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Title: Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848
Author: Various
Language: English
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GRAHAM'S
AMERICAN MONTHLY
MAGAZINE
Of Literature and Art,
EMBELLISHED WITH
MEZZOTINT AND STEEL ENGRAVINGS, MUSIC, ETC.
WILLIAM C. BRYANT, J. FENIMORE COOPER, RICHARD H. DANA, JAMES K. PAULDING,
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, N. P. WILLIS, CHARLES F. HOFFMAN, J. R. LOWELL.
MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY, MISS C. M. SEDGWICK, MRS. FRANCES S. OSGOOD,
MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY, MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS, MRS. AMELIA B. WELBY,
MRS. A. M. F. ANNAN, ETC.
PRINCIPAL CONTRIBUTORS.
GEORGE R. GRAHAM, AND ROBERT T. CONRAD, EDITORS.
VOLUME XXXII.
PHILADELPHIA:
GEORGE R. GRAHAM & CO. 98 CHESTNUT STREET.
* * * * *
1848.
CONTENTS
OF THE
THIRTY-SECOND VOLUME.
JANUARY, 1848, TO JUNE, 1848.
* * * * *
A Drama of Real Life. By N. P. WILLIS, 61
Autumnal Scenery. By JOSEPH R. CHANDLER, 64
Biographical Sketch of Gen. Wm. O. Butler. By FRANCIS P. BLAIR, 49
Battle of Fort Moultrie. By C. J. PETERSON, 198
Clara Harland. By G. G. FOSTER. (Illustrated.) 241
Cincinnati. By FAYETTE ROBINSON, 352
Captain Samuel Walker. By FAYETTE ROBINSON, (With an Engraving.) 301
Dissolving Views. By F. E. F. 172
Effie Morris. By ENNA DUVAL, 87
First Love. By ENNA DUVAL, 282
Game-Birds of America. By PROF. FROST, 68
Game-Birds of America. By PROF. FROST, 185
Home. By Mrs. H. MARION WARD, 129
Jacob Jones. By T. S. ARTHUR, 193
Jehoiakim Johnson. By MARY SPENCER PEASE, 313
Lace and Diamonds. By THEODORE S. FAY, 1
Le Petit Soulier. By IK. MARVEL, 165
Marginalia. By EDGAR A. POE, 23
Mathew Mizzle. By JOSEPH C. NEAL, 57
Montezuma Moggs. By JOSEPH C. NEAL, 116
Marginalia. By EDGAR A. POE, 130
Mrs. Pelby Smith's Select Party. By Mrs. A. M. F. ANNAN, 152
Marginalia. By EDGAR A. POE, 178
My Lady-Help. By ENNA DUVAL, 180
Mary Warner. By Mrs. E. L. B. COWDERY, 201
Major-General Worth. By FAYETTE ROBINSON, 275
Power of Beauty, and a Plain Man's Love. By N. P. WILLIS, 99
Pauline Dumesnil. By ANGELE DE V. HULL, 121
Pauline Grey. By F. E. F. 229, 265
Phantasmagoria. By JOHN NEAL, 26O
Phantoms All. By CAROLINE H. BUTLER, 304
Poor Penn--. By OLIVER BUCKLEY, 309
Stoke Church and Park. By R. BALMANNO, 73
The Rival Sisters. By HENRY W. HERBERT, 13, 105
The Little Gold-Fish. By J. K. PAULDING, 31
The Teacher Taught. By MARY S. ADAMS, 39
The Islets of the Gulf. By J. F. COOPER, 42, 93, 159
The Cruise of the Gentile. By FRANK BYRNE, 133, 205
The Little Cap-Maker. By Mrs. C. H. BUTLER, 221
The Portrait of General Scott. 234
Theresa. By JANE TAYLOE WORTHINGTON, 247
The Changed and the Unchanged. By PROFESSOR ALDEN, 277
The New England Factory Girl. By Mrs. JOSEPH C. NEAL, 287, 343
The Lone Buffalo. By CHARLES LANMAN, 294
The Fortunes of a Southern Family. By A NEW CONTRIBUTOR, 325
The Double Transformation. By JAMES K. PAULDING, 350
Whortleberrying. By ALFRED B. STREET, 270
POETRY.
A Funeral Thought. By J. BAYARD TAYLOR, 10
An Hour. By J. BAYARD TAYLOR, 98
A Butterfly in the City. By THOMAS BUCHANAN READ 104
A Parting. By HENRY S. HAGERT, 238
A Vision. By R. H. STODDART, 286
A Song. By THOMAS BUCHANAN READ, 311
Burial of a Volunteer. By PARK BENJAMIN, 128
Beauty's Bath. (Illustrated.) 131
Contemplation. By JANE R. DANA. (Illustrated.) 190
City Life. By CHARLES W. BAIRD, 204
Coriolanus. By HENRY B. HIRST, 319
Cleopatra. By ELIZABETH J. EAMES, 363
Decay and Rome. By R. H. STODDART, 220
Elsie. By KATE DASHWOOD, 67
Early English Poets. By ELIZABETH J. EAMES, 92
Early English Poets. By ELIZABETH J. EAMES, 171
Epitaph on a Restless Lady, 179
Expectation. By LOUISA M. GREEN, 187
Eurydice. By FRANCES S. OSGOOD, 274
Encouragement. By Mrs. E. C. KINNEY, 276
Fair Margaret. By Wm. H. C. HOSMER, 293
Homeward Bound. By E. CURTISS HINE, 308
Isola. By JOHN TOMLIN, 190
Lenovar. By WM. GILMORE SIMMS, 218
Lines to ---- By CAROLINE F. ORNE, 63
Love. By R. H. STODDARD, 131
Lines to an Ideal. By ELIZABETH L. LINSLEY, 151
Lethe. By HENRY B. HIRST, 179
Lines. By GRETTA, 184
Lennard. By Mrs. MARY G. HORSFORD, 320
Lamartine to Madame Jorelle. By VIRGINIA 303
Lines to ----, By W. HORRY STILWELL, 349
Midnight. By THOMAS BUCHANAN READ, 286
No, Not Forgotten. By EARLE S. GOODRICH, 228
O, Scorn Not Thy Brother. By E. CURTISS HINE, 235
Poetry. A Song. By GEORGE P. MORRISS, 66
Revolution. By ARIAN, 292
Spirit-Yearnings for Love. By Mrs. H. MARION WARD, 12
Sonnet to Graham. By ALTUS, 22
Sonnet to S. D. A. By "THE SQUIRE," 48
Shawangunk Mountain. By A. B. STREET, 59
Sonnet to ----. By CAROLINE F. ORNE, 67
Sunset After Rain. By ALFRED B. STREET, 115
Sonnet to Night. By GRETTA, 120
Spirit-Voices. By CHARLES W. BAIRD, 158
Song of the Elves. By ANNA BLACKWELL, 203
Song for a Sabbath Morning. By T. B. READ, 204
Sonnets. By JAMES LAWSON, 259
Sonnet. By C. E. T. 269
Sonnet. By Mrs. E. C. KINNEY, 281
Stanzas. By W. H. DENNY, 293
Song. By C. E. T. 342
The Memorial Tree. By W. GILMORE SIMMS, 11
The Rainbow. By Mrs. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY, 12
The Penance of Roland. By HENRY B. HIRST, 25
The Sea-Nymphs Song. By W. H. C. HOSMER, 30
The Vesper Bell. By PARK BENJAMIN, 38
The Sunbeam. By MARY E. LEE, 41
The Land of Dreams. By WM. C. BRYANT, 48
The Mourner. By Dr. JOHN D. GODMAN, 67
The Saw-Mill. By WM. C. BRYANT, 86
The Portrait. By R. T. CONRAD. (Illustrated.) 92
The Lost Pleiad. By HENRY B. HIRST, 115
The Bride's Confession. By ALICE G. LEE, 120
The Hermit of Niagara. By Mrs. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY, 127
The Bridal Morning. (Illustrated.) 128
The Alchemist's Daughter. By T. B. READ, 148
The Belle. By MARY L. LAWSON, 164
The Voice of the Fire. By J. B. TAYLOR, 177
Triumphs of Peace. By WM. H. C. HOSMER, 187
To My Wife. By ROBT. T. CONRAD, 190
The Darling. By BLANCHE BENNAIRDE, 197
The Poet's Love. By HENRY B. HIRST, 200
To the Author of "The Raven." By MISS HARRIET B. WINSLOW, 203
The Fire of Drift-Wood. By HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, 204
The Last of His Race. By S. DRYDEN PHELPS, 220
The Sailor-Lover to His Mistress. By R. H. BACON, 233
The Spirit of Song. By Mrs. E. C. KINNEY, 238
The Ancient and the Modern Muse. By LYMAN LONG, 246
The Oak-Tree. By PARK BENJAMIN, 264
The Voice of the Night Wind. By E. CURTISS HINE, 274
The Dayspring. By SAMUEL D. PATTERSON, 281
The Adopted Child. By Mrs. FRANCES B. M. BROTHERSON, 295
The Pole's Farewell. By WM. H. C. HOSMER, 324
The Real and the Ideal. By MARION H. RAND, 341
The Human Voice. By GEO. P. MORRIS, 341
The Enchanted Isle. By LYDIA J. PEIRSON, 311
The Continents. By J. BAYARD TAYLOR, 312
Venice as It Was and as It Is. By PROFESSOR GOODRICH, 342
White Creek. By ALFRED B. STREET, 147
Years Ago. By GEORGE P. MORRIS, 190
REVIEWS.
The Poetical Works of Fitz-Greene Halleck, 70
The Poetical Works of Lord Byron, 71
The Life of Henry the Fourth, King of France
and Navarre. By G. P. R James, 72
Artist Life. By H. T. Tuckerman, 72
Poems of Early and After Years. By N. P. Willis, 132
Practical Physiology. By Edward Jarvis, 191
The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America. By A. J. DOWNING, 191
Historical and Select Memoirs of the Empress
Josephine. By M'lle. M. A. Le Normand, 239
Memoir of Sarah B. Judson. By "Fanny Forester," 240
The History of a Penitent. By George W. Bethune, D. D. 240
Keble's Christian Year, 240
Edith Kinnaird. By the Author of "The Maiden Aunt," 298
Jane Eyre. An Autobiography, 299
The Princess. By Alfred Tennyson, 300
The Origin, Progress and Conclusion of the
Florida War. By John T. Sprague, 300
The Poetical Works of John Milton, 300
An Universal History of the Most Remarkable Events of All
Nations, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, 354
Lectures on Shakspeare. By H. N. Hudson, 354
Military Heroes of the Revolution. By C. J. Peterson, 356
Old Hicks, the Guide. By C. W. Webber, 356
MUSIC.
Woman's Love. Poetry by Anon. Music by Mathias Keller, 188
Ben Bolt. The Words and Melody by Thomas Dunn English, 236
When Shall I See the Object that I Love. A
favorite Swiss Air. Music by J. B. Müller, 296
ENGRAVINGS.
Innocence, engraved by W. E. Tucker.
General Butler, engraved by Thomas B. Welsh.
A Portrait, engraved by Ross.
Beauty's Bath, engraved by Sartain.
Paris Fashions, from Le Follet.
Bridal Morning, engraved by A. B. Ross.
Expectation, engraved by J. Addison.
Contemplation, engraved by Addison.
Paris Fashions, from Le Follet.
Gen. Winfield Scott, engraved by Thos. B. Welsh.
Pauline Grey, engraved by J. B. Adams.
Paris Fashions, from Le Follet.
General Worth, engraved by Sartain.
Clara Harland, engraved by Addison.
Paris Fashions, from Le Follet.
Captain Walker, engraved by A. B. Walter.
Cincinnati, engraved by J. W. Steel.
Paris Fashions, from Le Follet.
GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE.
VOL. XXXII. PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY, 1848. No. 1.
LACE AND DIAMONDS.
OR TAKE CARE WHAT YOU DO.
BY THEODORE S. FAY.
"Don't be angry, ma'ma--I wont jest any more, if it displease you, but
I will make a plain confession."
"Well," said Mrs. Clifford, "let me hear it."
"I have not one feeling which I wish to conceal from you. There have
been moments when I liked Mr. Franklin," and a pretty color crossed
her cheek, "but I have been struck with a peculiarity which has
chilled warmer sentiments. He appears phlegmatic and cold. There is
about him a perpetual repose that seems inconsistent with energy and
feeling. I am not satisfied that I could be happy with such a
person--not certain that he is capable of loving, or of inspiring
love. When I marry any one, he must worship, he must adore me. He must
be ready to go crazy for me. Let him be full of faults, but let him
have--what so few possess--a warm, unselfish heart."
"I have heard you, through," said Mrs. Clifford, "now you must hear
me. It is very proper that you should not decide without full
consideration. Examine as long as you think necessary the qualities of
Mr. Franklin, and never marry him till he inspire you with confidence
and affection. But remember something is due also to him; and the
divine rule of acting toward others as you wish them to act toward
you, must be applied here, as in every affair in life. While you
should not, I allow, be hurried into a decision, yet your mind once
made up, he should not be kept a moment in suspense."
"Do you think, ma'ma," asked Caroline, "that he has much feeling?"
"I think he has. I think him peculiarly gifted with unselfish ardor.
That which appears to you coldness, is, in my opinion, the natural
reserve of a warm heart--so modest that it rather retires from
observation than parades itself before the world. Sentiment and fire,
when common on the lips, are not more likely to be native to the soul.
It is precisely that calm, that repose you allude to, which forms, in
my judgment, the guarantee of Mr. Franklin's sincerity, and the
finishing grace of his character--a character in all other respects,
also, a true and noble one."
Caroline did not listen without interest.
Mrs. Clifford was a native of New York, and had come over just a year
ago to enjoy a tour in Europe. Franklin had been a fellow-passenger;
and a sort of intimacy had grown up between the young people, which
the gentleman had taken rather _au serieux_. He had gladly availed
himself of an accidental business necessity which called the son and
proposed traveling companion of Mrs. Clifford suddenly home, to join
her little party, and had accompanied them through Italy, France,
Germany, Belgium, and Holland. The result was, that the happiness of
his life now appeared to depend upon an affirmative monosyllable in
reply to the offer he had just made of his heart and hand. Mrs.
Clifford was the widow of a captain in the American navy, who had left
her only a moderate income--sufficient, but no more, for the wants of
herself and daughter. Mr. Franklin was a lawyer of six-and-twenty, who
had been advised to repair the effects of too severe professional
application, by change of air, and a year's idleness and travel.
The conversation was scarcely finished, when the subject of it was
announced.
After the usual salutations, Mr. Franklin said he had come, according
to appointment, to accompany the ladies on a walk, and to see the
lions of London, where they had arrived some days before. In a few
minutes, hats, shawls, and gloves, being duly put in requisition, they
had left their lodgings in Grosvenor Street, Grosvenor Square, and
were wending their way toward Regent Street and the Strand, through
the crowds of this wonderful and magnificent metropolis, of which
every thing was a delightful curiosity, and where, amid the millions
around, they knew and were known by scarcely a human creature.
Every stranger, newly arrived and walking about London, has noted the
effect of this prodigious town upon him; and how singularly he is lost
in its immensity, overwhelmed by its grandeur, and bewildered amid its
endless multiplicity of attractions. So it was with our little party.
Excited by the thousand novel and dazzling objects, the hours fleeted
away like minutes; and it was late before they had executed or even
formed any plans.
"Let us at least go somewhere," said Caroline. "Let us go to St.
Paul's, or Westminster Abbey, or the Tower; and we have, beside,
purchases to make--for ladies, you know, Mr. Franklin, have always
shopping to do."
"Well, as it is so late," said Mrs. Clifford, "and we have promised to
call on Mrs. Porter at half past two, I propose to leave the lions for
another morning, and only enjoy our walk to-day."
"Then, ma'ma, let us go to that splendid shop, and look at the lace
once more. Only think, Mr. Franklin, we yesterday saw lace, not
broader than this, and I had a half fancy to buy some for a new
dress--and what do you suppose it cost?"
"I am little versed," said Franklin, "in such mysteries--five pounds,
perhaps--"
"Twelve pounds--twelve pounds and a half sterling--sixty American
dollars. I never saw any thing so superb. Ma'ma says I ought not even
to look at such a luxury."
"But is lace really such a luxury?" inquired Franklin, smiling.
"You can have no idea how exquisite this is!"
"As for me," rejoined Franklin, "I can never tell whether a lady's
lace is worth twelve pounds or twelve cents. Although, I hope, not
insensible to the general effect of a toilette, yet lace and diamonds,
and all that sort of thing, are lost upon me entirely."
"Oh, you barbarian!"
"Real beauty was never heightened by such ornaments, and ugliness is
invariably rendered more conspicuous and ugly."
"You will not find many ladies," said Mrs. Clifford "to agree with
you."
"Oh, yes! How often do we hear of belles, as distinguished for the
simplicity of their toilette, as for the beauty of their persons. How
often in real life, and how frequently in novels. There you read that,
while the other ladies are shining in satin and lace, and blazing in
diamonds, the real rose of the evening eclipses them all in a plain
dress of white, without jewels, like some modest flower, unconscious
of her charms, and therefore attracting more attention."
"Well, I declare," said Mrs. Clifford, smiling, "it is just as you
say!"
"And what does Miss Caroline think of my attack on lace and diamonds?"
"Why," said Caroline, laughing, "since you do me the honor to require
my opinion, I will give it you. I agree that such pretending ornaments
ill become the old and ugly. There you are right. I agree that the
extremely beautiful may also dispense with them. These ball-room
belles of yours--these real roses of the evening--are, I suspect, so
lovely as to make them exceptions to the general rule. But there is a
class of young ladies, among whom I place myself, neither so old and
ugly as to make ornament ridiculous, nor so beautiful as to render it
unnecessary. To this middle class, a bit of lace--a neat tab--a string
of pearls here and there--a pretty worked cape--or a coronet of
diamonds, I assure you, do no harm."
"That you are not so ugly as to render ornament ridiculous," replied
Franklin, "I allow; but that there is, in your case, any want of
lovelines to require--to render--which--"
"Take care, Mr. Franklin!" interrupted Caroline, mischievously, "you
are steering right upon the rocks; and a gentleman who refuses all
decoration to a lady's toilette, should not embellish his own
conversation with flattery."
"Upon my word," replied he, in a lower voice, "to whatever class you
belong, Miss Clifford, you do yourself injustice if you suppose lace
and diamonds can add to the power of your beauty, any more than the
greatest splendor of fortune could increase the charms of your--"
"Ma'ma," exclaimed Caroline, "we have passed the lace shop."
"So we have," said Mrs. Clifford; "but why should we go back--you
certainly don't mean to buy any--?"
"No, ma'ma; but I want some edging, and I might as well get it here,
if only to enjoy another look at the forbidden fruit."
The shop was one of those magnificent establishments of late years
common in large metropolises. A long hall led from the street quite
back through the building, or rather masses of buildings, to another
equally elegant entrance on the parallel street behind. The doors were
single sheets of heavy plate-glass. In the windows all the glittering
and precious treasures of India and Asia seemed draped in gorgeous
confusion, and blazed also through unbroken expanses of limpid glass
of yet larger dimensions than the doors. Silks, laces, Cashmere
shawls, damask, heavy and sumptuous velvets of bright colors, and fit
for a queen's train, muslins of bewildering beauty, dresses at £200 a
piece, and handkerchiefs of Manilla of almost fabulous value. The
interior presented similar displays on all sides, multiplied by
reflections from broad mirrors, gleaming among marble columns. Perhaps
those numerous mirrors were intended to neutralize the somewhat gloomy
effect of the low ceiling, not sufficiently elevated to admit the
necessary light into the central spaces. At various points, even in
the day-time, gas-lights burned brilliantly. Before the door were
drawn up half a dozen elegant coroneted equipages, the well-groomed,
shining horses, and richly-liveried coachmen, indicating the rank of
the noble owners; and on the benches before the windows lounged the
tall and handsome footmen, with their long gold-headed sticks,
powdered heads, gaudy coats, brightcolored plush breeches, and white
silk stockings, and gloves.
In the shop there were, perhaps, fifty persons, as it happened to be a
remarkably fine day in June--one of those grateful gifts from heaven
to earth which lure people irresistibly out of the dark and weary
home, and which, when first occurring, after a long and dismal winter,
as in the present instance, appear to empty into the sunshiny streets,
every inhabitant, the sick and the well, the lame and the blind alike,
from every house in town.
Caroline asked to be shown some of the lace which she had looked at
the day before. It was produced, and Mrs. Clifford and Franklin were
called to examine it. The wonder consisted as much in the endless
variety of the patterns, as in the exquisite fineness and richness of
the material. The counter was soon strewn with the airy treasures, one
piece after another, unrolled with rapidity, appeared to make a lively
impression on the young girl, who at last, with a sigh, apologized to
the polite person patiently waiting the end of an examination which
his practiced eye had, doubtless, perceived was only one of vain
curiosity.
"It is too dear," said Caroline, "I cannot afford it. Pray let me see
some narrow edging."
"That lace is very pretty," remarked a lady of a commanding figure,
evidently a person of rank.
"Very pretty, my lady," replied the clerk who had waited on Caroline.
"What is it?"
"Twelve and a half, my lady."
"It is really pretty--give me twenty yards."
"Very good, my lady."
The article was measured and cut almost as soon as ordered, and the
remnant rewound into a small parcel and thrown upon the counter.
At the same moment, and as a boy handed Caroline the edging, wrapped
in paper, for which she had already paid, and which she took
mechanically, she heard one of the bystanders whisper to another: "The
Countess D----!" (one of the most celebrated women of England.)
"Ma'ma," said Caroline, "did you observe that lady?"
And they left the shop.
"Bless me!" said Mrs. Clifford, looking at her watch, "do you know how
late it is? Half past two. We promised to be at Mrs. Porter's at this
very time. She said, you remember, she was going out at four; and it
will take us, I'm afraid, nearly an hour to get there."
"Then let us make haste, ma'ma!"
And with a very rapid pace they hurried back toward Regent Street and
Portland Place. They had gone on in this way, perhaps, twenty minutes,
when a white-headed, respectable-looking old gentleman was thrust
aside by a rude fellow pushing by, so that he ran against Caroline,
and caused her to drop her pocket-handkerchief. He stopped, with
evident marks of mortification, and picked it up, with a polite
apology. Caroline assured him she was not hurt.
"But, my dear young lady," said the benevolent-looking old gentleman,
"let me return your parcel."
"Oh, that is not mine," replied Caroline.
"I beg your pardon, it fell with your handkerchief."
"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed Caroline, "what have I done! I have
brought away a piece of that lace! Ma'ma, let us go back directly."
Although the incident had occupied but a minute, Mrs. Clifford and
Franklin, engaged in conversation, had not perceived it, and had gone
several paces on. The old gentleman smiled, bowed, and disappeared
around a corner.
At this moment a man stepped up, and laying his hand roughly on
Caroline's arm, said,
"Young woman, you must come with me!"
And a second iron-hand grasped her other arm.
Shocked and affrighted, she saw they were policemen.
Then the voice of a person very much out of breath, cried,
"This is the one!--I can swear to her! And look!--there is the very
lace in her hand!"
Pale as death, bewildered with terror, the poor girl could only
attempt to say, "Ma'ma! ma'ma!" but her tongue clove to the roof of
her mouth, and her voice refused its office. A crowd had already
collected, and the words, "Lady been a stealing!" and, "They've nabbed
a thief!" were audible enough.
"Come, my beauty!" said the man, pulling her forward, "we've no time
to lose."
"Scoundrel!" cried the voice of Franklin, as he grasped him by the
throat, "who are you?"
"You see who we are;" was the stern reply; "we're policemen, in the
execution of our duty. Take your band off my throat."
Franklin recognized their uniform, and relaxed his hold.
"Policemen! and what have policemen to do with this lady? You have
made some stupid blunder. This is a lady. She is under my protection.
Take your hand off her arm!"
"If she's under your protection, the best thing you can do is to
accompany us," replied the man, bluntly; and he made another attempt
to drag her away.
Franklin restrained himself with an effort which did him honor,
conscious that violence would be here out of place, and perceiving
that it would be utterly useless. He strove a moment to collect his
thoughts as one stunned by a thunderbolt.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
"If you ask for information," remarked the man, impressed by his
agonized astonishment, "I will tell you; but wont the young woman get
into a hack, out of the crowd?"
An empty carriage happened to be passing, into which, like a man in a
dream, Franklin handed the ladies. One police officer entered with
them--the other took his seat on the box with the coachman. Caroline,
although still colorless, had partly regained her courage, and
endeavored to smile. Mrs. Clifford, in a most distressing state of
agitation, only found breath to say, "Well, this is a pretty
adventure, upon my word!"
As the carriage moved away, followed by a troop of ragamuffins,
leaping, laughing, and shouting, Franklin said,
"And now, my good fellow, I have submitted peaceably to this atrocious
outrage, tell me by whose authority you act, and in what way this
young lady has exposed herself to such an infamous insult?"
"Well, in the first place," said the man, coolly, "I act by the
authority of the Messieurs Blake, Blanchard & Co.; and in the second
place, the young lady has exposed herself to such an infamous insult
by stealing ten yards of Brussels' lace, at £12 a yard, value £120
sterling."
"Scoundrel!" exclaimed Franklin, again grasping his collar.
"Hollo! hollo! hollo!" cried the man--hands off, my cove! and keep a
civil tongue in your head, you'd best. It aint of no use, I give you
my word of honor."
"Miss Clifford--"
But Miss Clifford had covered her face with her white hands, which did
not conceal her still whiter complexion.
"Why, look ye, sir,", said the man, "if you really aint a party to the
offence, I'm very sorry for you. The business is just this here. The
shop of Blake, Blanchard & Co., has been frequently robbed, and
sometimes by ladies. I was called, not four mouths ago, to take a real
lady to prison, who had stole to the amount of £10. And to prison she
went, too, though some of the most respectable people in town came
down and begged for her. Now this here young lady came yesterday to
the shop of Blake, Blanchard & Co.--tumbled every thing upside down,
and bought nothing--went away--to-day came again--asked to see the
most valuable lace--bought ten shillings' worth of narrow edging, and
left the premises. At her departure she was seen to take ten yards of
lace--value, £120. I was called in, and followed her, with one of the
clerks, to identify her person. We perceived her walking fast--very
fast, indeed. It was as much as we could do to overtake her. The clerk
can swear to her identity--and the lace was found in her hand. Both
the young man and myself can swear to it, if she denies it--though I
caution you, Miss, not to say any thing at present, because it can be
used against you at your trial."
"I do not deny it," said Caroline, with flashing eyes. "I took the
lace, but did not know I took it."
"Oh! ho-ho!" said the man. "I hope you can make 'em believe that.
Perhaps you can."
"My dear friend," cried Mrs. Clifford, now nearly beside herself, "I
assure you, this is a frightful mistake. She carried the lace away
from mere carelessness. Here is all the money I have about me. Take it
for yourself, only let us go. My daughter, I assure you, is utterly
incapable of stealing. You don't know her. As for the lace, I am
willing to pay for it. My name is Mrs. Clifford. I live No. ----
Grosvenor Street, Grosvenor Square. My dear, kind, good sir, turn the
carriage and let us go home. My husband was Captain Clifford, of the
American navy. Do you think we would be guilty of stealing? I will
give you any money you desire. I will give you £50--only let us go."
"If your husband was Admiral Nelson himself," replied the man, with
dignity, "I could not let you go now--not if you were to give me £500.
I have only to do my duty. It's a very painful one--but it must be
done. I aint a judge. I'm a policeman; and my business is to deliver
you safe into the hands of Blake, Blanchard & Co."
To describe the whirl of thoughts which swept through the mind of
Franklin during the interval would be impossible. He saw that a simple
act of carelessness had been committed by Caroline; but he was enough
of a lawyer to perceive that the proof against her was singularly
striking and unanswerable--and he knew the world too well, not to feel
extraordinary alarm at the possible consequences. In London, alone,
without friends or acquaintances, a glance into the future almost
drove him to distraction. At moments he was half mastered by the
impulse to bear Caroline away, by a sudden _coup de main_; but his
hand was held by the reflection, that even were such a wild scheme
possible, success would be no means of security, inasmuch as Mrs.
Clifford had given her address; while the attempt would exasperate the
other party, appear but a new evidence of guilt, and in every way
enhance the danger of their position.
As they approached the fatal shop, a large crowd had collected around
the door. Franklin felt that he was in one of those crises on which
hang human destiny and life, and that he had need of more prudence and
wisdom than man can possess, except it be given him from above. Deep,
therefore, and trusting, was his silent prayer to Him who hath said,
"_Be strong and of a good courage. I will not fail thee, nor forsake
thee._"
Caroline appeared ready to sink into the earth when the carriage
stopped.
"My dearest Miss Clifford," said Franklin, "these men have fallen into
a bungling error, and it will require some prudence on our part to
make them see it. But compose yourself. Put down your veil; say
nothing till I call you--and may God, in his mercy, grant that our
ordeal be short!"
These words were uttered with a composure and cheerful presence of
mind which reassured in some degree the fainting girl. She had at her
side a protector who would never desert her--a pilot with a strong
arm, a steady eye, and a bold heart--who would steer her through the
wild storm, if any human being could.
Mrs. Clifford, speechless with terror, let down her daughter's veil as
well as her shaking hands permitted, and was led by Franklin from the
carriage into the house. He then handed, or rather lifted, out
Caroline, who clung to him with helplessness and terror. The trembling
party--a hundred unfeeling eyes bent upon them--were conducted
through the shop to a back parlor, into the presence of Mr. Jennings,
the only one of the firm of Blake, Blanchard & Co. who happened to be
at home. As Franklin saw him his heart sank in his bosom, and the
courage which had begun to mount with the danger, seemed a mockery.
Mr. Jennings was a respectable looking man of forty, of a thin, hard
countenance, repelling manners, and sharp voice, which, when excited,
rose to a piercing and discordant note. There was no sign of mercy or
moderation in his physiognomy. This man, who, after faithful
subordinate services, had become the inferior and hardest working
partner, happened to be afflicted with a very violent temper, which
had been wrought into a rage by various recent purloinings, apparently
like the present, attributed to female customers, and perpetrated with
a combined cunning and daring which baffled detection, and he had long
yearned to lay his hand upon one of them. His passions and interests
were mingled together in this desire, which, in addition, he supposed
fully sanctioned by duty; and when a man, and particularly such a man,
of a narrow mind and cold heart--loving power, and rarely enabled to
taste its sweets, once gets into his head the idea that he is acting
from duty--God help the poor victim that falls within his grasp.
Such was the individual before whom, in the attitude of a detected
criminal, was dragged the sweet and trembling girl. Such was the man
before whom Franklin stood, curbing within the limits of prudence his
high wrought feelings.
"Now, my honest women," said Jennings, seating himself magisterially
in a large arm-chair by a table, while the rest stood in a circle
around, like prisoners at a bar before their judge, "what have you to
say with regard to the atrocious act of felony--"
"One moment, sir," said Franklin. "You will have the kindness to order
chairs for those ladies."
Mr. Jennings paused, fixed a surprised glance at the speaker, and
obeyed.
"Well then, _now_--" demanded he.
"I beg your pardon!" again interrupted Franklin, "permit me, in your
own interest, to make another suggestion. Before you proceed in this
examination, I warn you, with all deference to the sincerity of your
present error, that you have before you two ladies of respectability,
and unblemished reputation, and who are entirely innocent in this
matter."
"Bah!" ejaculated Mr. Jennings.
"Silence, sir," cried Franklin, with an indignation irrepressible.
"You have dragged before you through the streets of London, a young
and innocent girl, like a criminal. If circumstances seem for a moment
to give you the right, humanity, as well as decency requires, at least
till the question of her guilt be settled, that you address her with
respect, and hear her defence with candor and attention."
Mr. Jennings turned pale, swallowed his rage, and replied: "Speak,
sir! speak, sir! I am all candor and attention."
"I beg your pardon," resumed Franklin, "if I have answered with too
much asperity. But this young lady is perfectly innocent. She has high
friends. You will consider her under the protection of the American
Ambassador at this Court! State to me, if you please, your reasons for
dragging her before you in the custody of policemen."
Awed by Franklin's tone, but rather infuriated than melted, Mr.
Jennings answered with sarcastic politeness--
"Certainly, sir, your request is a just one. The case is this. The
young lady came to my shop this morning, and had brought out for her
examination the most expensive lace, of which, however, she purchased
none, but, instead, expended ten shillings for some narrow edging. I
must inform you that persons in the dress of ladies, and even persons
in the rank of ladies, have more than once committed thefts of this
kind, and I have ordered one of the young men to watch. This
individual saw in a mirror the young lady, as she was about to leave,
seize a parcel of lace, and carry it out under cover of her
pocket-handkerchief. We sent directly for policemen--but so rapid was
the flight of the party, including yourself, that it was not without
considerable difficulty and delay that they were overtaken, when the
stolen lace was found in her hand. We are often obliged to forego the
gratification of punishing such misdemeanors by the technical
difficulty of proving the crime upon the criminal. You perceive how
the present case stands. I am willing to allow it is but fair you
should be heard, if you have any thing to say in reply."
"I have much to say," resumed Franklin, smiling with assumed
confidence, "enough to satisfy any reasonable man, and I hope I stand
before such a one. That the young lady took the lace no one can deny.
But I will tell you how she took it. For the first time in London, her
mind naturally excited, she was bewildered amid the novel and
interesting objects around her. The splendor of your establishment
dazzled her eyes and distracted her attention. In company with her
mother and myself she came here to see the lace in question, but she
could not have intended to steal it, if I must answer to such a
charge, because it would have been impossible for her to use such an
article without the knowledge of her mother. If she is a thief her
mother and I share her guilt. I therefore repeat to you that these
ladies can command references to raise them above the slightest breath
of suspicion--references sufficient to satisfy the most
incredulous--the most unreasonable. She is a person of the purest life
and strongest principles. Not one of her friends, and, after a proper
examination, not one of the public, will ever believe her guilty of
any thing worse than a mere moment of bewilderment and absence of
mind."
"Upon my word, sir," said Mr. Jennings, "you have undertaken a pretty
difficult task--no less than to convince me that black is white, and
that two and two don't make four. Who are you?--and where are your
references?"
Franklin did not succeed in concealing a certain trepidation at this
blunt demand, and it was not lost upon Jennings.
"My references do not reside in England."
"Ah! ha!"
"I am a stranger in your metropolis."
"Oh! ho!"
"And therefore," added Franklin, "every noble-minded and fair-play
loving Englishman will say, possessing greater claim upon your
moderation. I can bring you, from my own country--through the official
intervention of the American Minister, references to outweigh a
thousand fold--ten million fold--all opposite appearances. I can give
a moral demonstration that the intentional commission by this young
lady of the act with which she is charged, is an utter, and a
ridiculous impossibility."
"I have now heard you," said Jennings, "and I am sorry to say, I must,
notwithstanding, send the lady before a magistrate. The ingenious
arguments you have used are equally applicable to every theft. No
reference--no rank--no character can weigh against so plain a fact,
proved by ocular demonstration. No rational judge or jury can doubt
she _stole_ the lace. It is my duty to make an example of her. This is
not the first, nor the second time, we have been robbed by ladies in
affluent circumstances, and respectably connected. It is a peculiar
crime, and generally committed in a way which renders it both
difficult and dangerous, even when we know the criminal, to attempt to
fix the fact upon her. This time we have caught her in the very _act_.
We have eye-witnesses enough to render doubt impossible. She does not
deny it. She fled with precipitation. She was overtaken a long
distance off--nearly half an hour after the offence--the lace was
found in her hand--and her companion tried to bribe the policeman with
£50 to let her escape. And do you now talk to me of 'respectability,'
and 'connections,' and such nonsense? I would go as far as you or any
man to save an innocent person from destruction. But when once
convinced, by my own eyes, of deliberate guilt, it is too late for
mercy. The ignorant beggar, who steals to save himself from starving,
I could pity--I could almost release; but when the rich and the
educated resort to stealing, to gratify their vanity and avarice,
hoping to shelter themselves from punishment by their 'connections,'
and their high position in society--they must be taught, sir, that
they do it at a fearful peril, and that detection will bring down upon
them the same vulgar and rigorous penalties as if they were the lowest
dregs of the people."
"I agree with you perfectly," replied Franklin, with forced composure,
although the plain picture appalled him, and robbed his countenance of
every trace of color, "but permit me to remark that you must be quite
sure the person before you belongs to this guilty class. Her innocence
can be rendered morally certain. The whole world will brand as cruel
injustice any harsh treatment. A careless girl has been absent-minded.
All people are liable to be so. You look for your spectacles when they
are on your nose--or seek your pocket-handkerchief, and find it in
your hand--"
"Our opinions differ on that point," said Mr. Jennings coldly, "and a
jury must decide between us. Policemen, take the party before the
magistrate. I will follow with my witnesses, and I pledge myself to
visit so heinous a crime with the utmost rigor of the law."
The policemen stepped to the side of Caroline.
"I appeal to your generosity--to your mercy," cried Franklin, "that
she may at least be taken to the American Minister, instead of being
dragged before a magistrate. I request only that you act with
gentleness."
Mr. Jennings pointed the policemen to the door.
"And I not only request, I demand it!" cried Franklin. "If you refuse
me, you refuse me at your peril--"
"You have nothing to command here, sir," replied Mr. Jennings. "The
American Minister can make his statement before the magistrate. I am
not disposed to exercise the least mercy. Policemen, your duty. If her
fate be a terrible one, she has herself to thank for it. I hope it may
deter others from following her example."
"And what will be my daughter's fate?" asked the unsteady voice of
Mrs. Clifford.
"Transportation for life," was the reply.
Mrs. Clifford shrieked. Caroline rose wildly and staggered toward the
door. Mr. Jennings, as if thirsting for her destruction, and fearing
her escape, seized her so roughly that she screamed with pain and
terror, when Franklin dragged him back and hurled him to the wall. His
impulse was to strike him to the earth, but with one of the highest
qualities attained by man, self-government, he recollected himself and
refrained.
"Policemen," shouted Mr. Jennings, very white, "I command you to take
the whole party into custody. You witnessed the assault. I am in
danger of my life. They are a gang of thieves and cut-throats. Off
with them this instant."
"Stop!" cried Franklin, and there was something in his voice which
arrested the step of the policemen, and _compelled_ Jennings to stand
in breathless attention. "I demand the presence of one or both of your
partners, before the young lady be removed. You will not, because you
_dare_ not, refuse me this reasonable request. If you do, sir, it were
better you never had been born. Guilty, or not guilty, the person
whom, before she has been tried, your infamous lips have branded as a
common thief, has a right to all mild and gentle treatment, consistent
with law and justice. You say the jury will decide. But the question
is now whether your house is prepared to send her before a jury. That
is the question to be discussed, and you are not in a temper of mind,
sir, to enable you to decide it impartially. The affair will ring from
one end of England and the United States to the other, and the
execrations of thousands, who have as yet never heard of you, will
fall upon your name. You will find that there are two sides to the
question. You will find that if the lady has a malignant accuser she
has also indignant and powerful defenders. The world will say you
might have been excusable not to release her, but you had no right to
hurry her before the public with needless and brutal precipitation.
They will say--and I will take care to tell them--that, overcome by
your violent temper, you insulted--you _assaulted_--a helpless young
girl in your power, whose guilt had not been proved, and that, because
I dragged you back--blind with wrath, and burning with revenge--you
dared to take upon yourself, alone, the whole responsibility of this
outrage, which will bring punishment on you, and disgrace on your
house. They will say let no lady hereafter trust herself across the
threshold of Blake, Blanchard & Co., where the watch is set and the
trap laid for the unwary. They will say that Mr. Jennings is a foul
calumniator of woman as a sex--that he has charged the noble ladies of
England with crime. They will judge whether the young girl could be
guilty without the participation of her mother and myself, who, as you
say, fled with her. The case is one of mere carelessness, or we are
three thieves. Go on, if you dare, without your partners. Your house,
will become infamous, and you--yourself--mark me, sir, shall not
escape the chastisement you deserve!"
He ceased, and the silence remained for a while unbroken.
This appeal was not, on the part of Franklin, the mere result of
passion and despair, although from both it received a strange power.
It was a wise calculation that Jennings, who could not be reasoned or
melted, might be terrified from his purpose, till the arrival of his
partners, before whom the matter might take a different turn. By a
happy inspiration Franklin had read the man aright, and he saw changes
of countenance, as he proceeded, which gave boldness to his heart and
fire to his lips. Jennings was a coward. He was terror-struck at the
idea of acting on his "sole responsibility," in an affair which seemed
likely to be so hotly contested. The blood curdled in his veins at the
thought of the deadly enemies, darkly hinted at, and the consequences
clearly threatened. He saw Caroline was no common thief, and Franklin
no common man. There were moments when he actually believed the fact
really was as Franklin represented--and, thus quailing under the
torrent of eloquence to which the voice and manner gave something
absolutely irresistible, half suffocated with rage and fear, he said
with ill assumed indifference:
"Oh! very well, sir, very well. I will wait for my partners. Nothing
shall be done rashly. Nothing from revenge. But the young lady shall
not escape. Mr. Williams, go and see if Mr. Blake or Mr. Blanchard
have come in."
And thus at least more time was gained.
Mr. Williams went out, and returned to say that Mr. Blake had not yet
come in, but Mr. Blanchard had, and would join them immediately.
The door opened and the person in question entered. He was a young man
of thirty, of unusually prepossessing exterior. A stream of hope shot
through Franklin's heart as he read his face.
Mr. Blanchard seated himself gravely in the large chair which was
abdicated in his favor by Jennings, who related to him the facts,
respectfully and clearly, and called up the policemen and Mr. Williams
in confirmation.
"It is a bad case," said Mr. Blanchard. "Our duty is clear. Is there
any thing said in the defence?"
"Oh yes, there is a powerful defence!" replied Mr. Jennings, with a
sneer, "the young lady took the lace, and kept it half an hour,
running away as fast as she could, but she _but she didn't know she
had it_!! ha! ha! ha!"
Mr. Blanchard shook his head.
"Sir, may I speak?" said Franklin.
"Speak," returned Mr. Blanchard, in a low voice. "If you have any
thing to say I will hear it with the sincerest desire to find it of
weight. But you have a difficult task before you. These occasions are
extremely painful. The necessity of sending to prison a respectable
young lady, as you represent this person to be, is harrowing indeed;
but private feelings must give way to higher considerations. I have a
duty to perform--a duty to society--a duty to my partners--a duty to
God!"
"You have," rejoined Franklin, "but if you properly examine your
conscience, and ask light of Him who knows the truth, you will hear
the voice of God himself, warning you not to perform that duty
prematurely, carelessly, or cruelly. I ask time. I offer references to
prove that the person in question, from education, character, habits,
opinions, religious principles, and her whole, pure and artless life,
is not, and could not be intentionally guilty of the act in question.
I request time to produce these references. My young companion took
the lace in a moment of bewilderment--of absence of mind. She has just
arrived in London--is dazzled and excited. If, sir, you have a sister,
a daughter, a mother, a wife, picture her--after such a careless
accident--grasped by a policeman, dragged through the streets, exposed
to the eyes of the jesting crowd--the blackest construction put upon
her action, shrinking before a magistrate, cast into prison, and, God
knows what else!--and all because of an act, not in reality more
inexplicable than that of a man who walks off with a hat not his own,
or another person's umbrella--in a fit of forgetfulness."
Jennings leaned over and whispered something to Mr. Blanchard.
