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Title: Graham's Magazine, Vol. XX, No. 2, February 1842

Author: Various

Editor: George R. Graham

Release date: February 19, 2022 [eBook #67443]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: George R. Graham

Credits: Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net, from page images generously made available by The Internet Archive


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE, VOL. XX, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 1842 ***

                           GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
               Vol. XX.      February, 1842.      No. 2.


                                Contents

                   Fiction, Literature and Articles

          Harper’s Ferry
          Harry Cavendish continued
          The Two Dukes continued
          Original Letter from Charles Dickens
          The Duello
          Dreams of the Land and Sea
          Mrs. Norton
          The Lady’s Choice
          The Blue Velvet Mantilla
          The Daughters of Dr. Byles
          A Few Words About Brainard
          Review of New Books

                       Poetry, Music and Fashion

          My Bonnie Steed
          Nydia, The Blind Flower-Girl of Pompeii
          Rosaline
          Sonnet
          The Veiled Altar
          Agathè.—A Necromaunt
          Sonnet
          A Dream of the Dead
          The Dream Is Past
          Spring Fashions in Advance

       Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.




[Illustration: W.H. Bartlett, A.L. Dick., HARPER’S FERRY. (From the Blue
ridge.)]

                 *        *        *        *        *

                           GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

          Vol. XX.    PHILADELPHIA: FEBRUARY, 1842.    No. 2.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                            HARPER’S FERRY.


The scenery at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, is perhaps the most picturesque
in America. The view given in the accompanying engraving is taken from
the Blue Ridge, from whence the tourist enjoys the finest prospect of
this delightful spot. Lofty as the summit is, and difficult as the
ascent proves to the uninitiated, the magnificence of the view from the
top of the ridge amply compensates the adventurer for his trouble.
Immediately beneath your feet are seen the Potomac and Shenandoah
enveloping the beautiful village of Harper’s Ferry in their folds, and
then joining, their waters flow on in silent beauty, until lost behind
the gorges of the mountains. Far away in the distance stretch a
succession of woody plains, diversified with farm-houses and villages,
and gradually growing more and more indistinct, until they fade away
into the summits of the Alleghanies. But we cannot do better than give
President Jefferson’s unrivalled description of this scene. “The
passage,” he says, “of the Potomac, through the Blue Ridge, is, perhaps,
one of the most stupendous scenes in nature. You stand on a very high
point of land; on your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged
along the foot of the mountains a hundred miles to seek a vent, on your
left approaches the Potomac, in quest of a passage also: in the moment
of their junction, they rush together against the mountain, rend it
asunder and pass off to the sea. The first glance of this scene harries
our senses into the opinion that the mountains were formed first, that
the rivers began to flow afterwards, that, in this place particularly
they have been dammed up by the Blue Ridge of mountains, and have formed
an ocean which filled the whole valley,—that continuing to rise, they
have at length broken over at this spot, and have torn the mountain down
from its summit to its base. The piles of rock on each hand, but
particularly on the Shenandoah—the evident marks of their disrupture
and avulsion from their beds by the most powerful agents of nature,
corroborate the impression. But the distant finishing which nature has
given to the picture, is of a very different character; it is a true
contrast to the foreground; it is as placid and delightful as that is
wild and tremendous,—for the mountain being cloven asunder, she
presents to your eye, through the cleft, a small closet of smooth blue
horizon, at an infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, as
it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, to pass through the
breach and participate in the calm below. Here the eye ultimately
composes itself, and that way, too, the road happens actually to lead.
You cross the Potomac just above its junction, pass along its side
through the base of the mountain for three miles, its terrible
precipices hanging over you, and, within about twenty miles, reach
Fredericktown and the fine country round that. This scene is worth a
voyage across the Atlantic.”

Enthusiastic as Jefferson is in this description, he does not exceed the
truth. Foreigners have borne ample testimony to the splendor of the
prospect from the top of the ridge at Harper’s Ferry, admitting that
there are few scenes in Europe which surpass it.

It is time to do justice to American scenery. Hundreds of our citizens
annually cross the Atlantic for the purpose of visiting the scenery of
Europe, under the mistaken supposition that their own country affords
nothing to compensate them for the trouble of a visit. This ignorance is
less general than formerly, but it still prevails to a considerable
extent. Yet no country affords finer or more magnificent scenery than
America. Go up the Hudson, travel along the banks of the Susquehanna,
cross the Alleghanies or ascend the Catskill, loiter over the fairy-like
waters of lake Horicon, and you will cease to believe that America
affords no scenery to reward the traveller. We say nothing of Niagara or
Trenton falls, or of the mountain scenery scattered all over the south.
We say nothing of the vast prairies of the west, of the boundless
melancholy expanse of the Mississippi, of the magnificent scenery on the
route to St. Anthony’s Falls. Let our people visit these before going
abroad. Let them learn to do justice to the country of their birth.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                            HARRY CAVENDISH.


 BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUIZING IN THE LAST WAR,” “THE REEFER OF ’76,” ETC.
                                  ETC.


                              THE ESCAPE.

The night after the rescue of the passengers and crew of the brig was to
me a restless one. I could not sleep. Hour after hour I lay in my
hammock eagerly courting repose, but unable to find it, for the images
of the past crowded on my brain, and kept me in a feverish excitement
that drove slumber from my pillow. My thoughts were of my boyhood,—of
Pomfret Hall,—of my early schoolmate—and of his little seraph-like
sister, Annette. I was back once more in the sunny past. Friends whom I
had long forgotten,—scenes which had become strangers to me,—faces
which I once knew but which had faded from my memory, came thronging
back upon me, as if by some magic impulse, until I seemed to be once
more shouting by the brookside, galloping over the hills, or singing at
the side of sweet little Annette at Pomfret Hall.

I was the son of a decayed family. My parents lived in honorable
poverty. But, though reduced in fortune, they had lost none of the
spirit of their ancestors. Their ambition was to see their son a
gentleman, a man of education. I had accordingly been early put to
school, preparatory to a college education. Here I met with a youth of
my own age, a proud, high-spirited, generous boy, Stanhope St. Clair. He
was the heir of a wealthy and ancient family, whose residence, not far
from Boston, combined baronial splendor with classic taste. We formed a
fast friendship. He was a year or two my senior, and being stronger than
myself, became my protector in our various school frays; this united me
to him by the tie of gratitude. During the vacation I spent a month at
his house; here I met his little sister, a sweet-tempered innocent
fairy, some four or five years my junior. Even at that early age I
experienced emotions towards her which I am even now wholly unable to
analyze, but they came nearer the sentiment of love than any other
feeling. She was so beautiful and sweet-tempered, so innocent and frank,
so bright, and sunny, and smiling, so infinitely superior to those of
her age and sex I had been in the habit of associating with, that I soon
learned to look on her with sentiments approaching to adoration. Yet I
felt no reserve in her society. Her frankness made me perfectly at home.
We played, sung and laughed together, as if life had nothing for us but
sunshine and joy. How often did those old woods, the quaintly carved
hall, the green and smiling lawn ring with our gladsome merriment. We
studied, too, together; and as I sat playfully at her feet, looking now
on her book and now in her eyes, while her long silken tresses undulated
in the breeze and frolicked over my face, I experienced sensations of
strange pleasure unlike anything I had ever experienced. At length the
time came when I was to leave this Eden. I remember how desolate I felt
on that day, but how from pride in my sex I struggled to hide my
emotions. Annette made no attempt to conceal her sorrow. She flung
herself into my arms and wept long and bitterly. It was the grief of a
child, but it filled my heart with sunshine, and dwelt in my memory for
years.

I returned to school, but my playmate was always in my thoughts. In
dream or awake, at my tasks or in play, loitering under the forest trees
or wandering by the stream, in the noisy tumult of day or musing in the
silent moonshine, the vision of that light-hearted and beauteous girl
was ever present to my imagination. It may seem strange that such
emotions should occupy the mind of a mere boy; but so it was. At length,
however, St. Clair took sick, and died. How bitter was my grief at this
event. It was the first thing that taught me what real sorrow was. This
occurrence broke up my intimacy with the St. Clair family, for, young as
I was, I could perceive that my presence would be a pain to the family,
by continually reminding them of their lost boy. I never therefore
visited Pomfret Hall again,—but often would I linger in its vicinity
hoping to catch a glance of Annette. But I was unsuccessful. I never saw
her again. Our spheres of life were immeasurably separated, the circles
in which she moved knew me not. We had no friends in common, and
therefore no medium of communication. God knew whether she thought of
me. Her parents, though kind, had always acted towards me as if an
impassable barrier existed betwixt the haughty St. Clairs and the
beggared Cavendish, and now that their son was no more they doubtless
had forgotten me. Such thoughts filled my mind as I grew up. The busy
avocations of life interfered, my father died and left me pennyless,
and, to ensure a subsistence for my mother and myself, I went to sea.
The dreams of my youth had long since given way to the sad realities of
life,—and of all the sunny memories of childhood but one remained. That
memory was of Annette.

It is a common saying that the love of a man is but an episode, while
that of a woman is the whole story of life, nor is it my purpose to
gainsay the remark. The wear and tear of toil, the stern conflict with
the world, the ever changing excitements which occupy him,—war, craft,
ambition,—these are sufficient reasons why love can never become the
sole passion of the stronger sex. But, though the saying is in general
true, it has one exception. The first love of a man is never forgotten.
It is through weal and woe the bright spot in his heart. Old men, whose
bosoms have been seared by seventy years conflict with the world, have
been known to weep at the recollection of their early love. The tone of
a voice, the beam of an eye,—a look, a smile, a footstep may bring up
to the mind the memory of her whom we worshipped in youth, and, like the
rod of Moses, sunder the flinty rock, bring tears gushing from the long
silent fountains of the heart. Nor has any after passion the purity of
our first love. If there is anything that links us to the angels, it is
the affection of our youth. It purifies and exalts the heart—it fills
the soul with visions of the bright and beautiful—it makes us scorn
littleness, and aspire after noble deeds. Point me out one who thus
loves, and I will point you out one who is incapable of a mean action.
Such was the effect which my sentiments for Annette had upon me. I saw
her not, it is true,—but she was ever present to my fancy. I pictured
continually to myself the approbation she would bestow on my conduct,
and I shrunk even from entertaining an ignoble thought. I knew that in
all probability we should never meet, but I thirsted to acquire renown,
to do some act which might reach her ears. I loved without hope, but not
the less fervently. A beggar might love a Princess, as a Paladin of old
looked up to his mistress, as an Indian worshipper adored the sun, I
loved, looked up to, and adored Annette. What little of fame I had won
was through her instrumentality. And now I had met her, had been her
preserver. As I lay in my hammock the memory of these things came
rushing through my mind, and emotions of bewilderment, joy, and
gratitude, prevented me from sleep.

I had seen Annette only for a moment, as the fatigue they had endured,
had confined herself and companion to the cabin, during the day. How
should we meet on the morrow? My heart thrilled at the recollection of
her delighted recognition—would she greet me with the same joy when we
met again? How would her father receive me? A thousand such thoughts
rushed through my brain, and kept me long awake—and when at length I
fell into a troubled sleep, it was to dream of Annette.

When I awoke, the morning watch was being called, and springing from my
hammock I was soon at my post on deck. The sky was clear, the waves had
gone down, and a gentle breeze was singing through the rigging. To have
gazed around on the almost unruffled sea one would never have imagined
the fury with which it had raged scarcely forty-eight hours before.

Early in the day Mr. St. Clair appeared on deck, and his first words
were to renew his thanks to me of the day before. He alluded delicately
to past times, and reproved me gently for having suffered the intimacy
betwixt me and his family to decline. He concluded by hoping that, in
future, our friendship—for such he called it—would suffer no
diminution.

I was attending, after breakfast, to the execution of an order forwards,
when, on turning my eyes aft, I saw the flutter of a woman’s dress. My
heart told me it was that of Annette, and, at the instant, she turned
around. Our eyes met. Her smile of recognition was even sweeter than
that of the day before. I bowed, but could not leave my duty, else I
should have flown to her side. It is strange what emotions her smile
awakened in my bosom. I could scarcely attend to the execution of my
orders, so wildly did my brain whirl with feelings of extatic joy. At
length my duty was performed. But then a new emotion seized me. I wished
and yet I feared to join Annette. But I mustered courage to go aft, and
no sooner had I reached the quarterdeck, than Mr. St. Clair beckoned me
to his side.

“Annette,” he said, “has scarcely yet given you her thanks. She has not
forgotten you, indeed she was the first to recognise you yesterday. You
remember, love, don’t you?” he said, turning to his daughter, “the
summer Mr. Cavendish spent with us at the Hall. It was you, I believe,
who shed so many tears at his departure.”

He said this gayly, but it called the color into his daughter’s cheek.
Perhaps he noticed this, for he instantly resumed in a different tone:

“But see, Annette, here comes the captain, and I suppose you would take
a turn on the quarterdeck. Your cousin will accompany him,—Mr.
Cavendish must be your _chaperon_.”

The demeanor of Mr. St. Clair perplexed me. Could it be that he saw my
love for his daughter and was willing to countenance my suit? The idea
was preposterous, as a moment’s reflection satisfied me. I knew too well
his haughty notions of the importance of his family. My common sense
taught me that he never had entertained the idea of my aspiring to his
daughter’s hand—that he would look on such a thing as madness—and his
conduct was dictated merely by a desire to show his gratitude and that
of his daughter to me. These thoughts passed through my mind while he
was speaking, and when he closed, and I offered to escort his daughter,
I almost drew a sigh at the immeasurable distance which separated me
from Annette. Prudence would have dictated that I should avoid the
society of one whom I was beginning to love so unreservedly, but who was
above my reach. Yet who has ever flown from the side of the one he
adores, however hopeless his suit, provided she did not herself repel
him? Besides, I could not, without rudeness, decline the office which
Mr. St. Clair thrust upon me. I obeyed his task, but I felt that my
heart beat faster when Annette’s taper finger was laid on my arm. How
shall I describe the sweetness and modesty with which Annette thanked me
for the service which I had been enabled to do her father and
herself—how to picture the delicacy with which she alluded to our
childhood, recalling the bright hours we had spent together by the
little brook, under the old trees, or in the rich wainscoted apartments
of Pomfret Hall! My heart fluttered as she called up these memories of
the past. I dwelt in return on the pleasure I had experienced in that
short visit, until her eye kindled and her cheek crimsoned at my
enthusiasm. She looked down on the deck, and it was not till I passed to
another theme that she raised her eyes again. Yet she did not seem to
have been displeased at what I had said. On the contrary it appeared to
be her delight to dwell with innocent frankness on the pleasure she had
experienced in that short visit. The pleasure of that half hour’s
promenade yet lives green and fresh in my memory.

We were still conversing when my attention was called away by the cry of
the look-out that a sail was to be seen to windward. Instantly every eye
was turned over the weather-beam, for she was the first sail that had
been reported since the gale. An officer seized a glass, and, hurrying
to the mast-head, reported that the stranger was considered a heavy
craft, although, as yet, nothing but his royals could be seen. As we
were beating up to windward and the stranger was coming free towards us,
the distance betwixt the two vessels rapidly decreased, so that in a
short time the upper sails of the stranger could be distinctly seen from
the deck. His topgallant-yards were now plainly visible from the
cross-trees, and the officer aloft reported that the stranger was either
a heavy merchantman or a frigate. This increased the excitement on deck,
for we knew that there were no vessels of that grade in our navy, and if
the approaching sail should prove to be a man-of-war and an Englishman,
our chances of escape would be light, as he had the weather-gauge of us,
and appeared, from the velocity with which he approached us, to be a
fast sailer. The officers crowded on the quarterdeck, the crew thronged
every favorable point for a look-out, and the ladies, gathering around
Mr. St. Clair and myself, gazed out as eagerly as ourselves in the
direction of the stranger. At length her top-sails began to lift.

“Ha!” said the captain, “he has an enormous swing—what think you of
him, Mr. Massey?” he asked, shutting the glass violently, and handing it
to his lieutenant.

The officer addressed took the telescope and gazed for a minute on the
stranger.

“I know that craft,” he said energetically, “she is a heavy
frigate,—the Ajax,—I served in her some eight years since. I know her
by the peculiar lift of her top-sails.”

“Ah!” said the captain; “you are sure,” he continued, examining her
through his glass again; “she does indeed seem a heavy craft and we have
but one chance—we should surely fight her?”

“If you ask me,” said the lieutenant, “I say no!—why that craft can
blow us out of the water in a couple of broadsides; she throws a weight
of metal treble our own.”

“Then there is but one thing to do—we must wear, and take to our
heels—a stern chase is proverbially a long one.”

During this conversation not a word had been spoken in our group; but I
had noticed that when the lieutenant revealed the strength of the foe,
the cheek of Annette for a moment grew pale. Her emotion however
continued but a moment. And when our ship had been wore, and we were
careering before the wind, her demeanor betrayed none of that
nervousness which characterized her cousin.

“Can they overtake us Mr. Cavendish?” said her companion. “Oh! what a
treacherous thing the sea is. Here we were returning only from
Charleston to Boston, yet shipwrecked and almost lost,—and now pursued
by an enemy and perhaps destined to be captured.”

“Fear not! sweet coz,” laughingly said Annette, “Mr. Cavendish would
scarcely admit that any ship afloat could outsail THE ARROW, and you see
what a start we have in the race. Besides, you heard Captain Smythe just
now say, that, when night came, he hoped to be able to drop the enemy
altogether. Are they pursuing us yet Mr. Cavendish?”

“Oh! yes, they have been throwing out their light sails for the last
quarter of an hour—see there go some more of their kites.”

“But will not we also spread more canvass?”

I was saved the necessity of a reply by an order from the officer of the
deck to spread our studding-sails, and duty called me away. I left the
ladies in the charge of Mr. St. Clair, and hurried to my post. For the
next half hour I was so occupied that I had little opportunity to think
of Annette, and indeed the most of my time was spent below in
superintending the work of the men. When I returned on deck the chase
was progressing with vigor, and it was very evident that THE ARROW,
though a fast sailer, was hard pressed. Every stitch of canvass that
could be made to draw was spread, but the stranger astern had,
notwithstanding, considerably increased on the horizon since I left the
deck. The officers were beginning to exchange ominous looks, and the
faces of our passengers wore an anxious expression. One or two of the
older members of the crew were squinting suspiciously at the stranger.
The captain however wore his usual open front, but a close observer
might have noticed that my superior glanced every moment at the pursuer,
and then ran his eye as if unconsciously up our canvass. At this moment
the cry of a sail rang down from the mast-head, startling us as if we
had heard a voice from the dead, for so intense had been the interest
with which we had regarded our pursuer that not an eye gazed in any
direction except astern. The captain looked quickly around the horizon,
and hailing the look-out, shouted,

“Whereaway?”

“On the starboard-bow.”

“What does he look like?” continued Captain Smythe to me, for I had
taken the glass at once and was now far on my way to the cross-trees.

“He seems a craft about as heavy as our own.”

“How now?” asked the captain, when sufficient space had elapsed to allow
the top-sails of the new visiter to be seen.

“She has the jaunty cut of a corvette!” I replied.

A short space of time—a delay of breathless interest—sufficed to
betray the character of the ship ahead. She proved, as I had expected, a
corvette. Nor were we long left in doubt as to her flag, for the red
field of St. George shot up to her gaff, and a cannon ball ricochetting
across the waves, plumped into the sea a few fathoms ahead of our bow.
For a moment we looked at each other in dismay at this new danger. We
saw that we were beset. A powerful foe was coming up with us hand over
hand astern, and a craft fully our equal was heading us off. Escape
seemed impossible. The ladies, who still kept the deck, turned pale and
clung closer to their protector’s arm. The crew were gloomy. The
officers looked perplexed. But the imperturbable calm of the captain
suffered no diminution. He had already ordered the crew to their
quarters, and the decks were now strewed with preparations for the
strife.

“We will fight him,” he said; “we will cripple or sink him, and then
keep on our way. But let not a shot be fired until I give the order.
Steady, quartermaster, steady.”

By this time I had descended to the deck, ready to take my post at
quarters. The ladies still kept the deck, but the captain’s eye
happening to fall on them, the stern expression of his countenance gave
way to one of a milder character, and, approaching them, he said,

“I am afraid, my dear Miss St. Clair, that this will soon be no place
for you or your fair companion. Allow me to send you to a place of
safety. Ah! here is Mr. Cavendish, he will conduct you below.”

“Oh! Mr. Cavendish,” said Isabel, with a tremulous voice, “is there any
chance of escape?”

Annette did not speak, but she looked up into my face with an anxious
expression, while the color went and came in her cheek. My answer was a
confident assertion of victory, although, God knows, I scarcely dared to
entertain the hope of such a result. It reassured my fair companions,
however, and I thought that the eyes of Annette at least expressed the
gratitude which did not find vent in words.

“We will not forget you in our prayers,” said Isabel, as I prepared to
reascend to the deck, “farewell—may—may we meet again!” and she
extended her hand.

“God bless you and our other defenders,” said Annette. She would have
added more, but her voice lost its firmness. She could only extend her
hand. I grasped it, pressed it betwixt both of mine, and then tore
myself away. As I turned from them, I thought I heard a sob. I know that
a tear-drop was on that delicate hand when I pressed it in my own.

When I reached the deck, I found Mr. St. Clair already at his post, for
he had volunteered to aid in the approaching combat. Nor was that combat
long delayed. We were now close on to the corvette, but yet not a shot
had been fired from our batteries, although the enemy was beginning a
rapid and furious cannonade, under which our brave tars chafed like
chained lions. Many a tanned and sun-browned veteran glared fiercely on
the foe, and even looked curiously and doubtingly on his officers, as
the balls of the corvette came hustling rapidly and more rapidly towards
us, and when at length a shot dismounted one of our carriages and laid
four of our brave fellows dead on the deck, the excitement of the men
became almost uncontrollable. At this instant, however, the corvette
yawed, bore up, and ran off with the wind on his quarter. Quick as
lightning Captain Smythe availed himself of the bravado.

“Lay her alongside, quartermaster,” he thundered.

“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the old water-rat, and during a few breathless
moments of suspense we crowded silently after the corvette. That
suspense, however, was of short duration. We were now on the quarter of
the enemy. The captain paused no longer, but waving his sword, he
shouted “FIRE,” and simultaneously our broadside was poured in, like a
hurricane of fire, on the foe. Nor during ten minutes was there any
intermission in our fire. The combat was terrific. The men jerked out
their pieces like playthings, and we could soon hear over even the din
of the conflict, the crashing of the enemy’s hull and the falling of his
spars. The rapidity and certainty of our fire meanwhile seemed to have
paralysed the foe, for his broadsides were delivered with little of the
fury which we had been led to expect. His foremast at length went by the
board. The silence of our crew was now first broken, and a deafening
huzza rose up from them, shaking the very welkin with the uproar.

“Another broadside, my brave fellows,” said Captain Smythe, “and then
lay aloft and crowd all sail—I think she’ll hardly pursue us.”

“Huzza, boys, pour it into her,” shouted a grim visaged captain of a
gun, “give her a parting shake, huzza!”

Like a volcano in its might—like an earthquake reeling by—sped that
fearful broadside on its errand. We did not pause to see what damage we
had done, but while the ship yet quivered with the discharge the men
sprang aloft, and before the smoke had rolled away from the decks our
canvass was once more straining in the breeze and we were rapidly
leaving our late enemy. When the prospect cleared up we could see her
lying a hopeless wreck astern. The frigate which, during the conflict,
had drawn close upon us, was now sending her shots like hail-stones over
us, but when she came abreast of her consort she was forced to stop, as
our late foe by this time had hung out a signal of distress. We could
see that boats, laden with human beings, were putting off from the
corvette to the frigate, which proved that our late antagonist was in a
sinking condition. Before an hour she blew up with a tremendous
explosion.

I was the first one to hurry below and relieve the suspense of Annette
and her cousin by apprising them of our success. A few hours repaired
the damage we had sustained, and before night-fall the frigate was out
of sight astern. So ended our first conflict with our enemy.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             THE TWO DUKES.


                          BY ANN S. STEPHENS.


                       (Continued from page 56.)

The artisan whom we left mounted on Lord Dudley’s charger was, much
against his inclinations, swept onward by the crowd, till he found
himself heading, like a single item of cavalry, upon the body of
Somerset men now drawn up directly before him. He had no power to change
his course or dismount from the conspicuous situation which placed him
in full view of both parties, and which, under all the circumstances,
was rather annoying to a man of his retiring and modest nature. Still he
exerted himself to restrain the onward course of his charger with one
hand, while the other was bent in and the fingers clenched together over
the edge of his sleeve with a prudent regard for the diamond ring and
the emeralds which had been so hastily bestowed there. All at once he
gave a start that almost unclenched the grasp upon his sleeve and jerked
the bridle with a vehemence which brought the red and foaming mouth of
the spirited animal he bestrode down upon his chest with a violence that
sent the foam flying like a storm of snowflakes over his black shoulders
and mane. The proud and fretted creature gave an angry snort and
recoiled madly under this rough treatment. With burning eyes and a
fiercer toss of the head he recovered himself and leaped into the midst
of a body of armed horsemen which that moment formed a line across the
street, just above St. Margaret’s, and backed by an armed force, was
slowly driving the mob inch by inch from the ground they had occupied.

The plunge was so sudden and furious that a slightly built but stern and
aristocratic man, who rode in the centre of his party, was almost
unhorsed by the shock, and a great deal of confusion was created among
the horses and people thus forced back upon those eagerly pressing
toward the church. The man, who had been so nearly flung from his
saddle, fiercely curbed his plunging horse, and pressing his feet hard
in the broad stirrups, regained his position, but with a pale face and
eyes flashing fire at the rude assault which he believed to have been
purposely made upon his person.

“What, ho! take yon caitiff in charge,” he shouted, pointing sternly
with his drawn sword toward the artisan, “or cleave him to the earth a
base leader of a rabble as he seems.”

Instantly the fiery and still restive charger was seized by the bit, a
dozen hands were laid upon the pale and frightened being who crouched
upon his back, and he was drawn face to face with Somerset, the Lord
Protector of England.

There was something in the abject and insignificant figure of the
artisan which made the stern anger levelled at him by the haughty man
before whom he was forced almost ludicrous. This thought seemed to
present itself to the Lord Protector, for his mouth relaxed into a
contemptuous smile as he gazed upon his prisoner, and letting his sword
drop as if it had been a riding whip, he gave a careless order that the
man should be secured, and was about to move forward when his eye fell
upon the rich housings of Lord Dudley’s charger. At first a look of
surprise arose to his face, which gradually bent his brow into a heavy
and portentous frown. Once more lifting his sword, he pointed toward the
horse, demanding in a stern voice of the artisan, how he came there, and
so mounted?

“May it please your highness,” faltered the artisan, resuming something
of his natural audacity when he saw that there was a chance of
extricating himself by craft rather than blows,—“May it please your
highness, the horse belongs to my good Lord of Dudley whom I left but
now among the rioters yonder. They lack a leader and cannot spare him
yet, or he would vouch for my honesty and care which I have taken to
bestow myself and the good horse into safe quarters without meddling
hand or foot in this affray.”

“And how came Lord Dudley or his charger at St. Margaret’s?” said
Somerset, frowning still more heavily, “answer the truth now—how came
your lord here?”

The artisan seemed at a loss how to reply; but when the Protector grew
impatient, he shook his head with a look of shrewd meaning, and said
that his lord had ridden forth to seek a fair lady in the morning who
had promised him a meeting somewhere in the neighborhood, but that being
called upon by the mob, he had led the rioters for a time in their
attack upon the workmen, and at last had joined them on foot, consigning
the charger to his, the artisan’s care, and that was all he knew of the
matter.

“Think ye this varlet speaks truth,” said Somerset, bending to a
nobleman who rode at his left hand, “or does he make up this tale of the
lady to screen the premeditated share his master has taken in this
riot?”

“He has a lying face,” replied the person thus consulted, “the look of
an unwashed dog, and but for the charger which speaks for itself, and
the cry which arose but now from the heart of the mob, I should doubt.”

“Nay, it must be true, traitor as he looks,” exclaimed Somerset,
abruptly interrupting the other, “how could I expect aught else from a
Warwick? root and branch they are all alike, ambitious and full of
treachery. Take this man in charge!” he called aloud to those about him,
“and see that he find no means of escape. And now on, my good men, that
we may face this young traitor in the midst of his rabble followers—a
glorious band to be led on by a Warwick!” he added, tossing a scornful
glance over the rude throng which was beginning to give way before the
long pikes of his men.

The artisan, who had been allowed to sit freely on his horse while under
examination, was again seized at the command of Somerset; but this time
he refused to submit tamely to the hands laid upon him. In the struggle
his fingers were torn from their hold on his sleeve, and the stolen
jewels fell sparkling upon the long black mane of the charger. Before he
could free his hands and snatch them up, they were observed and secured
by one of the men to whom he had been consigned, who approached the Lord
Protector, as he finished his scornful comment on the rioters, and laid
them in his hand, informing him how they had been obtained.

Somerset glanced carelessly at the jewels, and was about to return them,
saying,

“We will attend to it all anon; keep strict guard of the wretch and see
that he does not escape.”

He had dropped part of the gems into the messenger’s hand again, when
his eye fell upon the ring; instantly the color flashed up to his
forehead, and he examined the stones with an intense interest, amounting
almost to agitation, for they circled his own family crest, and not many
hours before he had seen them on the hand of his youngest and favorite
daughter. He cast a keen glance on the man who had brought the jewels to
him, as if to ascertain if he had discovered the crest, and then quietly
reaching forth his hand he took the emeralds, examined them closely, and
forcing his horse up to the artisan, motioned that those around him
should draw back. He was obeyed so far as the crowd would permit, and
then drawing close to the prisoner, with a face almost as white and
agitated as his own, he demanded in a low severe voice how he came in
possession of the jewels?

“How did I come in possession? May it please your highness, as an honest
man should. The ring was given me by a fair lady for good service
rendered in bringing her and her sweet-heart together; and as for the
green stones there, which may be of value and may not, there is no gold
about them; and I have my doubts, for in these cases I have always found
the lady most liberal of the party—for the emeralds—why my young
master was generous as well as the lady—and well he might be, for I had
much ado to bring them together, besides fighting through the crowd, and
caring for the horse, and helping my lord to make a passage for his
light-o-love.”

“Hound! speak the word again and I will cleave thee to the earth, if it
be with my own sword, loth as I am to stain it so foully!” said Somerset
in a voice of intense rage.

“I did but answer the question your highness put,” replied the artisan
cringingly.

“Peace!” commanded the Protector. After a moment, he said with more
calmness, but still in the low and stern voice of concentrated anger—

“Know you the lady’s name who gave you this ring?”

“My lord called her Jane, or Lady Jane, which may be the true name and
may not—such light-o’—I crave your highness’ pardon—such ladies
sometimes have as many names as lovers—and this one may be Lady Jane to
my lord, and Mistress Jane, or Mary, or—”

“Enough,” interrupted the Protector—“and this ring was given by the—a
lady to reward thee for bringing her to an interview with Lord Dudley.
How happened it that thy services were required?”

“Well, as near as I can understand the matter,” replied the artisan,
somewhat reassured by the low calm tone of his questioner, though there
was something in the stern face that made his heart tremble, he knew not
why, “the lady, whoever she be, was to have met my lord somewhere near
the church yonder, but when he came to meet one person, behold a whole
parish of hotheaded people had taken possession, so instead of a love
passage he consoled himself by turning captain of the riot, and played
the leader to a marvel, as your highness may have heard by the clamorous
outcry with which he was cheered by the mob. I am but an humble man and
content me with looking on in a broil, so as I bestowed myself to a safe
corner, behold the fair lady of the ring had taken shelter there also,
and at her entreaties, urged in good sooth by a host of tears and those
sparklers almost as bright, she won me to give my lord an inkling of her
whereabouts, so as much for the bright tears as the gems I fought my way
through the mob and whispered a word in the eagle’s ears, which soon
brought him from his war flight to the dove cot, whereupon he gave me
charge of the horse here, and, taking the lady under his arm, went—”

“Whither, sirrah, whither did he take her?” said the Lord Protector, in
a voice that frightened the man, for it came through his clenched teeth
scarcely louder than a whisper, and yet so distinct that it fell upon
his ear sharply amid all the surrounding din.

