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diff --git a/old/65155-0.txt b/old/65155-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a20f5df..0000000 --- a/old/65155-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5745 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Graham's Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 1, July -1841, by Various - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Graham's Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 1, July 1841 - -Author: Various - -Editor: George R. Graham - -Release Date: April 24, 2021 [eBook #65155] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada - team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net from page images generously - made available by the Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE, VOL. XIX, NO. -1, JULY 1841 *** - GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. - Vol. XIX. July, 1841. No. 1. - - - Contents - - Fiction, Literature and Articles - - Jugurtha - The Fiery Death - Lovers’ Quarrels - The Mistaken Choice - A Dream of the Lonely Isle - The Head and the Heart - The Reefer of ’76 continued - A Few Words on Secret Writing - Sports and Pastimes—Angling - Review of New Books - - Poetry, Music and Fashion - - Latest Fashions, July 1841 - The Gleaners - Hope On - Woman’s Dower - The Precipice - Lines - Stanzas - To the Mocking-Bird - The Dervish - Extract from an Unpublished Poem - Sybil and Maiden - “Away, Then, to the Mountains” - - Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook. - - * * * * * - -[Illustration: LATEST FASHIONS, JULY 1841. FOR GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE] - - - - -[Illustration: William Owen. Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Smillie. - -_Cottage Life_ - -Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.] - - - - - GRAHAM’S - - LADY’S AND GENTLEMAN’S - - MAGAZINE. - - (THE CASKET AND GENTLEMAN’S UNITED.) - - EMBRACING - - EVERY DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE: - - EMBELLISHED WITH - - THE FINEST MEZZOTINTO AND STEEL ENGRAVINGS, - - ELEGANT EMBOSSED WORK, - - FASHIONS AND MUSIC. - - VOLUME XIX. - - PHILADELPHIA: - GEORGE R. GRAHAM. - 1841. - - * * * * * - - INDEX - - TO THE - - NINETEENTH VOLUME. - - FROM JUNE TO DECEMBER, 1841, INCLUSIVE. - -Assault, the, by J. H. Dana, 56 -Auzella, by Mrs. E. Van Horn Ellis, 65 -Autography, a Chapter on, by Edgar A. Poe, 224, 273 -Achilles, the Marriage of, by H. W. Herbert, 269 - -Brother and Sister, by Jeremy Short, Esq. 145 - (_illustrated_,) - -Cottage Life, by Jeremy Short, Esq. (_illustrated_,) 1 -Colloquy of Monos and Una, the, by Edgar A. Poe, 54 -Clark, Willis Gaylord, 85 -Cottage Fireside, the, (_illustrated_,) 97 -Cottage Piety, by Jeremy Short, Esq. (_illustrated_,) 140 -Captain’s Courtship, the, by H. Printzhoff, 200 - (_illustrated_,) - -Fiery Death, the, by J. H. Dana, 6 -Flirtation, by Emma C. Embury, 109 -Fort Point, by D. M. Elwood, 240 - -Ghost of Chew’s Wall, the, by Oliver Oldfellow, Esq. 194 - -Hawkers, the (_illustrated_,) 253 -Head and the Heart, the, by W. Landor, 19 - -Ideal, the, by G. G. Foster, 293 -Interesting Stranger, the, by Emma C. Embury, 205 -Indian Traditions, by D. M. Elwood, 161, 240 - -Jugurtha, by H. W. Herbert, 3 - -Kate Beverly, by Percie H. Selton, 146 -King’s Bride, the, by J. H. Dana, 235 - -Lover’s Quarrels, by Percie H. Selton, 10 -Lame for Life, or Leslie Pierpoint, by Professor J. H. 128, 149 - Ingraham, -Leaves from a Lawyer’s Port-Folio, 134 - -Mistaken Choice, the, by Emma C. Embury, 13 -Misfortunes of a Timid Gentleman, by J. Ross Browne, 120, 289 -Moonlight Flitting, by Eliza Van Horn Ellis, 221 - -Neglected Wife, the, by Robert Morris, 58 -Niagara, a Day at, by Mrs. E. C. Stedman, 82 -Never Bet Your Head, by Edgar A. Poe, 123 - -O’Donnell’s Prize, by H. Printzhoff, 157 - -Penitent Son, the, (_illustrated_,) 49 -Puritan Son, the, by H. W. Herbert, 61 - -Reefer of ’76, the, by the Author of “Cruizing in the 28, 76, 104, - Last War,” 179, 203, 257 -Rowsevillers, the, by Herman Printzhoff, 157, 205 -Roman Bride, the, by H. W. Herbert, 172 -Review of New Books, 45, 90, 142, - 188, 246, 300 -Rescue at the Eleventh Hour, the, by J. Milton Sanders, 299 - -Sports and Pastimes, 40, 141, 186, - 246 -Schoolboy Recollections, by F. W. Thomas, 67 -Shakspeare, by T. S. Fay, 99, 168, 210, - 261 -Saxon’s Bridal, the, by H. W. Herbert, 115 -Step Mother, the, 134 -Stolen Miniature, the, by Mrs. R. S. Nichols, 265 - -Vagrant, the, by L. F. Tasistro, 176 - -Wawhillowa, by D. M. Elwood, 161 -Wiccónsat, by Mary W. Ford, 214 - - POETRY. - -A Dream of the Lonely Isle, by Mrs. M. St. Leon Loud, 18 -A Belle at a Ball, by F. W. Thomas, 119 -A Forest Scene, by Mrs. R. S. Nichols, 160 - -Ballad, by J. R. Lowell, 171 -Baptism of Pocahontas, by the Author of “The Dream of 178 - the Delaware,” - -Christian’s Dream of the Future, by Robert Morris, 156 -Choice of Hearts, the, by Thos. G. Spear, 303 - -Dervish, the, by W. Falconer, 32 -Dying Poet, the, by Robert Morris, 85 -Death, by C. H. W. Esling, 114 - -Ephemera, by C. W. Thomson, 213 - -Fragment, by Park Benjamin, 98 -First Kiss of Love, the, by G. A. Raybold, 127 -Flight of the Birds, by Mrs. E. C. Stedman, 199 - -Gleaners, the, by A. A. Irvine, 2 -Glad Retreat, the, by E. G. Squires, 260 - -Hope On, by Mrs. C. H. W. Esling, 5 -Helen, to, by Edgar A. Poe, 123 -He Woo’d me at the Fountain, by A. M‘Makin, 264 - -I know that Thou wilt Sorrow, by Mrs. R. S. Nichols, 57 -Israfel, by Edgar A. Poe, 183 -Il Serenado di Venice, 209 -I never have been False to Thee, by G. P. Morris, 223 - -Lines, by D. Maxwell, 18 -Lines, by J. Tomlin, 292 -Lyre Bird, the, by N. C. Brooks, 292 -Lines, by J. E. Dow, 297 - -Mocking Bird, to the 27 -Meeting of the Lovers, the, by F. W. Thomas, 38 -My Mother’s Bible, by G. P. Morris, 51 -Major Dade’s Command, 84 -Merry England, by J. R. Lowell, 238 -Marriage, by Rufus Dawes, 239 - -Niagara, by Grenville Mellen, 175 - -O, say, do I na’ lo’e ye, Lassie, 64 -Oh! a Merry Life does a Hunter lead, by G. P. Morris, 108 - -Precipice, by H. J. Vernon, 12 -Pet Lamb, the, by A. A. Irvine, 193 -Portrait, Lines to a, by A. C. Ainsworth, 297 - -Reproof of a Bird, by J. E. Snodgrass, 103 - -Stanzas, by Mrs. E. C. Stedman, 27 -Sybil and Maiden, by G. G. Foster, 39 -Sonnet, by Park Benjamin, 53 -Sonnets, by H. B. Hirst, 220 -Sweet South Wind, the, by Mrs. L. J. Pierson, 286 - -Thoughts in Spring, by H. B. Hirst, 67 - -Venice, 268 - -Woman’s Dower, by Mrs. L. J. Pierson, 9 -Withered Rose, the, by A. A. Irvine, 78 -Widow, the, by Mrs. M. S. B. Dana, 84 -Wildwood Home, the, by Mrs. L. J. Pierson, 103 -Widow’s Wealth, the, by Mrs. E. C. Stedman, 108 -Why should I love thee? by J. S. Du Solle, 119 -With Thee, by Mrs. C. H. W. Esling, 213 - - STEEL ENGRAVINGS. - -Cottage Life. -The Gleaners. -Fashions for July, (four figures,) colored. -The Penitent Son. -Fashions for August, (four figures,) colored. -Lace Work and Flowers, colored. -The Cottage Fireside. -Cottage Piety. -Fashions for September, (four figures,) colored. -Brother and Sister. -The Valley of Wyoming. -Lace Work and Flowers, colored. -Fashions for October, (four figures,) colored. -The Pet Lamb. -Embossed View of Boston. -Fashions for November, (four figures,) colored. -Hawking. -Lace Work and Flowers, colored. -Fashions for December, (four figures,) colored. - - MUSIC. - -Away, then, to the Mountains, 42 -Farewell! if ever Fondest Prayer, 88 -My bonnie blue-eyed Lassie, O! 138 -Bye-gone Hours, 184 -Never shall my Heart forget Thee, 244 - - * * * * * - - GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. - - Vol. XIX. PHILADELPHIA: JULY, 1841. No. 1. - - * * * * * - - - - - COTTAGE LIFE. - - -The summer is here!—here with its fragrant mornings and its noonday -heats, its mellow twilights and its moonlight evenings, its days of -glory and its nights of starry beauty. It is summer. Let us go out into -the country, away from the stifling air and dull brick walls of the -town, into the far, pure, breezy, unsurpassable country. There we shall -breathe the fresh air of Heaven. We will lie down on some shady knoll; -or stretch ourselves beside the cooling stream; or wander off among the -breezy woods; or perchance sit in some quiet arbor of the garden, -listening to the low humming of the bees, or the far-off tinkle of the -brooklet on the stones. Ay! we will go out into the country. We will -gaze on the green grass, the growing flowers, the cloudless azure of the -skies. But we will do more. We will gaze on our fellow man such as God -made him, and not on the too often mean, grovelling and short-sighted -denizens of the town. We will go out into the country. We will go into -its stately palaces, secluded among sombre trees; into the airy, -fantastic dwellings of retired citizens; into sunny old farm-houses, -with their wide porches inviting us to enter; and—oftener than -all—into the smiling cottages, which, peeping out from amid -overspreading honeysuckles, dozing under willow trees by the brook-side, -or nestling beneath the shadow of a green and fragrant hill, are -scattered all over the land, in hill and in dell, studding it, as it -were, with loveliness. And wherever we go we shall still find beauty. -God hath left his impress on the green fields and running brooks, and -every leaf that quivers in the breeze, and every bird that carols on the -air, speak out His praise. - -We are in the country; and yonder is a cottage nestled close under the -hill-side, like a dove in the bosom of a young and innocent girl. Hear -you not the brook, low pattering before its door; that brook which at -eve and morning, ay! in the still watches of the night, may be heard -murmuring mysteriously, as if it were angels’ voices conversing on the -quiet air? Let us go into that cottage. There are flowers before the -house and honeysuckles around the door, and everything, even to the -garden flags, is white-washed. There are roses under the window—how -fragrant! And yet the owner of that little tenement has a hand horny -with labor, and not a day passes, summer or winter, but that he is up -before dawn, toiling for his richer neighbor. How does he live? Would -you know what cottage life is? Come with us, then, into the fields, and -let us sit together by this brawling brook, while we recount the history -of a cottage life. - -All over this land there are spots like this, of bewildering beauty; -where toil and rest, and wo and happiness, have struggled together for -years. There are thousands, ay! tens of thousands, of humble cottages, -the lives of whose inmates have never won a thought from the rich and -proud, and yet in those cottages beat as true hearts as in the most -gorgeous mansions of the realm. The rich are born, and great is the -rejoicing thereat; they live, and crowds shout triumphs wherever they -go; they die, and they are laid by obsequious hands in proud mausoleums; -but the poor come and go like the leaves of the forest, and no man -careth for their fate. Their childhood of early toil; their youth of -premature sorrow; their lives of hard, unyielding, grinding poverty, -what does the world care for these? Yet the poor are not without -comfort. They have within their own circle as kindly bosoms as the rich; -they have dear ones, loved with a fervor wealth can rarely win, to cheer -them in distress; they have a fireside, humble, indeed, but still a -fireside around which to gather with their prattlers, and smile and be -merry after the toils of the day are done. - -With early dawn the cottager is up and afield. If he labors at the soil, -you will find him with the plough in hand, keeping his monotonous track -to and fro, regardless, apparently, of the stifled air, or the sultry -rays of noon-day. He may pause an hour or so at dinner, but he is soon -at his labor again. The cattle may be dozing under the trees, the birds -may be carolling gaily around, the woods, and streams, and all nature -may be full of merry play, but still he must keep up his weary toil, -until twilight at length releases him, and he hurries home to spend a -few hours of fleeting happiness among his little ones, to sleep, and -again to resume his toil. - -But there is a bright side to the picture. The Cottager was not always a -man, he was once a happy child, and in gazing on the frolicks of his -little ones, his own youth appears to be renewed. And where do the -domestic affections exist with more purity than in our cottages? From -the love of a child for its little brother or its sister, up to the love -of a mother for her first-born, there is nothing purer, deeper, or more -enduring than the affections of those who inhabit our cottages. - -We see now two beings at that cottage door, a mother and her boy. The -child hath fallen asleep upon her lap, and he reposes with a grace so -careless, and there is such an innocent joy upon his face, that one -cannot but feel that he is supremely happy. How he nestles on that -mother’s knee. The vine that gaily winds around the gentle sapling, or -hangs so airily over the little group, is not more beautiful than he. -And she!—is not the book held to shade his countenance, and the holy, -contemplative emotions which light up her face as with the divinity of -an angel, beyond comparison, ay! almost beyond imagination. God be -thanked that there are thousands all over this broad land as happy as -they! - -Sunday is the time for cottage life. Then the new coat is taken out, -carefully brushed, and put on—the little ones are clad in their tidy, -well-kept Sabbath clothes—and the good house-wife attires herself in -her best, adding, often, some little piece of finery, which a month’s -savings have tempted her to buy. Directly the bell is heard calling them -to church. Away at the signal they go, with a quiet decorum even in the -children; and soon they meet others trooping over the hills to the -white-steepled meeting house in the glen. And when the sermon is over, -and they pass out of the house of God, there are greetings among -neighbors, inquiries after old friends, and perchance here and there -long conversations betwixt good house-wives, which seem like the fairy’s -dream, never to come to an end. And in the afternoon some one is sure to -drop in, when the best tea-cups are brought out from the corner -cupboard, and the best hot cakes, and such tempting coffee are prepared -by the good dame, that your mouth fairly waters until you have tasted -thereof. And how merry all are—not with a boisterous mirth, but with a -calm happiness, reminding you continually of the day. And all this time -the children are playing on the lawn, or gathering buttercups to hold -under each others chins, or laughing in their own innocent way so -joyously, that their mothers will pause awhile, and look on them and -smile. And by and by night will come, and the company will depart, and -so, after reading a chapter of the bible, the cottagers will go to bed. -Though the stars, on a Sabbath night, look down on many a quiet, happy -home, they smile on none where there is more happiness than there. And -such is Cottage Life. - - J. S. - - * * * * * - -[Illustration: The Gleaners -Engraved by Eldridge expressly for Graham’s Magazine.] - - - - - THE GLEANERS. - - - BY ALEX. A. IRVINE. - - - It is the noon of summer time— - How breathless are the trees! - No more the sea of yellow corn - Is rippling in the breeze; - The kine are gasping in the stream, - Nor earth nor sky has breath, - And sickly waves the sultry air— - How like, yet unlike death! - - The reapers long have ceased their toil, - And idly in the shade - They dream away the drowsy noon, - Beside each silent blade,— - While now and then a snatch of song - Some sleeper low will croon, - As in his dreams he joins the dance - Beneath the harvest moon. - - The sun is at his highest point, - Yet on that burning field - Two youthful gleaners humbly toil, - God be to them a shield! - Their aged parent bed-rid lies, - And want is at their door,— - Ah! well young martyrs may you strive— - No rest is for the poor. - - Their store is gleaned—they homeward hie— - How smilingly they go! - We little know how light a thing - May dry the tears of woe. - The pittance slight, the one kind word - With which we all can part, - May take the sting from poverty, - Or save a broken heart. - - To view those gleaners on their way - It were a pleasant thing— - They’re talking of their mother’s joy - To see the store they bring. - How gracefully the sister moves, - As if she stepped to song; - And gaily at her statelier side - The glad boy trips along. - - Smile on! smile on, ye happy pair, - God’s blessing on your way! - It fills my breast with joy to know - That ye can be so gay. - Smile on, for soon ye’ll hear _her_ voice, - And know her welcome bright,— - And happy hearts shall beat I ween - Beneath your roof to-night. - - * * * * * - - - - - JUGURTHA; - - - A LEGEND OF THE COMMONWEALTH. - - -BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE BROTHERS,” “CROMWELL,” “RINGWOOD THE ROVER,” ETC. - - -It was a glorious day in Rome; the unclouded sun was blazing in the -clear azure of a deep Italian sky, filling the universal air with life -and lustre; the summer winds were all abroad, crisping the bosom of the -yellow Tiber into ten thousand tiny rivulets, tossing ten thousand dewy -odors from their wings, and bearing with them, far and near, the myriad -harmonies of nature. It was a day of revelry, of loud exulting mirth, of -gratified ambition to the one, of haughty triumph to the million. - -It was in truth a day of triumph. Marius, the people’s idol, the great -plebeian conqueror, had brought the army home—the army, long foiled and -often beaten on the parched sands of the Zahara, or by the scanty -streams of the Bagradas and Mulucha—had brought the army home, -scar-seamed and wearied and war-worn, but glorious and elated and -triumphant; for with them came a chained, indignant captive, the -bravest, fiercest, wisest of all the kings who yet had dared to strive -against the unconquered majesty of the Republic: the murderer, the -fratricide Jugurtha; he who had mocked the justice, and with success -defied the brazen legions and the superb commanders of Rome’s resistless -warfare; he who had driven out from his Numidian confines, whether by -force or fraud, two several consular armies, sent one, degraded and -debased forever, beneath the ignominious yoke, and for long years -possessed his blood-bought throne in spite of all the efforts of his -tremendous rival. - -Now, therefore, was the day of retribution, and all the fiery passions -of the Italian heart were at work hotly in the crowd that thronged the -thoroughfares of the great city on that auspicious morning. Well might -they throng the streets, for never, from that day to this, has aught of -pomp or pageant been invented that could sustain comparison one moment -with the unequalled splendors of a Roman triumph. The whole line of -proud streets, up from the field of Mars to the Capitoline, was strewn -with carpets of the rich Tyrian crimson; cartloads of flowers—rose, -violet, narcissus, hyacinth—were scattered everywhere, to send their -perfumes forth beneath the trampling feet of the triumphant legions. The -walls of every house and palace were hung with glowing tapestries, with -waving flags, and laurel-woven garlands. From every shrine and chapel, -hundreds of which were there sacred to one or other of Rome’s hundred -deities, sang forth the melody of sacrificial hymns, and streamed the -breath of incense. The sun had reached the summit of his ascending -course, when from the distant campus arose at once the din, piercing the -ears and thrilling as it were to the very soul, of the great sacred -trumpets, and the earth-shaking shout of Rome’s vast population; then on -they came—a long and dazzling line of splendor—three hundred -snow-white steers, unblemished and majestic, the far-famed breed of the -Clitunnus, led the van, with gilded horns, and fluttering fillets of -bright hues about their ample fronts, led by as many youths in -sacrificial tunics of pure white; then came the bands of music, trumpet -and horn and clarion, and the quick clashing cymbal blent with the deep -bass of the Phrygian drum; and then the Flamens of the gods, in the -appropriate and gorgeous dresses; the great Dialis, with his red tuft -and snow-white robes; the Salian priests of Mars, with brazen helms and -corselets and flowery tunics girded up, and on their arms the sacred -shields of Numa; the vestals, stoled and veiled and silent, and the mad -ministers of Cybele, with their strange instruments of music, leaping -and dancing with strange gestures, and waking all the echoes with their -barbaric hymnings. After these stately and revered, and almost divine -personages, trooped on—strange contrast—a band of mimics and jesters, -buffoons with scurrilous songs and obscene gestures, calling forth from -the mob of Rome many a plaudit by their licentious wit. Then, with -perfumes and steaming censers, scattering bunches of the choicest -flowers, all in their purple bordered tunics, with golden balls about -their necks, barefooted and bareheaded, the sons of the Patricians -passed, the prime of Rome’s young aristocracy. Other musicians followed, -and then, caparisoned for war, with castles on their backs and gorgeous -housings on their unwieldy carcasses, each driven by a coal-black -Ethiopian astride on his huge neck, the captured elephants—an hundred -mighty monsters, the like of which had never before gladdened the eyes -of the amazed and wonder-stricken populace. Next rolled the wains, slow -dragged by snow-white oxen, groaning beneath the weight of the rich -spoils of the Numidian empire—armor of gold and silver, weapons thick -set with emeralds and diamonds, statues and jars and vases of pure -gold—dazzling the eyes and bewildering the senses with their unequalled -splendor. - -Hark! what a roar, a thunder of applause! It is—it is—Io triumphe, Io -pæan, it is the mighty Marius! Aloft he stood—aloft in more than regal -pomp, in more than mortal glory. The car was ivory and gold, embossed -and carved with rare device, drawn by six steeds abreast, white as the -driven snow, with manes and tails that literally swept the ground, -housed with rich crimson trappings, harnessed and reined with gold. But -what were ivory or gold, or what the choicest specimens of mere brute -beauty, to the sublime and glorious figure of the triumphant general? -Tall, powerful, broad shouldered and strong limbed, as he stood there -clad in the tunic and toga of fine crimson, all woven over with palm -branches of gold, wearing the laurel crown upon his coal-black locks, -and holding in his right hand the ivory sceptre, and in his left a -branch of green triumphal bay, he looked the emblem, the very -incarnation and ideal of Rome’s undaunted energy. His hair, black as the -raven’s wing, was curled in short crisp locks close to his finely formed -head and expansive temples; his nose was high, keen, aquiline; his eyes -bright as the eagle’s, and, like his, formed as it were to gaze into the -very focus of the sun’s beams, and pierce the dunnest war clouds with -all-pervading vision; his lips were thin, firm and compressed, with that -set iron curve which gives the strongest token of indomitable -resolution. Swarthy almost to negro blackness, gloomy and lowering was -his brow, and furrowed by deep lines of care and passion—yet was there -naught that savored in the least of cruelty or even of suspicion in the -bold, daring features—pride there was evident in every glance, in every -gesture, and fiery courage, and stern constancy; but nothing jealous or -tyrannical, much less bloodthirsty or vindictive. Yet this was he who in -after years let slip the dogs of Hell against the sons of his own mother -Rome, who deluged her fair streets with oceans of Patrician gore, and -made her shrines and palaces, her stateliest temples and her lowliest -dwellings, one mighty human shambles. But now he was all gratified -ambition, proud courtesy and high anticipation; yet he bowed not nor -smiled at the reiterated clamors of the mighty concourse, nor waved his -laurelled sceptre to and fro, but held his proud head high and -heavenward, and kept his dark eye fixed on vacancy, as though he would -pierce onward—onward—through space and time, far off into the secrets -of futurity, with consulships and censorships and triumphs, provinces, -armies, honors, Fame, thronging before his footsteps, and still -beckoning him forward. Behind him stood a slave, such was the order, the -immemorial order, of the triumphal rite, who ever and anon, as louder -pealed the acclamations of the mob, and wilder waxed the din of -gratulation, leaned forward, whispering in his ear, “Remember, Marius, -remember that thou art a man!” for so sublime, so godlike, was that -station deemed, that the stern fathers of the young Republic had judged -such warning needful to curb the vaultings of that pride which might -believe itself immortal. - -Behind the chariot wheels stalked one, alas! how far removed from the -haught victor, the royal Moor, Rome’s deadliest foe, Jugurtha. He, as -his conqueror, was tall, and of a bearing that had been soldierly at -once and royal—yet he was not, though vigorously strong and very -active, of a frame nearly so superb or massive as the great -Roman—lithe, sinewy and muscular, he showed all the distinctive marks -characteristic of his race; his face was handsome—the features at least -eminently so—of a clear, sunny olive hue, through which the blood would -gleam at times, when passion drove its currents, boiling like molten -lava, through every vein and artery: but now it was as cold and pallid -as though he had already passed the portals of the grave. His eyes, like -those of Marius, glared forward into the vacant air; but not like his -was his mind bent forward. Back! back!—long years of retrospection—to -the bright, happy days of youth, when he and his two murdered cousins -sported together, before the fell and fiendish lust of empire had turned -their blood to gall; to the young promise of his glorious manhood, when, -side by side with Scipio, he strove before the bulwarks of Numantia: -when he was praised and honored of that great commander in the full -presence of a Roman host; and, later still, to his proud aspirations -after thrones, to his triumphant usurpation, his undoubted sway over the -glowing hearts and tameless energies of the free, wild Numidians; and, -later yet, to fields of furious warfare, to midnight marches over the -lone sands of the desert, dark ambuscades near to some long sought -river, skirmishes, onslaughts, victories—aye! victories won from the -Roman. His scarlet turban, decked with the tall tiara peculiar to the -royal race, still gleamed as if in mockery above his ashy brow; his -caftan, gleaming with fringes and embroideries of gold, girded with -costly shawls, from which still hung his gold sheathed and gold hilted -scimetar; his wide and flowing robe of fine white woollen stuff, so fine -and gauze-like in its texture that all the gorgeous hues of his -under-dress were visible, though mellowed in their tints, beneath it; -his necklace of the richest gems, armlets and bracelets, and long -pendants in his ears of the most precious rubies, all spoke the -Prince—the King! But lo! beside the bracelets upon those swarthy arms, -the galling manacles of steel, and on the sinewy ancles, clasping the -jewelled sandals with their stern circles, the fetters of the -captive—of the slave! They clanked—they clanked at every stride, those -fearful emblems, and still, as every ringing clash announced the fallen -state of their late dreaded foe, the savage mob sent forth loud yells of -mirth, mingled with groans of execration! But he felt not the fetters, -nor marked the clanging din that harbingered his footsteps, nor heard -the hootings of the rabble; he knew not that his sons, his two beloved -ones, were beside him, fettered and manacled as he, their guilty sire; -he saw not the procession nor the pomp, nor knew that they but -marshalled him to death. - -Behind this lamentable group stalked, two and two, with their dread -implements (the rod-bound axes,) ready and glittering coldly in the sun, -the lictors; and behind these, on foot, and in his toga all unadorned -and simple, the consul colleague of the triumphant chief; and after him -the senate, renowned, grave and wise—stately, sublime assemblage! Then, -with the din of martial music, and the loud clash of brazen armor, their -helmets all enwreathed with branches of the bay tree, their banners and -their eagles entwined and over-canopied with laurel, on swept the -conquering army; each legion, with its horse, its skirmishers, its -engines, its legate and his tribunes on their proud chargers, and its -centurions marching at the head each of his manipule, rolled on—row -after row of brass, solid, compact, immovable—a vast machine of men, -with but one voice, one stride, one motion for ten thousand human -beings. “Io Triumphe! Io Pæan! Ho! for the godlike General! Ho! for the -conquering army!” Such was the pomp of Marius, but so closed not the -line of the procession, for every soul of Rome’s vast population swelled -it for miles in length; old tottering grandsires, men in the prime of -manhood, youths in the flush of spring-time, boys, children, infants at -the breast, matrons and brides and maidens—all ranks, all classes, all -conditions—the proud, luxurious patrician, the turbulent democracy, -mechanics from the suburbs and farmers from the colonies, and slaves and -freedmen, all thronged exultingly the via Sacra, all swelled the shout -for Marius. - -And now they reached the capitol, and the great leader slowly descended -from his car, and, led by pontifex and priest, mounted the hundred steps -of brass, and stood before the temple of Jupiter Capitoline, the -guardian god of the great city. Then louder pealed the trumpets and the -hymns, and incense smoked up to the skies, veiling the very temple, in -its dense wreaths of snow, from those who gazed up thither from the -Forum. The prayers were prayed, the offerings tendered to the god, the -victims slaughtered, the supplication and thanksgiving ended. Then, in -the temple of the god, the Senate and the Consuls feasted, and the lord -of that high feast was Caius Marius. Wine flowed and golden goblets -clanged, and there was merriment and revelry and joy. - -And where was he—Jugurtha? - -“There is a place,”—we quote the words of his historian—“there is a -place in the prison which is called the Tullianum, when you have -ascended a little way to the left hand, sunk about twelve feet under -ground. Walls surrounded it on every side, and a vaulted roof above, -compact with stone groinings; but from its filth, its darkness, and its -fœtid smell, its appearance is alike terrible and loathsome.” Such is -the plain and unadorned description of a cell yet existing; they call it -now San Pietro in Carcere. Thither the lictors bore Jugurtha; he spoke -not at all, nor seemed to understand or to see anything. They stripped -him of his gorgeous robes and rich trappings with fierce, indecent -haste; they snatched the chains from round about his neck, the bracelets -from his arms; they tore the pendants from his ears, and—for they might -not spare the time to loose the clasps—tore the tips of his ears away -also! They stripped him to the skin, yet he resisted not, nor strove, -nor struggled; they lowered him with ropes—him, in his fetters—into -that foul and ghastly cell, and then a horrid smile flitted across his -features—“This bath of yours,” he said, “methinks is very chilly!” He -shuddered, was let down, alone—and died there, as his crimes had -merited! - - * * * * * - - - - - HOPE ON. - - - BY MRS. C. H. W. ESLING. - - - Hope on—the clouds that gather thick before thee - Hide the glad light that led thy steps afar, - But beams there not, on night’s dark Heaven o’er thee, - Purely and brightly, gentle star on star? - - Then let thy gaze pierce those sad clouds around thee— - See thro’ the opening, dimly tho’ at first, - Breaking the chains that to despair had bound thee: - Light out of darkness gloriously burst. - - Hope on—tho’ shadows shut out present gladness, - Not far beyond, the sunlight lingers still— - Dim looks the valley, in its misty sadness, - Ere the bright day hath climbed the eastern hill. - - There is a light, tho’ secretly ’tis playing - Round the dark edges of those clouds we fear: - Some mission’d spirit, in our footsteps straying, - Whispering the words of comfort and of cheer. - - Wilt thou not take the counsel kindly given? - Wilt thou not turn thy gaze from present gloom? - Dost thou not see, the power, in yonder Heaven, - That sends the blight, may likewise send the bloom? - - Hope on, I pray thee—Hope on in thy sorrow— - Brush from thine eye the fastly falling tear; - Thou know’st the night, tho’ dark, must have a morrow, - And, after storms, the rainbow will appear. - - * * * * * - - - - - THE FIERY DEATH. - - - BY J. H. DANA. - - -“To the stake with her! Away with the sorceress! God’s curse be on her -for her evil doings!” shouted the mob. - -It was early morning, yet even at that hour the judgment hall of the -little town of Bourdonnois was thronged with the populace. Men, women -and children, old and young, the noble and the burgher, priests, -soldiers and common people, crowded the spacious hall, and glared -fiercely on the prisoner, while ever and anon they muttered imprecations -on her, and cried madly for her blood. - -The evening before, a female, closely veiled, and attended by two -servants, whose dark countenances bespoke them sons of Ethiopia, had -arrived at Bourdonnois, and put up at one of the principal hostelries of -the place. Strange rumors soon arose respecting her. Her garb, her mien, -her language and her complexion were said to be those of a Saracen, -against which accursed race the chivalry of Europe and the church itself -warred in vain. These rumors gained additional strength when the -landlord of the inn where she had stopped was heard to say that he had -seen her practising sorcery, a charge easily credited in that age, and -one which few, especially in a case like this, had the hardihood to -disbelieve. In less than an hour the whole population of the town was -afloat, surrounding the hostelry, and crying out for vengeance against -the sorceress. Such commotions were both frequent and sanguinary in that -superstitious age. - -The soldiery, however, interfered by arresting the unsuspecting victim -of these rumors, and at this early hour the prisoner had been brought -into the judgment hall to await a mockery of trial. - -“Answer me, daughter of Belial!” said the judge, as soon as the murmurs -of the mob allowed him to be heard. “Will you confess your crime? Speak, -or you die! Know you that the rack, aye! fire itself, awaits you if your -obstinacy continues?” - -The prisoner was a slight girlish creature, sitting with her face buried -in her hands, directly opposite to the judge. She was apparently young, -and her figure, so far as it could be seen through the thick veil which -shrouded her form, was light and agile as that of a sylph. To the -judge’s question she made no answer. She only shook her head -despondingly, and those nigh her fancied they heard her sob. - -“To the stake with the heathen sorceress! She deals with the evil one!” -shouted the mob. “What need we further than this silence? Away with -her—away!” - -At these fearful words, repeated now for the second time, and growled -forth with an ominous fierceness, appalling even to the hearer, the -prisoner was observed to tremble, whether with fear or otherwise we know -not, and lifting her veil up with a sudden effort, she rose to her feet, -turned hastily around to the mob, and disclosed a countenance of such -surpassing loveliness to their gaze, that even those who had cried out -most unrelentingly for her blood now shrank abashed into silence, while -others, who had been less eager for her condemnation, audibly murmured -in her favor. - -“What would ye have of me?” she said, addressing the judge, and for the -first time standing unveiled before him. “As there is a God in whom we -both believe, I have told you only the truth. I am a stranger, a -foreigner, a defenceless woman, but not the less the affianced bride of -one of your proudest nobles, the Count de Garonne.” - -The tone in which she spoke was firm, but oh! how touchingly sweet; and -her words were uttered in broken French, with a perceptible Oriental -accent. Loud murmurs arose in her favor as she ceased speaking. The tide -was turning. But the judge now spoke: - -“Out on thee, woman of hell! Out on thee for a base slanderer of a noble -of France, and a holy crusader! Thou the betrothed bride of Garonne! As -soon would the eagle mate with the vulture. I tell thee, woman, that thy -story of having been shipwrecked when coming to France, and of all thy -train having been lost except thy two Ethiopian myrmidons, is a foul -lie, and I am almost minded to wring the truth from thee on the rack.” - -“I have said it,” said the prisoner, in a firm voice, for she felt her -life depended on her calmness, “and if you will give but one week, only -one little week, I will prove it before man as well as God. I came from -Syria in the same fleet with my lord, but under charge of his mother’s -confessor—now a saint in Heaven!