"It is quite probable," said Mr. Blanchard, "that you believe her
innocent, but the various and glaring circumstances do not permit me
to be of your opinion. The expressive flight, the intervening time,
long enough to discover a mistake merely accidental--the bribe of
£50--no--no--it is impossible," said he, rising, "I am sorry for you,
sir, but this matter rests no longer with me. The prisoner must be
removed."
"What I ask," said Franklin, "is not her release. It is only time to
make you acquainted with the proofs of which the case is susceptible.
The 'prisoner,' as you call her, is as innocent as the snow yet
unfallen from heaven. I do not ask you to sacrifice what you fancy
your duty, I ask you only to pause ere you execute it. I request you
ere you thrust a shrinking girl, as a suspected thief, before the
public, that you more carefully examine her side of the question. Her
bankers, the Messrs. Baring, will answer for her presence whenever you
desire. My banker will answer for her. The American Minister will
satisfy you of the strong impropriety of any other proceeding. Oh!
sir, in the name of a mother's breaking heart--in the name of sweet
girlish innocence--in the name of God, believe what I say! If you err,
err on the side of mercy. Think, when you lay your head this night on
your pillow, the day has not been lost, for it was marked by an act of
mercy. Think, when on your death-bed, you plead at the throne of God,
He has said, 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.'
If she really had committed the offence, I should not fear to ask you
for mercy on her young head--her inexperienced life. Our Divine Master
granted mercy even to the guilty. Will you refuse it then to this
trembling and innocent girl, for whose guileless intention, in this
terrible accident, I answer before man and God, and with my life and
soul. Come here, Miss Clifford! Take off your veil. Tell Mr.
Blanchard, in the simple language of truth, how this incident took
place."
"Yes, come here, my young friend," said Mr. Blanchard, "and tell me
how this sad mistake arose."
Perhaps it was Franklin's eloquence--perhaps it was Caroline's
appearance--perhaps it was both, which drew the silent tear from Mr.
Blanchard's eyes, and those two significant words from his lips. But
oh! to Franklin's soul, wrought up almost to despair--almost, to
madness--they were rapture, they were ecstasy, they were like the
first streak of golden sky which announces to the half-wrecked sailor
that the tempest is over.
"Speak, my dear young lady," said Mr. Blanchard, "do not tremble so!
you have nothing to fear from me!"
"I left the door," said Caroline, in a low voice, "without knowing I
had the lace. A gentleman ran against me and knocked it out of my
hand. He picked it up. I then saw what I had done. I exclaimed,
'ma'ma, let us go back!'--but ma'ma had gone on--I was alone--two men
seized me--and--and--"
She covered her face with her hands, and sunk into the chair.
"But, so far from coming back," said Mr. Jennings' piercing voice,
"you were walking rapidly away."
"No," said Caroline.
"But I say yes!" screamed Jennings. "Mr. Williams, was not the young
woman walking rapidly away?"
"She _had been_ walking rapidly," said Mr. Williams, "but when we came
up she was, as she says, standing still, looking at the lace. It is
also true that an old gentleman ran against her, knocked the lace out
of her hand, and picked it up again. That I saw from the distance."
"Mark you!" exclaimed Franklin, "how each small feature of her story
is confirmed."
"But you left our door," exclaimed Mr. Jennings, "at a furious pace."
"That I can explain to your satisfaction," said Franklin. "We were
engaged to call upon a lady, Mrs. Porter, No. ----, Portland-Place, at
half past two. This Mrs. Porter herself can testify. We left your door
too late, and walked rapidly to keep our appointment. You can
ascertain from your clerks at what hour we left."
"It was just half past two," said Mr. Williams. "I looked at the
clock."
"Mark!" cried Franklin, with an air of triumph.
"Upon my word, Mr. Jennings," said Mr. Blanchard, "we have been too
hasty--"
At this moment the door opened, and another person entered.
"Just in time," muttered Mr. Jennings.
It was Mr. Blake, chief partner in the firm of Blake, Blanchard & Co.
He was a venerable old gentleman, of an agreeable person, with a
certain dignity which well became his snow-white hair, but through
which, on the present occasion, appeared a settled firmness, almost a
sternness, boding no good.
"You have come in time," said Jennings. "Do you know what is going on
here?"
"I do. The facts have been related to me."
"And the famous defence?" added Jennings, with one of his worst
sneers, "do you know that also?"
"I do. It is a clear case. There is but one course for us."
"And yet," cried Jennings, "Mr. Blanchard has been thinking it will
not do to send so respectable a young lady to prison. But I say you
will not have a case in forty years so proper to make a wholesome
example of. If you let this one go, whom can you punish? Precautions
were useless, if thieves can commit their depredations under our very
noses with impunity."
"I am of your opinion," said Mr. Blake. "The offence is of a very
aggravated description; and I deem it absolutely necessary to send the
delinquent before a magistrate to be punished as she deserves."
"I have explained--" said Franklin.
But while he commenced once more his agonizing task, Mr. Jennings took
Mr. Blake aside, and whispered to him some minutes vehemently.
Franklin attempted to speak again.
"I will hear no explanation," said the old gentleman. "No argument--no
character--no references can prevail against so wicked a felony so
clearly proved. The youth, condition in life, and education of the
person, only render the crime more detestable, and the necessity for a
terrible example more unavoidable. Your own good sense should have
taught you, sir, that threats are here out of place, and violence can
only make matters worse. I have solemnly vowed that I would meet the
next case with the utmost rigor of the law. I am determined to
prosecute. Where is the prisoner? Policemen, take her into custody."
"But," cried Franklin.
"I will hear no more," said Mr. Blake, coldly and firmly. "Mr.
Jennings, who has gone over the case with the most attention, is
thoroughly convinced--"
"Thoroughly!" said Mr. Jennings.
"Policemen--"
Franklin's brain whirled in wild despair. He clasped his hands--he
conjured the mild, mistaken man, whose slightest word could save
Caroline from destruction.
"Mercy! I ask only one day."
"Young man, you plead in vain! Ask mercy of God, but not of me."
"Then listen, heart of stone!" cried Franklin, "and hear my final
words. You are old. Your head is white; your feet are already in the
grave. You will, ere long, be called before your Maker--yourself a
trembling suppliant for mercy. If, with cold-blooded, stupid
obstinacy, in the face of my warning, you drag this innocent and
modest girl, prematurely, into a police office--at a bar for
criminals--to stand a spectacle for the public, amid robbers, and
murderers, and to run the fearful chances of the law, I solemnly warn
you, old man, you will have innocent blood on your conscience--you
will call down God's curse upon your head."
"What can I do?" said Mr. Blake, overwhelmed by his irresistible
earnestness.
"You can do unto others, as you would have them do unto you--you can
give us time for proof, and yourself for reflection. You can suppose
it was your own daughter in her place. You can examine more carefully.
You can break from the leading-strings of that malignant Mr. Jennings.
You can consult with Mr. Blanchard, a man of reason and feeling, who
disapproves your severity. You can wait to satisfy yourself that this
young lady is distinguished for a stainless character, a pure life,
strict religious principles, humble faith in God, and habitual
communion with him. You can judge for yourself whether this is a case
of _monomania_--whether a person thus distinguished, could be guilty
of intentional purloining. Sir, ocular demonstration weighs _nothing_
against such a character. You can ask yourself more dispassionately
whether it be not a possibility--a very natural one--for an
absent-minded person to commit such an act mechanically and
unconsciously. You can hear her artless story from her own lips, and
candidly consider if it _may not_ be the truth."
Carried away by Franklin's eloquent vehemence, Mr. Blake did look.
Caroline had risen. The last spark of earthly hope had fled. She
stood, without gesture or tear. It seemed as if death had already
laid his icy hand upon her, only her eyes were lifted above, while she
breathed a silent prayer to Him whose mighty hand can raise the
trusting heart, in one instant, from the lowest depths of despair.
"Ha! What! God bless my soul!" suddenly ejaculated the old gentleman,
in great astonishment. "What do I see! My dearest, sweetest young
lady! Mr. Blanchard! Mr. Jennings! Mr. Williams--"
Caroline gazed at him a moment--uttered a shriek which thrilled to
every heart with an electric shock, cried, "Oh, sir, save me--_you_
can save me!" and fell insensible into the arms of Franklin.
"Policemen!--off with you!" cried Mr. Blake, with tears in his eyes.
"Mr. Jennings, you are a fool! I answer with my life for this young
lady. I ran against her in the street. I picked up the lace, and saw
her look of astonishment and horror; and heard her exclaim, '_ma'ma!
let us go back directly!_' Go, proclaim to every one in the
establishment that she is innocent. We are the guilty party--and we
are at _her_ mercy!"
To terminate the exciting scene, Franklin proposed to return home. A
carriage was called. Caroline had revived, and her feelings,
fortunately, found vent in tears. She wept bitterly on her mother's
bosom, who gave it back with interest. But in the midst of their joy,
not one of the three forgot to offer up their secret, thankful prayer,
to that overruling Providence, whose watchful mercy had rescued them
from a fate too horrible for imagination.
Franklin could scarcely wait till they walked to the carriage. He
wished to carry--to drag Caroline away. He shifted his position
continually, without apparent cause; at last shook hands with his
companions, saying he would follow the carriage, as he wanted air and
exercise.
They soon arrived home, where Caroline, in a high state of excitement,
was ordered to bed by a physician; but, after soothing medicines had
calmed certain hysterical symptoms, she fell into a deep sleep, which
the doctor said was worth more than all the apothecaries could
compound. In fact, she did not wake till late next morning, and in a
day or two was comparatively restored.
But poor Franklin had gone home in a raging fever, which increased
during the night to delirium. His ravings were of magistrates, the
jeering crowd, dungeons, chains, and the convict-ship. Then he was at
the penal settlement. He heard the frightful oaths, obscene jests, and
blasphemous laughter of the convicts. Among them he beheld Caroline
Clifford--haggard, and in rags--now toiling at her task, now shrieking
beneath the bloody lash--and he seemed to grasp the throat of
Jennings, and implored him to stay his hellish hand.
More than a month passed before he was sufficiently recovered to leave
his room. Every day Mrs. Clifford had visited him, and watched over
him with a mother's love. Every day the carriage of Mr. Blake brought
the old gentleman to the bed-side of the poor invalid, where he
listened to the ravings of his disturbed imagination, and shuddered
to think of what horrors--but for a providential coincidence--he might
have added to the history of human wo.
At length Mr. Franklin was allowed to take a drive. It is scarcely
necessary to say that he called on the ladies. Mrs. Clifford,
previously apprized of his intended visit, at the sound of the bell,
accidentally remembered that she had left her scissors up stairs. So
Franklin found Caroline alone.
"You are very, very pale," cried the greatly agitated girl, her eyes
filling with good, honest tears, as she gave him her hand.
He raised it to his lips.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Clifford."
But, like Beatrice, she seemed to hold it there again with a fervor
which even the modest Franklin could not wholly misunderstand.
"I owe you more than my life," cried Caroline, with such a look as she
had never bestowed upon him before.
"And yet," cried Franklin, "you fraudulently withhold from me the only
payment in your power."
"Nonsense--what payment," cried she, blushing deeply.
"Your dear self!" answered Franklin, in a timid voice.
"Then you must collect your debt, as other hard-hearted creditors
do--by force."
"In that case," rejoined Franklin, with a boldness which astonished
himself, "an execution must issue, and proceedings commence directly."
Mrs. Clifford, having found her scissors, just then entered the room,
but not before the ardent lawyer had performed the threatened
duty--not quite so harrowing a one as that attempted by Mr. Jennings,
though it led to the same result, viz., she was obviously
_transported_, and, as it turned out---_for life_.
Nor is this all.
Old Mr. Blake had learned how the land lay from Mrs. Clifford, and he
resolved to make the young people reparation. He owed it to them in
all conscience. They were married in about six weeks; and when the
ceremony was over, a parcel was brought in, directed "_To Mrs.
Franklin, with the compliments of Messrs. Blake, Blanchard & Co.,_"
which, on being opened, was found to contain a superb Cashmere
shawl--thirty yards of the £12 lace, and a neat mahogany box, with a
coronet of diamonds for the young criminal.
We wont go into the history of the ladies' objections to accepting
these costly testimonials. Mr. Blake pleaded almost as eloquently as
Franklin had done, till at last Franklin "put his foot down," as I
recommend all young husbands to do on such occasions, and showed Mr.
Blake who was master.
Nor was this all either.
A number of years afterward, when Mr. and Mrs. Franklin had returned
to New York, and while the fond wife and happy mother was one day
profoundly engaged in arranging a highly ornamented and curious little
cap, her husband entered with a letter, and read as follows:
TO MRS. CAROLINE FRANKLIN.
_London, Feb_. 10, 184-.
MADAM,--It has become my duty to inform you, that,
by the will of the late Mr. Blake, of the firm of
Blake, Blanchard & Co., you have become entitled to
his blessing, and a legacy of £2500 sterling,
which, upon proving your identity, you can either
draw for on me, at thirty days, or have remitted in
any other way you desire.
I have the honor to be, madam, very respectfully,
your obedient servant,
JOHN LOCKLEY,
Solicitor, No. ---- Russel Square.
A FUNERAL THOUGHT.
BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.
When the pale Genius, to whose hollow tramp
Echo the startled chambers of the soul,
Waves his inverted torch o'er that wan camp
Where the archangel's marshaling trumpets roll,
I would not meet him in the chamber dim,
Hushed, and o'erburthened with a nameless fear,
When the breath flutters, and the senses swim,
And the dread hour is near!
Though Love's dear arms might clasp me fondly then,
As if to keep the Summoner at bay,
And woman's wo and the calm grief of men
Hallow at last the still, unbreathing clay--
These are Earth's fetters, and the soul would shrink,
Thus bound, from Darkness and the dread Unknown,
Stretching its arms from Death's eternal brink,
Which it must dare alone!
But in the awful silence of the sky,
Upon some mountain summit, never trod
Through the bright ether would I climb, to die
Afar from mortals, and alone with God!
To the pure keeping of the stainless air
Would I resign my feeble, failing breath,
And with the rapture of an answered prayer
Welcome the kiss of Death!
The soul, which wrestled with that doom of pain,
Prometheus-like, its lingering portion here,
Would there forget the vulture and the chain,
And leap to freedom from its mountain-bier!
All that it ever knew, of noble thought,
Would guide it upward to the glorious track,
Nor the keen pangs by parting anguish wrought,
Turn its bright glances back!
Then to the elements my frame would turn;
No worms should riot on my coffined clay,
But the cold limbs, from that sepulchral urn,
In the slow storms of ages waste away!
Loud winds, and thunder's diapason high,
Should be my requiem through the coming time,
And the white summit, fading in the sky,
My monument sublime!
THE MEMORIAL TREE.
BY WM. GILMORE SIMMS, AUTHOR OF "THE YEMASSE," "RICHARD HURDIS," ETC.
Great trees that o'er us grow--
Green leaves that gather round them--the fresh hues,
That tell of fruit, and blossoms yet to blow,
Opening fond bosoms to the embracing dews;
These, now so bright,
That deck the slopes about thy childhood's home,
And seem, in long duration, to thy sight,
As they had promise of perpetual bloom;
So linked with all
The first dear throbs of feeling in thy heart,
When, at the dawn of summer and of fall,
Thou weptst the leaf that must so soon depart!
What had all these,
Of frail, deciduous nature, to persuade,
Howe'er their sweets might charm, and beauty please,
The memories that their own could never aid?
They kept no tale--
No solemn history of the fruitful hour;
The lover's promise, the beloved one's wail--
To wake the dead leaf in each lonely bower!
The autumn breath
O'erthrew each frail memorial of their past;
And every token was resigned to death,
In the first summons of the northern blast.
They nourished naught
That to the chain of moral being binds
The recollections of the once gay spot,
And its sweet offices, to future minds.
Thou may'st repair--
Thou, who hast loved in summer-eve to glide
With her whom thou hast still beheld as fair,
When she no longer wandered by thy side.
And thou wilt weep
Each altered aspect of that happiest home,
Which saw the joys its memories could not keep,
Save by the sympathy which shares their doom.
Thus Ruin stands
For Ruin--and the wreck of favorite things,
To him who o'er the waste but wrings his hands,
Proofs of the _fall_, and not the spring-time brings.
Ah! who will weep,
In after seasons, when thou too art gone,
Within this grot, where shadowy memories keep
Their watch above the realm they keep alone?
Who will lament,
In fruitless tears, that she the dear one died,
And thy surviving heart, in languishment,
Soon sought the grave and withered at her side?
A newer bright
Makes young the woods--and bowers that not to thee
Brought fruit or blossom, triumph in the sight
Of those who naught but fruit and blossom see;
To whom no voice
Whispers, that through the loved one's would the root
Of that exulting shrub, with happiest choice,
Has gone, with none its passage to dispute.
While thine own heart,
In neighboring hillock, conscious, it may be--
Quivers to see the fibres rend and part
The fair white breast which was so dear to thee.
Of all the past,
That precious history of thy love and youth,
When not a cloud thy happy dawn o'ercast,
When all thou felt'st was joy, thou saw'st was truth;
These have no speech
For idiot seasons that still come and go--
To whom the heart no offices can teach,
Vainer than breezes that at midnight blow!
And yet there seem
Memorials still in nature, which are taught,--
Unless all pleasant fancies be a dream,
To bring our sweetest histories back to thought.
A famous tree
Was this, three hundred years ago, when stood
The hunter-chief below it, bold and free,
Proud in his painted pomp and deeds of blood.
By hunger taught,
He gathered the brown acorn in its shade,
And ere he slept, still gazing upward, caught
Sweet glimpses of the night, in stars arrayed.
His hatchet sunk
With sharp wound, fixing his own favorite sign,
Deep in the living column of its trunk,
Where thou may'st read a history such as thine.
He, too, could feel
Such passion as awakes the noble soul--
And in fond hour, perchance, would hither steal,
With one, of all his tribe, who could his ire control.
And others signs,
Tokens of races, greatlier taught, that came
To write like record, though in smoother lines,
And thus declare a still more human flame.
Here love's caprice--
The hope, the doubt, the dear despondencies---
Joy that had never rest, hope without peace--
These each declared the grief he never flies.
And the great oak
Grew sacred to each separate pilgrimage,
Nor heeded, in his bulk, the sudden stroke
That scarred his giant trunk with seams of age.
And we who gaze
Upon each, rude memorial--letter and date--
Still undefaced by storm and length of days,
Stand, as beneath the shadow of a fate!
Some elder-born,
A sire of wood and vale, guardian and king
Of separate races, unsubdued, unshorn,
Whose memories grasp the lives of every meaner thing!
With great white beard
Far streaming with a prophet-like display,
Such as when Moses on the Mount appeared,
And prostrate tribes looked down, or looked away!
With outstretched arms,
Paternal, as if blessing--with a grace,
Such as, in strength and greatness, ever charms,
As wooing the subdued one to embrace!
Thus still it stood,
While the broad forests, 'neath the pioneer,
Perished--proud relic of the ancient wood--
Men loved the record-tree, and bade them spare!
And still at noon,
Repairing to its shadow, they explore
Its chronicles, still musing o'er th' unknown,
And telling well-known histories, told of yore!
We shall leave ours,
Dear heart! and when our sleep beneath its boughs
Shall suffer spring to spread o'er us her flowers,
Eyes that vow love like ours shall trace our vows.
THE RAINBOW.
BY MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
Mountain! that first received the foot of man--
Giving him shelter, when the shoreless flood
Went surging by, that whelmed a buried world--
I see thee in thy lonely grandeur rise--
I see the white-haired Patriarch, as he knelt
Beside his earthen altar, 'mid his sons,
While beat in praise the only pulse of life
Upon this buried planet,--
O'er the gorged
And furrowed soil, swept forth a numerous train,
Horned, or cloven-footed, fierce, or tame,
While, mixed with song, the sound of countless wings,
His rescued prisoners, fanned the ambient air.
The sun drew near his setting, clothed in gold,
But on the Patriarch, ere from prayer he rose,
A darkly-cinctured cloud chill tears had wept,
And rain-drops lay upon his silver hairs.
Then burst an arch of wondrous radiance forth,
Spanning the vaulted skies. Its mystic scroll
Proclaimed the amnesty that pitying Heaven
Granted to earth, all desolate and void.
Oh signet-ring, with which the Almighty sealed
His treaty with the remnant of the clay
That shrank before him, to remotest time
Stamp wisdom on the souls that turn to thee.
Unswerving teacher, who four thousand years
Hast ne'er withheld thy lesson, but unfurled
As shower and sunbeam bade, thy glorious scroll,--
Oft, 'mid the summer's day, I musing sit
At my lone casement, to be taught of thee.
Born of the tear-drop and the smile, methinks,
Thou hast affinity with man, for such
His elements, and pilgrimage below.
Our span of strength and beauty fades like thine,
Yet stays its fabric on eternal truth
And boundless mercy.
The wild floods may come--
The everlasting fountains burst their bounds--
The exploring dove without a leaf return--
Yea, the fires glow that melt the solid rock,
And earth be wrecked: _What then?_--be still, my soul,
Enter thine Ark--God's promise cannot fail--
For surely as yon rainbow tints the cloud,
His truth, thine Ararat, will shelter thee.
SPIRIT-YEARNINGS FOR LOVE.
BY MRS. H. MARION WARD.
Love me, darling, love me, for my wild and wayward heart,
Like Noah's dove in search of rest, will hover where thou art;
Will linger round thee, like a spell, till by thy hand caressed,
It folds its weary, care-worn wings, to nestle on thy breast.
Love me, darling, love me! When my soul was sick with strife,
Thy soothing words have been the sun that warmed it into life;
Thy breath called forth the passion-flowers, that slumbered
'neath the ice
Of self-distrust, and now their balm makes earth a _Paradise_.
Love me, darling, love me! Let thy dreams be all of _me_!
Let waking thoughts be round my path, as mine will cling to thee!
But if--oh, God! it cannot be--but if thou _shouldst_ grow cold
And weary of my jealous love, or think it over-bold--
Or if, perchance, some fairer form should charm thy truant eye,
Thou'lt find me _woman_--proud and calm, so leave me--let me die.
I'd not reclaim a wavering heart whose pulse has once grown cold,
To write my name in princely halls, with diamonds and gold.
So love me, only love me, for I have no world but thee,
And darksome clouds are in my sky--'tis woman's destiny;
But let them frown--I heed them not--no fear can they impart,
If thou art near, with smiles to bend hope's rainbow round my heart.
THE RIVAL SISTERS.
AN ENGLISH TRAGEDY OF REAL LIFE.
BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF "THE ROMAN TRAITOR,"
"MARMADUKE WYVIL," ETC.
It has been gravely stated by an Italian writer of celebrity, that
"the very atrocity of the crimes which are therein committed, proves
that in Italy the growth of man is stronger and more vigorous, and
nearer to the perfect standard of manhood, than in any other country."
A strange paradox, truly, but not an uningenious--at least for a
native of that "purple land, where law secures not life," who would
work out of the very reproach, an argument of honor to his country. If
it be true, however, that proneness to the commission of unwonted and
atrocious crime is to be held a token of extraordinary vigor--vigor of
nerve, of temperament, of passion, of physical development--in a race
of men, then surely must the Anglo-Norman breed, under all
circumstances of time, place, and climate, be singularly destitute of
all these qualities--nay, singularly frail, effeminate, and
incomplete.
For it is an undoubted fact, both of the past and present history of
that great and still increasing race, whether limited to the narrow
bounds of the Island Realm which gave it being, or extended to the
boundless breadth of isles, and continents, and oceans, which it has
filled with its arms, its arts, its industry, its language--it is, I
say, an undoubted fact, that those dreadful and sanguinary crimes,
forming a class apart and distinct of themselves, engendered for the
most part by morbid passions, love, lust, jealousy, and revenge, which
are of daily occurrence in the southern countries of, Europe, Asia,
and America, are almost unknown in those happier lands, where English
laws prevail, with English liberty and language.
It is to this that must be ascribed the fact, that, in the very few
instances where crimes of this nature have occurred in England or
America, the memory of them is preserved with singular pertinacity,
the smallest details handed down from generation to generation, and
the very spots in which they have occurred, howmuchsoever altered or
improved in the course of ages, haunted, as if by an actual presence,
by the horror and the scent of blood; while on the other hand the fame
of ordinary deeds of violence and rapine seems almost to be lost
before the lives of the perpetrators are run out.
One, and almost, I believe, a singular instance of this kind--for I
would not dignify the brawls and assassinations which have disgraced
some of our southern cities, the offspring of low principles and an
unregulated society, by comparing them to the class of crimes in
question, which imply even in their atrocity a something of perverted
honor, of extravagant affection, or at least of not ignoble
passion--is the well-known Beauchamp tragedy of Kentucky, a tale of
sin and horror which has afforded a theme to the pens of several
distinguished writers, and the details of which are as well known on
the spot at present, as if years had not elapsed since its occurrence.
And this, too, in a country prone above all others, from the migratory
habits of its population, to cast aside all tradition, and to lose
within a very few years the memory of the greatest and most
illustrious events upon the very stage of their occurrence.
It is not, therefore, wonderful that in England, where the immobility
of the population, the reverence for antiquity, and the great
prevalence of oral tradition, induced probably at first by the want of
letters, cause the memory of even past trifles to dwell for ages in
the breasts of the simple and moral people, any deed of romantic
character, any act of unusual atrocity, any crime prompted by unusual
or extraordinary motives, should become, as it were, part and parcel
of the place wherein it was wrought; that the leaves of the trees
should whisper it to the winds of evening; that the echoes of the
lonely hills should repeat it; that the waters should sigh a burthen
to its strain; and that the very night should assume a deeper shadow,
a more horrid gloom, from the awe of the unforgotten sin.
I knew a place in my boyhood, thus haunted by the memory of strange
crime; and whether it was merely the terrible romance of the story, or
the wild and gloomy character of the scenery endowed with a sort of
natural fitness to be the theatre of terrible events, or yet again the
union of the two, I know not; but it produced upon my mind a very
powerful influence, amounting to a species of fascination, which
constantly attracted me to the spot, although when there, the weight
of the tradition, and the awe of the scene produced a sense of actual
pain.
The place to which I allude was but a few miles distant from the
celebrated public school, at which I passed the happiest days of a not
uneventful life, and was within an easy walk of the college limits; so
that when I had attained that favored eminence, known as the sixth
form, which allows its happy occupants to roam the country, free from
the fear of masters, provided only they attend at appointed hours, it
was my frequent habit to stroll away from the noisy playing-fields
through the green hedgerow lanes, or to scull my wherry over the
smooth surface of the silver Thames, toward the scene of dark
tradition; and there to lap myself in thick coming fancies, half sad,
half sweet, yet terrible withal, and in their very terror attractive,
until the call of the homeward rooks, and the lengthened shadows of
the tall trees on the greensward, would warn me that I too must hie me
back with speed, or pay the penalty of undue delay.
Now, as the story has in itself, apart from the extraneous interest
with which a perfect acquaintance with its localities may have
invested it in my eyes, a powerful and romantic character; as its
catastrophe was no less striking than un-English; and as the passions
which gave rise to it were at once the strongest and the most
general--though rarely prevailing, at least among us Anglo-Normans, to
so fearful an extent--I am led to hope that others may find in it
something that may enchain their attention for a time, though it may
not affect them as it has me with an influence, unchanged by change of
scene, unaltered by the lapse of time, which alters all things.
I propose, therefore, to relate it, as I heard it first from an old
superannuated follower of the family, which, owning other, though not
fairer demesnes in some distant county, had never more used
Ditton-in-the-Dale as their dwelling place, although well nigh two
centuries had elapsed since the transaction which had scared them away
from their polluted household gods.
But first, I must describe briefly the characteristics of the scenery,
without which a part of my tale would be hardly comprehensible, while
the remarkable effect produced by the coincidence, if I may so express
myself, between the nature of the deed, and the nature of the place,
would be lost entirely.
In the first place, then, I must premise that the name of
Ditton-in-the-Dale is in a great measure a misnomer, as the house and
estate which bear that name, are situated on what a visiter would be
at first inclined to call a dead level, but on what is in truth a
small secondary undulation, or hollow, in the broad, flat valley
through which the father of the English rivers, the royal-towered
Thames, pursues, as Gray sang,
The turf, the flowers, the shades among,
His silver-winding way.
But so destitute is all that country of any deep or well defined
valleys, much less abrupt glens or gorges, that any hollow containing
a tributary stream, which invariably meanders in slow and sluggish
reaches through smooth, green meadow-land, is dignified with the name
of dale, or valley. The country is, however, so much intersected by
winding lanes, bordered with high straggling white-thorn hedges full
of tall timber trees, is subdivided into so many small fields, all
enclosed with similar fences, and is diversified with so many woods,
and clumps of forest trees, that you lose sight of the monotony of its
surface, in consequence of the variety of its vegetation, and of the
limited space which the eye can comprehend, at any one time.
The lane by which I was wont to reach the demesne of Ditton, partook
in an eminent degree of this character, being very narrow, winding
about continually without any apparent cause, almost completely
embowered by the tall hawthorn hedges, and the yet taller oaks and
ashes which grew along their lines, making, when in full verdure,
twilight of noon itself, and commanding no view whatever of the
country through which it ran, except when a field-gate, or cart-track
opened into it, affording a glimpse of a lonely meadow, bounded,
perhaps, by a deep wood-side.
On either hand of this lane was a broad, deep ditch, both of them
quite unlike any other ditches I have ever seen. Their banks were
irregular; and it would seem evident that they had not been dug for
any purposes of fencing or enclosure; and I have sometimes imagined,
from their varying width and depth--for in places they were ten feet
deep, and three times as broad, and at others but a foot or two
across, and containing but a few inches of water--that their beds had
been hollowed out to get marl or gravel for the convenience of the
neighboring cultivators.
Be this as it may, they were at all times brimful of the clearest and
most transparent water I ever remember to have seen--never turbid even
after the heaviest rains; and though bordered by water-flags, and
tapestried in many places by the broad, round leaves of the white and
yellow water-lilies, never corrupted by a particle of floating scum,
or green duckweed.
Whether they were fed by secret springs I know not; or whether they
communicated by sluices or side-drains with the neighboring Thames; I
never could discover any current or motion in their still, glassy
waters, though I have wandered by their banks a hundred times,
watching the red-finned roach and silvery dace pursue each other among
the shadowy lily leaves, now startling a fat yellow frog from the
marge, and following him as he dived through the limpid blackness to
the very bottom, now starting in my own turn, as a big water-rat would
swim from side to side, and vanish in some hole of the marly bank, and
now endeavoring to catch the great azure-bodied, gauze-winged
dragon-flies, as they shot to and fro on their poised wings, pursuing
kites of the insect race, some of the smaller ephemera.
It was those quiet, lucid waters, coupled with the exceeding shadiness
of the trees, and its very unusual solitude--I have walked it, I
suppose, from end to end at least a hundred times, and I never
remember to have met so much even as a peasant returning from his
daily labor, or a country maiden tripping to the neighboring
town--that gave its character, and I will add, its charm to this half
pastoral, half sylvan lane. For nearly three miles it ran in one
direction, although, as I have said, with many devious turns, and
seemingly unnecessary angles, and through that length it did not pass
within the sound of one farm-yard, or the sight of one cottage
chimney. But to make up for this, of which it was, indeed, a
consequence, the nightingales were so bold and familiar that they
might be heard all day long filling the air with their delicious
melodies, not waiting, as in more frequented spots, the approach of
night, whose dull ear to charm with amorous ravishment; nay, I have
seen them perched in full view on the branches, gazing about them
fearless with their full black eyes, and swelling their emulous
throats in full view of the spectator.
Three miles passed, the lane takes a sudden turn to the northward,
having previously run, for the most part, east and west; and here, in
the inner angle, jutting out suddenly from a dense thicket of
hawthorns and hazels, an old octagonal summer-house, with a roof
shaped like an extinguisher, projects into the ditch, which here
expands into a little pool, some ten or twelve yards over in every
direction, and perhaps deeper than at any other point of its course.
Beyond the summer-house there is a little esplanade of green turf,
faced with a low wall toward the ditch, allowing the eye to run down a
long, narrow avenue of gigantic elm-trees, meeting at the top in the
perfect semblance of a Gothic aisle, and bordered on each hand by
hedges of yew, six feet at least in height, clipped into the form and
almost into the solidity of a wall. At the far end of this avenue,
which must be nearly two-thirds of a mile in length, one can discern a
glimpse of a formal garden, and beyond that, of some portion of what
seems to be a large building of red brick.
At the extremity of the esplanade and little wall, there grows an
enormous oak, not very tall, but with an immense girth of trunk, and
such a spread of branches that it completely overshadows the
summer-house, and overhangs the whole surface of the small pool in
front of it. Thenceforth, the tall and tangled hedge runs on, as usual
denying all access of the eye, and the deep, clear ditch all access of
the foot, to the demesnes within; until at the distance of perhaps a
mile and a quarter, a little bridge crosses the latter, and a green
gate, with a pretty rustic lodge beside it, gives entrance to a smooth
lawn, with a gravel-road running across it, and losing itself on the
farther side, in a thick belt of woodland.
It is, however, with the summer-house that I have to do principally,
for it is to it that the terror of blood has clung through the lapse
of years, as the scent of the Turkish Atar is said to cling,
indestructible, to the last fragment of the vessel which had once
contained it.
When first I saw that small lonely pavilion, I had heard nothing of
the strange tradition which belonged to it, yet as I looked on the
plastered walls, all covered with spots of damp and mildew, on the
roof overrun with ivy, in masses so wildly luxuriant as almost to
conceal the shape, on the windows, one in each side of the octagon,
closed by stout jalousies, which had been once green with paint, but
were now green with damp and vegetable mould, a strange feeling, half
of curiosity and half of terror, came over me, mixed with that
singular fascination of which I have spoken, which seemed to deny me
any rest until I should have searched out the mystery--for I felt sure
that mystery there was--connected with that summer-house, so desolate
and so fast lapsing into ruin, while the hedges and gardens within
appeared well cared for, and in trim cultivation.
I well remember the first time I beheld that lonely and deserted
building. It was near sunset, on as lovely a summer evening as ever
shed its soft light on the earth; the air was breathless; the sky
cloudless; thousands of swallows were upon the wing, some skimming the
limpid surface of those old ditches, others gliding on balanced
pinions so far aloft in the darkening firmament that the eye could
barely discern them.
The nightingales were warbling their rich, melancholy notes from every
brake and thicket; the bats had come forth and were flitting to and
fro on their leathern wings under the dark trees; but the brilliant
dragon-flies, and all the painted tribe of butterflies had vanished
already, and another race, the insects of the night, had taken their
places.
The rich scent of the new-mown hay loaded the air with fragrance, and
vied with the odors of the eglantine and honeysuckle, which, increased
by the falling dew, steamed up like incense to the evening skies.
I was alone, and thoughtful; for the time although sweet and
delicious, had nothing in it gay or joyous; the lane along which I was
strolling was steeped in the fast increasing shadows, for although the
air aloft was full of sunshine, and the topmost leaves of the tall
ashes shimmered like gold in the late rays, not a single beam
penetrated the thick hedgerows, or fell upon the sandy horse-road. The
water in the deep ditches looked as black as night, and the plunge of
the frogs into their cool recesses startled the ear amid the solitude
and stillness of the place.
It was one of those evenings, in a word, which calls up, we know not
why, a train of thought not altogether sad, nor wholly tender, but
calm and meditative and averse to action. I had been wandering along
thus for nearly an hour, musing deeply all the while, yet perfectly
unconscious that I was musing, much more what was the subject of my
meditations, when coming suddenly to the turn of the lane, the old
summer-house met my eyes, and almost startled me, so little did I
expect in that place to see any thing that should recall to my mind
the dwellings or the vicinity of man.
The next minute I began to scrutinize, and to wonder--for it was
evident that this building must be an appendage to the estate of some
gentleman or person of degree, and, knowing all the families of note
in that neighborhood, I was well assured that no one dwelt here of
sufficient position to be the owner of what appeared at first sight to
be a noble property.
Anxious as I was, however, to effect my entrance into that enchanted
ground, I could discover no means of doing so; for the depth of the
water effectually cut off all access to the hedgerow banks, even if
there had been any prospect of forcing a passage through the tangled
thorn-bushes beyond. Before I could find any solution to my problem,
the fast thickening shadows admonished me that I must beat my retreat;
and it was only by dint of redoubled speed that I reached college in
time to escape the consequences of absence from roll-call.
An early hour of the evening found me at my post on the following day;
for having a direct object now in view, I wasted no time on the road,
and the sun was still some distance above the horizon, when I reached
the summer-house.
It had been my hope, as I went along, that I might find some shallow
spot, with a corresponding gap in the hedge, before reaching the
place, by means of which I might turn the defences, and take the enemy
in the rear; but it was all in vain; and I came upon the ground
without discovering any opening by which an animal larger than a rat
could enter the forbidden ground.
Difficulty, it is well known, heightens desire; and, if I wished
before, I was now determined that I would get in. Quickening my pace,
I set off at a smart run to reconnoitre the defences beyond, but
having found nothing that favored my plans, in some half mile or so, I
again returned, now bent on forcing my way, even if I should be
compelled to undress, and swim across the pool to the further side.
Before having recourse to this last step, however, I reconnoitered my
ground somewhat more narrowly than before, and soon discovered that
one of the main limbs of the great oak shot quite across the pool, and
extended some little distance on my side over terra firma.
It is true that the nearer extremity of the branch was rather of the
slenderest, to support the weight even of a boy, and that the lowest
point was a foot or two above my head. But what of that? I was young
and active in those days, and somewhat bold withal; and without a
spice of danger, where were the pleasure or excitement of adventure?
It did not take me long to make up my mind, and before I had well
thought of the risk, I had swung myself up into the branches, and was
creeping, with even less difficulty than I had anticipated, along the
great gnarled bough above the mirrored pool.
Danger, in fact, there was none; for slender as the extremities
appeared, they were tough English oak, and the parent branch once
gained, would have supported the weight of Otus and Ephialtes, and all
their giant crew, much more of one slight Etonian.
In five minutes, or less, I had reached the fork of the trunk, and,
swarming down on the further side, stood in the full fruition of my
hopes, on that enchanted ground.
It was as I had expected to find it, a singular and gloomy spot; the
tall elm trees which formed the avenue, and the black wall of clipped
yew, which followed their course, diverging to the right and left,
formed a semicircle, the chord of which was the low wall and hawthorn
hedge, the summer-house standing, as I entered, in the angle on my
left hand.
Although, as I have said, the sun was still high in heaven, the little
area was almost dark already; and it was difficult, indeed, to
conjecture for what end the wisdom of our ancestors had planted a
sun-dial in the centre of the grass-plat, where it seemed physically
impossible that a chance sunbeam should ever strike it, to tell the
hour.
If it had not been for the narrow open space between the oak tree and
the summer-house, the little lawn would even now have been as black as
night; as it was, a sort of misty-gray twilight, increased, perhaps,
by the thin vapors rising from the tranquil pool, filled all its
precincts; and beyond these, stretching away in long perspective until
the arch at the further end seemed dwindled to the size of a needle's
eye, was the long aisle of gloomy foliage, as massive and impenetrable
to any ray of light as the stone arches of a Gothic cloister.
The only thing that conveyed an idea of gayety or life, to the cold
and tomb-like scenery, was the glimpse of bright sunshine which lay on
the open garden at the extremity of the elm-walk, with the gaudy and
glowing hues, indistinctly seen in the distance, of some summer
flowers.
Yet even this was not all unmixed with something of melancholy, for
the contrast of the gay sunbeams and bright flowers only rendered the
gloom more apparent, and like a convent-garden, seemed to awaken
cravings after the joyous world without, diminishing nothing of the
sorrow and monotony within.
But I was not in those days much given to moralizing, or to the
investigation of my own inward feelings.
I had come thither to inquire, to see, to learn, to find out
things--not causes. And perceiving at one glance that my first
impression was correct, that the grass-plots were recently mown, the
gravel-walks newly rolled, and spotless of weeds, the tall yew hedges
assiduously clipped into the straightest and most formal lines; that
every thing, in short, displayed the most heedful tendance, the
neatest cultivation, with the exception of the summer-pavilion, which
evidently was devoted to decay, I became but the more satisfied that
there was some mystery, and the more resolute to probe it to the core.
It was quite clear that when that garden was laid out, and that avenue
planted, how many years ago the giant size of the old elms denoted,
the summer-house was the meaning of the whole design. The avenue had
no object but to lead to it, the little lawn no purpose but to receive
it. Doubly strange, therefore, did it seem that these should be kept
up in all their trimness, that suffered to fall into decay.
It was the tragedy of Hamlet, with Hamlet's part omitted!
I stood for a little while wondering, and half overcome by a sort of
indescribable fanciful superstition. A cloud had come over the sun,
the nightingales had ceased to sing, and there was not a sound of any
kind to be heard, except the melancholy murmur of the summer air in
the tree-tops.
In a moment, however, the transitory spell was shaken off, and, once
more the bold and reckless schoolboy, I turned to the performance of
my self-imposed task.
The summer-house, as I have said, was octagon, three of its sides,
with a window in each, jutting out into the clear pool, and three,
with a door in the centre, and a window on each side, fronting the
little lawn. But, alas! the windows were all secured with jalousies,
strongly bolted and barred from within, and the door was secured by a
lock, the key of which was absent.
A short examination showed, however, that the door was held by no
bolts at the top or bottom; and the rusty condition of both lock and
hinges rendered it probable that it would not stand a very violent
assault.
Wherefore, retreating some twenty paces, I ran at it _more Etonensi_,
at the top of my speed, planted the sole of my foot even and square
against the key-hole, with the whole impetus of my charge, and had the
satisfaction of feeling the door fly open in an instant, while a
jingling clatter within showed that my entrance had been effected with
no greater damage to the premises than the starting of the staple into
which the bolt of the lock shot.
Having entered thus, my first task was to repair damages, which was
effected in five minutes, by driving the staple into its old place by
aid of a great stone; my second, to provide means for future visits,
which was as speedily managed by driving back the bolt of the lock
with the same great stone; and my third, to look eagerly and curiously
about me. To do this more effectually, I soon opened the two windows
looking upon the lawn, and let in the light, for the first time, I
fancy, in many a year, to that deserted room.
If I had marveled much before I entered, much more did I marvel now;
for although every thing within showed marks of the utmost negligence
and decay, though spiders had woven their webs in every angle, though
mildew and damp mould had defaced the painted walls, though the
gilding was black and tarnished, though the dust lay thick on the
furniture, still I had never seen any thing in my life, except the
state-rooms at Hampton Court and Windsor Castle, which could have vied
with this pavilion in the splendor of its original decoration.
Its area was about thirty feet in diameter, and in height nearly the
same, with a domed roof, richly fretted with what had once been golden
scroll-work upon an azure ground. The walls were painted, as even _I_
could discover, by the hand of a master, with copies from Guido and
Caracci, in compartments bordered with massive gilded scroll-work, the
ground between the panels having been originally, like the ceiling, of
bright azure. The window-frames had been gilded; and the inside of the
door painted, like the walls, in azure, with pictures of high merit in
the panels. Every side of the octagon but two, the opposite walls to
the right and left, were occupied by windows or a door; but that to
the right was filled by a mantel-piece, exquisitely wrought with
Caryatides in white Carrara marble, with a copy of the Aurora above
it, while the space opposite to it had been occupied by a superb
mirror, reaching from the cornice of the ceiling.