“I lost sight of them in the crowd, for this strong-bitted brute was
enough to manage without troubling myself with love matters. They were
together, I had my reward, and that is the long and short of the
matter,” replied the artisan, mingling truth and falsehood with no
little address, considering the state of terror into which he had been
thrown.

“And thou art ignorant where she is now?” inquired Somerset, still in a
calm constrained voice.

“Even so, your highness. Lord Dudley has doubtless nestled his dove into
some safe nook hereabouts, while he leads on the rioters near the
church. I heard them shouting his name just as your lordly followers
seized my mettlesome beast by the bit. So there is little fear that he
will not be found all in good time.”

The Lord Protector turned away his head and wheeled his horse around
without speaking a word, but his followers were struck by the fierce
deep light that burned in his eyes and the extraordinary whiteness of
his face. The artisan took this movement as a sign of his own
liberation, and, glad to escape even with the loss of his plunder, he
gathered up the bridle and was about to push his way from a presence
that filled him with fear and trembling.

The Lord Protector’s quick eye caught the motion, and, as if all the
passions of his nature broke forth in the command, he thundered out—

“Seize that man and take good care that he neither speaks nor is spoken
to. God of Heaven!” he added, suddenly bending forward with all the keen
anguish of a father and a disgraced noble breaking over his pale
features as they almost touched the saddle-bow—“Father of Heaven, that
the honor of a brave house should lie at the mercy of a slippery knave’s
tongue!”

These words, spoken in a low stifled voice, were lost amid the din of
surrounding strife; but instantly that pale proud head was lifted again
and turned almost fierce upon his followers. The naked sword flashed
upward, and a shout, like that of a wounded eagle fierce in his
death-struggle, broke upon his white lips and rang almost like a shriek
upon the burthened air.

“On to the church—on, on through the mob—trample them to the earth
till we stand face to face with the leader!”

Instantly the men with their long pikes made a rush upon the multitude.
The horsemen plunged recklessly forward, crushing the unarmed people to
the earth, and trampling the warm life from many a human heart beneath
the hoofs of their chargers.

It was the cry and struggle which arose from this onset that reached the
Lord Dudley in the dim and solemn quietude of St. Margaret’s church. It
was this which made the Lady Jane spring wildly upon the altar where she
had been extended so weak and helpless, put back the hair from her face
and listen, white and breathless as a statue, for another sound of her
father’s voice like the one shrill war-cry that had cut to her heart
like a denunciation.

Lord Dudley hurried down the aisle again, for there was something in the
wild terror of her look that made him forgetful of everything but her.
As his foot was lifted upon the first step of the altar, the tumult
increased around the church till its foundation seemed tottering beneath
the levers of a thousand fiends, all fierce and clamorous for a fragment
of the sacred pile. There was a sound of heavy weapons battering against
the entrance. Shout rang upon shout—a terrible crash—the great arched
window was broken in. A fragment of the stone casement fell upon the
baptismal font, forcing it in twain and dashing the consecrated water
about till the censers and velvet footcloths were deluged with it. A
storm of painted glass filled the church—whirled and flashed in the
burst of sunshine, thus rudely let in, and fell upon the white
altar-stone, and the scarcely less white beings that stood upon it, like
a shower of gems shattered and ground to powder in their fall. Then the
door gave way, and those who had kept guard rushed in with uplifted
hands, and faces filled with terrible indignation, beseeching Lord
Dudley to arouse himself and come to their aid against the tyrant who
even then was planting his foot upon the ashes of their dead.

It was no time for deliberation or delay; the foundation of the church
shook beneath their feet, a body of armed men hot with anger and chafed
by opposition thundered at the scarcely bolted entrance. Perhaps the
brave blood which burned in Dudley’s veins, urged him on to the step
which now seemed unavoidable. Still he would have died, like a lion in
his lair, rather than become in any way the leader of a mob, but he
could not see that bright and gentle being, so good and so beloved,
perish by the violence of her own father. He snatched her from the altar
where she stood, and bearing her to a corner of the church most distant
from the entrance, forced her clinging arms from his neck, pressed his
lips hurriedly to her forehead, and rushed toward the door, followed by
the men who had hitherto guarded it. The effort proved a useless one.
The doors were blocked up by a phalanx of parishioners, and he could not
make himself known or force a passage out. The brave band was almost
crushed between the walls of the church and the Lord Protector, who,
with his horsemen, had driven them back, step by step, till they were
wedged together, resolute but almost helpless from want of room.

“To the window—stand beneath that I may mount by your shoulders,”
exclaimed Dudley to the men who surrounded him.

Instantly the group gathered in a compact knot beneath the shattered
window. Lord Dudley sprang upon the sort of platform made by their
shoulders, and thence, with a vigorous leap to the stone sill where he
stood, exposed and unarmed before the people—his cloak swaying loosely
back from his shoulder—his cap off and his fine hair falling in damp
heavy curls over his pale forehead.

A joyful shout and a fierce cry burst from the multitude and mingled
together as he appeared before them. A world of flashing eyes and
working faces was uplifted to the window, and for a moment the strife
raging about the church was relaxed, for men were astonished by his
appearance there, almost in open rebellion, face to face with the Lord
Protector.

“Bring that man to the earth dead,” shouted Somerset, pointing toward
the young nobleman, “and then set fire to the building, to-morrow shall
not see a single stone in its place.”

A shower of deadly missiles flew around the young noble, but he sprang
unhurt into the midst of the throng, which made way for him to pass till
he stood front to front with the man who had just commanded his death.
Somerset turned deadly pale, and, clenching his teeth with intense rage,
lifted his sword with both hands, as if to cleave the youth through the
head.

“My Lord Duke,” said Dudley, in a manner so calm that it arrested the
proud nobleman’s hand, though his weapon was still kept uplifted, “I do
beseech your grace draw the soldiers away; the parishioners are furious,
and I am convinced will defend the church till you trample an entrance
over their dead bodies.”

Dudley spoke respectfully and as a son to his parent, but with much
agitation, for everything that he held dear seemed involved in the
safety of the church. He knew that estrangement existed between the duke
and his own noble father, but up to that moment had no idea that his
personal favor with Somerset was in the least impaired. He had not
believed that the command levelled against his life was indeed intended
for him, and was therefore both astonished and perplexed when the duke
bent his face bloodless and distorted with rage close down to his and
exclaimed,

“Dastard and traitor! where is my child?”

“She is yonder within the church,” replied Dudley with prompt and manly
courage. “Safe, thank God! as yet, but if this fierce assault continue
she must perish in the ruin!”

“So shall it be,” replied the Protector fiercely. “Let her life and her
shame be buried together.”

“Her shame, my Lord Duke,” said Dudley, laying his hand on Somerset’s
bridle-rein, and meeting the stern glance fixed on him with one full of
proud feeling. “Another lip than yours had not coupled such words with
the pure name of Jane Seymour, and lived to utter another. But you are
her father.”

“Ay, to my curse and bitter shame be it said, I _am_ her father,”
replied the duke, “and have power to punish both the victim and the
tempter. Your conduct, base son of a baser father, shall be answered for
before the king, but first stand by and see your weak victim meet the
reward of her art.”

As he spoke, Somerset grasped the youth by his arm, and hurling him
among his followers, shouted, “secure the traitor, or if he resist cut
him down. Now on to the attack. A hundred pounds to the first man who
forces an entrance to the church. Set fire to it if our strength be not
enough, and let no one found there escape alive.”

The confusion which followed this order was instant and tremendous. The
mob rushed fiercely upon the Protector in a fruitless effort to rescue
Lord Dudley, while the soldiers sprang forward upon the building, and
half a score were seen clambering like wild animals along the rough
stone-work toward the windows, for still the mob kept possession of the
door.

The group which we left within the church hearing this command, looked
sternly into each other’s faces, and their leader—he who had admitted
Dudley and his companion—was aided by his friends, and sprang within
the shattered window just as the head of a clambering assailant was
raised above the sill. The sexton, for the man held that office in the
church, planted one foot upon the soldier’s fingers, when they clung
with a fierce gripe upon the stone, and stooping down he secured the
poor fellow by both shoulders, bent him back till his body was almost
doubled, and then with hands and foot spurned him from the wall with a
violence that hurled him many paces into the crowd. Another and another
shared the fate of this unfortunate man, and there stood the sexton,
unharmed, guarding the pass like a lion at bay, and tearing up fragments
of stone to hurl at the soldiers whenever he was not compelled to act on
the defensive; but his situation soon became very critical, for his
station became the point of general attack, and Somerset’s voice was
still heard fiercely ordering his men to fire the building; for a moment
the shower of missiles hurled from the soldiers beat him down, and he
was forced to spring into the church among his companions again for
shelter. The poor young lady heard the savage command of her parent,
and, rushing to the men, frantically besought them to inform the Duke of
Somerset his child was in the building, and that, she was certain, would
save it from destruction. There was something in the helplessness and
touching beauty of that young creature as she stood before them,
wringing her hands, and with tears streaming down her pale cheek, that
touched the men with compassion, or she might have perished by their
hands when her connection with their oppressor was made known. They
looked in each other’s faces and a few rapid words passed between them.
The sexton sprang once more upon the window, the rest turned upon the
terrified lady and she was lifted from hand to hand, till at last they
placed her by his side, trembling and almost senseless.

“Behold,” cried the sexton, lifting the poor girl up before the
multitude and flinging back the hair from her pale and affrighted
features, that her father might recognise them, and feel to his heart,
all the indignity and peril of her position. “Behold, I say, lift but
another pike, hurl a stone but the size of a hazelnut against these
walls, and this proud lady shall share them all side by side with the
humble sexton. My Lord of Somerset,” he shouted, grasping the lady firm
with one arm, as if about to hurl her from the window, “Draw off your
soldiers, leave these old walls, where we may worship our God in peace,
or I will hurl your child into the midst of my brethren, that she may be
trampled beneath their feet, even as you have crushed human limbs this
day under your iron-shod war horses.”

These words were uttered by a rude man, but excitement had made him
eloquent, and his voice rang over the crowd like the blast of a trumpet.
When he ceased speaking, a silence almost appalling, after the previous
wild sounds, fell upon the multitude. The horsemen stayed their swords,
and the soldiers stood with their pikes half lifted, and Somerset
himself sat like one stupified by the sudden apparition of his child;
among all that rude throng there was no hand brutal enough to lift
itself against that beautiful and trembling girl, but many a glistening
eye turned from her to the stern but now agonized face of the duke,
anxious that he should draw off his men. He was very pale, his lip
quivered for a moment, and then his face hardened again like marble.

“Her blood be upon thy head, young man,” he exclaimed, bending his keen
but troubled eyes on Lord Dudley, who stood vainly struggling with his
captors; then lifting his voice he cried out,

“Tear down the church; neither wall of stone nor human being must stop
our way!”

Still a profound silence lay upon the multitude. There was something
horrible in the command that caused the coarsest heart to revolt at its
cruelty. So still and motionless remained the throng that the faint
shriek which died on the pale lips of that helpless girl as her father’s
command fell upon her ear, was distinctly heard even by the stern parent
himself. He lifted his eyes to the place where she was kneeling, her
hands clasped, her face like marble, and those eyes, usually so tranquil
and dove-like, glittering with terror and fixed imploringly upon his
face.

He turned away his head and tried to repeat his command, but the words
died in his throat, and he could not utter them. Again her locked hands
were extended, and her heart seemed breaking with wonder at his cruelty
as she uttered the single word, “Father!”

That little word as it came like a frightened dove over the listening
mob, settled upon the heart of that stern man, and awoke feelings which
would not be hushed again. It was the first word his child had ever
spoken. Her rosy infancy was before him—the sweet smile, the soft tiny
hands clasped triumphantly together, when those syllables were mastered,
seemed playing with his heart-strings, the same heart which had thrilled
with so sweet a pleasure to her infant greeting. It was a strange thing
that these memories should fall upon him when his passions were all
aroused and amid a concourse of rough contending people, but the heart
is an instrument of many tones, and nature sometimes hangs forth its
sweetest music in singular places, and amid scenes that we cannot
comprehend. The Lord Protector bent his head, for tears were in his
eyes, and, like many a being before and since, he was ashamed of his
better nature. At last he conquered his agitation, and in a loud firm
voice, commanded his soldiers to withdraw, and pledged his knightly word
to the rioters that the church should receive no farther injury.

The people were generally satisfied with this assurance, and began to
disperse when they saw the soldiery filing away toward the river. The
duke dismissed his followers at the door of St. Margaret’s, saw Lord
Dudley conducted from his presence under a strong guard, and then
entered the church alone and much agitated. He found his child sitting
upon a step of the altar, shivering as with cold, and with her face
buried in her hands. She knew his step as he came slowly down the aisle,
and lifted her dim eyes with a look of touching appeal to his face. It
was stern, cold, and unforgiving. She arose timidly and moved with a
wavering step to meet him. His face was still averted, but she reached
up her arms, wound them about his neck, and swooned away with her cheek
pressed to his, like a grieved child that had sobbed itself to sleep.
Again the thoughts of her infancy came to his heart, and though it was
wrung with a belief that she had been very blameable and had trifled
with her proud name, she was senseless and could not know that he had
caressed her as of old; so the stern man bent his head and wept, as he
kissed her forehead.

                           (To be continued.)

                 *        *        *        *        *

[Illustration: _MY BONNIE STEED_]

                 *        *        *        *        *




                            MY BONNIE STEED.


                          BY ALEX. A. IRVINE.


    My bonnie steed, with merry speed,
      Away we gallop free,
    The first to drink the morning breeze,
       Or brush the dewy lea,
    To hail the sun as o’er the hills
      His slanting ray he flings,
    Or hear the matin of the lark
      That high in heaven rings.

    My bonnie steed, o’er noontide mead
      We’ve swept in canter gay,
    Through woodland path have boldly dash’d,
      Oh! what can check our way?
    With hound and horn in jocund band
      And hearts that smile at fear,
    And flowing rein and gay halloo,
      We’ve chased the flying deer.

    My bonnie steed, with matchless speed
      At eve we dash away,
    The zephyrs laughing round our path
      As children at their play,
    And while in merry race and free,
      Away, away we fly,
    The thick stars shining overhead
      Seem speeding swifter by.

    My bonnie steed, my bonnie steed,
      True friend indeed thou art,
    And none are brighter in mine eye
      Or dearer to my heart.
    Let others smile on gallants gay
      I mock the lover’s creed,
    Then onward press, away, away,
      My bonnie, bonnie steed.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                            ORIGINAL LETTER


                                  FROM

                            CHARLES DICKENS.


    [For the truly characteristic letter here published, and for the
    sketch which accompanies it, we are indebted to the obliging
    attention of Mr. John Tomlin of Tennessee.—With our own warm
    admiration of the writings and character of Dickens we can well
    understand and easily pardon the enthusiasm of our friend.]

In setting about that most difficult of all tasks, the sketching of the
character of a living author, I feel that I cannot entirely keep clear
of that weakness of the human mind, which praises the foibles of a
friend and condemns the virtues of an enemy. There is no task more
difficult of performance than the one I have imposed upon myself—no
task but what can be more easily performed correctly, than the
presentation to the world, in their nice distinctive shades, of living
characters. To admire one is to praise him—and to cover all of his
faults in the blindness of charity, is the weakness of our nature. It is
scarcely possible then, Mr. Poe, for one like me, whose love is as
strong as the faith of the martyr, when at the stake he expires, and
whose hate is as deep as the depths of the sea, to shun the errors that
almost every one has fallen into, who undertakes the task of sketching
characters, _life-like_, of eminent living individuals.—To succeed
partially is in my power, and in the power of almost every one, but to
succeed wholly in introducing to the mind’s eye the character as it
really is, of any individual, is scarcely possible. I will not say that
I am peculiarly fitted to shine in this province, nor will I say that I
am equal to the task that I have voluntarily imposed upon myself—but I
will say that everything I say will be said from a conviction of belief.

Nay, do not start and turn pale, gentle reader, when I tell you that
“Boz,” the inimitable “Boz,” is the subject of the present sketch. It is
indeed true that Charles Dickens, the great English author—he who lives
in London amid the exciting scenes and struggles of this world’s great
Metropolis, is now about to be “talked off,” by a backwoodsman—but he
will do it with an _admiring_ reverence, and a _most partial_
discretion. I will not speak of his published works, for they have been
numbered among our household gods,—nor of the genius of the mind that
has made them such. So long as there is mind to appreciate the high
conceptions of mind, and a taste to admire the purity of thought, so
long will Charles Dickens live “the noblest work of God.”

Charles Dickens as an author is too well known for me to say aught for
or against him. It is only in his private capacity will I speak—only as
Charles Dickens, the private man. Those social qualities of the nature
so requisite in the making up of a good man, belong to him essentially
and justly. He could not be Charles Dickens and have not those qualities
of the soul which but few possess. Had all of us the true nobility of
nature, all of us would be like him in spirit. There is in him a
gentleness that commands our love as much as his genius has our
admiration. The kindness of his nature is as great as his talent is
pre-eminent. He could never be otherwise than “Boz” nor less than
Charles Dickens—the being of all kindly feeling.

Dwelling in a little hamlet that is scarcely known beyond the sound of
its church bell—and in a place that a few years ago, resounded only to
the winds of the magic woods, or the moccasin tread of the Indian on the
dry leaves,—I, a creature less known by far than my village, addressed
a letter to “Boz,” and, in answer from him, received the following
letter:

                                “1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate.
                                             Regent’s Park, London.
                               Tuesday, Twenty-third February, 1841.

    Dear Sir:—You are quite right in feeling assured that I should
    answer the letter you have addressed to me. If you had
    entertained a presentiment that it would afford me sincere
    pleasure and delight to hear from a warm-hearted and admiring
    reader of my books in the back-woods of America, you would not
    have been far wrong.

    I thank you cordially and heartily, both for your letter, and
    its kind and courteous terms. To think that I have awakened a
    fellow-feeling and sympathy with the creatures of many
    thoughtful hours among the vast solitudes in which you dwell, is
    a source of the purest delight and pride to me; and believe me
    that your expressions of affectionate remembrance and approval,
    sounding from the great forests on the banks of the Mississippi,
    sink deeper into my heart and gratify it more than all the
    honorary distinctions that all the courts in Europe could
    confer.

    It is such things as these that make one hope one does not live
    in vain, and that are the highest reward of an author’s life. To
    be numbered among the household gods of one’s distant countrymen
    and associated with their homes and quiet pleasures—to be told
    that in each nook and corner of the world’s great mass there
    lives one well-wisher who holds communion with one in the
    spirit—is a worthy fame indeed, and one which I would not
    barter for a mine of wealth.

    That I may be happy enough to cheer some of your leisure hours
    for a very long time to come, and to hold a place in your
    pleasant thoughts is the earnest wish of Boz.—And with all good
    wishes for yourself, and with a sincere reciprocation of all
    your kindly feeling, I am, Dear Sir,

                                               Faithfully Yours,
                                                  Charles Dickens.
      Mr. John Tomlin.”

Can anything be more _unique_—or more sweetly beautiful than this
letter? In it there is the poetry of feeling warmed into life by his
sympathies with the “creatures of many thoughtful hours.” The brain has
never yet loosened from her alembic fountain, and dropped upon an
author’s page, thoughts more gem-like than those that we see sparkling
like diamonds in his letter. Time in her ravages on the thoughts of the
departed never harvested more sparkling things than what appears here
from the granary of “Boz’s” original mind. Throughout there is a
tenderness breathing its seer-like influence on every thought, until it
seems to become hallowed like the spirit-dream of a lover’s hope.

The great difference between mankind is, that there is a feeling of
kindness in the heart of some that is not possessed by others. To live
in this world without conferring on others, benefits, is to live without
a purpose. Of what value to our fellow creatures is mind, no matter how
splendidly adorned, if it bestows no favors on them? The rich gems that
lie buried in the caves of the oceans, are not in their secret caves
intrinsically less valuable, but their value is really not known until
they yield a profit.—Napoleon in his granite mind impressed no stamp of
heaven on his countrymen. Hard as the winter of his Russian Service
lived his life on the memory of man! Frozen tears as thickly as
hail-drops from a thunder-shower fell from the eyes of his army to
blight and wither the affections of civilized Europe. In his life he
toiled for a name which he won at the sacrifice of the lives of
millions, and perished a prisoner on a bleak and rocky isle of the
ocean!—The splendid intellect of Byron, more dazzling than the sunbeam
from a summer sky, by one untoward circumstance came to prey upon every
good feeling of his heart—and what was he?—a misanthrope!—That
ill-fated and persecuted star, P. B. Shelley, what could he not have
been, had the genius of his high-toned feelings been directed aright?

With all of the genius of these three beings Charles Dickens has a good
heart, with all of the philanthropy and patriotism of a Washington. How
few indeed are the great men that have lived in any age or in any
country whose social qualities of the heart have not been materially
injured, and in many instances totally destroyed, by eccentric
peculiarities. Sometimes these peculiarities are real, but mostly have
they been assumed. To be as nature made us is hardly possible now with
any being who has the least prospect of a brilliant career in the world
of letters. When nature bestows her high endowments on the mind, the
favored one immediately aspires to oddity, and often to insanity,—and
makes a non-descript of his genius. To have the world’s affability, and
those social qualities of the heart that give so much of happiness and
pleasure to our fellow creatures, is not considered by a man of genius
as a thing at all worthy of possession, or as gifts adding one lustre to
the character. Instead of being as they are, forming epochs in time and
being bright exemplars in the annals of chroniclers, which nature
intended them to do, they by the most odd monstrosities endeavor to mar
the genial warmth of the feeling by misanthropic actions, and destroy
from their very foundation the most kindly emotions.

To see one of our fellow creatures on whom nature has with an unsparing
hand bestowed her best gifts, doing deeds unworthy the high standing of
his parentage, and disgracing the purity of his privileges, is to the
noble in spirit the source of its most feverish excitement. With the
best of minds, organized artistically, Byron fell into habits so
monstrously bad, that among the virtuous his name became a term used in
denoting disgrace. No excuse can be offered for the man who has
disgraced his name—no charity is so blind as not to see the stain.

In the world’s history, as far back as the memory reaches into the past,
we have seen the most brilliant minds, associated in connection with
some of the worst qualities of the heart. There is occasionally some
solitary instance, standing as some beautiful _relief_ on the epoch of
time, of beings whose splendid endowments of mind have not been more
remarkable in their era of history for talent, than the generous
breathings of the holy purity of heart have been for kindness. Such
cases as these are few, and happen but seldom. In “Boz” these two
qualities have met.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                NYDIA, THE BLIND FLOWER-GIRL OF POMPEII.


                            BY G. G. FOSTER.


    Thou beautiful misfortune! image fair
      Of flowers all ravished, yet their sweetness giving
    To the rude hand that crushed them! thou dost wear
      Thy loveliness so meekly—thy love hiving
    Within thy deepest heart-cells—that the air
      Pauses enamored, from thy breath contriving
    To steal the perfume of the incensed fire
    Which brightly burns within, yet burns without desire.

    Thy life should be among the roses, where
      Beauty without its passion paints each leaf,
    And gently-falling dews upon the air
      The light of loveliness exhale, and brief
    And glorious, without toil, or pain, or care,
      They prideless bloom and wither without grief.
    Thou shouldst not feel the slow and sure decay
    Which frees ignoble spirits from their clay.

    Farewell, thou bright embodiment of truth—
      Too warm to worship, yet too pure to love!
    Thou shalt survive in thy immortal youth
      Thy brief existence—while thy soul above
    Rests in the bosom of its God. No ruth,
      Or anguish, or despair, or hopeless love,
    Again shall rend thy gentle breast—but bliss
    Embalm in that bright world the heart that broke in this.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             THE DUELLO.[1]


           BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE BROTHERS,” “CROMWELL,” ETC.


It was a clear bright day in the early autumn when the royal tilt-yard,
on the Isle de Paris, was prepared for a deadly conflict. The tilt-yard
was a regular, oblong space, enclosed with stout squared palisades, and
galleries for the accommodation of spectators, immediately in the
vicinity of the royal residence of the Tournelles, a splendid gothic
structure, adorned with all the rare and fanciful devices of that rich
style of architecture—at a short distance thence arose the tall gray
towers of Notre Dame, the bells of which were tolling minutely the dirge
for a passing soul. From one of the windows of the palace a gallery had
been constructed, hung with rich crimson tapestry, leading to a long
range of seats, cushioned and decked with arras, and guarded by a strong
party of gentlemen in the royal livery with partizans in their hands and
sword and dagger at the belt—at either end of the list was a tent
pitched, that at the right of the royal gallery a plain marquee of
canvass of small size, which had apparently seen much service, and been
used in real warfare. The curtain which formed the door of this was
lowered, so that no part of the interior could be seen from without; but
a particolored pennon was pitched into the ground beside it, and a
shield suspended from the palisades, emblazoned with bearings, which all
men knew to be those of Charles Baron de La-Hirè, a renowned soldier in
the late Italian wars, and the challenger in the present conflict. The
pavilion at the left, or lower end, was of a widely different kind—of
the very largest sort then in use, completely framed of crimson cloth
lined with white silk, festooned and fringed with gold, and all the
curtains looped up to display a range of massive tables covered with
snow-white damask, and loaded with two hundred covers of pure
silver!—Vases of flowers and flasks of crystal were intermixed upon the
board with tankards, flagons, and cups and urns of gold, embossed and
jewelled—and behind every seat a page was placed, clad in the colors of
the Count de Laguy—a silken curtain concealed the entrance of an inner
tent, wherein the Count awaited the signal that should call him to the
lists.—Strange and indecent as such an accompaniment would be deemed
now-a-days to a solemn mortal conflict—it was then deemed neither
singular nor monstrous—and in this gay pavilion Armand de Laguy, the
challenged in the coming duel, had summoned all the nobles of the court
to feast with him, after he should have slain, so confident was he of
victory, his cousin and accuser, Charles Baron de La-Hirè. The entrances
of the tilt-yard were guarded by a detachment of the King’s sergeants,
sheathed _cap-a-pié_ in steel, with shouldered arquebuses and matches
ready lighted—the lists were strewn with saw-dust and hung completely
with black serge, save where the royal gallery afforded a strange
contrast by its rich decorations to the ghastly draperies of the
battle-ground. One other object only remains to be noticed; it was a
huge block of black-oak, dinted in many places as if by the edge of a
sharp weapon and stained with plashes of dark gore. Beside this
frightful emblem stood a tall muscular gray-headed man, dressed in a
leathern frock and apron stained like the block with many a gout of
blood, bare-headed and bare-armed, leaning upon a huge two-handed axe,
with a blade of three feet in breadth. A little way aloof from these was
placed a chair, wherein a monk was seated, a very aged man with a bald
head and beard as white as snow, telling his beads in silence until his
ministry should be required.

The space around the lists and all the seats were crowded well nigh to
suffocation by thousands of anxious and attentive spectators; and many
an eye was turned to watch the royal seats which were yet vacant, but
which it was well known would be occupied before the trumpet should
sound for the onset. The sun was now nearly at the meridian, and the
expectation of the crowd was at its height, when the passing bell ceased
ringing, and was immediately succeeded by the accustomed peal,
announcing the hour of high noon. Within a moment or two, a bustle was
observed among the gentlemen pensioners—then a page or two entered the
royal seats, and, after looking about them for a moment, again retired.
Another pause of profound expectation, and then a long loud blast of
trumpets followed from the interior of the royal residence—nearer it
rang, and nearer, till the loud symphonies filled every ear and thrilled
to the core of every heart—and then the King, the dignified and noble
Henry, entered with all his glittering court, princes and dukes, and
peers and ladies of high birth and matchless beauty, and took their
seats among the thundering acclamations of the people, to witness the
dread scene that was about to follow, of wounds and blood and butchery.
All were arrayed in the most gorgeous splendor—all except one, a girl
of charms unrivalled, although she seemed plunged in the deepest agony
of grief, by the seductive beauties of the gayest. Her bright redundant
auburn hair was all dishevelled—her long dark eyelashes were pencilled
in distinct relief against the marble pallor of her colorless cheek—her
rich and rounded form was veiled, but not concealed, by a dress of the
coarsest serge, black as the robes of night, and thereby contrasting
more the exquisite fairness of her complexion. On her all eyes were
fixed—some with disgust—some with contempt—others with pity,
sympathy, and even admiration. That girl was Marguerite de
Vaudreuil—betrothed to either combatant—the betrayed herself and the
betrayer—rejected by the man whose memory, when she believed him dead,
she had herself deserted—rejecting in her turn, and absolutely loathing
him whose falsehood had betrayed her into the commission of a yet deeper
treason. Marguerite de Vaudreuil, lately the admired of all beholders,
now the prize of two kindred swordsmen, without an option save that
between the bed of a man she hated, and the life-long seclusion of the
convent.

The King was seated—the trumpets flourished once again, and at the
signal the curtain was withdrawn from the tent door of the challenger,
and Charles de La-Hirè stepped calmly out on the arena, followed by his
godfather, De Jarnac, bearing two double-edged swords of great length
and weight, and two broad-bladed poniards. Charles de La-Hirè was very
pale and sallow, as if from ill health or from long confinement, but his
step was firm and elastic, and his air perfectly unmoved and tranquil; a
slight flush rose to his pale cheek as he was greeted by an enthusiastic
cheer from the people, to whom his fame in the wars of Italy had much
endeared him, but the flush was transient, and in a moment he was as
pale and cold as before the shout which hailed his entrance. He was clad
very plainly in a dark morone-colored pourpoint, with vest, trunk-hose,
and nether stocks of black silk netting, displaying to admiration the
outlines of his lithe and sinewy frame. De Jarnac, his godfather, on the
contrary, was very foppishly attired with an abundance of fluttering
tags and ruffles of rich lace, and feathers in his velvet cap. These two
had scarcely stood a moment in the lists, before, from the opposite
pavilion, De Laguy and the Duke de Nevers issued, the latter bearing,
like De Jarnac, a pair of swords and daggers; it was observed, however,
that the weapons of De Laguy were narrow three-cornered rapier blades
and Italian stilettoes, and it was well understood that on the choice of
the weapons depended much the result of the encounter—De Laguy being
renowned above any gentleman in the French court for his skill in the
science of defence, as practised by the Italian masters—while his
antagonist was known to excel in strength and skill in the management of
all downright soldierly weapons, in coolness, in decision, presence of
mind, and calm self-sustained valor, rather than in slight and
dexterity. Armand de Laguy was dressed sumptuously, in the same garb
indeed which he had worn at the festival whereon the strife arose which
now was on the point of being terminated—and forever!

A few moments were spent in deliberation between the godfathers of the
combatants, and then it was proclaimed by De Jarnac, “that the wind and
sun having been equally divided between the two swordsmen, their places
were assigned—and that it remained only to decide upon the choice of
the weapons!—that the choice should be regulated by a throw of the
dice—and that with the weapons so chosen they should fight till one or
other should be _hors de combat_—but that in case that either weapon
should be bent or broken, the seconds should cry ‘hold,’ and recourse be
had to the other swords—the use of the poniard to be optional, as it
was to be used only for parrying, and not for striking—that either
combatant striking a blow or thrusting after the utterance of the word
‘hold,’ or using the dagger to inflict a wound, should be dragged to the
block and die the death of a felon.”

This proclamation made, dice were produced, and De Nevers winning the
throw for Armand, the rapiers and stilettoes which he had selected were
produced, examined carefully, and measured, and delivered to the kindred
foemen.

It was a stern and fearful sight—for there was no bravery nor show in
their attire, nor aught chivalrous in the way of battle. They had thrown
off their coats and hats, and remained in their shirt sleeves and under
garments only, with napkins bound about their brows, and their eyes
fixed each on the other’s with intense and terrible malignity.