—but being separated by a storm, in -which our galley was shipwrecked, I was thrown unprotected on your -shores. I am a stranger here. My servants even have deserted me. I do no -one harm. I plot no treason. All I ask is to pass on my way. Oh!” she -continued, with a burst of emotion, “if you have a daughter, think what -would be your feelings if she was to be thus set upon in a strange -land,” and she burst into tears. Again the crowd murmured in her favor. - -“Woman!” sternly interposed the judge, unmoved by her emotion, “look at -the victim of your sorcery, and seek no longer to deceive us by your -lies. Stand forth, Philip the Deformed!” - -At the words of the judge, an official bearing a white wand stepped into -a side room, and in a moment reappeared with a cripple hideously -deformed, whom the populace recognised as the landlord of the hostelry. -When confronted with the prisoner, he glared on her with a look of -demoniac hatred. - -“Know you this woman?” asked the judge. - -“Ay! to my cost,” answered the cripple. “It is through her incantations -that I am the being I am. It was but yesterday she came to my inn, -attended by two heathenish Ethiopians, whom I have heard palmers from -the holy land say are kept by the Paynims—God’s ban be theirs! I no -sooner beheld her than I recognised her to be the sorceress who, three -years ago, brought on me the disease by which I am crippled. I could -tell her among a thousand. The curse of God light on her for a child of -the evil one,” and the witness ground his teeth together, and glared -fiercely at the prisoner. A low murmur of approval, at first faint and -whispered, but gradually swelling into a confused shout, rose on the ear -as he ceased. - -“He is a perjured wretch,” exclaimed the prisoner, with energy, “whom my -servants detected in an attempt to rob my poor effects; hence his malice -and this charge.” - -“Silence, woman!” sternly interposed the judge, “or else confess. Will -you, a child of Belial, malign a Christian man?” - -The testimony of the publican had worked a complete change in the -fluctuating feelings of the mob towards the prisoner, and the words of -the judge were answered back by a shout of approval. The prisoner was -seen to turn deathly pale. She did not reply, however, to the question, -but shook her head despondingly, as if conscious that all hope was over. - -“Lead her away,” hoarsely growled the mob, while the dense mass of -people swayed to and fro in the excitement, as if they would have rushed -on the defenceless victim. - -“Again I ask thee, woman, wilt thou confess?” - -She shook her head despondingly, buried her face in her hands, and -murmured something; perhaps it was a prayer. The mob burst once more -into commotion. - -“Where are the servants of this woman?—let them be put on the rack,” -said the judge. - -“They have escaped,” answered an official. - -“Escaped!” said the judge, “ha! were they living men, or the servants of -the foul fiend? Know you aught?” - -“I do know,” said the maiden, suddenly rising to her feet, and speaking -with the energy of a queen, while her eye flashed and her bosom heaved -with excitement, “and thank God that they are free, although they have -left me defenceless. Yes! they are free from your tortures. Me, you may -murder with your accursed laws, but—mark me—I shall be fearfully -avenged. My story has been truly told—so help me God”—and she raised -her eyes to Heaven in adjuration, “and if I die, I die innocent. I tell -ye I am the betrothed bride of a noble. I am more; I am the daughter of -a prince. And now do your worst. I shall die worthy of my race.” - -She sat down. Not a murmur was heard for the space of a minute after she -had ceased. Her daring energy awe-struck all. But what could even -bravery like hers effect against a brutal, bigot populace? As soon as -the hearers could recover from their momentary consternation, they broke -into a whirlwind of shouts and imprecations, and rushed on to the -defenceless girl; and had not the soldiery, who immediately guarded her, -interposed, she would have fallen an instant victim to the rage of the -populace. To be torn in pieces by a mob was a death too horrible! She -turned imploringly to the judge, but there was no hope in his iron face. -She closed her eyes, but the howling mob still swam before her vision; -and when she buried her face in her robe, and strove to shut out their -imprecations, their fierce, wild cries still rung in her ears. At each -moment the tumult deepened, until the excitement of the populace became -uncontrollable. - -“Away with her—she is sold to the fiend—away—away!” - -“Vengeance for the sufferers by her incantations!” hoarsely growled a -voice from the mob. - -The judge no longer hesitated, but yielding to the popular current as -well as his own prejudices, sentenced her to be burned at high noon of -that very day. A wild shout of exultation rose from the frenzied mob as -the sentence was pronounced, but over all the din swelled the fearful -cry, “To the stake with her—away with the sorceress.” Such was justice -in that age. - -It was a few hours earlier in the same day when a noble knight sat in a -hostelry of the little seaport town of ——. He was of a singularly -imposing cast of countenance. His features were of the true Norman -outline, with a lofty intellectual brow, shaded by locks of the richest -chesnut hue. His cheek was embrowned by a Syrian sun until it was of the -darkest olive color, but the clear white of his forehead, which had been -protected from exposure by his helmet, betrayed the original purity of -his complexion. He had an eye whose glance can only be likened to that -of an eagle. His form was tall and commanding. He sat apparently -absorbed in thought, but was aroused from his reverie by the entrance of -a retainer. - -“Are the horses ready?” - -“Yes, my lord,” said the man. - -“We will mount into the saddle at once then; how far did they say it was -to Bourdonnois?” - -“Six leagues.” - -“We shall reach it before nightfall; lead on.” - -The party which set forth from the inn was a gallant sight to behold. -Knights, squires, men-at-arms and other retainers swelled the escort of -the young Count to the number of nearly four-score, while the pennons -waving on the air, and the occasional sound of a trumpet, gave a -liveliness to the escort which attracted the attention of the passer by, -of every rank and sex, and drew many a sigh of envy from them. But who -might pretend to be the equal of the renowned Count Garonne, a crusader -of untarnished fame, a gallant still in the flower of his youth, and the -lord of half a score of castles scattered over the wide domain of -France? - -At the head of the proud array rode the Count himself, conversing gaily -with a knight at his side, whom he familiarly called cousin. - -“Ay, by St. Denis!” said the Count, “she is a divinity such as even our -sunny Provence doth not afford. Such eyes, such hair, and then, by my -faith, such a voice! It pained my heart to part from my sweet -Zillah—but she would have it so—and so she comes in company with -father Ambrose and a score of my best knights. Her maidenly modesty -dictated this, and I was forced to submit. We were separated, however, -by that heathenish storm, and I suppose her galley put into Genoa. You -know she will be given away by none but the Holy Father himself,” and -the glad lover reined his horse, while the animal, as if partaking of -its master’s joy, curvetted gaily. - -“I long to see your princess, nor do I wonder at your love, since she -freed you from a Moslem prison; when shall I greet my future cousin?” - -“We shall reach Bourdonnois to-night, and to-morrow—let me -see—to-morrow we shall keep on to Trouchet; in another day we shall -arrive at Genoa, and there we will await her, if her galley is not -already arrived.” - -“I am all impatience to behold her—but look at the knave coming over -yonder hill. He rides like the fiend himself.” - -“Ay! and by St. Denis he is a blackamoor, a scarcer thing here than in -Syria. Holy Father, how he dashes on!” - -Even while they spoke the horseman rapidly approached, and, before many -minutes, drew in the rein of his foaming steed at the side of the Count, -whom he appeared to know. The recognition was mutual. The man instantly -spoke in a strange tongue, and with violent gestures, while, with an -agitated voice, the Count appeared to question him. But a few minutes -had elapsed, however, before the Count turned around to his cousin, and -exclaimed, in a voice trembling with emotion, but with an attempt at -composure, - -“Zillah has been wrecked, and only she and two of her train, with a few -common sailors, have escaped. Her strange companions, her foreign -tongue, but, more than all, the accursed perjuries of a thieving -innkeeper, have brought on her the charge of sorcery, a tumult has been -raised, she has been arrested, and—God of my fathers!—may even now be -suffering on the rack or at the stake. Oh! why did I ever submit to -leave her? But, by the mother of God! if a hair of her head is harmed, I -will hang every knave of Bourdonnois.” - -“Let us on at once, then; we may yet arrive in time.” - -“Pass the word down the line,” exclaimed the Count. “On, knights and -gentlemen; we must not draw rein until we reach Bourdonnois.” - -After a few minutes of hurried consultation with the servant, who stated -that he and his fellow had escaped in the height of the tumult, and -each, by different roads, sought the port where they supposed the Count -to be, the gallant array set forward at a rapid pace, and in a few -moments nothing but a cloud of dust in the valley and on the hill-side -was left to tell of their late presence. - -It was already high noon in Bourdonnois. A little out of the town, in a -gentle valley, was the place chosen for the infliction of the horrid -sentence. For more than an hour—indeed ever since the condemnation of -the accused—the populace had been pouring thither in crowds, until now -a vast multitude, comprising nearly the whole population of the town, -surrounded the place of execution, and covered the encircling hills, -like spectators in an amphitheatre. - -At length the procession came in sight. First marched a body of -soldiery; then followed the magistrates of the town; directly after -appeared several monks; and then, clad in white, with her pale face bent -on the ground, and her hands tightly pressed together, came the victim. -She made no answer, it was observed, to the words of the monks on either -hand, but ever and anon she would kiss a crucifix which she carried, and -raise her swimming eyes to Heaven. In that hour of bitterest agony, what -must have been her emotions? She, the daughter of an Emir, and the -affianced bride of one of the proudest nobles of France, to be hissed at -by a mob, and end her life in unheard-of torments at the stake! Oh! if -her lover, she thought, only knew of her peril! But alas! he was far -away. Well might she raise her streaming eyes to Heaven as to her only -hope, and well might she turn away from the ministers of religion who -sanctioned her sacrifice, and trust only in that cross which was her -lover’s gift, and the emblem of the sufferings of one whom that lover -had taught her was the only true God. - -“Oh!” she murmured to herself, “if Henri only knew my peril, he would -yet rescue me. But there is no hope; and I must not forget that I am the -daughter of a warrior. Henri shall hear that I died as became his -affianced bride;” and her figure seemed to dilate and her walk to grow -more majestic as she thought. - -At length they reached the fatal stake. But if Zillah shuddered at its -sight, the feeling was checked before it could be seen by the populace. -Calm and collected, though pale as the driven snow, she stood proudly up -while the fatal chain was affixed around her slender waist, and, with -eyes upraised to Heaven, appeared to be only an indifferent spectator, -instead of the chief person in the fatal tragedy. Not a repining word -broke from her lips. The first agony of death had passed away, and she -had steeled her heart to her fate. - -At length all was prepared. Over the vast assembly gazing on her, hung -the silence of the dead. Men’s breaths came quick, and their hearts -fluttered when they felt that in another minute the awful tragedy would -be begun. Every eye was bent intently on the fatal stake as the -executioner approached with the fiery brand. For the last time, Zillah -opened her eyes to take a final look on that earth to which she was soon -to bid farewell forever. But what sent that sudden flush to her cheek? -Why that cry of thrilling joy, the first audible sound which had left -her lips since her sentence? She sees a troop of fiery horsemen, covered -with dust and foam, thundering over the brow of the hill in front of -her, and in the very van of the array she recognizes the pennon of the -Count of Garonne, waving in the noonday sun. - -Onward came the rescuers. Horse on horse, knight after knight, retainer -following retainer, they swept like a whirlwind down the hill, shouting -their war-cry, “Garonne—a St. Denis and Garonne!” the panic-struck -crowd opening to the right and to the left before them. In vain the -soldiery who guarded the victim attempted to resist the rush of the -assailants. They might as well have withstood the ocean surges in their -might. The shock of the horsemen was irresistible. Foremost among them, -cleaving his way like a giant, rode the Count himself, his tall figure -and powerful charger rendering him conspicuous over all. Nothing could -resist him. He seemed like an avenging spirit come to the aid of the -suffering victim, nor were those wanting who saw in the sudden -appearance of the rescuers, and their indomitable courage, proofs of -supernatural agency. A universal panic seized on the crowd. Soldiers as -well as populace broke and fled. In a few minutes the Count had gained -the stake, when, springing from his steed, he rushed forward, and, with -one blow of his huge sword, had severed the chain which bound the victim -to the stake. - -“Oh! Henri!” hysterically said the rescued girl, as she sprang forward -and fell fainting into her lover’s arms. - -“Zillah! God be praised that you are safe. Curses on the villains. She -faints. Ho, there! water, you knaves, or I cleave you to the chine.” - -But the maiden had only fainted from excess of joy, and when -restoratives were applied, she speedily recovered. - -Our story is done. The terror of the populace; the humble apologies of -the magistracy; the merited punishment of the perjured publican; and the -speedy union of the Count and the converted princess—are they not all -written in the chronicles of the noble house of Garonne? - - * * * * * - - - - - WOMAN’S DOWER. - - - BY L. J. PIERSON. - - - She sat, oppress’d with cruel care, - And bow’d with agonizing pain, - And the cold sceptre of despair - Lay where her dearest hopes had lain; - And bitter drops, from Marah’s spring, - Bedew’d the pale rose on her cheek, - And fierce disease was torturing - Her vitals with a vulture’s beak: - And taunting words were in her ears— - “Thou first in sin! Frail cause of all - The cares and toils that waste our years, - The pangs that change our joys to gall; - Thou gav’st the sceptre unto Death! - Thy hand unbarr’d the insatiate tomb, - And wak’d and arm’d the fiery wrath - That deals the sinner’s final doom!” - She rais’d her meek wet eyes to Heaven, - And all her pray’r was one long sigh; - It told how deep her heart was riven, - And won an angel from on high. - “Daughter! thy lot is hard to bear,” - The spirit said, with healing tone, - “Submission, agony, and care, - Endur’d in silence and alone: - These are thy lot, and Mercy’s power - May not reverse the just decree; - Yet have I brought a priceless dower, - A gem from God’s own crown, to thee. - Hide the rich jewel in thy breast, - Deep in thy bosom’s holiest bow’r: - Its warmth and light shall make thee blest, - E’en in thy darkest, loneliest hour. - Its light shall throw around thy form - An atmosphere of joy and peace, - And fill thy home with radiance warm— - A glowing flood of magic bliss. - When thy young heart to man is given, - And the white bride-rose wreathes thy brow, - This live coal from the fires of Heaven - Shall with ecstatic rapture glow; - And when thy new-born infant lies - In helpless beauty on thy breast, - Thy heart shall thrill with ecstacies - Sweet as the transports of the blest. - This living beam of perfect love— - Pure love, that lives without return: - This sparkle from the bliss above— - Forever in thy soul shall burn. - Not all the fiends of earth shall wrench - This treasure from thy heart away, - Nor all the waves of sorrow quench, - Within thy soul, the deathless ray. - Life’s dearest tie may prove a chain, - And gall thy heart through weary years; - Thy hopes maternal may prove vain, - And sink beneath a flood of tears; - And haggard cares may round thee crowd— - Yet this rich gift shall light thy gloom, - And throw a rainbow on the cloud - That darkens o’er thy dear one’s tomb.” - Yes, _perfect_ love is woman’s dower, - Her brightest charm, her richest gem, - Her shield from every cruel power, - Her sceptre, and her diadem. - Let her beware, lest earth-born fires - Touch the pure altar where it glows: - Dim the pure light with low desires, - And sink her soul in torturing woes. - - * * * * * - - - - - LOVERS’ QUARRELS. - - - BY PERCIE H. SELTON. - - -“Mary!” said the low voice of Henry Ashton. The maiden looked up. - -“Mary! I have much to tell you—will you listen to me awhile, only for a -moment!” and he spoke fast and eagerly. - -“A moment only, you say—well, I suppose I must,—but what a beautiful -butterfly is that. Oh! the dear, sweet, tiny thing; do, pray, try and -catch it for me.” - -Ashton was stung to the heart. He had been on the point of declaring his -long-cherished passion for Mary Derwentwater, and he felt that she knew, -not only the depth of his affection, but that the words trembling on his -lips were an avowal of his love. Her light-heartedness at once changed -the whole current of his feelings. Often had he heard others say that -his beautiful cousin was a coquette, and more than once had she trifled -with his own feelings. He had hoped that her conduct was the result only -of a momentary whim, but this last act displayed a confirmed -heartlessness of which an hour before he would not have deemed her -capable. He sighed, and was silent. - -“Oh! dear, how ungallant you are,” continued his cousin, “the beautiful -creature will really escape, and I do so love butterflies.” - -“It is gone.” - -“So it is. I shall never forgive you. Don’t ask me to,” said Mary -affectedly. - -“Then we must part without it,” said Henry carelessly. “I leave here -to-morrow, and shall visit Europe before I return. It may be years—it -may be forever that I shall be absent.” - -“Why—Harry—you jest,” said his companion, struggling to appear -composed, although she felt how cold and pale her cheek had grown. “I -never heard of this before. You are not in earnest,” and she laid her -soft white hand—that hand, whose touch made every nerve of Ashton -thrill—on her lover’s arm, looking up into his face with her dark, and -now melting eye. But the chord had been stretched until it had snapped, -and her influence over Ashton was gone. He half averted his head, as he -answered coldly,— - -“I do not jest, especially with a friend.” - -The tone, the emphasis, the manner, all stung the pride of Mary. She -felt that his censure was just, and yet she spurned it. Her hand fell -from his arm, and emulating his own coldness, she said,— - -“Then I will not ask you to stay. But as it is late, and you will have -your preparations to make, I will not intrude on your time,” and -curtesying, she withdrew. - -“And this is the being in whom I had garnered up all my heart’s best -affections,” exclaimed Ashton, when he found himself alone. “This the -divinity I have adored with a fervor no mortal bosom ever yet felt, and -she could talk, heartlessly talk of the merest trifle, when she saw that -my whole heart was bound up in her. Oh! would we had never met. But my -delusion is over. I will fly. Mary! Mary! little did I dream that my -love would meet with such a return.” - -Mary hurried to her chamber, and locking the door, she flung herself -upon the bed, and burst into a flood of tears. How bitterly she -reproached herself that her momentary coquetry had lost her the love of -the only being for whom she cared. She did not disguise from herself her -affection; she could scarcely tell why she had yielded to the impulse of -that fatal moment; but she felt that she had lost irretrievably the -esteem and the affections of her cousin. She would have given worlds to -have recalled the last hour. Even now she might, by seeking him, and -throwing herself at his feet, perhaps, regain his love. She rose to do -so. But when her hand was on the lock she thought that he might spurn -her. She hesitated. In another moment her pride had regained the -mastery. - -“No—I cannot—I dare not. He will turn away from me. He will despise -me. Oh! that I had never, never said those idle words,” and flinging -herself again on the bed, she wept long and bitterly. - -Mary appeared that evening at the supper table, but in the cold and -averted looks of Ashton, she saw only new causes for pride. The evening -passed off heavily. As the time came for retiring, Henry approached her -to bid her farewell. She thought her heart would burst her boddice, but -commanding her emotion by a violent effort, she returned his adieu as -calmly as it was given. - -And they parted, both in seeming carelessness, but one at least in -agony. - -Henry Ashton had known his lovely cousin scarcely two years, but during -that time, she had been to him a divinity. Never, in his wildest dreams, -had he imagined a countenance more surpassingly beautiful than hers, and -to her, accordingly, he had given his heart, with a devotion which had -become a part of his nature. But much as he adored his cousin, he was -not wholly blind to her faults. He saw that she loved admiration, and he -feared she was too much of a flirt. Yet his love had gone on increasing, -and, he fancied, not without a return. Led on by his hopes, he had, -during a temporary visit at her father’s house, seized an opportunity to -declare his passion, but how the half breathed avowal was checked, we -will not recapitulate. Need we wonder at his sudden resolution to fly -from her presence, and, by placing the ocean between them, to eradicate -a passion for one whom he now felt to be unworthy of him? Few men could -be more energetic than Ashton. In less than a week, he had sailed for -Europe. - -Oh! how Mary wept his departure! A thousand times she was on the point -of writing to recall him, but her pride as often prevented the act. She -hoped he might yet return. Surely—she said—he who had once loved her -so deeply, and who must have known that his affection was returned, -would not leave her forever. Hour after hour she would sit watching the -gate for his return, and hour after hour she experienced all the -bitterness of disappointment. When, at length, she read in the newspaper -that he had really sailed, she gave one long, loud shriek, and fell -senseless to the floor. A fever, that ensued, brought her to the very -brink of the grave. - -Ashton went forth upon the world an altered, almost a misanthropic man. -His hopes were withered: his first dream of love had vanished: he felt -as if there was nothing for him to live for in this world. His mind -became almost diseased. He loathed society, then he veered to the other -extreme, and craved after excitement. He sought relief in travel. He -crossed the steppes of Tartary—he traversed the deserts of Arabia—he -lived among the weird and ruined monuments of Egypt,—and for years he -wandered, a stranger to civilization, seeking only one thing—_to -forget_. He never inquired after America. His family were all dead, and -he wished never to think of Mary. Like the fabled victim, in the olden -legend, he spent years in the vain search after that Lethe whose waters -are reserved for death alone. He found it not. - -And Mary, too, was changed. She rose from that bed of sickness an -altered being. Never had she known the full depth of her affection until -the moment when she found herself deserted. The shock almost destroyed -her; and though she recovered after a long and weary sickness, it was to -discard all her old habits, and to assume a quieter—yet, oh! how far -more beautiful demeanor than in her days of unmitigated joy. She felt -that Henry was lost to her forever, yet she derived a melancholy -pleasure in living as if the eye of her absent lover was upon her. She -directed her whole conduct so as to meet his approbation. Alas! he was -far away: she had not heard from him for years; perhaps, too, he might -be no more; then why this constant reference of all she did to his -standard of excellence? It was her deep abiding love which did it all. - -Four years had passed when Ashton found himself again in America, and -sitting, after dinner, with one of his most intimate friends, at the -table of the —— hotel. For some time the bottle passed in silence. At -length his companion spoke. - -“You have not seen Mary Derwentwater yet—have you, Harry?” - -Ashton answered calmly, with a forced effort, in the negative. - -“You must not positively delay it. Do you know how beautiful she has -grown?—far more beautiful than when you went away, although then you -thought her surpassingly lovely.” He paused. - -“I have not heard from the family for years,” said Ashton at length, -feeling that his companion expected some reply. - -“Then you know nothing of her?—push us some of the almonds—why, my -dear fellow, she is irresistible. But she is different from what she -used to be; her beauty is softer, though not so showy, and whereas she -once would flirt a little—mind, only a little, for she is a great -favorite of mine—she now goes by the name of the cold beauty. A married -man, like myself, can speak thus warmly, you know, without fear of -having his heart called in as the bribe of his head. And do you know -that my wife suspects you of having worked the reformation?”