Nearly in the centre of this mirror, however, there was a small
circular fracture, as if made by a stone or a bullet, with long cracks
radiating, like the beams of a star, in all directions over the
shivered plate; and when I looked at it more closely, I observed that
it was dashed in many places with large drops of some dark purple
fluid, which had hardened with time into compact and solid gouts.
I thought little of this at the time, and only wondered why people
could be so mad as to abandon so beautiful a place; and why, since
they had abandoned it, they did not remove the furniture, of which
even a boy's eye could detect the value.
There was a centre-table of circular form, the pedestal of which,
curiously carved, had been wrought, like all the rest, in gold and
azure, while the slat, when I had wiped away with some fresh green
leaves the thick layer of dust which covered it, positively astonished
my eyes, by the delicacy and beauty of the designs with which it was
adorned. Beside this, there were divans and arm-chairs of the same
fashion and colors, with cushions which had been once of sky-blue
damask, though their brilliancy, and even their hues, had long ago
been defaced by the dust, the dampness, and the squalor of that
neglected place.
I should have mentioned, that on the beautiful table I discovered
gouts of the same dark substance which I had previously observed on
the broken mirror: and that there were still clearly perceptible on
one of the divans, dark splashes, and what must, when fluid, have been
almost a pool of the same deep, rusty hue.
At the time, it is true, I paid little attention to these things,
being busily employed in the boy-like idea of putting my newly
discovered palace of Armida into a complete state of repair, and
coming to pass all my leisure moments, even to the studying my
Prometheus Bound, and composing my weekly hexameters and Alcaics in
this sweet sequestered spot.
And, in truth, within a week I had put the greater part of my plan
into execution; purloined dusters from my dame's boarding-house, green
boughs of the old elms for brooms, and water from the ditch, soon made
things clean at least; and the air, which I suffered, so long as I was
there, daily, to blow through it in all directions, soon rendered it,
comparatively speaking, dry and comfortable; and when all its windows
were thrown wide, it would be scarcely possible to find a more
lightsome or delicious spot for summer musing than that old English
summer-house.
Thus things went on for weeks, for months, unsuspected--for I always
latched the door, and secured the windows from within, before leaving
my fairy palace for the night; and as all looked just as usual
without, no one so much as dreamed of trying the lock, to ascertain if
a door were still fastened, the threshhold of which, as men believed,
no human foot had crossed since the days of the second James.
I could often, it is true, discover the traces of recent labor in the
immediate neighborhood of my discovery; I could perceive at a glance
where the grass had been newly shorn, the yew hedges clipped, or the
gravel-walks rolled, but never, in the course of several months,
during which I spent every fine evening, either reading, or musing, or
composing my boy verses, in that my enchanted castle--for I began
really to consider it almost my own--did I see any human being on the
premises.
The cause of this, which I did not suspect until it was revealed to
me, after chance had discovered my visits to the place, was simply
this, that my intrusions were confined solely to the evening,
whereas, so great was the awe of the servants and the workmen for that
lonely and terror-haunted spot, that nothing short of absolute
compulsion, or the strongest necessity, would have induced them to go
near the place, after the sun had turned downward from the zenith.
In the meantime, gratified by the complete success of my first inroad,
and the possession of my first discovery, I felt no inclination to
push my advances further, or to make any incursion into the body of
the place.
Every evening, as early as I could escape from the college walls, I
was at my post, and lingered there as late as college hours would
permit. It was a strange fancy in a boy, and stranger yet than would
at first appear in this, that there was a very considerable admixture
of something nearly approaching to fear, and that of a painful kind,
in the feelings which made me so assiduous in my visits to that old
pavilion.
There was, it is true, nothing definite in my fancies. I knew nothing,
I cannot say even that I suspected any thing, concerning the
mysterious closing of the place; and often, since I have been made
acquainted with the tale, I have marveled at my own obtuseness, and
wondered that a secret so transparent should have escaped me.
So it was, however, that I suspected nothing, although I felt sure
that mystery there was; and being of somewhat an imaginative temper, I
used to amuse myself by accounting for it in my own mind, weaving all
sorts of strange and wild romances, and inventing the most horrible
stories that can be conceived, until, as the shadows would fall dark
around me, daunted by my own conceptions, I would make all secure and
fast with trembling fingers, swing myself back across over the pool by
my accustomed oak-branch, and run home as hard as my legs could carry
me, haunted by indistinct and almost superstitious horror.
Thus things went on, until at the end of summer I was at last detected
in my stolen visits, and the whole mystery was cleared up.
I remember as clearly as if I heard it now, the exclamation of terror
and dismay uttered by the old gardener, who, having left some
implement behind him on the lawn during the morning labors, had been
forced to bend his unwilling steps back to the haunted ground to
recover it.
I could not but smile afterward, when he recounted to me his
astonishment and terror at seeing the old summer-house, which never
had been opened within the memory of man, with all its windows wide to
the free air and evening sunshine--when he told me how often he turned
back to seek aid from his fellows--how he almost believed that fiends
or evil spirits were holding their foul sabbath there, and how he
started aghast with horror, not now for himself, but for me, as he
beheld the young Etonian stretched tranquilly upon the blood-stained
couch--for those dark stains were of human gore--conning his task for
the morrow.
I rushed out of the place at his hurried outcry; a few words told my
story, and plead my excuse--with the good, simple-minded rustic little
excuse was needed--but it was not till after many sittings, and many a
long afternoon's discourse, that I learned all the details of the sad
event which had converted that fair pavilion into a place as terrible,
to the ideas of the country folks, as a dark charnel-vault.
"Ay!" said the old man, as he gazed fearfully about him, after I had
persuaded him at length to cross the dreaded threshhold, "Ay! it is
all as they tell, though not a man of them has ever seen it. There is
the glass which the bullet broke, after passing right through his
brain; and there is his blood, all spattered on the mirror. And look,
young master, those spots on the table came from _her_ heart; and that
couch you was lying on, is where they laid her when they took her up.
See, it's all dabbled yet; and where your head was resting now, the
dead girl's head lay, more than a hundred years since! Come away,
master--come away! I never thought to have looked on these things,
though I know all about them."
"Oh, tell me--tell me about them!" I exclaimed. "I am not a bit
afraid. Do tell me all about them."
"Not now--not now--nor not here," said the old man, gazing about as if
he expected to see a spirit stalk out of some shady nook of the
surrounding trees. "I would not tell you here to be master of all
Ditton-in-the-Dale! But come up, if you will, to the great house
to-morrow, and ask for old Matthew Dawson, and I'll show you all the
place--the family never lives here now, nor hasn't since that deed was
done--and then I'll tell you all about it, if you must hear. But if
you're wise, you'll shun it; for it will chill your young blood to
listen, and cling to your young heart with a gloom forever."
"Oh, I will come, be sure, Matthew! I would not miss it for the world.
But it is getting late, so I'll fasten up the old place, and be
going;" and suiting the action to the word, I soon secured the
fastenings, while the old gardener stood by, marvelling and muttering
at the boldness of young blood, until I had finished setting things in
order, when I shook hands with the old man, slipping my _one_ half
crown into his horny palm, and saying,
"Well, good night, Matthew Dawson, and don't forget to-morrow
evening."
"That I wont, master," he replied, greatly propitiated by my offering.
"But which way are you going?"
"Oh, I'll soon show you," I replied; and swinging myself up my tree, I
was beyond the precincts of the haunted ground almost in a moment.
"The very way _he_ came the time he did it," cried the old gardener,
with upturned hands, and eyes aghast. But I tarried then to ask no
further questions, being quite sufficiently terrified for one night;
although my pride forbade my displaying my terrors to the old rustic.
The next day I was punctual to my appointment; and then, for the first
time, I heard the melancholy tale which, at length, I purpose to
relate.
It was a proud and noble Norman family which had held the demesnes of
Ditton-in-the-Dale, since the reign of the last Plantagenet--a brave
and loyal race, which had poured its blood like water on many a
foreign, many a native battle-field. At Evesham, a Fitz-Henry had
fought beside Prince Edward's bridle-rein, against the great De
Montfort, and his confederate barons; and afterward through all the
long and cruel wars of the Roses, on every field a Fitz-Henry had won
honor or lost blood, upholding the claims of the true sovereign
house--the house of York--until at fatal Bosworth the house itself
went down, and dragged down with it the fortunes of its bold
supporters.
Thereafter, during the reign of the Tudors, the name of Fitz-Henry was
heard rarely in the court, or on the field; impoverished in fortune by
fines and sequestrations, suspected of disloyalty to the now sovereign
house, the heads of the family had wisely held themselves aloof from
intrigue and conspiracy, and dwelt among their yeomen, who had in old
times been their fathers' vassals, stanch lovers of field-sports, true
English country gentlemen, seeking the favor and fearing the ill-will
of no man--no, not of England's king.
Attached to the old religion, though neither bigots nor zealots, they
had escaped the violence of bluff Harry, when he turned Protestant for
Bullen's eyes; and had, though something to leeward of her favor, as
lukewarm Romanists and no lovers of the Spaniard, passed safely
through the ordeal of Mary's cruel reign.
But with the accession of the man-minded Elizabeth, the fortunes of
the house revived for a while. It was the policy of that great and
gracious queen to gather around her all that were brave, honest, and
manly in her realm, without regard to family creeds, or family
traditions. Claiming descent as much from one as from the other of the
rival houses of Lancaster and York, loyalty to the one was no more
offence to her clear eyes than good faith to the other. While loyalty
to what he honestly believed to be the true sovereign house, was the
strongest recommendation to her favor in each and every subject.
The Fitz-Henry, therefore, of her day, a young and gallant soldier,
who visited the shores of the New World with Cavendish and Raleigh,
fought for his native land, although a Catholic, against the terrible
armada of the Most Catholic King, with Drake, and Frobisher and
Howard, waged war in the Low Countries, and narrowly missed death at
Tutphen by Philip Sidney's side, stood as high in the favor of his
queen as in the estimation of all good and honorable men. It is true,
when the base and odious James succeeded to the throne of the
lion-queen, and substituted mean and loathsome king-craft for frank
and open English policy, the gray-haired soldier, navigator,
statesman--for he had shone in each capacity--retired, as his
ancestors had done before him, during the reigns of the seventh and
eighth Henrys, to the peaceful shades and innocent pleasures of
Ditton-in-the-Dale.
So true, however, was he to the time-honored principles of his high
race, so loyally did he bring up his son, so firmly did he strengthen
his youthful mind with all maxims, and all laws of honor, linking the
loyal subject to the rightful king, that no sooner had the troubles
broken out between the misguided monarch and his rebellious
Parliament--although the veteran of Elizabeth had fallen asleep long
before, full of years and honors--than his young heir, Osborn
Fitz-Henry, displayed the cognizance of his old house, mustered his
tenantry, and set foot in stirrup, well nigh the first, to withdraw it
the very last, of the adherents of the hapless Charles. So long did he
resist in arms, so pertinaciously did he uphold the authority of the
first Charles, so early did he rise again in behalf of the second,
that he was noted by the Parliament as an incorrigible and most
desperate malignant; and, had it not been that, by his gallantry in
the field, and his humanity when the strife was ended, he had won the
personal good-will of Cromwell, it is most likely that it would have
gone hard with his fortunes if not with his life.
After the restoration, he was of course neglected by the fiddling,
gambling, wenching, royal buffoon, who succeeded the royal martyr, and
whose necessities he had supplied, when an outcast pauper exile in a
foreign land, from the proceeds of those very estates which he had so
nearly lost in fighting for his crown.
Osborn Fitz-Henry, too, was gathered to his fathers. He died little
advanced beyond the prime of life, worn out with the toil he had
undergone in the camp, and shattered by the wounds which he had
received on almost every battle-field from Edge-Hill to Dunbar and
Worcester.
He had, however, married very young, before the breaking out of the
rebellion, and had lived to see not his son only a noble and superior
man, ready to fill his place when vacant, and in it uphold the honor
of his family, but his son's children also advancing fast toward
maturity.
Allan Fitz-Henry, the son of Charles' stout partisan, the grandson of
Elizabeth's warrior, was the head of the house, when my tale
commences.
He, too, had married young--such, indeed, was the custom of his
house--and had survived his wife, by whom he had two fair daughters,
but no heir; and this was a source of vexation so constantly present
to his mind, that in the end it altered the whole disposition of the
man, rendering him irritable, harsh, stern, unreasonable, and unhappy.
Fondly attached to the memory of his lost wife, whom he had loved
devotedly while living, it never entered his mind to marry a second
time, even with the hope of begetting an heir by whom to perpetuate
the honors and principles of his house; although he was continually on
the fret--miserable himself, and making others miserable, in
consequence of the certainty that he should be the last of his race.
His only hope was now centered in his daughters, or to speak more
correctly, in his eldest daughter--for her he had determined to
constitute his heiress, endowing her with all his landed property, all
his heirlooms, all that could constitute her the head of his house; in
return for which he had predetermined that she should become the wife
of some husband of his own choosing, who should unite to a pedigree
as noble as that of the Howards, all qualifications which should fit
him to represent the house into which he should be adopted; and who
should be willing to drop his own paternal name and bearings, how
ancient and noble soever, in order to adopt the style and the arms of
Fitz-Henry.
Proud by nature, by blood, and by education--though with a clear and
honorable pride--he had been rendered a thousand times prouder and
more haughty by the very circumstances which seemed to threaten a
downfall to the fortunes of his house--his house, which had survived
such desperate reverses; which had come out of every trial, like pure
gold, the better and the brighter from the furnace--his house, which
neither the ruin of friendly monarchs, nor the persecutions of hostile
monarchs, nor the neglect of ungrateful monarchs, had been able to
shake, any more than the autumnal blasts, or the frosts of winter, had
availed to uproot the oak trees of his park, coeval with his name.
In the midst of health and wealth, honor and good esteem, with an
affectionate family, and a devoted household around him, Allan
Fitz-Henry fancied himself a most unhappy man--perhaps the most
unhappy of mankind.
Alas! was it to punish such vain, such sinful, such senseless, and
inordinate repinings?
Who shall presume to scrutinize the judgments, or pry into the secrets
of the Inscrutable?
This much alone is certain, that ere he was gathered to his fathers,
Allan Fitz-Henry might, and that not unjustly, have termed himself
that, which now, in the very wantonness of pampered and insatiate
success he swore that he was daily--the most unhappy of the sons of
men.
For to calamities so dreadful as might have disturbed the reason of
the strongest minded, remorse was added, so just, so terrible, so
overwhelming, that men actually marveled how he lived on and was not
insane.
But I must not anticipate.
It was a short time after the failure of the Duke of Monmouth's weak
and ungrateful attempt at revolution, a short time after the
conclusion of the merciless and bloody butcheries of that disgrace to
the English ermine, the ferocious Jefferies, that the incidents
occurred, which I learned first on the evening subsequent to my
discovery in the fatal summer-house.
At this time Allan Fitz-Henry--it was a singular proof, by the way, of
the hereditary pride of this old Norman race, that having numbered
among them so many friends and counsellors of monarchs, no one of
their number had been found willing to accept titular honors, holding
it a higher thing to be the premier gentleman than the junior peer of
England--At this time, I say, Allan Fitz-Henry was a man of some
forty-five or fifty years, well built and handsome, of courtly air and
dignified presence; nor must it be imagined that in his fancied
grievances he forgot to support the character of his family, or that
he carried his griefs abroad with him into the world.
At times, indeed, he might be a little grave and thoughtful,
especially at such times as he heard mention made of the promise or
success of this or that scion of some noble house; but it was only
within his own family circle, and to his most familiar friends, that
he was wont to open his heart, and complain of his ill-fortune, at
being the first childless father of his race--for so, in his contempt
for the poor girls, whom he still, strange contradiction! loved fondly
and affectionately, he was accustomed in his dark hours to style
himself; as if forsooth an heir male were the only offspring worthy to
be called the child of such a house.
Though he was fond, and gentle, and at times even tender to his
motherless daughters--for, to do him justice, he never suffered a
symptom of his disappointment and disgust to break out to their
annoyance, yet was there no gleam of paternal satisfaction in his sad
eye, no touch of paternal pride in his vexed heart, as he looked upon
their graceful forms, and noted their growing beauties.
And yet they were a pair of whom the haughtiest potentate on earth
might have been proud, and with justice.
Blanche and Agnes Fitz-Henry were at this time in their eighteenth and
seventeenth years--but one summer having passed between their births,
and their mother having died within a few hours after the latter saw
the light.
They were, indeed, as lovely girls as the sun of merry England shone
upon; and in those days it was still _merry_ England, and famous then
as now for the rare beauty of its women, whether in the first dawn of
girlhood, or in the full-blown flush of feminine maturity.
Both tall, above the middle height of women, both exquisitely formed,
with figures delicate and slender, yet full withal, and voluptuously
rounded, with the long taper hands, the small and shapely feet and
ankles, the swan-like necks, and classic heads gracefully set on,
which are held to denote, in all countries, the predominance of gentle
blood; when seen at a distance, and judged by the person only, it
would have been almost impossible to distinguish the elder from the
younger sister.
But look upon them face to face, and never, in all respects, were two
girls of kindred race so entirely dissimilar. The elder, Blanche, was,
as her name denotes, though ladies' names are oftentimes misnomers, a
genuine English blonde. Her abundant and beautiful hair, trained to
float down upon her snowy shoulders in silky masses of unstudied
curls, was of the lightest golden brown. There was not a shade of red
in its hues, although her complexion was of that peculiarly dazzling
character which is common to red-haired persons; yet when the sun
shone on its glistening waves, so brilliantly did the golden light
flash from it, that you might almost have imagined there was a circlet
of living glory above her clear white brow.
Her eyebrows and eyelashes were many shades darker than her hair,
relieving her face altogether from that charge of insipidity which is
so often, and for the most part so truly, brought against fair-haired
and fair-featured beauties. The eyes themselves, which those long
lashes shrouded, were of the deepest violet blue; so deep, that at
first sight you would have deemed them black, but for the soft and
humid languor which is never seen in eyes of that color. The rest of
her features were as near as possible to the Grecian model, except
that there was a slight depression where the nose joins the brow,
breaking that perfectly straight line of the classical face, which,
however beautiful to the statue, is less attractive in life than the
irregular outline of the northern countenance.
Her mouth, with the exception of--perhaps I should rather say in
conjunction with--her eyes, was the most lovely and expressive feature
in her face. There were twin dimples at its corners; yet was not its
expression one of habitual mirth, but of tenderness and softness
rather, unmixed, although an anchorite might have been pardoned the
wish to press his lips to its voluptuous curve, with the slightest
expression of sensuality.
Her complexion was, as I have said, dazzlingly brilliant; but it was
the brilliance of the lily rather than of the rose, though at the
least emotion, whether of pain or pleasure, the eloquent blood would
rush, like the morning's glow over some snow-crowned Alp, across
cheek, brow, and neck, and bosom, and vanish thence so rapidly, that
ere you should have time to say, nay, even to think,
"Look! look how beautiful, 't was fled."
Such was the elder beauty, the destined heiress of the ancient house,
the promised mother of a line of sons, who should perpetuate the name
and hand down the principles of the Fitz-Henries to far distant ages.
Such were the musings of her father,
Proh! coeca mens mortalium!
and at such times alone, if ever, a sort of doubtful pride would come
to swell his hope, whispering that for such a creature, no man,
however high or haughty, but would be willing to renounce the pride of
birth, even untempted by the demesnes of Ditton-in-the-Dale, and many
another lordly manor coupled to the time-honored name of Fitz-Henry.
Her sister, Agnes, though not less beautiful than Blanche--and there
were those who insisted that she was more so--was as different from
her, in all but the general resemblance of figure and carriage, as
night is from morning, or autumn from early summer-time.
Her ringlets, not less profuse than Blanche's, and clustering in
closer and more mazy curls, were as black as the raven's wing, and,
like the feathers of the wild bird, were lighted up when the sun
played on them with a sort of purplish and metallic gloss, that defies
alike the pen of the writer, and the painter's pencil to depict to the
eye.
Her complexion, though soft and delicate, was of the very darkest hue
that is ever seen in persons of unmixed European blood; so dark that
the very blood which would mantle to her cheek at times in burning
blushes, was shaded, as it were, with a darker hue, like damask roses
seen through the medium of a gold-tinted window-pane.
Her brows and lashes were as black as night, but, strange to say, the
eyes that flashed from beneath them with an almost painful splendor,
were of a clear, deep azure, less dark than those of the fairer
sister, giving a singular and wild character to her whole face, and
affecting the style of her beauty, but whether for the better or the
worse it was for those who admired or shunned--and there were who took
both parts--to determine. Her face was rounder and fuller than her
sister's, and, in fact, this was true of her whole person--so much so
that she was often mistaken for the elder--her features were less
regular, her nose having a slight tendency to that form which has no
name in our language, but which charmed all beholders in Roxana, as
_retroussie_. Her mouth was as warm, as soft, as sweetly dimpled, but
it was not free from that expression which Blanche's lacked
altogether, and might have been blamed as too wooing and luxurious.
Such were the various characters of the sisters' personal
appearance--the characters of their mental attributes were as
distinctly marked, and as widely different.
Blanche was all gentleness and moderation from her very cradle--a
delicate and tender child, smiling always, but rarely laughing; never
boisterous or loud even in her childish plays. And as she grew older,
this character became more definite, and was more strongly observed;
she was a pensive, tranquil creature, not melancholy, much less
sad--for she was awake to all that was beautiful or grand, all that
was sweet or gentle in the face of nature, or in the history of man;
and there was, perhaps, more real happiness concealed under her calm
exterior, than is often to be found under the wilder mirth of merrier
beings. Ever ready to yield her wishes to those of her friends or
companions, many persons imagined that she had little will, and no
fixed wishes, or deliberate aspirations--passionless and pure as the
lily of the vale, many supposed that she was cold and heartless. Oh!
ignorant! not to remember that the hearts of the fiercest volcanos
boil still beneath a head of snow; and that it is even in the calmest
and most moderate characters that passion once enkindled burns fierce,
perennial and unquenchable! Thus far, however, had she advanced into
the flower of fair maidenhood, undisturbed by any warmer dream than
devoted affection toward her parent, whose wayward grief she could
understand if she could not appreciate, and whom she strove by every
gentle wile to wean from his morbid fancies; and earnest love toward
her sister, whom she, indeed, almost adored--perhaps adored the more
from the very difference of their minds, and for her very
imperfections.
For Agnes was all gay vivacity, and petulance, and fire--so that her
young companions, who sportively named Blanche the icicle, had
christened her the sunbeam; and, in truth, if the first name were ill
chosen, the second seemed to be an inspiration; for like a sunbeam
that touched nothing but to illuminate it, like a sunbeam she played
with all things, smiled on all things in their turn--like a sunbeam
she brought mirth with her presence, and after her departure, left a
double gloom behind her.
More dazzling than Blanche, she made her impression at first sight,
and so long as the skies were clear, and the atmosphere unruffled, the
sunbeam would continue to gild, to charm, to be worshiped. But if the
time of darkness and affliction came, the gay sunbeam held aloof,
while the poor icicle, melted from its seeming coldness, was ever
ready to weep for the sorrows of those who had neglected her in the
days of their happiness.
Unused to yield, high-spirited when crossed, yet carrying off even her
stubbornness and quick temper by the brilliancy, the wit, the lively
and bold audacity which she cast around them, Agnes ruled in her
circle an imperious and despotic queen; while her slaves, even as they
trembled before her half sportive but emphatic frown, did not suspect
the sceptre of the tyrant beneath the spell of the enchantress.
Agnes, in one word, was the idol of the rich and gay; Blanche was the
saint of the poor, the lowly, the sick, and those who mourn.
It may be that the peculiarity of her position, the neglect which she
had always experienced from her father, and mediately from the
hirelings of the household, ever prompt to pander to the worst
feelings of their superiors--the consciousness that born co-heiress
with her sister, she was doomed to sink into the insignificance of an
undowered and uncared-for girl, had tended in some degree to form the
character which Agnes had ever borne, and which alone she had
displayed, until the period when my tale commences.
It may be that the consciousness of wrong endured, had hardened a
heart naturally soft and tender, and rendered it unyielding and
rebellious--it may be that injustice, endured at the hands of
hirelings in early years, had engendered a spirit of resistance, and
armed her mind and quickened her tongue against the world, which, as
she fancied, wronged her. It may be, more than all, that a secret,
perhaps an unconscious jealousy of her sister's superior advantages,
not in the wretched sense of worldly wealth or position, but of the
love and reverence of friends and kindred, had embittered her young
soul, and caused her to cast over it a veil of light and wild
demeanor, of free speech, and daring mirth, which had by degrees grown
into habits, and become part and parcel of her nature.
If it were so, however, there were no outward indications that such
was the case; for never were there seen two sisters more united and
affectionate--nor would it have been easy to say on which side the
balance of kindness preponderated. For if Blanche was ever the first
to cede to her sister's wishes, and the last, in any momentary
disappointment or annoyance, to speak one quick or unkind word, so was
Agnes, with her expressive features, and flashing eye, and ready,
tameless wit, prompt as light to avenge the slightest reflection cast
on Blanche's tranquillity and coldness; and if at times a quick word
or sharp retort broke from her lips, and called a tear to the eye of
her calmer sister, not a moment would elapse before she would cast
herself upon her neck and weep her sincere contrition, and be for
hours an altered being; until her natural spirit would prevail, and
she would be again the wild, mirthful madcap, whose very faults could
call forth no keener reproach than a grave and thoughtful smile from
the lips of those who loved her the most dearly.
Sad were the daughters of Allan Fitz-Henry--daughters whom not a peer
in England but would have regarded as the brightest gems of his
coronets, as the pride and ornament of his house; but whom, by a
strange anomaly, their own father, full as he was of warm affections,
and kindly inclinations, never looked upon but with a secret feeling
of discontent and disappointment, that they were not other than they
were: and with a half confessed conviction, that fair as they were,
tender, and loving, graceful, accomplished, delicate and noble-minded,
he could have borne to lay them both in the cold grave, so that a son
could be given to the house, in exchange for their lost loveliness.
In outward demeanor, however, he was to his children all that a father
should be; a little querulous at times, perhaps, and irritable, but
fond, though not doting, and considerate; and I have wandered greatly
from my intention, if any thing that I have said has been construed to
signify that there existed the slightest estrangement between the
father and his children--for had Allan Fitz-Henry but suspected the
possibility of such a thing, he had torn the false pride, like a
venomous weed, from his heart, and had been a wiser and a happier man.
In his case it was the blindness of the heart that caused its partial
hardness; but events were at hand, that should flood it with the
clearest light, and melt it to more than woman's tenderness.
[_To be continued._
SONNET TO GRAHAM.
On, in thy mission! 'T is a holy power
That which thou wieldest o'er a people's heart:
And wastes of mind, that never knew a flower,
Bloom now and brighten, 'neath thy magic art.
Hearthstones are cheerful that were chill before;
And softened beams, like light that melteth through
The stained glass of old cathedrals, pour
Stream upon stream of beauty. All that's true,
All that is brave and beautiful, 't is thine--
High office, high and holy! thus to shed,
Sun-like, and sole, in shadow or in shine,
Thoughts that bedew and rouse minds cold and dead,
Startling the pulse that stirred not. This is thine!
Be proudly humble: 't is a power divine!
_New Orleans, October_ 1, 1847. ALTUS.
MARGINALIA
BY EDGAR A. POE.
We mere men of the world, with no principle--a very old-fashioned and
cumbersome thing--should be on our guard lest, fancying him on his
last legs, we insult, or otherwise maltreat some poor devil of a
genius at the very instant of his putting his foot on the top round of
his ladder of triumph. It is a common trick with these fellows, when
on the point of attaining some long-cherished end, to sink themselves
into the deepest possible abyss of seeming despair, for no other
purpose than that of increasing the space of success through which
they have made up their minds immediately to soar.
* * * * *
All that the man of genius demands for his exaltation is moral matter
in motion. It makes no difference _whither_ tends the motion--whether
for him or against him--and it is absolutely of _no_ consequence
"_what_ is the matter."
* * * * *
In Colton's "American Review" for October, 1845, a gentleman, well
known for his scholarship, has a forcible paper on "The Scotch School
of Philosophy and Criticism." But although the paper is "forcible," it
presents the most singular admixture of error and truth--the one
dovetailed into the other, after a fashion which is novel, to say the
least of it. Were I to designate in a few words what the whole article
demonstrated, I should say "the folly of not beginning at the
beginning--of neglecting the giant Moulineau's advice to his friend
Ram." Here is a passage from the essay in question:
"The Doctors [Campbell and Johnson] both charge
Pope with error and inconsistency:--error in
supposing that _in English_, of metrical lines
unequal in the number of syllables and pronounced
in equal times, the longer suggests celerity (this
being the principle of the
Alexandrine:)--inconsistency, in that Pope himself
uses the same contrivance to convey the contrary
idea of slowness. But why in English? It is not and
cannot be disputed that, in the Hexameter verse of
the Greeks and Latins--which is the model in this
matter--what is distinguished as the 'dactylic
line' was uniformly applied to express velocity.
How was it to do so? Simply from the fact of being
pronounced in an equal time with, while containing
a greater number of syllables or 'bars' than the
ordinary or average measure; as, on the other hand,
the spondaic line, composed of the minimum number,
was, upon the same principle, used to indicate
slowness. So, too, of the Alexandrine in English
versification. No, says Campbell, there is a
difference: the Alexandrine is not in fact, like
the dactylic line, pronounced in the common time.
But does this alter the principle? What is the
rationale of Metre, whether the classical hexameter
or the English heroic?"
I have written an essay on the "Rationale of Verse," in which the
whole topic is surveyed _ab initio_, and with reference to general and
immutable principles. To this essay (which will soon appear) I refer
Mr. Bristed. In the meantime, without troubling myself to ascertain
whether Doctors Johnson and Campbell are wrong, or whether Pope is
wrong, or whether the reviewer is right or wrong, at this point or at
that, let me succinctly state what is _the truth_ on the topics at
issue.
And first; the same principles, in _all_ cases, govern _all_ verse.
What is true in English is true in Greek.
Secondly; in a series of lines, if one line contains more syllables
than the law of the verse demands, and if, nevertheless, this line is
pronounced in the same time, upon the whole, as the rest of the lines,
then this line suggests celerity--on account of the increased rapidity
of enunciation required. Thus in the Greek Hexameter the dactylic
lines--those most abounding in dactyls--serve best to convey the idea
of rapid motion. The spondaic lines convey that of slowness.
Thirdly; it is a gross mistake to suppose that the Greek dactylic
line is 'the model in this matter'--the matter of the English
Alexandrine. The Greek dactylic line is of the same number of
feet--bars--beats--pulsations--as the ordinary dactylic-spondaic lines
among which it occurs. But the Alexandrine is longer by one foot--by
one pulsation--than the pentameters among which it arises. For its
pronunciation it demands _more time_, and therefore, _ceteris
paribus_, it would well serve to convey the impression of length, or
duration, and thus, indirectly, of slowness. I say _ceteris paribus_.
But, by varying conditions, we can effect a total change in the
impression conveyed. When the idea of slowness is conveyed by the
Alexandrine, it is not conveyed by any slower enunciation of
syllables--that is to say, it is not _directly_ conveyed--but
indirectly, through the idea of _length_ in the whole line. Now, if we
wish to convey, by means of an Alexandrine, the impression of
velocity, we readily do so by giving rapidity to our enunciation of
the syllables composing the several feet. To effect this, however, we
must have _more_ syllables, or we shall get through the whole line too
quickly for the intended time. To get more syllables, all we have to
do, is to use, in place of iambuses, what our prosodies call
anapoests.[1] Thus, in the line,
Flies o'er the unbending corn and skims along the main,
the syllables '_the unbend_' form an anapoest and, demanding unusual
rapidity of enunciation, in order that we may get them in in the
ordinary time of an iambus, serve to suggest celerity. By the elision
of _e_ in _the_, as is customary, the whole of the intended effect is
lost; for _th'unbend_ is nothing more than the usual iambus. In a
word, wherever an Alexandrine expresses celerity, we shall find it to
contain one or more anapoests--the more anapoests, the more decided
the impression. But the tendency of the Alexandrine consisting merely
of the usual iambuses, is to convey slowness--although it conveys this
idea feebly, on account of conveying it indirectly. It follows, from
what I have said, that the common pentameter, interspersed with
anapoests, would better convey celerity than the Alexandrine
interspersed with them in a similar degree;--and it unquestionably
does.
[Footnote 1: I use the prosodial word "anapoest," merely because here
I have no space to show what the reviewer will admit I have distinctly
shown in the essay referred to--viz: that the additional syllable
introduced, does _not_ make the foot an anapoest, or the equivalent of
an anapoest, and that, if it did, it would spoil the line. On this
topic, and on all topics connected with verse, there is not a prosody
in existence which is not a mere jumble of the grossest error.]
* * * * *
To converse well, we need the cool tact of talent--to talk well, the
glowing _abandon_ of genius. Men of _very_ high genius, however, talk
at one time _very_ well, at another _very_ ill:--well, when they have
full time, full scope, and a sympathetic listener:--ill, when they fear
interruption and are annoyed by the impossibility of exhausting the topic
during that particular talk. The partial genius is flashy--scrappy. The
true genius shudders at incompleteness--imperfection--and usually
prefers silence to saying the something which is not every thing that
should be said. He is so filled with his theme that he is dumb, first
from not knowing how to begin, where there seems eternally beginning
behind beginning, and secondly from perceiving his true end at so
infinite a distance. Sometimes, dashing into a subject, he blunders,
hesitates, stops short, sticks fast, and, because he has been
overwhelmed by the rush and multiplicity of his thoughts, his hearers
sneer at his inability to think. Such a man finds his proper element
in those "great occasions" which confound and prostrate the general
intellect.
Nevertheless, by his conversation, the influence of the
conversationist upon mankind in general, is more decided than that of
the talker by his talk:--the latter invariably talks to best purpose
with his pen. And good conversationists are more rare than respectable
talkers. I know many of the latter; and of the former only five or
six:--among whom I can call to mind, just now, Mr. Willis, Mr. J. T.
S. S.--of Philadelphia, Mr. W. M. R.--of Petersburg, Va., and Mrs.
S----d, formerly of New York. Most people, in conversing, force us to
curse our stars that our lot was not cast among the African nation
mentioned by Eudoxus--the savages who, having no mouths, never opened
them, as a matter of course. And yet, if denied mouth, some persons
whom I have in my eye would contrive to chatter on still--as they do
now--through the nose.
* * * * *
All in a hot and copper sky
The bloody sun at noon
Just up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the moon.--COLERIDGE.
Is it possible that the poet did not know the apparent diameter of the
moon to be greater than that of the sun?
If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the
universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment,
the opportunity is his own--the road to immortal renown lies straight,
open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has to do is to write
and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple--a few
plain words--"My Heart Laid Bare." But--this little book must be _true
to its title_.
Now, is it not very singular that, with the rabid thirst for notoriety
which distinguishes so many of mankind--so many, too, who care not a
fig what is thought of them after death, there should not be found one
man having sufficient hardihood to write this little book? To _write_,
I say. There are ten thousand men who, if the book were once written,
would laugh at the notion of being disturbed by its publication during
their life, and who could not even conceive _why_ they should object
to its being published after their death. But to write it--_there_ is
the rub. No man dare write it. No man ever will dare write it. No man
_could_ write it, even if he dared. The paper would shrivel and blaze
at every touch of the fiery pen.
* * * * *
For all the rhetorician's rules
Teach nothing but to name the tools.--HUDIBRAS.
What these oft-quoted lines go to show is, that a falsity in verse
will travel faster and endure longer than a falsity in prose. The man
who would sneer or stare at a silly proposition nakedly put, will
admit that "there is a good deal in that" when "_that_" is the point
of an epigram shot into the ear. The rhetorician's rules--if they
_are_ rules--teach him not only to name his tools, but to use his
tools, the capacity of his tools--their extent--their limit; and from
an examination of the nature of the tools--(an examination forced on
him by their constant presence)--force him, also, into scrutiny and
comprehension of the material on which the tools are employed, and
thus, finally, suggest and give birth to new material for new tools.
* * * * *
Among his _eidola_ of the den, the tribe, the forum, the theatre,
etc., Bacon might well have placed the great _eidolon_ of the parlor
(or of the wit, as I have termed it in one of the previous
Marginalia)--the idol whose worship blinds man to truth by dazzling
him with the _apposite_. But what title could have been invented for
_that_ idol which has propagated, perhaps, more of gross error than
all combined?--the one, I mean, which demands from its votaries that
they reciprocate cause and effect--reason in a circle--lift themselves
from the ground by pulling up their pantaloons--and carry themselves
on their own heads, in hand-baskets, from Beersheba to Dan.
All--absolutely all the argumentation which I have seen on the nature
of the soul, or of the Deity, seems to me nothing but worship of this
unnameable idol. _Pour savoir ce qu'est Dieu_, says Bielfeld, although
nobody listens to the solemn truth, _il faut être Dieu même_--and to
reason about the reason is of all things the most unreasonable. At
least, he alone is fit to discuss the topic who perceives at a glance
the insanity of its discussion.
THE PENANCE OF ROLAND.
A ROMANCE OF THE PEINE FORTE ET DURE.
BY HENRY B. HIRST.
PART I.
When the weird and wizard bats were flitting round his dusky way,
Over a moorland, like a whirlwind, rushed the knight, Sir Roland Grey;
When the crimson sun was setting, as the yellow moon arose,
Far and faint, behind Sir Roland, sank the slogan of his foes--
Far and faint; and growing fainter as he reached the forest sward,
Spreading round for many an acre over the lands which owned him lord.
As he dashed along the woodland, fitfully, upon the breeze,
Swept the tu-who-o of the owlet through the naked forest trees;
And the loudly whirring black-cock through the creaking branches sprung,
Frightened by his horse's hoofs, that like the Cyclop's anvil rung--
Like a hurricane on he hurried, wood and valley gliding past,
While around him, o'er him, on him, burst the sudden autumn blast.
Down upon him, in a deluge, rushed the cold November rain;
But the wind about him whistled, and the tempest swept in vain.
What to him was wind or tempest, when his brain was seared with flame?
What to him was earth or heaven, when his soul was sick with shame?
In the dreary, desolate desert on his ears had burst a tale,
That, like falling thunder, stunned and left him terrified and pale;
How, while he was battling bravely, like a true and holy knight,
For the sacred tomb of Christ, against the swarthy Moslemite;
How, while round him lances shivered, armor rang, and arrows fell,
And the air was mad with noises--Arab shout and Paynim yell--
She, the partner of his heart, descended (so the legend said)
From the ancient Saxon monarchs, sank in shame her sunny head.
From his friends--his growing glory--over dark and dangerous seas--
From his red-cross banner proudly flowing, floating on the breeze--
Over field and flood he traveled, flinging fame and honor by,
With a heart as full of hell as full of glory was the sky.
All his mind became a chaos; but along its waste there stole
What his bloody purpose shook, and what was manna to his soul,--
Memories of his youthful moments, when through grassy glen and wood
He wandered with the Lady Gwineth, dreaming none so fair and good;
And he saw her sweetly smiling, as when at her feet he knelt,
And with bold but modest manner on his burning passion dwelt--
Felt her fall upon his bosom--felt her tears upon his cheek,
As he felt them when his tongue was all too full of joy to speak!
And his heart was slowly softening--when a hoarse voice bade him "yield!"
And a claymore clanked and clattered on the bosses of his shield;--
Rising round him, closing on him, sprang an ambush of his foe,
The despoiler of his honor! All his answer was a blow!
All his soul was in his arm; and, as his foemen closed around,
Vassal after vassal, wounded, yelling, fell and bit the ground;
But when through the wood there rushed an hundred thronging to the fight,
Charging through them, still defying, Roland safety sought in flight.
When the crimson sun descended, as the yellow moon arose,
Far and faint behind Sir Roland sank the slogan of his foes--
Far and faint, and waxing fainter, as he reached the forest sward,
Spreading round for many an acre, over the lands that owned him lord.
Like a whirlwind on he hurried, though the storm was raging sore:
In his heart he carried torture: there was music in its roar--
Like a hurricane on he hurried, spurring on with loosened rein,
Till he checked his jaded courser on his old paternal plain.
Clouds were scudding o'er the heavens; wild the tempest roared around;
And the very earth was shaking with the thunder's heavy sound;
But between the lightning flashes, frowning grimly, here and there,
Loomed his old ancestral castle, with its old ancestral air.
There, the barbican--the draw-bridge--there, the ancient donjon-keep,
With its iron-banded portals--there, the moat in sullen sleep!--
Galloping onward, lo! he halted, for they kept strict watch and ward,
And his courser's clanking hoofs had roused the ever-wary guard.
Loud above the increasing tempest rose the warder's threatening hail;
Louder rose the ringing answer from a lip that scorned to quail:
"Grey of Grey!" the warrior thundered, "he who fears nor bolt nor dart--
He who is your master, vassal--Roland of the Lion Heart!"
Clanking, clattering, grating, slowly up the huge portcullis went,
And the draw-bridge over the moat creaking, shrieking, downward bent;
On his armor flashed the torch-light, over helmet, cuirass, shield,
With its _lion d' or couchant_ upon a stainless _argent_ field.
Over rode he, frowning fiercely, throwing from him ruddy light,
Flashing, like a burning beacon, on his startled vassal's sight.
Rose the draw-bridge, fell the barrier, closed the oaken gates behind.
--All was silence save the roaring of the wild November wind.
PART II.
In a lofty vaulted chamber, pillared, Gothic, full of gloom,
But that flashes of the fire-light fitfully fell athwart the room--
Ruddy gleams of fading fire-light, lighting many a bearded face,
On the fluted hangings woven--founders of her husband's race--
On a carven couch in slumber lay the Lady Gwineth Grey,
Traces of a smile yet lingering on a cheek of rosy May--
On the softest velvet slumbering, in a mist of golden hair,
Trembling on her heaving bosom, and along her neck as fair.
Seemed she like the Goddess Dian sleeping in some lonely wood,
Or a nun on convent pallet dreaming only what was good:
By her stood an outened flambeaux, from which, blue, and thin, and rare,
Stole a wave of trembling vapor, slowly melting into air.
But the tapestry was lifted, and a form in steel array
Suddenly entered, and his coming drove the waning mist away.
Treading softly o'er the rushes Roland stept beside his bride,
In the passing of a moment standing at her couch's side.
Like an angel seemed the lady, lying in her rosy rest;
Like a devil seemed the knight, with passion raging in his breast:
For within his bosom, gnawing all his heart with teeth of fire,
Reigned Revenge, and on his forehead burned the purple hue of ire.
Slowly bending o'er his wife, but making not a sound, he gazed
Upon her, while his glaring eye-balls, like twin torches, brightly blazed.
--Starting, feeling one was near her, Gwineth raised her golden head,
Looking round her--flashed his falchion, and she sank in silence--dead!
Roared the tempest; crashed the thunder; even the castle seemed to quail
And tremble, like a living thing, before the fury of the gale;
But the fierce and fearless murderer turned to where his child reclined,
Asleep, amid the thunder's crash, the rushing rain and roaring wind.
As he bent above his boy, dim memories of days long back
Came, like stars an instant seen amid the autumn tempest's rack;
But as swiftly over his spirit flashed the ruin of his name--
Flashed the withering thought that even that child might be the child
of shame.
Wildly then he raised his glaive, but wilder, sterner, still, without,
Swelled the tempest, burst the thunder, yelled the winds with maniac shout;
While the lightning, red and vivid, quivered through the skies in ire,
Till the chamber with its flashes seemed a blazing hall of fire.
