there is
Flop, neighbor Dutton's old sheep-dog. He be very old now."

_Parson._--"I am not asking Flop's age, but your own."

_Lenny._-"'Deed, sir, I have heard say as how Flop and I were pups
together. That is, I--I--"

For the Parson is laughing, and so is Mrs. Fairfield; and the haymakers
who have stood still to listen, are laughing too. And poor Lenny has
quite lost his head, and looks as if he would like to cry.

_Parson_, patting the curly locks, encouragingly.--"Never mind; it is not
so badly answered after all. And how old is Flop?"

_Lenny._--"Why, he must be fifteen year and more."

_Parson._--"How old, then, are you?"

_Lenny_, looking up with a beam of intelligence.--"Fifteen year and
more!"

Widow sighs and nods her head.

"That's what we call putting two and two together," said the Parson. "Or,
in other words," and here be raised his eyes majestically toward the
haymakers--"in other words--thanks to his love for his book--simple as he
stands here, Lenny Fairfield has shown himself capable of INDUCTIVE
RATIOCINATION."

At those words, delivered _ore rotundo_, the haymakers ceased laughing.
For even in lay matters they held the Parson to be an oracle, and words
so long must have a great deal in them.

Lenny drew tip his head proudly.

"You are very fond of Flop, I suppose?"

"'Deed he is," said the Widow, "and of all poor dumb creatures."

"Very good. Suppose, my lad, that you had a fine apple, and you met a
friend who wanted it more than you; what would you do with it?"

"Please you, sir, I would give him half of it."

The Parson's face fell.--"Not the whole, Lenny?"

Lenny considered.--"If he was a friend, sir, he would not like me to give
him all!"

"Upon my word, Master Leonard, you speak so well, that I must e'en tell
the truth. I brought you an apple, as a prize for good conduct in school.
But I met by the way a poor donkey, and some one beat him for eating a
thistle; so I thought I would make it up by giving him the apple. Ought I
only to have given him the half?"

Lenny's innocent face became all smile; his interest was aroused. "And
did the donkey like the apple?"

"Very much," said the Parson, fumbling in his pocket, but thinking of
Leonard Fairield's years and understanding; and moreover, observing, in
the pride of his heart, that here were many spectators to his deed, he
thought the meditated twopence not sufficient, and he generously produced
a silver sixpence.

"There, my man, that will pay for the half apple which you would have
kept for yourself." The Parson again patted the curly locks, and, after a
hearty word or two with the other haymakers, and a friendly "Good day" to
Mrs. Fairfield, struck into a path that led toward his own glebe.

He had just crossed the stile, when, he heard hasty but timorous feet
behind him. He turned and saw his friend Lenny.

_Lenny_, half crying and holding out the sixpence.--"Indeed, sir, I would
rather not. I would have given all to the Neddy."

_Parson._--"Why, then, my man, you have a still greater right to the
sixpence."

_Lenny._--"No, sir; 'cause you only gave it to make up for the half
apple. And if I had given the whole, as I ought to have done, why, I
should have had no right to the sixpence. Please, sir, don't be offended;
do take it back, will you?"

The Parson hesitated. And the boy thrust the sixpence into his hand, as
the ass had poked his nose there before in quest of the apple.

"I see," said Parson Dale, soliloquizing, "that if one don't give Justice
the first place at the table, all the other Virtues eat up her share."

Indeed, the case was perplexing. Charity, like a forward impudent baggage
as she is, always thrusting herself in the way, and taking other people's
apples to make her own little pie, had defrauded Lenny of his due; and
now Susceptibility, who looks like a shy, blush-faced, awkward Virtue in
her teens--but who, nevertheless, is always engaged in picking the
pockets of her sisters, tried to filch from him his lawful recompense.
The case was perplexing; for the Parson held Susceptibility in great
honor, despite her hypocritical tricks, and did not like to give her a
slap in the face, which might frighten her away forever. So Mr. Dale
stood irresolute, glancing from the sixpence to Lenny, and from Lenny to
the sixpence.

"_Buon giorno_--good day to you," said a voice behind, in an accent
slightly but unmistakably foreign, and a strange-looking figure presented
itself at the stile.

Imagine a tall and exceedingly meager man, dressed in a rusty suit of
black--the pantaloons tight at the calf and ancle, and there forming a
loose gaiter over thick shoes buckled high at the instep; an old cloak,
lined with red, was thrown over one shoulder, though the day was sultry;
a quaint, red, outlandish umbrella, with a carved brass handle, was
thrust under one arm, though the sky was cloudless; a profusion of raven
hair, in waving curls that seemed as fine as silk, escaped from the sides
of a straw-hat of prodigious brim; a complexion sallow and swarthy, and
features which, though not without considerable beauty to the eye of the
artist, were not only unlike what we fair, well-fed, neat-faced
Englishmen are wont to consider comely, but exceedingly like what we are
disposed to regard as awful and Satanic--to wit, a long hooked nose,
sunken cheeks, black eyes, whose piercing brilliancy took something
wizard-like and mystical from the large spectacles through which they
shone; a mouth round which played an ironical smile, and in which a
physiognomist would have remarked singular shrewdness and some closeness,
complete the picture: Imagine this figure, grotesque, peregrinate; and to
the eye of a peasant certainly diabolical, then perch it on the stile in
the midst of those green English fields, and in sight of that primitive
English village; there let it sit straddling, its long legs dangling
down, a short German pipe emitting clouds from one corner of those
sardonic lips, its dark eyes glaring through the spectacles full upon the
Parson, yet askant upon Lenny Fairfield. Lenny Fairfield looked
exceedingly frightened.

"Upon my word, Dr. Riccabocca." said Mr. Dale, smiling, "you come in good
time to solve a very nice question in casuistry;" and herewith the Parson
explained the case, and put the question--"Ought Lenny Fairfield to have
the sixpence, or ought he not?"

"_Cospetto_!" said the Doctor. "If the hen would but hold her tongue,
nobody would know that she had laid an egg."

         *       *       *       *       *


CHAPTER V.


"Granted," said the Parson; "but what follows? The saying is good, but I
don't see the application."

"A thousand pardons!" replied Dr. Riccabocca, with all the urbanity of an
Italian; "but it seems to me, that if you had given the sixpence to the
_fanciullo_--that is, to this good little boy--without telling him the
story about the donkey, you would never have put him and yourself into
this awkward dilemma."

"But, my dear sir," whispered the Parson, mildly, as he inclined his lips
to the Doctors ear, "I should then have lost the opportunity of
inculcating a moral lesson--you understand."

Dr. Riccabocca shrugged his shoulders, restored his pipe to his mouth,
and took a long whiff. It was a whiff eloquent, though cynical--a whiff
peculiar to your philosophical smoker--a whiff that implied the most
absolute but the most placid incredulity as to the effect of the Parson's
moral lesson.

"Still you have not given us your decision," said the Parson, after a
pause.

The Doctor withdrew the pipe. "_Cospetto_!" said he. "He who scrubs the
head of an ass wastes his soap."

"If you scrubbed mine fifty times over with those enigmatical proverbs of
yours," said the Parson testily, "you would not make it any the wiser."

"My good sir," said the Doctor, bowing low from his perch on the stile,
"I never presumed to say that there were more asses than in the story;
but I thought I could not better explain my meaning, which is simply
this--you scrubbed the ass's head, and therefore you must lose the soap.
Let the _fanciullo_ have the sixpence; and a great sum it is, too, for a
little boy, who may spend it all upon pocket-money!"

"There, Lenny--you hear?" said the Parson, stretching out the sixpence.
But Lenny retreated, and cast on the umpire a look of great aversion and
disgust.

"Please, Master Dale," said he, obstinately, "I'd rather not."

"It is a matter of feeling, you see," said the Parson, turning to the
umpire; "and I believe the boy is right."

"If it is a matter of feeling," replied Dr. Riccabocca, "there is no more
to be said on it. When Feeling comes in at the door, Reason has nothing
to do but to jump out of the window."

"Go, my good boy," said the Parson, pocketing the coin; "but stop! Give
me your hand first. _There_--I understand you--good-by!"

Lenny's eyes glistened as the Parson shook him by the hand, and, not
trusting himself to speak, he walked off sturdily. The Parson wiped his
forehead, and sat himself down on the stile beside the Italian. The view
before them was lovely, and both enjoyed it (though not equally) enough
to be silent for some moments. On the other side the lane, seen between
gaps in the old oaks and chestnuts that hung over the moss-grown pales of
Hazeldean Park, rose gentle verdant slopes, dotted with sheep and herds
of deer; a stately avenue stretched far away to the left, and ended at
the right hand, within a few yards of a ha-ha that divided the park from
a level sward of table-land gay with shrubs and flower-pots, relieved by
the shade of two mighty cedars. And on this platform, only seen in part,
stood the Squire's old-fashioned house, red brick, with stone mullions,
gable-ends, and quaint chimney-pots. On this side the road, immediately
facing the two gentlemen, cottage after cottage whitely emerged from the
curves in the lane, while, beyond, the ground declining gave an extensive
prospect of woods and cornfields, spires and farms. Behind, from a belt
of lilacs and evergreens, you caught a peep of the parsonage-house,
backed by woodlands, and a little noisy rill running in front. The birds
were still in the hedgerows, only, as if from the very heart of the most
distant woods, there came now and then the mellow note of the cuckoo.

"Verily," said Mr. Dale softly, "my lot has fallen on a goodly heritage."

The Italian twitched his cloak over him, and sighed almost inaudibly.
Perhaps he thought of his own Summer Land, and felt that amidst all that
fresh verdure of the North, there was no heritage for the stranger.

However, before the Parson could notice the sigh or conjecture the cause,
Dr. Riccabocca's thin lips took an expression almost malignant.

_"Per Bacco!"_ said he; "in every country I find that the rooks settle
where the trees are the finest. I am sure that, when Noah first landed on
Ararat, he must have found some gentleman in black already settled in the
pleasantest part of the mountain, and waiting for his tenth of the cattle
as they came out of the Ark."

The Parson turned his meek eyes to the philosopher, and there was in them
something so deprecating rather than reproachful, that Dr. Riccabocca
turned away his face and refilled his pipe. Dr. Riccabocca abhorred
priests; but though Parson Dale was emphatically a parson, he seemed at
that moment so little of what Dr. Riccabocca understood by a priest, that
the Italian's heart smote him for his irreverent jest on the cloth.
Luckily at this moment there was a diversion to that untoward
commencement of conversation, in the appearance of no less a personage
than the donkey himself--I mean the donkey who ate the apple.

       *       *       *       *       *



Chapter VI.