The signal was now given and the blades were crossed—and on the instant
it was seen how fearful was the advantage which De Laguy had gained by
the choice of weapons—for it was with the utmost difficulty that
Charles de La-Hirè avoided the incessant longes of his enemy, who
springing to and fro, stamping and writhing his body in every direction,
never ceased for a moment with every trick of feint and pass and
flourish to thrust at limb, face and body, easily parrying himself with
the poniard, which he held in his left hand, the less skilful assaults
of his enemy. Within five minutes the blood had been drawn in as many
places, though the wounds were but superficial, from the sword-arm, the
face and thigh of De La-Hirè, while he had not as yet pricked ever so
lightly his formidable enemy—his quick eye, however, and firm active
hand stood him in stead, and he contrived in every instance to turn the
thrusts of Armand so far at least aside as to render them innocuous to
life. As his blood, however, ebbed away, and as he knew that he must
soon become weak from the loss of it, De Jarnac evidently grew uneasy,
and many bets were offered that Armand would kill him without receiving
so much as a scratch himself. And now Charles saw his peril, and
determined on a fresh line of action—flinging away his dagger, he
altered his position rapidly, so as to bring his left hand toward De
Laguy, and made a motion with it, as if to grasp his sword-hilt—he was
immediately rewarded by a longe, which drove clear through his left arm
close to the elbow joint but just above it—De Jarnac turned on the
instant deadly pale, for he thought all was over—but he erred widely,
for De La-Hirè had calculated well his action and his time, and that
which threatened to destroy him proved, as he meant it, his
salvation—for as quick as light when he felt the wound he dropped his
own rapier, and grasping Armand’s guard with his right hand, he snapped
the blade short off in his own mangled flesh and bounded five feet
backward, with the broken fragment still sticking in his arm.

“Hold!” shouted each godfather on the instant—and at the same time De
La-Hirè exclaimed, “give us the other swords—give us the other swords,
De Jarnac—”

The exchange was made in a moment, the stilettoes and the broken weapons
were gathered up, and the heavy horse-swords given to the combatants,
who again faced each other with equal resolution, though now with
altered fortunes. “Now De La-Hirè,” exclaimed De Jarnac, as he put the
well poised blade into his friend’s hand—“you managed that right
gallantly and well—now fight the quick fight, ere you shall faint from
pain and bleeding!”—and it was instantly apparent that such was indeed
his intention—his eye lightened, and he looked like an eagle about to
pounce upon his foe, as he drew up his form to its utmost height and
whirled the long new blade about his head as though it had been but a
feather. Far less sublime and striking was the attitude and
swordsmanship of De Laguy, though he too fought both gallantly and well.
But at the fifth pass, feinting at his head, Charles fetched a long and
sweeping blow at his right leg, and striking him below the ham, divided
all the tendons with the back of the double-edged blade—then springing
in before he fell, plunged his sword into his body, that the hilt
knocked heavily at his breast bone and the point came out glittering
between his shoulders—the blood flashed out from the deep wound, from
nose, and ears, and mouth, as he fell prostrate, and Charles stood over
him, leaning on his avenging weapon and gazing sadly into his stiffening
features—“Fetch him a priest,” exclaimed De Nevers—“for by my halidome
he will not live ten minutes.”

“If he live _five_,” cried the King rising from his seat—“if he live
_five_, he will live long enough to die upon the block—for he lies
there a felon and convicted traitor, and by my soul he shall die a
felon’s doom—but bring him a priest quickly.”

The old monk ran across the lists, and raised the head of the dying man,
and held the crucifix aloft before his glazing eyes, and called upon him
to repent and to confess as he would have salvation.

Faint and half choked with blood he faltered forth the words—“I do—I
do confess guilty—oh! double guilty!—pardon! oh
God—Charles!—Marguerite!”—and as the words died on his quivering lips
he sank down fainting with the excess of agony.

“Ho! there!—guards, headsman”—shouted Henry—“off with him—off with
the villain to the block, before he die an honorable death by the sword
of as good a knight as ever fought for glory!”

Then De La-Hirè knelt down beside the dying man, and took his hand in
his own and raised it tenderly, while a faint gleam of consciousness
kindled the pallid features—“May God as freely pardon thee as I do, oh
my cousin!”—then turning to the King—“You have admitted, sire, that I
have served you faithfully and well—never yet have I sought reward at
your hand—let this now be my guerdon. Much have I suffered, even thus
let me not feel that my King has increased my sufferings by consigning
one of my blood to the headsman’s blow—pardon him, sire, as I do—who
have the most cause of offence—pardon him, gracious King, as we will
hope that a King higher yet shall pardon him and us, who be all sinners
in the sight of his all-seeing eye!”

“Be it so,” answered Henry—“it never shall be said of me that a French
King refused his bravest soldier’s first claim upon his justice—bear
him to his pavilion!”

And they did bear him to his pavilion, decked as it was for revelry and
feasting, and they laid him there ghastly and gashed and gory upon the
festive board, and his blood streamed among the choice wines, and the
scent of death chilled the rich fragrance of the flowers—an hour! and
he was dead who had invited others to triumph over his cousin’s
slaughter—an hour! and the court lackeys shamefully spoiled and
plundered the repast which had been spread for nobles.

“And now,” continued Henry, taking the hand of Marguerite—“Here is the
victor’s prize—wilt have him, Marguerite?—’fore heaven but he has won
thee nobly!—wilt have her, De La-Hirè, methinks her tears and beauty
may yet atone for fickleness produced by treasons such as his who now
shall never more betray, nor lie, nor sin forever!—”

“Sire,” replied De La-Hirè very firmly, “I pardon her, I love her
yet!—but I wed not dishonor!”

“He is right,” said the pale girl—“he is right, ever right and
noble—for what have such as I to do with wedlock? Fare thee
well!—Charles—dear, honored Charles!—The mists of this world are
clearing away from mine eyes, and I see now that I loved thee best—thee
only! Fare thee well, noble one, forget the wretch who has so deeply
wronged thee—forget me and be happy. For me I shall right soon be
free!”

“Not so—not so,” replied King Henry, misunderstanding her meaning—“not
so, for I have sworn it, and though I may pity thee, I may not be
forsworn—to-morrow thou must to a convent, there to abide for ever!”

“And that will not be long,” answered the girl, a gleam of her old pride
and impetuosity lighting up her fair features.

“By heaven, I say forever,” cried Henry, stamping his foot on the ground
angrily.

“And I reply, not long!”

-----

[1] See the “False Ladye,” page 27.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                      DREAMS OF THE LAND AND SEA.


                         BY DR. REYNELL COATES.


                        SUNDAY AT SEA—A REVERY.

             “We could not pray together on the deep,
             Which, like a floor of sapphire, round us lay,
             Soft, solemn, holy!”
                                                    Hemans.

’Tis Sunday!—Far to the westward lie the regions of the Amazonians,
and, in the east, the Caffre hunts the ostrich. From the south, the
lonely island of Tristan d’Acunha looms high above the horizon. Although
twenty-three miles of water intervene between us and the base of this
extinct volcano, the spray of the long billows of the southern ocean
rises in misty clouds above the perpendicular and rocky shores, shading
the mountain with a pearly veil, widely different in color from the soft
blue tint of distance.—Even from the mast-head, whither the desire of
solitude has led me, the summits of three or four billows complete the
range of vision; for, around the entire circuit of the earth, the
eternal west winds sweep, with scarce a barrier to their action.

To those who are familiar with the Atlantic only—that comparatively
diminutive expanse, which Humboldt has appropriately called “an arm of
the sea,”—the extent of these mountain swells must appear almost
incredible. It is not their height—for this is fixed within narrow
limits by an immutable law—but their vast, unbroken magnitude, that
awes the observer with the consciousness of infinite power. What are the
proudest monuments of human strength and skill, dotting the surface of
creation, when compared with these majestic waves, which are themselves
but the ripple of a passing breeze?

Reclining in the main-top, above all living things except the wild sea
bird—an antiquated volume on the Scandinavian mysteries in hand—I give
myself up to solitary reflection.—Dark dreams of superstition!—and
must the order and loveliness of this glorious world be terminated in
one wild wreck—one chaos of hopeless ruin!—shall all the labors of
creative goodness sink beneath the power of the unchained demon of
destruction!

We move upon the hardened crust of a volcanic crater!—The solid pillars
of the earth have given way once and again!—The stony relics of a
former world forewarn proud man himself, that he too, with all his
boastful race is hurrying to his doom!—All things have their cycles.

    “This huge rotundity we tread grows old!”

What a pitiful guide is the unaided light of human reason, when it
grapples with the mysteries of creation! The good and great have lived
in every land, and all have striven to elevate the soul of man above the
grovelling passions and desires that link him with the brutes—pointing
his attention to the future, and instilling a belief in other powers, by
whose high best our destiny is governed, and whose wise decrees will
prove hereafter the reward of virtue and the scourge of vice.—Yet what
have they accomplished!—Each forms a Deity, whose attributes are the
reflection of the physical objects which surround him, or the echo of
his own ill-regulated feelings!

In the bright regions of the East, where the unremitting ardor of the
sun gives birth to an infinity of life, and the decaying plant or animal
is scarce resolved into its elements, ere other forms start forth from
its remains—_there_, the soul of man must wander from link to link in
the great chain of Nature, till, purified by ages of distress, it merges
into the very essence of the power supreme!—a power divided and engaged
in an eternal contest with itself! a never-ceasing war between the
principles of Good and Evil!

In those distant regions of the North, where winter rules three-quarters
of the year, and the orb of day, with look askance, but half illuminates
man’s dwelling and his labors—where verdure, for a few days, clothes
the hills with transitory grace; but all that seeks support from
vegetable aliment is endowed with fleetness like the reindeer, or
migrates, in the icy season, to more genial climes with the wild duck
and the pigeon;—in that gloomy circle, where the frozen earth scarce
yields a foot in depth to all the warming influence of summer, and men,
curtailed of half the sad resource spared even in the primeval curse,
swept with their robber hordes the provinces of their more fortunate
neighbors until the iron art of war barred up the avenues to these
precious granaries;—in that inhospitable region where dire necessity
inters the living infant with the departed mother, and resigns the aged
and decrepit to starvation!—the Parent of Good is a warrior armed,
compelled to struggle fruitlessly with Fate, until, with Thor’s dread
hammer in his hand, he yields, and breathes his last beneath the arm of
liberated Locke!

All! all contention!—Our very nature refuses credence in annihilation!
Then—

    “When coldness wraps this suffering clay,
     Ah! whither flies the immortal mind!”

Is there no place of rest?—no truth in the visions which haunt us as
the sun declines, and the rich hues of evening fade away—when the
spirits of those we have loved “sit mournfully upon their clouds,”
gazing, with a chastened melancholy which refines but cannot darken the
calm bliss of Paradise, upon the ceaseless, bootless turmoil of their
once cherished friends? Mythology presents us with no brighter future
than the wild riot of the Hall of Odin, the lethean inanity of Hades, or
the sensual and unmanly luxury of the Moslem Bowers of the Blest.

But hark! A manly voice, speaking of a loftier philosophy, rises upon
the clear air from the very bowels of the vessel.

“And the earth,” it cries, “was without form and void, and darkness was
upon the face of the deep: and the spirit of God moved upon the face of
the waters.”

Slowly and in measured cadence poured forth, from the lips of one who
felt the truths he uttered, the exposition of the order of creation and
the high destinies of the creature. ’Tis a layman’s effort, clothed in
language suited to the rude ideas of simple-minded men:—I am not of his
faith,—and cannot crowd my thoughts within the narrow compass of our
wooden walls:—aloft in air, my temple is the canopy of heaven!—my
hymn—the wild tone of the ocean-wind with the low rushing of the
billows!—the symphony of Nature!—yet, as the words of prayer ascend
upon the gale, my own thoughts follow them.—I know them for the pure
aspiration of the heart,—the breathing of a contrite spirit!—They are
registered above!

All is still!—But, again, the harmony of many voices strikes the ear. A
hymn of praise from the wide bosom of the southern ocean!—No hearer but
the spirit to whose glory these sweet notes are tuned! The distance, and
the deadening influence of the narrow hatches, render words inaudible;
but, such as this, their tenor might have been.

      Being of almighty power,
    On the wide and stormy sea,
      In thy own appointed hour,
    Here, we bow our hearts to thee!

      What is man, that he should dare
    Ask of Thee a passing thought?
      Ruling ocean, earth, and air,
    Thou art all—and he is naught!

      Like a mote upon the earth!
    (Earth—a mote in space to Thee!)
      What avails his death or birth!
    What, his hopes or destiny?

      Yet, a spirit Thou hast given
    To thy creature of the clay,
      Ranging free from Earth to Heaven,
    Heir of an eternal day!

      In thy image Thou hast made,
    Not the body, but the mind!
      That shall lie defiled—decayed!
    This to loftier fate consigned,

      Shall, above the tempest roar,
    Viewless, gaze on all below,
      And, its mundane warfare o’er,
    Calmly watch Time’s ceaseless flow!

      Aid us! Father! with thy power!
    (Without Thee our strength is naught!)
      Thus, in Nature’s dreaded hour,
    We may own the peaceful thought,

      That, our blinded efforts here,
    May not mar Thy great design,
      And each humble work appear
    Worthy of a child of Thine!

The voices have ceased.—The service, in which all the company except
the helmsman and myself had joined, is ended; and, one by one, the
officers of the vessel, followed by the watch on duty, in their well
blanched trousers and bright blue jackets, appear on deck; their
sobriety of mien, and cheerfulness of countenance speaking volumes in
favor of the benign influence of Christianity, even when acting upon
what are erroneously considered by many, the worst materials.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               ROSALINE.


                        BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.


    Thou look’d’st on me all yesternight,
    Thine eyes were blue, thy hair was bright
    As when we murmured our trothplight
    Beneath the thick stars, Rosaline!
    Thy hair was braided on thy head
    As on the day we two were wed,
    Mine eyes scarce knew if thou wert dead—
    But my shrunk heart knew, Rosaline!

    The deathwatch tickt behind the wall,
    The blackness rustled like a pall,
    The moaning wind did rise and fall
    Among the bleak pines, Rosaline!
    My heart beat thickly in mine ears:
    The lids may shut out fleshly fears,
    But still the spirit sees and hears,
    Its eyes are lidless, Rosaline!

    A wildness rushing suddenly,
    A knowing some ill shape is nigh,
    A wish for death, a fear to die,—
    Is not this vengeance, Rosaline!
    A loneliness that is not lone,
    A love quite withered up and gone,
    A strong soul trampled from its throne,—
    What would’st thou further, Rosaline!

    ’Tis lone such moonless nights as these,
    Strange sounds are out upon the breeze,
    And the leaves shiver in the trees,
    And then thou comest, Rosaline!
    I seem to hear the mourners go,
    With long black garments trailing slow,
    And plumes anodding to and fro,
    As once I heard them, Rosaline!

    Thy shroud it is of snowy white,
    And, in the middle of the night,
    Thou standest moveless and upright,
    Gazing upon me, Rosaline!
    There is no sorrow in thine eyes,
    But evermore that meek surprise,—
    Oh, God! her gentle spirit tries
    To deem me guiltless, Rosaline!

    Above thy grave the robin sings,
    And swarms of bright and happy things
    Flit all about with sunlit wings,—
    But I am cheerless, Rosaline!
    The violets on the hillock toss,
    The gravestone is o’ergrown with moss,
    For Nature feels not any loss,—
    But I am cheerless, Rosaline!

    Ah! why wert thou so lowly bred?
    Why was my pride galled on to wed
    Her who brought lands and gold instead
    Of thy heart’s treasure, Rosaline!
    Why did I fear to let thee stay
    To look on me and pass away
    Forgivingly, as in its May,
    A broken flower, Rosaline!

    I thought not, when my dagger strook,
    Of thy blue eyes; I could not brook
    The past all pleading in one look
    Of utter sorrow, Rosaline!
    I did not know when thou wert dead:
    A blackbird whistling overhead
    Thrilled through my brain; I would have fled
    But dared not leave thee, Rosaline!

    A low, low moan, a light twig stirred
    By the upspringing of a bird,
    A drip of blood,—were all I heard—
    Then deathly stillness, Rosaline!
    The sun rolled down, and very soon,
    Like a great fire, the awful moon
    Rose, stained with blood, and then a swoon
    Crept chilly o’er me, Rosaline!

    The stars came out; and, one by one,
    Each angel from his silver throne
    Looked down and saw what I had done:
    I dared not hide me, Rosaline!
    I crouched; I feared thy corpse would cry
    Against me to God’s quiet sky,
    I thought I saw the blue lips try
    To utter something, Rosaline!

    I waited with a maddened grin
    To hear that voice all icy thin
    Slide forth and tell my deadly sin
    To hell and Heaven, Rosaline!
    But no voice came, and then it seemed
    That if the very corpse had screamed
    The sound like sunshine glad had streamed
    Through that dark stillness, Rosaline!

    Dreams of old quiet glimmered by,
    And faces loved in infancy
    Came and looked on me mournfully,
    Till my heart melted, Rosaline!
    I saw my mother’s dying bed,
    I heard her bless me, and I shed
    Cool tears—but lo! the ghastly dead
    Stared me to madness, Rosaline!

    And then amid the silent night
    I screamed with horrible delight,
    And in my brain an angel light
    Did seem to crackle, Rosaline!
    It is my curse! sweet mem’ries fall
    From me like snow—and only all
    Of that one night, like cold worms crawl
    My doomed heart over, Rosaline!

    Thine eyes are shut: they nevermore
    Will leap thy gentle words before
    To tell the secret o’er and o’er
    Thou could’st not smother, Rosaline!
    Thine eyes are shut: they will not shine
    With happy tears, or, through the vine
    That hid thy casement, beam on mine
    Sunfull with gladness, Rosaline!

    Thy voice I nevermore shall hear,
    Which in old times did seem so dear,
    That, ere it trembled in mine ear,
    My quick heart heard it, Rosaline!
    Would I might die! I were as well,
    Ay, better, at my home in Hell,
    To set for ay a burning spell
    ’Twixt me and memory, Rosaline!

    Why wilt thou haunt me with thine eyes,
    Wherein such blessed memories,
    Such pitying forgiveness lies,
    Than hate more bitter, Rosaline!
    Woe’s me! I know that love so high
    As thine, true soul, could never die,
    And with mean clay in church-yard lie—
    Would God it were so, Rosaline!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                                SONNET.


    If some small savor creep into my rhyme
    Of the old poets, if some words I use,
    Neglected long, which have the lusty thews
    Of that gold-haired and earnest hearted time,
    Whose loving joy and sorrow all sublime
    Have given our tongue its starry eminence.—
    It is not pride, God knows, but reverence
    Which hath grown in me since my childhood’s prime;
    Wherein I feel that my poor lyre is strung
    With soul-strings like to theirs, and that I have
    No right to muse their holy graves among,
    If I can be a custom-fettered slave,
    And, in mine own true spirit, am not brave
    To speak what rusheth upward to my tongue.

                                 J. R. L.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                            MRS. NORTON.[2]


                           BY PARK BENJAMIN.


In the last edition of Mrs. Norton’s poems, the unrivalled burine of
Lewis has attempted to trace the form and lineaments of the
authoress—one of the most perfect specimens of female loveliness that
ever furnished an idea to the painter or inspiration to the poet.
Affliction, which has graven such deep lines into her heart, has not yet
effaced the beauty of her countenance, or impaired the perfection of her
form. We have, in the engraving before us, the full maturity of that
gorgeous beauty, which, in its infancy, commanded the unqualified
admiration of the most severe and fastidious critics, that ever sat in
the Court of Fashion. We have still spared to us, that full and
voluptuous bust—the arm that statuaries delight to chisel, and a neck
that would have crazed Canova, while it rivals in whiteness, the purest
Carrara of his studio. But it is the more minute and delicate lines of
her beauty that have been swept by the touch of grief. Her countenance
is sad and subdued; her full and flexible lip is no longer played upon
by ever-varying smiles, and her eye, which once beamed with every
expression, from the twinkle of arch simplicity to the flash of an
insulted Jewess, has now settled into the melting, mournful, appealing
gaze of heart-breaking sorrow.

When we consider that a form so peerless, is the dwelling place of a
most brilliant and gifted spirit—that a countenance so winning and
expressive is but the reflex of a pure and exalted soul,—that her eye
is moistened by the swelling fountain beneath—that lips whose mute
beauty is so persuasive, are the oracles of “thoughts that breathe and
of words that burn,” we can no longer discredit the miracles, which, in
all ages, female loveliness has wrought, the devotion and the sacrifices
it has wrung from the stern and selfish spirit of man. We are at no loss
for the reason, why the Greeks of old raised altars to incarnate Beauty,
why heroes bent their knees at her feet, and purchased trophies with
their blood that they might suspend them in her temples.

If such endowments melt us into fealty, when, like the distant stars,
they shine above our reach and our aspirations,—if such a being
commands our respectful yet ardent love, when moving in a sphere we
never can approach, exacting homage from a thousand hearts, and raised
as much above our sympathy as our position—what strength of affection,
what full, free, unreserved devotion is enlisted in her service, when
she is brought _near_ to us by sorrow, when the sympathy of the humblest
may be a balm to the wounded spirit of the highest, when innocence is
assailed in _her_ form, her character defamed, her honor maligned, her
“life’s life lied away!”

It must be known to most of our readers, that, incited by the political
enemies of Lord Melbourne, the husband of Mrs. Norton commenced legal
proceedings against that nobleman, alleging at the same time, the
infidelity of his own wife. No means, which personal hatred or political
bigotry could employ, were left untried, to sustain the accusation, and
the fate of this unfortunate lady became involved with the triumph or
the overthrow of Cabinets. All the arts, which were so successfully used
to blacken the memory and hurry to an early grave the illustrious
consort of George the Fourth, were revived against Mrs. Norton. Servants
were bribed, spies were employed, key-holes searched, perjury
encouraged, letters forged, surmises whispered about as facts, and
doubts magnified into certainties, that the lady might be convicted and
the minister crushed. The whole life, conduct, and conversation of the
victim were subjected to the most searching scrutiny, her letters and
private papers, her diary even—the communings of an imaginative woman
with her own soul—were placed in the hands of dexterous and sophistical
attorneys, that they might be tortured into proofs of guilt. Acts which
the most rigid duenna would not have named—indiscretions, the
out-gushings of a heart conscious of its own purity, the confiding
conduct of innocence, and the licentiousness of her grandfather, were
the strong proofs of adultery which counsel had the impudence to present
to an English Jury. On the testimony of bribed witnesses, perjured
coachmen and lubricious chambermaids, they sought to impeach the
unsullied honor of a British matron; to fix stain on the pure lawn of a
seraph by evidence which would not have sullied the flaunting robes of a
Cyprian. Need it be said that the result of such an infamous attempt was
the complete and triumphant vindication of the accused? But the
acquittal of a Jury can be no reparation to a woman whose honor has been
publicly assailed. Female virtue must not only be above reproach, but
beyond suspicion, and the breath of calumny is frequently as fatal to it
as the decrees of truth. The verdict of “not guilty,” is no bar to the
malignity of scandal-loving human nature; there remain the cavil, the
sneer, the “damning doubt,” the insolent jest. She is separated by an
impassable gulf from her only lawful protector; she can fly to no other
without shame; she is placed in the most ambiguous position in
society—that of an _unmarried_ wife; fettered by all the restraints,
watched with all the jealousy, but entitled to none of the privileges of
the conjugal tie. And, in addition to all this, she becomes a bereaved
mother; for the “righteous law entrusts the children to the exclusive
guardianship of the father.” Such is the position which a combination of
most untoward circumstances has forced upon a lady who has every claim
upon the protection, the respect, the admiration and the love of
mankind.

We have dwelt thus long upon the domestic infelicity of Mrs. Norton, for
the purpose of illustrating the influence which it has had in modifying
her genius, and accounting for the undercurrent of deep melancholy which
is discernible in many of her pieces, and for the outbreaks of
passionate sympathy with the peculiar sorrows and sufferings of her own
sex, which distinguish all of her more recent productions. Not alone,
however, is Mrs. Norton in her misfortunes. She is but one of a large
sisterhood, who, finding the waters poisoned that rill from “affection’s
springs,” have sought to relieve their thirst from the “charmed cup” of
Fame, who, in the deep and bitter fountains of unrequited love, in the
gulfs of their own woe, have gathered pearls to deck the brow of female
genius. The mournful song of Hemans, of Tighe and of Landon, had
scarcely died away, before the lips of a fourth were touched with live
coals from the same furnace of affliction. Indeed, domestic infelicity
is so often connected with the developement of the poetical faculty in
woman, is so frequently the cause which first awakens those deep and
vivid emotions which are the essence of poetry, is so universally the
concomitant and the burthen of female song, that the relation between
the two is well worthy of philosophic investigation.

It seems to us that the effect is a very manifest result of the cause.
The female mind is distinguished from that of the sterner sex, by its
more delicate organization, by its keener sensibility, by its stronger
and more sensitive affections; by its inferiority in mere strength of
intellect, clearness of understanding, and range of observation. Her
vision, therefore, though nicer, more accurate and susceptible, within
its own range, takes in but a very small portion of that poetic realm
which stretches from “heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven.” She is
consequently more entirely introversive than man, and draws whatever she
communicates more from within than from without. She does not derive her
inspiration, she does not form her genius, from a wide and accurate
survey of human passions. The emotions which gave birth to such
creations as Satan, Prometheus, Shylock, Manfred; the frightful visions
which glare from the lurid page of Dante’s Inferno; the wide range of
incident, description and passion which distinguish the poetry of Scott
and Southey—it would be unnatural and unreasonable to expect from the
delicate and peace-loving nature of woman. Her heart could never “bide
the beatings” of such storms. She can, at the most, but love ardently,
hope lastingly, and endure faithfully; and when she sings she can be but
the oracle of her own heart. When her hopes are baffled, when her
household gods are scattered, when despair takes up its abode within her
breast these emotions become vocal, and she sings of yearning love, of
deathless affections, of unshaken constancy, of patient endurance, of
self-sacrificing devotion. As by the law of her nature, so by her
position in society, the cultivation of her affections must be by far
the most prominent object of her life, as well as her most reliable
source for enjoyment.

In man’s life love is but an episode; in woman’s it is the entire action
of the piece. With him it is but one act in the drama, with her it is
the beginning, middle, and end. Man’s warfare with the world is like the
battle array of the Romans—they had their first, second, and third
rank. If the first was defeated it fell back into the intervals of the
second, and both together renewed the attack; if vanquished again they
were received into the wider intervals of the third, and the whole mass
united made a more impetuous onset. Thus with man, if unsuccessful in
Love he rallies on Ambition; if again defeated, he falls back with
accumulated energy upon Avarice—the peculiar passion of old age. Not so
with woman; upon her success as a wife and a mother, her whole happiness
is risked. In her encounter with the world she has no passion in
reserve; she concentrates her whole force into one line and trusts
herself and her fortune upon the success of a single charge. If
unfortunate in this venture, she has no place for retreat except the
recesses of her own heart. Can we wonder, then, that disappointment in
what she values the most, the utter blight of her hopes, affections
driven back upon her heart, and trust betrayed, should excite those
strong and fervent emotions which will not “down” at mortal bidding, but
express themselves in song? or, that the wing of her spirit while
brooding over the ruin of her peace, should gather strength for poetic
flight?

We do not know where we could have found a more complete illustration of
these views than in the history of Mrs. Norton. The blow which blighted
the fair promise of her spring, found her a poetess of some celebrity.
She had given to the world many pieces, imbued with the warm
sensibility, the pure, ardent, and devoted love of woman; but nothing
which in sincerity, strength, fervor and truthfulness of passion, can
compare with the “Dream”—gushing as it does from the heart of the
betrayed wife and abandoned mother. We had intended to speak at some
length of the characteristics of Mrs. Norton’s genius, but we believe
that the same end will be accomplished more to the edification of our
readers, by giving a short analysis of this beautiful poem.

The story of the piece, is brief and simple, and was undoubtedly
suggested to her mind by the association of contrast. We are presented
with a widowed mother watching

                        “her slumbering child,
    On whose young face the sixteenth summer smiled.”

And we have the following exquisite family piece presented—“_O matre
pulchrâ filia pulchrior._”

    “So like they seem’d in form and lineament,
    You might have deem’d her face its shadow gave
    To the clear mirror of a fountain’s wave;
    Only in this they differ’d; that, while one
    Was warm and radiant as the summer sun,
    The other’s smile had more a moonlight play,
    For many tears had wept its glow away;
    Yet was she fair; of loveliness so true,
    That time which faded, never could subdue;
    And though the sleeper, like a half blown rose,
    Show’d bright as angels in her soft repose,
    Though bluer veins ran through each snowy lid,
    Curtaining sweet eyes by long dark lashes hid—
    Eyes that as yet had never learnt to weep,
    But woke up smiling like a child from sleep;—
    Though fainter lines were pencill’d on the brow,
    Which cast soft shadow on the orbs below;
    Though deeper color flush’d her youthful cheek,
    In its smooth curve more joyous and less meek,
    And fuller seem’d the small and crimson mouth,
    With teeth like those that glitter in the south,—
    She had but youth’s superior brightness, such
    As the skill’d painter gives with flattering touch,
    When he would picture every lingering grace,
    Which once shone brighter in some copied face;
    And it was compliment when’er she smiled
    To say, ‘Thou’rt like thy mother, my fair child’.”

Over such a child the mother hangs with devoted fondness, with sweet
recollections of her infancy, and

                “of the change of time and tide
    Since Heaven first sent the blessing by her side,”

and with mournful anticipations, of what would befall the fledged bird,
when it should grow impatient of the nest. The child at length awakes—

                “And when her shadowy gaze
    Had lost the dazzled look of wild amaze,”

she relates her dream to the mother.

    “Methought, oh! gentle mother, by thy side
    I dwelt no more as now, but through a wide
    And sweet world wander’d, nor even then alone;
    For ever in that dream’s soft light stood one,—
    I know not who,—yet most familiar seem’d
    The fond companionship of which I dream’d!
    A Brother’s love is but a name to me;
    A Father’s brighten’d not my infancy,
    To me in childhood’s years no stranger’s face
    Took from long habit friendship’s holy grace;
    My life hath still been lone, and needed not,
    Heaven knows, more perfect love than was my lot
    In thy dear heart; how dream’d I then, sweet Mother,
    Of any love but thine, who knew no other?”

Dear little innocence! you have much to learn. Thy “shadow and herself”
wander together by the “blue and boundless sea,” the shore is covered
with flowers and “tangled underwood” and “sunny fern.” The ocean, “the
floating nautilus,” the “pink-lipped” shells—

                    “And many color’d weeds
    And long bulbous things like jasper beads,”

and ships with “swelling sails unfurled,” dance before her in this
delightful vision until—

    “The deep spirit of the wind awoke,
      Ruffling in wrath each glassy verdant mound,
    While onward roll’d the army of huge waves,
      Until the foremost with exulting roar,
    Rose proudly crested o’er his brother slaves,
      And dashed triumphant to the groaning shore.”

The ocean finally passes from her sleeping vision and the winged
travellers fly into a different scene—

    “We look on England’s woodland fresh and green,”

and a beautiful picture is presented of the rural scenery of Great
Britain, until the scene changes again to some romantic resting-place of
the dead, to some _Père la Chaise_, or Laurel Hill, or Mount Auburn, to
a—

                                “heath
      Where yew and cypress seemed to wave
    O’er countless tombs, so beautiful, that death
      Seemed here to make a garden of the grave.”

And as the fair one wanders over the “mighty dead,” over “warriors,” and
“sons of song” and orators—

            “whose all persuading tongue
    Had moved the nations with resistless sway,”

and “pale sons of science”—

    “He who wandered with me in my dream
      Told me their histories as we onward went,
    Till the grave shone with such a hallowed beam,
      Such pleasure with their memory seem’d blent
    That, when we looked to heaven, our upward eyes
      With no funereal sadness mock’d the skies.”