With this climax of the tempest--thunder, lightning, rain and wind--
Roland felt an awful doubt creep tremblingly athwart his mind;
Slowly, slowly, it arose, and grew gigantic; slowly, slowly,
Cloud-like, overshadowing him, darkening his spirit wholly.
Then, like Saul of Eld, he trembled, feeling his deed was one of guilt--
Believing heaven itself asserted it was innocent blood he spilt--
Feeling heaven was interfering, sank his heart, and fell his blade,
And the superstitious murderer tottered, wailing and dismayed.
"Be she spotless," groaned the warrior, "I have done a grievous crime--
Stained the snowiest shield that ever graced the temple-walls of Time.
--Thou, my noblest and my fairest! with thy mother's Saxon eye--
Shall my hand, too, strike thee lifeless? No! I cannot see thee die!"
Suddenly Roland saw the peril hanging over his guilty head--
Felt that he could never hide him from the vengeance of the dead--
Saw the heartless headsman smiling, and the axe, and heard the crowd
Shouting curses on the assassin--and the chieftain groaned aloud--
Groaned, for that his deed had robbed him of a home and of a name,
Hurling on his orphan son the damning heritage of shame:
Life and lands by law were forfeit; he had driven his offspring forth,
Rudely, ruthlessly, to wander, one of the Ishmaelites of earth.
But a sudden thought came o'er him, and his lofty eye again
Flashed with resolution, stern and strong as was his spirit's pain.
"Shall I rob thee of thy birthright--rob thee of thy noble name,
Of our old ancestral castle, and our fathers' deeds of fame?
"Shall I fling thee forth to struggle with a never-sparing world;
Knowing every eye will scorn thee, every lip at thee be curled?
Know thee, budding bloom of beauty, withering in thy youth away--
Feel thy infant promise fading--see thy falcon-eye decay?
"Did I give thee life to cloud it--life to poison every breath?
Better far the dreary dungeon, and the dark and iron death!
Never! Let them heap upon me rock on rock Olympus high;
None shall see a sinew quiver, none shall hear the slightest cry.
"'Blood for blood' is rightly written: I have slain a spotless wife,
And will dree a heavy penance--yield the law my forfeit life;
Come the judgment, I will meet it; and the torture shall not tear
Word from me to make a beggar of my rightful, righteous heir."
As the stricken knight was speaking, in the distance died the storm;
And the moonlight on the casement wandered sweetly, rested warm;
Through the golden glass it floated, fluttering over the lady's hair,
Till she seemed a mild Madonna, watched by angels, slumbering there.
Shaken by the storm of conscience, Roland sank upon his knee,
Sudden as before a hurricane falls some famous forest tree;
Sank beside pale, placid Gwineth, weeping, wailing, sorrow riven,
Feeling God had spoken, praying that his crime might be forgiven.
All that long and dreary night, Sir Roland watched beside the dead,
Humbly kneeling in the rushes strown around the carven bed.
Slowly, quietly approaching came the gray-eyed dreamy dawn,
Making every thing about him seem more desolate and wan.
One by one the stars went out, and slowly over the Orient came
Streaks of rose and tints of purple, flakes of gold and rays of flame,
And around the ancient castle Roland heard the hum of those
That from quiet sleep were waking, as they, one by one, arose.
Slowly through the painted casement, touching first the chamber crown
And the groined roof, the sunlight stole in lovely lustre down
Over the tapestry, that glistened, gleaming with its golden ray,
Till it kissed the russet rushes where in yellow sleep it lay.
Came the Lady Gwineth's maidens, starting at the sudden sight
Of their lord, Sir Roland, standing like a warrior for the fight;
But he waved them on; and, wondering, they unto the sleeper went--
Shrieking loudly, shrieking wildly as above her corpse they bent.
Startled by the sudden clamor, Roland's son in fright awoke,
As from all sides, madly rushing in the room, the vassals broke;
Gathering round him, gazing on him, looking on the bloody brand
And the lady, who, when living, was the loveliest in the land.
Not a word the warrior uttered, though his son implored him sore,
And they led him like an infant toward the oaken chamber-door;
There he turned and gazed on Gwineth, looking on her face his last;
Then between his guards in silence to the castle-prison passed.
There they left him; but at mid-day came, and, beckoning, bade him forth
To journey, not as he was wont to, from his ancient honored hearth:
To an armed guard they gave him, and amid their stern array,
Haughty, lofty-souled and silent Roland sternly rode away.
PART III.
When the gathering gloom of night in swarthy shadows floated down
On the mountain and the forest, Roland saw the distant town:
O'er its walls, and round its towers, a dim and sickly lustre lay.
Like the gray and ghostly haze that heraldeth the dawning day.
While, behind those walls and turrets, standing blackly in her light,
Full and large the lurid moon rose ghastily upon the night;
Shrouded in a cloud of crimson, slowly, slowly as he came
Rising higher, higher, higher, till the east was full of flame.
As his guards approached the gates--did she sink or did they rise?
Behind the black gigantic towers the planet vanished from his eyes.
All without was solemn blackness, but within was drearier dark,
Save when from some grim old building stole a taper's trembling spark.
Slowly through the lengthy streets, between old houses, rising high,
Over which, dark, dusk, sepulchral, bent the purple pall-like sky,
Through the town they bore him on, until frowningly, at last,
Rose the castle-walls before them, huge and massy, broad and vast.
With a last look on the heavens, the knight rode on beneath the gate:
Stepping from his steed he bowed him, stately, to his fearful fate:
On his limbs they fastened fetters, cold! how cold! their chillness ran
Freezing through his blood, the spirit of the stern, unconquered man.
Through a gallery they led him to a dark and dismal cell.
Where they left him. Sad and solemn, heavy, awful as a knell,
Seemed the fading of their footsteps, as he heard them slowly glide
Through the long and vaulted corridor till their very echo died.
Days went by--days dark with anguish, for his conscience, like a spur,
Drove him o'er the wastes of memory which were never black before;
Weeks slid by, and months--such months! such bitter months of pungent pain,
That their very hours seemed serpents gnawing at his heart and brain.
Next they led him forth to trial: like a child he bowed and went,
With his once black hair like snow, and his stalwart form so bent,
And his beard so long and white, and his cheek so thin and wan,
Even his very keepers thought it was a ghost they gazed upon!
When before his ermined judges, stately, silent, Roland came,
Over his cheek there flashed and faded, suddenly, a flash of flame:
Like a falling star it faded: lofty and erect he turned,
With the feeling that aroused it under his iron Will inurned.
"Roland, Baron Grey!" the crier, in the ancient Latin tongue,
Which, like some old bell in tolling, through the vaulted building rung:--
Cold and stern the prisoner answered--cold and stern--devoid of fear--
Looking haughtily around him:--"Roland, Baron Grey, is here!"
Muttering the solemn charge, they bade him answer; but he stood
Cold, and calm, and motionless, as though he were nor flesh nor blood,
But, rather, all a bronzed statue of the proud, primeval time--
In his silence self-devoted--in his very guilt sublime.
Thrice they prayed him: while he listened, not a quiver on his brow,
Not the movement of a hair upon his head or beard of snow,
Not the motion of a lip, nor even the flutter of an eye,
Betokening that he even heard them--he was there alone to die.
In the distant, dreary years, so run the legends even now--
Misty legends on whose summits slumber centuries of snow--
Lofty legends round whose summits clouds have lain for solemn ages--
Legends penned with iron pens in blood by Draco-minded sages--
It was written, they should bear him to a dungeon under ground,
Far beneath the castle moat, where came no single human sound,
And unto the earth should chain him, naked, on the icy ground--
Naked, like the sage Prometheus, on the mountain's summit bound.
Water--there was none for him, save that which flowed in the castle moat,
On whose green and slimy surface newts and mosses loved to float--
Bread--a crust a day--so, starving, freezing, there the Doomed was spread,
Pressed with weights of stone and iron till he answered or was dead.
Did he answer guiltless, lo! the trial; guilty, lo! the axe;
Death before the grinning thousand! worse than were a myriad racks!
While the trial were an evil quite as grievous, quite as great,
For the verdict of his peers would rend from him his proud estate:
But, if he died silent, then his lands would pass in quiet down
To bless his boy, his innocent boy, and not escheat unto the crown:
So he chose the darksome dungeon, rather there to die alone
Than by cowardly fear to steal the birthright of his orphan son.
But, beside this, came the thought that, by this penance he might win
Forgiveness from offended Heaven for his now-repented sin.
"Noble Roland," quoth his judges, "answer, ere it be too late;
Heavy, else, must be our judgment--heavier thine awful fate."
Then arose the ghostly knight, with his spectral eyes aflame,
While a more than mortal vigor coursed and circled through his frame;
And he gazed upon them smiling, and like hollow thunder broke
His accents on the swarthy silence:--thus and so the chieftain spoke:
"Lords! I answer not. If guilty, God will judge my sinful soul:
For my body--that is yours! I yield it to your stern control.
Would you have me--me, a warrior, like a coward plead for life?
Death and I are old acquaintance! I have met him in the strife--
"I have met him when the air was swooning with a ghastly fear;
When the Moslem swept before us, driven like a herd of deer;
When our voices mocked the thunder, shouting 'England and Saint George!'
And the lightning of our falchions fell like flashes from a forge!
"There, amid the clash and clang of sword and shield, I strove with Death--
That I conquered, ye may see; and now I yield to him my breath
Where there is no rescue, yield! and, as one would call a bride,
So I bid the grisly monarch smilingly unto my side.
"Shall I yield my broad estates, my castles and my manor lands,
To the harpies of the law, to hold them with unhallowed hands?
Shall I send my youthful heir forth with a stain upon his crest?
No! my eaglet yet shall reign an eagle in his parent nest.
"Lords and judges, I have done: no further words shall pass my lips,
Save prayers to Heaven, that my soul may, sun-like, rise from death's
eclipse."
Silently, he braved them still; and, sighing, sad, and full of gloom,
His judges sent him forth to struggle with the sharp and lingering doom.
Did he tremble at their sentence? Not a muscle quivered, not
A sign to mark he heard, save on his cheek one purple spot:
Statelier yet than ever, firmer, with a long triumphant breath,
Roland, smiling on his judges, sternly walked to certain death.
PART IV.
In his cell the knight is lying, naked, fettered foot and hand;
Bound unto the rocky ground with many an iron link and band;
On him lie the piles of granite, pressing, pressing; yet he still
Looks on death with lofty eye--so giant is his mighty will.
Day by day, he lay and suffered, wrung with agony, but content--
Day by day, though hard to bear was his grievous punishment--
Never once, though, hour on hour, they piled the jagged granite higher
On his quivering limbs, he murmured; yet his very veins were fire.
Once, however, came his jailer, saying that his nephew sought
His presence; and the knight, consenting, in his brother's son was brought:
"Uncle Roland," quoth he, weeping, "what is this that I have done?
Curses, curses on my head! curse, uncle, curse thy brother's son!
Mine the tongue that wrought this evil--mine the false and slanderous
tongue
That done to death the Lady Gwineth--O! my soul is sadly wrung!"
"Demon, devil!" groaned the warrior--"devil of the evil eye!
Look upon the awful horror wrought by thy atrocious lie.
Tell me? was it all a falsehood? Tell me, was it all--all--all?
Speak! and let these prison walls, oppressed with horror, on thee fall!"
"All was false! Mine, too the ambush; for I sought to grasp thy lands--
Sought to win the Lady Gwineth, with thy blood upon my hands.
But she drove me forth with scorn; and then I coined the lying tale--
O! forgive me, Uncle Roland! give me leave to weep and wail;
Give me leave to sit in sackcloth, heaping ashes on my head;
Mourning in some craggy cavern for the early lost and dead."
"Unexampled liar and traitor! first of all our noble name
Guilty of so black a treason! first to stain our shield with shame!
Hence! away! I--No! repent! begone! and pray for my repose:
Life on both of us too soon for our grievous crimes will close.
I forgive thee--now away--nay, do not touch me! I am wan--
Sick with suffering--mad with anguish--Go!" The penitent man is gone.
--Once again he lies alone, save his agony, alone;
Then they come and pile upon him heavier weights of iron and stone.
Still more pallid, at the even, Roland in his anguish lay,
Wrestling, for his soul was strong, with his body's slow decay;
And the sweat upon his forehead stood and rolled and fell like rain,
Cold, while pain and fire and fever battled in his heart and brain.
Now and then his senses wandered; now again his mind was calm,
And he wrung from out his suffering penitential draughts of balm;
Then again his senses left him, and he lay in phrenzy there,
Talking wildly in his madness with the dim, impalpable air.
Now, he saw the Lady Gwineth wandering in her maiden joy;
Now, he viewed her in her chamber frolic with her baby boy;
Now, he saw her sadly lying, all her bosom bathed with blood;
And beheld himself as o'er her on that fatal night he stood.
Was he dreaming? through his dungeon stole a pale purpureal light,
Flowing round him, floating round him, making daylight of its night;
In its midst, his gentle Gwineth, while around her brow there flowed,
Fluttering flame, a golden halo! that with heavenly glory glowed.
Did he hear her? Was it real? With an angel's voice she spoke:
How the words, like flakes of music, silver music! sweetly broke,
Round and round him! how they floated, ringing in his ravished ears,
Like the notes of Memnon's lyre, or chantings from the distant spheres!
"Coming, Roland, from that heaven where, though clad with light, I sigh
And languish for the softer lustre of thy gentle loving eye,
I await thee, singing, singing hymns to cheer thy dying hour
That the Cherubim sang in Eden when it first arose in flower.
Hearken! how my notes are mingling--one by one, and two by two,
Dropping on thy brain as falls on fading roses freshening dew;
Three by three, they upward circle: thou hast heard them in thy dreams,
When I came, a missioned spirit, from the four eternal streams.
I can see them, though thine eyes can only compass earthly vision:
Soon, O, Roland! soon, O, Roland! thou shalt see with eyes elysian:
Then the notes that now thou hearest thou shalt see, as on they flow,--
Angels that are rarest air! and view them through their dances go."
Still, entranced, the sufferer listened; and it seemed as from his pain
Sweeter music yet was born, for holier hymning lulled his brain;
Very wild his agony; very; but between its bars his eyes
Saw the angels as they wandered on the walls of Paradise.
Faint and fainter grew he, while the melody loud and louder rang,
Till it seemed not only Gwineth but a myriad angels sang;
And his soul seemed rising, rising, rising from his pallid clay,
Which, each moment, grew more feeble--faintlier wrestling with decay.
Burst upon his ears one swell! it seemed an anthem of the spheres,
Jubilant, divinely ringing; swam his eyes with happy tears--
"Come, forgiven one," the cadence, "chastened spirit, come, arise
From thine earthly prison-house to holy homes beyond the skies."
Fainter, fainter, still more feeble, grew the sufferer as he heard,
And a sigh swooned on the silence, soft as breathing of a bird,--
And all was over. In his trance his spirit's sparkling feet had trod
The realms of space, and gone from earth, through air, to judgment and
to God.
NOTES.
The judgment of the _peine forte et dure_, on an instance of which our
ballad is founded, was well known in the ancient law of England. As
has been seen, it was terribly severe. The circumstances of the
judgment were as follows: When a prisoner stood charged with an
offence, and an indictment had been found against him, before he could
be tried he was called upon to answer, or, in technical parlance, to
plead. A plea in bar is an answer, either affirming or denying the
offence charged in the indictment, or, if of a dilatory character,
showing some ground why the defendant should not be called upon to
answer at all. In those days, in all capital cases, the estates of the
criminal, on conviction and judgment, were forfeited to the crown. The
blood of the offender was considered as corrupted, and, as a
consequence, his property could not pass to his family, who, although
innocent, suffered for the faults of the criminal. Crimes, therefore,
where the punishment fell, not only on the criminal but on his family,
were comparatively of rare occurrence. An admission of guilt produced
the same effect as a conviction. If the defendant, however, stood
mute, obstinately refusing to answer, by which behaviour he preserved
his estates to his family, he was sentenced to undergo the judgment of
the _peine forte et dure_.
"The English judgment of penance for standing mute," says Chief
Justice Blackstone, in his admirable Commentaries, "was as follows:
That the prisoner be remanded to the prison from whence he came, and
put into a low, dark chamber; and there be laid on his back, naked,
unless where decency forbids: that there be placed upon his body as
great a weight of iron as he could bear and more; that he have no
sustenance, save only on the first day, three morsels of the worst
bread; and, on the second day, three draughts of standing water, that
should be nearest to the prison door; and in this situation this
should be alternately his daily diet _till he died_, or (as anciently
the judgement ran) _till he answered_."
With respect to this horrid judgment, Christian, in his notes to the
same work, goes on to say: that "the prosecutor and the court could
exercise no discretion, or show no favour to a prisoner who stood
obstinately mute." "In the legal history of this country," (England,)
he continues, "are numerous instances of persons who have had
resolution and patience to undergo so terrible a death in order to
benefit their heirs by preventing a forfeiture of their estates, which
would have been a consequence of a conviction by a verdict. There is a
memorable story of an ancestor of an ancient family in the north of
England. In a fit of jealousy he killed his wife; and put to death his
children who were at home, by throwing them from the battlements of
his castle; and proceeding with an intent to destroy his only
remaining child, an infant nursed at a farm-house at some distance, he
was intercepted by a storm of thunder and lightning. This awakened in
his breast compunction of conscience. He desisted from his purpose,
and having surrendered himself to justice, in order to secure his
estates to this child, he had the resolution to die under the dreadful
judgment of the _peine forte et dure_." This tale is the base of our
romance.
THE SEA NYMPH'S SONG.
BY WILLIAM H. C. HOSMER.
Sound is he sleeping
Far under the wave--
Sea nymphs are keeping
A watch for the brave:
Deep was our grief and wild--
Wilder our dirge
When the doomed ocean child
Drowned in the surge.
Within a bright chamber
His form we have laid;
With spar, pearl and amber
The walls are arrayed--
Though high rolls the billow
He wakes not at morn,
And sponge for his pillow
From rocks we have torn.
I heard thy name spoken
When down came the mast;
His hold was then broken,
That _word_ was his last.
A picture is lying,
Lorn maid! on his breast--
That picture in dying
His hand closely prest.
Why turns thy cheek paler
These tidings to know?
The truth of thy sailor
Should lessen thy wo:
The wave could not chill it
That stifled his breath;
Pure _love_--can aught kill it?
Give answer, Oh, Death!
THE LITTLE GOLD-FISH.
A FAIRY TALE.
BY JAMES K. PAULDING, AUTHOR OF THE "DUTCHMAN'S FIRESIDE," ETC.
In the reign of good King Doddipol, surnamed the Gnatsnapper, there
lived in a stately castle, on the top of a high mountain, a rich old
Norseman, who had an only son whom he loved with great ardor, and
little discretion, on account of his being the last of an illustrious
family. The youth was called Violet, partly because he had for his
godmother the Fairy Violetta, and partly on account of having on his
left shoulder an impression of that flower, so perfectly defined, and
so vivid in color, that the old nurse mistook it at first sight for a
real violet, and declared it smelled like a nosegay.
Being the only son of a great and rich nobleman, as well as somewhat
indolent and unambitious, Violet passed much of his time, while
growing up to manhood, in thinking much and doing nothing. He was
without companions, having no equals around him, and was prohibited
from associating with his inferiors by the strict etiquette which
prevailed throughout the dominions of good King Doddipol. As he grew
up thus in almost entire solitude his temperament became highly
poetical and imaginative, his feelings irregular and ardent, and it
was predicted that some day or other he would become a martyr to love.
Much of his time was spent in lonely rambles among the mountains which
surrounded the residence of the Old Man of the Hills, as he was
called, a distance of many miles in every direction, and one summer
day, wandering on without knowing or caring whither he went, he at
length found himself in a region where he had never been before. It
was a deep, sequestered, rocky dell, shaded by gloomy pines, from the
farther extremity of which there tumbled a bright cascade of
snow-white foam, which, after forming a deep transparent basin at its
foot, escaped murmuring among the rocks below and disappeared. Not a
sound was heard but that of the falling waters and the gurgling
stream, for the birds delight not in the gloom of perpetual shade, and
neither hunter nor woodman ever visited this lonely retreat.
Tired with his long ramble, Violet sat down at the foot of a lofty
tree, whose roots seemed to drink of the crystal basin, and fell into
a deep reverie, during which his eyes were fixed unconsciously on the
transparent water, which, though clear as our northern lakes, was so
deep that no one could see the bottom. While thus occupied in weaving
webs of youthful anticipation, he saw a little gold-fish suddenly dart
from under the rock on which he was seated, and play around with
infinite grace, quivering its fins and fanning its tail, while their
bright colors glittered in the rippling water with indescribable
brilliancy.
The youth watched its motions with increasing interest, and an
eagerness he had never experienced before. Sometimes it would come up
close to the spot, almost within reach of his hand, and after
balancing on the surface awhile, again dart away, only to return and
play a thousand fantastic gambols, full of vivacity and grace. At
other times it would remain stationary awhile, looking him in the face
with its mellow, melancholy eyes, and an expression of sorrowful
tenderness that sunk into his heart. He remained watching its motions
in deep solicitude, until the gathering shadows of twilight warned him
away, and reached home so late that he found his father anxiously
awaiting his return. The Old Man of the Hills inquired of him where he
had been, and what had detained him so long; but he answered
evasively, being ashamed to confess he had been fascinated by a little
gold-fish.
That night he could think of nothing but the little gold-fish, and
when at length sleep came over his eyelids, he dreamed it was a
beautiful princess, transformed by the power of some wicked enchanter
or malignant fairy. The impression was so vivid in his mind, that when
he awoke he could not decide whether it was indeed a dream, or whether
he had not actually seen the charming princess, whose features were
indelibly impressed on his memory. The next morning he again sought
the path he had traveled the day before, and about mid-day arrived at
the glen of the shining cascade. He had scarcely seated himself, when
the little gold-fish darted from under the rock as before, and winning
its way to the surface of the crystal basin, looked at him with an
expression of its beautiful eyes that spoke a joyful welcome. Violet
put forth his hand, and tried to woo it still nearer, but it only gave
a melancholy shake of the head, and when he attempted to seize it,
retired beyond his reach with a lingering hesitation that seemed to
indicate a mingled desire and apprehension.
Thus the little creature continued to coquette with him for several
days during which he repeated his visits, staying all day, and
dreaming every night the same dream of the beautiful princess changed
into a little gold-fish. While absent from the crystal basin, his
imagination was forever dwelling on the form and features of the
princess, and the mysterious connection he was convinced subsisted
between his waking thoughts and experience and his nightly dreams. By
degrees the two became inseparably associated together in his mind,
and insensibly he fell in love to distraction, but whether with the
beautiful princess or the little gold-fish he could not decide. He
became so melancholy in consequence that the latter, as if conscious
of his feelings, permitted him to take it in his hand, kiss it, and
nestle it in his bosom at pleasure. At such times he would beseech it
in the most moving terms to speak to him, tell him if his dreams were
true, and respond to his devoted affection. But it only replied by a
silent tear, and a look of strange meaning, which he could not
comprehend.
Violet grew every day more sad, and his youthful form continued to
waste away, so that as he walked in the sun, his shadow could scarcely
be seen. During this period the behavior of the little gold-fish was
so full of inconsistencies and contradictions that Violet was well
nigh distracted. Sometimes it would contemplate his pale cheek and
wasted form with tears in its eyes, while at the next moment it looked
at him with an expression of unfeeling triumph. Then its eyes would
glance rapidly and eagerly, sometimes toward himself, at others down
on the crystal basin, and at others upward to the skies.
One bright morning, when the position of the sun toward the east had
become gradually changed, and the beams of the former fell directly
upon the crystal basin, Violet was sitting, as usual, fondling the
little gold-fish in his hand, admiring its soft hazel eyes, and
addressing a thousand endearments to the little dumb creature, which
at that moment appeared insensible to his affection. Keeping its eyes
earnestly fixed on the transparent waters, which now glittered in the
golden beams of the sun, the youth suddenly felt it tremble as if with
ecstasy in his hand, as with a sudden spring it vaulted into the basin
and instantly disappeared. He gazed with intense anxiety, expecting
every moment it would reappear; but it returned no more, and after
waiting in vain, until dusky twilight enveloped the glen in shadows,
he bent his way homeward, scarcely conscious whither he was going.
That night he slept from the mere weariness of sorrow, and dreamed the
beautiful princess appeared to thank and bless him for her
disenchantment.
The next day the Old Man of the Hills called his son before him, and
announced with great satisfaction that he had just concluded a treaty
of marriage between him and the oldest daughter of King Doddipol, a
lady of great discretion, and old enough to be his mother. The young
man quitted the presence of his father in despair, and, scarcely
conscious of whither he was wandering, sought the crystal basin at the
foot of the shining cascade. Here, seated on the rock, he gazed
himself almost blind, in the hope of seeing the little gold-fish once
more appear, to receive his last farewell. But he gazed in vain for
hours, and hours, until in the bitterness of disappointment he at
length cried out aloud--"It is all in vain. It will come no more, and
nothing is now left me but a remembrance carrying with it eternal
regrets. But one hope remains. I will seek my adored princess, for
such I know she is, where she disappeared from my sight, and either
find her or a grave." Saying this he plunged into the basin in an
agony of despair.
He continued to sink, as it appeared to him, for nearly half an hour,
without once drawing his breath, until, just as he felt himself quite
exhausted, he found himself precipitated into what seemed a new
world, far more beautiful than that he had just abandoned. The skies
were of a deeper blue, and being likewise far more transparent,
reflected the features of the lower world as in a vast illimitable
mirror. There was no sun visible in the heavens. Yet a soft, delicious
mellow light, more rich and yet more gentle than that of summer
twilight, diffused itself everywhere, giving to every object the charm
of distance, and giving to the air a genial warmth inexpressibly
grateful. The meadows seemed like endless waving seas of verdure, and
together with the foliage of the woods, exhibited all the freshness of
the new-born spring; the little warbling birds seemed to revel among
the groves and verdant meads in joyous luxury, filling the air with
their melodious concert; the meadows were sprinkled with beds of
flowers of various hues and fragrance, and a thousand delicious odors
gave zest to every breath he drew. Vast fields of violets, most
especially, were spread out in every direction, larger and more
beautiful than any he had ever seen before. A gentle river meandered
deep and clear through a long valley spread out before him, skirted on
either side by pale blue hills, so high they seemed to reach and
mingle with the heavens above. A cool, refreshing zephyr played about
his brow, and as he breathed its inspiring odors, Violet felt himself
suddenly restored to all his wonted vigor and activity.
As he stood gazing in almost stupefied wonder at the scene before him,
and doubtful whether it was merely a creation of his bewildered fancy,
he perceived a radiant female form approaching, seated in a chariot
formed of a single violet, and crowned with a diadem of the same
flowers. Her dress, too, was composed of many-colored violets, and her
chariot drawn by butterflies, whose wings of gold and purple were of
glorious lustre. The chariot stood still on coming up to the youth;
the lady springing out, lighted on the flowers without ruffling their
leaves, and giving him her tiny hand addressed him as follows:
"Welcome, Prince Violet, for such you are by birth,
and by my creation. I was the friend of your
mother. I presided at your birth, and I gave you
your name. I therefore feel in some measure
responsible for your happiness, and am come hither
to give you the benefit of my advice and
assistance. Know, my prince, that you are brought
here by a destiny you could not avoid. You are in
the dominions, I might almost say in the power of
the wicked enchanter Curmudgeon, who is as potent
as he is wicked. Among his other diabolical acts,
he is an adept in the new science of animal
magnetism, can put you to sleep by the waving of
his hand, pull out your teeth without your knowing
any thing about it, and divorce your spirit from
your body, sending it wandering away to distant
regions, while the body remains unconscious though
not inanimate. In short, there is no end to his
wicked devices, and he is the most mischievous,
malignant monster in the world, inexorable in his
revenge, and clothed with the power of gratifying
it to its utmost extent. It is to warn you against
him that I am here. My name is Violetta."
The prince, as he must now be called, listened to this speech with
great gravity and decorum, though he thought it rather long, and
replied with infinite discretion. He thanked the fairy for her kind
intentions, and concluded by observing that he had often, when a
child, heard his mother speak of the Fairy Violetta with great
affection.
"Your mother was a woman of taste," said the fairy, "but there is not
a moment to be lost, for the enchanter is by this time apprized of
your coming, and the purport of your visit. Do not ask me what that
is. It is sufficient that you are here to fulfill your destiny."
The fairy then stamped three times with her little foot on a bed of
violets. At the first stamp there rose out of the ground a superb suit
of violet-colored armor; at the second a sword and spear; and at the
third a gallant violet-colored steed richly caparisoned.
"Take these, arm thyself, mount, and away. You will meet with many
obstacles in your course, but you have nothing to fear so long as you
fear nothing. Your first enemy will be a little mischievous caitiff,
called Master Whipswitchem, a creature of the wicked enchanter; your
second a monstrous giant; your third a beautiful spectre, and your
fourth the enchanter himself. The first you must circumvent by your
wit; the second by your valor; the third by your self-command; and the
fourth by your promptitude and sagacity. There is no magic in your
weapons, though they are equally good and true. Your dependence must
be on yourself alone; on your valor, your constancy, and your cause;
and remember, that should you ever turn your back on an enemy, whether
man, beast, or fiend, your happy destiny will never be accomplished.
You will never see your little gold-fish again.
"My little gold-fish!" exclaimed the prince eagerly--"What dost thou
mean? O tell me, most beneficent fairy!"
"You will know in good time, if you do not turn recreant," answered
the fairy, with a significant smile. "But away, away, my prince. Mount
and away. Follow the course of the river, and once more, never turn
aside let what will be before you, remembering that nothing is
impossible to courage, conduct, and perseverance in a good cause."
The prince bowed himself before the lady, repeated his grateful
thanks, mounted his neighing steed, which pawed the ground
impatiently, and was about clapping spurs to his sides, when the fairy
suddenly stopped him.
"Hold, prince! I had almost forgotten. Take this bouquet of violets,
place it in your bosom, and guard it well. But be careful not to draw
it forth except in the last extremity, depending always on your valor
and your sword. When your life shall hang suspended by a single hair;
when the last breath is quivering on thy lips, and all other means
fail, then, and not till then, use it as your instinct may direct.
Adieu, my prince--be faithful, bold and fortunate."
The fairy mounted her chariot, the butterflies spread their gorgeous
wings, and ascending rapidly through the transparent skies the whole
pageant disappeared. The prince lost not a moment in pursuing the
course pointed out by the fairy, and as he proceeded, gradually fell
into a reverie, the subject of which was the hint that it would depend
on himself whether he ever saw the little gold-fish again. The thought
roused him to the utmost height of daring, and he resolved, come what
might, nothing should be wanting on his part to the accomplishment of
a glorious and happy destiny. He fell himself suddenly animated by
this determination to gain a noble prize by noble exertions, for
nothing is more certain than that none but groveling, abject beings,
to whom nature has denied the ordinary faculties of mind, can remain
insensible to the excitement of glory, or the rewards of love.
He had not, however, proceeded far, when on a sudden there alighted on
the head of his steed, right between the ears, one of the most
extraordinary creatures he had ever seen. It was a little imp, about
three feet high, exactly resembling one of those scarecrows we
sometimes see in corn-fields, except that it was a great deal more
_outre_ in its form and dimensions. It wore an immense hat, of the
shape of a cullender, and with almost as many holes, through which
protruded little wisps of straw instead of feathers. The face was
perfectly undefinable, having neither dimensions nor shape, resembling
nothing of the live human species, and consisting apparently entirely
of a nose which projected several inches beyond the brim of his hat;
his shirt-collar was tied with a piece of rope; his jacket was as much
too short as his breeches were too long, one being out at the elbows,
the other at the knees, the latter of which were tied with a wisp of
straw tortured into a true lover's knot; his legs seemed nothing but a
pair of short broom-sticks, of neither shape nor substance, ensconced
in an old pair of spatterdashes; and the toes of his shoes curled
upward like a pair of old-fashioned skates. Altogether he cut a
curious figure, and the prince could not help laughing at his new
traveling companion. "This," thought he, "must be Master
Whipswitchem."
But his gallant steed did not seem to enter into the spirit of the
joke. He pricked his ears, pawed the ground, snorted, champed and
foamed, and finally stood stock still, trembling like a leaf. Prince
Violet began to wax somewhat impatient. Yet at length said to him very
courteously--
"My friend, if it is the same thing to you, I had rather you would get
off and walk."
"Thank you, my friend, but if it's the same thing to you, I'd rather
ride. Ho-ho! ha-hah!" and thereupon he laughed like a whole swarm of
flies.
Then the valiant prince drew his sword and gave Master Whipswitchem a
great blow under the short-ribs, which he took it for granted would
cut him in two; but the sword rebounded as if it had struck on an
empty bladder, while the little imp only bounded upward about three
yards, alighting in the same place as before, and crying out, "Ho-ho!
hah-hah!" At this rate, thought Prince Violet, I shall never get to
the end of my journey. Still he repeated his blows, at each one of
which the pestiferous little imp only jumped higher and laughed
louder, and the gallant steed only snorted, pawed, and stamped more
vehemently, until both steed and master became quite exhausted. The
latter then resorted to artifice, seeing that force was unavailing. So
putting up his sword, he affected to expostulate with his troublesome
companion on the impropriety of his conduct, watching at the same time
for an opportunity of laying hold of him. When he seemed off his
guard, and was crying "Ho-ho! ha-hah!" with infinite glee, the prince
suddenly throwing himself forward, seized him by the long nose, and
after holding him up kicking in the air for a few moments--for he was
as light as a feather--with a sudden jerk pitched him away out into
the river, where, after bobbing up and down some half a dozen times,
and crying "Ho-ho! ha-hah!" he disappeared. "Ho-ho! ha-hah!" cried the
prince, "I think I have done Master Whipstichem's business this time."
After which he proceeded gayly on his journey.
Before, however, he had time to enjoy the victory, his gallant steed
suddenly began to rear up before, and then to kick up behind with
great violence. The prince clapped his hand on his trusty blade,
thinking he was approaching the giant, but on looking round in every
direction could see neither castle nor draw-bridge. Indeed nothing
visible seemed to justify the horse in his unseemly gambols, and the
prince accused his gallant steed of being in league with his enemies,
when happening to look over his shoulder, who should he see but Master
Whipswitchem seated quietly on the crupper, and spurring away with an
old rusty nail he had fixed in the heel of his shoe, while he held by
the horse's tail for a bridle. "I swear by the eyes of my beautiful
gold-fish," cried the prince, "but this is too bad!" And then he
attempted to dislodge the pestilent imp, by thrusting his elbow into
his back; but the little caitiff every time bounced up like a
tennis-ball, and the next instant was in his seat, crying, "Ho-ho!
ha-ha!" louder than ever. This time he was too cunning for the prince;
for knowing by experience that his nose was the most exposed part of
his outworks, he kept his back to the prince, and his face toward the
tail of the horse. At the expiration of an hour the prince became so
worried that he could scarcely lift his hand to his head, and his
horse so exhausted that he could kick no more. At length, however,
while the little caitiff was spurring and laughing away with great
glee, the prince turning suddenly round on the saddle, seized the rope
which he wore round his neck for a cravat, and leaping from his steed,
hoisted him up to an old sign-post at the road-side, where he left him
dangling in the air. "Ho-ho! ha-ha!" said the prince, "I think I shall
have no more trouble with Master Whipswitchem."
Finding himself as well as his steed quite exhausted, and both
requiring rest and refreshment, Prince Violet dismounted in a
pleasant, shady grove, through which meandered a clear stream,
bordered by rich, luxuriant grass, thus furnishing both drink and food
to the panting animal, whom, having turned loose, he left to roam at
will. Seating himself among a bed of fragrant flowers, he lighted a
cigar, and sat smoking and thinking of his future prospects.
"Ho-ho! ha-hah! my prince, what are you about? You put me in mind of a
smoking chimney, though from your mighty contented look, I should
suppose you were very pleasantly occupied. I should like to take a
puff too, if you have no objection."
"O, beneficent Fairy Violetta," exclaimed the prince, "what shall I do
with this pestiferous caitiff, who minds neither hanging nor
drowning?" And thereupon the fairy, who doubtless heard his
adjuration, inspired him with a lucky thought. Knowing that the little
caitiff was but a man of straw, animated by the wicked enchanter, he
at once resolved to take advantage of that circumstance.
"Ho-ho! ha-hah! are you there, my friend?" replied the prince. "Well,
I see there is no use in quarreling with such a pleasant fellow. Come,
sit down, and take a puff with me, and let us swear eternal
friendship."
"Agreed!" replied the little caitiff, briskly. "It is true you played
a joke or two on me, but I flatter myself, on the whole, I paid you
beforehand; and for the present the account is pretty well balanced."
So they sat down and smoked very sociably together, talking about
various matters, until the little caitiff's cigar being burnt to a
stump, and somewhat incommoding his long nose, he began turning and
twisting it about, until it set fire to some blades of straw that
projected from his nostrils, which straight-way communicated to his
head, and thence to his body, and in a moment he was in full blaze.
"I am a gone sucker!" exclaimed he, and the words were scarcely out of
his mouth when, he became nothing but a heap of black ashes.
"Ho-ho! ha-hah!" quoth the prince, "if he is a gone sucker, I take it
for granted, it is all Dicky with Master Whipswitchem." And then,
himself and his horse being sufficiently refreshed, he mounted and
rode forward on his journey.
Ascending a high, wearisome hill, he saw at a little distance a great
and magnificent castle, which he at once took for that of the
enchanter Curmudgeon. The crisis of his fate was then at hand; and
after inspecting his armor and equipments, the prince spurred on
briskly to consummate his destiny. A few moments brought him to a
tower, at the end of a draw-bridge, where hung an enormous bell,
which, without hesitating a moment, he rung till it resounded far and
near. Instantly at the sound there rose up from the inner side, a
monstrous and deformed giant, upward of sixteen feet high. As he
advanced, he seemed all body and no legs--the latter being utterly
disproportioned to the former; his shoulders rose like mountains, one
higher than the other, almost to the top of his head; his body was all
over covered with impenetrable scales like an alligator, and he wore
on his head an old Continental cocked-hat, from which projected a
queue of such unaccountable length that it was said nobody ever saw
the end of it. But his most atrocious feature was a great proboscis,
growing just over a little pug nose, he used for smelling, about the
size of that of an elephant, which it exactly resembled in strength
and elasticity.
"What want you here?" roared the monster, in a voice so loud and
horrible, that it set the bell tinkling, and in a most discourteous
manner peculiar to giants, who are notorious for their ill manners.
"I wish to see the far-famed and puissant enchanter, the great
Curmudgeon, with whom I have a bone to pick, an please your worship,"
replied the prince, with infinite politeness.
"You see him--what good will that do? He would not look at, much less
speak to, such a sloppy stripling as you. To the right-about--march!
or I'll make mince-meat of you in less than no time."
"Stand aside, and let me pass!" cried the enraged prince, drawing his
sword.
"Advance at your peril!" roared the giant, twirling his proboscis, and
twisting his long queue like a great black-snake.
And now commenced a battle, the like of which is not recorded in
history, tradition, or romance. The sword of the valiant prince
gleamed, and flashed, and flew about like lightning, raining such a
shower of dry blows on the monster, that had not his hide been
invulnerable to any but enchanted weapons, he would in good time have
been a gone sucker, as Sir Bruin said. The giant, on the other hand,
had managed his proboscis with admirable skill, his great object being
to entwine the prince in its folds, and squeeze him to death.
Sometimes he would stretch it out at least six yards, and at others
draw it in suddenly, in hopes the prince would be deceived as to its
length, and come within the sphere of its action. But the prince being
gloriously seconded by his gallant steed, displayed an activity fully
equal to the craft of the giant; and for an hour at least the fight
continued doubtful. The only vulnerable part of the monster was his
long queue, which the prince, in hopes that, like Sampson, his
strength might peradventure lie in his hair, by an adroit manoeuvre
cut off about six feet from his head. Thereupon he roared like ten
thousand bulls of Bashan, insomuch that the enchanter, Curmudgeon,
feared he was vanquished, and trembled in the recesses of his castle.
The giant frantic with rage at the loss of what he was more vain of
than even his stately proboscis, now redoubled his efforts, while the
prince every moment became more exhausted, and his gallant steed
ceased his usual activity. The giant seeing this, watched his
opportunity, till he at length succeeded in throwing a slipping noose,
made by twisting his proboscis over the head of the prince. This he
gradually tightened with all his force, until the prince perceived
himself rapidly suffocating. His eyes failed him, and seemed bursting
from their orbits; his vision presented nothing but gleams of many
colored lights dancing before him; his heart heaved and panted with
throes of desperate agony; his arm became almost nerveless, and his
sword fell from his hand, while the shouts of the giant announced that
the victory was won.
At this moment of extreme peril, when the last gleam of consciousness
lingered in his brain, the prince recollected the bouquet of violets
which he still carried in his bosom, and drawing it forth with a
desperate effort, thrust it into the little pug nose of the giant,
which was directly before him. That instant the proboscis relaxed, as
if by magic, and the giant suddenly untwining its folds, commenced a
fit of sneezing, awful to hear, jumping up several feet from the
ground at every paroxysm, swearing at intervals like a trooper, and
cutting the most enormous capers. The moment Prince Violet recovered
himself sufficiently, he dismounted, and regaining his trusty sword,
belabored the impenetrable hide of the egregious monster with such
arrant good will, that he retreated backward between every fit of
sneezing, until finally falling into the moat, he stuck fast in the
mud, sneezing and roaring most vociferously.
Prince Violet lost no time, but passed swiftly into the castle, and
proceeding through several apartments, far more vast and magnificent
than the palace of King Doddipol, at length came to the study where
the wicked enchanter practiced Mesmerism, and other diabolical
devices. The old sinner was seated in an arm-chair of ebony, curiously
carved, and ornamented with figures of strange, misshapen imps, among
which the prince recognized his old friend, Master Whipswitchem. By
his side stood a female of such transcendent and inimitable beauty,
that the prince at once concluded this was the phantom against whom he
was so emphatically warned by his good friend the fairy. He allowed
himself but one glance, which sufficed to convince him she resembled
exactly the charming princess he had so often seen in his dreams, and
which had like to have proved fatal. Then shutting his eyes, he
advanced backward, sword in hand, toward the enchanter, who at the
first moment he saw him, began those mysterious wavings of the hand
with which he was wont to put his victims to sleep, and those
cabalistic words which changed men into beasts, insects, and reptiles.
But the prince having his eyes shut, and his back toward him, could
not see his motions, and the enchanter being horribly affrighted, as
well as naturally a great blockhead, was so long in recollecting the
formula of his incantation, that the prince, seeing by a sly glance
over the shoulder, that he was sufficiently near, suddenly turned
round, and with one blow severed his head from his shoulders. Then
catching it before it fell to the ground, he threw it into the great
kettle that hung boiling over the fire. He was just in time, for
Curmudgeon had got to the last but one of his cabalistic words, and in
a single instant more, Prince Violet would have been changed into a
cabbage. No sooner was the head thrown into the kettle, than the water
began to hiss and foam, and blaze up in spires of blue sulphureous
flame, until finally the kettle burst into a thousand fragments, and
the head disappeared up the chimney. Then the phantom beauty, uttering
a shrill, dismal scream, melted into air--and the enchantment was
dissolved forever. At that moment Prince Violet heard a voice from the
skies, as tuneful as the music of the spheres, saying, "Well done, my
prince, the death of the wicked enchanter was necessary to the
recovery of thy lost gold-fish--for while he lived thou wouldst never
have seen it again. Go on--thy destiny ere long will be accomplished."