The Tinker was a stout swarthy fellow, jovial and musical withal, for he
was singing a stave as he flourished his staff, and at the end of each
_refrain_ down came the staff on the quarters of the donkey. The Tinker
went behind and sung, the donkey went before and was thwacked.

"Yours is a droll country," quoth Dr. Riccabocca; "in mine it is not the
ass that walks first in the procession, who gets the blows."

The Parson jumped from the stile, and, looking over the hedge that
divided the field from the road-"Gently, gently," said he; "the sound of
the stick spoils the singing! O Mr. Sprott, Mr. Sprott! a good man is
merciful to his beast."

The donkey seemed to recognize the voice of its friend, for it stopped
short, pricked one ear wistfully, and looked up.

The Tinker touched his hat, and looked up too. "Lord bless your
reverence! he does not mind it, he likes it. I would not hurt thee; would
I, Neddy?"

The donkey shook his head and shivered; perhaps a fly had settled on the
sore, which the chestnut leaves no longer protected.

"I am sure you did not mean to hurt him, Sprott," said the Parson, more
politely I fear than honestly--for he had seen enough of that
cross-grained thing called the human heart, even in the little world of a
country parish, to know that it requires management, and coaxing, and
flattering, to interfere successfully between a man and his own
donkey--"I am sure you did not mean to hurt him; but he has already got a
sore on his shoulder as big as my hand, poor thing!"

"Lord love 'un! yes; that vas done a playing with the manger, the day I
gave 'un oats!" said the Tinker.

Dr. Riccabocca adjusted his spectacles, and surveyed the ass. The ass
pricked up his other ear, and surveyed Dr. Riccabocca. In that mutual
survey of physical qualifications, each being regarded according to the
average symmetry of its species, it may be doubted whether the advantage
was on the side of the philosopher.

The Parson had a great notion of the wisdom of his friend, in all matters
not immediately ecclesiastical.

"Say a good word for the donkey!" whispered he.

"Sir," said the Doctor, addressing Mr. Sprott, with a respectful
salutation, "there's a great kettle at my house--the Casino--which wants
soldering: can you recommend me a tinker?"

"Why, that's all in my line," said Sprott, "and there ben't a tinker in
the country that I would recommend like myself, thof I say it."

"You jest, good sir." said the Doctor, smiling pleasantly. "A man who
can't mend a hole in his own donkey, can never demean himself by patching
up my great kettle."

"Lord, sir," said the Tinker, archly, "if I had known that poor Neddy had
two sitch friends in court, I'd have seen he was a gintleman, and treated
him as sitch."

_"Corpo di Bacco!"_ quoth the Doctor, "though that jest's not new, I
think the Tinker comes very well out of it."

"True; but the donkey!" said the Parson, "I've a great mind to buy it."

"Permit me to tell you an anecdote in point," said Dr. Riccabocca.

"Well!" said the Parson, interrogatively.

"Once in a time," pursued Riccabocca, "the Emperor Adrian, going to the
public baths, saw an old soldier, who had served under him, rubbing his
back against the marble wall. The Emperor, who was a wise, and therefore
a curious, inquisitive man, sent for the soldier, and asked him why he
resorted to that kind of friction. 'Because,' answered the veteran, 'I am
too poor to have slaves to rub me down.' The Emperor was touched, and
gave him slaves and money. The next day, when Adrian went to the oaths,
all the old men in the city were to be seen rubbing themselves against
the marble as hard as they could. The Emperor sent for them, and asked
them the same question which he had put to the soldier; the cunning old
rogues, of course, made the same answer. 'Friends,' said Adrian, 'since
there are so many of you, you will just rub one another!' Mr. Dale, if
you don't want to have all the donkeys in the county with holes in their
shoulders, you had better not buy the Tinker's!"

"It is the hardest thing in the world to do the least bit of good,"
groaned the Parson, as he broke a twig off the hedge nervously, snapped
it in two, and flung the fragments on the road-one of them hit the donkey
on the nose. If the ass could have spoken Latin, he would have said, "_Et
tu, Brute!_" As it was, he hung down his ears, and walked on.

"Gee hup," said the Tinker, and he followed the ass. Then stopping, he
looked over his shoulder, and seeing that the Parson's eyes were gazing
mournfully on his _protégé_, "Never fear, your reverence," cried the
Tinker kindly; "I'll not spite 'un."


        *       *       *       *       *


CHAPTER VII.


"Four o'clock," cried the Parson, looking at his watch; "half-an-hour
after dinnertime, and Mrs. Dale particularly begged me to be punctual,
because of the fine trout the Squire sent us. Will you venture on what
our homely language calls 'pot luck,' Doctor?"

Now Riccabocca, like most wise men, especially if Italians, was by no
means inclined to the credulous view of human nature. Indeed, he was in
the habit of detecting self-interest in the simplest actions of his
fellow-creatures. And when the Parson thus invited him to pot luck, he
smiled with a kind of lofty complacency; for Mrs. Dale enjoyed the
reputation of having what her friends styled "her little tempers." And,
as well-bred ladies rarely indulge in "little tempers" in the presence of
a third person, not of the family, so Dr. Riccabocca instantly concluded
that he was invited to stand between the pot and the luck!
Nevertheless--as he was fond of trout, and a much more good-natured man
than he ought to have been according to his principles-he accepted the
hospitality; but he did so with a sly look from over his spectacles,
which brought a blush into the guilty cheeks of the Parson. Certainly
Riccabocca had for once guessed right in his estimate of human motives.

The two walked on, crossed a little bridge that spanned the rill, and
entered the parsonage lawn. Two dogs, that seemed to have sat on watch
for their master, sprang toward him barking; and the sound drew the
notice of Mrs. Dale, who, with parasol in hand, sallied out from the sash
window which opened on the lawn. Now, O reader! I know that in thy secret
heart, thou art chuckling over the want of knowledge in the sacred arcana
of the domestic hearth, betrayed by the author; thou art saying to
thyself, "A pretty way to conciliate little tempers, indeed, to add to
the offense of spoiling the fish, the crime of bringing an unexpected
friend to eat it. Pot luck, quotha, when the pot's boiled over this half
hour!"

But, to thy utter shame and confusion, O reader, learn that both the
author and Parson Dale knew very well what they were about.

Dr. Riccabocca was the special favorite of Mrs. Dale, and the only person
in the whole county who never put her out by dropping in. In fact,
strange though it may seem at first glance, Dr. Riccabocca had that
mysterious something about him which we of his own sex can so little
comprehend, but which always propitiates the other. He owed this, in
part, to his own profound but hypocritical policy; for he looked upon
woman as the natural enemy to man--against whom it was necessary to be
always on the guard: whom it was prudent to disarm by every species of
fawning, servility, and abject complaisance. He owed it also, in part, to
the compassionate and heavenly nature of the angels whom his thoughts
thus villanously traduced--for women like one whom they can pity without
despising; and there was something in Signer Riccabocca's poverty, in his
loneliness, in his exile, whether voluntary or compelled, that excited
pity; while, despite the threadbare coat, the red umbrella, and the wild
hair, he had, especially when addressing ladies, that air of gentleman
and cavalier, which is or was more innate in an educated Italian, of
whatever rank, than perhaps in the highest aristocracy of any other
country in Europe. For, though I grant that nothing is more exquisite
than the politeness of your French marquis of the old _régime_--nothing
more frankly gracious than the cordial address of a high-bred English
gentleman--nothing more kindly prepossessing than the genial good-nature
of some patriarchal German, who will condescend to forget his sixteen
quarterings in the pleasure of doing you a favor--yet these specimens of
the suavity of their several nations are rare; whereas blandness and
polish are common attributes with your Italian. They seem to have been
immemorially handed down to him from ancestors emulating the urbanity of
Caesar, and refined by the grace of Horace.

"Dr. Riccabocca consents to dine with us," cried the Parson hastily.

"If Madame permit!" said the Italian, bowing over the hand extended to
him, which however he forebore to take, seeing it was already full of the
watch.

"I am only sorry that the trout must be quite spoiled," began Mrs. Dale,
plaintively.

"It is not the trout one thinks of when one dines with Mrs. Dale," said
the infamous dissimulator.

"But I see James coming to say that dinner is ready?" observed the
Parson.

"He said _that_ three-quarters of an hour ago, Charles dear," retorted
Mrs. Dale, taking the arm of Dr. Riccabocca.


         *       *       *       *       *


CHAPTER VIII.


While the Parson and his wife are entertaining their guest, I propose to
regale the reader with a small treatise apropos of that "Charles dear,"
murmured by Mrs. Dale;--a treatise expressly written for the benefit
of THE DOMESTIC CIRCLE.

It is an old jest that there is not a word in the language that conveys
so little endearment as the word "dear." But though the saying itself,
like most truths, be trite and hackneyed, no little novelty remains to
the search of the inquirer into the varieties of inimical import
comprehended in that malign monosyllable. For instance, I submit to the
experienced that the degree of hostility it betrays is in much
proportioned to its collocation in the sentence. When, gliding indirectly
through the rest of the period, it takes its stand at the close, as in
that "Charles dear" of Mrs. Dale--it has spilt so much of Its natural
bitterness by the way that it assumes even a smile, "amara lento temperet
risu." Sometimes the smile is plaintive, sometimes arch. _Ex. gr._

(_Plaintive._)

"I know very well that whatever I do is wrong, Charles dear."

"Nay, I am only glad you amused yourself so much without me, Charles
dear."

"Not quite so loud! If you had but my poor head, Charles dear," &c.

_Arch._

"If you _could_ spill the ink anywhere but on the best table-cloth,
Charles dear!"

"But though you must always have your own way, you are not _quite
faultless_, own, Charles dear," &c.

In this collocation occur many dears, parental as well as conjugal;
as--"Hold up your head, and don't look quite so cross, dear."

"Be a good boy for once in your life--that's a dear," &c.

When the enemy stops in the middle of a sentence, its venom is naturally
less exhausted. _Ex. gr._

"Really I must say, Charles dear, that you are the most fidgety person,"
&c.

"And if the house bills were so high last week, Charles dear, I should
just like to know whose fault it was--that's all."

"Do you think, Charles dear, that you could put your feet anywhere but on
the chintz sofa?"

"But you know, Charles dear, that you care no more for me and the
children than," &c.

But if the fatal word spring up, in its primitive  freshness, at the head
of the sentence, bow your head to the storm. It then assumes the majesty
of "my" before it; is generally more than simple objurgation--it prefaces
a sermon. My candor obliges me to confess that this is the mode in which
the hateful monosyllable is more usually employed by the marital part of
the one flesh; and has something about it of the odious assumption of the
Petruchian _pater familias_--the head of the family--boding, not perhaps
"peace, and love, and quiet life," but certainly "awful rule and right
supremacy." _Ex. gr._

"My dear Jane--I wish you would just put by that everlasting tent-stitch,
and listen to me for a few moments," &c.