We are ourselves getting rapidly to envy that “fellow” who is “wandering
with her.” In our opinion she will soon be able to answer her own
_naïve_ question about love. Her companion leads her, with admirable
discernment, as we think, into a glorious “old library.” What better
place could he have selected to impress the heart of an imaginative and
appreciating “little love.” If the cemetery and those “histories” did
not explain to her the novel psychological emotion about which she
consulted her mother, what occurs in the library certainly will. For see
how the youth plays with the susceptibilities of a girl of “sixteen”—

    “We sate together: _his most noble head_
      Bent o’er the storied tome of other days,
    And still he commented on all we read,
      And taught me what to love and what to praise.
    Then Spencer made the summer day seem brief,
      Or Milton sounded with a loftier song,
    Then Cowper charmed, with lays of gentle grief,
      Or rough old Dryden roll’d the hour along.
    Or, in his varied beauty dearer still,
      Sweet Shakspeare changed the world around, at will;
    And we forgot the sunshine of that room
    To sit with Jacques in the forest gloom;
    To look abroad with Juliet’s anxious eye
    For her gay lover ’neath the moonlight sky;
    Stand with Macbeth upon the haunted heath,
    Or weep for gentle Desdemona’s death;
    Watch on bright Cydnus’ wave, the glittering sheen,
    And silken sails of Egypt’s wanton Queen;
    Or roam with Ariel through that island strange,
    Where spirits and not men were wont to range,
    Still struggling on through brake and bush and hollow,
    Hearing the sweet voice calling ‘Follow! follow!’

    Nor were there wanting lays of other lands,
    For these were all familiar in his hands:
    And Dante’s dream of horror work’d its spell,—
    And Petrarch’s sadness on our bosoms fell.—
    And prison’d Tasso’s—he, the coldly loved,
    The madly-loving! he, so deeply proved
    By many a year of darkness, like the grave,
    For her who dared not plead, or would not save,
    For her who thought the poet’s suit brought shame,
    Whose passion hath immortalized her name!
    And Egmont, with his noble heart betrayed,—
    And Carlo’s haunted by a murder’d shade,—
    And Faust’s strange legend, sweet and wondrous wild,
    Stole many a tear;—Creation’s loveliest child!
    Guileless, ensnared, and tempted Margaret,
    ‘Who could peruse thy fate with eyes unwet?’”

If such a quantity of poetry and such poetry—Spencer, Milton, Dryden,
Cowper, Shakspeare, Dante, Tasso and Göethe did not enlighten the “young
innocent,” respecting the emotions with which she regarded the “fond
companion of her dreams,” we do not know to whom to commend her for
instruction. But we must hurry on with the story; the pair wander over
Italy, and a picture is presented, of mountain and vale, of orange and
myrtle groves, of grottoes, fountains, palaces, paintings, and statues
that would “create a soul” under the ribs of a utilitarian. We were
inclined to think that he of “the most noble brow,” entrapped the young
affections of the dreamer in the “old library,” but we do not believe
that she breathed the delicious confession into his ear until they
reached the sunny clime of Italy. It was the unrivalled music of that
land which unsealed her lips.

    “We sate and listened to some measure soft
    From many instruments; or faint and lone
    (Touch’d by his gentle hand or by my own)
    The little lute its chorded notes would send,
    Tender and clear; and with our voices blend
    Cadence so true, that when the breeze swept by
    _One mingled echo floated on its sigh!_
    And still as day by day we saw depart,
    _I_ was the living idol of his heart:
    How to make joy a portion of the air
    That breathed around me seemed his only care.
    For me the harp was strung, the page was turned;
    For me the morning rose, the sunset burn’d;
    For me the Spring put on her verdant suit;
    For me the Summer flowers, the Autumn fruit;
    The very world seemed mine, _so mighty strove_
    _For my contentment that enduring love._”

But the slumbers of the dear girl are at length broken, she discovers
that it is _but a dream_, and thus repines over the contrast.

    “Is all that radiance past—gone by for ever—
      And must there in its stead for ever be
    The gray, sad sky, the cold and clouded river,
      And dismal dwelling by the wintry sea?
    Ere half a summer altering day by day,
    In fickle brightness, here, hath passed away!
    And was that form (whose love might well sustain)
    Naught but a vapor of the dreaming brain?
    Would I had slept forever.”

The “mournful mother” now speaks. And how sweetly come from her lips the
lessons of piety and resignation. She gently rebukes her daughter,
contrasts the world which fancy paints with the stern realities of
existence, and distils into the opening mind of the child the wisdom
which her own sad experience had taught.

    “Upbraid not Heaven, whose wisdom thus would rule
    A world whose changes are the soul’s best school:
    All dream like thee and ’tis for mercy’s sake
    That those who dream the wildest soonest wake;
    All deem Perfection’s system would be found
    In giving earthly sense no stint or bound;
    All look for happiness beneath the sun,
    And each expects what God hath given to _none_.”

It is in this part of the argument that we discover the fervor,
strength, and pathos that the lessons of experience impart. It is here
that Mrs. Norton teaches in song what she has herself learnt in
suffering. If the following is not poetry it is something that moistens
the eye very much like it.

  “Nor ev’n does love whose fresh and radiant beam
  Gave added brightness to thy wandering dream,
  Preserve from bitter touch of ills unknown,
  But rather brings strange sorrows of its own.
  Various the ways in which our souls are tried;
  Love often fails where most our faith relied.
  Some wayward heart may win, without a thought,
  That which thine own by sacrifice had bought;
  May carelessly aside the treasure cast
  And yet be madly worshipped to the last;
  Whilst thou forsaken, grieving, left to pine,
  Vainly may’st claim his plighted faith as thine;
  Vainly his idol’s charms with thine compare,
  And know thyself as young, as bright, as fair.
  Vainly in jealous pangs consume thy day,
  And waste the sleepless night in tears away;
  Vainly with forced indulgence strive to smile,
  In the cold world heart-broken all the while;
  Or from its glittering and unquiet crowd,
  Thy brain on fire, thy spirit crushed and bow’d,
  Creep home unnoticed, there to weep alone,
  Mock’d by a claim which gives thee not thy own;
  Which leaves thee bound through all thy blighted youth
  To him, whose perjured heart hath broke its truth;
  While the just world beholding thee bereft,
  Scorns—not his sin—but _thee_, for being left!

              *     *     *     *     *     *

  “Those whom man, not God, hath parted know,
  A heavier pang, a more enduring woe;
  No softening memory mingles with _their_ tears,
  Still the wound rankles on through dreary years,
  Still the heart feels, in bitterest hours of blame
  It dares not curse the long familiar name;
  Still, vainly free, through many a cheerless day,
  From weaker ties turns helplessly away,
  Sick for the smile that bless’d its home of yore,
  The natural joys of life that come no more;
  And, all bewildered by the abyss, whose gloom
  Dark and impassible as is the tomb,
  Lies stretch’d between the future and the past,—
  Sinks into deep and cold despair at last.
  Heaven give thee poverty, disease or death,
  Each varied ill that waits on human breath,
  Rather than bid thee linger out thy life
  In the long toil of such unnatural strife.
  To wander through the world unreconciled,
  Heart-weary as a spirit-broken child,
  And think it were an hour of bliss like Heaven
  If thou could’st die—forgiving and forgiven,—
  Or with a feverish hope, of anguish born,
  (Nerving thy mind to feel indignant scorn
  Of all thy cruel foes who ’twixt thee stand,
  Holding thy heart-strings with a reckless hand,)
  Steal to his presence now unseen so long,
  And claim _his_ mercy who hath dealt the wrong!
  Within the aching depths of thy poor heart
    Dive, as it were, even to the roots of pain
  And wrench up thoughts that tear thy soul apart,
    And burn like fire through thy bewildered brain.
  Clothe them in passionate words of wild appeal
  To teach thy fellow creatures _how_ to feel.—
  Pray, weep, exhaust thyself in maddening tears,—
  Recall the hopes, the influences of years,—
  Kneel, dash thyself upon the senseless ground,
  Writhe as the worm writhes with dividing wound,
  Invoke the heaven that knows thy sorrow’s truth,
  By all the softening memories of youth—
  By every hope that cheered thine earlier day—
  By every tear that washes wrath away—
  By every old remembrance long gone by—
  By every pang that makes thee yearn to die;
  And learn at length how deep and stern a blow
  Near hands can strike, and yet no pity show!
    Oh! weak to suffer, savage to inflict,
  Is man’s commingling nature; hear him now
    Some transient trial of his life depict,
  Hear him in holy rites a suppliant bow;
  See him shrink back from sickness and from pain,
  And in his sorrow to his God complain—
  ‘Remit my trespass, spare my sin,’ he cries,
  ‘All-merciful, All-mighty, and All-wise:
  Quench this affliction’s bitter whelming tide,
  Draw out thy barbed arrow from my side;’—
  And rises from that mockery of prayer
  To hate some brother-debtor in despair.”


From what deep fountains of suffering must these lines have been drawn!
What days, weeks, months of deferred hope, of doubt, and of final
despair are recorded here!

    What life-drops from the minstrel wrung
    Have gushed with every word?

The mother at length ceases, and the spirited girl shrinking from the
picture of life which has been presented to her, thus replies:—

    “If this be so, then mother, let me die
    Ere yet the glow hath faded from my sky!
    Let me die young; before the holy trust,
    In human kindness crumbles into dust;
    Before I suffer what I have not earned
    Or see by treachery my truth returned;
    Before the love I live for fades away;
    Before the hopes I cherish’d most decay;
    Before the withering touch of fearful change
    Makes some familiar face look cold and strange,
    Or some dear heart close knitted to my own,
    By perishing, hath left me more alone!
    Though death be bitter, I can brave its pain
    Better than all which threats if I remain,
    While my soul, freed from ev’ry chance of ill,
    Soars to that God whose high mysterious will,
    Sent me, foredoom’d to grief, with wandering feet
    To grope my way through all this fair deceit.”

The mother then breaks forth in a beautiful strain, inculcating
confidence in God and submission to his will. We have never heard a
homily from any pulpit that has taught these lessons with one half the
force and eloquence of these beautiful lines. If any of our readers, in
the midst of sorrow, suffering or despair, are inclined to forget that
there is “another and a better world,” we advise them to learn patience
under tribulation from the lips of Mrs. Norton. We wish we could quote
them—but we cannot—we have already transcended our limits and can only
give the beautiful and touching end of this “sad and eventful history.”

    “There was a pause; then with a tremulous smile,
    The maiden turned and pressed her mother’s hand:
    ‘Shall I not bear what thou hast borne erewhile?
      Shall I, rebellious, Heaven’s high will withstand?
    No! cheerly on, my wandering path I’ll take;
    Nor fear the destiny I did not make:
    Though earthly joy grow dim—though pleasure waneth—
    This thou hath taught thy child, that God remaineth!’

    “And from her mother’s fond protecting side
    She went into the world, a youthful bride.”

Fain would we linger longer among the brilliant creations of Mrs.
Norton’s genius; but, like her own beautiful sleepers, our “dream” is
broken, and we must return from fairy-land to encounter “the rude
world.”

-----

[2] The Dream and other poems, by the Honorable Mrs. Norton—Dedicated
to Her Grace, the Duchess of Sutherland.

    “We have an human heart
     All mortal thoughts confess a common home.”
                                 _Shelley._

London. Henry Colburn, Publisher, Great Marlborough street, 1840.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                           THE VEILED ALTAR,


                          OR THE POET’S DREAM.


                         BY MRS. R. S. NICHOLS.


    I bent me o’er him as he lay upon his couch,
      Deep sleep weighed down the curtains of his eyes,
    Forever and anon the seraph seemed to touch
      His dreaming soul with radiance of the skies!
    I bent me o’er him then, for mighty thoughts did seem
      To pant for utterance, as he sighed for breath,
    _And strove to speak_—for in that dark and fearful dream
      He passed the portals of the phantom Death!

    “The chains that clogged my spirit’s pinions roll
      Powerless back to earth—a vain, base clod,
    And awe-inspiring thoughts brood o’er my soul,
      _As angels hover round the ark of God!_
    I see before me in the distance far
      A mystic altar veiled, and part concealed
    Amid the tresses of a burning star,
      Whose mysteries from earth are ever sealed!

    “It gleams—that fountain of mysterious light
      At holy eve, far in the western sky,
    And angels smile, when man ascends by night
      To read in it his puny destiny!
    A something bears me onward towards the throne
      With speed which mocks the winged lightning’s glance!
    And here, amid the stars’ eternal home
      I stand, with senses steeped as in a trance!

    “I feel a power, a might within my soul
      That I could wrest from angels, themes for song!
    My earth-freed spirit soars and spurns control,
      While deep and chainless thoughts around me throng!
    I know the veil is pierced—the altar gained—
      I bend me lowly at its foot sublime;
    Yet false inspirers, who on earth have feigned
      The God, depart from this eternal clime!”

    He woke—and swift unto the land of misty sleep
      His dreams rolled back, and left him still on earth,
    But ever after did the Poet’s spirit keep
      This deep, unchanging, mystic, second birth!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                           THE LADY’S CHOICE.


                        BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.


                “In terms of choice I am not solely led
                 By nice direction of a maiden’s eyes.”
                                  _Merchant of Venice._

“I want to ask you a question, Mildred, but I am afraid you will deem it
an impertinent one.”

“Ask me what you please, dear Emily, and be assured that you shall
receive a frank reply; we have known and loved each other too long to
doubt that affection and not mere idle curiosity prompts our mutual
inquiries respecting each other’s welfare during our separation.”

“When I bade farewell to my native land, Mildred, I left you surrounded
by a wide circle of admirers; you were beautiful and rich,—these gifts
alone would have won you many a suitor,—but you were also possessed of
the noblest qualities of heart and mind, and were as worthy to be loved
as to be admired. How has it happened then that from among the many who
sought your hand, you selected one so—so—”

“I understand you, Emily,—so misshapen and ugly, you would say; it is
precisely because I possessed a little more heart and soul than usually
belongs to a fashionable belle.”

“What do you mean, Mildred? when I parted from you I thought you were
more than half in love with the handsome Frank Harcourt.”

“And you return to find me married to his crooked cousin.”

“I did not know Mr. Heyward was related to your quondam admirer.”

“Ah, I see I must tell the whole story; ‘wooed an’ married an’ a’’ is
not enough for you; I must relate all the particulars which led to such
an apparently whimsical choice.

“You remember me doubtless as the _enfant gâtée_ of society; the spoiled
child of doating parents, and the flattered votary of fashion. My web of
life, unbroken by a single sombre thread, seemed woven only of
rose-color and gold. My mirror taught me that the world spoke truth,
when it assigned to me the brightest of all womanly gifts: experience
showed me my superiority in mind over the well dressed dolls of society:
and the earnestness of my affection for the friends of my youth,
convinced me that many stronger and deeper emotions still lay latent
within my heart. Yet with all these gifts, Emily, I narrowly escaped the
fate of a fashionable flirt. I could not complain, like Voltaire, that
‘the world was stifling me with roses,’ but I might have truly said,
that the incense offered at the shrine of my vanity was fast defacing,
with its fragrant smoke, the fine gold that adorned the idol.
Selfishness is a weed which flourishes far more luxuriantly beneath the
sunshine of prosperity than under the weeping skies of adversity; for,
while sorrow imparts a fellow-feeling with all who suffer, happiness too
often engenders habits of indulgence, utterly incompatible with sympathy
and disinterestedness. Wherever I turned I was met by pleasant looks and
honied words, everybody seemed to consider me with favor, and I was in
great danger of believing that the world was all sincerity and Miss
Mildred all perfection. The idea that I shone in the reflected glitter
of my father’s gold never occurred to me. Too much accustomed to the
appliances of wealth to bestow a thought upon them; entirely ignorant of
the want and consequently of the value of money, I could not suppose
that other people prized what to me was a matter of such perfect
indifference, or that the weight of my purse gave me any undue
preponderance in the scale of society. Proud, haughty and self-willed as
I have been, yet my conscience acquits me of ever having valued myself
upon the adventitious advantages of wealth. Had I been born in a hovel I
still should have been proud:—proud of the capabilities of my own
character,—proud because I understood and appreciated the dignity of
human nature,—but I should have despised myself if, from the slippery
eminence of fortune, I could have looked with contempt upon my fellow
beings.

“But I was spoiled, Emily, completely spoiled. There was so much
temptation around me,—so much opportunity for exaction and despotism
that my moral strength was not sufficient to resist the impulses of
wrong. With my head full of romantic whims, and my heart thrilling with
vague dreams of devoted love and life-long constancy; a brain teeming
with images of paladin and troubadour, and a bosom throbbing with vain
longings for the untasted joy of reciprocal affection,—I yet
condescended to play the part of a consummate coquette. But, no; if by
coquetry be meant a deliberate system of machinations to entrap hearts
which become worthless as soon as gained, then I never was a coquette,
but I certainly must plead guilty to the charge of thoughtless, aimless,
mischievous flirtation. If the Court of Love still existed,—that court,
which, as you know, was instituted in the later days of chivalry, and
composed of an equal number of knights and dames, whose duty it was to
try all criminals accused of offences against the laws of Love; if such
a tribunal still existed, I think it might render a verdict of _wilful
murder_ against a _coquette_, while only _manslaughter_ could be laid to
the charge of the _flirt_. The result of both cases is equally fatal,
but the latter crime is less in degree because it involves no _malice
prepense_. Do not misunderstand me, Emily, I do not mean to exculpate
the lesser criminal; for if the one deserves capital punishment the
other certainly merits imprisonment for life, and, next to the
slanderer, I look upon the coquette and habitual flirt as the most
dangerous characters in society. Yet I believe that many a woman is
imperceptibly led to the very verge of flirtation by a natural and even
praiseworthy desire to please. The fear of giving pain when we suspect
we possess the power, often gives softness to a woman’s voice and
sweetness to her manner, which, to the heart of a lover, may bear a
gentler interpretation. Among the chief of our minor duties may be
ranked that of making ourselves agreeable; and who does not know the
difficulty of walking between two lines without crossing either? You
think I am saying all this in exculpation of my past folly, and perhaps
you are right.

“I was just nineteen, and in the full enjoyment of my triumphs in
society, when I officiated as your bridesmaid. I must confess, Emily,
that the marriage of such a pretty, delicate creature, as you then were,
with a man full twice your age, in whose dark whiskers glistened more
than one silver thread, and on whom time had already bestowed a most
_visible crown_, seemed to me one of the marvels of affection for which
I could not then account.”

“Now you are taking your revenge, Mildred, for my saucy question
respecting your husband; but if you can give as good a reason for your
choice as I found for mine, I shall be perfectly satisfied.”

“Let me gratify my merry malice, ladye fair; time has shown some little
consideration for you in this matter, for, while he has left no deeper
impress on your husband’s brow, he has expanded the slender girl into
the blooming, matronly-looking woman. You are now well matched, Emily,
and your husband is one of the handsomest men of—_his age_.”

The arch look of the speaker interpreted the equivocally-worded
compliment, and, with a joyous laugh, Mrs. Heyward resumed:

“It was about the time of your marriage, and shortly before your
departure for Europe, that I became acquainted with Frank Harcourt. You
must remember his exceeding beauty. The first time I beheld him, Byron’s
exquisite description of the Apollo Belvedere rose to my lips:

    ——“In his delicate form,—a dream of Love
    Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose heart
    Longed for a deathless lover from above
    And maddened in that vision, is exprest
    All that ideal beauty ever blessed
    The mind with in its most unearthly mood.”

His admirable symmetry of form, and a face of such perfect contour, such
exquisite regularity of feature, that its semblance in marble might have
been valued as a relic of Grecian ideal beauty, were alone sufficient to
attract the admiration of such a lover of the beautiful as I always have
been; but the charm of perfect coloring, the effect of light and shade
was not wanting in this finished picture. His full dark eye sparkled
beneath a snow-white forehead,—his cheek was bronzed by exposure and
yet bright with health,—his lips were crimson and velvet-like as the
pomegranate flower,—his teeth white as the ocean pearl,—his raven
curls fell in those rich slight tendrils so rarely seen except on the
head of infancy,—while the soft and delicate shadowing in his lip and
chin resembled rather the silken texture of a lady’s eyebrow, than the
wiry and matted masses of hair usually cherished under the name of
whiskers and moustache.”

“You are quite impassioned in your description, Mildred; what would your
husband say if he were to hear you?”

“He would agree with me in thinking that Frank Harcourt is the most
beautiful specimen of humanity that ever presented itself to my admiring
eyes.”

“He has less jealousy then in his nature than most of his sex.”

“A man has little cause to be jealous of a rival he has so utterly
discomfited.

“Harcourt soon professed himself my admirer and need I say that his
attentions were by no means displeasing to me. The buzz of admiration
which met my ear whenever he appeared,—the delight with which ladies
accepted his slightest civilities,—the manœuvres constantly practised
to secure his society, all tended to render me vain of his homage. Had
he been merely a beautiful statue,—a rich but empty casket, I should
soon have become weary of my conquest. But Harcourt possessed a mind
rather above mediocrity, fine taste, elegant manners, and, what was
especially useful to him, great skill in decyphering character and
consummate tact in adapting himself to its various peculiarities. When
those beautiful lips parted only to utter the language of high-toned
sentiment, or to breathe the impassioned words of Byron and Moore,—when
those bright eyes glistened with suppressed tears at the voice of
melancholy music, or sparkled with merry delight at the tones of gayety;
when that fine person swayed itself with inimitable grace to the
movements of the mazy dance, or bent its towering altitude with gentle
dignity over the slight form of some delicate girl, it is not strange,
that, even to my eyes, he should seem all that was noble and majestic in
mind as well as person. Flattered by his courtly attentions,
congratulated by my fashionable friends, and captivated by his brilliant
qualities, my imagination soon became excited to a degree which bore a
strong semblance to affection. He offered me his hand and was accepted.
You look surprised, Emily; I thought you knew that I was actually
engaged to him.”

“Indeed I did not, Mildred, and I regret now to learn that such was the
case. There is something to me very wrong,—I might almost say
_disgraceful_ in the disruption of such bonds; and the levity with which
young ladies now _make_ and _break_ engagements, argues as ill for the
morality of society, as does the frequency of bankruptcies and
suspensions.”

“I agree with you, Emily, and since it has become the fashion to
consider the most solemn obligations only as a strait-laced garment
which may be thrown off as soon as we can shut out society from our
solitude,—since women pledge their hands without even knowing whether
they have such an article as a _heart_ to accompany it,—since men with
equal ease _repudiate_ their debts and their wives, I am afraid the next
generation has little chance of learning morality from their parents.
But sometimes, Emily, the sin is in _making_ not in _breaking_ the
engagement. However, hear my story, and then judge.

“All the world knew that I was affianced to the handsome Frank Harcourt,
and I was quite willing to enjoy my triumph as long as possible, before
I settled myself down to the dull routine of domestic life. This
disposition to defer my marriage might have led me to suspect the nature
of my feelings, for no woman will ever shrink from a union with one to
whom her soul is knit in the close bonds of affection. My lover was
respectably connected, but had been educated for no profession and was
not possessed of fortune. He had left his native village to find
employment, and, as he hoped, wealth, in the busy mart of the Empire
state. How he managed to satisfy my father, who, in the true spirit of
an old Dutch burgomaster, looked upon every man as a rogue if he did not
possess some visible occupation, I never could discover. He probably
flattered his self-love by listening to all his schemes for the
reformation of society; and, I am not sure that he did not draw up the
constitution and by-laws of a certain association which my father wished
to establish,—to be entitled a “Society for the Encouragement of
Integrity among men of Business,” and of which the old gentleman meant
to constitute himself president.

“It was agreed that our marriage should take place at the expiration of
a year, and my father (who was as fond of coincidents as a newspaper
editor) declared that on the very day of our nuptials, the name of
Harcourt should be added to the very respectable firm of Marchmont,
Goodfellow & Co. About this part of the arrangement I cared very little.
I enjoyed the present moment, and lavished my time, my thoughts and my
feelings as foolishly as I did the gold with which my father supplied
me. I was a mere child in my knowledge of the duties of life, and
perhaps there never was one of my age to whom the word
‘_responsibility_’ was so mystical a sound.

“I soon discovered that I had a serious rival in the affections of my
future husband. Frank Harcourt loved himself far better than he did his
mistress; and though his tact enabled him to avoid any offensive
expression of this Narcissus-like preference, it was still very
perceptible to me. Yet how could I blame him when I looked upon his
handsome person? Indeed I often found myself quoting Pope’s celebrated
couplet, but with a difference,

    “If to his share a coxcomb’s errors fall,
     Look in his face and you forget them all.”

The truth was, that my vanity induced me to excuse his weakness. I was
proud of exhibiting, as my lover, the man whom all admired; and I felt
redoubled satisfaction in hearing him applauded by the very people who
had already bestowed on me the meed of praise. I was even so foolish as
to be vain of his costume, and although I knew that he wasted hours upon
the adornment of his person, I delighted to see him appear attired in
that manner, so peculiarly his own, which gave a graceful negligence to
a toilet the most _soignée_ and made a fanciful poet once style his
dress ‘_an elegant impromptu_.’ Like some other (so-called) impromptus,
many a weary hour had been bestowed upon the task of making it _seem_
extemporaneous.

“The only one of Frank Harcourt’s family with whom I then became
acquainted, was his cousin Louis Heyward, and, among the whole circle of
my acquaintances, there was no one whom I so cordially disliked. His
form was diminutive and slightly misshapen, while his face would have
been positively ugly, but for the effect of a pair of large, dark, soft
eyes which seemed to speak a more fluent language than his lips. His
manners were cold, quiet and indifferent; he mingled but little in
society, and I think our well-filled library and my music alone induced
him to conquer his reserve sufficiently to become one of my habitual
visiters. To me he was always polite and gentlemanly but no more. He
never flattered,—never even commended, though he often looked as if he
would have censured, had he felt himself privileged to do so. Frank used
to take great pains to bring him out into company, (Heaven forgive me if
I wrong him in believing _now_ that he wanted him as a foil to his own
exceeding beauty,) but, excepting at our house, Louis was rarely seen in
society. He had devoted himself to the gospel ministry, and, in order to
support himself independently during the period of his theological
studies, he had engaged to give instructions in some of the higher
branches of education, at one of our principal schools. In fact Louis
Heyward was only a poor student, a school-master,—yet he dared to
criticise the conduct of the flattered and spoiled Mildred Marchmont;
and he alone,—of all the gifted and the graceful who bowed before her
power,—he alone—the deformed, the unlovely—seemed to despise her
influence.”

“Pray how did you discover that he was actuated by such feelings? he
surely did not venture to disclose them?”

“No, Emily; he was usually silent and abstracted in my presence. His
relationship to Frank, placed him at once on a familiar footing in our
family, and, we soon became accustomed to his somewhat eccentric
manners. When not listening to my harp or piano, he was often occupied
with a book, seeming utterly regardless of every one around him. But,
often, when I have been sitting in the midst of an admiring circle of
‘danglers’ bestowing on one a smile, on another a sweet word, on another
a trifling command, and, in short, playing off the thousand petty airs
which belles are very apt to practise in order to claim the attentions
of all around them,—I have stolen a glance at that cold, grave
countenance, and there has been such severe expression in his speaking
eyes,—such a smile of contempt on his pale lip, that I have blushed for
my own folly even while I hated the cynic who made me sensible of it. I
was constantly disputing with him about trifling matters of opinion, and
I delighted in uttering beautiful fallacies, which I knew he would
contradict. It was a species of gladiatorial game which I enjoyed
because it was new and exciting. I had been so long accustomed to assent
and flattery that it was quite refreshing to meet with something like
opposition, which could arouse the dormant powers of my mind. The
information with which my early reading had stored my memory,—the
quickness of repartee which generally belongs to woman,—the readiness
to turn the weapon of the assailant with a shield for our own weakness
which is so very _feminine_ a mode of argument,—all afforded a new
gratification to my vanity, and while I heartily disliked the disputant,
I yet eagerly sought the dispute. Louis at length discovered my motives
for thus seeking to draw him into discussions, and, after that, no
provocation could induce him to enter into a war of wit with me. In vain
I uttered the most mischievous sophistries,—in vain I goaded him with
keen satire; he smiled at my futile attempts, as if I were a petted
child, but deigned me no reply. It was not until then that I estimated
the treasures of his gifted mind, for when he no longer allowed himself
to be drawn from his reserve,—when his fine conversational powers were
no longer exerted, I felt I had lost a positive enjoyment which when in
my possession I had scarcely thought of valuing.

“I happened one afternoon to be walking on the Battery with the two
cousins, when we overtook an acquaintance who was unattended, except by
a young brother. We immediately joined her, and, with a feeling of
gratified vanity, (knowing that she had once diligently sought to
attract Mr. Harcourt,) I stepped back, and taking the arm of Louis, left
the lady in uninterrupted possession, _for a short time_, of my handsome
lover. There was a mean and petty triumph in my heart at which I now
blush, and, as I looked up into the face of my companion, after
performing the manœuvre, I was almost startled at the stern contempt
which was visible in his countenance.”

“‘Come, Mr. Heyward, do make yourself agreeable for once,’ I exclaimed,
with levity, ‘do tell me you are flattered by my preference of your
society.’

“‘I never utter untruths,’ was the cold reply.

“My first impulse was to withdraw my arm from his, but I restrained
myself, and flippantly said:

“‘You are as complimentary as usual, I perceive.’

“‘Would you have me to feel flattered by being made the tool of your
vanity, Madam?’ said he, while his cheek flushed and his eye sparkled;
‘do I not know that you only sought to gratify a malicious triumph over
your less fortunate rival?’

“A denial rose to my lips, but my conscience forbade me to utter it. I
was perfectly silent—yet, perhaps, there was something of penitence in
my countenance, for he immediately added:

“‘Good Heavens! Mildred,—Miss Marchmont, I mean—what capabilities of
mind,—what noble characteristics of feeling you are daily wasting in
society! How rapidly are the weeds of evil passion springing up amid the
rich plants of virtue which are still rooted in your heart! How awful is
the responsibility of one so nobly gifted as yourself!’

“‘What do you mean, sir?’ exclaimed I, startled at his earnestness.

“‘Have you never read the parable of the unfaithful steward who hid his
talent in the earth?’ was his reply: ‘God has given you beauty and
mental power, and wealth and influence; yet what is your beauty but a
snare?—What are your talents but instruments to gratify your vanity?
Where is your wealth expended if not in ministering to your luxuries?
What suffering fellow-being has ever been cheered by your sympathy?—or
what weak and erring mortal has ever been strengthened in duty, or
wakened to virtue by your influence?’

“I cannot describe how deeply I was shocked and pained at these
impressive words. An emotion resembling terror seized me;—I was
actually alarmed at the picture they abruptly presented to my view.

“Louis continued: ‘Forgive me, Miss Marchmont, if I have trespassed
beyond the limits of decorum. I speak the language of _truth_,—a
language you are but little accustomed to hear; but my conscience and my
heart have long reproached my silence.’

“‘You are a severe judge, Mr. Heyward,’ said I, with a faint attempt at
a smile; and just at that moment we were interrupted by some jesting
remarks from the party who preceded us. No opportunity was afforded for
renewing our conversation; but as we approached home, Louis lingered so
as to secure a moment’s time, and said in a low voice:

“‘I will not ask you to forgive my frankness, Miss Marchmont, for
something tells me that the time will come when you will not resent my
apparent rudeness. I owe to you some of the happiest, and, it may be,
some of the saddest moments of my life. Before we part, I would fain
awaken you to a sense of your own true value, for amid all the
frivolities which now waste your life, I have discovered that _you were
born for better things_.’ As he uttered these words, we found ourselves
at my father’s door, and with a cold bow he turned away.

“That night I was engaged to attend a brilliant ball, but my spirits
were depressed, and my brow clouded by unwonted sadness. Whether
wheeling in the giddy dance, or gliding with light words and lighter
laugh amid the groups of pleasure-seeking guests, still the deep voice
of Louis Heyward rung in my ears; and the words ‘_you were born for
better things_,’ seemed written upon everything that I beheld.