A strain of aerial music succeeded, which gradually faded into
whispering zephyrs, bearing on their wings the mingled perfume of a
thousand flowers.
The prince took possession of the castle by right of conquest; and
when the people over whom the enchanter had reigned with a cruel and
despotic sway heard of the gallantry with which he had rid them of
their tyrant, they gathered themselves together, and with one voice
chose him for their king.
Prince Violet proved an excellent sovereign; but, though he made his
subjects happy, he partook not in what he so freely bestowed on
others. The recollection of the little gold-fish, and of the beautiful
princess he had so often seen in his dreams, was ever present, and
poisoned his days and nights with perpetual sorrows. Though courted by
King Grabyall, and all the surrounding potentates, who had grown up
daughters, he declined their advances, passing most of his leisure
hours in wandering along the river he had followed in his journey, and
which flowed just at the foot of the terrace of his stately castle. He
remembered that it issued from the aperture through which he had
emerged from the crystal basin, and constantly fed his sickly fancy
with the hope that the little gold-fish might have vanished in the
same direction. If so, it was probably still in the river, if it lived
at all; and he was perpetually bending over the stream, watching the
gambols of the finny tribes, to see if he could not detect among them
his lost wanderer.
One day having rambled much further than he had ever been before in
that direction, he perceived in turning a sharp angle of the river, a
noble marble villa, which had never attracted his notice before. It
basked its white, unsullied beauties on the bank of the murmuring
stream, and its turrets rose from out a sea of green foliage that
almost hid them from sight. Led by curiosity, or rather by his
destiny, he approached the building by a winding walk, that seemed
almost a labyrinth, now bringing him near, and anon carrying him to a
distance, until tired at last, he stopped, and rested himself under
the shade of a stately beech, that spread its broad arms afar, and
afforded a delightful canopy. Here, gazing around in listless apathy,
his attention was attracted by the letter V, carved on the smooth
bark, and environed with a chaplet of violets, underneath which the
motto, "Forget me not," was cut in graceful letters. While pondering
on this rural emblem of constant love, he was startled by a low and
plaintive female voice chanting the following simple strain, with the
gentle pathos of chastened sorrow:
"Forget me not! forget me not!
Pale, withered leaf, in which I read
The sad, mysterious, lonely lot
By cruel fate for me decreed.
"Pale, withered leaf, you mind me now
Of him whose gentle name you bear,
Whose lips once uttered many a vow,
In breath more sweet than violets are.
"Oft would he take me in his hands,
Oft hide me in his throbbing heart;
Oft kiss my eyes with words so bland--
Was ever scaly imp so blessed;
"I joy'd his wasting form to see,
His stately beauties fade away;
'T was wo to him, but bliss to me--
It made him sad, while I was gay.
"But I shall never see him more,
Nor share with him my life's dear lot;
Sweet youth, whose memory I adore--
Forget me not! forget me not!"
These words, sung to a sweet, melancholy melody, equally excited the
sympathy and wonder of the prince. The idea of a young lady being
delighted at seeing the face of her lover wither, and his body waste
away, he thought did little credit to the heart of woman; and that
what made him sad should make her gay, appeared to show a great want
of sympathy. As to the "little scaly imp," he could make nothing of
it. Still there was that in the song which seemed to bear some strange
allusion to his own peculiar situation; and his curiosity became so
excited, that without reflecting on the impropriety of his conduct, or
its consequences, he, as it were, impelled by an involuntary yet
irresistible impulse, advanced in the direction whence the voice
proceeded.
Passing through a long winding avenue bordered by beds of violets, and
overshadowed by lofty trees, he at length came to a bower of
clambering vines entwined with each other, at the further extremity of
which, seated on a bank of flowers, he beheld a female figure, her
cheek resting on her hand, and tears flowing from her eyes. He gazed
on her face, which was turned toward the heavens, and shuddered as he
recognized an exact likeness of the phantom beauty he had seen at the
side of the enchanter's chair. He sought to retreat, but continued to
advance by an irresistible impulse, until the lady, at the sound of
his footsteps, looked toward him. The moment she saw the prince she
uttered a piercing shriek, at the same time rushing forward with
extended arms, and a face glowing with joyous welcome. Then, as if
suddenly recollecting herself, she hastily retired, and sunk down on
the seat, her cheek glowing with blushes. The prince continued to
advance, controlled by an influence he could not withstand, and coming
up to her, apologized as well as the confusion of his mind would
permit, for his unceremonious intrusion.
The lady remained gazing at him, with mingled smiles and blushes, for
a few moments, and then addressed the prince in words that seemed to
come from a mouth of roses.
"Don't you know me, my prince?"
"Know you," faltered he, "I believe--I fear--I know you but too well.
You are the phantom beauty. The chosen instrument of the wicked
enchanter, Curmudgeon."
"Alas! no. I am no phantom, nor, I trust, an instrument of mischief at
least to you. The phantom was formed in my likeness, because--because,
as the enchanter confessed, he could create nothing so beautiful as
myself by the utmost exertion of his arts."
The prince gazed at her in a trance of admiration, for never, with the
single exception of the phantom, and the idol princess of his dreams,
had he seen a being so enchantingly lovely. The lady received his
scrutiny with smiles of modest pleasure, and at length repeated her
question--
"Do you not know me, my prince?"
The prince emboldened by her smiles, or impelled by his destiny,
seated himself by her side, and gazed ardently, yet wistfully, in her
face. There was something in the expression of her eyes he fancied he
had seen before, but when or where he could not call to mind. At
length the lady, compassionating his perplexity, again anxiously
asked--
"Do you remember a certain little gold-fish?"
"Remember? I shall never forget," and his eyes glistened.
"Do you remember how you used to come to the crystal basin, at the
foot of the shining cascade, and stay all day long fondling a little
gold-fish, kissing its eyes, and hiding it in your bosom?"
"Remember!" cried the prince, "the recollection constitutes the hope,
or rather the despair, of my life. Would that I could see my dear
little companion again. Methinks I should then be happy, or at least
die content."
"Look in my face--look steadily," replied the lady, greatly agitated.
Their eyes met, and that look of mutual intelligence which never
deceives, disclosed the mystery. He recognized at once that glance of
mingled love and gratitude he had so often seen beaming from the soft
expressive eyes of the little gold-fish. He started from her side,
threw himself at her feet, and exclaimed--
"Tell me--tell me! art not _thou_ my little gold-fish?"
"I am," rejoined the lady. "Once thy little gold-fish, now thy
faithful and devoted handmaid, the Princess Violetta. It is to thy
constancy I am indebted for the recovery of my former self; and such
as I am, I will be to thee what thou choosest to make me."
"Mine forever! my beloved, my adored wife!" cried the prince, as he
folded her in his arms, kissed her as he was wont to do the little
gold-fish, and at that moment reaped the reward of all his sufferings.
After enjoying the first delights of mutual love, the princess said to
him, "Doubtless you are anxious to know how I came to be transformed
into a fish; and I will tell you now, that there may be nothing to
explain hereafter. I must begin early, for my misfortunes commenced
almost at my birth. I am the only child of King Grabyall, in whose
dominions you now are; and according to the universal custom of all
royal christenings, a great many fairies were invited to mine, and
some few vulgar things came without invitation. Among the latter was
an old fairy, so ill-natured and malicious, that, though very powerful
to do evil, no one would pay her the least attention; for they knew
that no kindness could conciliate the wicked old creature. Of course,
neither my father nor mother paid her the least attention, or made her
presents; and no one spoke a word to her, at which she flew into a
great rage, and went away shaking her wand, and mumbling in a spiteful
manner, 'Well, good people, you are all mighty silent now, but before
long you shall have talking enough, I promise you!'
"Everybody laughed at the spiteful old woman--but it was no such
laughing matter, I assure you, my prince; for she was hardly out of
sight, when, to the astonishment of the whole court, I began to talk
with such volubility that nobody could keep pace with me. First I
scolded the nurse, then abused the fairies, and finally took my
parents to task roundly for attempting to stop me. The courtiers tried
to persuade them that this was only an omen of my precocious genius,
and that, beyond all doubt, I should one day become the wisest, most
eloquent princess in the world. But they remembered the threat of the
malicious old fairy, and became exceeding sorrowful. As I grew up my
volubility increased; I talked from morning till night, and all night
too. Sleeping or waking, it was just the same; and my voice was so
loud and shrill that it could be heard all over the palace. What
rendered the matter still worse, I was exceeding ill-natured,
satirical, and witty, insomuch, that all were afraid to come near me;
and I was obliged at last to talk to myself. It is necessary I should
apprise you that I grew up to great beauty, and by the time I was
sixteen, many of the neighboring princes came to pay their addresses
to me. But I never gave them an opportunity, for before they could
open their lips, I poured a torrent of satirical reproaches in their
ears that struck them all dumb; insomuch, that it was said some of
them never recovered their speech afterward. Do you not hate me, my
prince, for being such a termagant?"
The prince, to say the truth, was a little startled at this detail,
but replied with a look that was perfectly satisfactory; and the
princess proceeded with her story.
"At the age of seventeen, the enchanter, Curmudgeon, incited by the
report of my beauty, came to pay my father a visit--my mother being
long since dead. He at first sight fell violently in love, and
demanded me in marriage of my father, who, though a kind-hearted, good
man, was, I believe, heartily glad to get rid of me, but at the same
time frankly apprized him of my infirmity. 'O, ho!' answered the
enchanter, 'never mind that--I shall soon cure her, I warrant you.' He
then approached to make his declaration, when, being exceedingly
provoked at his slighting expressions, which I had overheard, I gave
him such an explosion of satire, spleen, and ill-nature, as he had
never probably heard before. I ridiculed his pretensions, scoffed at
his person, despised his offers, and defied his power, until he could
stand it no longer. Stamping his foot on the floor, waving his hand,
and muttering some cabalistic words, he at length cried out in a rage,
'BE DUMB FOREVER! or at least till such time as some prince shall be
fool enough to fall in love with you, and pine away until he makes no
shadow in the sun.'
"At that moment I found myself changed into a gold-fish, and swimming
in the crystal basin where you first saw me. How long I remained there
before you made your appearance I cannot tell, but I know that I was
heartily tired of my loneliness, and at first felt the loss of speech
very severely. I rejoiced when I first saw you. Your caresses
penetrated my heart, and--you must forgive me, my dear prince--but
when I beheld you wasting away daily, and knew it was for love of me,
my happiness grew with your sorrows, for I felt that my deliverance
was at hand, and that I should live to reward you for all your
sufferings. The day the sun first shone full into the crystal basin,
and I saw that you cast no shadow there, you may remember, I suddenly
darted from your hand and disappeared. It was very ungrateful, but I
could not resist my destiny. I was instantly transformed to my
original likeness, and--but don't be alarmed, my prince, for I assure
you my propensity to talking was effectually and forever repressed, by
the long habit of silence I had preserved as the little gold-fish. I
was received by my father with affectionate welcome, and--and what
else shall I say? I have mourned your absence day after day, until I
almost ceased to hope that I should ever see you again. But," added
the princess, with a look of unutterable tenderness, "thou hast come
back once more to me--thou hast sought and found thy little gold-fish,
and I am happy."
The prince had scarcely time to return suitable acknowledgments, and
vow eternal love, when they were roused by the sound of the hunter's
horn, announcing the return of King Grabyall from the chase. The
princess introduced him to the prince; and his majesty being in high
good humor, having been very successful that morning, beside having
an excellent appetite for dinner, received him most graciously. The
ardent prince lost no time in declaring his love; and King Grabyall,
knowing that he had been chosen to govern the territories of the
enchanter, Curmudgeon, beside inheriting all his vast riches,
graciously consented to the marriage. He did this the more willingly,
knowing from late experience that the princess, having fulfilled the
denunciation of the malicious old fairy, had survived her infirmity.
There was never in this world such a splendid and happy wedding; and
what added to the pleasure of all parties, was seeing the good fairy,
Violetta, enter the superb saloon to honor the ceremony.
"Welcome, my prince," said she, holding out her little, delicate hand,
"I congratulate you; you have triumphed by valor and constancy."
When the ceremony was over, the prince inquired anxiously whether she
knew aught of his father, and was informed that he had married the
daughter of good King Doddipol, and was wasting his substance as fast
as possible, by giving _fêtes_ to the bride, and lending great sums to
his father-in-law. Prince Violet sighed at the fate of the Old Man of
the Hills, but in good time forgot all his griefs in the arms of love
and beauty.
The Princess Violetta made a most excellent wife, and never afterward
talked more than became a reasonable woman. The wicked giant, who, it
should have been premised, had been extricated from the moat, and
finished his fit of sneezing, being freed from the diabolical
influence of the enchanter, Curmudgeon, took the pledge, became a
tetotailer, and lived ever after an example to all overgrown monsters,
past, present, and future.
THE VESPER BELL.
BY PARK BENJAMIN.
How deep and mournfully at eve's sweet hour
The bell for vespers chimes its holiest note,
When the soft twilight lends its soothing power
And on the air a silence seems to float!
The weary wand'rer knows a home of rest,
He toils not now who toiled the livelong day,
Friends cherish fondest recollections, blest
With thoughts of them whose love cannot decay,
The best affections of the heart are told,
We greet with joy our dear, domestic hearth,
And think how strong the viewless bonds that hold
Unwearied love to transient things of Earth.
And visions of his lyre the poet sees
At this lone time of Nature's sweet repose,
When fancied music, borne on every breeze,
Æolian-like, with thrilling sadness flows.
Oh, then move thoughts, the holiest and best,
O'er the soul's calm and mild serenity,
Like beauteous birds that skim along the breast
Of the still waters in some waveless sea.
Where that deep bell sends forth its solemn tone,
How many worship at Devotion's shrine!
How many voices rise before the throne
Whence the bright glories of the Godhead shine!
Not when the glories of th' opening day
With crimson blushes usher in the dawn,
Not when the noontide pours its deepest ray
On forest, glade, blue lake and emerald lawn;
Not when the moonbeams shed their silvery light
In richest lustre over copse and dell,
Come sainted hopes, sweet dreams and fancies bright
As when through shadows sounds the Vesper Bell.
THE TEACHER TAUGHT.
BY MARY S. ADAMS.
"Three months' imprisonment! Heigho!" soliloquized Harvey Hall, as he
entered the school-room, and surveyed the array of seats before him.
"Well, poverty is a crime punished not only by one's state and
country, but by the whole world. Here am I longing for a profession
which shall give some play to my mind, which shall enable me to take a
stand among men; and now to purchase that profession I must 'teach
young ideas' till the requisite sum is obtained. The daughters of
Darius were condemned for the murder of their husbands to fill leaky
vessels in Tartarus--that is, they became teachers! It is hard that
those who have neither _been_ nor _murdered_ husbands should endure
like punishment."
Harvey Hall always spoke the truth, albeit sometimes the truth a
little _swollen_; so he was, as he said, condemned to a temporary
reign over children and spelling-books, in order to pursue his
studies--for the expenses of which the limited finances of his parents
would not suffice; and he had taken the academy at L., with the due
announcement of all his qualifications in the county newspaper.
"Some bright faces here," thought he, as his eyes glanced over those
of his scholars upturned to him, and rested on one with eyes bright
enough to light Cupid on his way to any untenanted heart, but bearing
the expression of smothered mirth, never relished by those who do not
happen to know the _mot d'enigme_. Small white fingers traced
something rapidly on the slate, which was then given to a young lady,
who, on the perusal of its characters, gave a stifled laugh, and
buried her face in a handkerchief. But the author of the mischief,
whatever it was, instantly turned to gravity, and met the searching
gaze of Hall with a demure look which amused him not a little.
"That daughter of Parson Hinton finds fun enough in something. I wish
her father could preach her into better behavior. She is the most
troublesome sprite I have in school. Young ladies," he said, assuming
all the dignity of his position, "less whispering, and more attention
to your studies would conduce to your improvement."
Annie Hinton and her chum took their books, and were soon apparently
absorbed in them. Annie met with some question she could not solve;
and taking her book to the teacher, she asked an explanation. It was
given.
"And you made an observation just now, sir, which I wish to remember.
Will you be so kind as to repeat it," she added, bending toward him
with the greatest mock attention and deference.
It is said that the worst reception of a compliment is to request its
repetition; and the remark is just as applicable to a reproof.
Certainly Harvey Hall found it so. Impudence he could have met
successfully; but there was something in the arch air of respect, so
evidently assumed, and in the polite tone accompanying bright eyes
which _would_ almost laugh out, which told him that the present scene
would figure in some after frolic formidable enough to young gentlemen
who are never proof against the ridicule of mirthful girls in their
teens. He longed to laugh with her at it all, but an assembled school,
a roguish scholar, would not exactly admit of this; so, coloring a
little, and then provoked at himself for the _gossiping_ blood which
betrayed his inward embarrassment, he said,
"Oh, merely that study is more appropriate to the school-room than
amusement. I shall be happy to have it dwell in your memory and
practice, Miss Hinton."
Annie bowed gracefully, gravely, and turned away, but not before Hall
mentally resolved never to admonish her again if he could avoid it.
When the day for compositions came--that bore which all parties would
gladly overlook instead of look over--Hall, dreading trite essays on
all the hackneyed themes of school, told the misses under his charge
to write on any thing that interested them--they might describe some
of the manners and customs among them.
"But we have _no manners_, and very few customs, Mr. Hall," said
Annie.
"Well, select any subject that pleases yourself, Miss Annie."
The composition was on Dignity, and was so ludicrous, so _personal_ a
description of it, that Mr. Hall was fairly puzzled. What shall I say
to this merry damsel, who seems to turn into sport all I say or do. I
cannot correct her.
"Miss Hinton, carry this home to your father, and see if he says it is
a proper article for you to bring in as a composition."
The next day it was returned with, "My father thinks Dignity one of
the finest things he has ever seen," she said, half hesitating, as if
unwilling to utter such praise, but looking as if all the spirits of
fun had taken the opportunity to look out of her eyes. Of course, her
reverend parent had never had a glimpse of it--and this her teacher
very well knew.
But why watch her with more interest than all the "well behaved" of
his school? In accordance with Scripture, he left the ninety and nine
just ones, to search for the one who went astray. The lessons she
recited had for him a double interest; the days she was absent were
like the dull, gray sky of autumn--nay, several times he even
acknowledged to himself that teaching was _not_ the dull routine he
had supposed, and the term of his probation had not the leaden wings
he had anticipated.
But there was an apprehension to disturb the tenor of his thoughts,
and fall heavily upon his official capacity. He had--yes, he certainly
had seen Annie Hinton receive a billet from Charles Lane; and Charles
Lane was a bright youth--a fine scholar--ready to enter college the
next term--and just her age. It was wrong, decidedly wrong, to have
any silly flirtations between mere boys and girls--he had always
considered it so; but now it was wonderful to see how strong his
reasoning, and firm his opinions were on this subject. And personal
experience _has_ an extraordinary power in giving edge to moral
reflections; how it draws them out of the shade, concentrates and
clinches them.
Well, Harvey Hall felt really grieved that scholars should have their
attention drawn away from their studies by such nonsense as a
children's love affair. Charles Lane was a promising boy to be sure;
but he must go through college, and be settled in life before he ought
to think of fancying any one. He might become dissipated--such bright
boys often did; or fickle--in short, no one knew which rein of his
character the future might pull. And Annie--pretty creature--who could
not pass a day without some mirthful episode, how ridiculous for a
child like her to think of selecting a lover! her mind was not
disciplined at all--her taste not pronounced; she might make a
different choice when she really knew her own wishes, and had seen
more of the world. It would be wrong to entangle herself with any
passing fancy like the present--really wrong to suffer a child to make
a decision by which the _woman_ must abide. And then the good minister
would be shocked to see his plaything, Annie, forming any foolish
attachment. Yes, he must do all he could to prevent it. But how could
Parson Hinton be so blind? The other evening when he called there,
Charles Lane knocked at the door, to bring a slip of geranium, which
he had walked several miles to get for Annie; and the old gentleman
only said, "You are very obliging, Charles--drop in and see us often."
So strange, not to know it was just like such precocious youths to
fancy themselves in love with every pretty girl. So laws were enacted
stricter than those of the Medes and Persians, against all billets
passed in school; as if Cupid, had he made the essay, would not have
delighted to jeopardize all regulations, and fly in the face of all
laws.
One day as Mr. Hall was ascending the steps to enter school, he saw
Annie give Charles Lane a knitted purse, and heard her say something
about "the phillipina." As I said, he was _principled_ against such
interchange of sentiment, or gifts, between such children; but the
present instance did not come precisely under his dominion, being
_out_ of school--and he entered upon his duties with a somewhat cloudy
brow. Every one has observed how much the sky of his feelings
influences the earth of reality. If one wakes "out of tune" in the
morning, the events of the day seldom harmonize him. Let you walk out
in a city, feeling blue and burthened, and how many things conspire to
annoy you. You are blinded by dust, or contaminated with mud, or the
snow slumps, or your feet slip at every step; a child is almost run
over in the street; people jostle rudely; the bell tolls; the
town-crier seems to scream at every corner where you turn; the lady
you particularly admire is talking with vast animation to ----, and
does not even perceive you; a bow thrown away; Mr. Lawkens, the deaf
man, will cross over to speak to you, but cannot hear your answer,
although you have repeated it the third time; a gust of wind blows off
your hat, and a bore holds you by the button to tell you, what you
well knew, the election has gone against your favorite candidate;
while you inwardly exclaim, "misfortunes never come single."
Our pedagogue had a hazy atmosphere around his spirit this day--and
nothing cleared it. The recitations were miserable, and the boys full
of pranks--which boys are heir to; the girls were any thing but
book-intent. The class in chemistry was called, and as Mr. Hall was
performing some experiments on the apparatus, he said,
"Now, when I apply this, you will see that--it wont go," he added, as
the desired result, from some cause, failed.
"Certainly, we see it," smilingly whispered Annie to the next on her
seat.
The sound reached Mr. Hall, already mortified by the failure of the
experiment.
"Miss Hinton," he exclaimed, in a loud, stern tone, "take your books,
and go home."
Annie looked surprised, as well she might, and waited, as if to be
sure she did not misunderstand him. The attention of the school was
roused--there could be no revocation--so the mandate was repeated, and
obeyed.
Poor Hall! his chemical manipulations were no more successful that
day; classes were called, and heard at random. The small scholars
thought "it was a grand time--master did not seem to mind them;" while
older ones wondered at his unwonted humor. Meanwhile his reflections
were any thing but agreeable. How could he have been so harsh for such
a trifle, and ungentlemanly too. All Annie's faults were the mere
exuberance of a joyous spirit; and she was quick to acknowledge and
regret them; and yet he had not expostulated, but abruptly commanded
her to leave. How she must despise him! And she had a great deal of
sensibility; he had seen the color suffuse her face, and the tears
glisten in her dark eyes, when a tale of sorrow or delicious poem had
excited her emotion. Perhaps she was at that very moment weeping at
his harshness; and then proofs of interest in _him_, albeit she was a
laughter-loving spirit, stole over his memory. He thought of an
evening he had lately passed at her house, when his conversation
seemed to rivet her attention, although he afterward heard her say,
"There! Mary Jane has a party to-night, and I entirely forgot it until
too late. Well, I have enjoyed myself better here." And _he_, the
ingrate! how had he returned it, by unwarrantable rudeness! She was
just beginning to talk to him with confiding frankness of her books,
her tastes, and opening to _his_ study a mind as well worth it as the
changing loveliness of her face--when this folly had destroyed it all.
And what would the good minister say? He who had received him so
kindly; so hospitably told him to come to him at any and all times
when he could be of assistance--what would _he_ say to have his pet,
at once his amusement and pride, turned out of school like any common
urchin?
Oh! how the hours of school dragged. Every moment seemed to bear a
weight of lead, and carry to the luckless teacher a thousand arrows
poisoned by self-reproach. No sooner was his fiat of release obtained,
than with mingled regret and apprehension, he wended his steps to the
parsonage. He knocked at the door, desired to see Mr. Hinton, and was
accordingly shown up into his study.
"He looks as if something lay on his mind," thought the clergyman, as
he saw him enter, and advanced to shake hands with him. "Perhaps he is
considering the concerns of his soul. Heaven help me to counsel him
aright!" and there was an unusual kindliness in his tone, as he urged
him to be seated, which was "heaping coals of fire" on the head of the
conscience-stricken teacher.
A pause. "I am--I have called--I regret--"
"Ah, yes," mentally ejaculated the old man, "he feels the burden of
sin, and is under conviction, I see--"
"In short, sir, I am sorry to trouble you at this time, but I--"
"Speak out freely, my dear young man," said his benignant listener.
Is it possible he does not know what has passed?
"I regret to say that, vexed by the inattention of the scholars, and
by whispering, in which Miss Annie joined, I hastily told her to leave
school."
"Told my daughter Annie to leave school!"
The door of the study was thrown open, and Annie danced into the
middle of the room, her bonnet hanging on her arm, flowers in her
hair, and a bouquet in her hand, fresh from the woods in which she had
been rambling. "Father! father!" she stopped, and gazed first at her
father, and then at Mr. Hall, with a mingled expression of regret and
surprise. Her long walk that afternoon had given her a heightened
color; and the varied feelings which moved her were clearly depicted
on her face.
"Come here, Annie," said Hall, extending his hand, "come here, and say
you forgive the rudeness of this afternoon." She hesitated an
instant--the crimson deepened on her cheek, and the lip slightly
trembled; then looking up with one of her own radiant smiles, she gave
her small, white hand to the teacher.
Not long after he made another visit to the good minister's study,
not, indeed, to ask forgiveness for turning Annie out of school, but
to beg permission to transplant her one day to a home of his own.
Whatever was said, we suspect Annie might have served as "an instance
in point" for that rather broad generalization of Swift,
"No girl is pleased with what is taught
But has _the teacher_ in her thought."
"Young gentlemen," said Harvey Hall, (Judge Hall then,) when some
years afterward two or three of his law students were spending the
evening at his hospitable mansion, "young gentlemen, never regret the
necessity of exerting yourself in order to obtain your profession; for
beside the habit of _self-help_ thus formed, which is invaluable, you
may," he added, glancing archly at the face, fair as ever, of her who
sat with muslin stitchery by the centre-table, "meet with a wayside
rose as precious as Annie."
THE SUNBEAM.
(FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE.)
Come! watch with me this sunbeam, as o'er the moss bank green
It glides, and enters swiftly the foliage dark between;
Resting its golden lever, of mystic length and line,
Upon the dewy herbage, in an oblique decline:
Toward its moving column the stamen of the flowers
Whirl, as by strong attraction; and through the daylight hours
Gay insects, azure atoms, with every-colored wing,
Swim 'mid the light, still lending fresh sparkles as they spring.
See! how in cadenced measure they gravitate below,
Now linking, then unlinking, in quick, harmonious flow;
Of Plato's worlds ideal the semblance here appears,
Those worlds that danced in circles to the music of the spheres:
So small is every atom, amid yon countless band,
That hosts of them were needful to make a grain of sand;
They form the lowest step of that brilliant ladder trod,
Ascending from the light mote to the all-present God.
And yet a separate being exists in every part,
Within each airy globule there dwells a beating heart;
One world, perchance, presiding o'er worlds unnumbered, free,
To which the lightning's passage is an eternity;
Yet, doubtless, each enjoying, within their drop of space,
Days, nights, in all fulfilling their order and their place;
And while in wondrous ecstasy, man's throbbing eye looks on,
A thousand worlds are ended, their destinies are won!
O God! how vast the sources which feed such life and death,
How piercing is that vision which marks out every breath;
How infinite that Spirit which cherishes each grade;
And more than all, how boundless that love, free, unrepaid,
Which nurtures into being each particle that floats,
Descending from far sun-worlds to microscopic motes;
O God! so grand and awful in yonder little ray,
What thought dare seek to fathom the blaze of thy full day?
MARY E. LEE.
THE ISLETS OF THE GULF;
OR, ROSE BUDD.
Ay, now I am in Arden; the more fool
I; when I was at home I was in a better place; but
Travelers must be content. AS YOU LIKE IT.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "PILOT," "RED ROVER," "TWO ADMIRALS,"
"WING-AND-WING," "MILES WALLINGFORD," ETC.
[Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by J.
Fenimore Cooper, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the
United States, for the Northern District of New York.]
(_Continued from page_ 293.)
PART XV.
The screams of rage, the groan, the strife,
The blow, the grasp, the horrid cry,
The panting, throttled prayer for life,
The dying's heaving sigh,
The murderer's curse, the dead man's fixed, still glare,
And fear's and death's cold sweat--they all are there.
MATTHEW LEE.
It was high time that Capt. Spike should arrive when his foot touched
the bottom of the yawl. The men were getting impatient and anxious to
the last degree, and the power of Señor Montefalderon to control them
was lessening each instant. They heard the rending of timber, and the
grinding on the coral, even more distinctly than the captain himself,
and feared that the brig would break up while they lay alongside of
her, and crush them amid the ruins. Then the spray of the seas that
broke over the weather side of the brig, fell like rain upon them; and
every body in the boat was already as wet as if exposed to a violent
shower. It was well, therefore, for Spike that he descended into the
boat as he did, for another minute's delay might have brought about
his own destruction.
Spike felt a chill at his heart when he looked about him and saw the
condition of the yawl. So crowded were the stern-sheets into which he
had descended, that it was with difficulty he found room to place his
feet; it being his intention to steer, Jack was ordered to get into
the eyes of the boat, in order to give him a seat. The thwarts were
crowded, and three or four of the people had placed themselves in the
very bottom of the little craft, in order to be as much as possible
out of the way, as well as in readiness to bail out water. So
seriously, indeed, were all the seamen impressed with the gravity of
this last duty, that nearly every man had taken with him some vessel
fit for such a purpose. Rowing was entirely out of the question, there
being no space for the movement of the arms. The yawl was too low in
the water, moreover, for such an operation in so heavy a sea. In all,
eighteen persons were squeezed into a little craft that would have
been sufficiently loaded, for moderate weather at sea, with its four
oarsmen and as many sitters in the stern-sheets, with, perhaps, one in
the eyes to bring her more on an even keel. In other words, she had
just twice the weight in her, in living freight, that it would have
been thought prudent to receive in so small a craft, in an ordinary
time, in or out of a port. In addition to the human beings enumerated,
there was a good deal of baggage, nearly every individual having had
the forethought to provide a few clothes for a change. The food and
water did not amount to much, no more having been provided than enough
for the purposes of the captain, together with the four men with whom
it had been his intention to abandon the brig. The effect of all this
cargo was to bring the yawl quite low in the water; and every
seafaring man in her had the greatest apprehensions about her being
able to float at all when she got out from under the lee of the Swash,
or into the troubled water. Try it she must, however, and Spike, in a
reluctant and hesitating manner, gave the final order to "Shove off!"
The yawl carried a lugg, as is usually the case with boats at sea, and
the first blast of the breeze upon it satisfied Spike that his present
enterprise was one of the most dangerous of any in which he had ever
been engaged. The puffs of wind were quite as much as the boat would
bear; but this he did not mind, as he was running off before it, and
there was little danger of the yawl capsizing with such a weight in
her. It was also an advantage to have swift way on, to prevent the
combing waves from shooting into the boat, though the wind itself
scarce outstrips the send of the sea in a stiff blow. As the yawl
cleared the brig and began to feel the united power of the wind and
waves, the following short dialogue occurred between the boatswain and
Spike.
"I dare not keep my eyes off the breakers ahead," the captain
commenced, "and must trust to you, Strand, to report what is going on
among the man-of-war's men. What is the ship about?"
"Reefing her top-sails just now, sir. All three are on the caps, and
the vessel is laying-too, in a manner."
"And her boats?"
"I see none, sir--ay, ay, there they come from alongside of her in a
little fleet! There are four of them, sir, and all are coming down
before the wind, wing and wing, carrying their luggs reefed."
"Ours ought to be reefed by rights, too, but we dare not stop to do
it; and these infernal combing seas seem ready to glance aboard us
with all the way we can gather. Stand by to bail, men; we must pass
through a strip of white water--there is no help for it. God send that
we go clear of the rocks!"
All this was fearfully true. The adventurers were not yet more than a
cable's length from the brig, and they found themselves so completely
environed with the breakers as to be compelled to go through them. No
man in his senses would ever have come into such a place at all,
except in the most unavoidable circumstances; and it was with a
species of despair that the seamen of the yawl now saw their little
craft go plunging into the foam.
But Spike neglected no precaution that experience or skill could
suggest. He had chosen his spot with coolness and judgment. As the
boat rose on the seas he looked eagerly ahead, and by giving it a
timely sheer, he hit a sort of channel, where there was sufficient
water to carry them clear of the rock, and where the breakers were
less dangerous than in the shoaler places. The passage lasted about a
minute; and so serious was it, that scarce an individual breathed
until it was effected. No human skill could prevent the water from
combing in over the gunwales; and when the danger was passed, the yawl
was a third filled with water. There was no time or place to pause,
but on the little craft was dragged almost gunwale to, the breeze
coming against the lugg in puffs that threatened to take the mast out
of her. All hands were bailing; and even Biddy used her hands to aid
in throwing out the water.
"This is no time to hesitate, men," said Spike, sternly. "Every thing
must go overboard but the food and water. Away with them at once, and
with a will."
It was a proof how completely all hands were alarmed by this, the
first experiment in the breakers, that not a man stayed his hand a
single moment, but each threw into the sea, without an instant of
hesitation, every article he had brought with him and had hoped to
save. Biddy parted with the carpet-bag, and Señor Montefalderon,
feeling the importance of example, committed to the deep a small
writing-desk that he had placed on his knees. The doubloons alone
remained, safe in a little locker where Spike had deposited them along
with his own.
"What news astern, boatswain?" demanded the captain, as soon as this
imminent danger was passed, absolutely afraid to turn his eyes off the
dangers ahead for a single instant. "How come on the man-of-war's
men?"
"They are running down in a body toward the wreck, though one of their
boats does seem to be sheering out of the line, as if getting into our
wake. It is hard to say, sir, for they are still a good bit to
windward of the wreck."
"And the Molly, Strand?"
"Why, sir, the Molly seems to be breaking up fast; as well as I can
see, she has broke in two just abaft the fore-chains, and cannot hold
together in any shape at all many minutes longer."
This information drew a deep groan from Spike, and the eye of every
seaman in the boat was turned in melancholy on the object they were
so fast leaving behind them. The yawl could not be said to be sailing
very rapidly, considering the power of the wind, which was a little
gale, for she was much too deep for that; but she left the wreck so
fast as already to render objects on board her indistinct. Everybody
saw that, like an overburthened steed, she had more to get along with
than she could well bear; and, dependent as seamen usually are on the
judgment and orders of their superiors, even in the direst
emergencies, the least experienced man in her saw that their chances
of final escape from drowning were of the most doubtful nature. The
men looked at each other in a way to express their feelings; and the
moment seemed favorable to Spike to confer with his confidential
sea-dogs in private; but more white water was also ahead, and it was
necessary to pass through it, since no opening was visible by which to
avoid it. He deferred his purpose, consequently, until this danger was
escaped.
On this occasion Spike saw but little opportunity to select a place to
get through the breakers, though the spot, as a whole, was not of the
most dangerous kind. The reader will understand that the preservation
of the boat at all, in white water, was owing to the circumstance that
the rocks all around it lay so near the surface of the sea as to
prevent the possibility of agitating the element very seriously, and
to the fact that she was near the lee side of the reef. Had the
breakers been of the magnitude of those which are seen where the deep
rolling billows of the ocean first meet the weather side of shoals or
rocks, a craft of that size, and so loaded, could not possibly have
passed the first line of white water without filling. As it was,
however, the breakers she had to contend with were sufficiently
formidable, and they brought with them the certainty that the boat was
in imminent danger of striking the bottom at any moment. Places like
those in which Mulford had waded on the reef, while it was calm, would
now have proved fatal to the strongest frame, since human powers were
insufficient long to withstand the force of such waves as did glance
over even these shallows.
"Look out!" cried Spike, as the boat again plunged in among the white
water. "Keep bailing, men--keep bailing."
The men did bail, and the danger was over almost as soon as
encountered. Something like a cheer burst out of the chest of Spike,
when he saw deeper water around him, and fancied he could now trace a
channel that would carry him quite beyond the extent of the reef. It
was arrested, only half uttered, however, by a communication from the
boatswain, who sat on a midship thwart, his arms folded, and his eye
on the brig and the boats.
"There goes the Molly's masts, sir! Both have gone together; and as
good sticks was they, before them bomb-shells passed through our
rigging, as was ever stepped in a keelson."
The cheer was changed to something like a groan, while a murmur of
regret passed through the boat.
"What news from the man-of-war's men, boatswain? Do they still stand
down on a mere wreck?"
"No, sir; they seem to give it up, and are getting out their oars to
pull back to their ship. A pretty time they'll have of it, too. The
cutter that gets to windward half a mile in an hour, ag'in such a sea,
and such a breeze, must be well pulled and better steered. One chap,
however, sir, seems to hold on."
Spike now ventured to look behind him, commanding an experienced hand
to take the helm. In order to do this he was obliged to change places
with the man he had selected to come aft, which brought him on a
thwart alongside of the boatswain and one or two other of his
confidents. Here a whispered conference took place, which lasted
several minutes, Spike appearing to be giving instructions to the men.
By this time the yawl was more than a mile from the wreck, all the
man-of-war boats but one had lowered their sails, and were pulling
slowly and with great labor back toward the ship, the cutter that kept
on, evidently laying her course after the yawl, instead of standing on
toward the wreck. The brig was breaking up fast, with every
probability that nothing would be left of her in a few more minutes.
As for the yawl, while clear of the white water, it got along without
receiving many seas aboard, though the men in its bottom were kept
bailing without intermission. It appeared to Spike that so long as
they remained on the reef, and could keep clear of breakers--a most
difficult thing, however--they should fare better than if in deeper
water, where the swell of the sea, and the combing of the waves,
menaced so small and so deep-loaded a craft with serious danger. As it
was, two or three men could barely keep the boat clear, working
incessantly, and much of the time with a foot or two of water in her.
Josh and Simon had taken their seats, side by side, with that sort of
dependence and submission that causes the American black to abstain
from mingling with the whites more than might appear seemly. They were
squeezed on to one end of the thwart by a couple of robust old
sea-dogs, who were two of the very men with whom Spike had been in
consultation. Beneath that very thwart was stowed another confident,
to whom communications had also been made. These men had sailed long
in the Swash, and having been picked up in various ports, from time to
time, as the brig had wanted hands, they were of nearly as many
different nations as they were persons. Spike had obtained a great
ascendency over them by habit and authority, and his suggestions were
now received as a sort of law. As soon as the conference was ended,
the captain returned to the helm.
A minute more passed, during which the captain was anxiously surveying
the reef ahead, and the state of things astern. Ahead was more white
water--the last before they should get clear of the reef; and astern
it was now settled that the cutter that held on through the dangers of
the place, was in chase of the yawl. That Mulford was in her Spike
made no doubt; and the thought embittered even his present calamities.
But the moment had arrived for something decided. The white water
ahead was much more formidable than any they had passed; and the
boldest seaman there gazed at it with dread. Spike made a sign to the
boatswain, and commenced the execution of his dire project.
"I say, you Josh," called out the captain, in the authoritative tones
that are so familiar to all on board a ship, "pull in that fender that
is dragging alongside."
Josh leaned over the gunwale, and reported that there was no fender
out. A malediction followed, also so familiar to those acquainted with
ships, and the black was told to look again. This time, as had been
expected, the negro leaned with his head and body far over the side of
the yawl, to look for that which had no existence, when two of the men
beneath the thwart shoved _his_ legs after them. Josh screamed, as he
found himself going into the water, with a sort of confused
consciousness of the truth; and Spike called out to Simon to "catch
hold of his brother-nigger." The cook bent forward to obey, when a
similar assault on _his_ legs from beneath the thwart, sent him
headlong after Josh. One of the younger seamen, who was not in the
secret, sprang up to rescue Simon, who grasped his extended hand, when
the too generous fellow was pitched headlong from the boat.
All this occurred in less than ten seconds of time, and so
unexpectedly and naturally, that not a soul beyond those who were in
the secret, had the least suspicion it was any thing but an accident.
Some water was shipped, of necessity, but the boat was soon bailed
free. As for the victims of this vile conspiracy, they disappeared
amid the troubled waters of the reef, struggling with each other. Each
and all met the common fate so much the sooner, from the manner in
which they impeded their own efforts.
The yawl was now relieved from about five hundred pounds of the weight
it had carried--Simon weighing two hundred alone, and the youngish
seaman being large and full. So intense does human selfishness get to
be, in moments of great emergency, that it is to be feared most of
those who remained, secretly rejoiced that they were so far benefitted
by the loss of their fellows. The Señor Montefalderon was seated on
the aftermost thwart, with his legs in the stern-sheets, and
consequently with his back toward the negroes, and he fully believed
that what had happened was purely accidental.
"Let us lower our sail, Don Esteban," he cried, eagerly, "and save the
poor fellows."
Something very like a sneer gleamed on the dark countenance of the
captain, but it suddenly changed to a look of assent.
"Good!" he said, hastily--"spring forward, Don Wan, and lower the
sail--stand by the oars, men!"
Without pausing to reflect, the generous-hearted Mexican stepped on a
thwart, and began to walk rapidly forward, steadying himself by
placing his hands on the heads of the men. He was suffered to get as
far as the second thwart, or past most of the conspirators, when his
legs were seized from behind. The truth now flashed on him, and
grasping two of the men in his front, who knew nothing of Spike's dire
scheme, he endeavored to save himself by holding to their jackets.
Thus assailed, those men seized others with like intent, and an awful
struggle filled all that part of the craft. At this dread instant the
boat glanced into the white water, shipping so much of the element as
nearly to swamp her, and taking so wild a sheer as nearly to
broach-to. This last circumstance probably saved her, fearful as was
the danger for the moment. Everybody in the middle of the yawl was
rendered desperate by the amount and nature of the danger incurred,
and the men from the bottom rose in their might, underneath the
combatants, when a common plunge was made by all who stood erect, one
dragging overboard another, each a good deal hastened by the assault
from beneath, until no less than five were gone. Spike got his helm
up, the boat fell off, and away from the spot it flew, clearing the
breakers, and reaching the northern wall-like margin of the reef at
the next instant. There was now a moment when those who remained could
breathe, and dared to look behind them.
The great plunge had been made in water so shoal, that the boat had
barely escaped being dashed to pieces on the coral. Had it not been so
suddenly relieved from the pressure of near a thousand pounds in
weight, it is probable that this calamity would have befallen it, the
water received on board contributing so much to weigh it down. The
struggle between these victims ceased, however, the moment they went
over. Finding bottom for their feet, they released each other, in a
desperate hope of prolonging life by wading. Two or three held out
their arms, and shouted to Spike to return and pick them up. This
dreadful scene lasted but a single instant, for the waves dashed one
after another from his feet, continually forcing them all, as they
occasionally regained their footing, toward the margin of the reef,
and finally washing them off it into deep water. No human power could
enable a man to swim back to the rocks, once to leeward of them, in
the face of such seas, and so heavy a blow; and the miserable wretches
disappeared in succession, as their strength became exhausted, in the
depths of the gulf.
Not a word had been uttered while this terrific scene was in the
course of occurrence; not a word was uttered for some time afterward.
Gleams of grim satisfaction had been seen on the countenances of the
boatswain, and his associates, when the success of their nefarious
project was first assured; but they soon disappeared in looks of
horror, as they witnessed the struggles of the drowning men.