"My dear Jane--I wish you would understand me for once--don't think I am
angry-no, but I am hurt. You must consider," &c.

"My dear Jane--I don't know if it is your intention to ruin me; but I
only wish you would do as all other women do who care three straws for
their husbands' property," &c.

"My dear Jane--I wish you to understand that I am the last person in the
world to be jealous; but I'll be d----d if that puppy, Capt. Prettyman,"
&c.

Now, if that same "dear" could be thoroughly raked and hoed out of the
connubial garden, I don't think that the remaining nettles would signify
a button. But even as it was, Parson Dale, good man, would have prized
his garden beyond all the bowers which Spenser and Tasso have sung so
musically, though there had not been a single specimen of "dear," whether
the dear _humilis_, or the dear _superba_; the dear _pallida, rubra_, or
_nigra_; the dear _umbrosa, florens, spicata_; the dear _savis_, or the
dear _horrida_;--no, not a single dear in the whole horticulture of
matrimony which Mrs. Dale had not brought to perfection. But this,
fortunately, was far from being the case--the _dears_ of Mrs. Dale were
only wild flowers after all!


         *       *       *       *       *


CHAPTER IX.


In the cool of the evening Dr. Riccabocca walked home across the fields.
Mr. and Mrs. Dale had accompanied him half way; and as they now turned
back to the parsonage, they looked behind, to catch a glimpse of the
tall, outlandish figure, winding slowly through the path amidst the waves
of the green corn.

"Poor man!" said Mrs. Dale, feelingly; "and the button was off his
wristband! What a pity he has nobody to take care of him! He seems very
domestic. Don't you think, Charles, it would be a great blessing if we
could get him a good wife?"

"Um," said the Parson; "I doubt if he values the married state as he
ought."

"What do you mean, Charles? I never saw a man more polite to ladies in my
life."

"Yes, but--"

"But what? You are always so mysterious, Charles dear."

"Mysterious! No, Carry; but if you could hear what the Doctor says of the
ladies sometimes."

"Ay, when you men get together, my dear, I know what that means-pretty
things you say of us. But you are all alike; you know you are, love!"

"I am sure," said the Parson, simply, "that I have good cause to speak
well of the sex--when I think of you, and my poor mother."

Mrs. Dale, who, with all her "tempers," was an excellent woman, and loved
her husband with the whole of her quick little heart, was touched. She
pressed his hand, and did not call him _dear_ all the way home.

Meanwhile the Italian passed the fields, and came upon the high-road
about two miles from Hazeldean. On one side stood an old-fashioned
solitary inn, such as English inns used to be before they became railway
hotels--square, solid, old-fashioned, looking so hospitable and
comfortable, with their great signs swinging from some elm tree in front,
and the long row of stables standing a little back, with a chaise or two
in the yard, and the jolly landlord talking of the crops to some stout
farmer, who has stopped his rough pony at the well-known door. Opposite
this inn, on the other side the road, stood the habitation of Dr.
Riccabocca.

A few years before the date of these annals, the stage coach, on its way
to London from a seaport town, stopped at the inn, as was its wont, for a
good hour, that its passengers might dine like Christian Englishmen--not
gulp down a basin of scalding soup, like everlasting heathen Yankees,
with that cursed railway whistle shrieking like a fiend in their ears! It
was the best dining-place on the whole road, for the trout in the
neighboring rill were famous, and so was the mutton which came from
Hazeldean Park.

From the outside of the coach had descended two passengers who, alone
insensible to the attractions of mutton and trout, refused to dine--two
melancholy-looking foreigners, of whom one was Signor Riccabocca, much
the same as we see him now, only that the black suit was less threadbare,
the tall form less meager, and he did not then wear spectacles; and the
other was his servant. "They would walk about while the coach stopped."
Now the Italian's eye had been caught by a mouldering dismantled house on
the other side of the road, which nevertheless was well situated;
half-way up a green hill, with its aspect due south, a little cascade
falling down artificial rock-work, and a terrace with a balustrade, and a
few broken urns and statues before its Ionic portico; while on the
roadside stood a board, with characters already half effaced, implying
that the house was to be "Let unfurnished, with or without land."

The abode that looked so cheerless, and which had so evidently hung long
on hand, was the property of Squire Hazeldean. It had been built by his
grandfather on the female side--a country gentleman who had actually been
in Italy (a journey rare enough to boast of in those days), and who, on
his return home, had attempted a miniature imitation of an Italian villa.
He left an only daughter and sole heiress, who married Squire Hazeldean's
father: and since that time, the house, abandoned by its proprietors for
the larger residence of the Hazeldeans, had been uninhabited and
neglected. Several tenants, indeed, had offered themselves; but your
squire is slow in admitting upon his own property a rival neighbor. Some
wanted shooting. "That," said the Hazeldeans, who were great sportsmen
and strict preservers, "was quite out of the question." Others were fine
folks from London. "London servants," said the Hazeldeans, who were moral
and prudent people, "would corrupt their own, and bring London prices."
Others, again, were retired manufacturers, at whom the Hazeldeans turned
up their agricultural noses. In short, some were too grand, and others
too vulgar. Some were refused because they were known so well: "Friends
are best at a distance," said the Hazeldeans. Others because they were
not known at all: "No good comes of strangers," said the Hazeldeans. And
finally, as the house fell more and more into decay, no one would take it
unless it was put into thorough repair: "As if one was made of money!"
said the Hazeldeans. In short, there stood the house unoccupied and
ruinous; and there, on its terrace, stood the two forlorn Italians,
surveying it with a smile at each other, as, for the first time since
they set foot in England, they recognized, in dilapidated pilasters and
broken statues, in a weed-grown terrace and the remains of an orangery,
something that reminded them of the land they had left behind.

On returning to the inn, Dr. Riccabocca took the occasion of learning
from the innkeeper (who was indeed a tenant of the Squire's) such
particulars as he could collect; and a few days afterward Mr. Hazeldean
received a letter from a solicitor of repute in London, stating that a
very respectable foreign gentleman had commissioned him to treat for
Clump Lodge, otherwise called the "Casino;" that the said gentleman did
not shoot--lived in great seclusion--and, having no family, did not care
about the repairs of the place, provided only it were made
weather-proof--if the omission of more expensive reparations could render
the rent suitable to his finances, which were very limited. The offer
came at a fortunate moment--when the steward had just been representing
to the Squire the necessity of doing something to keep the Casino from
falling into positive ruin, and the Squire was cursing the fates which
had put the Casino into an entail--so that he could not pull it down for
the building materials. Mr. Hazeldean therefore, caught at the proposal
even as a fair lady, who has refused the best offers in the kingdom,
catches at last at some battered old Captain on half-pay, and replied
that, as for rent, if the solicitors client was a quiet respectable man,
he did not care for that. But that the gentleman might have it for the
first year rent free, on condition of paying the taxes and putting the
place a little in order. If they suited each other, they could then come
to terms. Ten days subsequently to this gracious reply, Signer Riccabocca
and his servant arrived; and, before the years end, the Squire was so
contented with his tenant that he gave him a running lease of seven,
fourteen, or twenty-one years, at a rent nearly nominal, on condition
that Signer Riccabocca would put and maintain the place in repair,
barring the roof and fences, which the Squire generously renewed at his
own expense. It was astonishing, by little and little, what a pretty
place the Italian had made of it, and what is more astonishing, how
little it had cost him. He had indeed painted the walls of the hall,
staircase, and the rooms appropriated to himself, with his own hands. His
servant had done the greater part of the upholstery. The two between them
had got the garden into order. The Italians seemed to have taken a joint
love to the place, and to deck it as they would have done some favorite
chapel to their Madonna.

It was long before the natives reconciled themselves to the odd ways of
the foreign settlers. The first thing that offended them was the
exceeding smallness of the household bills. Three days out of the seven,
indeed, both man and master dined on nothing else but the vegetables in
the garden, and the fishes in the neighboring rill; when no trout could
be caught they fried the minnows, (and certainly, even in the best
streams, minnows are more frequently caught than trouts.) The next thing
which angered the natives quite as much, especially the female part of
the neighborhood, was the very sparing employment the two he creatures
gave to the sex usually deemed so indispensable in household matters. At
first indeed, they had no woman servant at all. But this created such
horror that Parson Dale ventured a hint upon the matter, which Riccabocca
took in very good part, and an old woman was forthwith engaged, after
some bargaining--at three shillings a week--to wash and scrub as much as
she liked during the daytime. She always returned to her own cottage to
sleep. The man servant, who was styled in the neighborhood "Jackeymo,"
did all else for his master--smoothed his room, dusted his papers,
prepared his coffee, cooked his dinner, brushed his clothes, and cleaned
his pipes, of which Riccabocca had a large collection. But however close
a man's character, it generally creeps out in driblets; and on many
little occasions the Italian had shown acts of kindness, and, on some
more rare occasions, even of generosity, which had served to silence his
calumniators, and by degrees he had established a very fair
reputation--suspected, it is true, of being a little inclined to the
Black Art, and of a strange inclination to starve Jackeymo and
himself,--in other respects harmless enough.

Signor Riccabocca had become very intimate, as we have seen, at the
Parsonage. But not so at the Hall. For though the Squire was inclined to
be very friendly to all his neighbors--he was, like most country
gentlemen, rather easily _huffed_. Riccabocca had, if with great
politeness, still with great obstinacy, refused Mr. Hazeldean's earlier
invitations to dinner; and when the Squire found that the Italian rarely
declined to dine at the Parsonage, he was offended in one of his weak
points--viz., his regard for the honor of the hospitality of Hazeldean
Hall--and he ceased altogether invitations so churlishly rejected.
Nevertheless, as it was impossible for the Squire, however huffed, to
bear malice, he now and then reminded Riccabocca of his existence by
presents of game, and would have called on him more often than he did,
but that Riccabocca received him with such excessive politeness that the
blunt country gentleman felt shy and put out, and used to say, that "to
call on Riccabocca was as bad as going to court."

But I left Dr. Riccabocca on the high-road. By this time he has ascended
a narrow path that winds by the side of the cascade, he has passed a
trellis-work covered with vines, from the which Jacheymo has positively
succeeded in making what he calls _wine_--a liquid, indeed, that, if the
cholera had been popularly known in those days, would have soured the
mildest member of the Board of Health; for Squire Hazeldean, though a
robust man, who daily carried off his bottle of port with impunity,
having once rashly tasted it, did not recover the effect till he had had
a bill from the apothecary as long as his own arm. Passing this trellis,
Dr. Riccabocca entered upon the terrace, with its stone pavement smoothed
and trim as hands could make it. Here, on neat stands, all his favorite
flowers were arranged.  Here four orange-trees were in full blossom; here
a kind of summer-house or Belvidere, built by Jackeymo and himself, made
his chosen morning-room from May till October; and from this Belvidere
there was as beautiful an expanse of prospect as if our English Nature
had hospitably spread on her green board all that she had to offer as a
banquet to the exile.