“‘You are _triste_ to-night, _ma belle_,’ said Frank Harcourt, as he
placed me in the carriage to return home: ‘I shall be quite jealous of
my crooked cousin, if a _tête-à-tête_ with him has such power to dim
your radiance.’

“Many a truth is uttered in the language of mockery. That walk with
Louis had become an era in my life. How I longed to weep in solitude!
The weariness and satiety which had long unconsciously possessed
me,—the unsatisfied cravings for excitement, which had long been my
torment, now seemed to me fully explained. Louis Heyward had unfolded to
me the truth,—he had revealed the secret of my hidden discontent, when
he told me _I was born for better things_. I had ‘_placed my happiness
lower than myself_,’ and therefore did I gather only disappointment and
vexation. Why did I not utter these thoughts to my affianced lover? Why
did I not weep upon his bosom and seek his tender sympathy? Because I
instinctively knew that he would not understand me. The charm which
enrobed my idol was already unwinding, and I had learned that there were
many subjects on which there could exist no congenial sentiments. For
the first time in my life, I began to reflect; and, with reflection,
came remorse for wasted time and ill-regulated feelings. Like the
peasant girl in the fairy tale, mine eyes had been touched with the
ointment of disenchantment, the illusion which had made life seem a
scene of perfect beauty and happiness was dispelled forever, and I now
only beheld a field where thorns grew beneath every flower, and a path
where duties were strewn far more thickly than pleasures.

“A circumstance which soon after occurred confirmed my melancholy
impressions. Do you remember little Fanny Rivers whom my mother took
while yet a child, with the intention of making her my confidential
servant and dressing-maid? She was about my age, and had grown up to be
very pretty,—with one of those sweet, innocent, child-like faces, which
are always so lovely in woman. Soon after your marriage she abruptly
left my service, and much to my regret I was unable to obtain any trace
of her. At the time of which I have just spoken, however, I received a
note from her. She was sick and in distress, and she requested from me
some pecuniary aid. I did not receive the appeal with indifference, and
instead of merely sending her assistance I determined to seek her in
person. I found her residing with a relative, a poor washerwoman, and as
I sat by the sick bed of the young invalid, I for the first time beheld,
with my own eyes, the actual life of poverty. Hitherto I had been lavish
of money in charity, from a thoughtless and selfish wish to avoid the
sight of suffering, but now I learned to sympathise with the poor and
unhappy. Poor Fanny was dying with consumption, and daily did I visit
her humble apartment, led thither as much by my morbid and excited
feelings as by my interest in the failing sufferer. But it was not till
she was near her death-hour that she revealed to me her painful story.
Never shall I forget her simple words:

“‘I used to think ma’m, that nothing was so desirable as fine clothes,
and when I saw you dressed in your beautiful silks and satins, I used to
cry with envy because I was only a servant. As I grew older this wicked
feeling increased, and often when you had gone to a party, I have locked
myself in your dressing-room, and put on your laces, and flowers and
jewels, just to see how I should look in such fine dress. I felt very
proud when the large glass showed me that I looked just like a lady; but
it only made me more envious and unhappy. At last my hour of temptation
came. One,—whose name I have sworn never to reveal,—came to me with
promises of all that I had so long wanted. He offered me silk dresses,
and plenty of money, and said I should have servants to wait on me if I
would only love him. He was so handsome, and he brought me such costly
presents,—he talked to me so sweetly and pitied me so much for being a
servant when I ought to be a lady, that I could not refuse to believe
him. He told me I should be his wife in the sight of Heaven, and he
ridiculed what he called my old-fashioned notions, until he made me
forget the prayers which my poor mother taught me and the Bible which
she used to read to me. I was vain and so I became wicked. I sold my
happiness on earth and my hopes of Heaven hereafter, for the privilege
of wearing fine clothes; for indeed, Miss Mildred, I never was happy
after I left your house.’

“I sought to learn no more of poor Fanny’s history, Emily; I scarcely
heard the tale of her subsequent desertion and destitution. My
conscience was awakened, and fearfully did she knell in my ears my own
condemnation. ‘Who made ye to differ?’ asked my heart, as I gazed on
this victim to vanity and treachery. Who taught this fallen creature to
value the allurements of dress beyond the adornment of innocence? Who
sowed in her bosom the seeds of envy and discontent, and nurtured them
there until they bore the poisoned fruit of sin? Was I guiltless of my
brother’s blood? Had not I been the _first_ tempter of the guileless
child? Here, then, was an evidence of my influence;—how fatally
exercised!

“Emily, I have repented in tears and agony of spirit:—I have prayed
that this weight of blood-guiltiness might be removed from my soul; and
I humbly trust my prayer has not been in vain:—but even now my heart
sickens at the recollection of the being whom my example first led
astray. It was at the bedside of the dying girl,—when my spirit was
bowed in humble penitence—that the words of religious truth first
impressed themselves upon my adamantine heart. I had listened unmoved to
the promises and denunciations of the gospel, when uttered from the
pulpit; but now, the time, the place, the circumstance gave them tenfold
power. I visited Fanny Rivers daily, until death released the penitent
from her sufferings, and then, I fell into a deep melancholy from which
nothing could arouse me, and for which no one could account.

“Frank Harcourt was annoyed and vexed at this change. He earnestly
pressed our immediate marriage, and talked about a trip to Paris as an
infallible cure for my ‘_nervous excitement_.’ But in proportion as my
better feelings were awakened, my attachment to him decreased, until I
actually shrunk from a union with him. He now appeared to me frivolous
in his tastes, and the light tone with which he spoke of moral duties,
though often listened to as an idle jest, in calmer times, now offended
and disgusted me. In vain I tried to recall my past feelings. In vain I
gazed upon his exquisite face and watched the movements of his graceful
form, in the hope of again experiencing the thrill of pleasure which had
once been awakened by his presence. The flame had been kindled at the
unholy shrine of vanity, and already the ashes of perished fancies had
gathered over it to dim its brightness. I could no longer cheat myself
into the belief that I loved Frank Harcourt. He was still as glorious in
beauty,—still the idol of society; but the spell was broken, and I
looked back with wonder to my past delusion.

“You will ask where, during all these changes, was Louis Heyward. The
very day after the conversation which had so awakened my remorse of
conscience, he bade me farewell, having been summoned to take charge of
a small congregation, and to ‘build up a church in the wilderness.’ I
would have given much for his counsel and his sympathy, but he was far
away, absorbed in noble duties, and had probably ceased to remember with
interest, the being whom his _one true word_ had rescued from
destruction. I was exceedingly wretched, and saw no escape from my
unhappiness. The approach of the period fixed upon for my marriage only
added to the horror of my feelings, and I sometimes fancied I should be
driven to madness.

“But the _dénouement_,—a most unexpected one—came at length. The aunt
of poor Fanny, who was very grateful for my attentions to the unhappy
girl, accidentally heard that I was on the point of marriage with Mr.
Harcourt, and, instigated no less by revenge than by a sense of
gratitude to me, she revealed to me the _name_ which Fanny had _sworn_,
and she had _promised_ to conceal. You can imagine the rest, Emily. With
the indignant feeling of insulted virtue and outraged womanhood, I
instantly severed the tie that bound me to him. Did I not do right in
breaking my engagement?

“More than two years passed away. I had withdrawn from the follies,
though not from the rational enjoyments of society; and, having joined
myself to the church, I endeavored to live in a manner worthy of my
profession. Alas! all my good deeds were insufficient to make amends for
my wasted years and baleful example. The world ceased, at last, to
wonder and ridicule my sudden reformation, (which they kindly attributed
to my lover’s fickleness,) and I was beginning to enjoy the peace of
mind, always attendant on the exercise of habitual duty, when I was
surprised by the intelligence that Louis Heyward had been chosen to
succeed the deceased pastor of our church. The day when he preached his
first sermon for us will long live in my remembrance. Associated, as he
was, with my brightest and my darkest hours, I almost feared to see him,
lest the calm of my feelings should be disturbed by painful
recollections. But he now appeared before me in a new and holier light.
He was a minister of truth unto the people, and as I watched the rich
glow of enthusiasm mantling his pale cheek, and the pure light of zeal
illumining his dark eyes, I thought there was indeed ‘a beauty in
holiness.’

“Do not think I was in love with our young pastor. I fancied that my
heart was dead to such impressions, and it was only with quiet
friendship that I greeted him when he renewed his acquaintance with her
whom he had once known as the glittering belle of a ball-room. I saw him
frequently, for I now understood the value of wealth and influence when
they could be made subservient to the interests of religion and
humanity. My purse as well as my time was readily bestowed for the good
of others. Always in extremes, I was in danger of running into the error
of fanaticism, and I owe it to Louis that I am now a rational, and I
trust, earnest Christian. But a long time elapsed after this renewal of
our intercourse before I was permitted to read the volume of his heart.
It was not until he was well assured that the change which he beheld was
the result, not of temporary disgust with the world, but of a thorough
conviction of error, that he ventured to indulge the affections of his
nature. He had loved me, Emily, during my days of vanity and folly. His
cold, stern manner was a penance imposed upon himself, to expiate his
weakness, and while he strove to scorn my levity, he was, in fact, the
slave of my caprice. But he crushed the passion even in its bud, and
forced himself to regard me only as his cousin’s bride. Yet the glimpses
of better feelings which sometimes struggled through every frivolity,
almost overcame his resolution, and the conversation which first
awakened me to reflection, was the result of a sense of duty strangely
blended with the impulses of a hopeless passion.

“Perfect confidence now existed between us. My external life had been
almost an unbroken calm, but my heart’s history was one of change and
tumult and darkness. Louis wept,—aye, wept with joy, when he learned
that his hand had sown the good seed within my bosom. It is Madame de
Stäel who says that ‘Truth, no matter by what atmosphere it is
surrounded, is never uttered in vain;’ and I am a living proof that she
is right. I have now been five years a wife; and, though my husband has
not a face that limners love to paint and ladies to look upon,—though
his form is not moulded to perfect symmetry, and his limbs lack the
graceful comeliness of manly strength,—in short,—though he is a
_little, ugly, lame man_, yet I look upon him with a love as deep as it
is enduring, for the radiant beauty of his character has blinded my
feeble eyes to mere personal defects. Frank Harcourt was the sculptured
image,—the useless ornament of a boudoir, but Louis,—my own Louis is
the unpolished casket,—rude in its exterior, but enclosing a pearl of
price,—the treasure of a noble spirit.”

“And what has become of your former lover?”

“He is the ornament of Parisian saloons; living no one knows how, but
suspected to be one of that class, termed in England, ‘_flat-catchers_,’
lending the aid of his fine person and fascinating manners to attract
victims to the gaming-table. He is said to be as handsome as
ever,—dresses well, and is the admiration of all the young ladies as
well as the dread of all the mammas who are on the watch to avoid
‘_ineligibles_.’ And now that you have heard my story, Emily, are you
still surprised at my choice?”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                       THE BLUE VELVET MANTILLA.


                        BY MRS. A. M. F. ANNAN.


                                   “I do admire
                         Of womankind but one.”
                                 _John Gilpin._

“So then, Julius, you are at last a lawyer, out and out?—how did you
pass your examination?”

“Just to please myself, uncle, I wasn’t stumped once.”

“Bravo! I am glad to hear it; that was exactly following my example.
Before I got through, they tried hard to pose me, but I was an overmatch
for them. I would have made a capital lawyer, Julius, had I chosen to
practise.”

“What a pity you did not, uncle!”

“Yes, that’s what all my friends say, and that, if I had not been too
rich to need it, they would have given me all the business in their
power,—every cent’s worth of it. Many of them wish that I had been
poorer, that I might have been of greater service to the public.”

“What kind friends you must have, sir!”

“You rascal! I see that you are laughing at me. However, I intend to
take you for my raw material, and make of you everything that I have
failed to be myself. In the first place, you are to rise to the height
of the profession here, in this very city, to make amends for my not
having attained the station.”

“But the opposite reason to yours will forbid my accomplishing that, my
dear sir,—too light a purse, is, in the generality of cases, a greater
obstacle than one too heavy.”

“An ingenious lawyer, to presume that, when I employ you to do my work
for me, I expect you to go upon your own means! why, my worshipful
attorney, you must live here with me, in my own house, and make use of
my own purse. It is my place to pay the expenses.”

“Dear uncle! how kind you are! how generous!—I can never be
sufficiently grateful—”

“Spare your eloquence to plead my causes for me!—we lawyers know how
much speeches ought to go for, so I want none of them here, just now. Am
I not telling you that you are to work for me in return?—and I wish you
to fulfil another of my duties towards society.”

“Anything in the world, uncle, after all the kindness—”

“Poh! it’s not any uncommon task I wish you to undertake. It is only to
marry a wife and to raise a family. You may imitate me in everything but
in being an idler, and an old bachelor.”

“Why, everybody thinks you, sir, the happiest, most independent, most
contented old bachelor in the world. Quite an enviable person.”

“I am not at all to be envied, Julius. As to being happy,—that’s all a
sham. I have never been contented since they called me an old bachelor.
No, no,—you must have a wife. I have picked one out for you.”

“Indeed! pray who is she, uncle?”

“One of the loveliest girls in the city,—your cousin Henrietta
Attwood.”

“Etty Attwood! the pretty little second-cousin who used to come
sometimes to visit us when I was a boy! I remember her well;—the most
beautiful, sweetest tempered child in the world; with bright brown eyes,
and flaxen ringlets curling over her shoulders and down to her waist! if
she is as charming a woman as she was a child, I have not the shadow of
an objection. I used to call her my little wife then, and the first
poetry I ever perpetrated, was some stanzas addressed to her on her
birthday.”

“Yes, she has shown them to me more than once; she remembers you as well
as you do her, and often inquires of me about her cousin and old
play-fellow, Julius Rockwell.”

“But do you think she would have me, uncle?”

“Why shouldn’t she?—you are plaguy good-looking,—you know that well
enough,—very much like what I was at your age; you have sense
plenty,—that is, if you are not a degenerate shoot of your family; if
you have not, you must acquire it; you have formed no bad habits, I
hope;—if you have, I must cane them out of you. And Etty will do
whatever I bid her,—I know she will. She is aware that I was looking
for you, and will expect you to call to see her immediately.”

“I shall be delighted to do so; can you take me this evening, uncle? But
how does it happen that she is in the city? Her parents, I believe,
reside in the country still.”

“She is with her aunt, Mrs. Attwood, a rich widow, who having married
off all her own daughters, has begged a share of her time for the sake
of her company. She is very much of a belle, but if you manage properly,
you and she will make a match of it in less than six months, or my name
is not Herman Holcroft. You must then live with me. I begin to feel
lonesome as I grow old, and, you perceive, I have house-room for twenty
more.”

“My dear uncle, you are too kind!”

“Stop a moment! remember it is only on condition you bring Etty with
you; I don’t know that I would like any one else. So I will go with you,
and introduce you to-night. I was afraid you would have to wait to be
provided with a new suit, but am agreeably disappointed. You look not
only genteel but fashionable. Your country tailors must be on the march
of improvement.”

“Oh! since steam-engines are so abundant, no one need be behind the
fashions, unless he chooses;—but, uncle,—look here, quick!—Ah! she
has gone around that corner!”

“Who?—what is it?” asked the old bachelor, hastily rising from his
superb, damask covered rocking chair, to approach the window.

“A young lady,—the loveliest, brightest—”

“Pho!” returned Mr. Holcroft, sinking again into his cushions with a
look of disappointment; “why I see thousands of lovely, bright-looking
girls passing here every day, and so it has been for the last twenty
years. That, I suppose, is one reason why I have not married. I never
could get one pretty face fixed in my heart, before a hundred others
presented themselves to drive it away.”

The windows of the apartment, in which the gentlemen sat, opened upon
one of the most noted thoroughfares on this side of the Atlantic, which
at that hour, was crowded by an unusually brilliant throng of the fair
and the gay, called out by the bright sunshine of a clear December
afternoon, to exhibit, each, her new assortment of winter finery. During
the foregoing dialogue, young Rockwell had not been so much occupied as
to be unable to throw an occasional glance into the street, and the one
which preceded his exclamation, had been met by a pair of radiant eyes,
with an expression so cordial and familiar, that he was quite
startled,—and the more easily, that they belonged to one of the most
beautiful faces and one of the richest costumes that he had noticed on
the crowded pavé. “I could never have seen her before,—no, I never
did,”—said he to himself, and the passage of Moore so generally known
to the sentimental and romantic youths, who sigh in our language, came
into his mind:—

    “As if his soul that moment caught
    An image it through life had sought;
    As if the very lips and eyes,
    Predestined to have all his sighs,
    And never be forgot again,
    Sparkled and smiled before him then.”

“That is a favorite excuse with you old bachelors,” said he, at length,
remembering that a reply might be expected to his uncle’s last
observation; “but this young lady,—_such_ a face could not be easily
driven away! I wonder who she can be?—perhaps you know her,—she is
evidently one of your _élite_, but I can’t describe her; one thing I
noticed, however, she had on a blue velvet—, what is the name of those
new articles?—neither a cloak nor a shawl;—you understand what I mean,
uncle.”

“A mantilla, you block-head!” replied the old bachelor, consequentially,
as if proud of being so far read in women’s gear.

“Yes, a mantilla,—a blue velvet mantilla, worked in yellow figures.”

“Embroidered in gold color, or straw, or canary, or lemon, the ladies
say,” returned Mr. Holcroft, in a tone of correction; “there are plenty
of blue velvet mantillas, and how am I to know which you mean?”

Julius admitted that it might be rather difficult, and looked out of the
window with renewed interest, while his uncle kept up a rambling
discourse which required no reply. In a few moments the blue mantilla
again appeared, another witching glance was thrown upon him, and
snatching up his hat, without a word of explanation or excuse, he darted
from the room. Immediately after, a fine looking young man entered, and
was saluted by the name of Elkinton, by Mr. Holcroft, who sat wondering
at his nephew’s sudden disappearance.

“Has Rockwell arrived, Mr. Holcroft?” asked the visiter.

“Yes,—did you not meet him at the door?—he reached this an hour or two
ago, and has just bolted out as if life and death depended on his speed.
I suppose he saw something wonderful in the street. These rustics, when
they come to town, are always on the stare for novelties. A fire-bell
startles them as much as an earthquake would us. But won’t you sit
down?—he will be back again in a few minutes, no doubt.”

“Thank you, I have not time to wait. I merely called in to see if he had
come. Perhaps I may find him in the street.”

Meanwhile Julius was eagerly tracing the fair unknown, and unpractised
as he was in threading the mazes of a city crowd, he found little
difficulty in gaining upon the light, quick step he followed. But at
length, as he joyfully held, his good genius befriended him. She was
stopped by a distinguished looking girl, whose tall figure, dark eyes,
and black hair, contrasted strongly with her own rather _petite_
proportions, hazel eyes and ringlets of light brown. He came up in time
to hear the lady of his pursuit say to the other, “I half expect
visiters this evening, but should they not call, I shall go certainly. I
believe it is the Vandenhoffs’ benefit, and, no doubt, a treat may be
looked for.”

Just then a carriage drew up to the curbstone, and an elderly lady
called from it, “I have half a notion to make you both walk home;—I
have been driving up and down street for an hour, expecting to meet you.
Get in,—quick!”

The steps were let down, and the black-eyed damsel was handed in. Her
companion was about to follow, when, glancing over her shoulder, she
beheld our hero. She paused, half-smiled, blushed, and springing into
the carriage, was driven off, and out of sight in a moment, while Julius
stood transfixed where she left him. He was aroused by a hand laid on
his arm, and turning, he exclaimed, somewhat abashed at being found in a
position so equivocal, “Is it possible, Elkinton!”

“My dear Rockwell! I am rejoiced to see you! I almost passed without
recognising you; I could scarcely have expected to meet you, fresh from
the country, standing in a brown study, in the most crowded square of
the city!”

The two young men had been classmates at college, and though a regular
correspondence had not been kept up between them, they were always the
warmest of friends whenever they chanced to meet. They turned to walk
together towards Mr. Holcroft’s.

“Pray, Elkinton, do you know any lady who wears a blue velvet mantilla?”
asked Julius as soon as politeness allowed him to introduce an extrinsic
subject.

“Very probably I may, but I never recollect ladies by their dress, as I
seldom pay the slightest attention to it. What sort of a lady do you
mean?”

“A young, very beautiful one, with bright complexion, clear hazel eyes
and sunny tresses.”

“I know several such,—you may see plenty of them passing any hour; but
what about her?”

“Oh, nothing! only I saw her in the street and was struck with her
appearance.”

“Pshaw! you will be struck ten times a minute if you are on the look-out
for beauty. For my part, I have given up looking at the ladies in
general.”

“Then it must be because you are engrossed by one in particular.”

“Right, and I’ll introduce you to her for old acquaintance sake. Don’t
you remember our standing argument, that neither of us would marry
without a communication to, and a consultation with, the other?”

“Of course,” replied Julius abstractedly; “I must try to find out who
she is.”

“You shall know all about her, my Julius, and become acquainted with
her; as soon as you are at leisure, I should like to have your
impression of my choice,” returned Elkinton cordially; of course
alluding to his own lady love; “but I have not time to talk longer, just
now. I’ll call to see you in the morning.”

“Stay, at which house are the Vandenhoffs to perform to-night?” asked
Julius, detaining him.

Elkinton named the theatre and hurried away.

On returning to his uncle, there being visiters present, no questions
were asked about his absence, and when they were again alone, the old
gentleman desired him to have himself in readiness to call on his
cousin, Miss Attwood, after tea. With some hesitation, he excused
himself. “Perhaps you would like to go to see the Vandenhoffs, as this
is their last night,” said Mr. Holcroft, presuming that to be his
objection; “if so, by going early to visit Etty, we may have a chance to
take her along, if she is not engaged. You need not mind being out of
etiquette, as I shall propose it myself.”

Still Julius demurred about the visit, and added, “It was my intention
to go to the theatre, but I should prefer going alone.”

“Going alone!” repeated the old gentleman, looking at him
scrutinizingly; “that is altogether wrong, Julius. A young man should
not, if possible, appear at a place of amusement, which ladies are
sanctioned to attend, without having one along. They are a protection
from improper associations, and add greatly to the respectability of
one’s appearance. On the present occasion, your attendance on Henrietta
Attwood will establish your standing in society at once. She is
certainly one of the most admired girls in the city.”

“No doubt of it, uncle; but for my part I never admired dumpy girls.”

“Dumpy girls?—what do you intimate by that, sir? why Etty has one of
the most perfect figures I ever saw! she is a very sylph.”

“Indeed! when she was a child, she was very short and fat. At any rate,
she must have white hair,—she formerly had,—and I have no great
partiality for ‘lint white locks.’”

“White hair! what the plague has got into the fellow? she has no such
thing. An hour or two ago you were all anxiety that I should take you to
see her, and you seem ready to decline going altogether.”

“Excuse me, uncle, but really I don’t feel in the humor for ladies’
society this evening.”

“Oh, very well, sir; consult your own pleasure,” replied the old
bachelor in a tone of pique, and took his tea in silence.

Julius noticed it, but though sorry to displease him, was ashamed to
confess his motive for wishing to go alone, and, after a few minutes of
constraint, in the drawing-room, he set off for the theatre.

He arrived early, and selecting a place which commanded a view of the
whole house, he kept his eyes in constant motion from door to door, with
the purpose of scanning every group that entered, a feat not easy to
accomplish, as an unusual number were thronging the house. At length, a
round of applause, on the rising of the curtain, distracted his
attention, for a moment, and on again turning round, he beheld in a box
near him, the identical blue velvet mantilla, accompanied by an elderly
gentleman, and the tall brunette. The best acting of the season was all
lost upon him, the one object alone chaining his eyes and his thoughts.
She, too, evidently perceived him, while surveying the audience. At the
end of the first act, and several times afterward, she met his gaze with
conscious blushes, and an apparent effort to repress a smile. He also
fancied that some communication on the subject passed between her and
her companions.

The play at length was over, and the party rose to go. Julius pushed
through the crowd until he found himself beside them. In the press, the
mantilla became unfastened, and, unperceived, by its owner, a gentleman
set his foot upon it. “The lady’s mantilla, sir!” said our hero, eagerly
catching it up. She nodded her thanks with looks half downcast, and
confusedly taking it from his hand, wrapped it around her and, in a few
minutes, they had reached the door. The old gentleman handed his fair
charges into a carriage in waiting, and, saying that he would walk,
ordered the servant to drive on.

“Have a hack, sir?” asked a coachman.

“Yes,—follow that carriage,” replied Julius, and springing in, was
driven into one of the most fashionable streets of the city. The
carriage stopped before one of the handsomest houses in it, and he saw
the ladies alight and enter the door. Then discharging his coach, he
reconnoitered the house and square, to know them again, and
congratulating himself on his discovery, he returned to his uncle’s.

Mr. Holcroft had recovered, in some degree, from his displeasure against
the morning, and with a return of his usual manner, he questioned his
nephew upon the quality of the past night’s entertainment.

“I can hardly tell, sir; that is,—I believe it was good, sir;” answered
he with some incoherence.

“Why, my good fellow, I hope you are not so green as not to know whether
a theatrical performance was good or the contrary!” said the old
bachelor, staring at him, whereupon the young gentleman felt himself
necessitated to be somewhat less abstracted.

After breakfast he took up his hat with unexpressed intention to visit
the scene of his discovery, and half formed hopes, and his uncle, having
observed that in a stroll through the city he might see some books, or
other such matters, which he would like to possess, kindly proffered him
funds to purchase them.

Julius thanked him, and answered that he was provided with a sum, naming
it, amply sufficient for the expenses of the three or four weeks he had
proposed for the length of his visit.

“Don’t forget to be back again at twelve,” said Mr. Holcroft; “against
that time I shall want you to go with me to see your cousin Etty.”

“Hang my cousin Etty!” thought Julius, but he said nothing, and, with a
bow, he departed. On reaching the place where his thoughts had been all
the morning, he examined the door, but could find no name, nor could he
see a child or a servant within half a square, of whom he might have
obtained information. But, crossing the street in his disappointment, he
noticed on the first house before him, a large brass door-plate,
inscribed “Boarding,” and actuated by the first suggestion of his fancy,
he rang the bell, and inquired if he could obtain lodgings for a short
time.

“My rooms are all taken, sir,—that is, all the best apartments,”
replied the mistress of the mansion, presuming, from his appearance,
that none but good accommodations would answer.

Julius paused a moment, but having gone so far, he concluded not to draw
back. “I would be willing to put up with an inferior one, provided it is
in the front of the house,” said he.

“The small room, in the third story, over the entrance, is vacant,” said
the lady, hesitating to offer it.

“I’ll take it, madam,” he returned, and without further question or
examination, he hastened to have his baggage brought. This he executed
without the knowledge of his uncle, the old gentleman having rode out
after breakfast.

He felt half ashamed of his precipitancy, when he saw his trunks
deposited in a chamber, so filled up by a narrow bed, a washstand and a
single chair, that there was hardly space enough for them, but on
approaching the window, he beheld the blue mantilla descending from the
steps of the house opposite, and he regarded himself as fully
compensated for the sacrifice.

“Who lives in the house immediately across the way?” asked he of the
servant who was arranging the room.

“Mr. Lawrenson, sir,—that gentleman coming out.” It was the old
gentleman of the theatre.

“There are a couple of young ladies in the house, are there not?”

“Only one, sir, that I know of,—a great belle among the quality. The
gentlemen call her the _beautiful_ Miss Lawrenson.”

Julius was satisfied. He knew the family by reputation, and to have
attracted the attention, and commenced a flirtation of the eyes with a
beauty so distinguished, he felt was an adventure to be pursued without
respect to little inconveniences. He was strengthened in this sentiment
by some of the gentlemen at the dinner-table stating, that one of the
most prominent ornaments of the dress circle, at the theatre, the night
before, was the beautiful Charlotte Lawrenson.

After dinner he watched long for the return of his fair neighbor, an
occupation not the most comfortable, as there was no chimney in the
room, and therefore no possibility of his having a fire; but she did not
again appear, and recollecting that his uncle ought to be informed of
his change of quarters, he proceeded to fulfil that duty. On his way he
had some misgiving that the old gentleman would not receive his apprisal
on the best of terms, and he was projecting some plausible excuse to
satisfy him, when the result of his ingenuity was annihilated by his
encountering, face to face, the lady of his thoughts,—his heart, as he
believed. The same half-smile met him,—there might have been observed
an additional expression of familiarity;—the same blush, and he would
have turned to follow her again, but his sense of propriety had not so
far left him, as to admit of the repetition,—particularly as there was
no object to be gained by it. So, satisfied that from his close
vicinity, he could have an opportunity of seeing her daily, and of
taking advantage of any favorable accident for a better acquaintance, he
entered the drawing-room of the old bachelor, who received him with an
exclamation of “Where upon earth have you been all this day, Julius?”

“At my lodgings, sir,” replied the youth, having come to the conclusion
that it would be best to treat his desertion in the most matter of
course way possible.

“Your lodgings!” repeated Mr. Holcroft, in astonishment.

“Yes, uncle; as I don’t like to trouble my friends more than I can help,
I decided upon taking boarding, and your absence, when I came to remove
my baggage, prevented my informing you of it.”

“What, after I had proposed your taking up your residence in my house,
not only during your visit, but during my life time! I need a better
excuse than that. Where have you gone?”

Julius named the place.

“One of the most expensive establishments in the city, and one
frequented by dandies, _roués_, and _bon vivants_,—the very worst sort
of society for a young man, who aspires to attaining eminence in one of
the learned professions. You might, at least, have consulted me about a
place proper for you, even though you had decided upon mortifying me by
leaving my house. How long have you engaged to stay?”

“Only a week or two, uncle,” replied Julius, devoutly hoping that no
questions would be asked, which would compel him to confess that he had
ensconsed himself in the worst apartment in the house.

“I waited dinner for you an hour, after having expected you for two or
three to go with me to visit your cousin Etty. However, you can stay to
tea, and go with me in the evening.”

“Excuse me, dear sir,—I have a particular reason for declining.”

“What! again?—how do you intend to dispose of yourself?”

“I—I shall stay in my own room, I believe, uncle.”

“You vex and surprise me more and more, Julius. Independent of my
earnest desire that you should see your cousin, your duty as a gentleman
and as a relative requires that you should make her a visit, and the
sooner it is done, the more it will be to your credit.”

“The young lady in question being only my second-cousin, I cannot
perceive that there is any duty connected with the matter.
Second-cousins, except in cases of convenience, are seldom regarded as
relatives at all.”

“Whew! I presume that, after all that, I need not be surprised if you
should propose to dissolve the connection between me and yourself! I, a
queer, plain, old fellow, will hardly be likely to remain an
_acknowledged_ kinsman of one who declines the relationship of one of
the loveliest girls that ever the sun shone upon!”

“My dear uncle, I meant no disrespect towards Miss Attwood, much less to
you, but really, I have something to attend to, that will debar me from
the pleasure of fulfilling your wishes, to-night. I will see you again
in the morning. Good evening.”

“I must keep a sharp watch on that youngster,” said the old bachelor to
himself; “he can’t have formed an attachment at home, for he appeared
delighted, at first, with my proposition for his settlement. As to his
leaving my house, it strikes me that it was done for the purpose of
escaping my _surveillance_. I must be careful as to what sort of habits
he has formed, before I decide on carrying out my plans. I must go to
see Etty this evening myself, and as she will expect some excuse for his
not calling, I can tell her that he is diffident,—not used to ladies’
society, or something that way. She has not been here for several days,
I presume on his account; so I’ll tell her that he has taken boarding at
Mrs. W——’s. I have no notion of being cheated out of my only lady
visiter by the ungrateful scamp.” And the old gentleman carried his
resolve into execution.