Nevertheless, human selfishness was strong within them all, and none
there was so ignorant as not to perceive how much better were the
chances of the yawl now than it had been on quitting the wreck. The
weight of a large ox had been taken from it, counting that of all the
eight men drowned; and as for the water shipped, it was soon bailed
back again into the sea. Not only, therefore, was the yawl in a better
condition to resist the waves, but it sailed materially faster than it
had done before. Ten persons still remained in it, however, which
brought it down in the water below its proper load-line; and the speed
of a craft so small was necessarily a good deal lessened by the least
deviation from its best sailing, or rowing trim. But Spike's projects
were not yet completed.
All this time the man-of-war's cutter had been rushing as madly
through the breakers, in chase, as the yawl had done in the attempt to
escape. Mulford was, in fact, on board it; and his now fast friend,
Wallace, was in command. The latter wished to seize a traitor, the
former to save the aunt of his weeping bride. Both believed that they
might follow wherever Spike dared to lead. This reasoning was more
bold than judicious notwithstanding, since the cutter was much larger,
and drew twice as much water as the yawl. On it came, nevertheless,
faring much better in the white water than the little craft it
pursued, but necessarily running a much more considerable risk of
hitting the coral, over which it was glancing almost as swiftly as the
waves themselves; still it had thus far escaped--and little did any in
it think of the danger. This cutter pulled ten oars; was an excellent
sea boat; had four armed marines in it, in addition to its crew, but
carried all through the breakers, receiving scarcely a drop of water
on board, on account of the height of its wash-boards, and the general
qualities of the craft. It may be well to add here, that the
Poughkeepsie had shaken out her reefs, and was betraying the
impatience of Capt. Mull to make sail in chase, by firing signal guns
to his boats to bear a hand and return. These signals the three boats
under their oars were endeavoring to obey, but Wallace had got so far
to leeward as now to render the course he was pursuing the wisest.
Mrs. Budd and Biddy had seen the struggle in which the Señor
Montefalderon had been lost, in a sort of stupid horror. Both had
screamed, as was their wont, though neither probably suspected the
truth. But the fell designs of Spike extended to them, as well as to
those whom he had already destroyed. Now the boat was in deep water,
running along the margin of the reef, the waves were much increased in
magnitude, and the comb of the sea was far more menacing to the boat.
This would not have been the case had the rocks formed a lee; but they
did not, running too near the direction of the trades to prevent the
billows that got up a mile or so in the offing, from sending their
swell quite home to the reef. It was this swell, indeed, which caused
the line of white water along the northern margin of the coral,
washing on the rocks by a sort of lateral effort, and breaking, as a
matter of course. In many places no boat could have lived to pass
through it.
Another consideration influenced Spike to persevere. The cutter had
been overhauling him, hand over hand, but since the yawl was relieved
of the weight of no less than eight men, the difference in the rate of
sailing was manifestly diminished. The man-of-war's boat drew nearer,
but by no means as fast as it had previously done. A point was now
reached in the trim of the yawl, when a very few hundreds in weight
might make the most important change in her favor; and this change the
captain was determined to produce. By this time the cutter was in deep
water, as well as himself, safe through all the dangers of the reef,
and she was less than a quarter of a mile astern. On the whole, she
was gaining, though so slowly as to require the most experienced eye
to ascertain the fact.
"Madame Budd," said Spike, in a hypocritical tone, "we are in great
danger, and I shall have to ask you to change your seat. The boat is
too much by the starn, now we've got into deep water, and your weight
amidships would be a great relief to us. Just give your hand to the
boatswain, and he will help you to step from thwart to thwart, until
you reach the right place, when Biddy shall follow."
Now Mrs. Budd had witnessed the tremendous struggle in which so many
had gone overboard, but so dull was she of apprehension, and so little
disposed to suspect any thing one-half so monstrous as the truth, that
she did not hesitate to comply. She was profoundly awed by the horrors
of the scene through which she was passing, the raging billows of the
gulf, as seen from so small a craft, producing a deep impression on
her; still a lingering of her most inveterate affectation was to be
found in her air and language, which presented a strange medley of
besetting weakness, and strong, natural, womanly affection.
"Certainly, Capt. Spike," she answered, rising. "A craft should never
go astern, and I am quite willing to ballast the boat. We have seen
such terrible accidents to-day, that all should lend their aid in
endeavoring to get under way, and in averting all possible hamper.
Only take me to my poor, dear Rosy, Capt. Spike, and every thing shall
be forgotten that has passed between us. This is not a moment to bear
malice; and I freely pardon you all and every thing. The fate of our
unfortunate friend, Mr. Montefalderon, should teach us charity, and
cause us to prepare for untimely ends."
All the time the good widow was making this speech, which she uttered
in a solemn and oracular sort of manner, she was moving slowly toward
the seat the men had prepared for her, in the middle of the boat,
assisted with the greatest care and attention by the boatswain and
another of Spike's confidents. When on the second thwart from aft, and
about to take her seat, the boatswain cast a look behind him, and
Spike put the helm down. The boat luffed and lurched, of course, and
Mrs. Budd would probably have gone overboard to leeward, by so sudden
and violent a change, had not the impetus thus received been aided by
the arms of the men who held her two hands. The plunge she made into
the water was deep, for she was a woman of great weight for her
stature. Still, she was not immediately gotten rid of. Even at that
dread instant, it is probable that the miserable woman did not suspect
the truth, for she grasped the hand of the boatswain with the tenacity
of a vice, and, thus dragged on the surface of the boiling surges, she
screamed aloud for Spike to save her. Of all who had yet been
sacrificed to the captain's selfish wish to save himself, this was the
first instance in which any had been heard to utter a sound, after
falling into the sea. The appeal shocked even the rude beings around
her, and Biddy chiming in with a powerful appeal to "save the missus!"
added to the piteous nature of the scene.
"Cast off her hand," said Spike reproachfully, "she'll swamp the boat
by her struggles--get rid of her at once! Cut her fingers off if she
wont let go."
The instant these brutal orders were given, and that in a fierce,
impatient tone, the voice of Biddy was heard no more. The truth forced
itself on her dull imagination, and she sat a witness of the terrible
scene, in mute despair. The struggle did not last long. The boatswain
drew his knife across the wrist of the hand that grasped his own, one
shriek was heard, and the boat plunged into the trough of a sea,
leaving the form of poor Mrs. Budd struggling with the wave on its
summit, and amid the foam of its crest. This was the last that was
ever seen of the unfortunate relict.
"The boat has gained a good deal by that last discharge of cargo,"
said Spike to the boatswain, a minute after they had gotten rid of the
struggling woman--"she is much more lively, and is getting nearer to
her load-line. If we can bring her to _that_, I shall have no fear of
the man-of-war's men; for this yawl is one of the fastest boats that
ever floated."
"A very little _now_, sir, would bring us to our true trim."
"Ay, we must get rid of more cargo. Come, good woman," turning to
Biddy, with whom he did not think it worth his while to use much
circumlocution, "_your_ turn is next. It's the maid's duty to follow
her mistress."
"I know'd it _must_ come," said Biddy, meekly. "If there was no mercy
for the missus, little could I look for. But ye'll not take the life
of a Christian woman widout giving her so much as one minute to say
her prayers?"
"Ay, pray away," answered Spike, his throat becoming dry and husky,
for, strange to say, the submissive quiet of the Irish woman, so
different from the struggle he had anticipated with _her_, rendered
him more reluctant to proceed than he had hitherto been in all of that
terrible day. As Biddy kneeled in the bottom of the stern-sheets,
Spike looked behind him, for the double purpose of escaping the
painful spectacle at his feet, and that of ascertaining how his
pursuers came on. The last still gained, though very slowly, and
doubts began to come over the captain's mind whether he could escape
such enemies at all. He was too deeply committed, however, to recede,
and it was most desirable to get rid of poor Biddy, if it were for no
other motive than to shut her mouth. Spike even fancied that some idea
of what had passed was entertained by those in the cutter. There was
evidently a stir in that boat, and two forms that he had no
difficulty, now, in recognizing as those of Wallace and Mulford, were
standing on the grating in the eyes of the cutter, or forward of the
foresail. The former appeared to have a musket in his hand, and the
other a glass. The last circumstance admonished him that all that was
now done would be done before dangerous witnesses. It was too late to
draw back, however, and the captain turned to look for the Irish
woman.
Biddy arose from her knees, just as Spike withdrew his eyes from his
pursuers. The boatswain and another confident were in readiness to
cast the poor creature into the sea, the moment their leader gave the
signal. The intended victim saw and understood the arrangement, and
she spoke earnestly and piteously to her murderers.
"It's not wanting will be violence," said Biddy, in a quiet tone, but
with a saddened countenance. "I know it's my turn, and I will save yer
sowls from a part of the burden of this great sin. God, and His Divine
Son, and the Blessed Mother of Jesus have mercy on me if it be wrong;
but I would far radder jump into the saa widout having the rude hands
of man on me, than have the dreadful sight of the missus done over
ag'in. It's a fearful thing is wather, and sometimes we have too
little of it, and sometimes more than we want--"
"Bear a hand, bear a hand, good woman," interrupted the boatswain,
impatiently. "We must clear the boat of you, and the sooner it is done
the better it will be for all of us."
"Don't grudge a poor morthal half a minute of life, at the last
moment," answered Biddy. "It's not long that I'll throuble ye, and so
no more need be said."
The poor creature then got on the quarter of the boat, without any
one's touching her; there she placed herself with her legs outboard,
while she sat on the gunwale. She gave one moment to the thought of
arranging her clothes with womanly decency, and then she paused to
gaze with a fixed eye, and pallid cheek, on the foaming wake that
marked the rapid course of the boat. The troughs of the sea seemed
less terrible to her than their combing crests, and she waited for the
boat to descend into the next.
"God forgive ye all, this deed, as I do!" said Biddy, earnestly, and
bending her person forward, she fell, as it might be "without hands,"
into the gulf of eternity. Though all strained their eyes, none of the
men, Jack Tier excepted, ever saw more of Biddy Noon. Nor did Jack see
much. He got a frightful glimpse of an arm, however, on the summit of
a wave, but the motion of the boat was too swift, and the surface of
the ocean too troubled, to admit of aught else.
A long pause succeeded this event. Biddy's quiet submission to her
fate had produced more impression on her murderers than the desperate,
but unavailing, struggles of those who had preceded her. Thus it is
ever with men. When opposed, the demon within blinds them to
consequences as well as to their duties; but, unresisted, the silent
influence of the image of God makes itself felt, and a better spirit
begins to prevail. There was not one in that boat who did not, for a
brief space, wish that poor Biddy had been spared. With most that
feeling, the last of human kindness they ever knew, lingered until the
occurrence of the dread catastrophe which, so shortly after, closed
the scene of this state of being on their eyes.
"Jack Tier," called out Spike, some five minutes after Biddy was
drowned, but not until another observation had made it plainly
apparent to him that the man-of-war's men still continued to draw
nearer, being now not more than fair musket shot astern.
"Ay, ay, sir," answered Jack, coming quietly out of his hole, from
forward of the mast, and moving aft as if indifferent to the danger,
by stepping lightly from thwart to thwart, until he reached the
stern-sheets.
"It is your turn, little Jack," said Spike, as if in a sort of
sorrowful submission to a necessity that knew no law, "we cannot spare
you the room."
"I have expected this, and am ready. Let me have my own way, and I
will cause you no trouble. Poor Biddy has taught me how to die. Before
I go, however, Stephen Spike, I must leave you this letter. It is
written by myself, and addressed to you. When I am gone, read it, and
think well of what it contains. And now, may a merciful God pardon the
sins of both, through love for his Divine Son. I forgive you, Stephen;
and should you live to escape from those who are now bent on hunting
you to the death, let this day cause you no grief on my account. Give
me but a moment of time, and I will cause you no trouble."
Jack now stood upon the seat of the stern-sheets, balancing himself
with one foot on the stern of the boat. He waited until the yawl had
risen to the summit of a wave, when he looked eagerly for the
man-of-war's cutter. At that moment she was lost to view in the trough
of the sea. Instead of springing overboard, as all expected, he asked
another instant of delay. The yawl sunk into the trough itself, and
rose on the succeeding billow. Then he saw the cutter, and Wallace and
Mulford standing in its bows. He waved his hat to them, and sprang
high into the air, with the intent to make himself seen; when he came
down, the boat had shot her length away from the place, leaving him to
buffet with the waves. Jack now managed admirably, swimming lightly
and easily, but keeping his eyes on the crests of the waves, with a
view to meet the cutter. Spike now saw this well planned project to
avoid death, and regretted his own remissness in not making sure of
Jack. Everybody in the yawl was eagerly looking after the form of
Tier.
"There he is on the comb of that sea, rolling over like a keg!" cried
the boatswain.
"He's through it," answered Spike, "and swimming with great strength
and coolness."
Several of the men started up involuntarily and simultaneously to
look, hitting their shoulders and bodies together. Distrust was at its
most painful height; and bull-dogs do not spring at the ox's muzzle
more fiercely than those six men throttled each other. Oaths, curses,
and appeals for help, succeeded; each man endeavoring, in his frenzied
efforts, to throw all the others overboard, as the only means of
saving himself. Plunge succeeded plunge; and when that combat of
demons ended, no one remained of them all but the boatswain. Spike had
taken no share in the struggle, looking on in grim satisfaction, as
the Father of Lies may be supposed to regard all human strife, hoping
good to himself, let the result be what it might to others. Of the
five men who thus went overboard, not one escaped. They drowned each
other by continuing their maddened conflict in an element unsuited to
their natures.
Not so with Jack Tier. His leap had been seen, and a dozen eyes in the
cutter watched for his person, as that boat came foaming down before
the wind. A shout of "There he is!" from Mulford succeeded; and the
little fellow was caught by the hair, secured, and then hauled into
the boat by the second lieutenant of the Poughkeepsie and our young
mate.
Others in the cutter had noted the incident of the hellish fight. The
fact was communicated to Wallace, and Mulford said, "That yawl will
outsail this loaded cutter, with only two men in it."
"Then it is time to try what virtue there is in lead," answered
Wallace. "Marines, come forward, and give the rascal a volley."
The volley was fired; one ball passed through the head of the
boatswain, killing him dead on the spot. Another went through the
body of Spike. The captain fell in the stern-sheets, and the boat
instantly broached to.
The water that came on board apprised Spike fully of the state in
which he was now placed, and by a desperate effort, he clutched the
tiller, and got the yawl again before the wind. This could not last,
however. Little by little, his hold relaxed, until his hand
relinquished its grasp altogether, and the wounded man sunk into the
bottom of the stern-sheets, unable to raise even his head. Again the
boat broached-to. Every sea now sent its water aboard, and the yawl
would soon have filled, had not the cutter come glancing down past it,
and rounding-to under its lee, secured the prize.
[_To be continued._
THE LAND OF DREAMS.
BY WILLIAM C. BRYANT.
A mighty realm is the Land of Dreams,
With steeps that hang in the twilight sky,
And weltering oceans and trailing streams
That gleam where the dusky valleys lie.
But over its shadowy border flow
Sweet rays from the world of endless morn,
And the nearer mountains catch the glow,
And flowers in the nearer fields are born.
The souls of the happy dead repair,
From their bowers of light, to that bordering land,
And walk in the fainter glory there,
With the souls of the living, hand in hand.
One calm sweet smile in that shadowy sphere,
From eyes that open on earth no more--
One warning word from a voice once dear--
How they rise in the memory o'er and o'er!
Far off from those hills that shine with day,
And fields that bloom in the heavenly gales,
The Land of Dreams goes stretching away
To dimmer mountains and darker vales.
There lie the chambers of guilty delight,
There walk the spectres of guilty fear,
And soft low voices that float through the night
Are whispering sin in the helpless ear.
Dear maids, in thy girlhood's opening flower,
Scarce weaned from the love of childish play!
The tears on whose cheeks are but the shower
That freshens the early blooms of May!
Thine eyes are closed, and over thy brow
Pass thoughtful shadows and joyous gleams,
And I know, by the moving lips, that now
Thy spirit strays in the Land of Dreams.
Light-hearted maiden, oh, heed thy feet!
Oh keep where that beam of Paradise falls;
And only wander where thou may'st meet
The blessed ones from its shining walls.
So shalt thou come from the Land of Dreams,
With love and peace, to this world of strife;
And the light that over that border streams
Shall lie on the path of thy daily life.
SONNET--TO S. D. A.
BY "THE SQUIRE."
When the young Morning, like a new-drest bride,
With pearls of dew fresh glistening in her hair,
Walks through the east in early summer-tide.
Her robe loose floating on the scented air,
The laughing hours assembled at her side
Or circling round her--then is she less fair
Than, in my heart, the picture, sweet and rare,
Thy presence left.--My books go unperused,
Old friends are shunned, and time flies by unused,
While I, grown idle, nothing do but dream;
Gazing upon that picture till I seem
_Thyself_, again, before my eyes to see,
And not the ideal show: so that to me
The semblance turns to sweet reality.
[Illustration
_Engraved by T. S. WELCH. FOR GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE_
_FROM AN ORIGINAL DAGUERREOTYPE_]
_Entered according to act of Congress in the Year 1847 by G.R. Graham
in the Clerks Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of
P^a._
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
OF GENERAL WILLIAM O. BUTLER.
BY FRANCIS P. BLAIR.
In memoirs of individuals of distinction it is usual to look back to
their ancestry. The feeling is universal which prompts us to learn
something of even an ordinary acquaintance in whom interest is felt.
It will indulge, therefore, only a necessary and proper curiosity to
introduce the subject of this notice by a short account of a family
whose striking traits survive in him so remarkably. General Butler's
grandfather, Thomas Butler, was born 6th April, 1720, in Kilkenny,
Ireland. He married there in 1742. Three of his five sons who attained
manhood, Richard, William and Thomas, were born abroad. Pierce, the
father of General William O. Butler, and Edward, the youngest son,
were born in Pennsylvania. It is remarkable that all these men, and
all their immediate male descendants, with a single exception, (who
was a judge,) were engaged in the military service of this country.
The eldest, Richard, was Lieut. Col. of Morgan's celebrated
rifle-regiment, and to him it owed much of the high character that
gave it a fame of its own, apart from the other corps of the
Revolution. The cool, disciplined valor which gave steady and deadly
direction to the rifles of this regiment, was derived principally from
this officer, who devoted himself to the drill of his men. He was
promoted to the full command of his regiment sometime during the war,
(when Morgan's great merit and services had raised him to the rank of
general,) and in that capacity had commanded Wayne's left in the
attack on Stony Point. About the year 1790, he was appointed
major-general. On the 4th of November, 1791, he was killed in St.
Clair's bloody battle with the Indians. His combat with the Indians,
after he was shot, gave such a peculiar interest to his fate that a
representation of himself and the group surrounding him was exhibited
throughout the Union in wax figures. Notices of this accomplished
soldier will be found in Marshall's Life of Washington, pages 290,
311, 420. In Gen. St. Clair's report, in the American Museum, volume
xi. page 44, Appendix.
William Butler, the second son, was an officer throughout the
revolutionary war; rose to the rank of colonel, and was in many of the
severest battles. He was the favorite of the family, and was boasted
of by this race of heroes as the coolest and boldest man in battle
they had ever known. When the army was greatly reduced in rank and
file, and there were many superfluous officers, they organized
themselves into a separate corps, and elected him to the command.
General Washington declined receiving this novel corps of
commissioned soldiers, but in a proud testimonial did honor to their
devoted patriotism.
Of Thomas Butler, the third son, we glean the following facts from the
American Biographical Dictionary. In the year 1776, whilst he was a
student of law in the office of the eminent Judge Wilson of
Philadelphia, he left his pursuit and joined the army as a subaltern.
He soon obtained the command of a company, in which he continued to
the close of the revolutionary war. He was in almost every action
fought in the Middle States during the war. At the battle of
Brandywine he received the thanks of Washington on the field of
battle, through his aid-de-camp Gen. Hamilton, for his intrepid
conduct in rallying a detachment of retreating troops, and giving the
enemy a severe fire. At the battle of Monmouth he received the thanks
of Gen. Wayne for defending a defile, in the face of a severe fire
from the enemy, while Col. Richard Butler's regiment made good its
retreat. At the close of the war he retired into private life, as a
farmer, and continued in the enjoyment of rural and domestic happiness
until the year 1791, when he again took the field to meet the savage
foe that menaced our western frontier. He commanded a battalion in the
disastrous battle of Nov. 4, 1791, in which his brother fell. Orders
were given by Gen. St. Clair to charge with the bayonet, and Major
Butler, though his leg had been broken by a ball, yet on horseback,
led his battalion to the charge. It was with difficulty his surviving
brother, Capt. Edward Butler, removed him from the field. In 1792 he
was continued in the establishment as major, and in 1794 he was
promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel commandant of the 4th
sub-legion. He commanded in this year Fort Fayette, at Pittsburg, and
prevented the deluded insurgents from taking it, more by his name than
by his forces, for he had but few troops. The close of his life was
embittered with trouble. In 1803 he was arrested by the commanding
general--Wilkinson--at Fort Adams, on the Mississippi, and sent to
Maryland, where he was tried by a court-martial, and acquitted of all
the charges, save that of _wearing his hair_. He was then ordered to
New Orleans, where he arrived, to take command of the troops, October
20th. He was again arrested next month; but the court did not sit
until July of the next year, and their decision is not known. Col.
Butler died Sept. 7, 1805. Out of the arrest and persecution of this
sturdy veteran, Washington Irving (Knickerbocker) has worked up a fine
piece of burlesque, in which Gen. Wilkinson's character is inimitably
delineated in that of the vain and pompous Gen. Von Poffenburg.
Percival Butler, the fourth son, father of General Wm. O. Butler, was
born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1760. He entered the army as a
lieutenant at the age of eighteen; was with Washington at Valley
Forge; was in the battle of Monmouth, and at the taking of
Yorktown--being through the whole series of struggles in the Middle
States, with the troops under the commander-in-chief, except for a
short period when he was attached to a light corps commanded by La
Fayette, who presented him a sword. Near the close of the war he went
to the South with the Pennsylvania brigade, where peace found him. He
emigrated to Kentucky in 1784. He was the last of the old stock left
when the war of 1812 commenced. He was made adjutant-general when
Kentucky became a State, and in that capacity joined one of the armies
sent out by Kentucky during the war.
Edward Butler, the youngest of the five brothers, was too young to
enter the army in the first stages of the Revolution, but joined it
near the close, and had risen to a captaincy when Gen. St. Clair took
the command, and led it to that disastrous defeat in which so many of
the best soldiers of the country perished. He there evinced the
highest courage and strongest fraternal affection, in carrying his
wounded brother out of the massacre, which was continued for miles
along the route of the retreating army, and from which so few escaped,
even of those who fled unencumbered. He subsequently became
adjutant-general in Wayne's army.
Of these five brothers four had sons--all of whom, with one exception,
were engaged in the military or naval service of the country during
the last war.
1st. General Richard Butler's son, William, died a lieutenant in the
navy, early in the last war. His son, Captain James Butler, was at the
head of the Pittsburg Blues, which company he commanded in the
campaigns of the Northwest, and was particularly distinguished in the
battle of Massissinnawa.
2d. Colonel William Butler, also of the revolutionary army, had two
sons, one died in the navy, the other a subaltern in Wayne's army. He
was in the battle with the Indians in 1794.
3d. Lieut. Col. Thomas Butler, of the old stock, had three sons, the
eldest a judge. The second, Col. Robert Butler, was at the head of
Gen. Jackson's staff throughout the last war. The third, William E.
Butler, also served in the army of Gen. Jackson.
4th. Percival Butler, captain in the revolutionary war, and
adjutant-general of Kentucky during the last war, had four sons:
first, Thomas, who was a captain, and aid to Gen. Jackson at New
Orleans. Next, Gen. William O. Butler, the subject of this notice.
Third, Richard, who was assistant adjutant-general in the campaigns of
the war of 1812. Percival Butler, the youngest son, now a
distinguished lawyer, was not of an age to bear arms in the last war.
Of this second generation of the Butler's, there are nine certainly,
and probably more, engaged in the present war.
This glance at the family shows the character of the race. An
anecdote, derived from a letter of an old Pennsylvania friend to the
parents, who transplanted it from Ireland, shows that its military
instinct was an inheritance. "While the five sons," says the letter,
"were absent from home in the service of the country, the old father
took it in his head to go also. The neighbors collected to remonstrate
against it; but his wife said, 'Let him go! I can get along without
him, and raise something to feed the army in the bargain; and the
country wants every man who can shoulder a musket.'" It was doubtless
this extraordinary zeal of the Butler family which induced Gen.
Washington to give the toast--"The Butlers, and their five sons," at
his own table, whilst surrounded by a large party of officers. This
anecdote rests on the authority of the late Gen. Findlay, of
Cincinnati. A similar tribute of respect was paid to this devoted
house of soldiers by Gen. La Fayette, in a letter now extant, and in
the possession of a lady connected with them by marriage. La Fayette
says, "_When I wanted a thing well done, I ordered a Butler to do
it._"
From this retrospect it will be seen that in all the wars of the
country, in the revolutionary war, in the Indian war, in the last
British war, and the present Mexican war, the blood of almost every
Butler able to bear arms has been freely shed in the public cause.
Maj. Gen. William O. Butler is now among the highest in the military
service of his country; and he has attained this grade from the
ranks--the position of a private being the only one he ever sought. At
the opening of the war of 1812, he had just graduated in the
Transylvania University, and was looking to the law as a profession.
The surrender of Detroit, and the army by Hull, aroused the patriotism
and the valor of Kentucky--and young Butler, yet in his minority, was
among the first to volunteer. He gave up his books, and the enjoyments
of the gay and polished society of Lexington, where he lived among a
circle of fond and partial relations--the hope to gratify their
ambition in shining at the bar, or in the political forum of the
state--to join Capt. Hart's company of infantry as a private soldier.
Before the march to join the northwestern army, he was elected a
corporal. In this grade he marched to the relief of Fort Wayne, which
was invested by hostile Indians. These were driven before the Kentucky
volunteers to their towns on the Wabash, which were destroyed, and the
troops then returned to the Miami of the lakes, where they made a
winter encampment. Here an ensign's commission in the second regiment
of United States infantry was tendered to the volunteer corporal,
which he declined, unless permitted to remain with the northwestern
army, which he had entered to share in the effort of the Kentucky
militia to wipe out the disgrace of Hull's surrender by the recapture
of Detroit. His proposition was assented to, and he received an
ensign's appointment in the seventeenth infantry, then a part of the
northwestern army, under the command of Gen. Winchester. After
enduring every privation in a winter encampment, in the wildernesses
and frozen marshes of the lake country, awaiting in vain the expected
support of additional forces, the Kentucky volunteers, led by Lewis,
Allen, and Madison, with Well's regiment, (17th U. S.) advanced to
encounter the force of British and Indians which defended Detroit. On
leaving Kentucky the volunteers had pledged themselves to drive the
British invaders from our soil. These men and their leaders were held
in such estimation at home, that the expectation formed of them
exceeded their promises; and these volunteers, though disappointed in
every succor which they had reason to anticipate--wanting in
provision, clothes, cannon, in every thing--resolved, rather than lose
reputation, to press on to the enterprise, and to endeavor to draw on
to them, by entering into action, the troops behind. It is not proper
here to enter into explanations of the causes of the disaster at the
River Raisin, the consequence of this movement, nor to give the
particulars of the battle. The incidents which signalized the
character of the subject of this memoir alone are proper here.
There were two battles at the River Raisin, one on the 18th, the other
on the 22d of January. In the first, the whole body of Indian
warriors, drawn together from all the lake tribes, for the defence of
Upper Canada against the approaching Kentuckians, were encountered. In
moving to the attack of this formidable force of the fiercest, and
bravest, and most expert warriors on the continent, a strong party of
them were descried from the line with which Ensign Butler advanced,
running forward to reach a fence, and hold it as a cover from which to
ply their rifles. Butler instantly proposed, and was permitted, to
anticipate them. Calling upon some of the most alert and active men of
the company, he ran directly to meet the Indians at the fence. He and
his comrades out-stripped the enemy, and getting possession of the
fence, kept the advantage of the position for their advancing friends.
This incident, of however little importance as to results, is worth
remembrance in giving the traits of a young soldier's character. It is
said that the hardiest veteran, at the opening of the fire in battle,
feels, for the moment, somewhat appalled. And Gen. Wolfe, one of the
bravest of men, declared that the "horrid yell of the Indian strikes
the boldest heart with affright." The strippling student, who, for the
first time, beheld a field of battle on the snows of the River Raisin,
presenting in bold relief long files of those terrible enemies, whose
massacres had filled his native State with tales of horror, must have
felt some stirring sensations. But the crack of the Indian rifle, and
his savage yell, awoke in him the chivalric instincts of his nature;
and the promptitude with which he communicated his enthusiasm to a few
comrades around, and rushed forward to meet danger in its most
appalling form, risking himself to save others, and secure a triumph
which he could scarcely hope to share, gave earnest of the military
talent, the self-sacrificing courage, and the soldierly sympathies
which have drawn to him the nation's esteem. The close of the battle
of the 18th gave another instance in which these latter traits of Gen.
Butler's character were still more strikingly illustrated. The
Indians, driven from the defences around the town on the River Raisin,
retired fighting into the thick woods beyond it. The contest of
sharp-shooting from tree to tree was here continued--the Kentuckians
pressing forward, and the Indians retreating, until night closed in,
when the Kentuckians were recalled to the encampment in the village.
The Indians advanced as their opposers withdrew, and kept up the fire
until the Kentuckians emerged from the woods into the open ground.
Just as the column to which Ensign Butler belonged reached the verge
of the dark forest, the voice of a wounded man, who had been left some
distance behind, was heard calling out most piteously for help. Butler
induced three of his company to go back in the woods with him to bring
him off. He was found, and they fought their way back--one of the men,
Jeremiah Walker, receiving a shot, of which he subsequently died.
In the second sanguinary battle of the River Raisin, on the 22d of
January, with the British and Indians, another act of self-devotion
was performed by Butler. After the rout and massacre of the right
wing, belonging to Wells' command, the whole force of the British and
Indians was concentrated against the small body of troops under Major
Madison, that maintained their ground within the picketed gardens. A
double barn, commanding the plot of ground on which the Kentuckians
stood, was approached on one side by the Indians, under the cover of
an orchard and fence; the British, on the other side, being so posted
as to command the space between it and the pickets. A party in the
rear of the barn were discovered advancing to take possession of it.
All saw the fatal consequences of the secure lodgment of the enemy at
a place which would present every man within the pickets at close
rifle-shot to the aim of their marksmen. Major Madison inquired if
there was no one who would volunteer to run the gauntlet of the fire
of the British and Indian lines, and put a torch to the combustibles
within the barn, to save the remnant of the little army from
sacrifice. Butler, without a moment's delay, took some blazing slicks
from a fire at hand, leaped the pickets, and running at his utmost
speed, thrust the fire into the straw within the barn. One who was an
anxious spectator of the event we narrate, says, "that although volley
upon volley was fired at him, Butler, after making some steps on his
way back, turned to see if the fire had taken, and not being
satisfied, returned to the barn and set it in a blaze. As the
conflagration grew, the enemy was seen retreating from the rear of the
building, which they had entered at one end, as the flame ascended in
the other. Soon after reaching the pickets in safety, amid the shouts
of his friends, he was struck by a ball in his breast. Believing from
the pain he felt that it had penetrated his chest, turning to Adjutant
(now Gen.) McCalla, one of his Lexington comrades, and pressing his
hand to the spot, he said, "I fear this shot is mortal, but while I am
able to move, I will do my duty." To the anxious inquiries of this
friend, who met him soon afterward, he opened his vest, with a smile,
and showed him that the ball had spent itself on the thick wadding of
his coat and on his breast bone. He suffered, however, for many
weeks.
The little band within the pickets, which Winchester had surrendered,
after being carried himself a prisoner into Proctor's camp, denied his
powers. They continued to hold the enemy at bay until they were
enabled to capitulate on honorable terms, which, nevertheless, Proctor
shamefully violated, by leaving the sick and wounded who were unable
to walk to the tomahawk of his allies. Butler, who was among the few
of the wounded who escaped the massacre, was marched through Canada to
Fort Niagara--suffering under his wound, and every privation--oppressed
with grief, hunger, fatigue, and the inclement cold of that desolate
region. Even here he forgot himself, and his mind wandered back to the
last night scene which he surveyed on the bloody shores of the River
Raisin. He gave up the heroic part and became the schoolboy again, and
commemorated his sorrows for his lost friends in verse, like some
passionate, heart-broken lover. These elegiac strains were never
intended for any but the eye of mutual friends, whose sympathies, like
his own, poured out tears with their plaints over the dead. We give
some of these lines of his boyhood, to show that the heroic youth had
a bosom not less kind than brave.
THE FIELD OF RAISIN.
The battle's o'er! the din is past,
Night's mantle on the field is cast;
The Indian yell is heard no more,
An silence broods o'er Erie's shore.
At this lone hour I go to tread
The field where valor vainly bled--
To raise the wounded warrior's crest,
Or warm with tears his icy breast;
To treasure up his last command,
And bear it to his native land.
It may one pulse of joy impart
To a fond mother's bleeding heart;
Or for a moment it may dry
The tear-drop in the widow's eye.
Vain hope, away! The widow ne'er
Her warrior's dying wish shall hear.
The passing zephyr bears no sigh,
No wounded warrior meets the eye--
Death is his sleep by Erie's wave,
Of Raisin's snow we heap his grave!
How many hopes lie murdered here--
The mother's joy, the father's pride,
The country's boast, the foeman's fear,
In wilder'd havoc, side by side.
Lend me, thou silent queen of night,
Lend me awhile thy waning light,
That I may see each well-loved form,
That sunk beneath the morning storm.
These lines are introductory to what may be considered a succession of
epitaphs on the personal friends whose bodies he found upon the field.
It would extend the extract too far to insert them. We can only add
the close of the poem, where he takes leave of a group of his young
comrades in Hart's company, who had fallen together.
And here I see that youthful band,
That loved to move at Hart's command;
I saw them for the battle dressed,
And still where danger thickest pressed,
I marked their crimson plumage wave.
How many filled this bloody grave!
Their pillow and their winding-sheet
The virgin snow--a shroud most meet!
But wherefore do I linger here?
Why drop the unavailing tear?
Where'er I turn, some youthful form,
Like floweret broken by the storm,
Appeals to me in sad array,
And bids me yet a moment stay.
Till I could fondly lay me down
And sleep with him on the cold, cold ground.
For thee, thou dread and solemn plain,
I ne'er shall look on thee again;
And Spring, with her effacing showers,
Shall come, and Summer's mantling flowers;
And each succeeding Winter throw
On thy red breast new robes of snow;
Yet I will wear thee in my heart,
All dark and gory as thou art.
Shortly after his return from Canada. Ensign Butler was promoted to a
captaincy in the regiment to which he belonged. But as this promotion
was irregular, being made over the heads of senior officers in that
regiment, a captaincy was given him in the 44th, a new raised
regiment. When free from parole, by exchange, in 1814, he instantly
entered on active duty, with a company which he had recruited at
Nashville, Tennessee. His regiment was ordered to join General Jackson
in the South, but Captain Butler finding its movements too tardy,
pushed on, and effected that junction with his company alone. Gen.
Call, at that time an officer in Capt. Butler's company, (since Gov.
of Florida,) in a letter addressed to Mr. Tanner of Kentucky,
presents, as an eye-witness, so graphically, the share which Capt.
Butler had in the campaign which followed, that it may well supersede
any narrative at second hand.
"_Tallehasse, April_ 3, 1844.
"SIR,--I avail myself of the earliest leisure I
have had since the receipt of your letter of the
18th of February, to give you a reply.
"A difference of political sentiments will not
induce me to withhold the narrative you have
requested, of the military services of Col. Wm. O.
Butler, during the late war with Great Britain,
while attached to the army of the South. My
intimate association with him, in camp, on the
march, and in the field, has perhaps made me as
well acquainted with his merits, as a gentleman and
a soldier, as any other man living. And although we
are now standing in opposite ranks, I cannot forget
the days and nights we have stood side by side,
facing the common enemy of our country, sharing the
same fatigues, dangers, and privations, and
participating in the same pleasures and enjoyments.
The feelings and sympathies springing from such
associations in the days of our youth can never be
removed or impaired by a difference of opinion with
regard to men or measures, when each may well
believe the other equally sincere as himself, and
where the most ardent desire of both is to sustain
the honor, the happiness and prosperity of our
country.
"Soon after my appointment in the army of the
United States, as a lieutenant, in the fall of
1814, I was ordered to join the company of Capt.
Butler, of the 44th regiment of infantry, then at
Nashville, Tennessee. When I arrived, and reported
myself, I found the company under orders to join
our regiment in the South. The march, mostly
through an unsettled wilderness, was conducted by
Capt. Butler with his usual promptitude and energy,
and by forced and rapid movements we arrived at
Fort Montgomery, the headquarters of Gen. Jackson,
a short distance above the Florida line, just in
time to follow our beloved general in his bold
enterprise to drive the enemy from his strong
position in a neutral territory. The van-guard of
the army destined for the invasion of Louisiana had
made Pensacola its headquarters, and the British
navy in the Gulf of Mexico had rendezvoused in that
beautiful bay.
"The penetrating sagacity of Gen. Jackson
discovered the advantage of the position assumed by
the British forces, and with a decision and energy
which never faltered, he resolved to find his
enemy, even under the flag of a neutral power. This
was done by a prompt and rapid march, surprising
and cutting off all the advanced pickets, until we
arrived within gun-shot of the fort at Pensacola.
The army of Gen. Jackson was then so inconsiderable
as to render a reinforcement of a single company,
commanded by such an officer as Capt. Butler, an
important acquisition. And although there were
several companies of regular troops ordered to
march from Tennessee at the same time, Capt.
Butler's, by his extraordinary energy and
promptitude, was the only one which arrived in time
to join this expedition. His company formed a part
of the centre column of attack at Pensacola. The
street we entered was defended by a battery in
front, which fired on us incessantly, while several
strong block-houses, on our flanks, discharged upon
us small arms and artillery. But a gallant and
rapid charge soon carried the guns in front, and
the town immediately surrendered.
"In this fight Capt. Butler led on his company with
his usual intrepidity. He had one officer, Lieut.
Flournoy, severely wounded, and several
non-commissioned officers and privates killed and
wounded.
"From Pensacola, after the object of the expedition
was completed, by another prompt and rapid
movement, we arrived at New Orleans a few weeks
before the appearance of the enemy.
"On the 23d of December the signal-gun announced
the approach of the enemy. The previous night they
had surprised and captured one of our pickets; had
ascended a bayou, disembarked, and had taken
possession of the left bank of the Mississippi,
within six miles of New Orleans. The energy of
every officer was put in requisition, to
concentrate our forces in time to meet the enemy.
Capt. Butler was one of the first to arrive at the
general's quarters, and ask instructions; they were
received and promptly executed. Our regiment,
stationed on the opposite side, was transported
across the river. All the available forces of our
army, not much exceeding fifteen hundred men, were
concentrated in the city; and while the sun went
down the line of battle was formed; and every
officer took the station assigned him in the fight.
The infantry formed on the open square, in front of
the Cathedral, waiting in anxious expectation for
the order to move. During this momentary pause,
while the enemy was expected to enter the city, a
scene of deep and thrilling interest was presented.
Every gallery, porch and window around the square
were filled with the fair forms of beauty, in
silent anxiety and alarm, waving their
handkerchiefs to the gallant and devoted band which
stood before them, prepared to die, or defend them
from the rude intrusion of a foreign soldiery. It
was a scene calculated to awaken emotions never to
be forgotten. It appealed to the chivalry and
patriotism of every officer and soldier--it
inspired every heart, and nerved every arm for
battle. From this impressive scene the army marched
to meet the enemy, and about eight o'clock at night
they were surprised in their encampment,
immediately on the banks of the Mississippi.
Undiscovered, our line was formed in silence within
a short distance of the enemy; a rapid charge was
made into their camp, and a desperate conflict
ensued. After a determined resistance the enemy
gave way, but disputing every inch of ground we
gained. In advancing over ditches and fences in the
night, rendered still more dark by the smoke of the
battle, much confusion necessarily ensued, and many
officers became separated from their commands. It
more than once occurred during the fight that some
of our officers, through mistake, entered the
enemy's lines; and the British officers in like
manner entered ours. The meritorious officer in
command of our regiment, at the commencement of the
battle, lost his position in the darkness and
confusion, and was unable to regain it until the
action was over. In this manner, for a short time,
the regiment was without a commander, and its
movements were regulated by the platoon officers,
which increased the confusion and irregularity of
the advance. In this critical situation, and in the
heat of the battle, Capt. Butler, as the senior
officer present, assumed command of the regiment,
and led it on most gallantly to repeated and
successful charges, until the fight ended in the
complete rout of the enemy. We were still pressing
on their rear, when an officer of the general's
staff rode up and ordered the pursuit discontinued.
Captain Butler urged its continuance, and expressed
the confident belief of his ability to take many
prisoners, if permitted to advance. But the order
was promptly repeated, under the well-founded
apprehension that our troops might come in
collision with each other, an event which had
unhappily occurred at a previous hour of the fight.
No corps on that field was more bravely led to
battle than the regiment commanded by Capt. Butler,
and no officer of any rank, save the
commander-in-chief, was entitled to higher credit
for the achievement of that glorious night.
"A short time before the battle of the 8th of
January, Capt. Butler was detailed to command the
guard in front of the encampment. A house standing
near the bridge, in advance of his position, had
been taken possession of by the light troops of the
enemy, from whence they annoyed our guard. Capt.
Butler determined to dislodge them and burn the
house. He accordingly marched to the attack at the
head of his command, but the enemy retired before
him. Seeing them retreat, he halted his guard, and
advanced himself, accompanied by two or three men
only, for the purpose of burning the house. It was
an old frame building, weather-boarded, without
ceiling or plaster in the inside, with a single
door opening to the British camp. On entering the
house he found a soldier of the enemy concealed in
one corner, whom he captured, and sent to the rear
with his men, remaining alone in the house. While
he was in the act of kindling a fire, a detachment
of the enemy, unperceived, occupied the only door.
The first impulse was to force, with his single
arm, a passage through them, but he was instantly
seized in a violent manner by two or three stout
fellows, who pushed him back against the wall with
such force as to burst off the weather-boarding
from the wall, and he fell through the opening thus
made. In an instant he recovered himself, and under
a heavy fire from the enemy, he retreated until
supported by the guard, which he immediately led on
to the attack, drove the British light troops from
their strong position, and burnt the house in the
presence of the two armies.
"I witnessed on that field many deeds of daring
courage, but none of which more excited my
admiration than this.
"Capt. Butler was soon after in the battle of the
8th of January, where he sustained his previously
high and well earned reputation for bravery and
usefulness. But that battle, which, from its
important results, has eclipsed those which
preceded it, was but a slaughter of the enemy, with
trivial loss on our part, and presenting few
instances of individual distinction.
"Capt. Butler received the brevet rank of major for
his gallant services during that eventful campaign,
and the reward of merit was never more worthily
bestowed. Soon after the close of the war, he was
appointed aid-de-camp to Gen. Jackson, in which
station he remained until he retired from the army.