A man without his coat, which was thrown over the balustrade, was
employed in watering the flowers: a man with movements so
mechanical--with a face so rigidly grave in its tawny hues--that he
seemed like an automaton made out of mahogany.

"Giacomo," said Dr. Riccabocca, softly.

The automaton stopped its hand, and turned its head.

"Put by the watering-pot, and come here," continued Riccabocca in
Italian; and moving toward the balustrade, he leaned over it. Mr.
Mitford, the historian, calls Jean Jacques _John James_. Following that
illustrious example, Giacomo shall be Anglified into Jackeymo.
Jackeymo came to the balustrade also, and stood a little behind his
master.

"Friend," said Riccabocca, "enterprises have not always succeeded with
us. Don't you think, after all, it is tempting our evil star to rent
those fields from the landlord?" Jackeymo crossed himself, and made some
strange movement with a little coral charm which he wore set in a ring on
his finger.

"If the Madonna send us luck, and we could hire a lad cheap?" said
Jackeymo, doubtfully.

"_Piu vale un presente che due futuri_," said Riccabocca--"A bird in the
hand is worth two in the bush."

"_Chi non fa quondo può, non può fare quondo vuole_"--("He who will not
when he may, when he will it shall have nay")--answered Jackeymo, as
sententiously as his master. "And the Padrone should think in time that
he must lay by for the dower of the poor signorina"--(young lady.)

Riccabocca sighed, and made no reply.

"She must be _that_ high now!" said Jackeymo, putting his band on some
imaginary line a little above the balustrade. Riccabocca's eyes, raised
over the spectacles, followed the hand.

"If the Padrone could but see her here"--

"I thought I did!" muttered the Italian.

"He would never let her go from his side till she went to a husband's,"
continued Jackeymo.

"But this climate--she could never stand it," said Riccabocca, drawing
his cloak round him, as a north wind took him in the rear.

"The orange-trees blossom even here with care," said Jackeymo, turning
back to draw down an awning where the orange-trees faced the north.
"See!" he added, as he returned with a sprig in fall bud.

Dr. Riccabocca bent over the blossom, and then placed it in his bosom.

"The _other_ one should be there too." said Jackeymo.

"To die--as this does already!" answered Riccabocca. "Say no more."

Jackeymo shrugged his shoulders; and then, glancing at his master, threw
his hand over his eyes.

There was a pause. Jackeymo was the first to break it.

"But, whether here or there, beauty without  money is the orange-tree
without shelter. If a lad could be got cheap, I would hire the land, and
trust for the crop to the Madonna."

"I think I know of such a lad," said Riccabocca, recovering himself, and
with his sardonic smile once more lurking about the corner of his
mouth--"a lad made for us!"

"Diavolo!"

"No, not the Diavolo! Friend, I have this day seen a boy who-refused
sixpence!"

"_Cosa stupenda_!"--(Stupendous thing!) exclaimed Jackeymo, opening his
eyes, and letting fall the watering-pot.

"It is true, my friend."

"Take him, Padrone, in Heaven's name, and the fields will grow gold."

"I will think of it, for it must require management to catch such a boy,"
said Riccabocca. "Meanwhile, light a candle in the parlor, and bring from
my bedroom--that great folio of Machiavelli."

       *       *       *       *       *

RECENT DEATHS.

LOUIS PHILIPPE, EX-KING OF THE FRENCH.


The vicissitudes of kings form an impressive chapter in the history of
Europe; and one of the most striking episodes in the narrative is the
checkered life of the last king of France--one week among the mightiest
monarchs on the loftiest pinnacle of ambition, he was, the next, an exile
in a foreign land--his past supremacy almost forgotten.

Louis Philippe died on the morning of the 26th of August, at Claremont,
in the presence of the Queen and several members of his family. He had
been made aware of his approaching dissolution early the previous day,
and receiving with calmness the melancholy intimation, prepared for the
final arrangements he wished to make. After a conversion with the Queen,
he dictated, with remarkable clearness, the concluding portion of his
Memoirs, and then, having caused to be assembled his chaplain, the Abbé
Gaelle, and all his children and grandchildren who were at Claremont, he
received, with resignation and firmness, the last rites of the Catholic
Church. Toward seven in the evening the debility that had oppressed him
appeared to pass off, and fever came on, which continued during the night
with much violence, but without disturbing his composure of mind.
At eight o'clock in the morning he expired, in the presence of his wife,
and of the Duchess of Orleans, the Count of Paris, the Duke de Chartres,
the Duke and Duchess de Nemours, the Prince and Princess de Joinville,
the Duke and Duchess d'Aureale, and the Duchess Augusta of Saxe-Coburg.
Thus ended the closing scene of the life of Louis Philippe of
Orleans,--the wise and judicious sovereign of a great people, the soldier
of one revolution, the conqueror of a second, and the victim of a third.

Louis Philippe was born in Paris, 6th October, 1773, the eldest son of
Philippe Joseph, Duke of Orleans (so well-known under the revolutionary
_soubriquet_ of Egalité), by Marie Louise Adelaide de Bourbon his wife,
daughter and heir of the wealthy Duke de Penthievre. At his birth he bore
the title of Valois; but after the death of his grandfather, in 1785, was
styled Duke of Chartres. The care of the young Prince's education was
assigned to Madame de Genlis, who ably and admirably performed her
important duties. From her guidance Louis Philippe passed at once to the
arena of active life. In 1791, the Prince, then Duke of Chartres, having
previously received the appointment of Colonel in the 14th Dragoons,
assumed the command of that regiment, and shortly after, quitting the
garrison of Vendôme, proceeded to Valenciennes, where he continued to
pursue his military avocations. In the April of the following year, war
being declared against Austria, the Duke made his first campaign,
fighting with gallantry under Kellerman at Valmy, and with Dumouriez at
Jemappes. But the horrors of the Revolution were progressing with giant
strides; the unfortunate Louis XVI. was carried to the scaffold, and
within a few months after, the Duke of Orleans was seized on a plea of
conspiracy against the French nation, and after a mock trial, consigned
to the executioner. A short time previously to the death of his father,
the Duke de Chartres had effected his escape through Belgium into
Switzerland, and there was joined by his sister Adelaide and Madame de
Genlis. Our confined space precludes the possibility of our dwelling on
the romantic events of this period of Louis Philippe's life, and permits
us to glance only at his wanderings through Switzerland, Denmark,
Lapland, Finland, America, and England. For one year he held the
Appointment of Professor in the College of Reichenau, at a salary of
fifty-eight pounds; and for that sum undertook to teach history,
mathematics, and English. He bore the name of Chabaud-Latour, and none
but the superiors of the institution were aware of his rank. The news of
his father's execution reached him while quietly instructing the youth of
Reichenau, and he instantly threw up his Professorship, and after a
protracted journey through northern Europe, succeeded, by the kind
instrumentality of Mr. Gouverneur Morris, the American Ambassador at
Paris, in reaching the United States. He landed at Philadelphia on the
24th October, 1796, and was soon after joined by his brothers,
Montpensier and Beaujolais. The three brothers passed the winter in that
city, and afterward made a journey through the Western States, and
visited General Washington at Mount Vernon. Their residence in this
country was not however of very long duration. After an inhospitable
reception by the Spanish authorities in Cuba, the royal exiles made their
way to England, in February, 1800, and thence immediately proceeded to
Barcelona, in the hope of meeting their mother. But this object failing,
they returned to England, and took up their abode at Twickenham, on the
banks of the Thames. In Great Britain they were treated with respect and
consideration, and were furnished with ample opportunities for repose
after their exciting adventures. Within a few years, however, the Duke of
Montpensier and the Count Beaujolais both died--the former in England,
the latter at Malta. Louis Philippe had accompanied his last surviving
brother to that island, and after his interment sailed for Sicily, on the
invitation of the King of Naples. There he gained the affections of the
Princess Amelia, and their marriage took place in November, 1809. No
event of material importance marks the subsequent life of the Duke, until
the year 1814, when, on the abdication of Napoleon, he returned to Paris,
and for a short period was in full enjoyment of his honors. In 1815,
Napoleon's escape from Elba again called the Duke of Orleans into active
employment, and he proceeded, in obedience to the desire of Louis XVIII.,
to take the command of the Army of the North. In this situation he
remained until the 24th of March, hen he surrendered his command to the
Duke de Treviso, and retired to Twickenham. After the Hundred Days, the
Duke of Orleans obeyed the ordinance authorizing the Princes of the blood
to take their seats in the Chamber of Peers; but subsequently incurring
the jealousy and displeasure of the Court, he resought his old residence
on the Thames, and dwelt there in seclusion until 1817, when he went back
to France, and devoted himself to the education of his children, until
the Revolution of 1830 broke out, resulting in his elevation to the
throne. The subsequent events of his reign, and the memorable outbreak
of 1848, that finally overthrew the dynasty that the monarch had strained
every nerve to establish, are too fresh on the public mind to require
recapitulation here.

       *       *       *       *       *


JOHN INMAN.

John Inman, a son of William Inman, was born in Utica in 1805. He had two
brothers, William, a commander in the Navy, and Henry, so well known as
one of the finest artists of this country. John Inman was educated pretty
much by chance; he had the usual country schooling; but whatever valuable
cultivation he had was in after-life when he was alone in the world,
seeking his fortune. In 1823 he went to North Carolina where he taught
school for two years. In the spring of 1826, with the profits of his
schoolmastership, he went to Europe, and traveled there a little more
than a year. On his return, being admitted to the bar, he practiced law
about two years, when, in 1829, he became one of the editors of _The
Standard_ newspaper, which he left in 1830 to conduct the _Mirror_. In
1833 he was married to Miss Fisher, a sister of the popular and estimable
actress, Clara Fisher, and about this time he devoted the leisure left
from the duties of the Mirror office to a paper owned by his
brother-in-law and himself, called _The Spirit of the Times_. In 1833 he
accepted an offer from the late Colonel Stone to become one of the
editors of the _Commercial Advertiser_, of which he became the editor in
chief upon the death of that gentleman, in 1844. He continued in this
post until his failing health last spring compelled him entirely to
relinquish the use of the pen; and gradually declining, he died on the
30th of August.