—Ashton -started, and was almost thrown off his guard—“for it began immediately -after a long illness, that happened a few weeks after you sailed.” - -Ashton was completely bewildered. He had now for the first time heard of -Mary’s sickness. His eye wandered from that of his companion, and he -felt his cheek flushing in despite of himself. He covered his -embarrassment, however, by rising. His companion continued, - -“And now, Harry, let us stroll down Broadway, for, to tell the truth, I -promised my wife to bring you home with me. Besides, Mary is there, and -I’ve no doubt,” he continued, jocularly, “you are dying to meet her.” - -Ashton could not answer; but he followed his friend into the street, -conscious that Mary and he must meet, and feeling that the sooner it was -done the better. His companion, during their walk, ran on in his usual -gay style, but Harry scarcely heard a word that was said. His thoughts -were full of his cousin. Had she indeed become cold to all other men -from love to himself? Strange and yet delicious thoughts whirled through -his mind, and he woke only from his abstraction on finding himself in -Seacourt’s drawing-room, and in the presence of his cousin. - -Mary was on a visit to Mrs. Seacourt, and did not know of Ashton’s -intended coming until a few minutes before he made his appearance. -Devotedly as she loved her cousin, she would have given worlds to escape -the interview; but retreat was impossible, without exposing the long -treasured secret of her heart. She nerved herself, accordingly, for the -meeting, and succeeded in assuming a sufficiently composed demeanor to -greet her cousin without betraying her agitation. He exchanged the -common compliments of the occasion with her, and then took a seat by -Mrs. Seacourt, who had been one of his old friends. Mary felt the -neglect; she saw he did not love her. That night she wept bitter tears -of anguish. - -“And yet I cannot blame him. Oh, no!” she exclaimed, “it is all my own -fault. He once loved me, and I heartlessly flung that affection from me -which I would give worlds now to win. But I must dry these tears; I must -not betray myself. We shall meet daily, for he cannot help coming here, -and to shorten my visit would lead to suspicions. I must therefore -school myself to disguise the secret of my heart.” - -And Ashton did come daily, and although his conversation was chiefly -devoted to Mrs. Seacourt, he neither seemed to seek nor to avoid his -cousin. Now and then he found himself deep in a conversation with her, -and he thought of old times. But the memory of their last interview came -across him at such moments like a blight. - -“How wonderfully Ashton has improved since his travels,” said Mrs. -Seacourt one morning, as she and Mary sat _tête-à-tête_, sewing; “and do -you know,” continued she, looking archly at her companion, “that I deem -myself indebted to you for his charming visits.” - -Mary felt the blood mounting to her brow, and she stooped to pick out a -stitch. - -“Oh! you are always jesting, Anne; you know it is not so.” - -“We shall see. I prophesy that this afternoon, when we go to the -exhibition, he will escort you, and leave Miss Thornbury to Seacourt’s -nephew.” - -Mary’s heart beat so she could scarcely answer, but she managed to -reply, - -“Don’t, my dear Mrs. Seacourt, don’t tease one this way. You know, -indeed you know, Ashton cares nothing for me,” and she felt how great a -relief would have been a flood of tears, could she have indulged in -them. - -Mrs. Seacourt smiled archly, and said no more. - -The afternoon came. The little company were assembled in the -drawing-room. Ashton entered just as the last moment had come, and when -the ladies were rising to go. Mary was almost hidden in one corner, so -fearful was she of attracting the raillery of Mrs. Seacourt, by placing -herself near the entrance, and in Ashton’s way. Her very sensitiveness -produced the effect she wished to avoid. The gentlemen naturally sought -partners nearest them, and for a moment she was left almost alone. She -thought she would have fainted when she saw her cousin cross the room -and offer to be her escort. - -They proceeded to the exhibition. For the first time for years, Ashton’s -arm upheld that of Mary. At first both were embarrassed; but each made -an effort, and they soon glided into conversation on indifferent -subjects. What a relief it was to Mary that night, to think she had been -alone, as it were, with her cousin without being treated with neglect. - -From that day the visits of Ashton to Mrs. Seacourt’s increased in -frequency, yet there was nothing marked in his attentions to Mary. -Indeed, he still continued to converse chiefly with his friend’s wife, -though he did not openly avoid her guest. Mary grew more and more -tremblingly alive to his presence, and at times, when she would detect -his eye bent on her, half sadly, half abstractedly, her heart would -flutter wildly, and a delicious hope would momently shoot across her -mind; but soon to fade as quickly. - -One morning, Ashton entered the drawing-room, and found her alone. She -was untangling a skein of silk. She arose, and said, with some -embarrassment, - -“Mrs. Seacourt is up stairs; I will ring for her.” - -“Not for the world, if she is in any way engaged. I can await her -pleasure.” - -There was a silence of some minutes. Mary could scarcely breathe: she -knew not what to say. Her fingers refused to perform their duty, and her -skein of silk became more and more entangled. - -“Shall I help you?” said Ashton, approaching her. “My patience used to -be a proverb with you.” - -Mary could not trust herself to answer, for her fingers were actually -trembling with agitation. She felt she could have sunk into the floor. -She proffered the silk without looking up. Ashton took hold of one end -while she retained the other. Neither spoke; but Mary’s bosom heaved -tumultuously, while Ashton felt his heart in his throat. At length, in -mutually untangling the skein, their hands met. The touch thrilled them -like lightning. Ashton almost unconsciously retained the hand of his -cousin in his own. She trembled violently. - -“Mary!” he said. - -She looked half doubtingly, half timidly up. - -“Mary, we love each other—do we not?” - -There was no answer, but as he pressed the fingers lying passively in -his grasp, the pressure was gently returned, and, bursting into tears, -his cousin fell upon his bosom. - -And Ashton and Mary have been wedded for years, but their honey-moon -still continues, for they have not yet quarrelled. - - * * * * * - - - - - THE PRECIPICE. - - - There is a rock whose craggy brow - Hangs beetling o’er the wave below, - Adown whose sheer descent the eye, - When twilight’s gloom is gath’ring nigh, - Will gaze, but vainly, to descry - The sullen waves that wash beneath, - As endless and as dark as death. - You see no tide—you scarcely hear— - You only feel a nameless fear; - The night-bird, sailing slowly by, - Dares not his melancholy cry: - Dares scarcely flap his lazy wing: - Dares not behold this fearful thing— - But far beneath, will upward soar, - To cross the dread abyss no more. - H. J. V. - - * * * * * - - - - - THE MISTAKEN CHOICE; - - - OR, THREE YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE. - - - BY EMMA C. EMBURY. - - -“So you are really going to be married, Charles?” - -“Yes, uncle; and I hope you will agree with me in thinking that I have -made a very prudent choice.” - -“That remains to be seen yet,” said Mr. Waterton. “In the first place, -who is the lady?” - -“Miss Laura Tarleton.” - -“I know her _name_ well enough, for you have scarcely uttered any other -one these six weeks,” was the crusty reply; “but I want to know -something of her family.” - -“Her father was a southern merchant, and died four or five years since, -leaving only two daughters to inherit his large estate; one of these -daughters married about two years since, and is now in Europe; the other -I hope to introduce to your affections as my wife.” - -“Has she no mother?” - -“Her mother died while she was yet very young.” - -“Where was she educated?” - -“At the fashionable boarding-school of Madame Finesse, and I can assure -you no expense has been spared in her education.” - -“I dare say not: these new-fangled establishments for the manufacture of -man-traps, don’t usually spare expense. How old is your intended wife?” - -“Just nineteen.” - -“Where has she lived since she left school, for I suppose she was -‘_finished_,’ as they style it, some years since?” - -“She has resided lately at the Astor House, under the protection of a -relative who boards there.” - -“Then she cannot know much about housekeeping.” - -“I dare say not,” replied Charles, with a slight feeling of vexation, -“but all that knowledge comes by practice, uncle.” - -“If her time has been divided between a boarding school and a hotel, -where is she to learn any thing about it?” - -“Oh, women seem to have an intuitive knowledge of such things.” - -“You are mistaken, boy,” said the old man, “if a girl has been brought -up in a good home, and sees a regular system of housekeeping constantly -pursued, she will become unconsciously familiar with its details, even -though she may not then put such knowledge in practice; the consequence -will be that when she is the mistress of a house, her memory will assist -her judgment—a quality, by the way, not too common in girls of -nineteen. But how is a poor thing who has seen nothing but the -_skimble-skamble_ of a school-household or the clockwork regularity of a -great hotel, to know any of the machinery by which the comfort of a home -is obtained and secured?” - -“Oh I am not afraid to trust to Laura,” replied Charles with animation, -“she is young, good-tempered, and, I believe, loves me; so I have every -security for the future. When there’s a will there’s always a way.” - -“True, true, Charles, and I only hope your wife may have the will to -find the right way; what is her fortune?” - -“Reports vary respecting the amount—some say eighty, others, one -hundred thousand dollars.” - -“Don’t _you know_ any thing about it?” - -“I know that her fortune is very considerable, especially for a poor -devil like me, who can barely clear two thousand a year by business,” -answered Charles, with some irritation. - -“When your father married, Charles, he was master of only three hundred -dollars in the world.” - -“That may be, and the consequence was that my father’s son has been -obliged to work like a dog all his life.” - -“The very best thing that could have happened to you, my dear boy.” - -“How do you make that out? For my part, I see nothing very desirable in -poverty.” - -“Nor do I, Charles; poverty is certainly an evil, but it is an evil to -which you have never been exposed; competence was the reward of your -father’s industry and he was thus enabled to bestow a good education and -good habits upon his son. The limited range of your own experience will -convince you of the danger of great riches. Who are the persons in our -great city most notorious for vice and folly? Who are the horse-jockies, -the gamblers, the rowdies, and the fools of high life? Why, they are the -sons of our rich men, and how can we expect better things from those who -from their very childhood are pampered in idleness and luxury. I know -you will tell me there are exceptions to this sweeping censure, and this -I am willing to allow, for there are some minds which even the influence -of wealth cannot injure; but how few are they, compared with the number -of those who are ruined in their very infancy by the possession of -riches. Depend upon it, Charles, that learning, industry, and virtue -form the best inheritance which any man can derive from his ancestors.” - -“It is a pity the world would not think so, uncle.” - -“So it is, boy; but the fact is such as I have stated, whatever the -majority of people may think. You have not now to learn that the wise -and good are always in the _minority_ in this world. But tell me one -thing, my dear boy; if Miss Tarleton was poor and friendless, instead of -being rich and fashionable, would you have fallen in love with her?” - -“Why yes—certainly—I don’t know—” stammered Charles, confusedly, “but -that is supposing so improbable a case that I cannot determine.” - -“Suppose she were suddenly to be deprived of her fortune,” said the -persevering old man, “would you still be so desirous of wedding her?” - -“Why, to tell you the honest truth, uncle, I do not think I should, and -for an excellent reason. Laura has been brought up as a rich man’s -daughter, and therefore can scarcely be expected to have had proper -training for a poor man’s wife. If I were compelled to support a family -on my paltry business, it would be necessary to have a more prudent and -economical companion than Laura is likely to prove; but, thank heaven, -that is not the case.” - -“All are liable to reverses of fortune, Charles, and should such befal -you in future, you might chance to find that a prudent wife without -money is a better companion in misfortune than an extravagant one who -brought a rich dowry.” - -“My dear uncle, do not imagine all kinds of unpleasant contingencies; -the idea of what you call a _prudent woman_ is shocking to my notions of -feminine character; it always conjures up in my mind an image of a -sharp-voiced, keen-eyed creature, scolding at servants, fretting at -children, and clattering slip-shod about the house to look after -candle-ends and cheese-parings. Before a woman can become parsimonious -she must in a measure unsex herself, since the foible most natural to -the sex is extravagance—the excess of a liberal spirit.” - -“You are mistaken, Charles; that there are such women as you describe, -bustling, notable housewives, who pride themselves on their ability to -_manage_, as they term it, and who practise cunning because unable to -use force, I acknowledge; but they are chiefly to be found among those -who have been placed in an unnatural position in society,—women, who -having neither father, brother nor husband to protect them, have been -obliged to struggle with the world, and have learned to _jostle_ lest -they should _be jostled_ in the race of life. But bachelor as I am, I -have had many opportunities of studying the sex, and I can assure you -that economy, frugality and industry are by no means incompatible with -feminine delicacy, refinement of thought, and elegant accomplishments.” - -“Well it may be all true, uncle,” replied Charles, utterly wearied of -the old man’s lecture, “but it is too late to reflect upon the matter -now, even if I were so disposed. I am to be married next week, and I -hope when you see Laura, you will think, with me, and give me credit for -more prudence than you seem to believe I possess.” - -Charles Wharton possessed good feelings, and, as he believed, good -principles; yet, seduced by the ambition of equalling his richer -neighbors, he had persuaded himself into choosing a wife, less from -affection than from motives of interest. Had Laura Tarleton been poor, -he certainly would never have thought of her, since, pretty as she was, -she lacked the brilliancy of character which he had always admired. But -there was a sin upon his conscience, known only to himself and _one_ -other, which often clouded his brow, even in the midst of his -anticipated triumph. There was a young, fair, and gifted girl, whom he -had loved with all the fervor of sincere attachment, and _he knew_ that -she loved him, although no word on the subject had been uttered by -either. He knew that his looks, and tones, and actions had been to her -those of a lover, and he had little reason to doubt the feeling with -which he had been met. He had looked forward to the time when he should -be quietly settled amid the comforts of a peaceful home, and the image -of _that fair girl_ was always the prominent object in his pictures for -the future. But a change came over the spirit of the whole nation. -Wealth poured into the country—or at least what was then considered -wealth—and with it came luxury and sloth. The golden stream came to -_some_ like a mountain torrent, and others began to repine at receiving -it only as the tiny rivulet. People “made haste to be rich,” and Charles -Waterton was infected with the same thirst after wealth. He met with -Laura Tarleton, learned that she was an orphan heiress, and instantly -determined to secure the glittering prize. Ambition conquered the -tenderness of his nature; he forsook the lady of his love, and after an -acquaintance of six weeks succeeded in becoming the husband of the -wealthy votary of fashion. - -Not long after his marriage, he discovered one _slight_ error in his -calculations, and found that his wife’s hundred thousand dollars had in -reality dwindled down to thirty thousand. But even this was not to be -despised, and Charles, conscious that he had nothing but talents and -industry when he commenced life, felt that he had drawn a prize in the -lottery. Grateful to his wife for her preference of him, and conscious -that he had not bestowed on her his full affection, he determined to -make all the amends in his power, by lavishing every kindness upon her, -and submitting implicitly to her wishes. Having intimated to him that -she should prefer boarding during the first year of their married life, -he accordingly engaged a suite of apartments at the Astor House, where -they lived in a style of splendor and ease exceedingly agreeable to the -taste of both. Mrs. Waterton was extremely pretty, with an innocent, -child-like face, and a graceful figure, and Charles felt so much pride -in the admiration which she received in society, that he forgot to -notice her mental deficiency. Their time was passed in a perpetual round -of excitement and gayety. During the hours when the counting room -claimed the husband’s attention, the young wife lounged on a sofa, read -the last new novel, dawdled through a morning’s shopping, or paid -fashionable visits. The afternoon was spent over the dinner table, while -the evening soon passed in the midst of a brilliant party, or amid the -pleasures of some public amusement. But living in the bustle of a hotel, -with a large circle of acquaintances always ready to drink Mr. -Waterton’s wine and flirt with his pretty wife, they were rarely left to -each other’s society, and at the termination of the first twelvemonth, -they knew little more of each other’s tempers and feelings than when -they pledged their vows at the altar. Charles had learned that his -placid Laura was somewhat pertinacious and very fond of dress, while she -had been deeply mortified by the discovery that Charles’s deceased -mother had, during her widowhood, kept a thread and needle store; but -this was all that they had ascertained of each other. There had been no -studying of each other’s character—no opportunity of practising that -_adaptation_ so necessary to the comfort of married life. They had lived -only in a crowd, and were as yet in the position of partners in a -quadrille, associated rather for a season of gayety than for the -changeful scenes of actual life. - -The commencement of the second year found the young couple busily -engaged in preparing for house-keeping. A stately house, newly built and -situated in a fashionable part of the city, was selected by Mrs. -Waterton, and purchased by her obsequious husband in obedience to her -wishes, though he did not think it necessary to inform her that _two -thirds_ of the purchase money was to remain on mortgage. They now only -awaited the arrival of the rich furniture which Mrs. Waterton had -directed her sister to select in Paris. This came at length, and with -all the glee of a child she beheld her house fitted with carpets of such -turf-like softness that the foot was almost buried in their bright -flowers; mirrors that might have served for walls to the palace of -truth; couches, divans and fauteuils, inlaid with gold and covered with -velvet most exquisitely painted; curtains, whose costly texture had been -quadrupled in value by the skill of the embroideress; tables of the -finest mosaic; lustres and girandoles of every variety, glittering with -their wealth of gold and chrystal; and all the thousand expensive toys -which serve to minister to the frivolous tastes of fashion. The -arrangement of the sleeping apartments was on a scale of equal -magnificence. French dressing tables, with all their paraphernalia of -Sevres china and chrystal; Psyche glasses, in frames of ivory and gold; -beds of rosewood, inlaid with ivory, and canopied with gold and silver, -were among the decorations. But should the reader seek to ascend still -higher—the upper rooms—the servants’ apartments, uncarpeted, -unfurnished, destitute of all the comforts which are as necessary to -domestics as to their superiors, would have been found to afford a -striking contrast to the splendors of those parts of the mansion which -were intended for display. - -With all his good sense, Charles Waterton was yet weak enough to indulge -a feeling of exultation as he looked round his magnificent house, and -felt himself “master of all he surveyed.” His thoughts went back to the -time when the death of his father had plunged the family almost into -destitution—when his mother had been aided to open a little shop, of -which he was chief clerk, until the kindness of his old uncle had -procured for him a situation in a wholesale store, which had finally -enabled him to reach his present eminence. He remembered how often he -had stood behind a little counter to sell a penny ball of thread or a -piece of tape—how often he had been snubbed and scolded at when subject -to the authority of a purse-proud employer—and, in spite of his better -reason, Charles felt proud and triumphant. His self-satisfaction was -somewhat diminished, however, by the sight of a bill drawn upon him by -his brother-in-law in Paris, for the sums due on this great display of -elegance. Ten thousand dollars—one third of his wife’s fortune—just -sufficed to _furnish_ their new house. Thus seven hundred dollars was -cut off from their annual income, to be consumed in the wear and tear of -their costly gew-gaws; another thousand was devoted to the payment of -interest on the mortgage which remained on his house; so that, at the -very outset of his career, Charles found himself, notwithstanding his -wife’s estate, reduced to the “_paltry two thousand a year_,” which he -derived from his business. But he had too much false pride to confess -the truth to his wife, and at once to alter their style of living. Each -had been deceived in their estimate of the other’s wealth. Laura’s -income had been large enough, while she remained single, to allow her -indulgence in every whim, and Charles, ambitious of the reputation of a -man of fashion, after slaving all the morning in his office, had been in -the habit of driving fast trotting horses, or sporting a tilbury and -tiger in Broadway, every afternoon, spending every cent of his income, -and giving rise to the belief among the young men that he was very rich, -while the old merchants only looked upon him as very imprudent. They -were now to learn that their combined fortunes would not support the -extravagancies of a household, but Laura, accustomed to the command of -money from childhood, knew not its value, because she had never known -its want, and her husband shrunk from the duty of enlightening her on -the subject, by informing her of their real situation. - -By the time the arrangements of their house were completed, and had been -admired, envied and sneered at by her “dear five thousand friends,” the -season arrived for Mrs. Waterton’s usual visit to Saratoga. Her husband -of course accompanied her, though with rather a heavy heart, for he knew -that only by close attention to business he could hope to provide the -necessary funds for all such expenditures, although he had not -sufficient moral courage to confess that he was so closely chained to -the galley of commerce. The usual round of gayety was traversed—the -summer was spent in lounging at different watering places—and the -autumn found them returning, heartily wearied, to their splendid home. -With the assistance of some kind _suggestors_, Mrs. Waterton now planned -a series of entertainments for the coming winter, and Charles listened -with ill-dissembled anxiety to the schemes for balls, parties, soirees, -musical festivals and suppers. There was but one way to support all -this. Charles determined to extend his business, and instead of -confining himself to a regular cash trade, he resolved to follow the -example of his neighbors, and engage in speculation. Accordingly, he -sold his wife’s stock in several moneyed institutions, and, investing -the proceeds in merchandise, commenced making money on a grander scale. -This was in the beginning of the year ’36, and every one knows the -excitement of that momentous season; a season not soon to be forgotten -by the bankrupt merchants, the distressed wives and the beggared -children who can date their misfortunes from the temporary inflation of -the credit system, by which that fatal year was characterized. Mr. -Waterton’s books soon showed an immense increase of business, and, upon -the most moderate calculation, his profits could scarcely be less than -from eight to ten thousand dollars within six months. This was doing -pretty well for a man who had formerly been content with a “paltry two -thousand a year,” but as avarice, like jealousy, “grows by what it feeds -on,” Charles began to think he might as well make money in more ways -than one. He therefore began to buy real estate, and _pine lands_ in -Maine, _wild tracts_ in Indiana, _town lots_ in Illinois, together with -the thousand schemes which then filled the heads of the sanguine and the -pockets of the cunning, claimed his attention and obtained his money; -while, at the same time, the fashionable society of New York were in -raptures with Mrs. Waterton’s splendid parties, her costly equipage, and -her magnificent style of dress. - -“Have you counted the cost of all these things, Charles?” said his old -uncle, as he entered the house one morning, and beheld the disarray -consequent upon a large party the previous night. - -“Yes, uncle, I think I have,” said Charles, smiling, as he sipped his -coffee, at the old man’s simplicity. “The fellows who manage these -affairs soon compel us to count the cost, for when I came down this -morning, I found on the breakfast table this bill for nine hundred and -fifty-four dollars.” - -“Nine hundred dollars, Charles! You don’t mean to say that your party -last night cost that sum?” - -“I do, my dear sir, and considering that the bill includes every thing -but the wines, I do not consider it an exorbitant one; however, the -elegant colored gentleman who takes all this trouble for me does not -charge me quite so much as he would if I employed him less frequently.” - -The old man looked round and sighed. The apartments were in sad -disorder, for the servants, overcome by the fatigues of the previous -day, had followed the example of their master, and stolen from the -morning the sleep they had been denied at night. A bottle lay shivered -in one corner of the supper room, the champaigne with which it had been -filled soaking into the rich carpet—a piece of plum-cake had been -crushed by some heedless foot into the snow-white rug which lay before -the drawing-room fire—the sweeping draperies of one of the curtains was -still dripping with something which bore a marvellous resemblance to -melted ice cream, and the whole suite of apartments wore that air of -desolation which usually characterizes a “banquet hall deserted.” - -“Do you calculate the destruction of furniture in counting the cost of -your parties, Charles?” asked Mr. Waterton. - -“Oh no—that of course is expected; furniture, you know, becomes -old-fashioned and requires to be renewed about every three years, and -therefore one may as well have the use of it while it is new.” - -“You must have a vast addition to your fortune if you expect to pay for -all these things.” - -“My dear sir,” replied the nephew, with a most benignant smile at his -uncle’s superlative ignorance of his affairs, “my dear sir, you do not -seem to know that, in the course of about three years, I shall be one of -the richest men in New York.” - -“Do you sell on credit?” asked the old man, significantly. - -“Certainly; everybody does so now.” - -“Well, then, my boy, take an old man’s advice, and don’t count your -chickens before they are hatched; don’t live on ten thousand a year when -that sum exists only in your ledger. Call in your debts, and when your -customers have _paid_, then tell me how _much_ you have _gained_.” - -“My dear uncle, you are quite obsolete in your notions. I wish I could -induce you to enter with me into a new scheme; it would make your -fortune.” - -“I am content with my present condition, Charles; my salary of eight -hundred a year is quite sufficient for the wants of a bachelor, and -leaves me a little for the wants of others; nor would I sacrifice my -peace of mind and quiet of conscience for all the fortunes that will -ever be made by speculation.” - -“It is not necessary to sacrifice either peace or principle in making a -fortune, uncle.” - -“You have not seen the end yet, my dear boy; I have lived long enough to -behold several kinds of _speculative mania_, and all terminated in a -similarly unfortunate manner. It is a spirit of gambling which is -abroad, and I am old-fashioned enough to believe that money thus -obtained never does good to any one. It is like the price of a soul: the -devil is sure to cheat the unhappy bargainer.” - -“How I hate to hear people talk about business,” lisped Mrs. Waterton, -as she sat listlessly in her loose wrapping-gown at the breakfast table; -“I think no one ought to mention the word before ladies.” - -The old man looked at her with ill-disguised contempt. - -“It will be well for you, young lady,” said he, “if you never have to -learn the necessity of a knowledge of business.” - -Laura put up her pretty lip, but was silent, for she was much too -indolent, and rather too well bred, to get angry. - -Charles Waterton had given his uncle what he believed to be an accurate -view of his circumstances. Excited beyond the bounds of sober sense by -his seeming success, he was as sanguine a dupe as ever bled beneath the -leech-craft of speculation. His real estate, which he _very moderately_ -estimated at _quintuple_ its cost, formed, _at such prices_, an immense -fortune. His book debts were enormous, for his money was scattered east, -west, north and south, and in consequence of giving long credits, he was -enabled to obtain exorbitant profits. But the Eldorado whose boundaries -seemed so accurately defined on paper, became exceedingly indistinct as -he fancied himself about to approach its shores. The following year -began to afford tokens of coming trouble. Credit was still good, but -money had entirely disappeared from the community, and men who had -learned to make notes in order to _acquire fortunes_, were now obliged -to continue their manufacture in order to _avoid ruin_. Rumors of -approaching distress arose in the money market; men began to look with -distrust upon their fellows, and as unlimited confidence in each other -had been the foundation of the towering edifice of unstable prosperity, -the moment that was shaken, the whole structure fell crumbling to the -earth. As soon as doubt arose, destruction was at hand, and at length -one wild crash of almost universal bankruptcy startled the dreamers from -their golden visions. - - * * * * * - -One fine morning in the spring of 1838, the doors of one of the most -stately houses in —— street, were thrown open to the public, and the -auctioneer’s flag waving from the window gave a general invitation to -every passer by. That ominous red flag! no less significant of evil than -the black banner of the rover of the seas; for it is ever the signal of -the disruption of household ties. That ominous red flag! sometimes -betokening the instability of fortune—sometimes the work of -death—sometimes telling of blighted fortunes—sometimes of broken -hearts, but _always_ of discomfort and disquiet. And yet few things will -so readily collect a concourse of people as that scarlet harbinger of -destruction. There may be found the regular auction-haunters, men of -idleness, bachelors, perhaps, glad to find an hour or two killed beneath -the auctioneer’s hammer—single ladies of small fortunes, who have -nothing to do for themselves, and have not yet learned the luxury of -doing something for their neighbors—notable housewives, actuated by a -sense of duty and a love of economy, who waste _nothing but time_ in -their hunt after bargains—young ladies who come to see how such persons -furnished their houses—and perhaps some would-be connoisseur in search -of old pictures, which, if they have only hung long enough over a smoky -fire-place, may be classed with the works of the old masters. On the -morning in question, however, unusual attractions were offered to the -visiters of such places, for it was the abode of wealth, and luxury, and -taste which was thus desecrated—the mansion of the Watertons! The rich -carpets were disfigured by many a dirty footstep,—the velvet couches -bore the impress of many a soiling touch, and many a rude hand was laid -upon the delicate and costly toys which had once been the admiration of -the fashionable visitants of the family. Among the crowd were two of -that _numerous tribe_ found in the very midst of fashionable life, who -have learned the trick of combining meanness and extravagance—women who -will spend hundreds upon a shawl, and at the same time beat down the -wages of a poor sempstress until she is almost compelled to purchase -with life itself the bread which ought to sustain life. Such were the -two who now seated themselves in the drawing-room of the ruined family, -in order to be in the _right place_ when certain articles were put up -for sale. - -“I want nothing here,” said one, with a half scornful air, “except those -mosaic tables; the carpets and curtains are ruined by carelessness, and -no wonder, for Mrs. Waterton was a wretched house-keeper.” - -“And I only mean to buy that workbox,” said the other; “Mrs. Waterton -told me it cost a thousand francs in Paris, and I am sure it will not -sell for one fourth its cost.” - -“By the way, have you seen her since her husband’s failure?” - -“Oh no, I shouldn’t think of calling upon her when in so much distress; -besides, I am told she has refused to see any one. Did you hear how she -behaved when she heard of Mr. Waterton’s reverses?” - -“No, I know nothing about her since she gave her last grand party, which -was followed in a few days by his bankruptcy.” - -“Why I was told she raved like a mad woman, reproached her husband in -the vilest terms for thus reducing her to poverty, taunted him with his -low origin, and accused him of the basest deception.” - -“I can easily believe it, for these mild, placid milk-and-water women -have got the temper of demons when once aroused.” - -“I have not told you all yet; she refused to give up her jewels, which -were known to be of great value, and having secretly employed a person -to dispose of them for her, she took passage for France, and actually -set sail a few days since; merely informing her husband _by letter_ that -such was her purpose. This letter she placed in such hands that she knew -he would not receive it until the vessel was underweigh, and he thus -learned that she had deserted him forever. She pretends to have gone to -join her sister; but there is a whisper of a certain black-whiskered -foreigner who is the companion of her voyage. At any rate, whether he -goes with her or not, he is a fellow passenger.” - -“Where is Mr. Waterton?” - -“At the house of his old uncle, who will probably be obliged to transfer -him to a lunatic asylum before long; but hush, the auctioneer is -coming.” - -I have told you the _dénouement_ as related by the heartless women of -the world, but like most of their species, they were only _half right_. -Mrs. Waterton _did_ go with the intention of seeking her sister’s -protection, but ere she arrived there, she was persuaded to travel -farther under the protection of her fascinating friend. Mr. Waterton did -not enter a lunatic asylum, but recovered his senses so fully that he -obtained a divorce from his wife, and is now a fellow-clerk with his -uncle; enjoying as much tranquility as a remembrance of his former -follies, his imprudent choice, and his three years of wedded life will -allow. - - Brooklyn, N. Y. - - * * * * * - - - - - A DREAM OF THE LONELY ISLE. - - - BY MRS. M. ST. LEON LOUD. - - - There is an isle in the far south sea, - Sunny and bright as an isle can be; - Sweet is the sound of the ocean wave, - As its sparkling waters the green shores lave; - And from the shell that upon the strand - Lies half buried in golden sand— - A thrilling tone through the still air rings, - Like music trembling on fairy strings. - Flowers like those which the Peris find - In the bowers of their paradise, and bind - In the flowing tresses, are blooming there, - And gay birds glance through the scented air. - Gems and pearls are strew’d on the earth - Untouch’d—there are none to know their worth; - And that fair island death comes not nigh: - Why should he come?