Since that period I have seldom had the pleasure of
meeting with my valued friend and companion in
arms, and I know but little of his career in civil
life. But in camp, his elevated principles, his
intelligence and generous feelings, won for him the
respect and confidence of all who knew him; and
where he is best known, I will venture to say, he
is still most highly appreciated for every
attribute which constitutes the gentleman and the
soldier.
"I am, sir, very respectfully,
"R. K. CALL."
"MR. WILLIAM TANNER."
General Jackson's sense of the services of Butler, in this memorable
campaign, was strongly expressed in the following letter to a member
of the Kentucky Legislature:
"_Hermitage, Feb._ 20, 1844.
"MY DEAR SIR,--You ask me to give you my opinion of
the military services of the then Captain, now
Colonel, Wm. O. Butler, of Kentucky, during the
investment of New Orleans by the British forces in
1814 and 1815. I wish I had sufficient strength to
speak fully of the merit of the services of Col.
Butler on that occasion; this strength I have not:
Suffice it to say, that on all occasions he
displayed that heroic chivalry, and calmness of
judgment in the midst of danger, which distinguish
the valuable officer in the hour of battle. In a
conspicuous manner were those noble qualities
displayed by him on the night of the 23d December,
1814, and on the 8th of January, 1815, as well as
at all times during the presence of the British
army at New Orleans. In short, he was to be found
at all points where duty called. I hazard nothing
in saying that should our country again be engaged
in war during the active age of Col. Butler, he
would be one of the very best selections that could
be made to command our army, and lead the Eagles of
our country on to victory and renown. He has
sufficient energy to assume all responsibility
necessary to success, and for his country's good.
"ANDREW JACKSON."
Gen. Jackson gave earlier proof of the high estimation in which he
held the young soldier who had identified himself with his own glory
at New Orleans. He made him his aid-de-camp in 1816--which station he
retained on the peace establishment, with the rank of colonel. But,
like his illustrious patron, he soon felt that military station and
distinction had no charms for him when unattended with the dangers,
duties, and patriotic achievements of war. He resigned, therefore,
even the association with his veteran chief, of which he was so proud,
and retired in 1817 to private life. He resumed his study of the
profession that was interrupted by the war, married, and settled down
on his patrimonial possession at the confluence of the Kentucky and
Ohio rivers, in the noiseless but arduous vocations of civil life. The
abode which he had chosen made it peculiarly so with him. The region
around him was wild and romantic, sparsely settled, and by pastoral
people. There are no populous towns. The high, rolling, and yet rich
lands--the precipitous cliffs of the Kentucky, of Eagle, Tavern and
other tributaries which pour into it near the mouth--make this section
of the State still, to some extent a wilderness of thickets--and the
tangled pea-vine, the grape-vine and nut-bearing trees, which rendered
all Kentucky, until the intrusion of the whites, one great Indian
park. The whole luxuriant domain was preserved by the Indians as a
pasture for buffalo, deer, elk, and other animals--their enjoyment
alike as a chase and a subsistence--by excluding every tribe from
fixing a habitation in it. Its name consecrated it as the dark and
bloody ground; and war pursued every foot that trod it. In the midst
of this region, in April, 1791, Wm. O. Butler was born, in Jessamine
county, on the Kentucky River. His father had married, in Lexington,
soon after his arrival in Kentucky, 1782, Miss Howkins, a
sister-in-law of Col. Todd, who commanded and perished in the battle
of the Blue-Licks. Following the instincts of his family, which seemed
ever to court danger, Gen. Pierce Butler, as neighborhood encroached
around him, removed, not long after the birth of his son William, to
the mouth of the Kentucky River. Through this section the Indian
warpath into the heart of Kentucky passed. Until the peace of 1794,
there was scarcely a day that some hostile Savage did not prowl
through the tangled forests, and the labyrinths of hills, streams and
cliffs, which adapted this region to their lurking warfare. From it
they emerged when they made their last formidable incursion, and
pushed their foray to the environs of Frankfort, the capital of the
State. General Pierce Butler had on one side of him the Ohio, on the
farther shore of which the savage hordes still held the mastery, and
on the other the romantic region through which they hunted and pressed
their war enterprises. And here, amid the scenes of border warfare,
his son William had that spirit, which has animated him through life,
educated by the legends of the Indian-fighting hunters of Kentucky.
To the feelings and taste inspired by the peculiarities of the place
and circumstances adverted to, must be attributed the return of Col.
Butler to his father's home, to enter on his profession as a lawyer.
There were no great causes or rich clients to attract him--no dense
population to lift him to the political honors of the State. The
eloquence and learning, the industry and integrity which he gave to
adjust the controversies of Gallatin and the surrounding counties,
would have crowned him with wealth and professional distinction, if
exhibited at Louisville or Lexington. But he coveted neither.
Independence, the affections of his early associates, the love of a
family circle, and the charm which the recollection of a happy boyhood
gave to the scenes in which he was reared, were all he sought. And he
found them all in the romantic dells and woodland heights of Kentucky,
and on the sides of the far spreading, gently flowing, beautiful Ohio.
The feeling which his sincere and sensitive nature had imbibed here
was as strong as that of the Switzer for his bright lakes, lofty
mountains, and deep valleys. The wild airs of the boat horn, which
have resounded for so many years from arks descending the Ohio and
Kentucky, floating along the current and recurring in echoes from the
hollows of the hills, like its eddies, became as dear to him as the
famous Rans de Vache to the native of Switzerland. We insert, as
characteristic alike of the poetical talent and temperament of Butler,
some verses which the sound of this rude instrument evoked when he
returned home, resigning with rapture "the ear piercing fife and
spirit stirring drum" for the wooden horn, which can only compass in
its simple melody such airs as that to which Burns has set his
beautiful words--
When wild war's deadly blast was blawn,
And gentle peace returning,
Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless,
And many a widow mourning;
I left the lines and tented field.
The music of this song made the burden of the "Boatman's Horn," and
always announced the approaching ark to the river villages.
The sentiments of the poet, as well as the sweet and deep tones which
wafted the plaintive air over the wide expanse of the Ohio, may have
contributed to awaken the feeling which pervade these lines.
THE BOAT HORN.
O, boatman! wind that horn again,
For never did the list'ning air
Upon its lambent bosom bear
So wild, so soft, so sweet a strain--
What though thy notes are sad, and few,
By every simple boatman blown,
Yet is each pulse to nature true,
And melody in every tone.
How oft in boyhood's joyous day,
Unmindful of the lapsing hours,
I've loitered on my homeward way
By wild Ohio's brink of flowers,
While some lone boatman, from the deck,
Poured his soft numbers to that tide,
As if to charm from storm and wreck
The boat where all his fortunes ride!
Delighted Nature drank the sound,
Enchanted--Echo bore it round
In whispers soft, and softer still,
From hill to plain, and plain to hill,
Till e'en the thoughtless, frolick boy,
Elate with hope, and wild with joy,
Who gamboled by the river's side,
And sported with the fretting tide,
Feels something new pervade his breast,
Chain his light step, repress his jest,
Bends o'er the flood his eager ear
To catch the sounds far off yet dear--
Drinks the sweet draught, but knows not why
The tear of rapture fills his eye
And can he now, to manhood grown,
Tell why those notes, simple and lone,
As on the ravished ear they fall,
Bind every sense in magic spell?
There is a tide of feeling given
To all on earth, its fountain Heaven.
Beginning with the dewy flower,
Just oped in Flora's vernal bower--
Rising creation's orders through
With louder murmur, brighter hue--
That _tide_ is sympathy! its ebb and flow
Give life its hues of joy and wo.
Music, the master-spirit that can move
Its waves to war, or lull them into love--
Can cheer the sinking sailor mid the wave,
And bid the soldier on! nor fear the grave--
Inspire the fainting pilgrim on his road,
And elevate his soul to claim his God.
Then, boatman! wind that horn again!
Though much of sorrow mark its strain,
Yet are its notes to sorrow dear;
What though they wake fond memory's tear!
Tears are sad memory's sacred feast,
And rapture oft her chosen guest.
This retirement, which may almost be considered seclusion, was enjoyed
by Col. Butler nearly twenty-five years, when he was called out by the
Democratic party to redeem by his personal popularity the
congressional district in which he lived. It was supposed that no one
else could save it from the Whigs. Like all the rest of his family,
none of whom had made their military service a passport to the honors
and emoluments of civil stations, he was averse to relinquish the
attitude he occupied to enter on a party struggle. The importunity of
friends prevailed; and he was elected to two successive terms in
Congress, absolutely refusing to be a candidate a third time. He spoke
seldom in Congress, but in two or three fine speeches which appear in
the debates, a power will readily be detected which could not have
failed to conduct to the highest distinction in that body. Taste,
judgment, and eloquence, characterized all his efforts in Congress. A
fine manner, an agreeable voice, and the high consideration accorded
to him by the members of all parties, gave him, what it is the good
fortune of few to obtain, an attentive and gratified audience.
In 1844 the same experiment was made with Butler's popularity to carry
the state for the Democracy, as had succeeded in his congressional
district. He was nominated as the Democratic candidate for governor by
the 8th of January Convention; and there is good ground to believe
that he would have been chosen over his estimable Whig competitor,
Governor Owsley, but for the universal conviction throughout the state
that the defeat of Mr. Clay's party, by the choice of a Democratic
governor in August, would have operated to injure Mr. Clay's prospects
throughout the Union, in the presidential election which followed
immediately after in November. With Mr. Clay's popularity, and the
activity of all his friends--with the state pride so long exalted by
the aspiration of giving a President to the Union--more eagerly than
ever enlisted against the Democracy, Col. Butler diminished the Whig
majority from twenty thousand to less than five thousand.
The late military events with which Maj. Gen. Butler has been
connected--in consequence of his elevation to that grade in 1846, with
the view to the command of the volunteers raised to support Gen.
Taylor in his invasion of Mexico--are so well known to the country
that minute recital is not necessary. He acted a very conspicuous part
in the severe conflict at Monterey, and had, as second in command
under Gen. Taylor, his full share in the arduous duties and
responsibilities incurred in that important movement. The narrative of
Major Thomas, senior assistant adjutant-general of the army in Mexico,
and hence assigned by Gen. Taylor to the staff of Gen. Butler, reports
so plainly and modestly the part which Gen. Butler performed in
subjecting the city, that it may well stand for history. This passage
is taken from it.
"The army arrived at their camp in the vicinity of
Monterey about noon September 19th. That afternoon
the general endeavored by personal observation to
get information of the enemy's position. He, like
Gen. Taylor, saw the importance of gaining the road
to Saltillo, and fully favored the movement of Gen.
Worth's division to turn their left, &c. Worth
marched Sunday, September 20th, for this purpose,
thus leaving Twiggs' and Butler's divisions with
Gen. Taylor. Gen. Butler was also in favor of
throwing his division across the St. John's river,
and approaching the town from the east, which was
at first determined upon. This was changed, as it
would leave but one, and perhaps the smallest
division, to guard the camp, and attack in front.
The 20th the general also reconnoitered the enemy's
position. Early the morning of the 21st the force
was ordered out to create a diversion in favor of
Worth, that he might gain his position; and before
our division came within long range of the enemy's
principal battery, the foot of Twiggs' division had
been ordered down to the northeast side of the
town, to make an armed reconnoisance of the
advanced battery, and to take it if it could be
done without great loss. The volunteer division was
scarcely formed in rear of our howitzer and mortar
battery, established the night previous under cover
of a rise of ground, before the infantry sent down
to the northeast side of the town became closely
and hotly engaged, the batteries of that division
were sent down, _and we were then ordered to
support the attack._ Leaving the Kentucky regiment
to support the mortar and howitzer battery, the
general rapidly put in march, by a flank movement,
the other three regiments, moving for some one and
a half or two miles under a heavy fire of round
shot. As further ordered, the Ohio regiment was
detached from Quitman's brigade, and led by the
general (at this time accompanied by Gen. Taylor)
into the town. Quitman carried his brigade directly
on the battery first attacked, and gallantly
carried it. Before this, however, as we entered the
suburbs, the chief engineer came up and advised us
to withdraw, as the object of the attack had
failed, and if we moved on we must meet with great
loss. The general was loath to fall back without
consulting with Gen. Taylor, which he did do--the
general being but a short distance off. As we were
withdrawing, news came that Quitman had carried the
battery, and Gen. Butler led the Ohio regiment back
to the town at a different point. In the street we
became exposed to a line of batteries on the
opposite side of a small stream, and also from a
_tête de pont_ (bridge-head) which enfiladed us.
Our men fell rapidly as we moved up the street to
get a position to charge the battery across the
stream. Coming to a cross-street, the general
reconnoitered the position, and determining to
charge from that point, sent me back a short
distance to stop the firing, and advance the
regiment with the bayonet. I had just left him,
when he was struck in the leg, being on foot, and
was obliged to leave the field."
"On entering the town, the general and his troops
became at once hotly engaged at short musket range.
He had to make his reconnoisances under heavy fire.
This he did unflinchingly, and by exposing his
person--on one occasion passing through a large
gateway into a yard which was entirely open to the
enemy. When he was wounded, at the intersection of
the two streets, he was exposed to a cross-fire of
musketry and grape."
"In battle the general's bearing was truly that of
a soldier; and those under him felt the influence
of his presence. He had the entire confidence of
his men."
The narrative of Major Thomas continues:
"When Gen. Taylor went on his expedition to
Victoria, in December, he placed Gen. Butler in
command of the troops left on the Rio Grande, and
at the stations from the river on to
Saltillo--Worth's small division of regulars being
at the latter place. Gen. Wool's column had by this
time reached Parras, one hundred or more miles west
of Saltillo. General Butler had so far recovered
from his wound as to walk a little and take
exercise on horseback, though with pain to his
limb. One night, (about the 19th December,) an
express came from Gen. Worth at Saltillo, stating
that the Mexican forces were advancing in large
numbers from San Luis de Potosi, and that he
expected to be attacked in two days. His division,
all told, did not exceed 1500 men, if so many, and
he asked reinforcements. The general remained up
during the balance of the night, sent off the
necessary couriers to the rear for reinforcements,
and had the 1st Kentuckey, and the 1st Ohio foot,
then encamped three miles from town, in the place
by daylight; and these two regiments, with
Webster's battery, were encamped that night ten
miles on the road to Saltillo. This promptness
enabled the general to make his second day's march
of twenty-two miles in good season, and to hold the
celebrated pass of Los Muertos, and check the enemy
should he have attacked Gen. Worth on that day, and
obliged him to evacuate the town. Whilst on the
next, and last day's march, the general received
notice that the reported advance of the enemy was
untrue. Arriving at the camp-ground, the general
suffered intense pain from his wound, and slept not
during the night. This journey, over a rugged,
mountainous road, and the exercise he took in
examining the country for twenty miles in advance
of Saltillo, caused the great increase of pain now
experienced."
The major's account then goes on to relate Gen. Butler's proceedings
while in command of all the forces after the junction of Generals
Worth and Wool--his dispositions to meet the threatened attack of
Santa Anna--the defences created by him at Saltillo, and used during
the attack at Buena Vista in dispersing Miñon's forces--his just
treatment of the people of Saltillo, with the prudent and effectual
precautions taken to make them passive in the event of Santa Anna's
approach. It concludes by stating that all apprehensions of Santa
Anna's advance subsiding, Gen. Butler returned to meet Gen. Taylor at
Monterey, to report the condition of affairs; and the latter, having
taken the command at Saltillo, transmitted a leave of absence to Gen.
Butler, to afford opportunity for the cure of his wound.
This paper affords evidence of the kind feeling which subsisted
between the two generals during the campaign, and this sentiment was
strongly evinced by Gen. Butler, on his arrival in Washington, where
he spoke in the most exalted terms of the leader under whom he served.
In person Gen. Butler is tall, straight, and handsomely formed,
exceedingly active and alert--his mien is inviting--his manners
graceful--his gait and air military--his countenance frank and
pleasing--the outline of his features of the aquiline cast, thin and
pointed in expression--the general contour of his head is Roman.
The character of Gen. Butler in private life is in fine keeping with
that exhibited in his public career. In the domestic circle, care,
kindness, assiduous activity in anticipating the wants of all around
him--readiness to forego his own gratifications to gratify others,
have become habits growing out of his affections. His love makes
perpetual sunshine at his home. Among his neighbors, liberality,
affability, and active sympathy mark his social intercourse, and
unbending integrity and justice all his dealings. His home is one of
unpretending simplicity. It is too much the habit in Kentucky, with
stern and fierce men, to carry their personal and political ends with
a high hand. Gen. Butler, with all the masculine strength, courage,
and reputation to give success to attempts of this sort, never evinced
the slightest disposition to indulge the power, whilst his well-known
firmness always forbade such attempts on him. His life has been one of
peace with all men, except the enemies of his country.
MATHEW MIZZLE,
OF THE INQUIRING MIND.
BY THE LATE JOSEPH C. NEAL.
[Illustration]
How could he help it? Born with an inquiring turn of mind, and gifted
from the first with a disposition toward experimental philosophy, by
what processes would you undertake to change the current of Mathew
Mizzle's mind? He is one of those who take nothing for granted. A
weight of authority is little in his mind when compared to the
personal investigation of the fact--facts for the people, and for
himself as one of the people--that's the pivot on which Mathew Mizzle
turns and returns, one fact being to his mind worth whole volumes of
speculative assumption; and to Mizzle all facts, let them relate to
what they may, are of peculiar interest. It is useless to tell him so.
He must go, see and examine for himself. Often, for instance, as he
had been told that Gruffenhoff's big dog would bite at the aspect of
strange visitations, do you think that this species of information
would content the youthful Mizzle? No--he must see into the matter for
himself, and ascertain it beyond the possibility of a doubt, by
touching up Gruffenhoff's big dog with a stick, as the aforesaid big
dog lay asleep in the sun, whereby the demonstration was immediately
afforded. The big dog would bite--he did bite severely; and thus the
little Mizzle added another fact to his magazine of knowledge, as well
as an enduring scar to his person, which placed the result upon
record, and kept memory fresh on the subject. One dog, at least, will
bite; and thenceforth, Mathew Mizzle admitted the inference that dogs
are apt to bite, under circumstances congenial to such dental
performances. If you doubt it, there's the mark.
"Burnee--burnee, baby," are the notes of warning often heard in the
nursery, when heated stoves become an object of interest to little
human specimens just learning to creep. But "burnee, burnee," conveyed
no precise idea to the infantile Mizzle during his preliminary
locomotive operations; and in consonance with the impulses of his
nature, he soon tried the stove in its most intense displays of
caloric, and in this way determined that "burnee, burnee," was
unpleasant to the person, and injurious to the costume and raiment of
that person, to say nothing of its threatening dispositions toward the
whole establishment. "Burnee, burnee," to the house, as well as
"burnee, burnee," to the baby. And so also as to lamps and
candles--that they would "burnee" too, was placed, painfully, beyond
the impertinent reach of a doubt in minds of the most sceptic order.
Mathew Mizzle can show you the evidences to this day, scored, as it
were, upon the living parchment, and engrossed in characters not to be
misunderstood upon the cuticular binding of his physical identity.
It was useless, also, to place the little Mathew at the head of
stairs, with information that any further advance on his part would
prove matter of injury. How could he know until he had tried? Indeed,
it required several clear tumbles down an entire flight to satisfy his
judgment on this point, and to imprint it on his mind, through the
medium of his bumpology, that the swiftest transition from one place
to another, especially when effected by the downward movement, is not
always the safest and the most agreeable. But afterward, none knew
better than he what is meant by the word "landing," as applied to the
staircase. "The Landing of Columbus" may be celebrated in pictures;
but Mathew Mizzle accomplished landings that made very nearly as much
noise as that effected by "the world-seeking Genoese," and the voyages
of both were accompanied by squalls.
But it was not by the touch alone that Mathew Mizzle sought after
information in his earlier career. His taste was equally curious.
Strange bottles were subjects of the most intense interest, so that
like Mithridates, he almost became proof against injury by the
frequent imbibings of poison. He knew that pleasant draughts came from
bottles, but had to learn that because a bottle has contents, it does
not necessarily follow that these contents are either safe or
agreeable. Ink, for instance--a copious mouthful of ink--however
literary one may be, ink thus administered is not a matter over which
the recipient is inclined greatly to rejoice. It did not appear so, at
least, when Mathew Mizzle, in frock and trowsers, astonished, after
this fashion, his mouth, his clothing and the carpet--so astonished
himself that he forgot to reverse the bottle, but permitted it to pour
in a steady stream right into the aperture of his lovely countenance.
No one probably in the wide world ever acquired a greater variety of
knowledge, as to the effect of substances of all kinds upon the human
palate, than was obtained by Mathew Mizzle in the course of his
earlier investigations into the relative qualities of solids and
liquids. A spoonful of Cayenne pepper probably afforded him as much of
surprise as any thing of the same portable compass. The varied
expressions of his countenance would have been a study to a Lavater.
The opera-house never witnessed a dance more remarkable for force and
for expression; and if ever Mathew Mizzle was wide awake--wider than
on any previous occasion, it was when he had seasoned himself highly
with Cayenne. It made Mathew piquant to a degree; and something of the
same kind might have been said of him when under the influence of
mustard. He was then the warmest boy anywhere about; and fully
appreciated the cheering influence of "the castors"--he did not go
upon castors for a long time afterward, and never again to the same
extent.
There was another source of trouble to Mathew Mizzle. His eyes proper
were sharp enough; but the knowledge they acquired was not sufficient
to satisfy his devouring thirst for information, and therefore much of
his seeing was done with the tips of his fingers, or the grasp of his
hands. He must touch every thing, and of course spoilt many things.
Leave him alone in the room for a moment, and he would open all the
letters, peep into every drawer, smell at every unknown substance,
displace your china, spoil your musical-box, climb up the piano-forte,
and pull over the vases of flowers. If you did not hear a crash this
time, do not flatter yourself. Some secret, but equally important
mischief has been accomplished, though it may not be apparent for
days. The Mathew Mizzles always leave their mark; and when a gun went
off in his hands, the shot that fractured the mirror rendered it
fortunate that the mark was only a mirror, as Mathew Mizzle roared
with terror at "the sound himself had made."
Mathew Mizzle, grown as he is now to man's estate, has perchance
changed the objects of his pursuit, but the activity both of his mind
and of his body remains undiminished. Curious as ever to ascertain
facts. He is one of those who have ever an eye upon their neighbors.
He follows people to ascertain whither they are going. It is a
favorite amusement of his to peep through the blinds of an evening, to
ascertain what you and your family are about. He listens at doors, and
he peers through cracks and patronizes knot-holes. If he can learn
nothing else, it is a satisfaction for him to ascertain what you are
about to have for dinner, and who stopped in to tea. Speak over loud
in the street, and Mathew Mizzle saunters close at your elbow, but
with such an unconscious look, that you would never dream that he had
come merely for information.
No one knows better than he all about the domestic difficulties of
families. His sources of intelligence are innumerable. Sometimes you
may find him on the back fence, taking observations of the domestic
circle; and he has been seen of an evening up the linden-tree in front
of domiciles, for similar purposes. The servants of the vicinage are
all on confidential terms with Mathew Mizzle; and--have you not noted
the fact?--when you would have secret discourse with a friend, Mizzle
comes upon you, as the birds of prey scent a battle-field. All secrets
appear to hold a species of telegraphic communication with our friend
Mathew Mizzle, as to the fact at least, that there is a secret in
existence, as well as a regard to its local habitation.
Ubiquitous Mathew Mizzle, yet invariably out of place. Open the door
suddenly, and Mathew Mizzle is almost knocked down. Throw out a bucket
of water at night, and Mathew Mizzle is there to receive its contents.
Pass a stick through the key-hole, and it's Mizzle's eye that suffers
the detriment. You stumble over him in dark entries--you find him
lying perdu in the closet. Go where you will, there is Mizzle, if it
be in the wrong place for Mizzle's presence.
Behold him prowling round the scenes to investigate the mysteries of a
theatrical performance. There he is, just where he was told not to be,
and William Tell was not in fault that his arrow has stricken Mathew
Mizzle breathless. What business had Mizzle there in Switzerland,
lurking near the walls of Altorf?
Mizzle's last catastrophe, like the last catastrophe of many other
distinguished citizens, was effected by means of a ladder, which he
had ascended cautiously by night, after the painters had left their
work, to see what was going on in the chamber of a second story.
Suddenly, there was a dog at the bottom of the aforesaid ladder, and a
cudgel at the top, presenting the alternatives of a dilemma. Switches
above and bark below, what could the unfortunate Mathew Mizzle do but
surrender himself a prisoner of war? Poor Mizzle! They put him under
the pump, and made him acquainted with the nature of ducks.
Is it not a pity that the system of "espionage" does not obtain in
America, that Mathew Mizzle might have a field for the exercise of the
qualities which are so remarkably developed in his constitution? It
would be a perfect union of duty and of pleasure, if he could be
employed to find out every thing that goes on in town and about, and
it is a great pity that means could not be devised to save so fine a
young man from the waste of his genius.
"People are so fussy about their secrets," says he, "as if there were
any use of having secrets, if it were not for the fun of finding them
out and talking about them. It's mean and selfish to abridge
intelligence in that sort of way, and if I knew of any country where
they manage matters on a different system, I'd emigrate right away, I
would. A pretty piece of business, to put a man under the pump,
because he seeks after knowledge."
SHAWANGUNK MOUNTAIN.
BY ALFRED B. STREET.
Before the plough had scattered fields of grain
And grassy orchards midst the oaken woods
Of Shawangunk, upon the mountain's top
Stood a wood-cutter's hut. Himself and wife
Shared it alone. The spot was green and sweet.
The earth was covered with a velvet sward,
Grouped with low thickets, here and there a tree
Rearing its dark rich foliage in the heavens.
Pleasant the echoes of his fast plied axe,
Merrily rattling through the mountain-woods,
To those who sought the old surveyor's road
For shade and coolness; and amidst the sounds
Would boom deep heavy shocks of falling trees,
Like growls of thunder in the noontide-hush,
So that the eye would glance impulsively
Up to the tree-tops, to discern the peak
Of the ascending cloud.
His forest-life,
Though rude, was joyous. When the mellow charm
Of sunset on the smiling mountains lay,
The creaking of his high-piled cart would blend
With song or whistle blithe, as, dipping down
The road, he sought the village in the midst
Of the green hollow. This slight mountain-road
Went slanting to the summit, with blazed trunks
On either side, and soft delicious grass
Spreading its carpet; one faint track alone
Telling that wheel had e'er its beauty scarred.
Close to the hut it passed, then downward plunged,
And sought the level of the opposite side.
'T was at the close of one cold winter day
That down this road I trod. My weary steps,
With efforts vain, had tracked, for hours, the deer,
And now, with empty flask and rifle, swift,
I journeyed homeward. Nature's great bright eye
Low beaming in the west, still poured sweet light
Upon the mountain. The pure snow, all round,
In delicate rose-tints glowed. The hemlocks smiled,
Speckled with gold. The oak's sear foliage, still
Tight clinging to the boughs, was kindled up
To warm rich brown. The myriad trunks and sprays
Traced their black lines upon the soft snow-blush
Beneath, until it seemed a tangled maze.
Upon the mountain's top, a thread of smoke
From the low cabin rose, as though a streak
Of violet had been painted on the air.
I heard the ring of the wood-cutter's axe,
And, through an opening, saw his instrument
Flashing into a walnut's giant stem,
Whose upborne mass, in the fast lowering light,
Seemed cut in copper. A broad wind-fall near
Let down my eyes upon the hollow. White
In snow it lay, with long and dusky lines
Of fences crossing--groups of orchard-trees--
Hay-barracks--barns and long low dwelling-roofs.
Straight as an arrow ran the streak of road
Athwart the hollow. As I looked, the eye
In the red west sank lower, till half quenched
Behind the upland, then a shred of light
Glittered and vanished, and the sky was bare.
Whilst gazing on this splendor, suddenly
I heard a shriek. Shrill, ringing midst the woods
In piercing clearness, through my ears it cut,
And left a sense of deafness. Startled, round
I gazed. Again the horrid sound thrilled past.
I knew it then as the terrific cry
Of the fierce, bloody panther. In our woods
Naught fiercer, bloodier dwells, when roused by rage
Or hunger. Oft our hunters had of late
Marked the huge foot-prints of the ravenous beast,
And heard his scream at midnight, but no eye
As yet had seen him. With a nervous grasp
Upon my useless weapon, and a weight
Of helplessness, like lead, upon my soul,
I started on my path. At every step
I thought his tawny form and fierce green eye
Would meet my sight, upon some limb o'erhead.
But naught was seen. The village soon I reached,
And gladly crossed the threshold of my home.
The long, cold, breathless night came swiftly down.
The clear, magnificent moon seemed not inlaid
In the bright blue, but stood out bold, distinct,
As though impending from the cloudless skies
Glittering with frost. Upon the sparkling snow
The rich light slept in such sweet purity
As naught on earth can match. The hours sped on,
The silver day still shone serene and clear,
And twinkled on the crystals shooting round.
Gazing once more upon the splendid scene,
Before I sought the couch, my wandering eye
Glanced at the mountain. There it grandly stood
A giant mass of ivory. On the spot
Where the steep slanting road the hollow joined,
My sight a moment dwelt, for there I last
Had swept around a quick and piercing gaze,
In search of the gaunt monster whose keen cry
Still echoed in my ears. Is that a spot
Of shadow flickering in some transient breeze?
No. O'er the hollow, gliding swift, it comes.
Is it the ravenous panther, fierce for blood,
Seeking the village? Closer as it speeds
A clearer shape it shows--a human form--
'T is the wood-cutter's wife! She loudly shrieks,
"My husband--lost--wake, wake!" the moonlight falls
Upon her features swollen with tears. A band
Of villagers was soon aroused, and forth
We sallied toward the mountain. So intense
The cold, the snow creaked shrilly at our tread,
And the strewed diamonds on its surface flashed
Back the keen moonlight. As we trod along,
The wife in breathless haste, her story told,
How, when the sunset fell, she watched to see
Her husband's form swift speeding up the road,
From the side-clearing, at that wonted hour,
Toward his low roof. The sunset died, and night
Sprang on the earth; the absent one came not.
The moon moved up; the latch-string was not pulled
For entrance in the cabin. Hours sped on.
And still, upon the silvered snow, no form
Her gaze rewarded. Once she heard afar
A panther's shriek. Her fear to frenzy rose.
To the side-clearing sped she; naught was there
But solitude and moonlight. As she told
Her tale I shuddered. In my ear again
Rang the fierce shriek I heard as sunset glowed,
And my flesh crept with horror. Up we trod
Our mountain snow-path speedily. At length,
To where the narrow opening in the woods
Led from the road, we came. 'T was at this spot
I stood, and watched the form and flashing axe
Of him, the lost. We passed within. The moon
Threw on the little clearing a full flood
Of radiance. There the crusted wood-pile stood;
There was the walnut with a ghastly notch
Deep in its heart. A ledge of rock rose up
Beside the wounded tree, and at its base
A space of blackest hue proclaimed a chasm.
No life was stirring on the brilliant waste;
The trees rose like a wall on every side
But where the ledge frowned darkly. As I checked
My footsteps at the half-hewn walnut, drops
Thick sprinkled round--the snow stamped down--an axe
Lying upon the high wreathed roots, my gaze,
As with a charm, arrested. From this spot
Large prints and a broad furrow stretched along
To the black chasm within the rocky ledge.
We clustered round the mouth. A low, deep growl
Came from the depths. Two orbs of flashing fire
Glared in the darkness. Brace, the hunter, aimed
His rifle just between the flaming spots,
And fired. Fierce growls and gnashings loud of teeth
Blent with the echoes, and then all was still.
The spots were seen no more. A few had brought
Splinters of pine for torches, and the flint
Supplied the flame. With one hand grasping tight
A hatchet keen, the other a bright torch,
The dauntless hunter ventured, with slow steps,
Within the cavern. Soon a shout we heard,
And Brace appeared, with all his giant strength
Dragging a lifeless panther. In again
He passed, and then brought out a human form,
Mangled and crushed. A shriek pealed wild and high,
And, swooning, sank the wife upon the snow,
Beside the dead. With silent, deep-felt awe
We bore both to the hut. A sudden cloud
Rose frowning from the north, and deep and fierce
Howled the loosed tempest. From her death-like swoon,
Roused by our care, the hapless wife poured out
Her cries and wailings. Through the livelong night
We heard her moans and screams and ravings wild,
Blending with all those stern and awful tones
That the scourged forest yields. But morning dawned,
And brought the widowed and the broken heart
The peace of death. Beside the lonely hut,
Two graves were opened in the frozen snow,
And silence then fell deeply on the spot.
No more the smoke curled up. No more the axe
Rang in the mountain; and a few short years
Leveled the cabin with the forest-earth,
Midst spreading bushes, fern and waving grass.
INNOCENCE.
Let me, lamb-like, share caresses,
From thy hand that knows not stain;
Flowers that woo, the smile that blesses,
Hours that pass and leave no pain!
Be with me in sleeping, waking;
Be with me in toil and rest;
Living, thine; and, life forsaking,
Let me slumber on thy breast!
[Illustration: INNOCENCE]
A DRAMA OF REAL LIFE.
(IN A LETTER FROM N. P. WILLIS TO THE EDITOR OF GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE.)
TO GEO. R. GRAHAM, ESQ.
_New York, December_ 1, 1847.
DEAR SIR,--By to-night's mail should go to you a
piece of mental statuary, which is yet in a marble
block of the reluctant quarry of my brain--due to
you by agreement on the first of December, one
unconceived tale! But though we do so strangely
bargain the invisible wares of the imagination,
deliverable, like merchandize, on a certain day,
the contractor is still liable to the caprices of
the world he trades from, and your order on me for
fancy yet undug, must, I fear, be protested. You
would not believe me if I were to tell you
literally why. But the truth is that I, and a
certain cave (mentioned by Humboldt, on the banks
of the Oronookoo, which he calls a "subterranean
organ,") can only give out music in certain states
of the weather. With the dry, sharp, icy north wind
of the last few days, I could no more write than I
could supply electricity to Morse's wire.
But--no failure is _quite_ twenty shillings in the
pound. What say you to the assets? The statue will
not be forth coming--but will you have the model,
after which the undug block was to have been
chiseled? Shall I send you the literal truth which
I had intended to drape with imagination--tell the
facts of real life which I had designed to weave
into a story. I shall thus, at least, clear
_yourself_ of the non-fulfillment of the promise of
your pre-advertised contents, and (engaging to send
you a story properly completed for the next number)
shall effect, perhaps, a compromise for my
delinquent punctuality.
This, then, is the thread of literal truth which
was to have run through the fancy-woof of my story.
Some years ago, after a year or two of residence in
different cities of Italy, I found myself very much
at home in Naples. It was an unusually gay
season--the concentration of the rank and fashion
of the floating society of travelers varying
between Rome, Florence, and Naples, very much as it
does, in our country, between the different
watering-places--by caprices that no one can
foresee. The English people of rank, more
particularly, were in very great force; and the
blonde moustaches, so much admired in the
dark-haired South, and the skins of alabaster and
rose, so envied by the brunettes of Italy, abounded
at the balls and in the public places. The king
kept very gay court, the royal entertainments
accessible to all strangers properly introduced,
and the ambassadors and bankers, nobles and wealthy
strangers, seemed to want twice as many nights and
mornings in the week, so conflicting were the balls
and breakfasts, driving-parties and dinners.
As, of course, an unobserved looker-on in scenes of
such brilliant rivalry and display, I had more
attention to spare than most whom I met; and I
soon found myself--eyes, mind, fancy, and
interest, absorbed in one study--a new revelation
of a type of woman. We are accustomed to see the
sex in classes--hundreds of a kind--and find them
sufficiently absorbing as nouns of multitude. It is
probably one of Heaven's principles of human
safety, that women are made in "lots" so like, that
a transfer of a slighted heart, from an unwilling
beauty to some willing likeness of her, safely
vents the volcano. Proportionately dangerous,
however, are those rare women--of whom a man sees,
perhaps, one or two in his life--who are the only
ones of their type and kind; for, out of love for
them, their is no exit but through their hearts.
You are going too fast if you fancy I am about to
record a fruitless passion of my own. Though of
"easy wax," I am not stamped, except by will of the
imprintress; and my only cobweb thread of personal
remembrance is a horseback excursion to Camaldoli,
in which I played the propriety-third to the best
of my discretion. It is necessary to define thus
much, to redeem my estimate of the lady from the
imputation of mere fancy. Had I known her
intimately, or not known her at all, my judgment of
her would be less reliable. In just the position
for untroubled and most favorable observation, I
studied her in silence through that brilliant
season, and laid away her image (as one does
without more than one or two choked-down
aspirations) to people castles in the air, and fill
niches in the temple of dreams.
The foregoing prepares you for a portrait of the
proposed heroine of my story--but that you would
have had, had the story been written. I never could
draw a picture of a woman but from the life, and to
that fictitious tale I should have transferred,
with studied and careful truthfulness, the enamel
portrait burnt in upon my memory, and which you
would have admired my fancy for conceiving. Oh! the
mistake of supposing that we can imagine things
brighter than we have seen with our eyes--that
there is any kingdom of air, visitable by poets,
which is comparable to the glorious world we live
in, with its _some_ women, _some_ sunsets, _some_
strains of music, and _some_ fore-tasted
heaven-thrills of emotion.
The heir to one of the oldest titles of England was
the husband of this lady. The fortunes of his
family had been wasted; and they had lived for a
generation or two in comparative obscurity, when
the present Lord ---- came of age. He had been
educated carefully, but was of great personal
beauty, and I thought when I first saw him, was as
fine a model as I had ever seen of the quiet,
reserved, self-intrenched school of modern English
manners. With his beauty and his title, though with
little or no estate, he had easily married a lady
of fortune--the only daughter of a retired banker.
And this heiress, Lady ----, is the one whose story
I would have told through a veil of fiction.
The Countess of ---- was an unsurpassed horsewoman,
and rode constantly. Her blood-horses had been sent
round by ship from England; and she was always
mounted on an animal whose every fibre seemed
obedient to her thought, and with whose motion
every line of her own tall and slenderly-rounded
person, and every ringlet of her flowing, golden
curls seemed in a correspondence governed by the
very spirit of beauty. She rode with her rein
loose, and her mind apparently absorbed with any
thing but her horse. A turn of her head, or the
pressure of her foot upon his shoulder, was
probably the animal's guidance. But, of an
excessively impassioned nature, she conversed in
the saddle with the expression and gesture of the
most earnest untrammeling of mind, and, in full
speed, as in the repose upon a lounge in a saloon,
she carried away the listener with her
uncalculating and passionate absorption--no
self-possession, however on its guard it might be,
able, apparently, to withstand the enveloping and
resistless influence which she herself was a slave
to. Unconsciousness of every thing in the world,
except the feeling she was pouring from her soul,
seemed the only and every-day condition and law of
her nature; and supreme as she was in fashion of
dress, and style of manner, these seemed matters
learned and lost thought of--she having returned to
nature, leaving her triumphs as a belle to be cared
for by infallible habit. A separate spirit of
light, speaking from the lips of the most
accomplished and best perfected of women--the
spirit, and the form possessed, being each in full
exercise of their best faculties--could scarcely
have conveyed more complete impressions of wondrous
mind, in perfect body, or have blended more
ravishingly, the entireness of heavenly with the
most winning earthly development. She was an
earnest angel, in the person of a self-possessed
and unerringly graceful woman.
I chanced to be looking on, when Prince ----, one
of the brothers of a royal family of central
Europe, was presented to the Countess ----. It was
at a crowded ball; and I observed that, after a few
minutes of conversation with her, he suddenly
assumed a ceremonious indifference of manner, and
went into another room. I saw at once that the
slightness of the attention was an "anchor to
windward," and that, in even those few minutes the
prince had recognized a rare gem, and foreseen
that, in the pursuit of it, he might need to be
without any remembered particularity of attention.
Lady ----- conversed with him with her usual
earnest openness, but started a little, once or
twice, at words which were certainly unaccompanied
by their corresponding expression of countenance;
and this, too, I put down for an assumption of
disguise on the part of the prince. It was natural
enough; with his conspicuous rank, he could only
venture to be unguarded in his attentions to those
for whom he had no presentiment of future intimacy.
That the progress of this acquaintance should
assume for me the interest of a drama--a scene of
it played every night, with interludes every day,
in public drives and excursions--would not be
wonderful to you, could I have drawn the portrait
of the principal performer in it, so that you would
understand its novelty. I had never seen such a
woman, and I was intensely interested to know how
she would bear temptation. The peculiar character
of the prince I easily understood; and I felt at
once, that of all stages of an accomplished man's
progress, he was at the one most dangerous to her,
while, perhaps, no other kind of woman in the world
would have called upon any but very practiced
feelings of his own. He was of middle age, and had
intellect enough to have long anticipated the ebb
of pleasure. With his faculties and perceptions in
full force, he was most fastidious in permitting
himself to enjoy an enthusiasm, to admire, to yield
to, or to embark upon with risk. The admiration of
mere beauty, mere style, mere wit, mere superiority
of intellect in woman, or of any of these combined,
was but a recurrent phase of artificial life. He
had been to the terminus, the farthest human
capability of enjoyment of this, and was now back
again to nature, with his keenest relish in
reserve, looking for such outdoings of art as
nature sometimes shows in her caprices. In the
Countess ---- he recognized at once a rare miracle
of this--a woman whose beauty, whose style, whose
intellect, whose pride, were all abundant, but,
abundant as they were, still all subservient to
electric and tumultuous _sensation_. Her life, her
impulse--the consciousness with which she
breathed--was the one gift given her by Heaven in
tenfold measure, and her impression on those she
expanded to, was like the magnetizing presence of
ten full existences poured into one. The heart
acknowledged it before her--though the reason knew
not always why.
Lord ---- would scarce have been human had he not
loved such a woman, and she his wife. He did love
her--and doubtless loves her at this hour with all
the tenderness of which he could ever be capable.
If they had lived only on their estates in England,
where seclusion would have put up no wall of
concealment to his feelings, she might have drawn
from the open well of his heart, the water for
which her ardent being was athirst. But with the
usage of fashionable life, he followed his own
amusements during the day, leaving the countess to
hers; and in scenes of gayety they were, of course,
still separated by custom; and all she enjoyed of
nature in her rides, or of excitement in society,
was, of course, with others than her husband.
Naples is in the midst of palace-gardens, and of
wonders of scenery--in seeing which love is
engendered in the bosom and brain with tropical
fruitfulness--and Lady ---- could no more have
lived that year in Italy without passionate loving,
than she could have stayed from breathing the
fragrance of the orange blossoms, when galloping
between the terraced gardens of Sorrento.
* * * * *
When abroad, a little more than a year ago, I made
a visit to a friend, whose estate is in the same
county with that of the father of Lady ----, and
between whose park-gates and his extends the
distance of a morning's drive through one of the
loveliest hedged winding-roads of lovely England. A
very natural inquiry was of the whereabout and
happiness of the Countess of ----, whom I had left
at Naples ten years before, and had not been in the
way of hearing of since; and I named her in the gay
tone with which one speaks of the brilliant and
happy. We were sitting at the dinner-table, and I
observed that I had mis-struck a chord of feeling
in the company present, and with well-bred tact,
the master of the house informed me that
misfortunes had befallen the family since the
period I spoke of, and turned the conversation to
another topic. After dinner, I heard from him the
following outline of the story, and its affecting
sequel.