Mr. Inman had edited several books, and for two or three years he
conducted the _Columbian Magazine_. He was for a long time the critical
reader of the great house of Harper & Brothers, who learned by a happy
experience to confide unhesitatingly in his judgment of books. He wrote
many tales and sketches for the annuals and other publications, and a
few poems, of which "Byron, a Fragment," was the longest. Of the
_Columbian Magazine_, he wrote with his own hand the _whole_ of one
number, partly from an ambition to achieve what seemed an impossible
feat, and partly from his habit of close and unremitting labor. He also
wrote several literary papers for the _New York Review_.
He was a gentleman of the most honorable nature, and of the finest taste
and most refined habits.  Perhaps there was not connected with the press
in this city a writer of purer English, and very few of our literary men
have had a more thorough knowledge of French and English literature.

       *       *       *       *       *

ADONIRAM JUDSON, D.D.

The death of this widely-known and eminently devoted missionary is
announced in an article of _The Tribune_, to have taken place on the 12th
of April, on board of the French brig Ariotide, bound to the Isle of
Bourbon, in which he had taken passage for the benefit of his health. His
remains were committed to the deep on the evening of his death. For some
time past the health of Dr. Judson, which had been seriously impaired for
several years, has been known to be in an alarming state, and the news of
his decease accordingly will not come as an unlooked-for blow upon his
wide circle of friends. Dr. Judson was the son of Rev. Adoniram Judson, a
Congregational clergyman in Plymouth county, Mass. He received his
collegiate education at Brown University, with the original intention of
pursuing the profession of the law, but experiencing a great change in
his religious views soon after his graduation, he entered the Theological
Seminary at Andover. During his residence at this institution, a profound
interest in Foreign Missions was awakened among the students which
resulted in his determination to devote his life to the missionary
service. Leaving his native land, among the first missionaries sent forth
by the American Board, in company with Samuel Nevill, Luther Rice, and
Samuel Nott, he arrived in Calcutta, in 1812. In consequence of studies
during the voyage, he was led to change his opinions on the subject of
baptism, and a short time after his landing, received the rite of
immersion from the hands of one of the English missionaries resident in
Calcutta. His sermon on that occasion, which produced a deep impression
on the religious world, is a masterpiece of logical argument, Scriptural
research and grave eloquence. After connecting himself with the Baptist
denomination, he selected the Burman empire as the seat of his future
labors--at which post he has remained, with scarcely an interval of
relaxation, for nearly forty years. His efforts and sufferings in the
prosecution of his mission are well known. He was a man of high and
resolute courage, of remarkable self-reliance, of more than common mental
ability and of devotion to the performance of his duty, almost without a
parallel in modern times. He had all the elements of a hero in his
composition, and whoever would look for a rare specimen of a life
consecrated to noble, ideal aims, inspired with an elevated and almost
romantic self-devotion, and daily exercising a valiant energy more
difficult of attainment than that which animates the soldier amid the
smoke of battle, must contemplate the strange and beautiful history of
the lion-hearted missionary of Burmah.

       *       *       *       *       *

HENRY WHITE, D.D.

The REV. HENRY WHITE, D.D., Professor of Theology in the Union
Theological Seminary, died in this city on Sunday, August 25th, in
the fifty-first year of his age. We obtain the following biographical
facts from _The Independent:_ "Professor White was born in Durham,
Greene county, in this state. He had nearly reached the age of manhood
before commencing a liberal course of education; was graduated at Union
College in 1824; studied theology at Princeton, N.J., and after being
licensed to preach the Gospel, was employed as an agent of the American
Bible Society in Georgia and the Carolinas. In this service he remained
during parts of the years 1826 and 1827. In 1827-28 he was engaged as an
agent of the same society in New York and the vicinity; and during that
period he supplied for some time the pulpit of the second Presbyterian
church in Newark, N.J. In March, 1829, he became pastor of the
Allen-street Presbyterian church in this city, in which office he
remained until after his appointment to the Professorship of Theology in
the Union Theological Seminary, then newly formed in this city. He was
dismissed from his pastoral charge in March, 1837. The labors of his
professorship were begun and carried on for some years in discouragement.
The pecuniary basis on which the Seminary rested was inadequate, and
there were arrearages in the salaries. In 1843 Professor W. was invited
to Auburn, and great anxiety was felt lest he should accept the
invitation. But his own attachment to the Seminary and the entreaties of
his friends, and an effort which was made to endow his Professorship with
a sufficient permanent fund, induced him to remain, and he held the
office as long as he lived."

         *       *       *       *       *


SIR MARTIN ARCHER SHEE, P.R.A.


SIR MARTIN ARCHER SHEE, long known in art and letters, and for some years
the oldest member as well as the President of the Royal Society, died at
Brighton, on the 13th of August, in the eighty-first year of his age. He
was descended lineally from one of the Kings of Munster, in the third
century, and his family in more recent times has been honorably
distinguished. He was born in Dublin, on the 23d of December, 1770. He
evinced extraordinary precocity in his art, and when but twelve years old
obtained of the Irish Academy medals for figures, landscapes and flowers.
The author of "Wine and Walnuts," as quoted in the London _Athenaeum_,
gives the following account of his first appearance in the Great
Metropolis:

"I well remember this gentleman on his first arrival from Ireland to the
British metropolis; he was introduced to the notice of Sir Joshua
Reynolds, and to some other distinguished persons by his illustrious
Friend and countryman Mr. Edmund Burke. I was at that time making a
drawing in the Plaster Academy in Somerset House, and perfectly recollect
the first evening Mr. Shee joining the students there. He selected the
figure of the Discobolus for his probationary exercises to procure a
permanent student's ticket. I need not say that he obtained it,--for it
was acknowledged to be one of the best copies that had yet been seen of
that fine figure. I further remarked that Mr. Wilton, the then keeper of
the Royal Academy, was so pleased with the performance that he expressed
a wish to retain it, after Mr. Shee had received his ticket; and Mr.
Shee, with that politeness which marked his early career, presented it
to the worthy old gentleman."

Mr. Shee became an exhibitor at the Royal Academy for the first time in
1789. He abstained from exhibiting in the following year, wisely
husbanding his strength--worked hard at his art--gave his nights and days
to Sir Joshua; and in 1791 took handsome apartments, and sent four
portraits to the Exhibition. In 1792 he removed to yet better rooms, and
sent in all seven works to the Exhibition. In the same year he walked as
one of the students of the Royal Academy at the funeral of Sir Joshua
Reynolds. In 1793 he reached what is now the full Academical number of
eight portraits. The Exhibition of the following year contained his as
yet most ambitious efforts:--a portrait of a young lady as Miranda in
"The Tempest," and "Jephtha's Daughter" from the Book of Judges. In 1795
he exhibited a portrait of himself,--and a portrait of Mr. Addington,
afterward Lord Sidmouth. In 1797 he exhibited in all ten works; including
portraits of Pope and Fawcett the actors. He continued equally
industrious for many successive years; and was in such favor with his
fellow artists that he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in
1798, immediately after the election of Flaxman into the same honorary
rank. The same year, on Romney's withdrawal from London, he removed to
the house which that artist had built for himself in Cavendish Square;
and in this he continued as Romney's successor to reside until age and
growing infirmities compelled him to withdraw to Brighton, and abandon
his pencil. In 1800, he was elected a full Royal Academician:--and of his
thirty-nine brethren by whom he was chosen he was the last survivor.

Mr. Shee continued to produce for years with amazing readiness of hand
and fertility in posture. People of all ranks in life went to Cavendish
Square, and for a time Shee was in greater request than either Beechey
or Hoppner, though not so much so as Lawrence, or even as Owen or
Phillips somewhat later. Lord Spencer was the first nobleman who sat to
him; and his example was followed by the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of
Leinster, the Marquis of Exeter, and others. The ladies flocked less
readily around him; for Lawrence had then, as he continued to have, the
entire artist monopoly of the beauty of Great Britain.

Much to the surprise of his friends, and to the infinite wonder of some
of his brethren in the Academy, Mr. Shee made his appearance as a poet by
the publication, in 1805, of his "Rhymes on Art, or the Remonstrance of a
Painter; in two parts, with Notes and a Preface, including Strictures on
the State of the Arts, Criticism, Patronage, and Public Taste": and the
wonder had not ceased with Nollekins and Northcote, when, in 1809, he
published a second poem, in six cantos, entitled "Elements of Art." It is
to these poems that Byron alludes in his "English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers":

  "And here let Shee and Genius find a place,
  Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace;
  To guide whose hand the sister-arts combine,
  And trace the poet's or painter's line;
  Whose magic touch can bid the canvas glow,
  Or pour the easy rhyme's harmonious flow;
  While honors, doubly merited, attend
  The poet's rival, but the painter's friend."

The _Quarterly_ was complimentary, but less kind to the painter than the
noble lord.

Mr. Shee appears to have always evinced taste for the theater; and when
his gravity of years and his position as a popular portrait-painter
forbade his any longer entertaining a wish to appear there, he began to
woo the dramatic Muse, and commenced a tragedy called "Alasco," of which
the scene was laid in Poland. The play was accepted at Covent Garden, but
excluded, it was said, from the stage by Colman, who was then licenser.
This is not strictly true. Colman objected to about eighty-five lines,
which Shee refused to alter. Colman was equally obstinate; and Shee in
1824 printed his play, and appealed to the public against the licenser in
a lengthy and angry preface. "Alasco," notwithstanding, is still on the
list of the unacted drama.

On the death of Lawrence in 1830, Shee was elected President of the Royal
Academy, and immediately knighted. His election was by a large majority,
though Wilkie was a candidate; the members being governed in their votes
rather, it is said, by the necessities of their annual dinner than by
their sense of the merits of Shee as a painter. He excelled in short,
well-timed and well-delivered speeches. He was seldom at a loss; and so
highly was his eloquence appreciated within the walls of the Academy,
that it had been common with more than one Royal Academician to remark
whenever a great speaker was mentioned--"Did you ever hear the
President--you should hear the President,"--as if Canning and Stanley had
been united in Sir Martin Archer Shee.