Julius had really told the truth in saying that he intended to remain at
home that evening, but he would not for any thing in the world,—except,
indeed, the heart under the blue velvet mantilla,—have acknowledged his
reason for so doing. The fact was, he had concluded that no time was to
be lost in pursuing his advantage, and that, as he had been the poet of
his class at college, he might be inspired, if in solitude, to produce a
metrical accompaniment for some pretty _gage d’amour_, to be sent the
next morning. His muse not unpropitious, but cabin’d, confined, in his
fireless dormitory, his ardour would, no doubt, have abated, had he not,
by an occasional glance out of the window, been reminded, by the blue
sky and its golden embroidery of stars, of the azure mantilla. Thus
refreshed, whenever he found himself flagging, he completed his
performance to his full satisfaction, and after copying it on paper
perfumed and gilt,—with his washstand for a writing table,—he retired
to dream the night into day.

In the morning, as soon as breakfast was over, he set off in quest of
his intended gift, and seeing the gorgeous display of exotics, in the
window of a celebrated florist, he stopped and selected flowers for a
bouquet, the richest and rarest, without regard to cost, and ordering
them to be sent immediately to his lodgings, he hastened to meet them
there. He was stopped, however, in his course by his friend Elkinton.

“I am glad at the accident of meeting you,” said the latter; “I called
last evening and this morning at Mr. Holcroft’s in expectation of your
coming in,—the servants having told me yesterday that you had changed
your residence. Where do you lodge?—your uncle was not at home, and,
consequently, I did not ascertain.”

Julius evaded an answer, afraid of exposing to any acquaintance how
comfortless a place he had deposited himself in, and though they had now
nearly reached it, he walked off in a contrary direction to avoid
suspicion, talking all the while with much more animation than he would
have been likely to do in his present state of feeling, if there had not
been a strong motive to prompt him.

“Have you any engagement for this evening?” asked Elkinton; “if not, I
will take you to see my _fiancée_, as I promised you the other day. I
really wish to have your congratulations on my selection. All the
fellows of my acquaintance regard me with envy;—you need not smile,—I
say it without vanity or boasting.”

Julius declined without offering an excuse.

“When will you go then?” persisted the intruder.

“I don’t know,—in truth I go very little into ladies’ society at
present,” replied Rockwell, with an air of _nonchalance_.

That his friend should be totally indifferent towards his mistress, is
little less unpardonable to a lover, than that he should attempt to
rival him in her affections; accordingly Elkinton, after replying
coolly, “very well, I hold you to no appointment,” bowed stiffly, and
walked away.

Not giving his friend’s change of deportment a thought, Julius hastened
to his room, where the flowers had arrived before him, and folded his
poetical billet-doux to send with them. How to direct it was the next
question, and determining that it would be disrespectful, without his
having an introduction, to address it to “Miss Lawrenson,” he
substituted, in place of her name, to “The Blue Velvet Mantilla.” He
then rang the bell, and giving the waiter who appeared, a liberal
douceur to carry it across the street, and leave it for Miss Lawrenson,
with the bouquet, he watched at the window until he saw it delivered to
a servant at the door.

The other boarders having left the parlors, he took possession of one of
the front windows with a newspaper in his hand, and watched every
movement across the way. In a short time the tall brunette emerged from
the doorway, but her companion of the sunny ringlets did not appear.
After dinner she really did present herself,—he was on the watch
again;—and he noticed that, before she reached the steps, she glanced
across with apparent curiosity, from which he conjectured that she had
discovered, by means of the servant, whence the offering had come. And
then, when she turned to look again, after she had pulled the bell, he
was confident that she recognised his figure at the window. Towards
evening he tore himself from his loadstone long enough to saunter out
with the object of paying his respects to his uncle, but the old
gentleman not being in the house, he did not enter, and returning to his
room, he busied himself, as the evening before, in writing verses for a
future occasion.

Thus ended one day of folly, and the next was spent in a similar manner,
except that he sent a costly English annual, as his second tribute, and,
to his surprise and ecstasy, received, in return, by his messenger, a
geranium leaf, enclosed in a sheet of rose-colored note-paper, in which
was inscribed, in a dainty female hand, the single line,—“From the Blue
Velvet Mantilla.”

The third day, he sent a present equally elegant, and employed some of
the most skilful members of a famous band to discourse their most
elegant music under her window in the night, and he felt not a little
flattered, secretly, to hear some of the boarders pronounce it the most
delightful serenade ever heard, even in the neighborhood of Miss
Lawrenson. But it would be tedious to follow him in his extravagances.
He dispensed his flowers, and books, and music, and tasteful _bijoux_ as
prodigally as if he had possessed the purse of a Fortunio, until better
than a week had passed. During this time he forced himself to call daily
on his uncle, and daily declined a visit to his cousin, until the old
gentleman, deeply offended, ceased to invite him to his house, and he
for the same reason, ceased to go. Elkinton, too, met him once or twice,
and, in remembrance of his want of courtesy, passed him with merely a
nod, but what was all that, in comparison with the compensation he
received from the lady of the mantilla?—sundry glances and blushes,
when he chanced to meet her on the street; a wave of her scarf across
the window, which could not have been accidental; and above all, two
several notes, containing, each, familiar quotations, in her own
delicate hand, as answers to some of his impassioned rhapsodies. A new
incident, however, brought him somewhat to his senses.

One morning his messenger, on returning, presented him with a note,
markedly different, from its bold penmanship, to the others, and on
opening it, he read to the following effect.—

“The person, who, for a week past, has been so liberal of his favors to
Miss C—— L——, is requested to call this afternoon, three o’clock, at
No. 26, —— Hotel, and explain his conduct to one possessed of a right
to demand it. Should he not comply, it will be presumed that he is
unworthy of being treated as a gentleman, and he shall be dealt with
accordingly.”

“From whom did you receive this?” asked he of the servant.

“From Mr. Lawrenson’s footman, sir, who always receives my messages; he
said it was given to him by a gentleman who ordered him not to tell his
name.”

“Very well; that is sufficient,” said Julius, with considerably more
self-possession than if it had contained another quotation or geranium
leaf.

What explanation should he make?—was he to meet a father, or a brother?
whom? or, what? was he to be called upon to apologize, or to fight? or
what was to be done? He could settle none of these questions to his
satisfaction, and so he concluded to remain as unconcerned as possible,
and be guided by the relative position and deportment of his challenger.

The appointed hour came, and found our hero at the house designated. He
asked to be shown to No. 26, and, on rapping at the door, to his
surprise, it was opened by Elkinton. The latter, also, looked surprised,
but presuming that he had called to atone for his former unfriendliness,
he invited him in, and seated him, with much cordiality. Julius looked
around, and perceiving no other person in the room, took the letter from
his pocket, and remarked—“There must be some mistake here. To confess
the truth, Elkinton, I did not expect to find myself in your apartment.
This note directed me to number 26, but it must be a mistake of the pew.
However, as I am here, I would be very glad of your advice as a friend.
Read this.”

Elkinton glanced at the note, and, with a heightened color, returned,
“There must, indeed, be some mistake. I am the writer of this, but you,
certainly, cannot be the person for whom it was intended.”

Julius started, but commanded himself to reply coolly,—“Judging from
its import, it undoubtedly was destined for my hands.”

Elkinton paced the room once or twice, and then, seating himself beside
his visiter, remarked, “This is a delicate affair, Julius, but, as old
friends, let us talk it over quietly. That there may be no
misunderstanding, let us be certain that we both interpret these
initials alike.”

“I presumed them to be those of Miss Lawrenson,—Charlotte Lawrenson,”
answered Julius.

“She, indeed, is the person meant, and to prove to you my right to
interfere in this matter, she is the lady to whom I am engaged, of which
I informed you,—who is affianced to be my wife in a few months.”

Julius sprang to his feet, and turned pale as marble. To be thus flirted
and betrayed!

“Now,” pursued Elkinton, earnestly, “you will understand why I should
have felt indignant at any one presuming to make such advances, as you
have done, towards the lady in question, and you will not be surprised
if I ask by what you were encouraged to persist in them, so
assiduously.”

“By the lady’s own conduct,” said Julius, with his usual impetuosity;
“by her accepting my presents, which were invariably accompanied by
expressions of admiration,—nay, of passion; by her noticing those
expressions with answers, which, if not explicitly favorable, could not
have been construed otherwise, as they were not reprobatory; by tokens
of personal recognition from her house, and by conscious, and not
discouraging looks, whenever we met in the street.”

“Stay, Julius! these are serious charges, and such as no man could
patiently listen to of his affianced wife. Your presents I know she
received, for from her jestingly showing them to me, and pointing out
the house from which they came, I was led to write the note in your
hand, of which she is aware; but that a girl of Charlotte Lawrenson’s
dignity of character would answer love-letters from an entire stranger,
and exchange coquettish glances with him in the streets, is more than I
can credit.”

“That is language, Elkinton, that I cannot and will not submit to,”
retorted Julius angrily; “if you must have proofs farther than the word
of a man of honor, take these!” and he drew the notes from his bosom,
where, in the most approved fashion of lovers, he had kept them secured
day and night.

Elkinton snatched them, and after a scrutinizing examination replied, “I
can say, almost positively, that not a word here is in her handwriting.”

“No doubt, you find it very satisfactory to feel thus assured,” said
Julius, with a sarcastic smile.

“To save further dispute, by which neither of us can be convinced,”
returned Elkinton, endeavoring to be more composed, “I will go directly
to Miss Lawrenson, and ask an explanation from her, without which, I at
least, cannot feel satisfied. If you shall be at leisure, I will call on
you, or, if you prefer it, shall expect you here at eight this evening.”

For particular reasons, unnecessary to specify, Julius chose the latter,
and Elkinton, escorting him out with cold politeness, proceeded, in much
perturbation, to the mansion of Mr. Lawrenson.

Our hero was punctual to his appointment in the evening, and found
Elkinton impatiently awaiting him. “I have laid your representations
before Miss Lawrenson, and, for your sake, am sorry that she disclaims
their veracity. Though she again acknowledges having your presents in
her possession, she denies having answered your notes, or even having
opened them; denies ever having given you a mark of recognition, and
denies that, to her knowledge, she ever saw you in the street.”

Julius stood aghast. To have the truth so pointedly disowned, to have
his word so plainly doubted, it was not to be borne. “Her retaining my
love-tokens, I think, might be sufficient evidence to you that all is
not exactly as you would desire,” he replied indignantly, “a woman who
encourages the advances of a total stranger, in everything but words,
while betrothed to another, and then, to preserve his favor, denies the
whole course of her conduct, is unworthy the notice of any man who calls
himself a gentleman.”

“One thing can yet be done,” said Elkinton, repressing a furious answer;
“let me have those notes, and, through them, Miss Lawrenson may probably
be enabled to discover by whom they were produced. If that cannot be
done, I shall hold you responsible for gross misrepresentations of her
character;” and he strode out, leaving his rival in possession of his
room.

Matters now wore a serious aspect. Should the lady make no confession, a
challenge would be the consequence, and even should she vouchsafe to
explain, it would be to make him a laughing stock by proving him
quizzed, coquetted and jilted. If the first were to occur, it behoved
him to prepare to leave the world; if the latter, at least to leave the
city. And on his way homeward, he decided to put his affairs in order.
He remembered that his landlady had sent in her bill that morning,
requiring money for a pressing engagement, and that, having pretty well
exhausted his funds in his expensive outlays for his fair enchantress,
he had concluded to apply to his uncle for means to discharge it.
Accordingly he stopped to inquire for him, but not finding him at home,
he left on his secretaire a note, requesting the loan of the sum he
required, and saying he would call for it in the morning. He then
retired to his lodgings in such a state of excitement as it had not been
his lot before to experience.

In the morning, when completing his toilet, for breakfast, he heard the
sound of a stick and an unusually heavy step on the stairs, and after a
loud rap on the door, Mr. Holcroft, to his great surprise, presented
himself.

“So,” said the old bachelor, seating himself on the side of the bed, the
only chair being occupied by Julius’ collar and cravat, and looking
around in astonishment, “a pretty exchange you have made, young
gentleman, for the pleasant apartments to which I welcomed you on your
arrival!”

Julius saw that his ire was aroused, but unable to conjecture why, and
somewhat abashed at the shabbiness of his surroundings, he could only
stammer something about having found it impossible to obtain the
accommodation of a better room.

“And what are your reasons, young man, for submitting to such
discomforts and inconveniences?—You need not take the trouble to
fabricate an answer. Your last night’s demand for money has given me a
full insight into your character and pursuits, and I have come to assert
my tacit right as your mother’s brother, and your nearest living
relation, to use the power of a guardian, and remove you from scenes in
which you are in a fair way to prove a disgrace to me and to the memory
of your parents. On your arrival in the city, I laid before you my plans
for your future benefit,—that you should make your home with me as my
son, and my prospective heir, an offer which almost any young man would
have considered extraordinary good fortune,—and suggested to you an
alliance which, I felt confident, would secure your happiness. I was not
such an old block-head to expect you to marry your cousin without your
own conviction that she would suit you, but merely named her to you as a
woman who, to any reasonable man, would be a treasure, such as, I fear,
you will never deserve to possess. Then, instead of calling on your
cousin, as I requested, if only through civility to me,—you displayed a
churlish indifference to female society, which young men of good
principles and education seldom feel, and to escape from the watch and
control which you supposed I would keep on your movements,—you
clandestinely left my house. To be sure, you did make a show of respect,
by coming occasionally to see me, but your abstracted manner, and entire
silence as to your engagements and mode of spending the time, confirmed
my suspicions that your amusements were such as you were ashamed to
confess them to be. On one occasion, however, you committed
yourself,—in naming the amount of funds you had brought with
you,—quite sufficient for any young man of good habits for a month,
situated as you are; and now, though I am perfectly willing to give you
the sum you require, and as much in addition, as will take you away from
temptation as far as you may choose to go, I demand in return, to know
how your own has been spent.”

Hurt, mortified and vexed at suspicions so unjust and injurious, Julius
did not attempt to interrupt him, and against he concluded, had made up
his mind to confess the whole truth, which he did, circumstantially and
minutely.

“Can it be possible that my sister’s son should have made such a fool of
himself?” exclaimed the old gentleman, raising his hands in amazement,
“that you should have given up the comforts of my house, and the
pleasures of the agreeable society you would have met there, for this
inconvenient dungeon in a boarding-house; squandered your money like a
tragedy hero, and put yourself into a situation to shoot, or to be shot
by, one of your best friends, all for the sake of a girl who was silly
and impudent enough to cast a few coquettish glances at you in the
street! truly! truly!—however, it is not quite so bad as I apprehended,
certainly less unpardonable that you should play the idiot than to have
turned out a gambler or _roué_, as I suspected. But just see how easily
all this might have been avoided!—merely by your going with me to see
your cousin, and falling in love with her, and thus putting yourself out
of danger of becoming entangled in the snares of another. It is a lucky
thing for you, my gentle Romeo, that we came to an understanding so
soon, for I had made up my mind, partly, to marry Mrs. Attwood, the
widow, right off, and as Etty would have been a sort of niece, to make
her my heiress. What d’ye think of that? But there’s your breakfast
bell, and my carriage is waiting for me. Go down, and in half an hour I
will call and take you home with me. In the meantime I will see
Elkinton, and try if the matter can’t be settled without pistols.”

At the end of the half-hour Mr. Holcroft returned, and apprising Julius
that he had made an appointment with Elkinton to meet him at eleven, he
took him away, talking all the time with much spirit, evidently to
engage and amuse the thoughts of the chagrined and disappointed lover.
This seemed to have little effect, when, thinking of another expedient,
he ordered his coachman to stop at the rooms of an eminent painter,
where, he stated to Julius, he was getting some pictures executed, which
he would like him to examine. He would take no refusal, and the young
gentleman was obliged to alight and accompany him into the gallery. When
they had reached it, he found no difficulty in recognizing the first
piece pointed out to him as the portrait of his uncle himself, and after
giving it the appropriate measure of approbation, he strolled away, on
seeing the artist approach. With occasionally a cursory glance at them,
he walked in front of a row of ladies and gentlemen, who smiled upon him
from the canvass in a manner that, to his moodiness, appeared quite
tantalizing, and, at length, an exclamation from him drew Mr. Holcroft
to his side, who found him gazing pale and breathless upon a picture,
the very counterpart, even to the blue velvet mantilla, of the one in
his heart.

“Why, what’s the matter?—whom do you recognize there?” asked the old
bachelor.

“She,—herself,—the fair cause of my late—insanity;” answered he, with
an unsuccessful effort to return the smile.

“Who?—that?—the original of that! Whew! ha! ha!” exclaimed the old
gentleman with a stare and then a boisterous laugh; “and is it she, that
you have allowed to put you on the road to Bedlam!—a dumpy little thing
like that! ha! ha! But I see that I have frustrated my own intention, in
bringing you here to compose you. Don’t stand there in such an attitude,
and looking so wo-begone, or Mr. —— will make a caricature of you; he
has his keen eye fixed on you now, come along!” and Julius followed
unwillingly down stairs, his uncle laughing all the way in a manner that
was excessively provoking.

In a few minutes they had reached home. “I’ll not get out,” said the old
bachelor, “just go in and amuse yourself, until I return, which will be
shortly. Be sure that you wait for me, as I wish to be present at your
interview with Elkinton.”

Julius did as he was requested, and in due time his uncle returned.
“Come now,” said he, “I have no doubt that the young lady will make a
confession, and that you will escape with your character untarnished
except by folly. Then after we have got over our business with Elkinton,
if it should be settled amicably, we will go to see your cousin
Henrietta.”

“My dear uncle! I beseech you do not propose my going to visit a lady,
in my present frame of mind! I really should disgrace both myself and
you. Make my excuses to Etty, and when I have returned to the city,
after I shall have banished the remembrance of my disappointment by a
few months in the country, I will endeavour to do everything that is
proper.”

“I forgot to tell you,” said Mr. Holcroft, “that we are not to meet
Elkinton at his lodgings, but in a private house; an arrangement made, I
suspect, that Miss Lawrenson might be present, to make an explanation of
her conduct. Here is the place, now.”

Julius started, but the carriage stopped, and he followed his uncle in
silence. They were ushered into an elegant drawing-room, and on an
ottoman, in full view of the door, sat the blue velvet mantilla.—She
bowed to Mr. Holcroft, and looked at Julius, as if quite prepared to
confront him. The sight of her convinced him that he was not yet cured
of his passion, but before he had had any time to betray it, his uncle
took him by the arm, and said as he drew him forward, “Allow me, Julius,
to present you to your cousin Henrietta Attwood.”

“The most unnecessary thing in the world, Mr. Holcroft,” returned the
lady rising, “as I would have known my cousin Julius anywhere. He,
however, I presume, would not have found it so easy to recognize me!”
and looking into his face with a merry, ringing laugh, she approached
him, and held out her hand.

Confounded by the many emotions that crowded upon him, Julius stood
speechless, and almost afraid to touch it, when her laugh was echoed
from the adjoining room and Elkinton appeared, accompanied by the
dark-eyed damsel, whom our hero had seen as the companion of his cousin,
and introduced her as Miss Lawrenson.

“My dear Rockwell,” said he, heartily grasping Julius’ hand, “I am
delighted to meet you again as one of the most valued of my friends. We
have good reason to congratulate each other that we did not fall victims
to a stratagem, planned by these cruel nymphs, as cunning as ever was
devised by Circe of old.”

“Stop, stop, Elkinton!” interrupted the old bachelor, “as the merit of
the _dénouement_ is mine, I think I am entitled to make a speech to
Julius.”

“Not now, not here, before us! dear Mr. Holcroft!” exclaimed both the
girls laughing and blushing, but as he showed signs of proceeding, they
ran away, and left the gentlemen by themselves.

According to Mr. Holcroft’s explanation, Henrietta had recognized her
cousin on the day of his arrival, which fully accounted for her pleasant
glances; and from his following her in the street, approaching her at
the theatre, and tracing her to Mr. Lawrenson’s, which that gentleman
had observed, she presumed that she was equally known to him, and, of
course, wondered that he did not avail himself of the easier method of
renewing their acquaintance by means of his uncle. But on discovering,
from Mr. Holcroft’s representations, that she was mistaken, learning his
change of residence, and receiving through Miss Lawrenson, his verses,
in which she recognized his hand, she was struck with a clearer
perception of the case, and she determined to engage in the flirtation,
and pursue it until he should make her a visit, as a relation, and then
have a laugh at his expense. Miss Lawrenson, in return for assisting
her, by receiving his communications, claimed the privilege of having
some amusement of her own out of the adventure, and to effect this, she
made use of his beautiful gifts to excite the jealousy of Elkinton; they
both, however, discovered that they had carried the game too far, and
alarmed at the turn it had taken, had sent for Elkinton, an hour or two
before, from Mrs. Attwood’s, and made a full confession. There Mr.
Holcroft had found him, when he called to inform Etty of his discovery
in the picture-room, and of his nephew’s difficulties, and there the
grand finale was projected.

“It must have been my indistinct and unconscious recollection of my old
play-fellow, after all,” said Julius, “which so attracted me, and it was
her getting out of the carriage at Mr. Lawrenson’s and being there so
often, which brought you into the drama, Elkinton.”

“Yes, she is to be our bridesmaid, and, no doubt, she and Charlotte have
a good many little matters to talk over;—that accounts for their being
so much together. She stayed over night the time in question.”

“Well, well, it is a mercy that in their confabulations they did not set
you two blowing each other’s brains out; and it would have been no
wonder, Julius, if such a catastrophe had happened, to punish you for
your disobedience,” said the old bachelor, “now, if you had obliged me,
like a dutiful nephew, by calling on your cousin, and acted a friend’s
part towards Elkinton, by going to see his sweetheart, everything would
have ended properly without any of this trouble. But it is too often the
case that people run after all sorts of shadows, and get themselves into
all sorts of scrapes, in their search after happiness, when they could
find it at once by quietly attending to their duties at home.”

The young ladies returned, and, through delicacy towards them, no
allusion was made to the subject just canvassed, but Julius, on
returning with his uncle to dinner, declared his intention of offering
himself to Etty that very evening, if he should find an opportunity.
This the old gentleman expressly forbade, giving him a fortnight as a
term of probation; but whether he was obeyed more closely in this than
in his former requisitions, was, from certain indications, a matter of
doubt.

At the end of the two weeks, there was a friendly contest between
Rockwell and Elkinton, as to which must wait to be the groomsman of the
other. It was left to the decision of Mr. Holcroft, who declared in
favor of the latter, he having determined to serve in that capacity,
towards his nephew himself.

He did so, in the course of a few months, and though Julius has not had
time to rise, as his substitute, to the height of the profession, he has
carried out the original plan so far as to have furnished the Holcroft
mansion with a boy, athletic enough already to ride on his grand uncle’s
cane, and a girl, so ingenious as to have, occasionally, made a doll’s
cradle of his rocking chair.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                         AGATHÈ.—A NECROMAUNT.


                           IN THREE CHIMERAS.


                     BY LOUIS FITZGERALD TASISTRO.


              Chimera II.

    A curse! a curse!—the beautiful pale wing
    Of a sea-bird was worn with wandering,
    And, on a sunny rock beside the shore
    It stood, the golden waters gazing o’er,
    And they were heaving a brown amber flow
    Of weeds, that glittered gloriously below.

    It was the sunset, and the gorgeous hall
    Of heaven rose up on pillars magical
    Of living silver, shafting the fair sky
    Between dark time and great eternity.
    They rose upon their pedestal of sun,
    A line of snowy columns! and anon,
    Were lost in the rich tracery of cloud
    That hung along magnificently proud,
    Predicting the pure star-light, that beyond
    The East was armoring in diamond
    About the camp of twilight, and was soon
    To marshal under the fair champion moon,
    That called her chariot of unearthly mist,
    Toward her citadel of amethyst.

    A curse! a curse!—a lonely man is there
    By the deep waters, with a burden fair
    Clasped in his wearied arras.—’Tis he; ’tis he
    The brain-struck Julio and Agathè!
    His cowl is back—flung back upon the breeze,—
    His lofty brow is haggard with disease,
    As if a wild libation had been pour’d
    Of lightning on those temples, and they shower’d
    A dismal perspiration, like a rain,
    Shook by the thunder and the hurricane!

    He dropt upon a rock, and by him placed,
    Over a bed of sea-pinks growing waste,
    The silent ladye, and he mutter’d wild,
    Strange words, about a mother, and no child.
    “And I shall wed thee, Agathè! although
    Ours be no God—blest bride—even so!”
    And from the sand he took a silver shell,
    That had been wasted by the fall and swell
    Of many a moon-borne tide into a ring—
    A rude, rude ring; it was a snow-white thing,
    Where a lone hermit limpet slept and died,
    In ages far away.—“Thou art a bride,
    Sweet Agathè! wake up; we must not linger.”
    He press’d the ring upon her chilly finger,
    And to the sea-bird, on its sunny stone,
    Shouted,—“Pale priest! that liest all alone
    Upon thy ocean-altar, rise away
    To our glad bridal!” and its wings of gray
    All lazily it spread, and hover’d by
    With a wild shriek—a melancholy cry!
    Then swooping slowly o’er the heaving breast
    Of the blue ocean, vanish’d in the west.
    And Julio is chanting to his bride,
    A merry song of his wild heart, that died
    On the soft breeze through pinks beside the sea,
    All rustling in their beauty gladsomely.

                     SONG.

    A rosary of stars, love! we’ll count them as we go
    Upon the laughing waters, that are wandering below,
    And we’ll o’er the pearly moon-beam, as it lieth in the sea
    In beauty and in glory, like a shadowing of thee!

    A rosary of stars, love! a prayer as we glide
    And a whisper in the wind, and a murmur on the tide!
    And we’ll say a fair adieu to the flowers that are seen,
    With shells of silver sown in radiancy between.

    A rosary of stars, love! the purest they shall be,
    Like spirits of pale pearl, in the bosom of the sea;
    Now help thee, virgin mother! with a blessing as we go,
    Upon the laughing waters, that are wandering below.

          He lifted the dead girl, and is away
          To where a light boat in its moorings lay,
          Like a sea-cradle, rocking to the hush
          Of the nurse waters; with a frantic rush
          O’er the wild field of tangles he hath sped,
          And through the shoaling waves that fell and fled
          Upon the furrow’d beach.

                                The snowy sail
          Is hoisted to the gladly gushing gale,
          That bosom’d its fair canvass with a breast
          Of silver, looking lovely to the west;
          And at the helm there sits the wither’d one,
          Gazing and gazing on the sister nun,
          With her fair tresses floating on his knee—
          The beautiful death-stricken Agathè!
          Fast, fast, and far away, the bark hath stood
          Out toward the great heaving solitude,
          That gurgled in its deeps, as if the breath
          Went through its lungs of agony and death!

          The sun is lost within the labyrinth
          Of clouds of purple and pale hyacinth,
          That are the frontlet of the sister sky
          Kissing her brother ocean; and they lie
          Bathing in blushes, till the rival queen,
          Night, with her starry tiar, floateth in—
          A dark and dazzling beauty! that doth draw
          Over the light of love a shade of awe
          Most strange, that parts our wonder not the less
          Between her mystery and loveliness!

          And she is there, that is a Pyramid
          Whereon the stars, the statues of the dead,
          Are imaged over the eternal hall,
          A group of radiances majestical!
          And Julio looks up, and there they be,
          And Agathè, and all the waste of sea,
          That slept in wizard slumber, with a shroud
          Of night flung o’er his bosom, throbbing proud
          Amid its azure pulses, and again
          He dropt his blighted eye-orbs, with a strain
          Of mirth upon the ladye:—Agathè!
          Sweet bride! be thou a queen and I will lay
          A crown of sea-weed on thy royal brow!
          And I will twine these tresses, that are now
          Floating beside me, to a diadem:
          And the sea foam will sprinkle gem on gem,
          And so will the soft dews. Be thou the queen
          Of the unpeopled waters, sadly seen
          By star-light, till the yet unrisen moon
          Issue, unveiled, from her anteroom,
          To bathe in the sea fountains: let me say,
          “Hail—hail to thee! thrice hail, my Agathè!”

          The warrior world was lifting to the bent
          Of his eternal brow magnificent,
          The fiery moon, that in her blazonry
          Shone eastward, like a shield. The throbbing sea
          Felt fever on his azure arteries,
          That shadow’d them with crimson, while the breeze
          Fell faster on the solitary sail.
          But the red moon grew loftier and pale,
          And the great ocean, like the holy hall,
          Where slept a seraph host maritimal,
          Was gorgeous, with wings of diamond
          Fann’d over it, and millions beyond
          Of tiny waves were playing to and fro,
          All musical, with an incessant flow
          Of cadences, innumerably heard
          Between the shrill notes of a hermit bird,
            That held a solemn pæan to the moon.

            A few devotional fair clouds were soon
          Breath’d o’er the living countenance of Heaven,
          And under the great galaxies were driven
          Of stars that group’d together, and they went
          Like voyagers along the firmament,
          And grew to silver in the blessed light
          Of the moon alchymist. It was not night,
          Not the dark deathly shadow, that falls o’er
          The eye-lid like a curse, but far before
          In splendor, struggling through a fall of gloom,
          In many a myriad gushes, that do come
          Direct from the eternal stars beyond,
          Like holy fountains pouring diamond!

          A sail! awake thee, Julio! a sail!
          And be not bending to thy trances pale.
          But he is gazing on the moonlit brow
          Of his dead Agathè, and fondly now,
          The light is silvering her bloodless face
          And the cold grave-clothes. There is loveliness
          As in a marble image, very bright!
          But stricken with a phantasy of light
          That is not given to the mortal hue,
          To life and breathing beauty: and she too
          Is more of the expressless lineament,
          Than of the golden thoughts that came and went
            Over her features, like a living tide
                  No while before.

                      A sail is on the wide
          And moving waters, and it draweth nigh
          Like a sea-cloud. The elfin billows fly
          Before it, in their armories enthrall’d
          Of radiant and moon-breasted emerald:
          And many is the mariner that sees
          That lone boat in the melancholy breeze,
          Waving her snowy canvass, and anon
          Their stately vessel with a gallant run
          Crowds by in all her glory; but the cheer
          Of men is pass’d into a sudden fear,
          And whisperings, and shaking of the head.—
          The moon was streaming on a virgin dead,
          And Julio sat over her insane,
          Like a sea demon! o’er and o’er again,
          Each cross’d him, as the stately vessel stood
          Far out into the murmuring solitude!

          But Julio saw not; he only heard
          A rushing, like the passing of a bird,
          And felt him heaving on the foam, that flew
          Along the startled billows: and he knew
          Of a strange sail, by broken oaths that fell
          Beside him, on the coming of the swell.

          “They knew thou wert a queen, my royal bride!
          And made obeisance at thy holy side.
          They saw thee, Agathè! and go to bring
          Fair worshippers, and many a poet-king,
          To utter music at thy pearly feet.—
          Now, wake thee! for the moonlight cometh sweet,
          To visit in thy temple of the sea;
          Thy sister moon is watching over thee!
          And she is spreading a fair mantle of
          Pure silver, in thy lonely palace, love!—
          Now, wake thee! for the sea-bird is aloof,
          In solitude, below the starry roof:
          And on its dewy plume there is a light
          Of palest splendor, o’er the blessed night.
          Thy spirit, Agathè!—and yet thou art
          Beside me, and my solitary heart
          Is throbbing near to thee: I must not feel
          The sweet notes of thy holy music steal
          Into my feverous and burning brain,—
          So wake not! and I’ll hush thee with a strain
          Of my wild fancy, till thou dream of me,
          And I be loved as I have lovéd thee:—”

                     SONG.

      ’Tis light to love thee living, girl, when hope is full and fair
    In the springtide of thy beauty, when there is no sorrow there—
    No sorrow on thy brow, and no shadow on thy heart!
    When, like a floating sea-bird, bright and beautiful thou art!