—there are none to die. - - My heart had grown, like the Misanthrope’s, - Cold and dead to all human hopes; - Fame and fortune alike had proved - Baseless dreams, and the friends I loved - Vanish’d away, like the flowers that fade - In the deadly blight of the Upas shade. - I long’d upon that green isle to be, - Far away o’er the sounding sea; - Where no human voice, with its words of pain, - Could ever fall on my ear again. - Life seem’d a desert waste to me, - And I sought in slumber from care to flee. - - Away, away, o’er the waters blue, - Light as a sea-bird the vessel flew. - Deep ocean furrows her timbers plow, - As the waves are parted before her prow; - And the foaming billows close o’er her path, - Hissing and roaring, as if in wrath. - But swiftly onward, through foam and spray, - To the lonely island she steers her way. - The heavens above wore their brightest smile, - As the bark was moor’d by that fairy isle; - The sails were furl’d, the voyage was o’er: - I should buffet the waves of the world no more. - I look’d to the ocean—the bark was gone, - And I stood on that beautiful isle, alone. - - My wish was granted, and I was blest; - My spirit revell’d in perfect rest,— - A Dead Sea calm,—even thought repos’d - Like a weary dove with its pinions closed. - Beauty was round me: bright roses hung - Their blushing wreaths o’er my head, and flung - Fragrance abroad on the gale, to me - Sweeter than odors of Araby; - Wealth was mine, for the yellow gold - Lay before me in heaps untold. - Death to that island knew not the way, - But life was mine for ever and aye, - Till Love again made my heart its throne, - And I ceased to dwell on the isle, alone. - - Long did my footsteps delighted range - My peaceful home, but there came a change; - My heart grew sad, and I looked with pain - On all I had barter’d life’s ties to gain. - A chilling weight on my spirits fell, - As the low, soft wail of the ocean shell— - Or the bee’s faint hum in the flowery wood, - Was all that broke on my solitude. - Oh! then I felt, in my loneliness, - That earth had no power the heart to bless, - Unwarm’d by affection’s holy ray; - And hope was withered, as day by day - I watch’d for the bark, but in vain, in vain; - She never sought that green isle again. - - I stretch’d my arms o’er the heaving sea, - And pray’d aloud, in my agony, - That Love’s pure spirit might with me dwell— - Then rose the waves with a murmuring swell, - Higher and higher, till nought was seen - Where slept in beauty that islet green. - The waters pass’d o’er me,—the spell was broke; - From the dream of the lonely isle I woke, - With a heart redeem’d from its selfish stain, - To mingle in scenes of the world again - With cheerful spirit—and rather share - The pains and sorrows which mortals bear, - Than dwell where no shade on my path is thrown, - ’Mid fadeless flowers and bright gems, alone. - - Philadelphia. - - * * * * * - - - - - LINES. - - - Why do we live? Is it to fade - From glory to the tomb, - Wrapt in its melancholy shade, - Inheritors of gloom? - Struck like the stars from Heav’n we die: - Quench’d is the spirit’s light; - Youth’s cheer and Hope’s sweet melody - Are hush’d in sorrow’s night. - - Why are we here! but to depart? - ’Tis anguish thus to fade. - Shall grief oppress a single heart - When we are lowly laid? - Thank God! th’ immortal soul no blight - Of earth can e’er decay; - On high, to realms of endless light - It flashes far away. - - * * * * * - - - - - THE HEAD AND THE HEART. - - - BY W. LANDOR. - - -“This is certainly the most charming opera that was ever produced,” said -Mrs. Althorp, as the curtain fell after the first act of Sonnambula, and -she turned round to entertain the company in her box; “yet, after all, -what an absurdity it is! However, I must remember that I am growing -old.” - -“Pardon me,” said Mr. Hartford, who sat behind her, “elegance and beauty -have no age.” - -“Surely elegance has its Age, and it is that in which Mr. Hartford -lives.” - -“Mrs. Althorp’s _fiat_ has, indeed, such potency that it can make even -me, in fact at least, the model of elegance.” - -“My stamp,” she replied, “like that of the mint, only ascertains the -value of the metal.” - -“But, in the mint of fashion which you administer, there is such a -seignorage as makes the coin far more valuable than the bullion.” - -“Mr. Hartford, you talk operas,” said Mrs. Althorp, who knew she could -never beat him in the charming absurdities of compliment, and was -willing to retire from the contest. - -“What do you think of the Prima Donna to-night?” said Miss Stanhope. - -“I think she has miscarried in nothing but her singing, her acting and -her speaking,” replied Mr. Hartford. - -“She certainly does not sing as well as she did. She has sung too much; -her voice is worn out.” - -“You were speaking of the absurdity of the opera, Mrs. Althorp,” said -Hartford. “The matter has certainly not been improved since the time -when the Earl of Chesterfield settled it, that when you go to the opera, -you must take leave of your understanding and your senses with your half -guinea at the door, and give yourself up to the dominion of the ears and -eyes; in other words, you must live by sight, and not by faith. But the -repugnancy to reason is increased by the manner of performing them in -this country, where part of the dialogue is spoken. The illusion of the -opera is by that means destroyed. You may in time become accustomed to a -race of beings whose natural dialect is poetry, and whose common -cadences are music; but a set of people who let us see from time to time -that they can talk like ourselves, and who yet, whenever they are -excited, break out into modulated strains of song—who speak their -common-places, and warble their exclamations—such people shock our -credulity.” - -“Yet it would seem that at Athens, where they knew something about these -things,” said Mr. Temple, “the same confusion of the natural and the -impossible prevailed on the stage. The chorus usually chanted its part, -and was accompanied by music; and as we find that the persons of the -drama, in conversing with them, frequently adopt the measure of verse -which they sung, we must suppose that the former at such times sang. The -chorus also often employs the rhythm which was used in speaking, and -thus seems to have used the double dialect of recitation and singing. -Nay, the chorus, as it circled the altar, employed a gliding step which -resembled dancing; so that the Greek drama partook of the threefold -nature of our tragedy, opera and ballet.” - -“I have lost all my respect for the taste of the Greeks,” said Mrs. -Althorpe, “since I heard that they painted their temples.” - -“It was savage, indeed, to paint their temples,” said Mr. Hartford; “the -more refined moderns only paint their cheeks.” - -“The French are the modern Athenians,” said Miss Stanhope. “De -Bourrienne says that the soldiers who were with Napoleon in Egypt -complained bitterly of their privations, and longed especially for the -opera.” - -“Do you know who that person is that is talking to the leader of the -orchestra?” said Miss Stanhope, directing the attention of Mrs. Althorpe -to a young man of very striking appearance, who stood just within the -door of the orchestra, and who seemed to be giving some directions that -were listened to with great attention. - -“Oh! that is Mr. Nivernois,” said Mrs. Althorpe; “a very odd person, by -the by; I intended to have sent for him to sup with us to-night.” - -After a few moments, the door of the box opened, and Mr. Nivernois came -in. There was something very remarkable in his appearance: regular, -well-chiselled features, of an Italian cast; pale complexion; large, -black, vivid eyes, and long, straight black hair; in his countenance was -an aspect of force and fire, keen intellectual action, and the power of -deep passion. He was negligently dressed, and was very careless in his -manner. - -“This opera does not seem to be very popular to-night,” said Mrs. -Althorpe to him. “And yet it is a fine one.” - -“Nay,” he replied, “if you were to set Austerlitz or the Angel Gabriel -to music, people would still complain.” - -He turned round to Mr. Hartford, and began to put to him a variety of -questions about music, with such rapidity as gave him no time to answer -one of them. Hartford was ambitious to display his knowledge, and would -have been glad to confound his interrogator by his superior taste. But -the answer which he had begun to one question was cut off by another, -and before that could be attended to, a third had succeeded. When the -string was ended, he was so perplexed as to what he should reply to, and -so stunned by the fiery fervor of the questioning, that he remained -silent. - -Nivernois fixed his keen eyes upon him, and waited an instant for the -reply, which came not. He then turned aside. - -“Humph!” said he; “for my part, I know nothing of music; not I. I -thought I did, until I played three months every morning with Paganini. -I would not give up the struggle sooner. At the end of that time I broke -my fiddle, and abandoned fiddling forever. It was necessary to do that, -or throttle the old hair-scraper. I should strangle with anguish in my -chair, if I knew that there was a man living who could excel me in any -thing I undertook. But what can one do? We have but one life to live. We -are like felons, fumbling with a bunch of keys at the outer door of the -sanctuary of immortality, while the police of death are hurrying after -us round the corner; and who knows whether he has got the right key? No -lasting fame can be founded on music. No melody is immortal but that of -the drum and the cannon. That alone is eternally re-produced. How the -Corsican knew to touch that instrument!—the Handel of the iron flute! -What brave tunes they played off at Borodino and at Eylau! What a -concert was given under the pyramids—the companies in squares, the -musicians at the angles, and the shod feet of the Mameluke cavalry -marking time upon the crusted sand! For the rest, what composer is there -whom you recognise as _great_—whose name rushes on the breathless soul, -and echoes through the spirit with a sound like thunder, or the voice of -Milton? Fashions vary; tastes change. Who plays Purcell?—who sings -Arne? The musician cannot throw himself upon that broad, unchanging -instinct of popular judgment which, after the subtleties of criticism -are exhausted and the disputes of the schools are at an end, must decide -upon questions of taste, and to which literary creators may directly -appeal. The _people_ cannot get at music to judge of it. Overtures -cannot play themselves; and the professors, whose taste is corrupted by -the over-refinements of science, take good care that the world at large -shall not hear that great, universal music of a past age which would -sweep away their conspiracies against taste. Lightning itself would go -out of fashion, and thunder be pronounced exploded, if you could prevent -the people from hearing them; if the learned had the playing of them, -they would swear to us that steam-guns and rockets were more sublime. -Still it is better to compose good choruses than to write bad poetry, -like the great Frederic, or read worse, like Napoleon. We must multiply -and spin out the offices of life. We must cram full the charge of life, -if we would have a loud report. We must coin sleep into immortality, and -mould the waste of leisure into stars of glory. We have but one life to -live.” - -The curtain rose, but Mr. Nivernois still went on with his harangue. -There presently occurred in the opera a passage of extraordinary beauty, -and Mrs. Althorpe began to be annoyed by the unceasing voice behind her. -Her impatience presently got the better of her courtesy. - -“Tell Mr. Thingembob there to hush,” said she to Mr. Temple. - -But the discourse still continued, and above the rapid din of words -could be occasionally heard, “Napoleon,” “genius,” and “We have but one -life to live.” - -Mrs. Althorpe turned round. - -“Mr. Nivernois, hush!” - -Mr. Nivernois was silent. Mrs. Althorpe relented of her severity, and -began to fear that the unfortunate man might pine away in despair under -the infliction of her rebuke. She turned round again with one of her -most gracious smiles, and begged the favor of his company at supper -after the opera. - -The passage in the play struck most of the company in the box as new; -they did not remember to have heard it at the previous representations -of the opera. The house seemed to agree with them as to its beauty. It -was called for a second and even a third time, and the applause was loud -and long. - -“What do you think of that?” said Mrs. Althorpe to Nivernois. - -“Read the prophecies of Isaiah to this people,” he replied; “if they -applaud that fittingly, I should think their praise of this worth -something.” - -In a few moments, he left the box. Presently the leader of the orchestra -came in, between the acts. - -“I thought I saw Mr. Nivernois here.” - -“He has just gone. But where did you get that magnificent passage you -just played? It surely does not belong to the play.” - -“You are indebted to Mr. Nivernois for it. He gave me, the other day, a -mass of musical manuscripts of his own composition. I picked this out of -them, not as being by any means the best, but the most suited for -insertion in this play. He has more genius than all the men I have ever -seen put together; but he has abandoned composition, because he says it -is impossible to beat Bellini. The violin that I played with to-night -was presented to him by Paganini, as a mark of his admiration; he gave -it to me.” - -“I wonder that he would part with such a gift,” said Miss Stanhope. - -“I believe that he gave it to me,” said the other, “lest he should seem -to himself to value the tribute of any man.” - -“What a singular person he must be!” said Miss Stanhope, who had been -much struck with his appearance, and greatly interested by the oddness -and novelty of his character. - -The company which had formed Mrs. Althorpe’s _cortège_ at the opera, -together with two or three other invited guests, were seated around her -small but elegant supper-table. A double circle of wax candles in an -_or-molu_ chandelier, which hung over the centre of it, cast their pure -white light upon the numerous silver dishes and richly cut glass which -covered it. After a little while, Mr. Nivernois strode into the room. He -was a small man, and the strides which he made were as long as himself. -He took his place in a vacant seat which had been reserved for him, -opposite to Miss Stanhope. They were talking about Napoleon. He listened -in silence, till a pause occurred. - -“When nature had finished making the devils,” said he, pouring out for -himself a capacious goblet of Chambertin, “it threw together all the -rubbish that remained, and out of it formed Napoleon.” - -Miss Stanhope laughed. “Do you mean that for praise or censure, Mr. -Nivernois?” - -“Napoleon’s soul,” he replied, “was something larger than to be -enkernelled in the shell of any definition. Put together all the moral -epithets the lexicons furnish, of wisdom and of folly, of greatness and -of littleness, of magnanimity and meanness, force and feebleness, and -every thing else, and fling the whole mass, in a lump, at his character, -and you may have some chance of hitting the mark. It would be difficult -to say anything of him that would be wholly false; impossible to say -anything altogether true. When you have circumnavigated him, you have -sailed round the whole world. His character was somewhat like the poet’s -vision of the temple of Fame. On one side you behold the severe and -classic beauty of a Doric front, with images of antique strength and -grace: on another, the grandeur and the gloom of a Gothic structure: on -a third, the pride and splendor and magnificent exaggeration of Eastern -pomp: on the fourth, the dull, impenetrable mystery of Egypt. His spirit -was as various as the morning sky, and his chamberlain, on two -successive days, never woke up the same man. The truth is, his life was -an acted drama; not of the Æschylus kind, with some unity in it, but a -Nat Lee drama of five-and-twenty acts. If we take it that he displayed -his sincere character, and was that which he appeared to be, we must -conclude that he was a glorious fool, among greater fools; a madman, -whose frenzy was, however, the fatality of Europe. So viewed, he was -born for bombast, as a trout for rising; his sentences have not a grain -of sense to five quarts of syllables; a fortunate adventurer, who -appeared at such a conjuncture of politics that his daring served him -for talent, his selfishness for sagacity, his passion for power. But I -suppose that Bonaparte always wore the buskin; that the historical -Napoleon was but a character which the real one put on to dazzle and -delude the fancies of men, and fire their passions, till, drunk as with -wine, they might be bound and led by him. In his own more actual being, -he was a cold, calculating, shrewd and wholly interested schemer. His -performances were always for the author’s benefit. This Garrick -sometimes blundered in the assumed characters in which he spent his -life. He too frequently mistook ferocity for majesty; imagined he was -royal when he was only brutal, and thought he was playing the hero when -he was only playing the fool. He assumed the madman, generally, when he -dealt with men, and only put on the blackguard when he talked to women. -He knew the truth of Bacon’s saying that there is in human nature more -of the fool than of the wise, and that that which addresses itself to -the foolish part of men’s minds will prevail over that which speaks to -the wiser. He built a great temple of delusion, in which he, the priest, -should continually shout “Glory,” and all the people answer “Amen.” His -breast was a natural mirror and antitype of all the passions and follies -of the fools called Frenchmen. By studying his own foolishness, he knew -what ropes to pull to make their fool’s bells jingle. He is, therefore, -of the weaknesses and worser powers of men, the ablest metaphysician -that has appeared. One of his remarks opens the mind, as snuff opens the -head. He was a poet in practice. Sydney’s rule, “Fool! look into thy -heart and write,” he obeyed; and wrote empires. Of course, an -adventitious power like this cannot be measured; in fact, when supplied -by so seething a fancy and so combining an intellect as he had, it is -altogether illimitable; he had only to conceive a new idea to possess a -new power. He therefore belongs to that class of men of whom Du Quesnay -has said that one and one make a hundred and eleven. When you can define -the genius of Shakspeare, you will be able to describe the _character_ -of Napoleon; the two things are cognate. As we see him, he was not an -entity, but a mere crystallization of ideas, which were continually -depositing around him like the successive layers of an oyster shell. A -philosophical Haüy might split off crystal after crystal of ideas, and -he would find the ultimate crystal still an idea. Every thing of him was -visionary, and not substance. Squeeze him in your hand, and he crushes -like a dandy’s locks. Try that process on such a man as Wellington, and -you soon feel the bone. In sooth, the Duke is all bone.” - -“But you would not think of comparing Wellington and Napoleon,” said Mr. -Temple. - -“No more than I would compare the frothy forms of the rock with the -granite substance of the Alps. There are some sentiments,” said he, with -a fervent, suppressed tone, “which lie so deep within us that they seem -to be a part of our souls; in me, veneration of Wellington is such. -Since the Duke of Marlborough was buried, there has not lived, nor lives -there, a man to whom I bow with an entire reverence, excepting -Wellington. When I stood face to face with him, I felt how truly Scott -had said that he was the only man in whose presence he felt himself -nothing.” - -“But do you think that he has Bonaparte’s genius?” - -“Perhaps not; but where you see a man who is great without genius, you -see the greatest kind of man the world knows any thing of; and where you -see a poet who prevails without passion, you see an order of poetry high -and enduring; such, on the one hand, is Wellington; on the other, Pope. -All that such men do is done by force of intellect and might of -character, and the results are true and permanent.” - -“No doubt the Duke is a great man.” - -“A greater there never lived. It is the misfortune of this age that it -has no guides or leaders; no profound, thinking men, who, knowing the -past and caring for the future, can judge rightly of the present, and -give laws to the opinions of the time. Now, the multitude decide on -every thing for themselves; and every thing is despised which is beyond -the taste of the vulgar. Napoleon was essentially a hero for the vulgar; -fools, who have no idea of power but in tumult, or of strength but in -struggle, cannot comprehend the calm, unapproachable grandeur of -Wellington—a grandeur too high for sympathy. I have studied him in his -despatches; I have talked with him—I have seen him all round—there is -in that man more of innate, imperturbable greatness than in all the -world beside. When Napoleon was about to strike a blow, he raised up -around him a cloud, a very tempest, of passions and fancies, through -which every thing was magnified and mistaken. Wellington goes to work -plainly, indifferently, frigidly, and it is only by the result that you -recognise _in scena Roscium_. In the deep perturbation which came over -the spirit of Napoleon when he essayed any vast work: in the mighty -effort, the tremendous strain—inevitably successful though it may have -been—you see one whose undertakings are above his nature; who must lash -his energies to make them efficient enough. In the cool, common-place, -regular, business-like proceedings of Wellington—never erring or -unprosperous—we behold one whose native, unalterable strength is so -high that the loftiest enterprise is to him not exciting; who, in -conquering glory, is doing his ordinary work. His trade was to be always -successful, and he was perfect master of it. There is the same -difference between the two that there is between the youth and manhood -of genius: in the former, more fervor and greater consciousness of -power; in the latter, far more real might. The distinction may be marked -by the names of the two demons who, in Æschylus, bind Prometheus to the -rock; one was Force, the other Strength. There is the same diversity -which exists between the calm, grey light of the sun, and the lurid, -flashing, noisy brilliance of fire-works. Wellington is the -representative of the genius of England, which, from the beginning of -history, bearing aloft the standard of integrity, good sense and solid -freedom, has stood like a rock in the sea of human passions and powers: -one while baffling the frantic tyranny of the Papacy, and at another -stamping under its iron heel the struggling fiend of Jacobinism. -Napoleon is the type of France—a nation which has no power save of -paroxysms, and cannot cease to be frivolous but by becoming ferocious. -Wellington rides through life like a Tartar horseman, with one perpetual -posture, that of the lance in rest; with one fixed gaze, that on the -object of his attack. Napoleon scoured through his existence like a -monkey on a circus horse, brandishing a flag, stooping over his nag’s -head or under his body, jumping down to jump up again, and all to gain -the wonder and applause of the spectators; going round and round, and -ending where he began. I must finish the parallel by saying that his -course was marked out for him by the whip of a base necessity. Napoleon -was the slave and courtier of opinion, which he at length flattered into -the belief that it was a master. Wellington despised and neglected -opinion, till it has come fawning about his feet. Vanity had grasped -Napoleon by the throat, and he was her garlanded victim. You never see -in Wellington that sycophancy to circumstances, that obsequiousness to -fortune. He seized Destiny by the collar, and fairly swung her round. -Consider the wonderful, sublime achievement of Assaye; study the -political skill which he displayed in the Peninsula, the miraculous -combination of ingenuity, temper, firmness and authority by which he -threw order into a chaos of difficulties, and, himself alone, sustained -a world of jarring interests; contemplate the glorious action of the -Arapeiles, of which Austerlitz was a dull and broken reflection; ponder -the campaign of Torres Vedras, the master-piece of art, the wonder of -history—a conception as felicitous as the brightest of Newton’s, and -executed with a perfection which delights the observer even to -mirthfulness—a model of _beauty_ in war, by which victory was reduced -to certainty, and war became one of the exact sciences: review these, -and tell me by what proofs of intellectual power in Napoleon’s history -they are exceeded. Remember, too, that of all Wellington’s doings we -have unvarnished and exact accounts; while of Napoleon’s actions we have -in many cases only the statements of himself, the most enormous liar -that ever breathed the upper air. Wellington was a great man; Napoleon -was a child, who, by the despair of an infinite and hopeless ambition, -had strengthened himself into a giant.” - -“There is this remarkable consideration in Wellington’s case, that the -whole of his wide and free career was wholly run within the limits of -duty. In that respect, no man in history may be compared with him, -except Belisarius. What such men do is done without the inspiration of -the passions.” - -“Yes: when a man flings himself free from all human ties, and is -self-hurled into the infinite abandonment of the lusts of the mind, his -soul becomes charged with the might and the magnificence of all the -fires of Hell. The infernal saints all minister their power to his -spirit:—Vanity, with its craving eyes—Pride, with its vaulting -restlessness—the steel-tipped thongs of Ambition, the fiendish vigor of -Despair. It was a dangerous thing to conquer Napoleon; he recoiled from -defeat with the spring of a demon. When you remember that Wellington had -neither this power, which was possessed by Alexander and Gustavus and -Napoleon, nor yet the religious enthusiasm of Cromwell, but did all by -the natural and native strength of his ordinary intellect, you must -yield him a respect which the others cannot share. He has considered -that, in politics as in geometry, the shortest line is the straightest. -Napoleon was made up of artifice, of which Mirabeau has said that it may -indicate intellect, but it never exists in intellect of a superior -order, unless accompanied with meanness of heart; it is a lie in action, -and it springs from fear and personal interest, and consequently from -meanness.” - -“To be sure, the moral eminence of the men will bear no comparing.” - -“Persons of great souls and lofty meditations recognise the dignity of -nature even in the degradation of fate. They are conscious of its great -origin, its mournful condition, its high destiny; henceforth there is -for them no scorn, but a sympathising tolerance, a respectful -compassion. Napoleon’s moral power was the power of ferocious contempt; -it was based upon a disdainful hatred of his species. Depend upon it, -that no thinking man can cherish an habitual disgust who has himself a -soul, or abhor his fellows who has any self-respect. You find in -Wellington none of these wild, these savage sentiments, these -extremenesses of counsel or of motive. He is always sane, practical, -right-hearted and right-minded. His actions illustrate that useful -wisdom which the affairs of life demand, and I know no writer from whom -so valuable precepts may be learned. In or out of Oxford, he has been -the hardest student of his times; for the saddle is, after all, the true -chair of thought. As for Napoleon being great, it seems to me that the -idea is an absurdity. Alfred, William the Conqueror, Charlemagne, these -were great men; and such men build up all that is built, and the history -of a nation from their time till you come to another great man, is only -the record of pulling down what they built up. But Napoleon pulled down -everything, and built up nothing. He built, to be sure, ideally or in -opinion; that is, he made systems and structures and constitutions, on -paper, notionally, and by name, but not in things, in substance, of the -elements of real existence; else by a word, or a reversed look, they -could not have been destroyed. What the hand creates, only the thousand -hands of Time can destroy; what the breath makes, a breath obliterates, -for the thing made was no more than a breath. Draw a line around certain -states on the map, and call it the confederation of the Rhine; give -geographical nicknames to a quantity of soldiers, and call it an -aristocracy: behold the creations of Napoleon! Alfred established -tithings, hundred courts and county courts; that principle of -self-government—for the administration of law is the most important -part of government—that little flame, shrined in those humble vestal -temples, and there kept safe against the blasts of ages of tyranny’s -turbulence, blazed up eight centuries later, and wrapt the throne of -Charles in combustion. Plantaganet kings might call their system an -absolute monarchy; the Tudors and Stuarts might diffuse the idea of -divine right; but Alfred, by establishing juries and the common law, had -made the _thing_ republic, and that was sure to beat down the _name_, -monarchy. Call you a man great whose life-work is swept away in half an -hour, without any principle of re-action or re-establishment showing -itself? Nay, his works always carried with them the germ of their own -destruction. The light that shone around his system was the -phosphorescence of decay.” - -“This much,” said Mr. Temple, “may be said for Napoleon, that he raised -himself to absoluteism without degrading others to slavery.” - -“Why, ’tis a monkey’s trick to mount up on people’s heads. Richelieu got -there, as a man does; not by walking up men’s backs, but by making them -stoop for him to get on. In effect, the true and bright view of -Napoleon’s empire is, to consider it a democracy. Viewed as a monarch, -rising and reigning in a constitution fashioned after the old forms, he -was a mountebank and an impostor; considered as the controlling spirit -in a democracy of powerful spirits, the head-idea in a nation—tumult of -ideas—the odd man who is pushed up in a crowd of men—he becomes a -spectacle of wonder, a riddle of infinite wisdom. The last of the old -system, he is nothing; the first of a new one, everything. Regarded as -the type of that democratic system which will overrun the world, his -empire is a splendid, infinitely-crowded rehearsal of the coming drama -of ages. He who would understand the whole nature, power and philosophy -of democracy, must study that empire. Many thoughts belong to that -subject. But I have harangued too long. Pitt was the man who said with -absolute truth, that Napoleon was “the child and champion of democracy.” -The spectacle of the force of old monarchy in the person of the stern, -iron duke, slowly advancing and destroying this young system, is the -picture of the gloomy Saturn relentlessly devouring his joyous -giant-boys. The Jupiter of that old deity nestles yet a babe near his -bosom; his begetting was in Pitt’s time, his birth at the Reform Bill.” - -“Napoleon must certainly be tried by new principles of judgment. The -maxims upon which the fame of Turenne and Marlboro’ has been settled, -will not give him his true position.” - -“Napoleon made glory according to a receipt of his own. But the -misfortune is, that he not only imposed this false stuff upon us, but he -revolutionized the chemistry by which its spuriousness should be -detected. He depraved the opinions, and bent backwards the consciences -of people. But upon the whole, I think we may say, that in life, the -most beautiful of the fine arts, his taste was anything but classical. -He belonged to the David school, and painted on the canvass