Near the close of the season when Lord ---- was at
Naples, he suddenly left that city and returned
with his wife and their one child to England. To
the surprise of the wondering world, Lady ---- went
to her father's, and Lord ---- to the small estate
of his widowed mother, where they remained for a
while in unexplained seclusion. It was not long
before rumors arrived from Italy, of a nature
breathing upon the reputation of the lady; and soon
after a formal separation took place, Mr. ----, her
father, engaging to leave his whole fortune to the
son of Lord ----, if that nobleman would consent to
give him to the exclusive keeping of his mother.
With these facts ended the world's knowledge of the
parties, the separated pair remaining, year after
year, in absolute seclusion; and Lady ---- never
having been known to put foot beyond the extending
forest in which her home was hidden from view, and
the gates to which were guarded from all entrance,
even of family friends.
It was but a few days before this sequel was
narrated to me, that the first communication had
been made from the Countess of ---- to her
husband. It was a summons to attend, if he wished,
the burial of his only child--the heir of his name,
and the bringer-back, had he lived, of wealth to
the broken fortunes of his title. A severer blow
could hardly have followed the first--for it struck
down heart, pride, and all that could brighten this
world's future. Lord ----came. The grave was made
in a deep grove of firs on the estate of the boy's
mother. There were but three mourners
present--herself, her father, and her husband. The
boy was ten or eleven years old when he died, and
one of the most gifted and noble lads, in mind and
person, that had ever been seen by those who knew
him. On his horse, with his servant behind him, the
young boy-lord was a constant sight of pride and
beauty to the inhabitants of the county, and was
admired and beloved every where he rode in his
daily excursions.
The service was read; the two parents stood side by
side at the grave, while the body was laid in
it--the first time they had met since their
separation, and both in the prime of life, and with
hearts yearning--both hearts, beyond a doubt--with
love, and longing for forgiveness; and when the
earth rang on the coffin, they _parted without
exchanging a word_. The carriage of Lord ----
waited for him in the avenue; and with the expiring
echo of his wheels through that grove of fir-trees,
died all hope and prospect, if any had been
conceived, of a re-union, in grief, of these proud
broken-hearted.
I have told you thus, with literal truth, all that
I could know of this drama of real life; but, of
course, its sketchy outline could be easily filled
out by fancy. Your readers, perhaps, will like to
do this for themselves.
Yours truly,
N. P. WILLIS.
LINES TO ----.
BY CAROLINE F. ORNE.
Like a cloud of the summer sunset
Gleaming across the blue,
Like a star of the golden twilight
Through the misty evening dew,
Like a strain of heavenly music
Breathed mournfully and low,
Charming the heart to sadness
By its bewildering flow--
Thou camest to my presence
In the far off long-ago.
Thou camest for a moment,
Then fleeted swift away,
As the rosy cloud of sunset
Fades at the close of day,
As the beaming star of twilight
Withdraws its golden ray.
Thou hast past from out my presence
As the songs low cadence dies,
Which the heart seeketh ever,
And evermore it flies.
Oh, in my weary journeying
Come to me yet once more,
While still my footsteps wander
On Time's uncertain shore.
Come to me, oh, sweet vision
Of what my soul has sought,
And with mine once more mingle
Thy far, sky-piercing thought.
Call I in vain thy spirit?
Do I seek thee all in vain?
Shall I never hear thy accent
In music fall again?
Why didst thou cross my pathway,
Oh soul so pure and true?
To fade like the clouds of sunset.
Like the star from the misty blue?
AUTUMNAL SCENERY.
WHAT IS NECESSARY TO THE ENJOYMENT OF NATURE'S BEAUTIES.
BY JOSEPH R. CHANDLER.
I am not of those who think that a true enjoyment of the beauties of
nature, of natural scenery, and natural objects, generally, is a test
of the purity of principle or the delicacy of sentiment, any more than
I hold that a love of music is essential to domestic, social or
political virtue. The cultivation of the eye and the ear--or the
capabilities in those organs for cultivation--have more to do with all
this than many seem to allow; and men and women of the purest
principles, and the highest benevolence, may stand within the
loveliest scenes that nature has ever spread out, or may listen to the
most delicious music that art has ever prepared and performed, without
comprehending the beauties or the excellence of either, or imagining
that there is a moral test applied to them in these attractions.
Nevertheless, there is an enjoyment in such scenes and such sounds,
and those who are permitted to share therein have another life--or
such an additional enjoyment added to _that_ of ordinary minds, that
they seem to live more, if not longer, in such pleasures than the
common allotment; and none, I suspect, will doubt that the indulgence
of a taste for natural beauties tends to soften the mind, soothe the
passions, and thus elevate the feelings and aspirations.
If I have less of the power of appreciating and enjoying rural sights
and rural sounds, if there is vouchsafed to me a _limited_ capability
of understanding and delighting in the beauties of the field and wood,
of gathering pleasure from the outstretched loveliness of land and
stream, still I thank God; and I speak with reverence, I thank God
that I have _some_ pleasure in these things; and more than that, I
have a certain fixed delight in noticing the enjoyment which the
better formed and higher cultivated mind derives from what a good
Providence has poured out for the decoration of the earth. Humble as
this faculty may be, which is partly exercised through intermediate
objects, I find it useful to me, and, still better, I find that it
ministers to other pleasures--to enjoy what is lovely is a high and a
cultivated talent--the enjoyment of that loveliness with another
kindred or more elevated mind is a yet higher attainment, as the
performance of _concerted_ music is more difficult and more gratifying
than a simple solo.
Rarely within my recollection, and that is as inclusive as the
remembrance of almost any around me, rarely has an autumn been more
delightful than that which has just closed, in its clear, shining
sunlight, or more attractive for its bland and healthful temperature.
Not leisure--for that I have little to boast of, or to _fear_. Let my
young readers mark that word, _fear_. I am not about to write a
homily upon the uses of time and talents, but let me parenthetically
note that the gift of enjoying leisure is so rare in the young, that a
lack of constant occupation should be rather feared than courted. I do
not speak of the danger of flagrant vice, but of a growing propensity
to disregard portions of time, because only _portions_ may be
necessary to the discharge of admitted duties--the danger is
imminent--but not to the young alone. In youth, love of action _may_
employ the leisure to the promotion of vice in age, a tendency to
inertness may induce the abuse of the leisure to total inaction. I can
hardly imagine any object more unsightly than an idle old man--the
dead trunk of a decayed tree, marring the landscape and injuring
culture. But I must return. Not leisure, for I have little of that to
boast of or fear; not leisure, but a love, a growing love for the
partial solitude of the field, and something of an enjoyment of the
elevating communion which it leaves, sent me more than once in
November last strolling beyond the dusty roads and noisy turnpike in
the vicinity of our city. It was, as I have reason to recollect, on
the eighteenth of November, that I was wandering observantly, but in
deep contemplation, across some of the fields that lie near the road
leading from the city to Frankford. It was a lovely day, and every
feeling of my heart was consonant to the scene. Ascending a little
eminence, I obtained an extensive view. The forest trees had lost
their rich garb of mottled beauties, and their denuded limbs stretched
out with attenuated delicacy, seemed to streak the distant horizon
with darkened lines. On my right the winding Delaware lay stretched
out in glassy beauty, and near me, glittering in the sunlight beyond,
were a thousand gossamer webs that had survived a recent storm. The
fields were unusually green, for the season, as if the year were
clothing itself, like an expiring prelate, with its richest
habiliments, that its departure might leave the impress of that beauty
which comes from its usefulness. I had yielded to the influences of
the scene, had allowed my feeling to predominate, and was in the midst
of an unwonted abstraction from all ordinary cares and relations,
catching something of that state with which the more gifted are
indulged, when I was startled by the sound of footsteps upon the
carpet-like grass around me.
"Hardly looking for game here?" said the person inquiringly.
"And without dog and gun?" said I.
"There's not much game in these parts," said he.
"And yet I was hunting!" said I. "Hunting pleasure from the prospect."
"I do not derive much pleasure," said my companion, "from such
things. Almost all fields are alike to me. Generally they are places
for labor, or they lie between my residence and labor, and thus make a
toilsome distance."
"But do you not enjoy the pleasure of this scene? Do you not, while
looking abroad from some eminence, feel a sensation different from
what you experience while walking on the turnpike?"
"Most generally. I think there was once or twice a feeling came over
me here which I did not exactly understand."
"And when was that?"
"Always on Sunday morning, as I have been crossing the field to attend
service at the church yonder. I could not tell whether it was a sense
of relief from ordinary labor, or something connected with the service
in which I was about to join; but, certainly, the fields, and woods,
and water beyond, had a different appearance, and seemed to affect me
differently from their ordinary influence. Perhaps as these feelings
are recent, they may have sprung from another cause."
"If the beauties of nature, and the influence of religious aspirations
could not account for those feelings which you experienced, I can
scarcely tell whence you derived the sensation."
"I suppose that all beauties are not discernable at once, and our
sympathies are not all awakened by a single exhibition of what may be
productive of delight or sorrow. Whatever of pleasure I have derived
from the beauties observable from such places as this, are not
primarily referable to my own powers of application, but rather from
the lessons of another--lessons derived from a few words, and from
constant example."
"And, pray, what _example_ could open to you new beauties in a
landscape, or develop attractions in a scene which you had been in the
habit of seeing for many years?"
"I do not know that any one has taught me by word and example to see
from any point of observation, aught that I had not discerned before,
but it is certain that what was unnoticeable became an object of
contemplation, and points of the scenery have been made to harmonize
by association, when viewed separately, they had little that was
attractive.
"A few years since, a young lady, I think of European birth, was
brought to live in the house which stands near yonder clump of trees;
her situation seemed that of an humble companion to the lady--but her
services and her influence made her more than loved. I never saw more
affection exhibited than all of the household manifested toward her. I
cannot tell you what means she used to acquire such a mastery over the
love of all around her, but, though less within the influence of her
attractive manners than some others, I yet shared in the general
feeling of regard. She was a frequent visiter to a small eminence in
this immediate neighborhood, and I often followed her thither, though
I was careful not to reach the place until her departure; and then I
have gone around as she did, looking at the various points of the
scenery, to try to have the enjoyment which was imparted to her from
the visits. Once I came when she was here, and met a condescension
entirely hidden in kindness; she called my attention to what she
designated the numerous beauties of the place, and subsequently I went
frequently to the spot to look at what she had pointed out, and I
think I occasionally derived some new pleasure from the scene. I am
not able now to say whether that pleasure was the result of new
capacities to behold beauties, or whether it was consequent upon my
respect for her who had imparted the lesson. Perhaps both.
"There was a young man, a relative of Mrs. ----, with whom this lady
resided, that came frequently to the house. I never saw a person
apparently more winning in his manner, or more delicate in his
attentions; and, as all expected, he proposed for marriage to the
young woman. It was thought that there would be objections on the part
of _his_ relations--and there were; but they came from the gentleman
of the house, who plainly declared that the young man was not worthy
of the woman he sought. Her heart, it was evident, was concerned; it
was whispered, I know not how truly, that the youth had associations
in the city unworthy his relations at home. But when do the young and
confiding ever regard monitions of this kind. She, whose good sense
had restored order to a family that needed direction, and had
sustained her against all adverse circumstances among strangers, could
not influence her against the pleadings of her own heart. The young
man, more than a year since, received a commission, and joined the
army at Mexico. He left with her a sealed paper, and his favorite dog.
The animal was already most affectionately attached to her, and now
became her constant companion. Never did I see an animal so completely
devoted to a human being; never was kindness more reciprocated than
was that of the companion of her walks; he patiently awaited at the
door of the church for the conclusion of the services, and at night
held vigils beneath her window. I think the dog, too, must have
understood something of the beauty of this scenery; for I have seen
him for an hour together standing wistfully beside his mistress, and
gazing up into her face, and then not meeting with an encouraging
look, stretching his sight far away in the direction of her eyes, as
if determined to share with her whatever contributed to her pleasure
or her pain.
"Less than four months ago news reached the family of the death of the
young man--I do not remember the exact time, or the place of the
engagement in which he fell--but his death produced deep sensation in
the family generally, but it went to the heart of the young lady. I
saw her once or twice on her favorite place in the field, but I dared
not approach her--she had no companion but the faithful dog. In two
weeks she was confined to her bed--and shortly afterward the family
was plunged in new afflictions by her death. I was inquiring of one of
the family relative to the particular disease of which she died, and
heard it suggested that it might have been a rapid consumption."
"I think not," said a very little girl, who had shared in the
affectionate instruction of the deceased.
"And why?"
"Can the heart of a person break to pieces?" asked the child.
"The heart may be broken," I said.
"Then that is it--for I heard mamma tell sister that Miss Mary's heart
was broken."
"I have noticed that the death of an affianced one is more severely
felt by a woman, as a severe disturbance of affection, than is the
death of a husband. And I suppose this comes from the delicacy of a
maiden that shrinks from the utterance of a grief which finds vent and
sympathy with a widow. I never hear of such a bereavement without
deeper sorrow for the survivor's sufferings, than I have for the
mourning wife. God help her who's crushed by a grief that she may not
openly indulge; who must hide in her bosom the fire that is consuming
her life."
The sealed paper was reopened; it contained a rich bequest to the
young woman, and with it was a small piece of paper, containing _her_
request to be buried beyond us, whence she had so often contemplated
the scene around us. The field was her own property, by the will of
the young man. She relinquished all else of his gift. "We buried her
_there_. I say _we_--for though my position was far below hers, yet
none felt more deeply her loss than those who looked up to admire her.
The little paling that surrounds the eminence was erected to keep away
the foot of the thoughtless. Shall we go to see the grave?"
I followed the man into the enclosure. The sods which covered the
grave of Mary had not yet united; and one or two seemed to be worn, as
if they had been treated with some rudeness. I drew the attention of
my guide to the abrasion.
"Ah, yes! that is poor Lara's doings," said he. "Poor dog! I looked
around for him at the funeral, expecting to see him at the grave, but
was disappointed. Every evening since the funeral, just before the sun
goes down, and often in the morning--the hours in which Miss Mary was
wont to come hither to enjoy the scenery--poor Lara has been seen
stretched out upon the grave, uttering his grief in a low wail. I
scarcely believe that he will recover from the loss he has sustained;
and others might be equally unconsolable, if they did not feel that it
is better with Mary now than when she lived."
When I had looked downward to the grave for a time, and almost into
it, that I might the better contemplate the character and end of her
who rested there, my companion drew my attention to the beauty of what
was around us.
"Miss Mary loved to stand here," said he, "and enjoy the rich sunset.
Mark, now, how richly its beams are thrown from the windows of yonder
Gothic house beyond the turnpike, and on the new dwelling a little
this side. A mellowness is in that light, to soothe where it falls;
and the whispering of the southern wind that we now hear, is like the
cries of spirits communing with their good sister below us."
"You seem now to enjoy the scenery, my friend," said I, "as much as
almost any other person."
"Sir, I have felt, of late, a growing fondness for this place and this
scene; and last Sunday, when returning from the afternoon service, I
stood here almost wrapt in the pleasure which the place afforded to
the departed one, and I have since come to believe that there is
something more than book-knowledge necessary to the relish of natural
scenery."
"May I ask what that _something_ is, which you think assists us to
appreciate the beauty of a landscape?"
"Why, sir--perhaps I am wrong, you certainly know better than I--but,
it appears to me, my growing sense of enjoyment in this scene is due
to the memory of the virtues of her whom I constantly connect with
this place, and that enjoyment is fixed and augmented by the frame of
mind in which I go to, or come from the place of worship."
"If I understand you correctly, you have come to the conclusion that
to enjoy nature, our hearts must be touched, and our affections
mellowed by earthly sympathies, and our views expanded and elevated by
a sense of religious duties."
"Something like that, sir."
"And is not that what is understood by 'LOVE TO GOD, AND LOVE TO MAN?'"
POETRY.--A SONG.
BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.
To me the world's an open book
Of sweet and pleasant poetry;
I read it in the running brook
That sings its way toward the sea:
It whispers in the leaves of trees,
The swelling grain, the waving grass.
And in the cool fresh evening breeze
That crisps the wavelets as they pass.
The flowers below--the stars above--
In all their bloom and brightness given,
Are, like the attributes of love,
The poetry of earth and heaven.
Thus Nature's volume, read aright,
Attunes the soul to minstrelsy,
Tinging life's clouds with rosy light,
And all the world with poetry.
THE MOURNER.
BY THE LATE DR. JOHN D. GODMAN.
Why is thy visage o'ershadowed by gloom,
Are Nature's enchantments not scattered around,
Has the rose lost her fragrance, the tulip her bloom,
Has the streamlet no longer its mild, soothing sound?
Say what are thy pleasures--or whence is thy bliss,
In thy breast can no movements of sympathy rise?
Canst thou glance o'er a region so lovely as this,
And no bright ray of pleasure enliven thine eyes?
Where are there fields more delightfully drest,
In a verdure still fresh'ning with every shower?
Here are oak-covered mountains, with valleys of rest,
Richly clothed in the blossoming sweet scented flower.
Why lingerest thou ever to gaze on that star,
Sinking low in the west e'er the twilight is o'er?
While the shadows of evening extending afar
Bid the warbler's blithe carol be poured forth no more,
Oh why when the Sabbath bell's pleasantest tone
Wakes the soul of devotion in song to rejoice,
Are thy features with sorrow o'erclouded alone,
While no sounds but of sadness are heard from thy voice?
Listen, while I tell thee, stranger!
In a brief and hurried measure:
Though my soul drink not of pleasure,
Though mine eyes be sunk in gloom;
Tis not from fear of coming danger,
Nor yet from dread of doom.
The youngest leaves must fall,
When summer beams have ceased to play;
And may not sorrow spread her pall,
When joy, and hope, and love decay?
Earth's loveliest scenes;
The boons of heaven most cherished;
Fields dressed in gladdening greens,
Are drear, when hope has perished:
Spring's beauteousness,
Followed by summer's glory,
May fade without the power to bless,
As doth a dreaméd story.
It gives me peace to gaze at even,
Watching the latest, faintest gleam
Of yon bright traveler of heaven,
Reflected in the silver stream;
For she I love has gently leaned--
While my fond heart with bliss was swelling--
Upon my arm, to see descend
That brilliant star in light excelling.
The chiming bells give joy no more,
Long since the tones have lost their sweetness;
They now but wake me to deplore
The bliss that fled with air-like fleetness.
Blame not my sorrow: chilling pride
Nor clouds my brow nor kills the smile;
For loss of wealth I never sighed,
But all for her I mourn the while.
She was my all, my fairest, dearest, best;
I loved--I lost her--tears may speak the rest.
ELSIE.
BY KATE DASHWOOD.
A young white rose-bud--with its leaves
Just blown apart, and wet with dew--
A fair child in a garland weaves
'Mid glowing flowers of every hue.
She sitteth by the rushing river,
While the soft and balmy air
Scarce stirs the starry flowers that quiver
Amid her sunny hair--
Thou of the laughing eyes! 'mid all
The roses of thy coronal--
Thou'rt fairest of the fair.
Ah, bright young dreamer! may thy heart
In its early freshness ever be
Pure as the leaves--just blown apart--
Of the rose thou'rt wreathing in childish glee.
Ah, well I know those flowers thou'rt twining
For thy fair pale mother dear--
For the love-light in those blue eyes shining
Is shadowed by a tear;
And thy thoughts are now in that dim, hushed room--
With the sad, sweet smile, and the fading bloom--
_Thou'rt all too young to fear._
SONNET TO ----.
The crimson clouds had gathered round the sun,
Sinking full slowly to his nightly rest,
And gilding with a glory all his own
The bannered splendor of the glowing west,
Entranced I gazed upon the gorgeous scene
That thus so fair before my vision lay;
The calm, serene, blue heavens looked out between,
And softly smiled upon retiring day.
All was so beautiful, I could but feel
A shade of sadness that thou wert not nigh,
The radiant glory to behold with me;
And still the thought would o'er my spirit steal,
That all the clouds and mists in my dark sky
Would gather rays of glory, my life's sun, from thee!
C. O.
GAME-BIRDS OF AMERICA.--NO. VIII.
AMERICAN STARLING OR MEADOW-LARK.
This well-known inhabitant of our meadows like the Partridge, is
sociable, somewhat gregarious, and partially migratory. The change of
country, however, appears to be occasioned only by scarcity of food,
and many of them pass the whole winter with us. They may be bought in
our markets when snow is on the ground; and in the month of February,
Wilson found them picking up a scanty subsistence in the company of
the snow-birds, on a road over the heights of the Alleghanies. Its
flight, like that of the Partridge, is laborious and steady. Though
they collect their food from the ground, they are frequently shot on
trees, their perch being either the main branches, or the topmost
twigs. At the time of pairing, they exhibit a little of the jealous
disposition of the tribe, but his character vindicated by his bravery,
and the victory achieved, he retires from his fraternity to assist his
mate in the formation of her nest. The flesh of the Meadow-Lark is
white, and for size and delicacy, it is considered little inferior to
the Partridge. In length, he measures ten and a half inches, in alar
extent, nearly seventeen. Above, his plumage, as described by Nuttall,
is variegated with black, bright bay, and ochreous. Tail, wedged, the
feathers pointed, the four outer nearly all white; sides, thighs, and
vent, pale ochreous, spotted with black; upper mandible brown, the
lower bluish-white; iris, hazel; legs and feet, large, pale
flesh-colour. In the young bird the color is much fainter than in the
adult.
[Illustration: RICE BUNTING. (_Emberiza Oryzivora._ WILSON.)]
This is the Rice and Reed-Bird of Pennsylvania and the Southern
States, and the Boblink of New York and New England. He is of little
size, but of great consequence, hailed with pleasure by the sportsman
and the epicure, and dreaded as worse than a locust by the careful
planter. Wilson has treated of him fully, and from his eloquent
account we shall endeavor to select a few points in his history worthy
of notice. According to his best biographer, then, three good
qualities recommend him, particularly as these three are rarely found
in the same individual--his plumage is beautiful, his song highly
musical, and his flesh excellent. To these he added the immense range
of his migrations, and the havoc he commits. The winter residence of
this species is from Mexico to the Amazon, from whence they issue in
great hosts every spring. In the whole United States, north of
Pennsylvania, they remain during the summer, raising their progeny;
and as soon as the young are able to fly they collect together in
great multitudes, and pour down on the oat-fields of New England.
During the breeding season, they are dispersed over the country; but
as soon as the young are able to fly, they collect together in great
multitudes, like a torrent, depriving the proprietors of a good tithe
of their harvest, but in return often supply his table with a very
delicious dish. From all parts of the north and western regions they
direct their course toward the south, and about the middle of August,
revisit Pennsylvania, on their route to winter quarters. For several
days they seem to confine themselves to the fields and uplands; but as
soon as the seeds of the reed are ripe, they resort to the shores of
the Delaware and Schuylkill in multitudes; and these places, during
the remainder of their stay, appear to be their grand rendezvous. The
reeds, or wild oats, furnish them with such abundance of nutritious
food, that in a short time they become extremely fat, and are supposed
by some of our epicures to be equal to the famous Ortolans of Europe.
Their note at this season is a single chuck, and is heard overhead,
with little intermission from morning till night. These are halcyon
days for our gunners of all descriptions, and many a lame and rusty
gun-barrel is put in requisition for the sport. The report of musketry
along the reedy shores of the Delaware and Schuylkill is almost
incessant, resembling a running fire. The markets of Philadelphia, at
this season, exhibit proofs of the prodigious havoc made among these
birds, for almost every stall is ornamented with some hundreds of
Reed Birds.
The Rice Bunting is seven inches and a half long, and eleven and a
half in extent. His spring dress is as follows: upper part of the
head, wings, tail, and sides of the neck, and whole lower parts,
black; the feathers frequently skirted with brownish-yellow, as he
passes into the color of the female; back of the head, a cream color;
back, black, seamed with brownish-yellow; scapulars, pure white; rump
and tail coverts the same; lower part of the back, bluish-white; tail,
formed like those of the Woodpecker genus, and often used in the same
manner, being thrown in to support it while ascending the stalks of
the reed; this habit of throwing in the tail it retains even in the
cage; legs, a brownish flesh color; hind heel, very long; bill, a
bluish-horn color; eye, hazel. In the month of June this plumage
gradually changes to a brownish-yellow, like that of the female, which
has the back streaked with brownish-black; whole lower parts,
dull-yellow; bill, reddish-flesh color; legs and eyes as in the male.
The young birds retain the dress of the female until early in the
succeeding spring. The plumage of the female undergoes no material
change of color.
[Illustration: CEDAR BIRD. (_Ampelis Americana._)]
The Cedar-Bird, (_Ampelis Americana_,) is very frequently shot at the
same time with the Robin. The plumage of this bird is of an
exquisitely fine and silky texture, lying extremely smooth and glossy.
The name Chatterers has been given to them, but they make only a
feeble, lisping sound, chiefly as they rise or alight. On the Blue
Mountains, and other ridges of the Alleghanies, they spend the months
of August and September, feeding on the abundant whortleberries; then
they descend to the lower cultivated parts of the country to feed on
the berries of the sour gum and red cedar. In the fall and beginning
of summer, when fat, they are in high esteem for the table, and great
numbers find purchasers in the market of Philadelphia. They have
derived their name from one kind of their favorite food; from other
sorts they have also been called Cherry Birds, and to some they are
known by the name of Crown Birds.
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
_The Poetical Works of Fitz-Greene Halleck. Now
first collected. Illustrated with Steel Engravings,
from drawings by American Artists. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 8vo._
This volume is a perfect luxury to the eye, in its typography and
embellishments. The fact of an author's appearance in so rich a dress,
is itself an evidence of his popularity. We have here, for the first
time, a complete edition of the author's poems, tender and humorous,
serious and satirical, in a beautiful form. It contains Alnwick
Castle, Burns, Marco Bozzarris, Red Jacket, A Poet's Daughter,
Connecticut, Wyoming, and other pieces which have passed into the
memory of the nation, together with the delicious poem of Fanny, and
the celebrated Croaker Epistles. The illustrations are all by American
artists, and really embellish the volume. The portrait of Halleck is
exceedingly characteristic of the man, expressing that union of
intellect and fancy, sound sense, and poetic power, which his
productions are so calculated to suggest. His great popularity--a
popularity which has always made the supply of his poems inferior to
the demand--will doubtless send the present magnificent volume through
many editions.
The poems of Halleck are not only good in themselves, but they give an
impression of greater powers than they embody. They seem to indicate a
large, broad, vigorous mind, of which poetry has been the recreation
rather than the vocation. A brilliant mischievousness, in which the
serious and the ludicrous, the tender and the comic, the practical and
the ideal, are brought rapidly together, is the leading characteristic
of his muse. In almost every poem in his volume, serious, or
semi-serious, the object appears to be the production of striking
effects by violent contrasts. The poet himself rarely seems thoroughly
in earnest, though at the same time he never lacks heartiness. There
are two splendid exceptions to this remark--Burns, and Marco
Bozzarris--poems in which the delicacy and energy of the author's mind
find free expression. They show that if the poet commonly plays with
his subject, it is not from an incapacity to feel and conceive it
vividly, but from a beautiful willfulness of nature, which is
impatient of the control of one idea or emotion. Halleck's perceptions
of the ideal and practical appears equally clear and vivid. His fancy
cannot suggest a poetical view of life, without his wit at the same
time suggesting its prosaic counterpart in society. A mind thus
exquisitely sensitive both to the beautiful and laughable sides of a
subject--looking at life at once with the eye of the poet and the man
of the world--naturally finds delight in a fine mockery of its own
idealisms, and loves to sport with its own high-raised feelings. His
poetry is not, therefore, so much an exhibition of the real nature and
capacity of the man, as of the play and inter-penetration of his
various mental powers, in periods of pleasant relaxation from the
business of life. In a few instances, we think, his humorous insight
has been deceived from the unconscious influence upon his mind of the
sentiment of Byron and Moore. Thus he occasionally falls into the
exaggerations of misanthropy and sentimentality. In his poem entitled
Woman, we are informed that man has no constancy of affection,--
His vows are broke,
Even while his parting kiss is warm;
But woman's love all change will mock,
And, like the ivy round the oak,
Cling closest in the storm.
Here, for the purpose of a vivid contrast, there is a sacrifice of
poetic truth. The same piece closes with asserting that the smiles and
tears of woman,
Alone keep bright, through Time's long hour,
That frailer thing than leaf or flower,
A poet's immortality.
Here the thought, redeemed as it is by beautiful expression, is worthy
only of a sentimental poetaster of the Della Cruscan school; and we
can easily imagine what a mocking twinkle would light the eye of its
author, if some one should tell him that Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and
Milton were "kept bright" by the smiles and tears of woman. These, and
one or two other passages in Halleck, are unworthy of his manly and
cant-hating mind; and it is wonderful how they could have escaped his
brilliant good sense.
Fanny, and the Croaker Epistles are the most brilliant things of their
kind in American literature, full of wit, fancy, and feeling, and in
all their rapid transitions, characterized by an ethereal lightness of
movement, a glancing felicity of expression, which betray a poet's
plastic touch equally in the sentiment and the merriment. No American
poems have been more eagerly sought after, and more provokingly
concealed, than these. Three editions of Fanny have been published,
but the difficulty of obtaining a copy has always been great. Many who
were smitten with a love for it have been compelled to transcribe it
from the copy of a more fortunate collector. The Croaker Epistles have
been even more cunningly suppressed. Now we have both in a form which
will endure with the stereotype plates. They evince the most brilliant
characteristics of Halleck's genius, and continually suggest the
thought, that if the mind of the author be so powerful and various in
its almost extempore sport and play, it must have still greater
capacity in itself.
Fanny, and the Croaker Epistles swarm with local and personal
allusions which a New-Yorker alone can fully appreciate. Van Buren,
Webster, Clinton, the politicians and authors generally of the period
when the poems were written, are all touched with a light and graceful
pencil. Fanny is conceived and executed after the manner of Byron's
Beppo and Don Juan. It is full of brilliant rogueries, produced by
bringing sentiment and satire together with a shock. For instance,
Dear to the exile is his native land,
In memory's twilight beauty seen afar:
Dear to the broker is a note of hand
Collaterally secured--the polar star
Is dear at midnight to the sailor's eyes,
_And dear are Bristed's volumes at half price._
The sun is loveliest as he sinks to rest;
The leaves of Autumn smile when fading fast;
The swan's last song is sweetest--and the best
Of Meigs's speeches, doubtless, was his last.
In a mocking attempt to prove that New York exceeded Greece in the
Fine Arts, we have the following convincing arguments:
In sculpture we've a grace the Grecian master,
Blushing, had owned his purest model lacks;
We've Mr. Bogart in the best of plaster,
The Witch of Endor in the best of wax,
Beside the head of Franklin on the roof
Of Mr. Lang, both jest and weather-proof.
* * * * *
In painting we have Trumbull's proud _chef d'oeuvre_, Blending in one
the funny and the fine;
His independence will endure forever--
And so will Mr. Allen's lottery sign;
And all that grace the Academy of Arts,
From Dr. Hosack's face to Bonaparte's.
In physic, we have Francis and McNeven,
Famed for long heads, short lectures, and long bills;
And Quackenboss, and others, who from heaven
_Were rained upon us in a shower of pills._
It would be impossible to give a notion of the genial satire of the
Croakers by extracts. The following, from the epistle to the Recorder,
is unmatched for felicity and exquisite contrast:
The Cæsar passed the Rubicon
With helm, and shield, and breast-plate on,
Dashing his war-horse through the waters;
The R*d*r would have built a barge,
Or steamboat, at the city's charge,
And passed it with his wife and daughters.
In the same piece occurs the following fine tribute to Bryant:
Bryant, whose songs are thoughts that bless
The heart, its teachers, and its joy,
As mothers blend with their caress
Lessons of truth and gentleness,
And virtue for the listening boy.
Spring's lovelier flowers for many a day
Have blossomed on his wandering way,
Beings of beauty and decay,
They slumber in their autumn tomb;
But those that graced his own Green River,
And wreathed the lattice of his home,
Charmed by his song from mortal doom,
Bloom on, and will bloom on forever.
Pope has become famous for his divine compliments, but certainly no
poet ever celebrated the genius of another with more felicity and
sweetness than in the above beautiful passage.
It would be impossible to notice all the striking poems in this
volume--and they are too favorably known to need it. There is one
piece, however, which deserves especial commendation, and its merits
do not appear to have called forth the eulogy which has been
bountifully lavished on many others. We allude to his exquisite
translation from Goethe, on the eighty-third page--the invocation to
the ideal world, which precedes Faust. It is one of the gems of the
volume.
_The Poetical Works of Lord Byron. Complete in one
Volume. Collected and Arranged, with Illustrative
Notes. Illustrated by Elegant Steel Engravings. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 8vo._
This edition of Byron might bear the palm from all other American
editions, in respect to its combination of cheapness with elegance, if
it were not the most valuable in point of completeness and
illustrative notes. It is a reprint of Murray's Library edition, and
while executed in a similar style of typography, excells it, if we are
not mistaken, in the number of its embellishments. It contains an
admirable portrait of Byron, a view of Newstead Abbey, and also six
fine steel engravings, executed with great beauty and finish. It is
uniform with the same publisher's library edition of Southey and
Moore, contains eight hundred pages of closely printed matter, and
includes every thing that Byron wrote in verse. It does honor to the
enterprise and taste of the publishers, and will doubtless have a
circulation commensurate with its merits. As long as our American
booksellers evince a disposition to publish classical works in so
beautiful a form, it is a pleasant duty of the press to commend their
editions. We cordially wish success to all speculations which imply a
confidence in the public taste.
It would be needless here to express any opinion of the intellectual
or moral character of Byron's poems. Everybody's mind is made up on
those points. The present edition is admirably adapted to convey to
the reader Byron's idea of himself, the opinions formed of him by his
contemporaries, and the effect of his several works on the public mind
as they appeared. It contains an immense number of notes by Moore,
Scott, Jeffrey, Campbell, Wilson, Rogers, Heber, Milman, Gifford,
Ellis, Bridges, and others, which will be found extremely useful and
entertaining. Extracts are taken from Byron's own diary, and from the
recorders of his conversations, giving an accurate impression of each
poem, as regards its time and manner of composition, the feelings from
which it sprung, and the opinion he entertained of its reception by
the public. Profuse quotations are made from the first draught of each
poem, showing how some of the most striking ideas were originally
written, and the improvements introduced in their expression by the
author's "sober second thoughts." The opinions expressed of the
various poems by the leading reviews of the time, including the
criticisms of Scott, Jeffrey, Gifford, Heber, and others, are largely
quoted. Added to these are numerous notes, explaining allusions, or
illustrating images which the common reader might be supposed not to
understand. Taken altogether, the edition will enable almost any
person to obtain a clear understanding of Byron and his works, without
any trouble or inconvenience. There is no other edition which can
compare with it in this respect.
Many of the notes are exceedingly curious, and if not absolutely new,
have been gathered from such a wide variety of sources, as to be novel
to a majority of readers. We have been struck with the impression
which Byron's energy made upon Dr. Parr, the veteran linguist. After
reading the Island, he exclaims--"Byron! the sorcerer! He can do with
me according to his will. If it is to throw me headlong upon a desert
island; if it is to place me on the summit of a dizzy cliff--his power
is the same. I wish he had a friend, or a servant, appointed to the
office of the slave, who was to knock every morning at the
chamber-door of Philip of Macedon, and remind him he was mortal." From
Parr's life we learn that Sardanapalus affected him even more
strongly. "In the course of the evening the doctor cried out, 'Have
you read Sardanapalus?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Right; and you couldn't sleep a
wink after it?' 'No.' 'Right, right--now don't say a word more about
it to-night.' The memory of that fine poem seemed to act like a spell
of horrible fascination upon him." Perhaps from a few anecdotes like
this, we gain a much more vivid impression of the sensation which
Byron's poems excited on their first appearance, and their strong hold
upon the imagination and passions of the public, than we could obtain
from the most elaborate description of their effects. If such was
their power upon an old scholar like Parr, what must have been their
influence upon younger and more inflammable minds?
The editor's preface to Don Juan is no less valuable than
entertaining. It contains not merely the opinions expressed of the
poem by the reviews and magazines, but those of the newspapers, and
enables us to gather the judgment of the English people upon that
strange combination of sublimity and ribaldry, sentiment and wit,
tenderness and mockery, at the time it first blazed forth from the
press. The suppressed dedication of the poem to Southey is also given
in full, with all its brutal blackguardism and drunken brilliancy. In
truth, the volume conveys an accurate impression of all the sides of
Byron's versatile nature, and from its very completeness is the less
likely to be injurious. There is no edition of his poems which we
could more safely commend to the reader, as it exhibits Byron the
poet, Byron the scoffer, Byron the roué, in his true colors and real
dimensions; and if, after reading it, a person should adopt the old
cant about his brilliant rascalities, and the old drivel about his
sentimental misanthropy, the fault is in the reader rather than the
volume. For our own part we are acquainted with no edition of any
celebrated author, equaling this in the remorselessness with which the
man is stripped of all the factitious coverings of the poet, and
stands out more clearly in his true nature and character.
_The Life of Henry the Fourth, King of France and
Navarre. By G. P. R. James. New York: Harper &
Brothers. 2 vols. 12mo._
Few kings have been so fortunate as Henry the Fourth in the reputation
and good will they have obtained from the people. By democrats as well
as monarchists his name is held in a kind of loving veneration. Much
of this popularity is doubtless owing to his superiority, in
disposition as well as mind, to the ferocious bigotry of his age, and
to his great edict of toleration which healed for a time the horrible
religious dissensions of France. Apart from his ability, however, his
virtues as a king sprung rather from good-nature and benevolence, than
from moral or religious principle. His toleration was the result of
his indifference as much as his good sense; and he was not a
persecutor, because to him neither Catholicism nor Protestantism was
of sufficient importance to justify persecution. He was a fanatic only
in sensuality; and if he committed crime, it would be rather for a
mistress than a doctrine. The last act of his reign, growing out of
his impatience in having his designs on the Princess of Condé baffled,
showed that lust could urge him into an unjust and unprincipled war,
where religious superstition would have been totally ineffective.
Mr. James's Life of Henry is a careful compilation from the most
reliable sources of information, and embodies a large amount of
important knowledge. Though far from realizing the higher conditions
of historical art, it is more accurate and spirited than the general
run of historical works. Mr. James's conscience in the matter of the
present book, seems to have been much greater than we might have
expected from the king of book-makers. When his history was ready for
the press, the French Government commenced publishing the "Lettres
Missives" of Henry IV., and Mr. James delayed his book four years, in
order that its facts might be verified or increased by comparison with
that important publication. His work, therefore, is probably the
fullest and most accurate one we possess on the age of which it
treats. It is well worthy of an attentive perusal. It abounds in
incidents and characters which would make the fortune of a novel, and
is an illustration of that kind of truth which is stranger than
fiction. The Harpers have issued the work in a tasteful form.
_Artist Life. By H. T. Tuckerman. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._
Mr. Tuckerman is an author whose productions we have repeatedly had
occasion to notice and to praise. They have always a finished air,
which favorably distinguishes them from many American publications,
the products of mingled talent and haste. Mr Tuckerman does not appear
to rush into print, with unformed ideas hastily clad in a loose
undress of language--as if the palm of excellence were due to the
swiftest runner in the race of expression. His style is clear,
polished, graceful, and harmonious, combining a flowing movement with
condensation, and free from the tricks and charlatanries of diction.
He is not so popular as he would be if he made more noise about his
words and thoughts, and called the attention of the public to every
felicity of his style or reflection by a pugnacious manner, and a
strained expression. Though possessing a singularly rich and
suggestive fancy, and a wide variety of information, his use of
ornament and allusion is characterized by a taste, an appropriateness,
a reserve, which men of smaller stores rarely practice. As a critic,
he is calm, clear, judicious, sympathetic, and making the application
of a principle all the more stringent, from his vivid perception of
the object of his criticism. The present volume is worthy of its
subject, and is more calculated to convey accurate information of the
lives, character, and works of American artists, than any other we
have seen. It is also exceedingly interesting, being full of anecdotes
and biographical memoranda of artists who are commonly known only as
painters, not as men. In this respect the volume contains much
original information, which will be valuable to the future historian
of American art. In his criticism, Mr. Tuckerman evinces knowledge as
well as taste; and by avoiding technical terms, he contrives to render
agreeable and clear what is generally unintelligible to the
uninitiated reader of _critiques_ on paintings. The volume contains,
among other sketches and biographies, very interesting notices of the
lives and works of West, Copley, Stuart, Allston, Morse, Durand, W. E.
West, Sully, Inman, Cole, Weir, Leutze, and Brown.
_Appleton's Library Manuel: Containing a Catalogue
Raisonne of upwards of Twelve Thousand of the most
Important Works in Every Department of Knowledge,
in all Modern Languages, New York; D. Appleton &
Co. 1 vol. 8vo._
This is one of the most available and valuable bibliographical works
extant. Its object is indicated by its title. Such a book should be in
the possession of every student, scholar, book-collector, and
librarian. There is hardly a subject which can attract the attention
of an inquisitive mind, which is not included in this collection, and
the titles of the best books, in different languages, which relate to
it given in full, with the various editions, and their price. It would
be needless to dilate upon the value of such a work. The compilers
deserve the highest credit for the labor, intelligence, and expense
they have devoted to it. The cost is but one dollar.
_Sybil Lennard, a Record of Woman's Life._
Mrs. Grey is one of the most popular novel writers of the present day,
and Sybil Lennard is unquestionably the best of her works. It is
published by Mr. T. B. Peterson, by whom the advance sheets were
procured from England.
_Chambers' Miscellany._
Part No. 5, of Chamber's interesting Miscellany has been published,
and the articles it contains are of the highest order of excellence.
Messrs. Zieber & Co. are the Philadelphia publishers.
* * * * *
POSTHUMOUS WRITINGS OF JOSEPH C. NEAL, ESQ.--We have several admirable
Charcoal Sketches by Mr. Neal--a rich legacy bequeathed expressly to
us by our gifted and lamented friend. Now that the fountain, whose
outpourings have so often enriched our pages, is forever closed, these
gems of genius will have a new and peculiar value. We commence their
publication in our present number.
* * * * *
THE NEW YORK MIRROR.--This journal is edited with surpassing ability;
and its continued and advancing popularity is creditable to the taste
of the community in which it is published. Spirited, independent, and
liberal, it not merely, as its name indicates, reflects the light of
the age, but shines with a lustre of its own. It is well worthy its
good fortune.
Transcriber's Note:
Some likely incorrect spellings and probable dialect have been left as
printed, but the following corrections have been made:
1. page 2--removed extra word 'the' after '...before the windows
lounged...'
2. page 6--typo 'Jenning' corrected to 'Jennings'
3. page 9--added missing double quotation mark at start of sentence
'What do I see! My dearest...'
4. page 10--added double quotation mark after 'Nonsense--what payment,'
5. page 10--added double quotation mark at end of paragraph '...and
proceedings commence directly.'
6. page 18--added double quotation mark missing at start of paragraph
'Oh I'll soon show you,'
7. page 23--added missing period in sentence 'our prosodies call
anapoests'
8. page 28--removed extra 'a' in second line of stanza beginning 'Did he
answer guiltless, lo!'
9. page 28--typo 'stife' corrected to 'strife'
10. page 32--added period to sentence '...whither he was going'
11. page 43--likely missing word 'for' inserted in sentence '...off
the dangers ahead for a single instant.'
12. page 45--typo 'exhaused' corrected to 'exhausted'
13. page 46--typo 'minuute' corrected to 'minute'
14. page 58--typo 'observatious' corrected to 'observations'
15. page 66--inserted opening quotation mark at assumed start of speech
"We buried her _there_. I say..."
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848" ***
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