    ’Tis light to love thee living, girl—to see thee ever so,
    With health, that, like a crimson flower, lies blushing in the snow;
    And thy tresses falling over, like the amber on the pearl—
    Oh! true, it is a _lightsome_ thing, to love thee living, girl:

    But when the brow is blighted, like a star at morning tide,
    And faded is the crimson blush upon the cheek beside:
    It is to love as seldom love, the brightest and the best,
    When our love lies like a dew upon the one that is at rest,
    Because of hopes that fallen are changing to despair,
    And the heart is always dreaming on the ruin that is there.
    Oh, true! ’tis weary, weary, to be gazing over thee,
    And the light of thy pure vision breaketh never upon me!

          He lifts her in his arms, and o’er and o’er,
          Upon the brow of chilliness and hoar,
          Repeats a silent kiss:—along the side
          Of the lone bark, he leans that pallid bride,
          Until the waves do image her within
          Their bosom, like a spectre—’tis a sin
          Too deadly to be shadow’d or forgiven
          To do such mockery in the sight of Heaven!
          And bid her gaze into the startled sea,
          And say, “Thy image, from eternity,
          Hath come to meet thee, ladye!” and anon
          He bade the cold corse kiss the shadowy one,
          That shook amid the waters, like the light
          Of borealis in a winter night!

          And after, he did strain her sea-wet hair
          Between his chilly fingers, with a stare
          Of mystery, that marvell’d how that she
          Had drench’d it so amid the moonlit sea.

          The morning rose, with breast of living gold,
          Like eastern phœnix, and his plumage roll’d
          In clouds of molted brilliance, very bright!
          And on the waste of waters floated light.—

          In truth, ’twas strange to see that merry bark
          Skimming the silver ocean, like a shark
          At play amid the beautiful sea-green,
          And all so sadly desolate within.

          And hours flew after hours, a weary length,
          Until the sunlight, in meridian strength,
          Threw burning floods upon the wasted brow
          Of that sea-hermit mariner; and now
          He felt the fire-light feed upon his brain,
          And started with intensity of pain,
          And washed him in the sea;—it only brought
          Wild reason, like a demon; and he thought
          Strange thoughts, like dreaming men,—he thought how those
          Were round him he had seen, and many rose
          His heart had hated; every billow threw
          Features before him, and pale faces grew
          Out of the sea by myriads:—the self-same
          Was moulded from its image, and they came
          In groups together, and all said, like one,
          “Be cursed!” and vanish’d in the deep anon.
          Then thirst, intolerable as the breath
          Of Upas, fanning the wild wings of death,
          Crept up his very gorge,—like to a snake,
          That stifled him, and bade the pulses ache
          Through all the boiling current of his blood.
          It was a thirst, that let the fever flood
          Fall over him, and gave a ghastly hue
          To his cramp’d lips, until their breathing grew
          White as a mist and short, and like a sigh,
          Heaved with a struggle, till it faltered by.
          And ever he did look upon the corse
          With idiot visage, like the hag Remorse
          That gloateth over on a nameless deed
          Of darkness and of dole unhistoried.
          And were there that might hear him, they would hear
          The murmur of a prayer in deep fear
          Through unbarr’d lips, escaping by the half,
          And all but smother’d by a maniac laugh,
          That follow’d it, so sudden and so shrill,
          That swarms of sea-birds, wandering at will
          Upon the wave, rose startled, and away
          Went flocking, like a silver shower of spray!
          And aye he called for water, and the sea
          Mock’d him with his brine surges tauntingly,
          And lash’d them over on his fev’rous brow,
          Volleying roars of curses,—“Stay thee, now,
          Avenger! lest I die; for I am worn
          Fainter than star-light at the birth of morn;
          Stay thee, great angel! for I am not shriven,
          But frantic as thyself: Oh! Heaven! Heaven!
          But thou hast made me brother of the sea,
          That I may tremble at his tyranny:
          Or am I slave? a very, very jest
          To the sarcastic waters? let me breast
          The base insulters, and defy them so,
          In this lone little skiff.—I am your foe!
          Ye raving, lion-like, and ramping seas,
          That open up your nostrils to the breeze,
          And fain would swallow me! Do ye not fly,
          Pale, sick, and gurgling, as I pass you by?

          “Lift up! and let me see, that I may tell
          Ye can be mad, and strange, and terrible;
          That ye have power, and passion, and a sound,
          As of the flying of an angel round
          The mighty world: that ye are one with time,
          And in the great primordium sublime
          Were cursed together, as an infant-twain,—
          A glory and a wonder! I would fain
          Hold truce, thou elder brother! for we are,
          In feature, as the sun is to a star.
          So are we like, and we are touch’d in tune
          With lunacy as music; and the moon,
          That setteth the tides sentinel before
          Thy camp of waters, on the pebbled shore,
          And measures their great footsteps to and fro,
          Hath lifted up into my brain the flow
          Of this mad tide of blood—ay? we are like
          In foam and frenzy; the same winds do strike,
          The same fierce sun-rays, from their battlement
          Of fire! so, when I perish impotent
          Before the might of death, they’ll say of me,
          He died as mad and frantic as the sea!”

          A cloud stood for the East, a cloud like night,
          Like a huge vulture, and the blessed light
          Of the great Sun grew shadow’d awfully;
          It seemed to mount up from the mighty sea,
          Shaking the showers from its solemn wings,
          And grew, and grew, and many a myriad springs
          Were on its bosom, teeming full of rain.
          There fell a terrible and wizard chain
          Of lightning, from its black and heated forge,
          And the dark waters took it to their gorge,
          And lifted up their shaggy flanks in wonder
          With rival chorus to the peal of thunder,
          That wheel’d in many a squadron terrible
          The stern black clouds, and as they rose and fell
          They oozed great showers; and Julio held up
          His wasted hands, in likeness of a cup,
          And drank the blessed waters, and they roll’d
          Upon his cheeks like tears, but sadly cold!—
          ’Twas very strange to look on Agathè!
          How the quick lightnings, in their elfin play,
          Stream’d pale upon her features, and they were
          Sickly, like tapers in a sepulchre!

                           (To be continued.)

                 *        *        *        *        *




                      THE DAUGHTERS OF DR. BYLES.


                         A SKETCH FROM REALITY.


                            BY MISS LESLIE.


                       (Concluded from page 65.)


                                PART II.

Having thus become acquainted with the two Miss Byleses, and
understanding that they were always delighted when strangers were
brought to see them in a similar manner, I afterwards became the
introducer of several friends from other cities, who successively
visited Boston in the course of that summer, and who expressed a desire
to pay their compliments to these singular old ladies.

In every instance, the same routine was pursued upon these occasions by
the two sisters, and the practice of nearly half a century had, of
course, made them perfect in it. I was told by a lady who had known the
Miss Byleses long and intimately, and had introduced to them, at their
house, not less than fifty persons, that she had never observed the
slightest variation in their usual series of sayings and doings. And so
I always found it, whenever I brought them a new visitor. Miss Mary
always came to receive us at the front door,—and Miss Catharine always
produced her own effect by not making her appearance, till we had sat
sometime in the parlour. The attention of the stranger was always, in
the same words, directed to the cornelian ring on their father’s
picture, and always the new guests were placed in the great carved
chair, and the same wonder was expressed that “they should sit easy
under the crown.” Always did their visiter hear the history of “their
nephew, poor boy, whom they had not seen for forty years.” Always did
Miss Catharine with the same diffidence exhibit the snake,—and always
was the snake unwilling to re-enter his box, till he had been brought to
obedience by a little wholesome chastisement. The astounding trick of
the alphabetical bits of paper was unfailingly shown;—and, always when
the visiters gave symptoms of departure, did Miss Mary slip out of the
room, and lock the front door, that she might have an opportunity of
repeating her excellent joke about the ladies’ night caps.

It was very desirable that all ladies and gentlemen, taken to see the
Miss Byleses, should have sufficient tact to be astonished up to the
exact point at the exhibition of their curiosities, that they should
laugh, just enough, at their witticisms; and that they should humor,
rather than controvert, their gratuitous manifestations of loyalty to
the person they called their rightful king.

My friend Mr. Sully, (who was glad to have an opportunity of seeing
Copley’s portrait of Dr. Byles,) enacted his part _à mervëílle_;—or
rather, it was no acting at all; but the genuine impulse of his kind and
considerate feelings, and of his ever-indulgent toleration for the
peculiarities of such minds as are not so fortunate as to resemble his
own.

Another gentleman who was desirous of an introduction to the sisters,
rather alarmed me by over-doing his part,—and, as I thought, being
rather _too_ much amazed at the curiosities; and rather too mirthful at
the jokes,—and rather too warm in praising kings and deprecating
presidents. But on this occasion, I threw away a great deal of good
uneasiness, for I afterwards found that the Miss Byleses, spoke of this
very gentleman as one of the most sensible and agreeable men they had
ever seen,—and one who had exactly the right way of talking and
behaving.

A lady who testified a wish to accompany me on a visit to the Miss
Byleses, found little either to interest or amuse her,—the truth was,
that being unable to enter the least into their characters, she looked
very gravely all the time, and afterwards told me she saw nothing in
them but foolishness.

I must do the Miss Byleses the justice to say, that they appeared to
much less advantage on these the first visits of new people, than to
those among the initiated, who took sufficient interest in them to
cultivate an after-acquaintance. I went sometimes alone to sit an hour
with them towards the decline of a summer afternoon,—and then I always
found them infinitely more rational than when “putting themselves
through their facings,” to show off to strangers. In the course of these
quiet visits, they told me many little circumstances connected with the
royalist side of our revolutionary contest, that I could scarcely have
obtained from any other source,—the few persons yet remaining among us
that were tories during that eventful period, taking care to say as
little about it as possible: and every one is so considerate as to ask
them no questions on a subject so sore to them.

But with the daughters of Dr. Byles, the case was quite different. They
gloried,—they triumphed, in the firm adherence of their father and his
family to the royalty of England,—and scorned the idea of even now
being classed among the _citoyennes_ of a republic; a republic which, as
they said, _they_ had never acknowledged, and never would; regarding
themselves still as faithful subjects to the majesty of Britain, whoever
that majesty might be. Of the kings that they knew of, they had a
decided preference for George the Third, as the monarch of their
youthful days, and under whom the most important events of their lives
had taken place. All since the revolution was nearly a blank in their
memories;—they dated almost entirely from that period,—and since then,
they had acquired but a scanty accession to the number of their ideas.
From their visiters they learnt little or nothing, as they always had
the chief of the talk to themselves. With English history, and with the
writers of the first half of the last century they were somewhat
conversant,—but all that had transpired in the literary and political
world since the peace of ’83, was to them indistinct and shadowy as the
images of a dream not worth remembering. But they talked of what, to us,
is now the olden time with a vividness of recollection that seemed as if
the things had occurred but yesterday. In the coloring of their
pictures, I, of course, made allowance for the predominant tinge of
toryism, and who for a large portion of the lingering vanity, which I
regarded indulgently, because it injured no one, and their
self-satisfaction added to the happiness of these isolated old ladies.
They once showed me, in an upper room, portraits of themselves at the
ages of seventeen and eighteen, painted by Pelham, the brother-in-law, I
believe, of Copley. The pictures were tolerably executed; and I think
they _must_ have been likenesses, for the faded faces of the
octogenarian sisters still retained some resemblance to their youthful
prototypes. The Miss Byleses were not depicted in the prevailing costume
of that period. They had neither hoop-petticoats, stomachers, nor
powdered heads,—both were represented in a species of non-descript
garments, imagined by the painter,—and for head gear, Miss Catharine
had her own fair locks in a state of nature,—and Miss Mary a thing like
a small turban.

From their own account they must have been regarded somewhat in the
light of belles by the British officers. They talked of walking on the
Common arm in arm with General Howe and Lord Percy: both of whom, they
said, were frequent visitors at the house, and often took tea and spent
the evening there.

I imagined the heir of Northumberland, taking his tea in the old
parlour, by the old fire-place, at the old tea-table,—entertained by
the witticisms of Dr. Byles, and the prettinesses of his daughters; who,
of course, were the envy of all the female tories of Boston, at least of
those who could not aspire to the honor of being talked to by English
noblemen. Moreover, Lord Percy frequently ordered the band of his
regiment to play under the chesnut trees, for the gratification of the
Miss Byleses, who then, as they said, had “God save the King” in
perfection. By the bye, I have never heard either God save the king or
Rule Britannia _well_ played by an American band; though our musicians
seem to perform the Marseillaise _con amore_.

The venerable ladies told me that the intimacy of their family with the
principal British officers became so well known, that in a short time
they found it expedient to close their shutters before dark, as the
lights gleaming through the parlor windows made the house of Dr. Byles,
a mark for the Americans to fire at from their fortifications on
Dorchester heights, in the hope that every ball might destroy a
red-coated visitor. Also, that the cannon-shot, still sticking in the
tower of Brattle-street church, was aimed by the Cambridge rebels at
General Howe, who had established his head-quarters at the old Province
House. Unpractised artillerymen as they then were, it is difficult to
believe that, if the Province House was really their mark, they could
have missed it so widely.

The Miss Byleses related many anecdotes of their father; some of which
were new to me, and with others I had long been familiar. For the
benefit of such of my readers as have not yet met with any of these old
fashioned _jeux d’esprit_ I will insert a few samples of their quality.

For instance, his daughters told me of the doctor walking one day with a
whig gentleman, in the vicinity of the Common, where a division of the
British troops lay encamped. His companion pointing to the soldiers of
the crown—said—“you see there the cause of all our evils—” “—But you
cannot say that our evils are not _red-dressed_,” remarked Dr. Byles.
“Your pun is not a good one,” observed his companion, “you have
mis-spelt the word by adding another D.”—“Well—” replied the clerical
joker,—“as a doctor of divinity, am I not entitled to the use of two
D’s?”

They spoke of their father’s captivity in his own mansion. And one of
them repeated to me the well known story of Dr. Byles coming out to the
centinel who was on guard, in a porch that then ran along the front of
the house, and requesting him to go to the street pump and bring a
bucket of cold water, as the day was warm, and the doctor very thirsty.
The soldier, it seems, at first declined; alleging his reluctance to
violate the rules of the service by quitting his post before the relief
came round. The doctor assured the man that _he_ would take his place,
and be his own guard till the water was brought. The centinel at last
complied; and took the bucket and went to the pump,—first resigning his
musket to Dr. Byles, who shouldered it in a very soldier-like manner,
and paced the porch, guarding himself till the sentry came back,—to
whom on returning his piece, he said,—“Now my friend, you see I have
been guarded—re-guarded—and dis-regarded.”

The Miss Byleses also referred to the anecdote of their father having
once paid his addresses to a lady who refused him, and afterwards
married the Mr. Quincy of that time, a name which then, as now, is
frequently in Boston pronounced Quinsy. The doctor afterwards meeting
the lady, said to her jocosely,—“Your taste in distempers must be very
bad, when it has led you to prefer the Quinsy to Byles.”

In front of the house was in former times a large deep slough, that had
been suffered by the municipal authorities to remain there for several
winters, with all its inconveniences, which in wet weather rendered it
nearly impassable. One day, Dr. Byles observed from his window that a
chaise, containing two of the select men, or regulators of the town, had
been completely arrested in its progress by sticking fast in the thick
heavy mud,—and they were both obliged to get out, and putting their
shoulders to the wheel, work almost knee-deep in the mire before they
could liberate their vehicle. The doctor came out to his gate, and
bowing respectfully, said to them—“Gentlemen, I have frequently
represented that slough to you as a nuisance to the street, but hitherto
without any effect. Therefore I am rejoiced to see you _stirring_ in the
matter at last.”

Certain fanatics who called themselves New-Lights had become very
obnoxious to the more rational part of the community, and were regarded
with much displeasure by the orthodox churches. A woman of this sect,
who lived in the neighborhood, came in as usual, one morning, to annoy
Dr. Byles, by a long argumentative, or rather vituperative visit. “Have
you heard the news?” asked the doctor, immediately on the entrance of
his unwelcome guest; he having just learnt the arrival, from London, of
three hundred street lamps.

She replied in the negative.

“Well then,”—resumed the doctor,—“Not less than three hundred new
lights have just arrived from England, and the civil authorities are
going immediately to have them all put in irons.”

The lady was shocked to hear of the cruel treatment designed for her
sectarian brethren that had just come over, and she hastened away
directly, to spread the intelligence among all her acquaintances, in the
hope, as she said, that something might be done to prevent the
infliction of so unmerited a punishment. And the doctor congratulated
himself on the success of the jest by which he had gotten rid of a
troublesome visiter.

A son of Dr. Byles, that retired to Halifax, must have probably
inherited a portion of his father’s mantle; for his sisters repeated to
me one of his conundrums, the humor of which almost atones for its
coarseness—“Why do the leaders of insurrections resemble men that like
sausages?”—“Because they are fond of intestine broils.”

The Miss Byleses told me much of the scarcity of provisions and
fire-wood, throughout Boston, during the winter of 1775, when the
British and their adherents held out the town against the Yankee rebels,
as they called them—and who had invested it every-where on the land
side, taking especial care that no supplies should pass in. It was then
that the old North Church was torn down by order of General Howe, that
the soldiers might convert into fuel the wood of which it was built.

By the bye, Mrs. Corder, an aged and intelligent female, living at the
North end, informed me that, when a little girl, she witnessed from her
father’s house on the opposite side of the way, the demolition of this
church; and that she was terrified at the noise of the falling beams and
of the wooden walls, as they battered them down, and at the shouting and
swearing of the soldiers as they quarrelled over their plunder.
Nevertheless, when the work of destruction was over, and the soldiers
all gone, she and other children of the neighborhood ran out to scramble
among the rubbish—and she found and carried home a little wooden
footstool or cricket, that had evidently been thrown out from one of the
demolished pews. I bought of my informant (who was in indigent
circumstances) this humble and time-darkened relic, and it is now in
possession of my youngest niece.

To return to the daughters of Dr. Byles.—They still lamented greatly
over the privations endured that winter by the British army shut up and
beleaguered in Boston; though certainly the same sufferings were shared
by all the inhabitants that remained in the town.—And they grieved
accordingly, to think that these inconveniencies finally compelled their
English friends to take to their ships and depart.

Miss Mary Byles related to me, that on one occasion she had given to a
hungry British soldier a piece of cold pork that had been left from
dinner. A few evenings after, the same man knocked at the door, and
requested to see one of the ladies—Miss Mary presented herself, and the
grateful soldier slipped into her hand a paper containing a small
quantity of the herb called by the whigs of that time “the detested
tea;” and which it was then scarcely possible to obtain on any terms.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Several years elapsed before I again was in Boston. In the interim, I
heard something of the Miss Byleses from ladies who knew and visited
them. I understood that, at length, they had found it impossible to
prevent what they had so long dreaded, the opening of a street that
would take in their little green lawn, their old horse-chesnut trees,
and that part of their house that stood directly across the way. For
this surrender of their property, they received from the city an ample
compensation in money; also their house was made as good or rather
better than ever besides being new roofed and thoroughly repaired. The
despoiled sisters, though another and more comfortable residence was
offered to them during the time of their destruction, as they termed it,
steadily persisted in remaining on their own domain during the whole
process of its dismemberment. Their house, as they said, was cut in
half; that part which faced the end of Tremont street being taken away.
They mourned over the departure of every beam and plank as if each was
an old friend—and so they truly were. And deep indeed was the
affliction of the aged sisters when they saw, falling beneath the
remorseless axe, their noble horse-chesnut trees whose scattered
branches, as they lay on the grass, the old ladies declared, seemed to
them like the dismembered limbs of children. At this juncture, their
grief and indignation reached its climax; and they excited much sympathy
even among professed utilitarians. There were many indulgent hearts in
Boston that felt as if the improvement of this part of the city might
yet have been delayed for a few short years, till after these venerable
and harmless females should have closed their eyes for ever upon all
that could attach them to this side of the grave. And that even if the
march of public spirit should in consequence have allowed itself to
pause a little longer in this part of its road, “neither heaven nor
earth would have grieved at the mercy.”

Miss Mary Byles, who with more sprightliness had less strength of mind
than her younger sister, never, as the saying is, held up her head
again.—Her health and spirits declined from that time—she sunk slowly
but surely; and after lingering some months, a few days of severe bodily
suffering terminated all her afflictions, and consigned her mortal
remains to their final resting-place beside her father. In the meantime
she had lost her nephew, Mather Brown, the painter, who died at an
advanced age in London and who was to have been the heir of all that his
aunts possessed.

In addition to the rest of their little wealth, the Miss Byleses had in
a sort of strong hold up stairs a chest of old-fashioned plate, no
article of which was on any occasion used by them. Also, they retained
some rare and valuable books that had belonged to their father, and a
few curious and excellent mathematical instruments brought by him from
England, and which the University of Harvard had vainly endeavoured to
purchase from them. Among other articles was an immense burning-glass,
said to be one of the largest in the world, and which the old ladies
kept locked up in a closet, and carefully covered with a thick cloth,
lest, as they said, it should set the house on fire.

                 *        *        *        *        *

On a subsequent visit to the metropolis of the American east, I went to
see the surviving Miss Byles; and when I reached the accustomed place I
could scarcely recognize it. The main part of the old house was yet
standing; but the loss of one end had given it quite a different aspect.
There was no longer the green inclosure, the fence-gate, and the narrow
path through the grass—the door opened directly upon a brick pavement
and on the dusty street. To be sure there was a fresh-looking wooden
door-step. New tenements had been run up all about the now noisy
vicinity, which had entirely lost its air of quiet retirement. All was
now symptomatic of bustle and business. The ancient dwelling-place of
the Byles family had ceased to be picturesque. It had been repaired and
made comfortable; but denuded of its guardian trees there was nothing
more to screen from full view its extreme unsightliness. Above its
weather-blackened walls (which the sisters would not allow to be
painted, lest it should look _totally_ unlike itself) the new shingles
of the roof seemed out of keeping—I thought of all the poor ladies must
have suffered during the transformation of their paternal domicile.

On knocking at the door, it was opened for me by an extremely
good-looking neatly dressed matron, who conducted me into a room which I
could scarcely believe was the original old parlor. The homely antique
furniture had disappeared, and was replaced by some very neat and
convenient articles of modern form. The floor was nicely carpeted; there
were new chairs and a new table,—a bed with white curtains and
counterpane, and window-curtains to match.—Nothing looked familiar but
the antique crown chair and the pictures.

I found Miss Catharine Byles seated in a rocking chair with a pillow at
her back.—She looked paler, thinner, sharper, and much older than when
I last saw her. She was no longer in a white short gown but wore a whole
gown of black merino, with a nice white muslin collar and a regular
day-cap trimmed with black ribbon.

Though glad to find her so much improved as to comfort, I take shame to
myself when I confess that I felt something not unlike disappointment,
at seeing such a change in the ancient lady and her attributes. The
quaintness, and I may say the picturesqueness of the old mansion, and
its accessories, and also that of its octogenarian mistress, seemed gone
for ever. I am sorry to acknowledge that at the moment I thought of the
French artist Lebrun, who meeting in the street an old tattered
beggar-man with long gray locks and a venerable silver beard, was struck
with the idea of his being a capital subject for the pencil, and engaged
him to come to him next day and have his likeness transferred to
canvass. The beggar came; but thinking that all people who sit for their
pictures should look spruce, he had bedizened himself in a very genteel
suit of Sunday clothes, with kneebuckles and silk stockings; his face
and hands nicely washed; his chin shaved clean; and his hair dressed and
powdered; the whole man looking altogether as unpaintable as
possible.—All artists will sympathize with the disappointed Lebrun, as
he contemplated his beggar with dismay, and exclaimed “—oh! you are
spoiled!—you are spoiled!” I suppose it is because I am a painter’s
sister, that I caught myself nearly on the point of making a similar
ejaculation on seeing the new-modelling of Miss Catharine Byles, and her
domicile.

But a truce with such unpardonable thoughts—Miss Catharine recognized
me at once, and seemed very glad to see me. She soon began to talk about
her troubles, and her sorrows, and alluded in a very affecting manner to
the loss of her sister, who she said had died of a broken heart in
consequence of the changes made in their little patrimony; having always
hoped to die, as she had lived, in her father’s house just as he had
left it—“But the worst of all,” pursued Miss Catharine—“was the
cutting down of the old trees.—Every stroke of the axe seemed like a
blow upon our hearts. Neither of us slept a wink all that night. Poor
sister Mary; she soon fretted herself to death. To think of our having
to submit to these dreadful changes, all at once; when for ten years our
dear father’s spectacles, were never removed from the place in which he
had last laid them down.”

I attempted to offer a few words of consolation to Miss Catharine, but
she wept bitterly and would not be comforted. “Ah!”—said she—“this is
one of the consequences of living in a republic. Had we been still under
a king, he would have known nothing about our little property, and we
could have enjoyed it in our own way as long as we lived. There is one
comfort, that not a creature in the states will be any the better for
what _we_ shall leave behind us—Sister and I have taken care of that.
We have bequeathed every article to our relations in Nova Scotia since
our nephew, poor boy, was so unfortunate as to die before us. In all our
trials it has been a great satisfaction to us to reflect that when
everything was changing around, grace has been given us to remain
faithful to our church and king.”

The loyal old lady then informed me that, on his accession to the
throne, she had written a letter of congratulation to his Britannic
Majesty, William the Fourth, whom she remembered having seen in Boston
before the revolution, when he was there as Duke of Clarence and an
officer in his father’s navy. In this epistle she had earnestly assured
him that the family of Dr. Byles always were, and always would be, most
true and fervent in their devotion to their liege lord and rightful
sovereign the king of England.—To have attempted to argue her out of
this feeling, the pride and solace of her declining life, would have
been cruel; and moreover entirely useless—I did not hint to her the
improbability of her letter ever having reached the royal personage to
whom it was addressed.

The old lady told me that her chief occupation now was to write serious
poetry, and she gave me a copy of some stanzas which she had recently
composed. The verses were tolerably good, and written in a hand
remarkably neat, handsome, and steady.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Miss Catharine Byles survived her sister Miss Mary about two years, and
died of gradual decay in the summer of 1837. Her remains repose with
those of her father and sister beneath the flooring of Trinity Church.
They left the whole of their property to their loyalist relations in
Nova Scotia, true to their long-cherished resolution that no republican
should inherit the value of a farthing from them. The representative of
the family is said to have come to Boston and taken possession of the
bequest.

It is curious, as well as instructive, to contemplate the infinite
varieties of human character, and the strange phases under which human
intellect presents itself. The peculiarities of these two sisters
strikingly evinced the lasting power of early impressions, almost always
indelible when acting upon minds that have not been expanded by
intercourse with the world. For instance—their steadfast, gratuitous
and useless loyalty, cherished for monarchs whom they had never seen,
and who had forgotten the very existence of Dr. Byles (if indeed they
had ever remembered it) and who, of course, neither knew nor cared
anything about his daughters; their rooted antipathy to the republic in
which they lived, and where if they had not persisted in shutting their
eyes they must have seen everything flourishing around them; the strict
economy which induced them to deny themselves even the comforts of life,
and their willingness to be assisted by the benevolent rather than
render themselves independent by an advantageous disposal of their
property. The almost idolatrous devotion with which they clung to the
inanimate objects that had been familiar to them in early life, showed
an intensity of feeling which was both pitied and respected by their
friends, though reason perhaps would not have sanctioned its entire
indulgence. By living so much alone, by visiting at no other house, by
never going out of their native town, by perpetually thinking and
talking over the occurrences of their youth, they had wrought themselves
into a firm belief that no way was right but their own way, no opinions
correct but their own opinions: and above all, that in no other
dwelling-place but their paternal mansion was it possible for them to be
happy or even to exist.

As a set-off to their weaknesses, their vanities and their prejudices,
it gives me pleasure to bear testimony to the kindness of their
deportment, the soft tones of their voices, and to the old-fashioned
polish of their manners; which at once denoted them to be ladies, even
in their short-gowns and petticoats.

Though, in the latter part of their lives, the daughters of Dr. Byles
were subjected to the sore trial of seeing the little green lawn on
which they had played when children converted into a dusty street, and
the fine old trees (which would take a century to replace) demolished in
a few minutes before their eyes: still they were both permitted to die
beneath the same roof under which their existence had commenced. The
house of their heavenly father has many mansions; and there, in their
eternal abode, now that their mental vision has cleared, and their souls
have been purified from the dross of mortality, they have learnt the
futility of having set their hearts too steadfastly on a dwelling
erected by human hands; and more than all, of fostering prejudices in
favor of that system of government which, according to the signs of the
times, is fast and deservedly passing away. Is it too much to hope that
ere the lapse of another half century, not a being in the civilized
world will render the homage of a bended knee, except to the King of
Heaven.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                                SONNET.


    A dream of love, too short, but ah, how dear!
      Hath fled and left me sad and desolate.
    Oft from my lids I dash the silent tear
      And mourn as mourns the wood-dove for her mate,
    Who on some branch of thunder-stricken oak
      Wastes in complainings tremulous and low
    Her gentle soul away. The charm is broke,
      Which link’d me erst to joy. With pensive brow,
    At midnight hour beneath the ruined pile,
      Musing o’er change my vigil lone I keep,—
    While streaming faint aslant the shattered aisle,
      Soft on its moss the pillowed moonbeams sleep,
    Or trim the flickering lamp and eager pore
    On bard or sage in Hellas famed of yore.

                                     B. H. B.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                      A FEW WORDS ABOUT BRAINARD.


                            BY EDGAR A. POE.


Among all the _pioneers_ of American literature, whether prose or
poetical, there is _not one_ whose productions have not been much
over-rated by his countrymen. But this fact is more especially obvious
in respect to such of these pioneers as are no longer living,—nor is it
a fact of so deeply transcendental a nature as only to be accounted for
by the Emersons and Alcotts. In the first place, we have but to consider
that gratitude, surprise, and a species of hyper-patriotic triumph have
been blended, and finally confounded, with mere admiration, or
appreciation, in respect to the labors of our earlier writers; and, in
the second place, that Death has thrown his customary veil of the sacred
over these commingled feelings, forbidding them, in a measure, to be
_now_ separated or subjected to analysis. “In speaking of the deceased,”
says that excellent old English Moralist, James Puckle, in his “Gray Cap
for a Green Head,” “so fold up your discourse that their virtues may be
outwardly shown, while their vices are wrapped up in silence.” And with
somewhat too inconsiderate a promptitude have we followed the spirit of
this quaint advice. The mass of American readers have been, hitherto, in
no frame of mind to view with calmness, and to discuss with
discrimination, the true claims of the few who were _first_ in
convincing the mother country that her sons were not all brainless, as,
in the plentitude of her arrogance, she, at one period, half affected
and half wished to believe; and where any of these few have departed
from among us, the difficulty of bringing their pretensions to the test
of a proper criticism has been enhanced in a very remarkable degree. But
even as concerns the living: is there any one so blind as not to see
that Mr. Cooper, for example, owes much, and that Mr. Paulding, owes
_all_ of his reputation as a novelist, to his early occupation of the
field? Is there any one so dull as not to know that fictions which
neither Mr. Paulding nor Mr. Cooper _could_ have written, are daily
published by native authors without attracting more of commendation than
can be crammed into a hack newspaper paragraph? And, again, is there any
one so prejudiced as not to acknowledge that all this is because there
is no longer either reason or wit in the query,—“Who reads an American
book?” It is not because we lack the talent in which the days of Mr.
Paulding exulted, but because such talent has shown itself to be common.
It is not because we have _no_ Mr. Coopers; but because it has been
demonstrated that we might, at any moment, have as many Mr. Coopers as
we please. In fact we are now strong in our own resources. We have, at
length, arrived at that epoch when our literature may and must stand on
its own merits, or fall through its own defects. We have snapped asunder
the leading-strings of our British Grandmamma, and, better still, we
have survived the first hours of our novel freedom,—the first
licentious hours of a hobbledehoy braggadocio and swagger. _At last_,
then, we are in a condition to be criticised—even more, to be
neglected; and the journalist is no longer in danger of being impeached
for _lèse-majesté_ of the Democratic Spirit, who shall assert, with
sufficient humility, that we have committed an error in mistaking
“Kettell’s Specimens” for the Pentateuch, or Joseph Rodman Drake for
Apollo.