of Time, -such pictures as that man hung up in the Louvre—bombast conceptions, -executed in the daub. But after all he was a splendid creature; he made -a glorious pastime in Europe; he showed the world a magnificent sport; -he filled the pages of history with matter which possessed an endless -interest. Strike out his career, and what blankness remains! The truth -is, this life of ours is enveloped in endless coverings, coats, -over-coats and blankets of common-place—an atmosphere of common-place, -dull, dense, unbreathable—a waking, inlaid with sleep—life overlaid -with death. Walled in, and under-buried in a mass of tedium, one cannot -get one’s breath. Sometimes, the world becomes intensely conscious of -this imprisonment, and goes mad in trying to get free from itself. What -wonder, if suffocated by being wrapped in a dun, drowsy, over-growing -thraldom of common-place—its eye sick with sameness, its ear vexed with -a cracked monotony, its soul should grow convulsive, become volcanic, -and throwing off the whole disgusting encumbrance of the social system, -it should rush forth to the free wilderness where it may once more see -the fresh, eternal stars, and breathe a living air. And we must thank -Napoleon for his battles; for war is the glory of our disgraced -existence. Struggle is the parent of all the greatness of our being. It -is only when minds wrestle in the energy of desperation with other -minds, or with things, as in war, that the last degrees of intellectual -and moral power are seen. The literary man goes half to sleep, and keeps -awake only enough to purr his satisfaction at his demi-unconsciousness. -In this world we must fight even to keep ourselves alive. The -politicians of this piping time doze away their days as if they had a -hundred existences to enjoy: as if life were a chair to loll in, a -corridor to walk, or a hall to dance in, and not a general battle-field -on which to fight for everything.” - -There was that in the appearance and manner of Mr. Nivernois—his eye, -his glowing countenance, the intense life which there was about him, -rendered amiable by an entire simplicity of spirit—which was admirably -adapted to captivate the heart and fancy of a woman, especially an -enthusiastic one. What effect had been produced upon the imaginative -temperament of Miss Stanhope, we cannot say. As she was going away, Mrs. -Althorpe said to her, - -“This Mr. Nivernois is certainly a man of genius, but he is mad, stark -mad—like Mazeppa’s steed— - - Wild as the wild deer, and untaught, - With spur and bridle undefiled. - -But he has blood and fortune. I sincerely wish you would take him in -hand and tame him: he is worthy of your attention, and if properly -brought under, would make a great addition to good society.” - -The next day Nivernois was walking in the street and had his attention -attracted by a sign-board, which gave notice of a gallery of pictures. -Having nothing better to do, he went into it. The collection was a good -one, and he spent some time in looking at different productions of the -old masters. The feeling which chiefly occupied his mind was regret that -genius so exalted as many of these artists possessed should have left no -monument more durable than a perishing canvass, which would one day -cause all that marvellous skill to be nothing but a name. His eye was -presently drawn to a portrait of a young lady of singular beauty. The -picture was a fresh one, and he thought that he had seen the features -before, but where or when, he could not remember. The side of the figure -was presented, with the face turned round over the shoulder towards the -spectator. Her dress was blue; a laced veil was on her head, and in her -hand a _bouquet_ of flowers, around which was a band on which was the -word “Love.” - -“Beautiful creature!” said he aloud, as he gazed upon the portrait, “and -whom do you love?” - -“Thee,” faintly said a soft voice above him. He started and looked up. -There was a gallery above, and upon it a door covered by a curtain. He -saw the curtain move as if some one retreated rapidly through it, and he -thought that he had caught a glimpse of a blue dress. He ran rapidly up -to the gallery and through the curtained door, in hopes of discovering -the speaker, perhaps the original of the portrait. He searched every -apartment of the building, but in vain: no one was to be found. He -returned to the picture and sat down before it. - -“Love!” said he, “what is that? I never thought of it before.” The -portrait hung near to an open door, through which the soft air of spring -was bearing the enchanting odour of a bed of violets which grew in the -garden: above was the rich softness of the blue sky. As he sat amid -influences so soothing, and gazed upon the overpowering beauty of those -splendid features, on which a hazy sunlight coming through a window in -the roof, threw a more peculiar lustre there arose within the stern, -constrained, and wholly intellectual being of this earnest, scheming -man, the slow but strong movement of a passion which he never before had -known. The rigid stress of mind, so long kept up—the high-wound force -of feeling, so necessary, yet so painful—softened and melted away in -the delicious mildness of sentiment that flowed in upon his nature. It -wrestled, did that sentiment, with the cold hardness of that logical -frame of being, as the still growing wind with the outer barriers of a -thick forest, and gradually burst in and wandered where it pleased. The -disdainful solitude of soul in which he had fortified himself against a -hostile world, was changing into a spirit which fraternized with all the -universe. It was the birth of sympathy within a bosom before entirely -and fiercely personal. - -“Where has it kept so long?—this soft, this delicate emotion?” said he. -As the blue zephyr, born amidst the depths of the sky, raises and opens -out the dried, mast-bound sail of some long-locked bark, and floats away -the vessel into seas of unknown loveliness, so did this delicious -sentiment expand and quicken that spirituality which had before lain -senseless and collapsed. It diffused a joy and beauty like that of the -golden sunshine gleaming into a clouded forest, flowing and flashing -with an ever brightening splendor, rolling a yellow flowerage over the -mind, vesting the trees in airy robes of silver, and spreading through -the teeming woods a mysterious troop of shadows, the dusky-haired -daughters of light. Like the refreshing rain upon the fevered earth, -there fell upon his spirit a fragrant shower of soft hopes and immortal -dreams. The rough and hardened bough was become a branch of leaves and -fruits. He who had dwelt ever in the outwardness of thought, first -entered the portals of the inner world of feeling: he who had been ever -passionate only to DO, recognized a state in which to BE was bliss, to -move was ecstacy. - -Such is the passionate constitution of genius that its mental nature, -“like a cloud, moves all together, if it move at all;” the moral being -of men of that stamp, intense and entire, never conceives an idea of -character or life, but it straightway throws forth all its energy to -realize that idea in its imaginary completeness: impelled towards evil, -they dash downwards with a frenzied force and reach a depth of -degradation at which colder sinners are astounded: when but one -aspiration dawns in their bosom, they spring up from the shores of that -gulph, and soaring above the clouds, wave in the sparkling sun their -fresh-plumed wings with not one feather moulted: they can mould all -their thinkings in the form and pressure of pure logic; and again their -feelings will be expanding in all the chastened feelings of luxurious -sentiments. These changes make genius a puzzle to its companions, but -delicious to itself. - -It is not wonderful then if this man rose from that seat another being. -But the picture was still the centre and object of his thoughts. Rare -indeed, and transcendant was the beauty of that countenance: a depth of -passion, and an elevation of thought were characterized upon it, which -fired the imagination of the youth who gazed. He thought that he had -seen those features before; but where, and how? He had a faint -impression that Miss Stanhope might be the person. But in fact, so -little had he been interested in woman before, that he had scarce paid -any attention to her appearance—had no distinct remembrance of her -face. Supposing that the voice which he had heard had proceeded from the -original of the picture, and that it indicated that he was loved by her, -he was deeply anxious to discover who it was. - -He pulled a bell which he discovered near the door, and there issued -forth in reply from a small door, an old gray-haired man, very tall, and -bent like a crozier. - -“What picture is this?” said Nivernois. - -“Why, it’s a portrait,” said the old man, with a look of great contempt -at the simplicity of the question. - -From the tone in which he shouted, it seemed that he added deafness to -his other virtues. - -“Of whom?” - -“A lady,” roared the other, with increased scorn. - -“True; but of what lady is it the portrait?” - -“Oh, I don’t know;” and he began to hobble back to his cage. - -“Is it for sale?” - -“No: none of them are for sale; none of them; not one of them:” and he -closed the door behind him. - -Nivernois walked up to the picture, took it down from the nail, -unscrewed the board behind it, and rolling up the canvass, put it under -his arm and marched out of the room. - -When he reached the street he saw a woman dressed in blue passing round -the corner. From a glimpse which he had of her features he thought it -was the picture-lady. He darted forward, but the street which she had -turned into was vacant. There stood a large double house at the corner, -and beyond it there was a garden wall of some length; he concluded that -she must have gone into that house. He rushed in, and turning into the -first door he came to, found himself in an elegant drawing-room in which -there were a dozen persons paying morning visits. - -“Humph! humph!” said he, as he scrutinized the face of every woman in -the circle, and found that the object of his search was not among them. -He took up a volume that lay on the table, it was lettered “Love.” He -walked towards a grand piano which stood open, with a piece of music on -the frame. The music was entitled “Love.” - -“Love!” said he; “Love! wherever I go this morning, it is still love. I -will give you my ideas of love.” He took off his hat, and laying down -his roll in it, seated himself before the instrument. - -He began with some sad and heavy strains which might express the -joylessness of a breast which was a stranger to sympathy. The music was -cheerless, monotonous, and full of startling discords. Presently there -struck into this painful turbulence a light strain of delicious melody, -like a sunbeam bursting into the primal chaos. It extended and gathered -strength, and the disorder of the rest gradually subsided, and melted -away to give place to it. Then there arose the most brilliant and -enchanting notes that that instrument had ever given forth; a flood of -varied rapture flowed out. It was the picture of a world of bliss; a -world whose turf was of the choicest flowers,—whose breezes were airs -from paradise,—whose sky knew not the color of a cloud. - -The performer turned his head round and got a glimpse through the window -of some one passing along the street. - -“There she goes!” he exclaimed, and seizing his hat and roll, rushed out -with the same vehemence that he had entered, leaving the company not a -little astonished at the oddity of his behaviour. - -When he got into the street, nothing was to be seen; “I must discover -that woman,” said he; “what is life to me, if I cannot find her? All my -happiness is garnered in her being; to enjoy my own soul, I must possess -her: to live, I must live with her. By the bye, I must have done rather -an absurd thing in going into that house and playing on the piano, -without knowing any body. By Jove, I’ll go back and apologize. Ah! ha! -there is Mrs. Althorpe going in; she will present me.” - -When they got into the room, the company which had been there had gone, -and the lady of the house was sitting alone. Mrs. Althorpe called her -Mrs. Stanhope. - -“Madam,” said Mr. Nivernois, “I just met an eccentric friend of mine -going out of the door, who I imagine must have made a most unauthorized -entry into your house, in a fit of absence, and behaved in a very -ridiculous manner, when in it. In fact, he requested me to offer on his -behalf the fullest apology for his maniacal conduct, and to beg from -your courtesy an act of oblivion. He is a harmless madman,—one of that -numerous class who are suffered by their friends to go abroad without -strait-jackets.” - -“Any friend of yours,” said Mrs. Stanhope, “is extremely welcome to come -into my house at all times; and even had the eccentricities of this -gentleman been at all objectionable, we should have been more than -compensated by the admirable display which he made upon the piano. As a -pupil of Calebrenner’s, I consider myself something of a judge; and I -never heard so rich a strain of harmony.” - -“Why, as for that, I do not know that he differs materially from any one -else. Everybody carries a Marengo, a Childe Harold, and a Sonnambula in -his blood; the only difficulty is to get them out.” - -“Pray, Mr. Nivernois,” said Mrs. Althorpe, with a certain look of a high -bred woman, not unmixed with something of comic, “What is it you have -under your arm.” - -“Portable bliss,—the potentiality of a happiness beyond the dreams of -one who is not a lover,—ecstasy in a roll,—perfect delight on -canvass;” and he opened the picture and held it up. - -Mrs. Althorpe made a sign to Mrs. Stanhope to be silent. - -“Do you know whose portrait it is?” said Mrs. Althorpe. - -“I cannot for my life discover.” - -“Do you then so much wish to find the original?” - -“A question, truly! I do.” - -“Is it not beautiful?” - -“Is not what beautiful?” - -“The painting.” - -“I cannot speak of these matters now. For the moment I am at war with -_virtû_. It _may_ be divine—perhaps it is so. One thing I feel—the -impotence of the artist. What he has succeeded in en-canvassing speaks -only to my soul of a more radiant loveliness—that of motion, of -thought, of heart—for which the pencil has no outline, the pallet no -dye.” - -“You are an enigma, and my query is unanswered. I will put it in another -form. Is _she_ not beautiful?” - -“She is.” - -“How did you become possessed of the picture?” - -“I saw it in the exhibition, and as they refused to sell it to me, I cut -it out and brought it away.” - -Mrs. Althorpe fell back into her chair, overpowered by irresistible -laughter at the oddness of the incident, and the solemn gravity with -which Nivernois stood eyeing the picture. An idea occurred to her by -which she might give this matter a turn to her mind. - -“I cannot imagine, of course,” said she, “whose portrait it is. But if -you will come to my house to-night, I shall have some young ladies -there, and it is possible that the fair original may be among them. We -shall have _tableaux vivants_, and I think you will find it pleasant.” - -“I will come with the utmost pleasure, even if the lady be not there.” - -“And when I say that the party will be pleasant, I imply thereby an -invitation to Mrs. Stanhope, who of course can make it so. But, Mr. -Nivernois, are you not afraid that the officers of justice will be after -you for abstracting that picture?” - -“Oh! I am only taking it to be copied; after that I shall take it back.” - -“Well! put up your roll then, and we will go.” - -When they had walked some distance, Mrs. Althorpe took leave of him, and -bent her steps again towards Mrs. Stanhope’s. - -In the evening, Mr. Nivernois went to Mrs. Althorpe’s. The _tableaux_ -were exhibited in the hall: the company stood at one end, and a curtain -was drawn at the other, behind which was the frame. They went off with -great effect. The first was the Magdalen of Corregio, a recumbent -figure, “with loose hair and lifted eye,” the light thrown strongly upon -a volume open before her. The second and third were scenes from the -Corsair. While the fourth was preparing, Mr. Nivernois got engaged in -explaining to a person near him a new method by which _tableaux_ might -be presented in a much more striking manner, and he did not take notice -of the rising of the curtain, until he heard several of the company -exclaiming, “Beautiful!”—“how beautiful!” He turned and beheld the very -picture which he had that day been contemplating: the glorious features, -the blue dress, the veil falling over the back, the head turned round -over the shoulder. He stepped a little forward, and his keen eye caught -the glance of the performer; there was a momentary wavering, a blush, -the face was turned aside, and the curtain fell. Nivernois passed into a -room at the side, and hastened towards the place where the pictures were -shown. He found three or four persons there engaged in arranging the -next performance. A door stood open in the rear leading into a large and -very elegant garden. He looked out, and through the bright moonlight saw -among the bushes a female figure. He rushed forth; the lady fled, but -soon stopped by the limits of the ground, turned her head round, and -again presented the living portrait of the morning. It was Miss -Stanhope. He seized her hand in both of his. - -“Oh! glorious being!” he exclaimed, “accept the homage of my soul. Take -all the worship of my being. I love you beyond the expression of all -words.” - -She timidly extended towards him the bouquet which she had. - -“Give me the motto with the flowers,” said he, “and you make me the -happiest of mankind.” - -There was a soft consenting in her form and gestures, though she spoke -not. He pressed her to his bosom, and kissed her glowing cheek, I do not -know how often. He took her hand and they sat down upon a bench; a bed -of violets beneath their feet, the bright young foliage around them, and -above, the glittering moon smiling a pearly lustre on the floating -clouds. - -“Thou art, within my soul, a birth of happiness and peace. I have been, -of all men, the most ambitious: not as valuing the opinions of the -world, for I am not yet sunk so low; but that I might in the interest of -action and creation find some comfort to my spirit. I have had some -applause; as much as satisfied the most craving vanity of many around -me. It wearied and fretted me unutterably, and as praise increased, I -feared to go mad with the anguish of disappointment. In this distress of -an intellect always seeking but incapable of finding, thy gentle beauty -beamed upon my heart. It awoke therein life and a fountain of light. Yet -was it not its own light, but the reflection of thy glorious lustre; as -in the blank waters on a starry night we recognise the impassioned -splendor of the heavens. I have placed thee within my heart; and -henceforth shall I find thee, forever, a source of joy and a spring of -inspiration.” - - * * * * * - - - - - STANZAS. - - - BY E. CLEMENTINE STEDHAM. - - - “My harp also is turned to mourning.—Where is God my Maker, who giveth - songs in the night?” - - The flush of young Hope, and the smile have departed, - That tinted my cheek—that enlivened my brow; - In sackcloth I sit, with the desolate-hearted, - And hushed is the song of my mirthfulness now. - All Nature rejoiceth to welcome gay Summer: - The out-going morn “walks in beauty” more bright; - And the streamlet replenished, forgetting its murmur, - Is dancing along in the gush of delight. - - All, all save my heart, beats responsive to Nature! - In vain do _I_ hear the sweet warbling of birds, - In vain the rejoicing of each living creature— - The bleat of the lambs, or the low of the herds; - My spirit returneth no echo of gladness; - “The harp of the heart,” by affliction unstrung, - Can only reply in the numbers of sadness, - Or, silent with grief, on the willows is hung. - - Great Parent of Nature! if to the bleak mountains, - The light of thy smile bringeth verdure again; - Doth gladden the desert with palm trees and fountains, - And scatter new beauties o’er valley and plain; - If the wealth of thy bounty, in showers descending, - Can make “the waste-places” bloom fresh as the rose; - And thy rainbow of promise, in loveliness bending - Upon the dark cloud, hush the storms to repose; - - Oh! cannot the light of thy favor awaken - The well-springs of joy in a desolate heart, - And clothe with new verdure the bosom forsaken - Of all that could pleasure or solace impart? - And hast thou not showers for the _spirit’s_ refreshing, - And songs in the night-time of sorrow to give? - Then open thy windows and pour down a blessing— - O smile! and this wilderness heart shall revive. - - Cedar Brook, Plainfield, N. J. - - * * * * * - - - - - TO THE MOCKING-BIRD. - - - Arch imitator! ’mid thy varied tone, - That revels so acquisitively sweet, - Rivalling e’en Nature’s self, when doth thine own - Wild native air my rapt delusion greet? - Hast thou a voice to echo every note - Of liquid melody that erst hath dwelt - ’Mid the greenwood, or where soft zephyrs float: - Yet of thine own hath not, in ecstacy to melt? - - What modulation, what inflected grace, - Breathes through the volume of that warbling spell! - An intonation clear, that doth embrace - The woven minstrelsy from rock to dell. - The spring-tide melody, the summer lay, - The plaintiveness of darkly shadow’d night— - Who hath her choral charms, as beaming day— - These in their change are thine, to ’wilder and delight. - - That rich, full swell of sweetness and of force, - That seem’d to wrap thy life-stream with the song, - In its wild strength—as struggling springs their source, - Break, and are borne in murm’ring sounds along: - Say, was it thine?—thy Parent-giving strain, - The innate warbling of thy purer soul, - That gush’d, as if it would to bowers attain - Where flowers unwith’ring bloom, and strains divine e’er roll? - - But ah! again to earth that half-fled sprite - Sinks, in the beauty of some well-known air, - Less free and joyous, in its raptur’d flight, - Than the wild touching thrill that spoke thee there. - Kindred of thine own vocalizing race, - Yet of surpassing skill and strength of flow— - Illimitably varied—where we trace - The wondrous spell of mystery, we seek to know. - - Gay, spry deceiver, from thy covert nigh, - Methinks I hear the myriad of thy clime - Pouring sweet incense through the southern sky, - In the free rapture of each gift divine; - Yet all successive—one continuous swell - Of silvery softness from the fount of love; - The mellow wood-notes, or the screaming yell, - Attest thy perfect art—thy imitations prove. - - Oh, spirit-bird! to man thou hast been sent, - To teach Omnipotence by gush of song, - Bringing bright thoughts of goodness, that is blent - In all that gladdens—all that glides along— - And if, perchance, this teaching be not vain, - To win him upward, where he may rejoice - ’Mid holy love, pure scenes, and sacred strain - Of heavenly praise, such as I hear from thee, thou voice! - - A. F. H. - - * * * * * - - - - - THE REEFER OF ’76. - - - BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUISING IN THE LAST WAR.” - - - THE WHITE SQUALL. - -I was standing one sultry afternoon, by the weather railing, gazing -listlessly over the schooner’s side, and indulging in such reveries as -crowd upon the mind in our moments of idleness, when my attention was -called to the cry of the look-out that a sail was hovering to windward; -and gazing out in that direction I was soon enabled to detect a white -speck far up on the seaboard in that quarter, bearing as much -resemblance, in the eye of an unpractised observer, to the wing of a -sea-gull, as to what we knew it really to be—the royal of a man-of-war. -In an instant all was bustle on our decks. The men below poured up the -gangway: the skulkers came out from under the sides of the guns; the -officers gathered eagerly in a knot abaft the mainmast; spy-glasses were -put in requisition, shrewd guesses were made respecting the flag of the -stranger, and all the curiosity which the sight of an unknown sail -produces on board a man-of-war, was displayed in its full force amongst -us. - -“I think she carries herself like a Frenchman,” said the first -lieutenant. - -“Pardon me,” said the skipper, “but she lifts as if she were an -Englishman.” - -“I could swear her to be a Hollander,” said a lieutenant, who had served -a while in the navy of the States. - -“And were you not all so sure,” interposed a weather-beaten -quarter-master, whose boast it was that he had been at sea for more than -forty years, “I should say yon saucy braggart was a real Spaniard, such -as Kid would have given ten years of his life to be alongside of, for a -matter of a bell or so;” and having delivered himself of these remarks, -the old fellow coolly turned his quid, and squirted a stream of tobacco -juice like the jet of a force-pump, over the schooner’s side. - -“At any rate, gentlemen,” said the captain, “the stranger doesn’t seem -to bring down much of a breeze with him, so that we shall have plenty of -time to form our conclusions before it becomes necessary to act. If he -should even prove to be an enemy, night may be here before he gets -within range, and under cover of the darkness we can easily escape him. -The little Fire-Fly has done too much mischief, and been too lucky -heretofore, to be lost now.” - -The day had been unusually sultry. A light breeze had ruffled the ocean -in the morning, but about two bells in the afternoon watch the wind had -died away, and an almost dead calm had succeeded. The sea became as flat -as a mirror, its polished surface only heaving in long gentle -undulations, like the bosom of some sleeping monster. Not a ripple broke -upon its whole extent. The sky was cloudless: the rays of the sun, -pouring almost vertically downwards, and penetrating even through the -awning overhead, heated the deck till it became like a furnace beneath -the feet. The air was close, stifling, noisome. The men cowered under -the shade of the bulwarks, or hung panting over the schooner’s side. The -sea glowed like molten silver. Occasionally a slight gurgling sound -under the cutwater would remind us that the deep was not wholly -motionless; but excepting this, and now and then the feeble creaking of -a block, no sound broke the oppressive silence around. - -At length, however, a slight breeze was seen ruffling the sea upon the -seaboard; and when the wind came up toward us, curling the ocean here -and there into mimic breakers, and when especially it swept with -refreshing coolness across our decks, we experienced sensations of the -most exquisite delight, and such as no one can imagine, who has not -felt, after a sultry calm, the first kiss of the long-wished-for breeze. -A new life was imparted into our men. The sails were set, and we once -more began to hear the sound of the wind in the hamper, and of the waves -rushing along our sides. It was, however, only a two-knot breeze. Such, -with but little variation, it had continued to be up to the discovery of -the stranger. - -For half an hour and more after our look-outs had detected the sail to -windward, we managed to keep away sufficiently to maintain the distance -we had first possessed. But gradually the wind freshened; the billows -began to roll their white crests over in the sun-light; the sails -strained under the press of the breeze; and the waters, rippling loud -and fast under our bows, went plashing along our sides with a gurgling -noise, and then hissed by the rudder as they were whirled away astern. - -“What a provoking breeze!” said Westbrook. “Here we are at a convenient -distance, as O’Shaughnessy would say, from yonder chap, having besides -the whole night before us to plan an escape from his clutches, and lo! a -breeze springs up just when it ought to be calm, leaving us at the mercy -of our huge friend up here, with a prospect of dangling from a yard-arm -if he turns out to be an Englishman.” - -“Shure an we’ll blow ourselves out of water,” said O’Shaughnessy -himself, happening to overhear the conclusion of Westbrook’s remark, -“rayther than do that same.” - -“And into it also, eh!” said Westbrook. - -O’Shaughnessy made no reply, but shrugging his shoulders, the -conversation dropped. - -The strange sail had by this time been made out to be a three-decker, -and so rapidly did he gain on us that we now counted upwards of forty -guns on a side. As the breeze freshened, moreover, his velocity -increased. Throwing out fold after fold of canvass, until a pyramid of -snowy duck rose towering above his decks, and the water rolled in -cataracts of foam beneath his gigantic bows, he seemed determined to -overtake us before the breeze which he brought with him could by any -possibility subside. - -Meanwhile we made every effort to escape; but without success. The very -freshness of the breeze, owing to our comparatively light canvass, was -in favor of our adversary. In vain we threw out every sail; in vain the -ropes were hauled as taut as they could be drawn; in vain as a last -resort, our sails were wet down even to the trucks—every endeavor to -increase our speed only appeared to weary out our crew, without altering -the relative velocity of the two ships. - -“By my faith! but yonder fellow sails well,” said the skipper, “I little -thought anything that carried canvass could come up in this style, hand -over hand, to the saucy Fire-Fly. What think you, Mr. Stevens?” - -The lieutenant shook his head, and answered, - -“I fear, sir, we shall have to choose betwixt a surrender or a hopeless -fight.” - -“Ay, ay—that’s true,” said the skipper, abstractedly, “but he’s not -overhauled us yet, and there’s many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, -you know.” - -“Pray God it may be so now!” - -By this time the man-of-war had come up within long cannon-shot of the -schooner, and just as the lieutenant finished his ejaculation, the -stranger luffed beautifully up a point or two, and the next minute a -sheet of flame streamed out from one of her bow-guns, and a shot -whistling past us aloft, plunged headlong into the sea to leeward. At -the same moment a roll of bunting shot up to the gaff of the stranger, -and slowly unrolling blew out upon the air. - -“The English cross—by all that’s holy!” ejaculated the skipper. - -There was a dead silence of more than a minute. Each one looked into his -neighbor’s face. The captain, with a compressed lip and a disturbed -brow, gazed, without speaking, on the man-of-war; while the discipline -of the service, as well as the sudden knowledge of our peril, were -sufficient to restrain the officers from conversation. Directly, -however, the Englishman luffed again; another sheet of fire blazed from -her bows; and a ball, sent this time with more certainty of aim, went -through our fore topsail just above the foot. - -“Show him the bunting,” growled the captain through his clenched teeth, -“and get ready the long gun.” - -We looked at each other in mute astonishment. I thought of Paul Jones in -a like emergency. But no one dreamed of expostulation, even if such a -thing had been allowable from inferiors. The flag was brought. - -“Send the bunting aloft.” - -“Ay, ay, sir!” - -The huge ensign, at the word, fluttered to the gaff, and whipping out on -the breeze, disclosed the cognizance of the commonwealth, emblazoned on -its surface. No sooner did it unclose its folds than the man-of-war -luffed rapidly, and several points more than at either the preceding -times; while simultaneously a sheet of continuous fire rolled along his -side, and a shower of balls, ploughing up the sea betwixt the two -vessels, fell like hail around the schooner. At the same moment I heard -a noise like rattling thunder at my side, and looking up I saw the -mainsail coming down by the run. Quicker than thought it lay a wreck -across the schooner. - -“We are sinking,” shouted a voice. It was that of the purser. The terror -of the speaker betrayed itself in every tone. “God have mercy on us, for -we are going down.” - -“Silence, fool!” sternly said the skipper, and then raising his voice he -thundered, “what have they hurt?” - -“They’ve cut away the throat halyards, and the peak has parted with the -strain,” answered the first lieutenant, who, with Westbrook and myself -had sprung at once to ascertain the real cause of the alarm. - -“Let new ropes be reeved—all hands to your duty—let drive with the -long gun.” - -The old gunner had been calmly waiting until the momentary confusion -should subside; and now, with his usual flourish, he applied the match. - -“Hit him, by the Lord Harry—and cut down his topsail,” ejaculated the -old sea-dog in high glee, as the stranger’s fore-topsail fell from the -cap. - -This daring bravado appeared to inflame the haughty Englishman beyond -all endurance, for, after the momentary vacillation in his course -occasioned by the loss of so important a sail, he put his helm down -again, and without losing headway to fire any more unimportant shot, -rapidly approached us. Our fate was now, to all appearance, sealed. We -gave ourselves up for lost. Dismal recollections of