He has but little claim to be remembered as a poet. His verse wants
vigor, and his examples are deficient in novelty of illustration. The
notes to both his poems are, however, valuable, and his poetry is perhaps
more frequently read for its prose illustrations than for the beauty of
its versification or the value of the truths which it seeks to inculcate.
As a portrait-painter he was eclipsed by several or his
contemporaries,--by Lawrence and by Hoppner,--by Phillips, Jackson, and
Raeburn. He had a fine eye for color; while his leading want was,
proportion, more especially in his heads. Compare his head of Chantrey
with the portraits of Chantrey by Jackson and Raeburn, and the defect is
at once obvious; or compare his head of Mr. Hallam with the head of Mr.
Hallam by Phillips, or with the living head--since happily Mr. Hallam is
still among us. How, then, it will be asked, is Sir Martin to be
remembered: by his poems or by his portraits?--by his speeches or by his
annual addresses to the students? The question is not difficult of
solution. His pictures in the Vernon Gallery will not preserve his name,
nor will his portraits viewed as works of Art. His name will scend in the
History of Painting as a clever artist with greater accomplishments than
have commonly fallen to the class to which he belongs,--and as the
painter who has preserved to us the faces and figures of Sir Thomas
Munro, Sir Thomas Picton, Sir Eyre Coote, Sir James Scarlett, and Sir
Henry Halford. There was merit, we may add, in his portrait of the poet
Moore. Principally, however, he will be remembered as one of the
Presidents of the Royal Academy.


       *       *       *       *       *


GERARD TROOST, M.D.

Dr. GERARD TROOST, for a long period one of the most eminent naturalists
of the United States, died on the 14th of August at Nashville, where he
had been for twenty years Professor of Chemistry and Natural History in
the University of Tennessee. A native of Holland, and educated in one of
her universities, he devoted himself to the natural sciences. For the
sake of improvement he visited Paris, and for several years was a pupil
of the celebrated Hauy. He removed to the United States about forty years
ago, and in due time became an American citizen. In 1824 and 1825 he was
with Robert Owen at New Harmony, and he appears always to have been
distinguished for eccentricities of opinion and conduct, but to have
commanded in every situation respect and affection. His entire life was
consecrated to geology and the kindred sciences, with what ability and
success, his published writings and his well-earned reputation at home
and abroad may eloquently testify. Among the subjects upon which he wrote
are, amber of Cape Sable, Maryland; the minerals of Missouri; five
reports on the geology of Tennessee; meteoric iron from Tennessee and
Alabama; a shower of red matter in Tennessee; meteorites, &c., &c.


       *       *       *       *       *


PERCEVAL W. BANKS.

This gentleman--better known as _Morgan Rattler_ of "Fraser's
Magazine"--died in London on the 13th of August. Mr. Banks, though only
in his forty-fifth year, was the last of the race of writers, who, with
Dr. Maginn, Mr. Churchill, and others, gave a sting and pungency (of a
vicious and unwholesome kind however), to the early numbers of that
journal. He seldom did justice to his own talents, for he wrote too often
in haste, always at the last moment, and too rarely with good taste. He
was by profession a barrister. The world at large, who admired the
sportive fancy, classical eloquence, and kind yet firm criticism of poor
_Morgan Rattler_, in his later years, will regret the early decease of
one so gifted.


       *       *       *       *       *


ROBERT HUNT.

Mr. ROBERT HUNT, the eldest brother of Mr. Leigh Hunt, often mentioned in
the "Autobiography," is dead. He was lately nominated by the Queen to the
brotherhood of the Charter house, but has not lived very long to enjoy
the royal bounty. He was seventy-six years old when he died.


       *       *       *       *       *


JOHN COMLY.

JOHN COMLY, an eminent minister of the Society of Friends, died on the
17th of August at Byberry in Pennsylvania, in the seventy-seventh year of
his age. "Comly's Spelling-Book," and "Comly's Grammar," have to
thousands now living made his name "familiar as household words."

       *       *       *       *       *


BISHOP BASCOMB.

THE REV. DR. BASCOMB, long eminent for various abilities, and most of all
for a brilliant and effective elocution, died at Louisville, Ky., on the
9th of August. He was editor of the Southern Methodist Quarterly Review,
and one of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church.


       *       *       *       *       *


COUNT PIRE.

GENERAL COUNT PIRE, one of the most distinguished officers of the French
Empire, died recently. He fought as a private soldier of the National
Guard of Paris, on the barricades, against the insurgents of June, 1848.

        *       *       *       *       *



GLEANINGS FROM THE JOURNALS.


The _Athenæum_ is incredulous upon the subject of the falling of Table
Rock, at Niagara, and in reprinting the account of the event, thought it
necessary to offer a few remarks upon the credibility of American
intelligence:--"Our readers," says the _Athenæum_, "know that we have
great fears of the American penny-a-liner, and are carefully on our guard
against his feats. Our own specimens of the class are commonplace artists
compared with their American brethren. The season is at hand when we are
looking out for the performances at the former,--but we expect little
from beyond the old routine. In their sluggish imaginations, the annual
pike is doubtless already growing up to his great dimensions, which, on
failure of the accustomed springs of intelligence, we are soon to find
floating in the newspaper shallows,--and the preposterous cucumber is
probably having an inch added to its stature, which will shortly shoot
rankly up where the parliamentary harvest has been cut down. The most
daring thing that we can expect from these geniuses is, a trick or two
perhaps with the Nelson Column. But the American penny-a-liner, our
readers know, does the thing on the vast scale of his country. He takes
down Niagara at his pleasure,--and puts it up again in its place, or
anywhere else that he will. He transports the great Falls about the soil
of his country at halt a crown an adventure,--and for five shillings
would probably set them playing in the moon."

        *     *     *     *

A "MASONIC SWORD" FOR THE EMPEROR OF HAYTI.--A magnificent sword,
intended to be presented to the Emperor Soulouque on his installation to
the mysteries of the "Grand Masonic Order of Hayti," has been made at
Birmingham, thirty-two inches in length. The blade is richly ornamented
along its whole length with devices in blue and gold, bearing the
inscription in French on the one side, "To the illustrious F. Faustin
Soulouque, Emperor of Hayti," and on the other, "Homage of the Grand
Order of Hayti." The hilt is surmounted by an imperial crown, and adorned
with various masonic emblems. On the shield are richly chased the arms of
Hayti, with the motto, "God! my Country, and my Sword," "Liberty and
Independence." We perceive, also, from the French papers, that a
celebrated goldsmith at Paris, has forwarded to Hayti a crown, a scepter,
a wand of justice, and a sword of state, manufactured expressly for his
sable Majesty, at a cost of £20,000 sterling. The latter has moreover,
commanded, for his coronation, a sky-blue velvet mantle, embroidered with
bees and richly bound with gold lace, and a Court dress of scarlet
velvet, lined with white satin, and trimmed with the most expensive point
lace, "with most valuable ornaments to match."

       *       *       *       *       *

TIME WORKS WONDERS.--A correspondent Of the _Melbourne Daily News_
remarks that in June, 1847, he met Prince Louis Napoleon and his cousin
Jerome Napoleon at Lady Blessington's. "The president was then living in
a very modest house in King-street, St. James's-square, and his very
unaffected demeanor led me to form an intimate acquaintance with him. He
appeared to me a person more fond of the ordinary amusements of the
metropolis, frequenting the theaters, casinos, and other similar places,
than an ambitious adventurer. On the following May as I was entering the
chambers of my solicitor, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, an old gentleman with
an umbrella under his arm passed me as I opened the swing doors, and
politely removed his hat as I made way for him. It was Louis Philippe. It
is scarce three weeks ago I was ordering a waistcoat of my tailor, when
two gentlemen entered the shop, and one of them in broken English gave an
order for a paletot; I looked up, It was Ledru Rollin and Etienne Arago;
when they had gone, the worthy tradesman, knowing I had lived much in
Paris, asked me if I knew his customer (M. Arago,) and if he could safely
_give him credit!_"

      *     *     *     *

AMERICAN MUMMIES.--A letter from Ratisbon states, that the Museum of the
Zoological and Mineralogical Society of that town has made a curious
acquisition,--that of two mummies found in the sands of the desert of
Atacama in Upper Peru, by Dr. Ried, a Bavarian physician resident at
Valparaiso. These mummies, male and female, both of American race, are
natural mummies,--that is to say, dried without embalming or any other
species of preparation. The man is in a stooping posture, his head
sustained on his hands, and his elbows renting on his knees. The face has
an expression of pain which seems to indicate a, violent death. The woman
is stretched at length, with arms crossed on her breast. Both heads are
covered with long hair, dark and silky, and divided into an infinity of
small plaits. When Dr. Reid discovered these mummies both had their teeth
complete; but during their transport to Europe many of these have fallen
out, and were found at the bottom of the cases containing these curious
relics of American antiquity.

       *     *     *     *

THE COMMON SLANDERS AGAINST DANIEL WEBSTER are noted in the English
Journals in connection with his acceptance of the Secretaryship of State.
"These scandals," observes the _Spectator,_ "cannot, however, hide from
us the fact, that of all public men in America, _perhaps_ with one
exception, Mr. Webster is he who has evinced the greatest knowledge of
public affairs, the greatest acumen in administration, and the greatest
common sense in emergency. High intelligence is probably the best of all
substitutes for high honor--if, indeed, it does not necessarily include
that nobler quality."

         *       *       *       *       *

COFFINS OF BAKED CLAY OF THE CHALDEANS.--Mr. Kennet Loftus, the first
European who has visited the ancient ruins of Warka in Mesopotamia, and
who is attached to the surveying staff of Colonel Williams, appointed to
settle the question of the boundary line between Turkey and Persia,
writes thus:--"Warka is no doubt the Erech of Scripture, the second city
of Nimrod, and it is the Orchoe of the Chaldees. The mounds within the
walls afford subjects of high interest to the historian and antiquarian;
they are filled, nay, I may say, they are literally composed of coffins,
piled upon each other to the height of forty-five feet. It has,
evidently, been the great burial-place of generations of Chaldeans, as
Meshad Ali and Kerbella at the present day are of the Persians. The
coffins are very strange affairs; they are in general form like a
slipper-bath, but more depressed and symmetrical, with a large oval
aperture to admit the body, which is closed with a lid of earthenware.
The coffins themselves are also of baked clay, covered with green glaze,
and embossed with figures of warriors, with strange and enormous
coiffures, dressed in a short tunic and long under garments, a sword by
the side, the arms resting on the hips, the legs apart. Great quantities
of pottery and also clay figures, some most delicately modeled, are found
around them; and ornaments of gold, silver, iron, copper, glass, &c.,
within."--_Art-Journal_.

       *       *       *       *       *

ANCIENT PRICE OF LABOR.--In the year 1352, 25th Edward III., wages paid
to haymakers  were 1d. a day. A mower of meadows, 3d. a day, or 5d an
acre. Reapers of corn in the first week of August, 2d.; in the second,
3d. a day, and so on till the end of August, without meat, drink, or
other allowance, finding their own tools. For threshing a quarter of
wheat or rye, 21/2d.;  a quarter of barley, beans, peas, and oats 11/2d. A
master carpenter, 3d. a day, other carpenters, 2d. A master mason, 4d. a
day, other masons, 3d., and their servants, 11/2d. Tilers, 3d., and their
"knaves," 11/2d. Thatchers, 3d a day, and their knaves, 11/2. Plasterers,
and other workers of mud walls, and their knaves, in like manner, without
meat or drink; and this from Easter to Michaelmas; and from that time
less, according to the direction of the justices.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE "QUARTERLY REVIEW" suggests that "If an additional postage of one
penny per letter were to be charged to every person who prefers making
the postman, or rather the public, wait until his servant shall think
proper to open the door to receive a handful of prepaid letters, which
could rapidly be dropped, exactly as they were posted, through a
receiving slit into a tortuous receptacle, from which it would be
impossible for any but the right person to extract them, the delivery
of the correspondence of the country would be perfect."