all we had heard -respecting the prison-ships of our enemy, or of the more summary -punishment of death sometimes inflicted on our countrymen, came crowding -on our minds. We looked into each other’s faces in silence, but, though -no word was spoken, on every countenance we read the determination of a -brave man, to die sooner than to submit. Such a resolution may seem -strange to others, but we were like men to whom defeat is worse than -death. We could not submit. To us the horrors of a prison-ship were more -appalling than those of a grave. We were resolved, if we could not -effect an escape, to die at bay. - -“I would give a year’s pay,” at length ejaculated the skipper, but in a -low tone so as not to be heard by the crew, “if this breeze would but -die away here. We should then have a chance, however slight. But to be -cooped up like a rat in a hole—it is too bad!” - -The sentence had scarcely been concluded, when, as if in answer to the -skipper’s aspiration, the breeze blew out in a sudden gust, and then -died rapidly away, until it had almost subsided. - -“Ah!” said the captain, “my wish has had a magical effect. I’ faith, -we’re dropping the Englishman already. Oh! for two hours of calm.” - -“And we shall have it soon, though not for long,” said the old -quarter-master, for the first time for nearly an hour taking a complete -survey of the sky, and shaking his head knowingly, but with something of -an ominous gesture. As he concluded his scrutiny, he said, “there’s -something brewing off here to leeward which will make us before many -hours reel like a drunken man, or my name isn’t Jack Martingale.” - -“What mean you?” said the lieutenant. - -“You’ve mayhap never sailed in these latitudes, or you would have seen a -hurricane afore now,” said the quarter-master. “Well, yonder tiny cloud, -down there on the sea-board in a line with that second ratlin, holds in -itself such a capful of wind as will drive the stoutest ship like a -feather before it—ay! or send Noah’s ark itself, which the parson says -was bigger than a fleet of ninety-fours, skimming away swifter than a -sea-gull over the seas.” - -We all turned in the direction to which the old fellow pointed us, and -sure enough, about five or six degrees above the horizon, might be seen -a small dark insignificant looking cloud, hanging like a speck upon the -azure surface of the sky. Had we not known the quarter-master’s superior -experience, the younger portion of our group might have discredited his -prophecy. As it was, we were almost incredulous. Yet as we gazed on the -little cloud, we noticed that it slowly but steadily increased in size. -Our attention, however, was at this moment recalled from the signs to -leeward by the renewed demonstrations of an attack on the part of the -ninety-four. - -The wind, during our short colloquy, I have said, had blown fiercer than -ever, and then nearly died away. This partial calm, however, had been of -short duration. In a few minutes the breeze was seen ruffling the sea -again, from a quarter of the horizon, however, several points to the -leeward of its old position. After blowing freshly for a few minutes -this gust too ceased. Meantime the enemy had gained little, if anything, -upon us, and no doubt fancying he perceived the signs of unsettled -weather in the sky, and therefore wishing to bring the chase to a speedy -termination, he luffed up once more, and opened a fire on us with his -bow guns. It now become a struggle of the most exciting character. Our -mainsail had by this time been repaired, and the time lost to the foe in -luffing nearly counterbalancing his superior sailing, we were enabled to -keep just within long cannon shot of the Englishman, and, by maintaining -this distance, to protract our surrender until a chance ball should -happen to disable us, or night should set in to favor our escape. - -“He gains nothing on us now, I think,” said the skipper, “but his guns -are well served. That was truly sent,” he suddenly added, as a ball -whistled by within a few feet of his head, and then plunged into the sea -some fathoms off. - -“And there comes the breeze again,” said the lieutenant, “how the -Englishman walks up toward us!” - -It was even as he said. The breeze which, during the last five minutes, -had been chopping about the horizon, now blowing in fitful gusts, and -now dying away into an almost perfect calm, came out, as the lieutenant -spoke, from its old quarter, and heeling the tall ninety-four over until -his coppers glanced in the sunlight, sent him like an arrow from the -string across the deep. We could see the breeze ruffling the sea ahead -of the enemy, and keeping provokingly but a few cables’ length in his -advance for many minutes before it reached ourselves, and when at length -it bellied out our canvass, and we began to forge along, the man-of-war -had lessened by one-third the distance that had intervened betwixt us. -As if re-inspired by his advantage, the Englishman began to fire on us -with rapid and murderous velocity. Ball after ball came whizzing after -us, some tearing up the bulwark, some madly splintering the hull, and -more than one cutting its terrific passage along our decks. In vain we -made the most desperate exertions to increase our speed. The strength of -the breeze was a disadvantage against which our comparatively light -canvass could not contend. Every moment, we saw, lessened the distance -between us and the foe. It seemed madness to contend further. Already -the ninety-four was in dreadful proximity. The schooner was becoming -terribly cut up in her hull, and it seemed a miracle that her spars had -hitherto escaped. If we should be crippled, and we knew not but the next -shot might do it, how could we expect any mercy from our foe? Rebels -already in the eye of our pursuers we had nothing to hope for if -captured. Every one felt this. No one therefore dreamed of a surrender. -As the wounded men were carried below, their departing looks were -directed frowningly on the enemy,—and the last words of the dying were -to conjure their messmates never to give up. - -“Never flinch, my hearties,” ejaculated the gunner, as one of his crew -was struck by a splinter; and had to be carried below. “Give it to ’em, -for villains and tyrants as they are. Hah! I have him in a line there. -Stand by all now,” and giving a last squint along his piece, he applied -the match, and gazing after the shot as it went whistling away, -exclaimed, “hit him on the quarter. I wonder who’s hurt,” he added, as a -sudden commotion was seen on the enemy’s deck; “somebody of more note -than a mere topman, I guess, or they wouldn’t be in such a flurry about -it.” - -“And that’s the answer,” said Westbrook, as a ball struck us forward, -scattering the bulwark about the deck, and killing a man outright at the -gunner’s side. - -“Swab her out there,” said the imperturbable old sea-dog, without -flinching in the least, “and we’ll revenge poor Harry Ratline. By the -Lord above, I’ll make them pay for this. Work faster, you lubberly -scoundrel,” he continued, cuffing the powder-boy. “There, that will do. -And now let’s see what damage you’ll do, old red-mouth!” and patting his -piece familiarly, he applied the match, and stooping on his knees after -the recoil, glanced along the gun to mark the path of his ball. It -struck the ninety-four just by the fore-chains, entering the first port -aft. It needed nothing to tell the deadly revenge of the shot. Even amid -the roar of the contest we could almost fancy we heard the shrieks of -the wounded and dying from that fatal discharge. - -So intensely occupied had been every thought, during these last few -minutes, that I had not noticed the gradual subsidence in the wind; but -my attention was at this moment aroused to it by an exclamation of -O’Shaughnessy at my side, and turning my gaze to leeward, I saw at once -the cause of his wonder. - -How long had elapsed since we had noticed the speck on the horizon to -which the old quarter-master had called our attention I have no means of -determining; but, owing perhaps to the rapidity with which all the -subsequent events had transpired, it seemed to be scarcely five minutes. -In that interval a radical change had come over the heavens. The whole -of the larboard horizon was covered with a dense black cloud, extending -to the very zenith, and spreading with incredible velocity around the -seaboard and over the vault of heaven. Even as I gazed, the rising -clouds began to encroach on the western firmament, until only a narrow -speck of sky, through which the declining sun shone out with a ghastly -lustre was seen in that quarter of the horizon. In a moment more the -massy curtain of cloud obscured even this opening, and nothing was seen -above or around us but the wild and ominous darkness, which, reflected -from the unruffled surface of the deep, and struggling with the few -faint gleams of light that yet remained, wrapt everything in its own -sepulchral gloom. Never shall I forget the expression of my companions’ -faces in that death-like obscurity. - -The wind, meanwhile, had for the twentieth time within the last hour -died away, and we now lay moving unquietly on the troubled surface of -the deep. The man-of-war was to be seen in his old position, and as he -rose and fell sluggishly in the distant gloom, his white canvass -gleaming out with sepulchral effect through the darkness, one might -almost have fancied that the shadowy foe was some gigantic spirit ship, -hanging like an evil genius upon our quarter. As if awed by the sudden -change which had come over the firmament, both vessels had -simultaneously ceased firing. The pause on the part of the Englishman, -however, was only momentary. The outlines of his shadowy form were soon -illuminated by the red glare of his guns, bringing his tall masts out in -bold relief against the gloomy back-ground, and shedding a sulphurous -hue on everything around. The sullen booming of the guns; the ghastly -light flung over the deep; the low unquiet murmurs of the sea; and the -darkness gathering more and more terrific over the firmament and -reflected back from the sea until it seemed as colorless as ink, made up -a scene whose sublimity and horror no pen can describe. The men looked -like ghosts, as they flitted to and fro across the decks; and on every -countenance was impressed the feelings of the awestruck owner. - -“Cannot yonder fellow see the doom that awaits him, unless he gives over -firing, and prepares for the squall?” said the old quarter-master. - -Even as he spoke a low hollow murmur was heard as if coming out of the -deep, which struck a nameless terror into our hearts. It was the sure -presage of the coming hurricane. The men were already aloft getting in -the sails, but as that murmured sound struck on the skipper’s ear, he -shouted, - -“Loose and let run—in with every thing—lose not a second—cut with and -cut all.” - -He had hardly commenced speaking when the dark canopy of clouds on the -starboard seaboard lifted up, as if by magic, several degrees from the -horizon, displaying a long lurid, yet sickly streak of light, against -which the surges rose and fell in bold relief. At the same instant that -low wild sound was heard again rising out of the deep; then a hoarse -murmur, the like of which I had never listened to before, issued from -the lurid seaboard; then an ominous pause of a moment, and only a -moment, succeeded; and, while we gazed in mute wonder on each other at -these extraordinary phenomena, a deep, smothered rumbling sound was -heard, growing rapidly nigher and nigher, and increasing in loudness as -it approached; the sea on the starboard horizon became a mass of foam; -and, with a rushing noise, the tempest swept down upon us, hissing, -roaring, and screaming through our rigging, as if a thousand unearthly -beings were riding by upon the blast. The men had scarcely time to see -the approaching danger, and hear the captain’s cry, - -“Down, for your lives, down—cut all, and slide by the backstays,” -before we were lying almost on our beam ends, while the sea flew over us -in a dense shower of spray, almost blinding our sight. - -“Hard up!” thundered the skipper. - -“Ay, ay, sir!” - -It was a period of fearful peril. For several moments, during the first -force of the squall, we knew not whether our little craft would right -again. The mingled roar of the wind and water meanwhile was terrific, -and sufficient of themselves to paralyze the stoutest heart. As far as -the eye could see, on every hand, the sea was as flat as a table, and -covered with foam. The pressure of the hurricane even on our bare poles -was tremendous. Every one was forced to grasp a rope, to keep himself -from being blown bodily overboard. At length, however, with a painful -effort, our gallant craft slowly righted, staggered a moment uncertainly -beneath the squall, and then catching the hurricane well aft, went off -like a thunderbolt before the gale. - -“Thank God!” ejaculated the skipper, drawing a long breath. - -“Amen!” was my silent response. - -During these few last moments of thrilling suspense, I had forgotten the -Englishman altogether, but he now recurred to my thoughts, and I looked -eagerly ahead for him. The driving spray, however, shut out everything, -except in our immediate vicinity, from our sight. At length, however, my -attention was arrested by seeing a tall spar rising over the mist on our -lee-bow, and, rushing on to it with inconceivable velocity, we were soon -on the weather quarter of the foe. Never shall I forget that sight. The -huge ship was lying on his beam-ends, and his mizen-mast had already -been cut away in an unsuccessful attempt to right him. The sea rolled -over him, as we approached, in cataracts. For an instant we gave -ourselves up for lost, as we were driving right on to the unhappy -stranger. At that moment, however, we saw his mainmast go over his side. -He righted slowly. We were now so near that I could have pitched a -biscuit on board. - -“Hard up—ha-a-rd!” thundered the Englishman. - -“Luff—luff!” roared the skipper, as we drove on to the quarter of the -foe. - -It was a thrilling moment. For the space of a second we seemed dashing -right into the foe, and a stifled shriek burst from every lip; but just -as we gave up all for lost, the two vessels shot apart, grazed each -other in passing, and then rushed like maddened coursers each on his own -course. In less than a quarter of an hour, the foe had vanished in the -mists upon our larboard quarter. - - * * * * * - - - - - THE DERVISH. - - - AN EASTERN LEGEND. - - - BY W. FALCONER. - - - The following little tale was related to me by a Catholic - Missionary, (who had resided thirty years at Pondicherry,) on - board the Panurge, during a voyage to Mauritius. It is curious - to remark how the early traditions of all lands have certain - points of resemblance, as this is exactly in the Rip Van Winkle - vein, and is an Indian legend as old as the mountain. - - Diary. - - The Sultan revelled in the gay kiosque, - Where Ganges’ waters to the morning rolled, - Quaffing the snow-cool wine from cups of gold; - A humble Dervish prayed in the lone mosque— - “Prophet of God!” with fervor deep, he cried, - “Grant me a token that my prayer is heard!” - He raised his eye, and lo! a lovely bird - Upon a pillar’s marble crown he spied; - No fairer warbler, from the Swerga-bowers, - E’er bathed in dews of paler earthly flowers, - The light of Aden on its green wings bringing; - Still, as he gazed, its colors richer grew— - At length, through morn’s fresh glades, away it flew, - Leaving the lone mosque with its music ringing. - - The Dervish followed over mount and plain, - The spirit-bird still flitting on before him, - Th’ hour-numbering sun unheeded speeding o’er him— - He was all ear to drink its gushing strain. - A vain pursuit!—scarce on the bough alighted, - On, on it glanced, to be afresh pursued, - The pilgrim’s courage glowing unsubdued, - His soul on fire—his panting heart delighted! - But where the sunset’s heav’n-unfolding flood - Streams through the columns of the Banian wood, - Alas! ’tis melting from his eager eye, - Fading away with the quick fading beams— - A lovely phantom from the Land of Dreams— - Gone, as it came, to bowers beyond the sky. - - ’Neath dreamy twilight’s twinkling, dew-fed lamp, - He stretched his weary limbs along the moss - Under the Banian’s shade, and mourned the loss - Of the sweet-vision on his night-couch damp, - Yet slept at length, nor waked till dewy morn - Closed the full stars and oped the infant buds, - ’Rousing the warblers of the Indian woods: - But his bright bird was gone, and he is lorn! - Yet prays, and in a fountain’s cooling waves, - With large ablutions, his hot brow he laves, - Resumes his staff, and seeks his humble home— - A weary journey—days and months speed by - Ere he hath reached that mountain summit high, - The emerald pillar of the sapphire dome - - Amid whose rocks his little chapel stood: - But lo! what vision bursts upon his gaze! - Domes, spires and churches, ’neath the sunset rays, - Gleaming ’mid many a green and palmy wood. - The wayward Genii, he remembered, loved - To weave such cities of the filmy light. - Begun and finished in a single night; - But still his wonder grew, as lost he roved - Through streets and squares built of substantial stone, - Where late the camel-herds were browsing lone, - And gleamed the crescent from the minaret. - Was he awake?—the crowd around him spoke - A strange, rough tongue—new wonders on him broke, - And wonder filled the eyes of all he met. - - A Fakir passed. Of him he wildly asks - Who, what, and where he is? With wondering smile, - Answers the Moslem, “From a northern isle, - Whose iron-coast a frozen girdle clasps, - Came Islam’s foes, and this rich city grand - Is the creation of the Infidel— - The haughty lords of radiant Indian land— - A tale most sad for Moslem lips to tell!” - A hundred years had fled since he had chased - The spirit-bird, swift as a dream effaced; - And that sweet warbler was a sainted sprite, - Sent from its rest, to lead so good a man - To Christian light—for so the legend ran - Which cheered my vigil on the ocean bright. - - * * * * * - - - - - A FEW WORDS ON SECRET WRITING. - - - BY EDGAR A. POE. - - -As we can scarcely imagine a time when there did not exist a necessity, -or at least a desire, of transmitting information from one individual to -another, in such manner as to elude general comprehension; so we may -well suppose the practice of writing in cipher to be of great antiquity. -De La Guilletiere, therefore, who, in his “Lacedæmon Ancient and -Modern,” maintains that the Spartans were the inventors of Cryptography, -is obviously in error. He speaks of the _scytala_ as being the origin of -the art; but he should only have cited it as one of its earliest -instances, so far as our records extend. The _scytala_ were two wooden -cylinders, precisely similar in all respects. The general of an army, in -going upon any expedition, received from the ephori one of these -cylinders, while the other remained in their possession. If either party -had occasion to communicate with the other, a narrow strip of parchment -was so wrapped around the _scytala_ that the edges of the skin fitted -accurately each to each. The writing was then inscribed longitudinally, -and the epistle unrolled and dispatched. If, by mischance, the messenger -was intercepted, the letter proved unintelligible to his captors. If he -reached his destination safely, however, the party addressed had only to -involve the second cylinder in the strip to decipher the inscription. -The transmission to our own times of this obvious mode of cryptography -is due, probably, to the _historical_ uses of the _scytala_, rather than -to anything else. Similar means of secret intercommunication must have -existed almost contemporaneously with the invention of letters. - -It may be as well to remark, in passing, that in none of the treatises -on the subject of this paper which have fallen under our cognizance, -have we observed any suggestion of a method—other than those which -apply alike to all ciphers—for the solution of the cipher by _scytala_. -We read of instances, indeed, in which the intercepted parchments were -deciphered; but we are not informed that this was ever done except -accidentally. Yet a solution might be obtained with absolute certainty -in this manner. The strip of skin being intercepted, let there be -prepared a cone of great length comparatively—say six feet long—and -whose circumference at base shall at least equal the length of the -strip. Let this latter be rolled upon the cone near the base, edge to -edge, as above described; then, still keeping edge to edge, and -maintaining the parchment close upon the cone, let it be gradually -slipped towards the apex. In this process, some of those words, -syllables, or letters, whose connection is intended, will be sure to -come together at that point of the cone where its diameter equals that -of the _scytala_ upon which the cipher was written. And as, in passing -up the cone to its apex, all possible diameters are passed over, there -is no chance of a failure. The circumference of the _scytala_ being thus -ascertained, a similar one can be made, and the cipher applied to it. - -Few persons can be made to believe that it is not quite an easy thing to -invent a method of secret writing which shall baffle investigation. Yet -it may be roundly asserted that human ingenuity cannot concoct a cipher -which human ingenuity cannot resolve. In the facility with which such -writing is deciphered, however, there exist very remarkable differences -in different intellects. Often, in the case of two individuals of -acknowledged equality as regards ordinary mental efforts, it will be -found that, while one cannot unriddle the commonest cipher, the other -will scarcely be puzzled by the most abstruse. It may be observed, -generally, that in such investigations the analytic ability is very -forcibly called into action; and, for this reason, cryptographical -solutions might with great propriety be introduced into academies, as -the means of giving tone to the most important of the powers of mind. - -Were two individuals, totally unpractised in cryptography, desirous of -holding by letter a correspondence which should be unintelligible to all -but themselves, it is most probable that they would at once think of a -peculiar alphabet, to which each should have a key. At first it would, -perhaps, be arranged that _a_ should stand for _z_, _b_ for _y_, _c_ for -_x_, _d_ for _w_, &c. &c.; that is to say, the order of the letters -would be reversed. Upon second thoughts, this arrangement appearing too -obvious, a more complex mode would be adopted. The first thirteen -letters might be written beneath the last thirteen, thus: - - n│o│p│q│r│s│t│u│v│w│x│y│z│ - a│b│c│d│e│f│g│h│i│j│k│l│m│; - -and, so placed, _a_ might stand for _n_ and _n_ for _a_, _o_ for _b_ and -_b_ for _o_, &c. &c. This, again, having an air of regularity which -might be fathomed, the key alphabet might be constructed absolutely at -random. - - Thus, a might stand for p - b might stand for x - c might stand for u - d might stand for o, &c. - -The correspondents, unless convinced of their error by the solution of -their cipher, would no doubt be willing to rest in this latter -arrangement, as affording full security. But if not, they would be -likely to hit upon the plan of arbitrary marks used in place of the -usual characters. For example, - - ( might be employed for a - . might be employed for b - : might be employed for c - ; might be employed for d - ) might be employed for e, &c. - -A letter composed of such characters would have an intricate appearance -unquestionably. If, still, however, it did not give full satisfaction, -the idea of a perpetually shifting alphabet might be conceived, and thus -effected. Let two circular pieces of pasteboard be prepared, one about -half an inch in diameter less than the other. Let the centre of the -smaller be placed upon the centre of the larger, and secured for a -moment from slipping; while _radii_ are drawn from the common centre to -the circumference of the smaller circle, and thus extended to the -circumference of the greater. Let there be twenty-six of these _radii_, -forming on each pasteboard twenty-six spaces. In each of these spaces on -the under circle write one of the letters of the alphabet, so that the -whole alphabet be written—if at random so much the better. Do the same -with the upper circle. Now run a pin through the common centre, and let -the upper circle revolve, while the under one is held fast. Now stop the -revolution of the upper circle, and, while both lie still, write the -epistle required; using for _a_ that letter in the smaller circle which -tallies with _a_ in the larger, for _b_ that letter in the smaller -circle which tallies with _b_ in the larger, &c. &c. In order that an -epistle thus written may be read by the person for whom it is intended, -it is only necessary that he should have in his possession circles -constructed as those just described, and that he should know any two of -the characters (one in the under and one in the upper circle) which were -in juxta-position when his correspondent wrote the cipher. Upon this -latter point he is informed by looking at the two initial letters of the -document, which serve as a key. Thus, if he sees _a m_ at the beginning, -he concludes that, by turning his circles so as to put these characters -in conjunction, he will arrive at the alphabet employed. - -At a cursory glance, these various modes of constructing a cipher seem -to have about them an air of inscrutable secresy. It appears almost an -impossibility to unriddle what has been put together by so complex a -method. And to some persons the difficulty might be great; but to -others—to those skilled in deciphering—such enigmas are very simple -indeed. The reader should bear in mind that the basis of the whole art -of solution, as far as regards these matters, is found in the general -principles of the formation of language itself, and thus is altogether -independent of the particular laws which govern any cipher, or the -construction of its key. The difficulty of reading a cryptographical -puzzle is by no means always in accordance with the labor or ingenuity -with which it has been constructed. The sole use of the key, indeed, is -for those _au fait_ to the cipher; in its perusal by a third party, no -reference is had to it at all. The lock of the secret is picked. In the -different methods of cryptography specified above, it will be observed -that there is a gradually increasing complexity. But this complexity is -only in shadow. It has no substance whatever. It appertains merely to -the formation, and has no bearing upon the solution, of the cipher. The -last mode mentioned is not in the least degree more difficult to be -deciphered than the first—whatever may be the difficulty of either. - -In the discussion of an analogous subject, in one of the weekly papers -of this city, about eighteen months ago, the writer of this article had -occasion to speak of the application of a rigorous _method_ in all forms -of thought—of its advantages—of the extension of its use even to what -is considered the operation of pure fancy—and thus, subsequently, of -the solution of cipher. He even ventured to assert that no cipher, of -the character above specified, could be sent to the address of the -paper, which he would not be able to resolve. This challenge excited, -most unexpectedly, a very lively interest among the numerous readers of -the journal. Letters were poured in upon the editor from all parts of -the country; and many of the writers of these epistles were so convinced -of the impenetrability of their mysteries, as to be at great pains to -draw him into wagers on the subject. At the same time, they were not -always scrupulous about sticking to the point. The cryptographs were, in -numerous instances, altogether beyond the limits defined in the -beginning. Foreign languages were employed. Words and sentences were run -together without interval. Several alphabets were used in the same -cipher. One gentleman, but moderately endowed with conscientiousness, -inditing us a puzzle composed of pot-hooks and hangers to which the -wildest typography of the office could afford nothing similar, went even -so far as to jumble together no less than _seven distinct alphabets_, -without intervals between the letters, _or between the lines_. Many of -the cryptographs were dated in Philadelphia, and several of those which -urged the subject of a bet were written by gentlemen of this city. Out -of, perhaps, one hundred ciphers altogether received, there was only one -which we did not immediately succeed in resolving. This one we -_demonstrated_ to be an imposition—that is to say, we fully proved it a -jargon of random characters, having no meaning whatever. In respect to -the epistle of the seven alphabets, we had the pleasure of completely -_nonplus_-ing its inditer by a prompt and satisfactory translation. - -The weekly paper mentioned, was, for a period of some months, greatly -occupied with the hieroglyphic and cabalistic-looking solutions of the -cryptographs sent us from all quarters. Yet with the exception of the -writers of the ciphers, we do not believe that any individuals could -have been found, among the readers of the journal, who regarded the -matter in any other light than in that of a desperate humbug. We mean to -say that no one really believed in the authenticity of the answers. One -party averred that the mysterious figures were only inserted to give a -_queer_ air to the paper, for the purpose of attracting attention. -Another thought it more probable that we not only solved the ciphers, -but put them together ourselves for solution. This having been the state -of affairs at the period when it was thought expedient to decline -farther dealings in necromancy, the writer of this article avails -himself of the present opportunity to maintain the truth of the journal -in question—to repel the charges of rigmarole by which it was -assailed—and to declare, in his own name, that the ciphers were all -written in good faith, and solved in the same spirit. - -A very common, and somewhat too obvious mode of secret correspondence, -is the following. A card is interspersed, at irregular intervals, with -oblong spaces, about the length of ordinary words of three syllables in -a bourgeois type. Another card is made exactly coinciding. One is in -possession of each party. When a letter is to be written, the key-card -is placed upon the paper, and words conveying the true meaning inscribed -in the spaces. The card is then removed and the blanks filled up, so as -to make out a signification different from the real one. When the person -addressed receives the cipher, he has merely to apply to it his own -card, when the superfluous words are concealed, and the significant ones -alone appear. The chief objection to this cryptograph is the difficulty -of so filling the blanks as not to give a forced appearance to the -sentences. Differences, also, in the handwriting, between the words -written in the spaces, and those inscribed upon removal of the card, -will always be detected by a close observer. - -A pack of cards is sometimes made the vehicle of a cipher, in this -manner. The parties determine, in the first place, upon certain -arrangements of the pack. For example: it is agreed that, when a writing -is to be commenced, a natural sequence of the spots shall be made; with -spades at top, hearts next, diamonds next, and clubs last. This order -being obtained, the writer proceeds to inscribe upon the top card the -first letter of his epistle, upon the next the second, upon the next the -third, and so on until the pack is exhausted, when, of course, he will -have written fifty-two letters. He now shuffles the pack according to a -preconcerted plan. For example: he takes three cards from the bottom and -places them at top, then one from top, placing it at bottom, and so on, -for a given number of times. This done, he again inscribes fifty-two -characters as before, proceeding thus until his epistle is written. The -pack being received by the correspondent, he has only to place the cards -in the order agreed upon for commencement, to read, letter by letter, -the first fifty-two characters as intended. He has then only to shuffle -in the manner pre-arranged for the second perusal, to decipher the -series of the next fifty-two letters—and so on to the end. The -objection to this cryptograph lies in the nature of the missive. _A pack -of cards_, sent from one party to another, would scarcely fail to excite -suspicion; and it cannot be doubted that it is far better to secure -ciphers from being considered as such, than to waste time in attempts at -rendering them scrutiny-proof, when intercepted. Experience shows that -the most cunningly constructed cryptograph, if suspected, can and will -be unriddled. - -An unusually secure mode of secret intercommunication might be thus -devised. Let the parties each furnish themselves with a copy of the same -edition of a book—the rarer the edition the better—as also the rarer -the book. In the cryptograph, numbers are used altogether, and these -numbers refer to the locality of letters in the volume. For example—a -cipher is received commencing, 121-6-8. The party addressed refers to -page 121, and looks at the sixth letter from the left of the page in the -eighth line from the top. Whatever letter he there finds is the initial -letter of the epistle—and so on. This method is very secure; yet it is -_possible_ to decipher any cryptograph written by its means—and it is -greatly objectionable otherwise, on account of the time necessarily -required for its solution, even with the key-volume. - -It is not to be supposed that Cryptography, as a serious thing, as the -means of imparting important information, has gone out of use at the -present day. It is still commonly practised in diplomacy; and there are -individuals, even now, holding office in the eye of various foreign -governments, whose real business is that of deciphering. We have already -said that a peculiar mental action is called into play in the solution -of cryptographical problems, at least in those of the higher order. Good -cryptographists are rare indeed; and thus their services, although -seldom required, are necessarily well requited. - -An instance of the modern employment of writing in cipher is mentioned -in a work lately published by Messieurs Lea & Blanchard, of this -city—“Sketches of Conspicuous Living Characters of France.” In a notice -of Berryer, it is said that a letter being addressed by the Duchess de -Berri to the legitimists of Paris, to inform them of her arrival, it was -accompanied by a long note in cipher, the key of which she had forgotten -to give. “The penetrating mind of Berryer,” says the biographer, “soon -discovered it. It was this phrase substituted for the twenty-four -letters of the alphabet—_Le gouvernement provisoire_.” - -The assertion that Berryer “soon discovered the key-phrase,” merely -proves that the writer of these memoirs is entirely innocent of -cryptographical knowledge. Monsieur B. no doubt ascertained the -key-phrase; but it was merely to satisfy his curiosity, _after the -riddle had been read_. He made no use of the key in deciphering. The -lock was picked. - -In our notice of the book in question (published in the April number of -this Magazine) we alluded to this subject thus— - -“The phrase ‘_Le gouvernement provisoire_’ is French, and the note in -cipher was addressed to Frenchmen. The difficulty of deciphering may -well be supposed much greater, had the key been in a foreign tongue; yet -any one who will take the trouble may address us a note, in the same -manner as here proposed; and the key-phrase may be either in French, -Italian, Spanish, German, Latin, or Greek, (or in any of the dialects of -these languages,) and we pledge ourselves for the solution of the -riddle.” - -This challenge has elicited but a single response, which is embraced in -the following letter. The only quarrel we have with the epistle, is that -its writer has declined giving us his name in full. We beg that he will -take an early opportunity of doing this, and thus relieve us of the -chance of that suspicion which was attached to the cryptography of the -weekly journal above-mentioned—the suspicion of inditing ciphers to -ourselves. The postmark of the letter is _Stonington, Conn._ - - S——, Ct., April 21, 1841. - - _To the Editor of Graham’s Magazine._ - - Sir:—In the April number of your magazine, while reviewing the - translation by Mr. Walsh of “Sketches of Conspicuous Living - Characters of France,” you invite your readers to address you a - note in cipher, “the key phrase to which may be either in - French, Italian, Spanish, German, Latin or Greek,” and pledge - yourself for its solution. My attention being called, by your - remarks, to this species of cipher-writing, I composed for my - own amusement the following exercises, in the first part of - which the key-phrase is in English—in the second in Latin. As I - did not see, (by the number for May,) that any of your - correspondents had availed himself of your offer, I take the - liberty to send the enclosed, on which, if you should think it - worth your while, you can exercise your ingenuity. - - I am yours, respectfully, - S. D. L. - - - No. 1. - - Cauhiif aud frd sdftirf ithot tacd wdde rdchfdr tiu fuacfshff - heo fdoudf hetmsafhie tuis ied herhchriai fi aeiftdu wn sdaef it - iuhf heo hiidohwid wn aen deodsf ths tiu itis hf iaf iuhoheaiin - rdffhedr; aer ftd auf it ftif fdoudfin oissiehoafheo - hefdiihodeod taf wdde odeduaiin fdusdr ounsfiouastn. Saen - fsdohdf it fdoudf ihufheo idud weiie fi ftd aeohdaff; fisdfhsdf, - A fiacdf tdar ief ftacdr aer ftd ouiie iuhff de isie ihft fisd - herd hwid oiiiuheo tiihr, atfdu ithot tahu wdheo sdushffdr fi - ouii aoahe, hetiusafhie oiiir wd fuaefshffdr ihft ihffid raeoeu - ft af rhfoicdun iiiir hefid iefhi ftd aswiiafiun dshffid fatdin - udaotdr hff rdffheafhil. Ounsfiouastn tiidcdu siud suisduin - dswuaodf ftifd sirdf it iuhfheo ithot aud uderdudr idohwid iein - wn sdaef it fisd desiaefiun wdn ithot sawdf weiie ftd udai - fhoehthoafhie it ftd onstduf dssiindr fi hff siffdffiu. - - - No. 2. - - Ofoiioiiaso ortsiii sov eodisoioe afduiostifoi ft iftvi si tri - oistoiv oiniafetsorit ifeov rsri inotiiiiv ridiiot, irio rivvio - covit atrotfetsoria aioriti iitri tf oitovin tri aetifei - ioreitit sov usttoi oioittstifo dfti afdooitior trso ifeov tri - dfit otftfeov softriedi ft oistoiv oriofiforiti suitteii - viireiiitifoi ft tri iarfoisiti, iiti trir uet otiiiotiv uitfti - rid io tri eoviieciiiv rfasueostr tf rii dftrit tfoeei. - -In the solution of the first of these ciphers we had little more than -ordinary trouble. The second proved to be exceedingly difficult, and it -was only by calling every faculty into play that we could read it at -all. The first runs thus. - -“Various are the methods which have been devised for transmitting secret -information from one individual to another, by means of writing, -illegible to any except him for whom it was originally designed; and the -art of thus secretly communicating intelligence has been generally -termed _cryptography_. Many species of secret writing were known to the -ancients. Sometimes a slave’s head was shaved, and the crown written -upon with some indelible coloring fluid; after which the hair being -permitted to grow again, information could be transmitted with little -danger that discovery would ensue until the ambulatory epistle safely -reached its destination. Cryptography, however, pure, properly embraces -those modes of writing which are rendered legible only by means of some -explanatory key which makes known the real signification of the ciphers -employed to its possessor.” - -The key-phrase of this cryptograph is—“A word to the wise is -sufficient.” - -The second is thus translated— - -“Nonsensical phrases and unmeaning combinations of words, as the learned -lexicographer would have confessed himself, when hidden under -cryptographic ciphers, serve to _perpdex_ the curious enquirer, and -baffle penetration more completely than would the most profound -_apothems_ of learned philosophers. Abstruse disquisitions of the -scholiasts, were they but presented before him in the undisguised -vocabulary of his mother tongue——” - -The last sentence here (as will be seen) is broken off short. The -spelling we have strictly adhered to. _D_, by mistake, has been put for -_l_ in _perplex_. - -The key-phrase is—“_Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re_.” - -In the ordinary cryptograph, as will be seen in reference to most of -those we have specified above, the artificial alphabet agreed upon by -the correspondents, is employed, letter for letter, in place of the -usual or natural one. For example:—two parties wish to communicate -secretly. It is arranged before parting that - - ) shall stand for a - ( ————— ” b - — ————— ” c - * ————— ” d - . ————— ” e - ’ ————— ” f - ; ————— ” g - : ————— ” h - ? ————— ” i or j - ! ————— ” k - & ————— ” l - 0 ————— ” m - ‘ ————— ” n - † ————— ” o - ‡ ————— ” p - ¶ ————— ” q - #[TN1] ————— ” r - ] ————— ” s - [ ————— ” t - £ ————— ” u or v - $ ————— ” w - ¿ ————— ” x - ¡ ————— ” y - %[TN2] ————— ” z - ------ - -[TN1] Transcriber’s note: In the original publication of the magazine, -the character used was a small right pointing hand, which is visible in -the illustration of the crytograph below. Although a modern html version -of this character exists, it will not display in many modern devices, -depending on the capabilities of the device itself and the fonts -available for use in the device. It has therefore been replaced in this -list with #. - -[TN2] Transcriber’s note: In the original publication of the magazine, -the character used was a small left pointing hand. No suitable html -character was found and even if available, the limitations of some -modern devices and fonts prevents its use in this ebook. It has -therefore been replaced in this list with %. - -Now the following note is to be communicated— - - “We must see you immediately upon a matter of great importance. - Plots have been discovered, and the conspirators are in our - hands. Hasten!” - -These words would be written thus— - -[Illustration: original page image of cryptograph for the transcription -below] - - $.0£][]..¡†£¿00.*¿)].&¡£‡†‘)0)[[.# - †’;#.)[?0‡†#[)‘—.‡&†[]:)£.(..‘*. - ]—†£.#.*)‘*—†‘]‡?#)[†#])#? - ?‘†£#:)‘*]:)][.‘ - -[Transcriber’s Note: In a deviation from the original printed book, for -this text version of the ebook, the character # has been used to -represent letter r in this crytogram, as indicated in the above list.] - -This certainly has an intricate appearance, and would prove a most -difficult cipher to any one not conversant with cryptography. But it -will be observed that _a_, for example, is never represented by any -other character than ), _b_ never by any other character than (, and so -on. Thus by the discovery, accidental or otherwise, of any one letter, -the party intercepting the epistle would gain a permanent and decided -advantage; and could apply his knowledge to all the instances in which -the character in question was employed throughout the cipher. - -In the cryptographs, on the other hand, which have been sent us by our -correspondent at Stonington, and which are identical in conformation -with the cipher resolved by Berryer, no such permanent advantage is to -be obtained. - -Let us refer to the second of these puzzles. Its key-phrase runs thus: - - _Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re._ - -Let us now place the alphabet beneath this phrase, letter beneath -letter— - - S│u│a│v│i│t│e│r - A│b│c│d│e│f│g│h - - i│n│m│o│d│o - i│j│k│l│m│n - - f│o│r│t│i│t│e│r - o│p│q│r│s│t│u│v - - i│n│r│e - w│x│y│z - -We here see that - - a stands for ————— c - d stands for ————— m - e stands for g, n and z - f stands for ————— o - i stands for e, i, s and w - m stands for ————— k - n stands for j and x - o stands for l, n and p - r stands for h, q, v and y - s stands for ————— a - t stands for f, r and t - u stands for ————— b - v stands for ————— d - -In this manner _n_ stands for two letters, and _e_, _o_, and _t_ for -three each, while _i_ and _r_ represent each as many as four. Thirteen -characters are made to perform the operations of the whole alphabet. The -result of such a key-phrase upon the cipher, is to give it the -appearance of a mere medley of the letters _e_, _o_, _t_, _r_ and -_i_—the latter character greatly predominating, through the accident of -being employed for letters which, themselves, are inordinately prevalent -in most languages—we mean _e_ and _i_. - -A letter thus written being intercepted, and the key-phrase unknown, the -individual who should attempt to decipher it may be imagined _guessing_, -or otherwise attempting to convince himself, that a certain character -(_i_, for example,) represented the letter _e_. Looking throughout the -cryptograph for confirmation of this idea, he would meet with nothing -but a negation of it. He would see the character in situations where it -could not possibly represent _e_. He might, for instance, be puzzled by -four _i_’s forming of themselves a single word, without the intervention -of any other character; in which case, of course, they could not be _all -e_’s. It will be seen that the word _wise_ might be thus constructed. We -say this may be seen _now_, by us, in possession of the key-phrase; but -the question will, no doubt, occur, how, _without_ the key-phrase, and -without cognizance of any single letter in the cipher, it would be -possible for the interceptor of such a cryptograph to make any thing of -such a word as _iiii_? - -But again. A key-phrase might easily be constructed, in which one -character would represent seven, eight, or ten letters. Let us then -imagine the word _iiiiiiiiii_ presenting itself in a cryptograph to an -individual _without_ the proper key-phrase; or, if this be a supposition -somewhat too perplexing, let us suppose it occurring to the person for -whom the cipher is designed, and who _has_ the key-phrase. What is he to -do with such a word as _iiiiiiiiii_? In any of the ordinary books upon -Algebra will be found a very concise _formula_ (we have not the -necessary type for its insertion here) for ascertaining the number of -arrangements in which _m_ letters may be placed, taken _n_ at a time. -But no doubt there are none of our readers ignorant of the innumerable -combinations which may be made from these ten _i_’s. Yet, unless it -occur otherwise by accident, the correspondent receiving the cipher -would have to write down all these combinations before attaining the -word intended; and even when he had written them, he would be -inexpressibly perplexed in selecting the word designed from the vast -number of other words arising in the course of the permutation. - -To obviate, therefore, the exceeding difficulty of deciphering this -species of cryptograph, on the part of the possessors of the key-phrase, -and to confine the deep intricacy of the puzzle to those for whom the -cipher was not designed, it becomes necessary that some _order_ should -be agreed upon by the parties corresponding—some order in reference to -which those characters are to be read which represent more than one -letter—and this _order_ must be held in view by the writer of the -cryptograph. It may be agreed, for example, that the _first_ time an _i_ -occurs in the cipher, it is to be understood as representing that -character which stands against the _first i_ in the key-phrase; that the -_second_ time an _i_ occurs it must be supposed to represent that letter -which stands opposed to the _second i_ in the key-phrase, &c. &c. Thus -the _location_ of each cipherical letter must be considered in connexion -with the character itself, in order to determine its exact -signification. - -We say that some pre-concerted _order_ of this kind is necessary, lest -the cipher prove too intricate a lock to yield even to its true key. But -it will be evident, upon inspection, that our correspondent at -Stonington has inflicted upon us a cryptograph in which _no_ order has -been preserved; in which many characters, respectively, stand, at -absolute random, for many others. If, therefore, in regard to the -gauntlet we threw down in April, he should be half inclined to accuse us -of braggadocio, he will yet admit that we have _more_ than acted up to -our boast. If what we then said was not said _suaviter in modo_, what we -now do is at least done _fortiter in re_. - -In these cursory observations we have by no means attempted to exhaust -the subject of Cryptography. With such object in view, a folio might be -required. We have indeed mentioned only a few of the ordinary modes of -cipher. Even two thousand years ago, Æneas Tacticus detailed twenty -distinct methods; and modern ingenuity has added much to the science. -Our design has been chiefly suggestive; and perhaps we have already -bored the readers of the Magazine. To those who desire farther -information upon this topic, we may say that there are extant treatises -by Trithemius, Cap. Porta, Vignere, and P. Niceron. The works of the two -latter may be found, we believe, in the library of the Harvard -University. If, however, there should be sought in these -disquisitions—or in any—_rules for the solution_ of cipher, the seeker -will be disappointed. Beyond some hints in regard to the general -structure of language, and some minute exercises in their practical -application, he will find nothing upon record which he does not in his -own intellect possess. - - * * * * * - - - - - EXTRACT FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM. - - - BY THE AUTHOR OF HOWARD PINCKNEY, ETC. - - - THE MEETING OF THE LOVERS. - - ’Twas on the outskirts of a wood— - A wood of tall and aged trees, - That gave a charm to solitude, - A murmur to the breeze; - ’Twas when frequent falls the leaf, - And we begin to say that brief - And briefer grows the day; - When, far away, the evening sky - Looks sad and sober to the eye; - When darker grows the rivulet, - Where, in some tiny eddy’s play, - The fallen leaves so fitful fret, - Like Hope, when we would hold it yet, - And it would fain be far away. - - How beautiful the beechen tree! - A beechen tree of giant mould, - Whose roots did many a rock unfold. - Entwining them, as you might see: - For, branching from the parent stem, - A velvet moss just covered them; - They sought the nurture of the brook - That from its shade a deep green took, - And murmur’d like the lullaby - Of cradle-watchers, when they look - Upon the infant’s closing eye. - - Forth stepping like the timid deer, - And hearing her own step with fear, - On came a gentle maid; - She crosses o’er the rivulet: - Her silken slipper is not wet— - Why should she be afraid? - She seems spell-bound, and yet seems not; - If fearful thus, why seek the spot? - Why stops she by the tree? - We have volition where to go, - And we may wander to and fro, - Yet, we may not be free— - For Love, though all unseen his chain, - Will draw us over land and main; - And though we meet as far between - As winter wild from summer green, - Yet Love, like Heaven, will be above - The hearts that truly vow to love. - - With step, e’en as the maiden’s, light, - But not a step that e’er knew fright, - Comes one with love-lit look; - He clasps her with his arms around, - As is yon water lily bound - By the encircling brook, - And as it palely droops to hear - The music of the whispering water, - She listens with a charmed fear, - Bound by the spell which there has brought her - The while her fair brow bends and beams - Like that pale flower that loves the streams. - - How to his heart he holds the flower! - “O! ever blessed be the hour - Which brings thee, Helen, to my side. - Our friends would frown, I know, my bird - If but our slightest word were heard; - But, oh! thou yet wilt be my bride— - For though we meet here but to part, - ’Tis not with a divided heart; - Thou wert the soonest here to-day, - But no neglect kept me away; - I know this hour—I know no more— - The rest are but to tell it o’er.” - - “I came the sooner, love,” said she, - With maidenly simplicity— - “Because, before the sun goes down, - Stern darkness in the woods will frown; - And though I reach my home while yet - The red clouds linger in the west, - Methinks dark forms the woods beset; - They trouble me with sad unrest; - How, yester-eve, the big trees moaned! - Methought for me they sighed and groaned: - The screech-owl screeched above my path— - It seemed to haunt me with its wrath: - And all the gentler birds have flown— - The loneliness is all my own!” - - “Love, this is autumn now, you know; - To other lands the wild birds go— - They only rest in summer bower, - And only stay while lasts the flower; - But, Helen, not thus let it be - With all this love that binds us now; - In winter, bare will be the tree, - No bird will sing upon the bough— - But see where I have taught the beech, - If either here should roam alone, - Long after this blest hour has flown, - The vows of both to tell to each: - Our names I’ve circled with a heart, - As thus I hold thee to my own, - And thus, though we afar may part - As ever yet did fond ones sever, - The love that binds us holds forever.” - - This beech tree was their trysting-place! - There, oft in summer’s fragrant eve, - Just when the red sun took his leave— - When the coy moon, with half hid face, - Peeped o’er the eastern hills afar, - With here and there a radiant star; - When twilight came, with sober mien, - And silence brooded o’er the scene— - Thither the maid would often stray, - Humming, may be, a laughing lay, - That told true love was all untrue, - And made of nothing great ado; - She’d have them think, if she were heard, - She scorned the very love she sought, - And that she sung like careless bird— - A maiden who was free in thought: - Who roamed, and, roaming, trolled a glee, - Because she wanted company. - - Upon this eve they met to part - Till spring again should clothe the vine; - They pledged their faith with beating heart, - And made the beechen tree their shrine; - He watched her white dress, glimmering bright - Thro’ the dark woods: “Good night! good night!” - - * * * * * - - - - - SYBIL AND MAIDEN. - - - BY G. G. FOSTER. - - - _Sybil._ - - Why art thou sad? Why droops the willowy lid - O’er the deep fountain of that passionate eye? - What monster in thy bosom’s depths is playing, - And heaving thus those delicate billows, which - The wind of thy sweet breath but dares to swell, - Most daintily, and sighs to fly away? - - _Maiden._ - - I nothing know, but that in a dream - A spirit of light on the pale moonbeam - Flew into my chamber—and it did seem - Nought but a brighter and purer beam - That had dropped from the beautiful sky, - ’Till I wakened—and lo! a lovely mouth, - Whose breath was sweet as winds of the south, - And an eye flashing soft with love and desire, - Which thrilled all my frame with quivering fire, - Peered out, as a cloud swept by; - And a soft voice whispered a thrilling tale, - And my eye grew dim and my red cheek pale. - - _Sybil._ - - Thy guest, fair maid, was Love! Nay, do not start, - And turn thy modest eyes upon the moon— - The god within thee but betrays himself - In every graceful motion. Thou dost pant - To learn the mysteries of thy new found worship. - The secret torrent rushing through thy veins - Makes eloquent music to thy listening heart, - Which beats unconsciously the measure out. - I know thy malady—so come with me: - I’ll cure thee with indulgence. - - The maiden bent her white and stately neck, - And sounds of joy flew from her parted lips, - Like birds from roses—and the sorceress flung - A dainty chain of gold and gossamer - About her, and with sound of wings and breath - Of fragrance, vanished. - - Maiden, look up! behold! - A dark-haired youth, with eyes of burning light, - Kneels gracefully before her; and his words, - Scarce heard for sighs, thrill to the inmost heart - Of that fair listener. He takes her hand— - His arm is round her—kisses warm and sweet - Rain on her lips and eyes—she gasps with joy, - And melts into his arms. - - St. Louis, April, 1841. - - * * * * * - - - - - SPORTS AND PASTIMES.—ANGLING. - - -The natural history of Fishes may be greatly promoted by anglers, and -some knowledge of that history assuredly adds interest to the pursuits -of the sportsman. He ought, therefore, to be able to skin and prepare -his specimens, to observe and describe them with precision, and to -dissect them with sufficient skill to take cognizance both of their -external parts and their internal structure. Every naturalist, on the -other hand, should be an angler, and that for more reasons than one. In -the remoter and less peopled districts of the country, which so -frequently present the most interesting fields for observation, he has -no means of inspecting the finny tribes, except by capturing them -_propriâ manû_, and his doing so will greatly contribute, not only to -his scientific knowledge, but his social comfort—trouts when newly -angled and nicely fried, being worthy of admiration, as choice -productions of nature adorned by the skill of art. But this latter -branch of our subject comes so home to the “business and bosoms” of all -men, that we need not here dilate upon it. - -In the hope, however, that some useful knowledge may be conveyed to the -minds of our readers through the medium of the present work, we intend -to devote a portion of our space to a brief introduction regarding the -organic structure and physiology of fishes. We know, from experience, -that time may hang heavy even on the hands of anglers, who are seldom -either feeble or faint-hearted men. We know that spring (all genial -though it be in poet’s fancy) has yet its frequent flaky snows on mead -and mountain, its spiky ice along the crystal stream;—that summer in -its sunlit splendor suffers its long-enduring droughts, its sudden -_speats_, and fearful overflows;—that melancholy autumn, in spite of -all its mild effulgence, is not seldom violent, and perturbed - - “By lightning, by fierce winds, by trampling waves;” - -—and that each of these conditions of time and space is adverse to the -angler’s art. Even with every sweet advantage yielded by cheerful -spring, by glorious summer, by refulgent autumn (we now seek to soothe -the seasons by more endearing terms), daylight does not last for ever, -and so the angler cannot always ply his trade. Of night-fishing we -seldom think—except in murmuring dreams of rheumatism and -water-rats—and eye-sight often fails, - - “When comes still evening on, and twilight grey - Has in her sober livery all things clad.” - -Moreover, it is chiefly the home-hunting angler, he whose “lines have -fallen in pleasant places,” who dwells habitually by river side, or sees -“beneath the opening eyelids of morn” some broad lake gladdening his -daily gaze—in moonlight sparkling with bright columnar fire within its -cincturing trees, or greener margins—he, or some happy friend who -shares his dwelling, alone can cast his angles in the night. No man, who -“long in populous city pent,” wanders for a time in lonesome gladness by -the side of glittering waters, can wait with patience for a summer -night, however beautiful may be the countless stars— - - “That sparkle in the firmament of June.” - -Whether he will or no, he must wend his way to grassy bank, or pebbly -shore, or alder-skirted brink, and if there he fishes all the live-long -day, he cannot fish at night, at least he ought not so to do. He who -spareth not the rod hateth himself, and produces a degree of fatigue and -satiety which ought never to mingle with his healthful toil. - -Suppose, then, that the gentle reader does not fish at night, that he -dines heartily (_sero sed serio_), imbibes moderately, takes tea -sedately, and has still an hour to spare before a light supper—let him -read this article, and we promise to be as little prolix as we can. - -[Illustration] - - - THE PERCH. - -This gregarious fish is angled for with a worm or minnow. It is a bold -biter during the warm months of the year, though very abstemious in the -winter season. When a shoal is met with, great sport is frequently -obtained. A small cork float is used, and the bait is hung at various -depths, according to circumstances, a knowledge of which can only be -obtained by practice. In angling near the bottom, the bait should be -frequently raised nearly to the surface, and then allowed gently to sink -again. When the weather is cool and cloudy, with a ruffling breeze from -the south, perch will bite during the whole day. The best hours towards -the end of spring are from seven to eleven in the morning, and from two -to six in the afternoon. In warm and bright summer weather, excellent -times are from sunrise till six or seven in the morning, and from six in -the evening till sunset. - -The Perch is one of the most beautiful of the fresh water fishes, but is -too familiarly known to need description. It inhabits both lakes and -rivers, but shuns salt water. Pallas, however, is said to have stated in -his _Zoographia Russo-Asiatica_ (a work still unpublished), that about -spawning time both Pike and Perch are found in a gulf of the Caspian -Sea, about thirty verstes from the mouth of the Terek. The female -deposits her eggs, united together by a viscid matter, in lengthened -strings—a peculiarity noticed by Aristotle. Spawning takes place in -April and May, and the number of eggs sometimes amounts to near a -million. The Perch occurs all over Europe, and in most of the northern -districts of Asia. It is easily tamed, and if kept moist will live for a -long time out of water. It sometimes attains to a great size, but the -majority are smallish fishes. Pennant alludes to one said to have been -taken in the Serpentine River, Hyde Park, which weighed nine pounds. But -even one half of that weight would be anywhere regarded as -extraordinary, and a Perch of a pound is looked upon as a fine fish. The -flesh of this species as an article of food is wholesome, though neither -rich nor high flavoured. The months of April, May, and June, are those -during which it is least esteemed. - -The Basse, or Sea Perch, (_Perca labrax_, Linn. _Labrax lupus_, Cuv. and -Val.) is a fish of a chaste and pleasing aspect, though destitute of the -strongly contrasted coloring of the preceding, from which it is also -distinguished by an abundance of small teeth upon the tongue. It is -abundant in the Mediterranean. It is a very voracious fish, remarkable -for the size of its stomach, and was known to the ancients by the -appropriate name of _lupus_. It takes a bait freely (_onisci_, broken -shell-fish, etc.) when angled for during flood-tide, with strong tackle, -from projecting rock or pier. The ordinary size ranges from 12 to 18 -inches, although Willoughby has stated that it sometimes attains the -weight of 15 pounds. Its flesh is excellent. - - - EXTERNAL FORM AND ATTRIBUTES OF FISHES. - -To aid the Angler in his scientific researches, as well as to add to the -interest of the ordinary observer, we now proceed to a brief exposition -of the principal characteristics of the _class_ of fishes, and shall, at -an after period, expatiate upon the more peculiar attributes of each -particular kind, when we come to treat of the _species_ in their order. - -We need scarcely say to the student of nature, that the form and -functions of fishes are as admirably adapted for easy movement through -the water, as are those of birds for that aërial motion called flight. -Suspended in a liquid element of almost equal specific gravity with -themselves, external organs resembling those of birds in size, would -have been disproportionate and unnecessary; but the air-bladder (the -functions of which, by no means entirely understood, have never been -satisfactorily explained in all their bearings) is known to possess the -power of contraction and dilatation, the exercise of which is followed -by a corresponding descent or ascent of the animal’s body. Thus a small -central and inconspicuous organ effects, in the easiest and most simple -manner, the same object which even the soaring eagle or giant condor can -only accomplish by great exertion of the wings, and after laborious and -frequently repeated gyrations. We shall ere long, however, have occasion -to remark in more detail, that the air-bladder, although essential to -the economy of such species as possess it, is by no means indispensable -as a general attribute of the class, as in many tribes it is entirely -wanting. It is not even a generic characteristic, as it does not exist -in the red mullets of the British seas, though possessed by the -corresponding species of Asia and America—while of our two kinds of -mackerel, the so called Spanish species (_Scomber colias_) is -distinguished by a swimming bladder, and the common mackerel (_Sc. -scomber_) does not possess that organ. - -Fishes being without a neck, and the portion called the tail being -usually equal at its origin to the part of the body from which it -springs, the prevailing shape is somewhat uniform and continuous, -diminishing gradually towards either extremity. Of this, the most -elegant and characteristic form of fishes, the salmon and mackerel -exhibit familiar examples. Yet a vast variety of shape, as well as of -size and colour, is naturally presented by a class which now contains -some seven or eight thousand known species; and no further illustration -of the subject will be deemed necessary by him who has seen and -remembers the difference between an eel and a skate. - -The mouth of fishes either opens from beneath, as in the rays, or at the -extremity of the muzzle, as in the great majority of species, or from -the upper surface, as in a small foreign group called _Uranoscopus_, or -moon-gazer—an odd name for species, some of which have been alleged to -bury themselves to the depth of twenty feet in sand—a bed not easily -obtained, and in no way fitted for astronomical observation. It also -varies much in its relative dimensions, from the minute perforation of -the genus _Centriscus_, to the vast expanded gape of the ugly -angler-fish. We mean nothing personal in the last allusion. - -The teeth of fishes are frequently very numerous, and are sometimes -spread over all the bony parts of the interior cavity of the mouth and -pharynx, that is, on the maxillary, inter-maxillary