       *       *       *       *       *
SOME LIBERALS in France have been carrying on a kind of duel by libel,
the libel being enforced apparently by its strict truth. Some of M.
Thiers's political antagonists, seeking to annoy him, volunteered to
circulate in the form of a card the following advertisement for a lady
who appears to be related to M. Thiers, and also to carry on an honest
avocation:--

"MADAME L. RIPERT,
Sister of M. A. THIERS,
_Ex-President of the Council of Ministers, &c. &c._
keeps an excellent _table méridionale_ at 3fr. a-head, wine included.
Breakfast at all hours, at 3fr. 25c.
44, Rue Basse-du-Rempart, Paris."

The retaliation was a counter-card:--

"Mdlle. ----, _brèvetée de la police_, et M. ----, liberated convict, the
sister and cousin-germain of M. ---- a thorough-bred Montagnard, continue
to carry on their business, Rue de la Lune. _On va en ville._"

These attacks are very mean, and paltry, but it is clear that their
castigation is beyond the effective handling of the law. Yet society
exercises no effective jurisdiction in the matter; it shields offenders
against decency and generosity so long as the offense is committed in
subserviency to party.

       *       *       *       *       *

LANGUAGES OF AFRICA.--At a religious meeting in London, the Rev. John
Clark, formerly missionary in Jamaica, and afterward in Fernando Po, in
Africa, said that at Fernandina there were persons belonging to fifty
Different tribes, who understood English so well as to be of help to a
translator of the Bible into their respective languages. He thought the
Word of God would have to be translated into two hundred languages before
all the tribes of Africa will be able to read it in their own tongue. The
Mohammedans, who are spread through the length of the continent, have
many who can read the Koran in the Arabic characters. If, therefore, the
Word of God were translated into their tongues and printed in that
character, many, not only of the Hovas and the Arabs of the desert, but
also of the Foolahs, Mandingoes, and Housah, who professed Mahommedanism,
would be able to read concerning Jesus Christ.

       *       *       *       *       *


LETTERS FROM MR. RICHARDSON, the African explorer, have been received in
London, dated at Mourzouk, June 22d. Mr. R. and his companions were
detained six weeks waiting for the promised escort of the Touarick chiefs
for Soudan by the way of Ghat. They expect to meet the many caravans
coming down from the interior to Ghat. The actual arrival of the chiefs
was greatly to the astonishment of the Moors and Turks of Mourzouk, who
could never believe that the hardy bandits of the Sahara would obey the
summons of a Christian, and escort English travelers through the
unexplored regions of Central Africa. The Turks had on previous occasions
repeatedly invited the Touaricks to visit the town of Mourzouk, but they
never would do so.


*       *       *       *       *


THE PEACE CONGRESS of Frankfort closed its session on the 22d of August.
However commendable its apparent object, it cannot be concealed that this
and the preceding congress of the same kind have been little more than
processes for the elevation of insignificant people into a transient
notoriety. This year the usual philanthropic resolutions were passed.
Victor Hugo, of France, excused himself from attendance on the score of
ill-health; but the country was represented by Emile de Girardin. The
congress is to meet next year simultaneously with the great World's
Exposition at London. The most piquant incidents of the session were the
speech of George Copway, a veritable American Indian Chief, and the
presence, in one of the visitors' tribunes, of the famous General Haynau,
whose victories and cruelties last year, in prosecuting the Hungarian
war, were the theme in the congress of much fine eloquence and
indignation.


       *       *       *       *       *


A PROJECT is on foot for opening a spacious Zoological and Botanical
Garden in the north part of the island of New York, immediately on the
Hudson. A plan of an association for the purpose has been drawn up by Mr.
Audubon, a son of the eminent ornithologist--the same who lately made an
overland journey to California. His courage and perseverance in that
expedition have given the public a sufficient pledge of the energy and
constancy of his character, and his scientific knowledge, educated as he
has been from his early childhood to be a naturalist, qualifies him as
few are qualified, for the superintendence of such an establishment. The
spot chosen for the garden is the property of the Audubon family,
adjoining the Trinity Cemetery, and contains about twenty acres, which
is about a third larger than the London Zoological Gardens.


       *       *       *       *       *


The _London Standard_ having asserted that "Mr. D'Israeli is not nor ever
was a Jew," a correspondent of the _Morning Chronicle_ testifies that the
Member from Buckinghamshire was at one time a Jew; at least that "he
became a Jew _outwardly_, according to the customary and prescriptive
rites of that ancient persuasion; for a most respectable gentleman
(connected with literature) now deceased, has been heard to boast a
hundred times that he was present at the entertainment given in honor of
the ceremony."


       *       *       *       *       *


Dr. GROSS, who has lately been appointed to the professorship of surgery
in the medical department of the New York University, is a gentleman of
very eminent abilities, who has long been conspicuous as a teacher and
practitioner at Louisville. He is a native of Berks county in
Pennsylvania, is descended from one of the old Dutch families there, and
was twelve or fourteen years of age before he knew a word of English. In
his _specialite_ he is of the first rank in America.


       *       *       *       *       *


ANOTHER FESTIVAL IN GERMANY.--Near the close of August, musical and
Dramatic ceremonies in inauguration of the statue of Herder took place at
Weimar. On the 24th was represented at the theater the "Prometheus
Unbound," with overture and choruses by M. Liszt. On the 25th, after the
inauguration of the statue, Handel's "Messiah" was performed in the
Cathedral, where Herder used to preach, and where he lies buried. On the
28th, was given at the theater the first representation of "Lohengrin,"
anew opera, by Herr Wagner, with a prologue written for the occasion by
Herr Dingelstedt.


       *       *       *       *       *


THE WORDSWORTH MONUMENT.--In a former number of this journal we noticed
the organization of a very influential committee, for raising
subscriptions, in order that suitable monuments might be erected to the
memory of the late poet, both in Westminster Abbey and in the locality
which was his chosen residence, and so often his chosen theme. We
perceive, with more regret than surprise, that the amounts advertised are
mean in the extreme. We fear that ten times the sums would have been more
readily collected, to do honor to a dancer or a singer.


       *       *       *       *       *


REVOLUTIONARY STAMPS.--The Secretary of the New Jersey Historical
Society, W. A. Whitehead, Esq., has received through the Hon. W. B.
Kinney, Chargé d'Affaires to Sardinia, several of the identical stamps
that were made for use in the Colonies, and which were the immediate
cause of the American Revolution. A box of them was recently found in the
Colonial Office in London, where our Minister procured them.


       *       *       *       *       *


There are no lineal descendants of Warren Hastings in existence. The
estates of Mr. Hastings passed into the sister's family, and are held at
present by Sir C. Imhoff, who resides at Daglesford House, near
Stow-on-the-Wold. The house has much interest attached to it. The whole
furniture of one room is composed of solid ivory.


       *       *       *       *       *


IN THE LATE MEETING OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, of Paris, it was
announced that the Academy had received from Mr. Pennington of Baltimore,
United States of America, a manuscript and a printed prospectus
Concerning a project of a steam balloon, upon which he wished the Academy
to decide.


       *       *       *       *       *


The holder of the appointment of Examiner of Plays, in England, enjoys a
salary of $2000 per annum, beside a tax upon every play, interlude,
farce, or song, licensed for representation upon the stage. This
appointment is in the gift of the Lord Chamberlain.


       *       *       *       *       *


GEORGE CATLIN, the Indian traveler, is soon to sail to Texas from
Liverpool, with a large body of emigrants; they will settle on the lands
of the Emigration Colonization Society.


       *       *       *       *       *

AGES OF PUBLIC MEN.--The Duke of Wellington is aged 81: Lord Lyndhurst,
78; Lord Dunfermline, 74; Mr. Joseph Hume, 73; Lord Brougham, 72; Lord
Heytesbury, 71; Lord Denman, 71; Lord Campbell, 71; Lord Gough, 71; Earl
of Haddington, 70; Marquis of Landsdowne, 70; Lord Cottenham, 69; Earl of
Ripon, 68; Earl of Minto, 68; Earl of Aberdeen, 66; Viscount Palmerston,
66; Right Hon. H. Goulburn, 66; Viscount Hardinge, 65; Sir Robert Inglis,
64; Sir John Cam Hobhouse, 64; Duke of Sutherland, 64; Sir George Clerk,
63; Duke of Richmond, 59; Mr. Andrew Rutherford, 59; Sir James Graham,
58; Lord John Russell, 58; Right Hon. C. Lefevre, Speaker of the House of
Commons, 56; Right Hon. Richard L. Shiel, 56; Sir Frederick Thesiger, 56;
Sir Francis Baring, First Lord of the Admiralty, 54; Sir Fitzroy Kelly,
54; Marquis of Normanby, 53; Right Hon. H. Labouchere, 52; Lord Stanley,
51; Sir George Grey, 51; Right Hon. T.B. Macaulay, 51; Earl of Clarendon,
50; Sir Charles Wood, 50; Mr. Fox Maule, 49; Lord Ashley, 49; Mr. J.A.
Roebuck, 49; Earl of Carlisle, 48; Marquis of Clanricarde, 48; Earl Grey,
48; Sir John Jervis, 48; Mr. Cobden, 47; Mr. Benjamin D'Israeli, 45;
Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, 41; Right Hon. Sydney Herbert, 40; Earl of
Lincoln, 39; Mr. John Bright, 39; Hon. George A. Smythe, 32; Lord John
Manners, 32.

       *       *       *       *       *

ANCIENT DISCOVERY OF CALIFORNIA.--In the popular and unique work, "Notes
And Queries," we find the following paragraph, from a correspondent who
probably gleaned it from the last years Proceedings of the New-York
Historical Society. "In the _Voyage Round the World_, by Captain George
Shelvocke, begun February 1719, he says of California, (_Harris's
Collection_, vol. i., p. 233:)--'The soil about Puerto, Seguro, and very
likely in most of the valleys, is a rich black mould, which, as you turn
it up fresh to the sun, appears as if intermingled with gold dust, some
of which we endeavored to purify and wash from the dirt. But, though we
were a little prejudiced against the thoughts that it could be possible
that this metal should be so promiscuously and universally mingled with
common earth, yet we endeavored to cleanse and wash the earth from some
of it; and the more we did the more it appeared like gold. In order to be
further satisfied, I brought away some of it, which we lost in our
confusion in China.'" How an accident prevented the discovery, more than
a century back, of the golden harvest now gathering in California!

       *       *       *       *       *

THE PRESIDENT OF PERU has issued a decree, appointing the Minister of the
Home Department, Don Lucas Fonceas, Don Nicolas Pierola, and Don Nicolas
Rodrigo, a commission to select and take charge of articles intended to
be sent to England for exhibition next year.

       *       *       *       *       *

MR. GLIDDON'S MUMMY.--We find in the _Boston Transcript_ a long letter
from Mr. Gliddon, telling the whole story, which the latest and complete
examinations of papyrus, straps, bandages, &c. have unfolded about his
mummy early this summer in Boston. It seems the said mummy was all right,
in the right coffin duly embalmed; the body being that of a priest who
died about B. C. 900. The Theban undertakers, in this particular _case_,
were honest; and all suspicion of fraud on their part is unnecessary and
unfair. Mr. Gliddon made a slight mistake, before the opening of the
coffin, in reading the fragments of the inscription; and so got the
notion that the contents were a female body. The frank, manly,
good-natured, and generous manner in which Mr. G. explains the whole
affair and owns his error, should now stop the laugh, and satisfy
everybody.

       *       *       *       *       *

RACHEL is making a lucrative professional tour in Germany. The last
accounts leave her in Berlin. She has lately had built in Paris, not far
in the rear of the Madelaine, a hotel for her private residence. It is
not large, but is a perfect gem of taste, (as the French understand it)
and luxury. She receives there a choice circle of gentlemen of all
professions. The ladies who frequent her _salons_ are rarer, if not more
select. Of course none but ladies of the same profession, or of equivocal
reputation, would enjoy the elegant hospitality of the illustrious
_tragédienne_.

       *       *       *       *       *

INDIA RUBBER is now so cheap and common, that the following reference to
it in the "New Monthly Review" for February, 1772, sent to "_Notes and
Queries_" by a correspondent, may cause a smile: "I have seen," says Dr.
Priestly, "a substance, excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from
paper the marks of a black lead pencil. It must, therefore, be of
singular use to those who practice drawing. It is sold by Mr. Nairne,
mathematical instrument-maker, opposite the Royal Exchange. He sells a
cubical piece, of about _half an inch_, for _three shillings_; and, he
says, it will last several years."

       *       *       *       *       *

CONVENIENT UMBRELLA.-A gentleman residing at Taunton has constructed an
umbrella on a novel principle, the main feature of which is that it can
be carried in the pocket with ease. He intends sending it to the great
Exhibition of next year.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE DAILY NEWS at Constantinople; writing on the
25th ult., says: "Yesterday, the 15th of Ramazan, witnessed a famous
ceremony, which consists in adoring the _shirt_ of the prophet, preserved
in an apartment of the old Seraglio at Topkapon (Cannon-gate). The
Sultan, ministers, and high dignitaries, were admitted to kiss this
sacred relic, which will remain exposed during some days for the
veneration of the faithful."

*       *       *       *       *

THE CONTINUED EMIGRATION OF THE IRISH is one of the most remarkable
points of contemporary history. Subsequent to, or in consequence of, the
great failure of the potato crop in 1846--that calamity which
revolutionized Ireland--not less than a million of people must have left
its shores to try their fortunes this side the Atlantic. Between
emigration and the ravages of famine and pestilence, we may calculate
that the population of Ireland has diminished by at least a million and a
half or two millions since the autumn of 1846. How long the emigration
will continue, it is, of course, impossible to predict, as every new
settler in America who prospers, is the agent by which a fresh demand is
made upon the old country. It is one of the best features in the Irish
character, that, in the new land to which they flock, they do not forget
the friends or relatives that they have left behind them, and that every
packet carries money from America for the relief of people in Ireland, or
to pay their passage out to the forests or prairies of a world where
there is elbow-room for all, and where a willing heart and a stout pair
of hands are the surest passports to independence and a competency.


       *       *       *       *       *


DWARKANTH TAGORE was a marvelously intelligent man, greatly in advance of
his countrymen--a man who could discern the value of European
civilization, and who devoted his energies and his means to the duty of
grafting them on Hindu society. His riches were, like all merchants', in
supposition. He had argosies, and lands, and merchandise; but what with
land rats and water rats, and mortgages, glutted markets, and
competitions of all kinds, that which had an untellable value to-day, was
at a discount to-morrow. His influence in the southern provinces of India
maintained the credit of his house while he lived; he died bequeathing no
atom of his commanding spirit and exquisite tact, and the house which he
had created, together with the Bank he had sustained, fell in the general
commercial wreck which afflicted all Calcutta three years ago. Thus much
of admirable Dwarkanth Tagore.


       *       *       *       *       *


MADAME BOULANGER--the Mrs. Glover of the Paris _Opéra Comique_, has a
Conspicuous place in the recent foreign obituaries. The French, in their
musical comedies, cherish _dramatis personæ_ of a maturity not known on
any other musical stage, save among the background figures. "So often as
we think of the good lady in question, with hardly a note of voice left,
but overflowing with quaint humor, and willingly turning her years and
ill looks to the utmost account, with a readiness to be absurd, if the
part needed, which even a Lablache could not outdo,--so often as we
recollect her _Madame Barnek_, in 'L'Ambassadrice,' and her _La
Bocchetta_ in 'Polichinelle, some of our most comic operatic impressions
will be revived. Madame Boulanger was buried in the church of Notre
Dame."


       *       *       *       *       *


TRAVELING, in France, like everything else there, has been reduced to
science, or rather to art. Companies are now formed at Paris which convey
passengers to London and back at an expense of only thirty francs--about
six dollars. They will pay all your expenses for this sum, and give you
four days in London to see all the lions. It took more time and more
money a few years ago to journey from Paris to Rouen, which is only a
few miles off. These pleasure trains, as they are called, quit Paris on
Saturday, cross the channel in a good steamer on Sunday, reaching London
in the afternoon, give the voyagers Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and
Thursday in the city, leaving in time to get back to Paris by Friday
night.


       *       *       *       *       *


FOUR courses of lectures will be delivered the coming season before the
Lowell Institute, Boston. One is to be on Political Economy, by Prof.
Bowen, of Cambridge; another course on Natural Religion, by Rev. Dr.
Blagden, of Boston; another by Prof. Agassiz, subject not known; and the
fourth, on the Comparative Physical Geography of the United States, and
the race that will shortly inhabit these States, by Prof. Guyot.


       *       *       *       *       *


The _Gazette des Tribunaux_ announces that M. Libri has ceased to be a
member of the Legion of Honor, in virtue of the sentence of the Assize
Court of Paris, pronounced on the demand of the Grand Chancellor of the
order. Since his flight to England, some two years and a half since, he
has married there. Madame Libri is now in Paris, attempting to recover
possession of the furniture, and other personal effects, which M. Libri
was compelled to leave behind him in his flight.


       *       *       *       *       *


The _Opinion Publique_ has the following:--"Is it known who at this
moment inhabits the small house at Brompton, occupied some few months
since by M. Guizof? It is M. Ledru-Rollin. Thus, M. Ledru-Rollin, an
exile, succeeds at Brompton in his house of exile, M. Guizot, whom he
succeeded at Paris in the Government."


       *       *       *       *       *


The Committee of the Associate Institution for Improving and Enforcing
the Laws for the Protection of Women, intends to offer a prize of 100
guineas for the best Essay on the Laws for the Protection of Women.


       *       *       *       *       *


DR. T. SOUTHWOOD SMITH, who was the medical member of the General Board
of Health during the period of the Orders in Council, has been appointed
the second member of the Board provided by the English Metropolitan
Interment Act.


       *       *       *       *       *


The _Gazette_ of Rome, of the 9th, contains the nomination of the Abbé
Talbot, son of Lord Talbot of Malahide, and lately priest of St.
George's, Westminster-bridge-road, to the office of _camereire secreto._


       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: JENNY LIND AT THE CASTLE AMPHITHEATER.]

The arrival of JENNY LIND is the most memorable event thus far in our
musical history. The note of preparation had been sounding for half a
year; her name, through all the country, had become a household word;
and every incident in her life, and every judgment of her capacities, had
been made familiar, by the admirable tactician who had hazarded so much
of his fortune in her engagement. The general interest was increased by
the accounts in the chief foreign journals of her triumphal progress
through England, and when at length she reached New-York, her reception
resembled the ovations that are offered to heroes. Her first concert was
given at the Castle Amphitheater, on the 11th September, to the largest
audience ever assembled for any such occasion in America. There was an
apprehension among the more judicious that the performances would fall
below the common expectations; but the most sanguine were surprised by
the completeness of her triumph. She surpassed all that they had ever
heard, or dreamed, or imagined. It was, as the _Christian Inquirer_
happily observes, as if all the birds of Eden had melted their voices
into one, to rise in gushing song upon the streaming light to salute the
sun. Her later concerts have increased rather than diminished the
enthusiasm produced by her first appearance. Mlle. Lind is accompanied
by M. Benedict, the well known composer, and by Signer Belletti, whose
voice is the finest _baritone_ probably ever heard in New York, and whose
style is described by the _Albion_ as "near perfection." The orchestral
arrangements for her concerts have never been surpassed here. Many were
deterred from being present at her first appearance by a fear of crowds
and tumults, but so perfect were Mr. Barnum's appointments that all the
vast assemblies at the Castle have been as orderly as the most quiet
evening parties in private houses.

The personal interest in Mlle. Lind is almost as great as the interest in
the singer. Her charities in New York have already reached more than
$15,000. and it is understood that all the profits of her engagement in
America, not thus dispensed here, are appropriated by her for the
establishment of free schools in Sweden.

Mlle. Lind has given to the Fire Department Fund, $3,000; Musical Fund
Society, $2,000; Home for the Friendless, Society for the Relief of
Indigent Females, Dramatic Fund Association, Home for Colored and Aged
Persons, Colored and Orphan Association, Lying-in Asylum for Destitute
Females, New York Orphan Asylum, Protestant Half-Orphan Asylum, Roman
Catholic Half-Orphan Asylum, and Old Ladies Asylum, each $500. Total,
$10,000. The lives of Mr. Barnum, Jenny Lind, M. Benedict, and Signor
Belletti, with all the details of the concerts, have been issued in a
pamphlet displaying the usual tyographical richness and elegance of Van
Norden & Leslie, Fulton-street.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850" ***

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