and palatal bones, -on the vomer, tongue, branchial arches, and pharyngeal bones. In certain -genera they exist on all those parts; while in others they are wanting -on some, or are even entirely absent on all. The denominations of the -teeth are derived from their position, that is from the bones to which -they are attached, and are consequently as numerous as the varieties of -their situation. In the upper portion of the mouth of a trout, for -example, there are five rows of teeth. The single middle-row is placed -upon the central bone of the mouth called the _vomer_; a row on each -side of it is fixed on the right and left _palatal_ bones, while the -outer-rows or those of the upper-jaw, properly so called, are situate on -the _maxillary_ bones. In the under portion of the mouth there are four -rows, that is, one on each side of the tongue, and another external to -these on each side of the lower-jaw. As to the form of teeth in fishes, -the majority are hooked and conical, and more or less acute. - -In the majority of osseous fishes, besides the lips, which, even when -fleshy, having no peculiar muscles, can exert but little strength in -retaining the aliments, there is generally in the inside of each jaw, -behind the anterior teeth, a kind of membranous fold or valvule, formed -by a replication of the interior skin, and directed backwards, of which -the effect is to hinder the alimentary substances, and especially the -water gulped during respiration, from escaping again by the mouth. This -structure does not, as formerly supposed, constitute a character -restricted to the genus _Zeus_, but exists in an infinity of fishes. - -The food seized by the teeth of the maxillæ, and detained by the valve -just mentioned, is carried still further backwards by the teeth of the -palate and tongue, when these exist, and is at the same time prevented -by the dentations of the branchial arches from penetrating between the -intervals of the branchiæ, where it might injure those delicate organs -of respiration. The movements of the maxillæ and tongue can thus send -the food only in the direction of the pharynx, where it undergoes -additional action on the part of the teeth of the pharyngeal bones, -which triturate or carry it backwards into the œsophagus. The last-named -portion is clothed by a layer of strong, close set, muscular fibres, -sometimes forming various bundles, the contractions of which push the -alimentary matter into the stomach—thus completing the act of -deglutition. - - * * * * * - - - - - “AWAY, THEN, TO THE MOUNTAINS:” - - - WRITTEN AND ADAPTED TO - A FAVORITE MELODY - FROM - Amilie, - - BY JOHN H. HEWITT. - - _Philadelphia_: John F. Nunns’ _Copyright, 184 Chesnut Street_. - -[Illustration: musical score] - -[Illustration: musical score] - - Away then to the mountains, - While the morning sun is shining; - The mist has left the fountain, - And the herds in shade are reclining. - - Up the rocks we’ll climb, - To the top sublime, - And we’ll - - The hunter dreads no danger, - While along steep locks wending; - From youth a mountain ranger, - With the wind and snow contending. - - From the peak he looks - On the valley brooks, - While his - -[Illustration: musical score] - - watch the light deer bounding; - While the Sun wades through the Sea of blue, - And the Alpine horn is sounding. - - Away then to the mountains, - While the morning sun is shining; - The mist has left the fountains, - And the herds in shade are reclining. - - heart for home is bounding; - And he marks the maid - On the valley glade, - Who lists to his wild horn sounding. - - Away then to the &c. &c. - - * * * * * - - - - - REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. - - - _A Grammar of the English Language, in a series of Letters, - addressed to every American Youth. By_ Hugh A. Pue. - _Philadelphia: Published by the Author._ - -This is the title of a queer little book, which its author regards as -“not only necessary, but urgently called for,” because not only “the -mass of the people are ignorant of English Grammar, but because those -who profess great knowledge of it, and even those who make the teaching -of it their business, will be found, upon examination, to be very far -from understanding its principles.” - -Whether Mr. P. proceeds upon the safe old plan of _Probe meliora; -deteriora sequer_—whether he is one of “the mass,” and means to include -himself among the ignoramuses—or whether he is only a desperate -quiz—we shall not take it upon ourselves to say; but the fact is clear -that, in a Preface of less than two small duodecimo pages (the leading -object of which seems to be an eulogy upon one William Cobbett), he has -given us some half dozen distinct instances of bad Grammar. - -“For these purposes,” says he—that is to say—the purposes of -instructing mankind and enlightening “every American youth” without -exception—“for these purposes, I have written my lessons in a series of -letters. A mode that affords more opportunity for plainness, -familiarity, instruction, and entertainment, than any other. A mode that -was adopted by Chesterfield, in his celebrated instructions on -politeness. A mode that was adopted by Smollett, in many of his novels, -which, even at this day, hold a distinguished place in the world of -fiction. A mode that was adopted by William Cobbett, not only in his -admirable treatise on English Grammar, but in nearly every work that he -wrote.” “To Mr. Cobbett,” adds the instructor of every American -youth—“to Mr. Cobbett I acknowledge myself _indebted_ for the greater -part of the grammatical knowledge which I possess.” Of the fact stated -there can be no question. Nobody but Cobbett could have been the -grammatical Mentor of Mr. Pue, whose book (which is _all_ Cobbett) -speaks plainly upon the point—nothing but the ghost of William Cobbett, -looking over the shoulder of Hugh A. Pue, could have inspired the latter -gentleman with the bright idea of stringing together four consecutive -sentences, in each of which the leading nominative noun is destitute of -a verb. - -Mr. Pue may attempt to justify his phraseology here, by saying that the -several sentences, quoted above, commencing with the words, “A mode,” -are merely continuations of the one beginning “For these purposes;” but -this is no justification at all. By the use of the period, he has -rendered each sentence distinct, and each must be examined as such, in -respect to its grammar. We are only taking the liberty of condemning Mr. -P. by the words of his own mouth. Turning to page 72, where he treats of -punctuation, we read as follows:—“The full point is used at the end of -every complete sentence; and a complete sentence is a collection of -words making a complete sense, without being dependent upon another -collection of words to convey the full meaning intended.” Now, what kind -of a meaning can we give to such a sentence as “A mode that was adopted -by Chesterfield in his celebrated instructions on politeness,” if we are -to have “no dependence upon” the sentences that precede it? But, even in -the supposition that these five sentences had been run into one, as they -should have been, they would still be ungrammatical. For example—“For -these purposes I have written my lessons in a series of letters—a mode -that affords more opportunity for plainness, familiarity, instruction, -and entertainment than any other—a mode, etc.” This would have been the -proper method of punctuation. “A mode” is placed in apposition with “a -series of letters.” But it is evident that it is _not_ the “series of -letters” which is the “mode.” It is _the writing the lessons_ in a -series which is so. Yet, in order that the noun “mode” can be properly -placed in apposition with what precedes it, this latter must be either a -noun, or a sentence, which, taken collectively, can serve as one. Thus, -in any shape, all that we have quoted is bad grammar. - -We say “_bad grammar_,” and say it through sheer obstinacy, because Mr. -Pue says we should not. “Why, what is grammar?” asks he indignantly. -“Nearly all grammarians tell us that grammar is the writing and speaking -of the English language correctly. What then is bad grammar? Why bad -grammar must be the bad writing and speaking of the English language -correctly!!” We give the two admiration notes and all. - -In the first place, if grammar be only the writing and speaking the -_English_ language correctly, then the French, or the Dutch, or the -Kickapoos are miserable, ungrammatical races of people, and have no -hopes of being anything else, unless Mr. Pue proceeds to their -assistance:—but, let us say nothing of this for the present. What we -wish to assert is, that the usual definition of grammar, as “the writing -and speaking _correctly_,” is an error which should have been long ago -exploded. Grammar is the analysis of language, and this analysis will be -_good_ or _bad_, just as the capacity employed upon it be weak or -strong—just as the grammarian be a Horne Tooke or a Hugh A. Pue. - -But perhaps, after all, we are treating this gentleman discourteously. -His book may be merely intended as a good joke. By the bye, he says in -his Preface, that “while he informs the student, he shall take -particular care to _entertain_ him.” Now, the truth is, we have been -exceedingly entertained. In such passages as the following, however, -which we find upon the second page of the Introduction, we are really at -a loss to determine whether it is the _utile_ or the _dulce_ which -prevails. We give the italics of Mr. Pue; without which, indeed, the -singular force and beauty of the paragraph cannot be duly appreciated. - -“The _proper_ study of English grammar, so far from being _dry_, is one -of the most rational enjoyments known to us; one that is highly -calculated to rouse the dormant energies of the student; it requiring -continual mental effort; unceasing exercise of mind. It is, in fact, the -_spreading of a thought-producing plaster of paris upon the extensive -grounds of intellect_! It is the parent of idea, and great causation of -reflection; the mighty _instigator of insurrection in the interior_; -and, above all, the unflinching _champion of internal improvement_!” - -We know nothing about plaster of Paris; but the analogy which subsists -between ipecac and grammar—at least between ipecac and the grammar of -Mr. Pue—never, certainly, struck us in so clear a point of view, as it -does now. - -But, after all, whether Mr. P.’s queer little book shall or shall not -meet the views of “Every American Youth,” will depend pretty much upon -another question of high moment—whether “Every American Youth” be or be -not as great a nincompoop as Mr. Pue. - - * * * * * - - _Powhatan; a Metrical Romance, in Seven Cantos. By_ Seba Smith. - _New York: Harper and Brothers._ - -What few notices we have seen of this poem, speak of it as the -production of _Mrs._ Seba Smith. To be sure, gentlemen may be behind the -scenes, and know more about the matter than we do. They may have some -private reason for understanding that black is white—some reason into -which we, personally, are not initiated. But, to ordinary perception, -“Powhatan” is the composition of Seba Smith, _Esquire_, of Jack Downing -memory, and _not_ of his wife. _Seba Smith_ is the name upon the -title-page; and the personal pronoun which supplies the place of this -well-known prænomen and cognomen in the preface, is, we are constrained -to say, of the masculine gender. “The author of Powhatan,”—thus, for -example, runs a portion of the prolegomena—“does not presume to claim -for _his_ production the merit of good and genuine poetry, nor does _he_ -pretend to assign it a place in the classes or forms into which poetry -is divided”—in all which, by the way, he is decidedly right. But can it -be that no gentleman has _read_ even so far as the Preface of the book? -Can it be that the critics have had no curiosity to creep into the -_adyta_—into the inner mysteries of this temple? If so, they are -decidedly right too. - -“Powhatan” is handsomely bound. Its printing is clear beyond comparison. -Its paper is magnificent, and we undertake to say (for _we have_ read it -through with the greatest attention) that there is not a single -typographical error in it, from one end to the other. Further than this, -in the way of commendation, no man with both brains and conscience -should proceed. In truth, a more absurdly _flat_ affair—for flat is the -only epithet which applies in this case—was never before paraded to the -world, with so grotesque an air of bombast and assumption. - -To give some idea of the _tout ensemble_ of the book—we have first a -Dedication to the “Young People of the United States,” in which Mr. Jack -Downing lives, in “the hope that he may do some good in his day and -generation, by adding something to the sources of rational enjoyment and -_mental culture_.” Next, we have a Preface, occupying four pages, in -which, quoting his publishers, the author tells us that poetry is a -“very great bore, and won’t sell”—a thing which cannot be denied in -certain cases, but which Mr. Downing denies in his own. “It may be -true,” he says, “of endless masses of words, that are poured forth from -the press, under the _name_ of poetry”—but it is not true “of _genuine_ -poetry—of that which is worthy of the name”—in short, we presume he -means to say it is not in the least little bit true of “Powhatan;” with -regard to whose merits he wishes to be tried, not by the critics (we -fear, in fact, that here it is the critics who will be tried), “but by -the _common_ taste of _common_ readers”—all which ideas are common -enough, to say no more. - -We have next, a “Sketch of the Character of Powhatan,” which is -exceedingly interesting and commendable, and which is taken from Burk’s -“History of Virginia:"—four pages more. Then comes a _Poem_—four pages -more—forty-eight lines—twelve lines to a page—in which all that we -can understand, is something about the name of “Powhatan” - - “Descending to a distant age, - Embodied forth on the deathless page” - -of the author—that is to say, of Jack Downing, Esquire. We have now, -one after the other, Cantos one, two, three, four, five, six, and -seven—each subdivided into Parts, by means of Roman numerals—some of -these Parts comprehending as many as six lines—upon the principle, we -presume, of packing up precious commodities in small bundles. The volume -then winds up with _Notes_, in proportion of three to one, as regards -the amount of text, and taken, the most of them, from Burk’s Virginia, -as before. - -It is very difficult to keep one’s countenance when reviewing such a -_work_ as this; but we will do our best, for the truth’s sake, and put -on as serious a face as the case will admit. - -The leading fault of “Powhatan,” then, is precisely what its author -supposes to be its principal merit. “It would be difficult,” he says, in -that pitiable preface, in which he has so exposed himself, “to find a -poem that embodies more truly the spirit of history, or indeed that -follows out more faithfully many of its details.” It would, indeed; and -we are very sorry to say it. The truth is, Mr. Downing has never dreamed -of any artistic _arrangement_ of his facts. He has gone straight -forward, like a blind horse, and turned neither to the one side nor to -the other, for fear of stumbling. But he gets them all in—every one of -them—the facts we mean. Powhatan never did anything in his life, we are -sure, that Mr. Downing has not got in his poem. He begins at the -beginning, and goes on steadily to the end—painting away at his story, -just as a sign-painter at a sign; beginning at the left hand side of his -board, and plastering through to the right. But he has omitted one very -ingenious trick of the sign-painter. He has forgotten to write under his -portrait—“_this is a pig_,” and thus there is some danger of mistaking -it for an opossum. - -But we are growing scurrilous, in spite of our promise, and must put on -a sober visage once more. It _is_ a hard thing, however, when we have to -read and write about such doggerel as this: - - “But bravely to the river’s brink - I led my warrior train, - And face to face, each glance they sent, - We sent it back again. - _Their werowance looked stern at me,_ - _And I looked stern at him_, - And all my warriors clasped their bows, - And nerved each heart and limb. - I raised my heavy war-club high, - And swung it fiercely round, - And shook it towards the shallop’s side, - Then laid it on the ground. - And then the lighted calumet - I offered to their view, - And thrice I drew the sacred smoke, - And toward the shallop blew. - And as the curling vapour rose - Soft as a spirit prayer, - I saw the pale-face leader wave - A white flag in the air. - Then launching out their painted skiff - They boldly came to land, - And spoke us many a kindly word, - And took us by the hand. - Presenting rich and shining gifts, - Of copper, brass, and beads, - To show that they were men like us, - And prone to generous deeds. - We held a long and friendly talk, - Inquiring whence they came, - And who the leader of their band, - And what their country’s name. - And how their mighty shallop moved - Across the boundless sea, - And why they touched our great king’s land - Without his liber_ty_.” - -It won’t do. We cannot sing to this tune any longer. We greatly prefer, - - “John Gilpin was a gentleman - Of credit and renown, - A train-band captain eke was he - Of famous London town.” - -Or— - - “Old Grimes is dead, that good old man, - We ne’er shall see him more, - He used to wear an over-coat - All buttoned down before”— - -or lines to that effect—we wish we could remember the words. The part, -however, about - - “Their werowance look’d stern at me, - And I looked stern at him”— - -is not quite _original_ with Mr. Downing—is it? We merely ask for -information. Have we not heard something about - - “An old crow sitting on a hickory limb, - Who winked at me, and I winked at him.” - -The simple truth is, that Mr. Downing never committed a greater mistake -in his life than when he fancied himself a poet, even in the ninty-ninth -degree. We doubt whether he could distinctly state the difference -between an epic and an epigram. And it will not do for him to appeal -from the critic to _common_ readers—because we assure him his book is a -very _un_common book. We never saw any one so uncommonly bad—nor one -about whose parturition so uncommon a fuss has been made, so little to -the satisfaction of common sense. Your poem is a curiosity, Mr. Jack -Downing; your “Metrical Romance” is not worth a single half sheet of the -paste-board upon which it is printed. This is our humble and honest -opinion; and, although honest opinions are not very plentiful just now, -you can have ours at what it is worth. But we wish, before parting, to -ask you one question. What _do_ you mean by that motto from sir Philip -Sidney, upon the title-page? “He cometh to you with a tale that holdeth -children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner.” What do you -mean by it, we say. Either you cannot intend to apply it to the “_tale_” -of Powhatan, or else all the “old men” in your particular neighbourhood -must be _very_ old men; and all the “little children” a set of -dunder-headed little ignoramuses. - - * * * * * - - _Miscellanies of Literature. By the Author of Curiosities of - Literature. 3 vols. J. & H. Langley, New York: 1841._ - -These volumes remind us of Coke upon Lyttleton, with which whilom we -were wont to be delighted; for they are full of the same odd conceits, -and present the same crude mass of undigested learning. Facts which no -one else would ever have hunted up from the shelves of dusty libraries; -theories which hitherto no man thought of substantiating by a reference -to biography or history; ideas, which are oddities in themselves, and -which are presented in the quaintest style; and illustrations of notions -that no one else would ever have thought of, or which, if thought of, -would not have been dressed up in so outlandish a manner, are all -marshalled together here in disorderly array, pushing, jostling, and -crowding each other until they remind one of Falstaff’s valorous -regiment, or a militia training in a midland county. - -Seriously, however, these miscellanies embody a vast amount of -out-of-the-way intelligence, interesting to the general, but absolutely -necessary to the literary reader. No man but D’Israeli would ever have -had the patience to compile such a work. His ideas on the literary -character; his observations on men of genius; and his sketch of King -James the first, embody a vast body of undigested facts that must have -consumed years merely in their collection. Industry, however, is the -only merit of these volumes: in arranging this vast mass of truths, -D’Israeli has shown anything but a comprehensive mind. - -The work is got up in fine style, as what work is not, when issued by -the Langleys? - - * * * * * - - _Carleton, A Tale of Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-Six. Two - volumes. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard._ - -We have heard this novel attributed to a gentleman of Philadelphia, and -also to a citizen of New York. The question appears to be a moot one -still, but, like many other moot points, is one of amazingly little -importance. The book seems to be the composition of a young man, well -educated in consonance with some of those Pharisaical literary creeds -which are all-potent in deadening the higher powers in favor of the -common-place. He has been taught _propriety_ as the chief of the -cardinal virtues, and instructed to regard _originality_ as the sum -total of the cardinal sins. His peculiar intellect, at the same time, -has been a soil precisely adapted for the seed sown. In regard to -“Carleton,” we may say in its behalf that its style is strikingly -_correct_, and that its incidents and its reflections never, even by -accident, startle us into unpleasant excitement. With this -peace-offering upon the shrine of the _decorous_, we now take the -liberty of throwing the book out of the window. - - * * * * * - - _Lives of the Queens of England, from the Norman Conquest; With - Anecdotes of their Courts; Now first Published from Official - Records and Other Authentic Documents, Private as well as - Public. From the Second London Edition, with Corrections and - Additions. By_ Agnes Strickland. _Vols. 1 and 2. Lea & - Blanchard. Philadelphia._ - -This book has been well received in England, and justly so. Its design -is obviously good, and its execution does honor to the fair author—for -in this instance it is scarcely right to call her a compiler. The work -is quite as original as any similar work can be. The task of composing -it has been an arduous one indeed; and there are few women who could -have accomplished it, as we see it accomplished. The ground upon which -Mrs. Strickland has so boldly yet judiciously ventured is one hitherto -unbroken, and, although she has trodden among flowers, she has not -escaped the delving drudgery of the pioneer. In short, a deep research -has been demanded for this labor, in quarters far out of the reach of -the ordinary investigator. - -The title, although comprehensive, does not fully indicate the book. We -have not only the Lives of the Queens from the Norman Conquest, but, in -the Introduction, notices of the ancient British and Saxon ones. The -Empress Matilda is included among the former; although she has never -been so ranked by any previous historian. In this our author is fully -justified, however; for Matilda, who herself claimed no title beyond -that of “Domina of England,” was queen _de jure_, and, in a historical -view, a monarch of high importance, as the mother of the Plantagenets, -and the uniting link of the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman dynasties. The -materials of which her memoir is composed are derived chiefly from -Norman and Latin chronicles, never before translated. - -These volumes are sufficiently well done in a mechanical point of view. -The lithograph portrait of Matilda, however, is greasy and ineffective, -and typographical blunders obscure the meaning of many important -passages. In the very first paragraph of the Introduction, for instance, -we have Solent _fæminrum_ ductu bellare; a sentence which we are quite -sure was never put together by Tacitus, from whose Life of Agricola it -is taken. - -The book, upon the whole, is one of rich interest and value, and must -find a place in every historical library. - - * * * * * - - _The History of a Flirt. 2 vols. Lea & Blanchard, Philadelphia: - 1841._ - -This novel displays considerable ability, wasted on very common-place -incidents. If the author will undertake a subject worthy of her -talents—are we wrong in fancying the writer a lady?—we may yet hail -her as a novelist of no slight pretensions. - - * * * * * - - _Outlines of Geography and History, presenting a Concise View of - the World. By_ Frederick Emerson, _author of the North American - Arithmetic. Hogan & Thompson: Philadelphia._ - -The Preface of this little work greatly interested us in its favor, and -a careful examination of its contents did not lessen the interest. In -its arrangement, Geography and History are combined—the former being -the leading topic, and the latter the concomitant. The author’s -observations, in respect to this junction, are just. The two subjects -are so intimately connected in their own nature, that, however they may -be separated in books, they can never be disconnected in the mind. The -simultaneous study of both, properly connected, secures the learner from -imbibing false notions of either. - -The book is concise, but accurate, and well adapted either for a -prefatory text-book, or for those whose limited school-time will not -allow them to go through with a more diffuse system. It is very neatly -and substantially gotten up. - - * * * * * - - _The Works of Lord Bolingbroke, with a Life, prepared expressly - for this Edition, containing additional information relative to - his Personal and Private Character: 4 vols. Carey and Hart: - Philadelphia. 1841._ - -An American edition of the works of Lord Bolingbroke has long been a -_desideratum_ to the scholar, and it is with no little pride we record -that to Philadelphia we are indebted for so elegant an edition of them, -as now lies before us. The typography of these volumes would do credit -to the famous London press. With the exception of a few costly works -published from time to time in our country, this edition of Lord -Bolingbroke is unrivalled as a work of art. - -The volumes before us contain the various political and philosophical -writings of Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke. Of these, the -political tracts are the most valuable: in a measure, for their matter, -but chiefly for their style. Among these, the “Dissertation on Parties,” -the “Letter to Sir Wm. Wyndham,” the “Idea of a Patriot King,” and the -letters “on the study of History,” are the most celebrated. The -philosophical essays, occupying two of the volumes on our table, are -comparatively valueless, and inferior, both in style and matter, to the -political tracts. They are deeply imbued with the sceptical opinions of -the author, and we should have willingly seen them omitted in this -edition, if it were possible to get up a complete one, with nearly one -half of the author’s works left out. Little, therefore, as we value the -philosophical works of Bolingbroke, we commend the publishers for not -expunging them as too many others would have done. - -The style of Bolingbroke is unrivalled. No library is perfect without -his works, and they should be studied by the public speaker, or the -author, night and day. We boldly aver that there does not exist a writer -in the language, the reading of whose works, so far as diction is -concerned, would be more beneficial to young men. Bolingbroke’s choice -of words is singularly fine. Nothing can be clearer, stronger, or more -copious than his language. Terse, nervous, epigrammatic; diffuse in -general, but condensed when necessary; at times racy, at times vehement, -at times compact as iron; rhetorical, yet easy; elegant, yet convincing; -bold, rapid and declamatory, his writings carry one away like a spoken -harangue, without betraying the carelessness of the extemporaneous -style. The very absence of method, which, in others, would be faulty, -is, in Bolingbroke, from the air of frankness it gives to his cause, and -its consistency with his essentially oratorical style, a merit: at least -not a defect. In grace he has no equal. The euphony of his sentences is -like the liquid flow of a river. No writer in the English tongue so much -resembles Cicero—to our mind—as Bolingbroke. Burke has been called his -rival here; but Burke wanted the ease, the elegance, the chastened -imagery of Tully, and in all of these St. John rivalled the friend of -Atticus. Deeply imbued with the Latin literature, Bolingbroke has -caught, as it were, the spirit of the Augustan age; and we feel, in -perusing his pages, the same chastened delight which we enjoy over no -modern, and only over Tully among the ancients. - -We repeat it: no library is complete without these volumes. Hitherto, -the difficulty of obtaining a set of Bolingbroke’s Works, and the high -price at which the English editions were sold, have confined the study -of his writings comparatively to a few. - -The life of Bolingbroke, affixed to these volumes, is altogether a -mongrel affair, being made up of shreds and patches, like an old -grandam’s best bed-quilt. The text is Goldsmith, interpolated with -Brougham, Cooke, and the Encyclopædia. It is true, the preface states -this at large, but it also conveys the impression that the memoir has -been re-written, and that only the _materials_ have been used. Now, if -so, a more unequal, ragged, piebald piece of composition was never -perpetrated than this same memoir, and the author—if any one but a pair -of scissors there be—ought to be condemned to the now obsolete, but not -less effective punishment, of the cutty-stool. If ever a man deserved a -horse-pond, it is the inditer of this biography. - - * * * * * - - _A Memoir of the Very Reverend Theobald Mathew. With an Account - of the Rise and Progress of Temperance in Ireland. By the - Reverend James Bermingham, of Borisokane. Edited by_ P. H. - Morris, M. D., _and by whom is added the Evil Effects of - Drunkenness Physiologically Explained. Alexander V. Blake: New - York._ - -It is scarcely too much to say that the Temperance Reformation is the -most important which the world ever knew. Yet its _great_ feature has -never yet been made a subject of comment. We mean that of adding to -man’s happiness (the ultimate object of _all_ reform), not by the -difficult and equivocal process of multiplying his pleasures, in their -external regard, but by the simple and most effectual one of exalting -his capacity for enjoyment. The temperate man carries within his own -bosom, under all circumstances, the true, the only elements of bliss. - -The book before us will essentially aid the good cause. The memoir of -Mathew is deeply interesting; but, excellent as it is, we prefer the -essay of Dr. Morris on “the Effects of Drunkenness Physiologically -considered.” Through the influence of the physical, rather than of the -moral suggestions against alcohol, the permanency of the temperance -reform will be made good. Convince the world that spirituous liquors are -poison to the body, and it will be scarcely necessary to add that they -are ruin to the soul. - - * * * * * - - _The Life and Land of Burns: 1 vol. J. & H. Langley: New York. - 1841._ - -This is an excellent work, got up in a style of exceeding beauty. The -Langleys, indeed, are becoming celebrated for the beauty of their -publications. - -An essay by Carlyle, written in his usual barbarous style, but sparkling -with brilliant thoughts, like diamonds in a mine, forms one of the chief -features of the contents. - - * * * * * - -Transcriber’s Notes: - -Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic -spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and -typesetting errors have been corrected without note. A cover has been -created for this ebook and is placed in the public domain. - -In E.A. Poe’s article A FEW WORDS ON SECRET WRITING, a page image of a -cryptograph has been used for the ebook formats other than plain text, -rather than a transcription, due to limitations of modern fonts and -devices. It is interesting to use that illustration image as indicator -of the problems which could occur with old physical typesetting methods. -Looking at the image of the cryptograph we can see the first 6 -characters of the first line are $0.£][ which according to the list of -characters above the cryptograph would be "wm eust" but were meant to -represent the words "we must". Unfortunately the typesetter made an -error and transposed the e (.) and m (0) so the first characters should -have been printed as $.0£][ to be a correct representation of the -paragraph. - -[End of Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 1, July 1841, George R. Graham, -Editor] - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE, VOL. 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