The case of this latter gentleman is one which well illustrates what we
have been saying. We believe it was some five years ago that Mr.
Dearborn republished the “Culprit Fay,” which then, as at the period of
its original issue, was belauded by the universal American press, in a
manner which must have appeared ludicrous—not to speak _very_
plainly—in the eyes of all unprejudiced observers. With a curiosity
much excited by comments at once so grandiloquent and so general, we
procured and read the poem. What we found it we ventured to express
distinctly, and at some length, in the pages of the “Southern
Messenger.” It is a well-versified and sufficiently fluent composition,
without high merit of any kind. Its defects are gross and superabundant.
Its plot and conduct, considered in reference to its scene, are absurd.
Its originality is none at all. Its imagination (and this was the great
feature insisted upon by its admirers,) is but a “counterfeit
presentment,”—but the shadow of the shade of that lofty quality which
is, in fact, the soul of the Poetic Sentiment—but a drivelling _effort
to be fanciful_—an effort resulting in a species of
hop-skip-and-go-merry rhodomontade, which the uninitiated feel it a duty
to call ideality, and to admire as such, while lost in surprise at the
impossibility of performing at least the latter half of the duty with
any thing like satisfaction to themselves. And all this we not only
asserted, but without difficulty _proved_. Dr. Drake has written some
beautiful poems, but the “Culprit Fay,” is not of them. We neither
expected to hear any dissent from our opinions, nor did we hear any. On
the contrary, the approving voice of every critic in the country whose
_dictum_ we had been accustomed to respect, was to us a sufficient
assurance that we had not been very grossly in the wrong. In fact the
public taste was then _approaching_ the right. The truth indeed had not,
as yet, made itself heard; but we had reached a point at which it had
but to be plainly and boldly _put_, to be, at least tacitly, admitted.

This habit of apotheosising our literary pioneers was a most
indiscriminating one. Upon _all_ who wrote, the applause was plastered
with an impartiality really refreshing. Of course, the system favored
the dunces at the expense of true merit; and, since there existed a
certain fixed standard of exaggerated commendation to which all were
adapted after the fashion of Procrustes, it is clear that the most
meritorious required _the least stretching_,—in other words, that,
although all were much over-rated, the deserving were over-rated in a
less degree than the unworthy. Thus with Brainard:—a man of
indisputable genius, who, in any more discriminate system of panegyric,
would have been long ago bepuffed into Demi-Deism; for if “M’Fingal,”
for example, is in reality what we have been told, the commentators upon
Trumbull, as a matter of the simplest consistency, should have exalted
into the seventh heaven of poetical dominion the author of the many
graceful and vigorous effusions which are now lying, in a very neat
little volume, before us.[3]

Yet we maintain that even these effusions have been overpraised, and
materially so. It is not that Brainard has not written poems which may
rank with those of any American, with the single exception of
Longfellow—but that the general merit of our whole national Muse has
been estimated too highly, and that the author of “The Connecticut
River” has, individually, shared in the exaggeration. No poet among us
has composed what would deserve the tithe of that amount of approbation
so innocently lavished upon Brainard. But it would not suit our purpose
just now, and in this department of the Magazine, to enter into any
elaborate analysis of his productions. It so happens, however, that we
open the book at a brief poem, an examination of which will stand us in
good stead of this general analysis, since it is by this very poem that
the admirers of its author are content to swear—since it is the fashion
to cite it as his best—since thus, in short, it is the chief basis of
his notoriety, if not the surest triumph of his fame.

We allude to “The Fall of Niagara,” and shall be pardoned for quoting it
in full.

    The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain
    While I look upward to thee. It would seem
    As if God poured thee from his hollow hand,
    And hung his brow upon thine awful front,
    And spoke in that loud voice which seemed to him
    Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour’s sake
    The “sound of many waters,” and had bade
    Thy flood to chronicle the ages back
    And notch his centuries in the eternal rocks.

    Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we
    That hear the question of that voice sublime?
    O, what are all the notes that ever rung
    From war’s vain trumpet by thy thundering side?
    Yea, what is all the riot man can make
    In his short life to thy unceasing roar?
    And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to HIM
    Who drowned a world and heaped the waters far
    Above its loftiest mountains?—a light wave
    That breaks and whispers of its Maker’s might.

It is a very usual thing to hear these verses called not merely the best
of their author, but the best which have been written on the subject of
Niagara. Its positive merit appears to us only partial. We have been
informed that the poet _had seen_ the great cataract before writing the
lines; but the Memoir prefixed to the present edition, denies what, for
our own part, we never believed; for Brainard was truly a poet, and no
poet could have looked upon Niagara, in the substance, and written thus
about it. If he saw it at all, it must have been in fancy—“at a
distance”—εκας—as the lying Pindar says he saw Archilocus, who died
ages before the villain was born.

To the two opening verses we have no objection; but it may be well
observed, in passing, that had the mind of the poet been really “crowded
with strange thoughts,” and not merely _engaged in an endeavor to think_
he would have entered at once upon the thoughts themselves, without
allusion to the state of his brain. His subject would have left him no
room for self.

The third line embodies an absurd, and impossible, not to say a
contemptible image. We are called upon to conceive a similarity between
the _continuous_ downward sweep of Niagara, and the momentary splashing
of some definite and of course trifling quantity of water _from a hand_;
for, although it is the hand of the Deity himself which is referred to,
the mind is irresistibly led, by the words “poured from his hollow
hand,” to that idea which has been _customarily_ attached to such
phrase. It is needless to say, moreover, that the bestowing upon Deity a
human form, is at best a low and most unideal conception.[4] In fact the
poet has committed the grossest of errors in _likening_ the fall to
_any_ material object; for the human fancy can fashion nothing which
shall not be inferior in majesty to the cataract itself. Thus bathos is
inevitable; and there is no better exemplification of bathos than Mr.
Brainard has here given.[5]

The fourth line but renders the matter worse, for here the figure is
most inartistically shifted. The handful of water becomes animate; for
it has a front—that is, a forehead, and upon this forehead the Deity
proceeds to hang a bow, that is, a rainbow. At the same time he “speaks
in that loud voice, &c.” and here it is obvious that the ideas of the
writer are in a sad state of fluctuation; for he transfers the
idiosyncrasy of the fall itself (that is to say its sound) to the one
who pours it from his hand. But not content with all this, Mr. Brainard
commands the flood to _keep a kind of tally_; for this is the low
thought which the expression about “notching in the rocks” immediately
and inevitably induces. The whole of this first division of the poem,
embraces, we hesitate not to say, one of the most jarring,
inappropriate, mean, and in every way monstrous assemblages of false
imagery, which can be found out of the tragedies of Nat Lee, or the
farces of Thomas Carlyle.

In the latter division, the poet recovers himself, as if ashamed of his
previous bombast. His natural instinct (for Brainard was no artist) has
enabled him _to feel_ that _subjects which surpass in grandeur all
efforts of the human imagination are well depicted only in the simplest
and least metaphorical language_—a proposition as susceptible of
demonstration as any in Euclid. Accordingly, we find a material sinking
in tone; although he does not at once, discard all imagery. The “Deep
calleth unto deep” is nevertheless a great improvement upon his previous
rhetoricianism. The personification of the waters above and below would
be good in reference to any subject less august. The moral reflections
which immediately follow, have at least the merit of simplicity: but the
poet exhibits no very lofty imagination when he bases these reflections
only upon the cataract’s superiority to man _in the noise it can
create_; nor is the concluding idea more spirited, where the mere
difference between the quantity of water which occasioned the flood, and
the quantity which Niagara precipitates, is made the measure of the
Almighty Mind’s superiority to that cataract which it called by a
thought into existence.

But although “The Fall of Niagara” does not deserve all the unmeaning
commendation it has received, there are, nevertheless, many truly
beautiful poems in this collection, and even more certain evidences of
poetic power. “To a Child, the Daughter of a Friend” is exceedingly
graceful and terse. “To the Dead” has equal grace, with more vigor, and,
moreover, a touching air of melancholy. Its melody is very rich, and in
the monotonous repetition, at each stanza, of a certain rhyme, we
recognise a fantastic yet true imagination. “Mr. Merry’s Lament for Long
Tom” would be worthy of all praise were not its unusually beautiful
rhythm an imitation from Campbell, who would deserve his high poetical
rank, if only for its construction. Of the merely humorous pieces we
have little to say. Such things are not _poetry_. Mr. Brainard excelled
in them, and they are very good in their place; but that place is not in
a collection of _poems_. The prevalent notions upon this head are
extremely vague; yet we see no reason why any ambiguity should exist.
Humor, with an exception to be made hereafter, is directly
antagonistical to that which is the soul of the Muse proper; and the
omni-prevalent belief, that melancholy is inseparable from the higher
manifestations of the beautiful, is not without a firm basis in nature
and in reason. But it so happens that humor and that quality which we
have termed the soul of the Muse (imagination) are both essentially
aided in their development by the same adventitious assistance—that of
rhythm and of rhyme. Thus the only bond between humorous verse and
poetry, properly so called, is that they employ in common, a certain
tool. But this single circumstance has been sufficient to occasion, and
to maintain through long ages, a confusion of two very distinct ideas in
the brain of the unthinking critic. There is, nevertheless, an
individual branch of humor which blends so happily with the ideal, that
from the union result some of the finest effects of legitimate poesy. We
allude to what is termed “_archness_”—a trait with which popular
feeling, which is unfailingly poetic, has invested, for example, the
whole character of the fairy. In the volume before us there is a brief
composition entitled “The Tree Toad” which will afford a fine
exemplification of our idea. It seems to have been hurriedly
constructed, as if its author had felt ashamed of his light labor. But
that in his heart there was a secret exultation over these verses for
which his reason found it difficult to account, _we know_; and there is
not a really imaginative man within sound of our voice to-day, who, upon
perusal of this little “Tree Toad” will not admit it to be one of the
_truest poems_ ever written by Brainard.

-----

[3] _The Poems of John G. C. Brainard. A New and Authentic Collection,
with an original Memoir of his Life. Hartford: Edward Hopkins._

[4] The Humanitarians held that God was to be understood as having
really a human form.—See Clarke’s Sermons, vol. 1, page 26, fol. edit.

“The drift of Milton’s argument leads him to employ language which would
appear, at first sight, to verge upon their doctrine: but it will be
seen immediately that he guards himself against the charge of having
adopted one of the most ignorant errors of the dark ages of the
church.”—Dr. Sumner’s Notes on Milton’s “Christian Doctrine.”

The opinion could never have been very general. Andeus, a Syrian of
Messopotamia, who lived in the fourth century, was condemned for the
doctrine, as heretical. His few disciples were called Anthropmorphites.
_See Du Pin._

[5] It is remarkable that Drake, of whose “Culprit Fay,” we have just
spoken is, perhaps, the sole poet who has employed, in the description
of Niagara, imagery which does not produce a pathetic impression. In one
of his minor poems he has these magnificent lines—

      How sweet ’twould be, _when all the air_
    _In moonlight swims_, along the river
      To couch upon the grass and hear
    Niagara’s everlasting voice
      Far in the deep blue West away;
    That dreamy and poetic noise
      We mark not in the glare of day—
    Oh, how unlike its torrent-cry
      When o’er the brink the tide is driven
    _As if the vast and sheeted sky_
      _In thunder fell from Heaven!_

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          A DREAM OF THE DEAD.


               BY G. HILL, AUTHOR OF “TITANIA’S BANQUET.”


    Who, when my thoughts at midnight deep,
      And senses drowned in slumber lie,
    And star and moon their still watch keep,
      Is imaged to my sleeping eye?
    The gems amid the braids that ’twine
      The dark locks from her pale brow thrown,
    Faintly, as dews by eve wept, shine.
      Her cheek—its living tints are flown.

    Sure I should know that fond, fixed gaze,
      Those hands whose fairy palms infold
    Gently my own, the smile that plays
      Around those lips now pale and cold.
    O! ever thus, as Night repeats
      Her silent star-watch, come to me!
    More dear than all which living greets
      My waking eye, a dream of thee.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                           THE DREAM IS PAST.


                              COMPOSED BY

                            STEPHEN GLOVER.

          _Philadelphia_: John F. Nunns, _184 Chesnut Street_.


[Illustration: musical score]

[Illustration: musical score]

    The dream is past, and with it fled,
    The hopes that once my passion fed;
    And darkly die, mid grief and pain,
    The joys which gone come not again.

    My soul in silence and in tears,
    Has cherish’d now for many years,
    A love for one who does not know
    The thoughts that in my bosom glow.

    Oh! cease my heart, thy throbbing hide,
    Another soon will be his bride;
    And hope’s last faint, but cheering ray,
    Will then for ever pass away.

    They cannot see the silent tear,
    That falls unchecked when none are near;
    Nor do they mark the smother’d sigh
    That heaves my breast when they are by.
    I know my cheek is paler now,
    And smiles no longer deck my brow,

    ’Tis youth’s decay, ’twill soon begin
    To tell the thoughts that dwell within.
    Oh! let me rouse my sleeping pride,
    And from his gaze my feelings hide;
    He shall not smile to think that I
    With love for him could pine and die.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.


    _Barnaby Rudge; By Charles Dickens, (Boz) Author of “The Old
    Curiosity-Shop,” “Pickwick,” “Oliver Twist,” etc. etc. With
    numerous Illustrations, by Cattermole, Browne & Sibson. Lea &
    Blanchard: Philadelphia._

We often hear it said, of this or of that proposition, that it may be
good in theory, but will not answer in practice; and in such assertions
we find the substance of all the sneers at Critical Art which so
gracefully curl the upper lips of a tribe which is beneath it. We mean
the small geniuses—the literary Titmice—animalculae which judge of
merit solely by _result_, and boast of the solidity, tangibility and
infallibility of the test which they employ. The worth of a work is most
accurately estimated, they assure us, by the number of those who peruse
it; and “does a book sell?” is a query embodying, in their opinion, all
that need be said or sung on the topic of its fitness for sale. We
should as soon think of maintaining, in the presence of these creatures,
the _dictum_ of Anaxagoras, that snow is black, as of disputing, for
example, the profundity of that genius which, in a run of five hundred
nights, has rendered itself evident in “London Assurance.” “What,” cry
they, “are critical precepts to us, or to anybody? Were we to observe
all the critical rules in creation we should still be unable to write a
good book”—a point, by the way, which we shall not now pause to deny.
“Give us _results_,” they vociferate, “for we are plain men of common
sense. We contend for fact instead of fancy—for practice in opposition
to theory.”

The mistake into which the Titmice have been innocently led, however, is
precisely that of dividing the practice which they would uphold, from
the theory to which they would object. They should have been told in
infancy, and thus prevented from exposing themselves in old age, that
theory and practice are in so much _one_, that the former implies or
includes the latter. A theory is only good as such, in proportion to its
reducibility to practice. If the practice fail, it is because the theory
is imperfect. To say what they are in the daily habit of saying—that
such or such a matter may be good in theory but is false in
practice,—is to perpetrate a bull—to commit a paradox—to state a
contradiction in terms—in plain words, to tell a lie _which is a lie at
sight_ to the understanding of anything bigger than a Titmouse.

But we have no idea, just now, of persecuting the Tittlebats by too
close a scrutiny into their little opinions. It is not our purpose, for
example, to press them with so grave a weapon as the _argumentum ad
absurdum_, or to ask them why, if the popularity of a book be in fact
the measure of its worth, we should not be at once in condition to admit
the inferiority of “Newton’s Principia” to “Hoyle’s Games;” of “Ernest
Maltravers” to “Jack-the-Giant-Killer,” or “Jack Sheppard,” or “Jack
Brag;” and of “Dick’s Christian Philosopher” to “Charlotte Temple,” or
the “Memoirs of de Grammont,” or to one or two dozen other works which
must be nameless. Our present design is but to speak, at some length, of
a book which in so much concerns the Titmice, that it affords them the
very kind of demonstration which they chiefly affect—_practical_
demonstration—of the fallacy of one of their favorite dogmas; we mean
the dogma that no work of fiction can fully suit, at the same time, the
critical and the popular taste; in fact, that the disregarding or
contravening of Critical Rule is absolutely essential to success, beyond
a certain and very limited extent, with the public at large. And if, in
the course of our random observations—for we have no space for
systematic review—it should appear, incidentally, that the vast
popularity of “Barnaby Rudge” must be regarded less as the measure of
its value, than as the legitimate and inevitable result of certain
well-understood critical propositions reduced by genius into practice,
there will appear nothing more than what has before become apparent in
the “Vicar of Wakefield” of Goldsmith, or in the “Robinson Crusoe” of De
Foe—nothing more, in fact, than what is a truism to all but the
Titmice.

Those who know us will not, from what is here premised, suppose it our
intention, to enter into any wholesale _laudation_ of “Barnaby Rudge.”
In truth, our design may appear, at a cursory glance, to be very
different indeed. Boccalini, in his “Advertisements from Parnassus,”
tells us that a critic once presented Apollo with a severe censure upon
an excellent poem. The God asked him for the beauties of the work. He
replied that he only troubled himself about the errors. Apollo presented
him with a sack of unwinnowed wheat, and bade him pick out all the chaff
for his pains. Now we have not fully made up our minds that the God was
in the right. We are not sure that the limit of critical duty is not
very generally misapprehended. _Excellence_ may be considered an axiom,
or a proposition which becomes self-evident just in proportion to the
clearness or precision with which it is _put_. If it fairly exists, in
this sense, it requires no farther elucidation. It is not excellence if
it need to be demonstrated as such. To point out too particularly the
beauties of a work, is to admit, tacitly, that these beauties are not
wholly admirable. Regarding, then, excellence as that which is capable
of self-manifestation, it but remains for the critic to show when,
where, and how it fails in becoming manifest; and, in this showing, it
will be the fault of the book itself if what of beauty it contains be
not, at least, placed in the fairest light. In a word, we may assume,
notwithstanding a vast deal of pitiable cant upon this topic, that in
pointing out frankly the errors of a work, we do nearly all that is
critically necessary in displaying its merits. In teaching what
perfection _is_, how, in fact, shall we more rationally proceed than in
specifying what it _is not_?

The plot of “Barnaby Rudge” runs thus: About a hundred years ago,
Geoffrey Haredale and John Chester were schoolmates in England—the
former being the scape-goat and drudge of the latter. Leaving school,
the boys become friends, with much of the old understanding. Haredale
loves; Chester deprives him of his mistress. The one cherishes the most
deadly hatred; the other merely contemns and avoids. By routes widely
different both attain mature age. Haredale, remembering his old love,
and still cherishing his old hatred, remains a bachelor and is poor.
Chester, among other crimes, is guilty of the seduction and heartless
abandonment of a gypsy-girl, who, after the desertion of her lover,
gives birth to a son, and, falling into evil courses, is finally hung at
Tyburn. The son is received and taken charge of, at an inn called the
Maypole, upon the borders of Epping forest, and about twelve miles from
London. This inn is kept by one John Willet, a burley-headed and very
obtuse little man, who has a son, Joe, and who employs his _protégé_,
under the single name of Hugh, as perpetual hostler at the inn. Hugh’s
father marries, in the meantime, a rich _parvenue_, who soon dies, but
not before having presented Mr. Chester with a boy, Edward. The father,
(a thoroughly selfish man-of-the-world, whose model is Chesterfield,)
educates this son at a distance, seeing him rarely, and calling him to
the paternal residence, at London, only when he has attained the age of
twenty-four or five. He, the father, has, long ere this time, spent the
fortune brought him by his wife, having been living upon his wits and a
small annuity for some eighteen years. The son is recalled chiefly that
by marrying an heiress, on the strength of his own personal merit and
the reputed wealth of old Chester, he may enable the latter to continue
his gayeties in old age. But of this design, as well as of his poverty,
Edward is kept in ignorance for some three or four years after his
recall; when the father’s discovery of what he considers an inexpedient
love-entanglement on the part of the son, induces him to disclose the
true state of his affairs, as well as the real tenor of his intentions.

Now the love-entanglement of which we speak, is considered inexpedient
by Mr. Chester for two reasons—the first of which is, that the lady
beloved is the orphan niece of his old enemy, Haredale, and the second
is, that Haredale (although in circumstances which have been much and
very unexpectedly improved during the preceding twenty-two years) is
still insufficiently wealthy to meet the views of Mr. Chester.

We say that, about twenty-two years before the period in question, there
came an unlooked-for change in the worldly circumstances of Haredale.
This gentleman has an elder brother, Reuben, who has long possessed the
family inheritance of the Haredales, residing at a mansion called “The
Warren,” not far from the Maypole-Inn, which is itself a portion of the
estate. Reuben _is a widower_, with one child, a daughter, Emma. Besides
this daughter, there are living with him a gardener, a steward (whose
name is Rudge) and _two_ women servants, one of whom is the wife of
Rudge. On the night of the nineteenth of March, 1733, Rudge murders his
master for the sake of a large sum of money which he is known to have in
possession. During the struggle, Mr. Haredale grasps the cord of an
alarm-bell which hangs within his reach, but succeeds in sounding it
only once or twice, when it is severed by the knife of the ruffian, who
then, completing his bloody business, and securing the money, proceeds
to quit the chamber. While doing this, however, he is disconcerted by
meeting the gardener, whose pallid countenance evinces suspicion of the
deed committed. The murderer is thus forced to kill his fellow servant.
Having done so, the idea strikes him of transferring the burden of the
crime from himself. He dresses the corpse of the gardener in his own
clothes, puts upon its finger his own ring and in its pocket his own
watch—then drags it to a pond in the grounds, and throws it in. He now
returns to the house, and, disclosing all to his wife, requests her to
become a partner in his flight. Horror-stricken, she falls to the
ground. He attempts to raise her. She seizes his wrist, _staining her
hand with blood in the attempt_. She renounces him forever; yet promises
to conceal the crime. Alone, he flees the country. The next morning, Mr.
Haredale being found murdered, and the steward and gardener being both
missing, both are suspected. Mrs. Rudge leaves The Warren, and retires
to an obscure lodging in London (where she lives upon an annuity allowed
her by Haredale) having given birth, _on the very day after the murder_,
to a son, Barnaby Rudge, who proves an idiot, who bears upon his wrist a
red mark, and who is born possessed with a maniacal horror of blood.

Some months since the assassination having elapsed, what appears to be
the corpse of Rudge is discovered, and the outrage is attributed to the
gardener. Yet not universally:—for, as Geoffrey Haredale comes into
possession of the estate, there are not wanting suspicions (fomented by
Chester) of his own participation in the deed. This taint of suspicion,
acting upon his hereditary gloom, together with the natural grief and
horror of the atrocity, embitters the whole life of Haredale. He
secludes himself at The Warren, and acquires a monomaniac acerbity of
temper relieved only by love of his beautiful niece.

Time wears away. Twenty-two years pass by. The niece has ripened into
womanhood, and loves young Chester without the knowledge of her uncle or
the youth’s father. Hugh has grown a stalwart man—the type of man _the
animal_, as his father is of man the ultra-civilized. Rudge, the
murderer, returns, urged to his undoing by Fate. He appears at the
Maypole and inquires stealthily of the circumstances which have occurred
at The Warren in his absence. He proceeds to London, discovers the
dwelling of his wife, threatens her with the betrayal of her idiot son
into vice and extorts from her the bounty of Haredale. Revolting at such
appropriation of such means, the widow, with Barnaby, again seeks The
Warren, renounces the annuity, and, refusing to assign any reason for
her conduct, states her intention of quitting London forever, and of
burying herself in some obscure retreat—a retreat which she begs
Haredale not to attempt discovering. When he seeks her in London the
next day, she is gone; and there are no tidings, either of herself or of
Barnaby, _until the expiration of five years_—which bring the time up
to that of the Celebrated “No Popery” Riots of Lord George Gordon.

In the meanwhile, and immediately subsequent to the re-appearance of
Rudge; Haredale and the elder Chester, each heartily desirous of
preventing the union of Edward and Emma, have entered into a covenant,
the result of which is that, by means of treachery on the part of
Chester, permitted on that of Haredale, the lovers misunderstand each
other and are estranged. Joe, also, the son of the innkeeper, Willet,
having been coquetted with, to too great an extent, by Dolly Varden,
(the pretty daughter of one Gabriel Varden, a locksmith of Clerkenwell,
London) and having been otherwise mal-treated at home, enlists in his
Majesty’s army and is carried beyond seas, to America; not returning
until towards the close of the riots. Just before their commencement,
Rudge, in a midnight prowl about the scene of his atrocity, is
encountered by an individual who had been familiar with him in earlier
life, while living at The Warren. This individual, terrified at what he
supposes, very naturally, to be the ghost of the murdered Rudge, relates
his adventure to his companions at the Maypole, and John Willet conveys
the intelligence, forthwith, to Mr. Haredale. Connecting the apparition,
in his own mind, with the peculiar conduct of Mrs. Rudge, this gentleman
imbibes a suspicion, at once, of the true state of affairs. This
suspicion (which he mentions to no one) is, moreover, very strongly
confirmed by an occurrence happening to Varden, the locksmith, who,
visiting the woman late one night, finds her in communion of a nature
apparently most confidential, with a ruffian whom the locksmith knows to
be such, without knowing the man himself. Upon an attempt, on the part
of Varden, to seize this ruffian, he is thwarted by Mrs. R.; and upon
Haredale’s inquiring minutely into the personal appearance of the man,
he is found to accord with Rudge. We have already shown that the ruffian
was in fact Rudge himself. Acting upon the suspicion thus aroused,
Haredale watches, by night, alone, in the deserted house formerly
occupied by Mrs. R. in hope of here coming upon the murderer, and makes
other exertions with the view of arresting him; but all in vain.

It is, also, at the conclusion _of the five years_, that the hitherto
uninvaded retreat of Mrs. Rudge is disturbed by a message from her
husband, demanding money. He has discovered her abode by accident.
Giving him what she has at the time, she afterwards eludes him, and
hastens, with Barnaby, to bury herself in the crowd of London, until she
can find opportunity again to seek retreat in some more distant region
of England. But the riots have now begun. The idiot is beguiled into
joining the mob, and, becoming separated from his mother (who, growing
ill through grief, is borne to a hospital) meets with his old playmate
Hugh, and becomes with him a ringleader in the rebellion.

The riots proceed. A conspicuous part is borne in them by one Simon
Tappertit, a fantastic and conceited little apprentice of Varden’s, and
a sworn enemy to Joe Willet, who has rivalled him in the affection of
Dolly. A hangman, Dennis, is also very busy amid the mob. Lord George
Gordon, and his secretary, Gashford, with John Grueby, his servant,
appear, of course, upon the scene. Old Chester, who, during the five
years, has become Sir John, instigates Gashford, who has received
personal insult from Haredale, (a catholic and consequently obnoxious to
the mob) instigates Gashford to procure the burning of The Warren, and
to abduct Emma during the excitement ensuing. The mansion is burned,
(Hugh, who also fancies himself wronged by Haredale, being chief actor
in the outrage) and Miss H. carried off, in company with Dolly, who had
long lived with her, and whom Tappertit abducts upon his own
responsibility. Rudge, in the meantime, finding the eye of Haredale upon
him, (since he has become aware of the watch kept nightly at his
wife’s,) goaded by the dread of solitude, and fancying that his sole
chance of safety lies in joining the rioters, hurries upon their track
to the doomed Warren. He arrives too late—the mob have departed.
Skulking about the ruins, he is discovered by Haredale, and finally
captured, without a struggle, within the glowing walls of the very
chamber in which the deed was committed. He is conveyed to prison, where
he meets and recognises Barnaby, who had been captured as a rioter. The
mob assail and burn the jail. The father and son escape. Betrayed by
Dennis, both are again retaken, and Hugh shares their fate. In Newgate,
Dennis, through accident, discovers the parentage of Hugh, and an effort
is made in vain to interest Chester in behalf of his son. Finally,
Varden procures the pardon of Barnaby; but Hugh, Rudge and Dennis are
hung. At the eleventh hour, Joe returns from abroad with one arm. In
company with Edward Chester, he performs prodigies of valor (during the
last riots) on behalf of the government. The two, with Haredale and
Varden, rescue Emma and Dolly. A double marriage, of course, takes
place; for Dolly has repented her fine airs, and the prejudices of
Haredale are overcome. Having killed Chester in a duel, he quits England
forever, and ends his days in the seclusion of an Italian convent. Thus,
after summary disposal of the understrappers, ends the drama of “Barnaby
Rudge.”

We have given, as may well be supposed, but a very meagre outline of the
story, and we have given it in the simple or natural sequence. That is
to say, we have related the events, as nearly as might be, in the order
of their occurrence. But this order would by no means have suited the
purpose of the novelist, whose design has been to maintain the secret of
the murder, and the consequent mystery which encircles Rudge, and the
actions of his wife, until the catastrophe of his discovery by Haredale.
The _thesis_ of the novel may thus be regarded as based upon curiosity.
Every point is so arranged as to perplex the reader, and whet his desire
for elucidation:—for example, the first appearance of Rudge at the
Maypole; his questions; his persecution of Mrs. R.; the ghost seen by
the frequenter of the Maypole; and Haredale’s impressive conduct in
consequence. What _we_ have told, in the very beginning of our digest,
in regard to the shifting of the gardener’s dress, is sedulously kept
from the reader’s knowledge until he learns it from Rudge’s own
confession in jail. We say sedulously; for, _the intention once known_,
the _traces_ of the design can be found upon every page. There is an
amusing and exceedingly ingenious instance at page 145, where Solomon
Daisy describes his adventure with the ghost.

    “It was a ghost—a spirit,” cried Daisy.

    “Whose?” they all three asked together.

    In the excess of his emotion (for he fell back trembling in his
    chair and waved his hand as if entreating them to question him
    no farther) _his answer was lost upon all_ but old John Willet,
    who happened to be seated close beside him.

    “Who!” cried Parkes and Tom Cobb—“Who was it?”

    “Gentlemen,” said Mr. Willet, after a long pause, “you needn’t
    ask. The likeness of a murdered man. This is the nineteenth of
    March.”

    A profound silence ensued.

The impression here skilfully conveyed is, that the ghost seen is that
of Reuben Haredale; and the mind of the not-too-acute reader is at once
averted from the true state of the case—from the murderer, Rudge,
living in the body.

Now there can be no question that, by such means as these, many points
which are comparatively insipid in the natural sequence of our digest,
and which would have been comparatively insipid even if given in full
detail in a natural sequence, are endued with the interest of mystery;
but neither can it be denied that a vast many more points are at the
same time deprived of all effect, and become null, through the
impossibility of comprehending them without the key. The author, who,
cognizant of his plot, writes with this cognizance continually operating
upon him, and thus _writes to himself_ in spite of himself, does not, of
course, feel that much of what is effective to his own informed
perception, must necessarily be lost upon his uninformed readers; and he
himself is never in condition, as regards his own work, to bring the
matter to test. But the reader may easily satisfy himself of the
validity of our objection. Let him _re-peruse_ “Barnaby Rudge,” and,
with a pre-comprehension of the mystery, these points of which we speak
break out in all directions like stars, and throw quadruple brilliance
over the narrative—a brilliance which a correct taste will at once
declare unprofitably sacrificed at the shrine of the keenest interest of
mere mystery.

The design of _mystery_, however, being once determined upon by an
author, it becomes imperative, first, that no undue or inartistical
means be employed to conceal the secret of the plot; and, secondly, that
the secret be well kept. Now, when, at page 16, we read that “the body
of _poor Mr. Rudge, the steward, was found_” months after the outrage,
&c. we see that Mr. Dickens has been guilty of no misdemeanor against
Art in stating what was not the fact; since the falsehood is put into
the mouth of Solomon Daisy, and given merely as the impression of this
individual and of the public. The writer has not asserted it in his own
person, but ingeniously conveyed an idea (false in itself, yet a belief
in which is necessary for the effect of the tale) by the mouth of one of
his characters. The case is different, however, when Mrs. Rudge is
repeatedly denominated “the widow.” It is the author who, himself,
frequently so terms her. This is disingenuous and inartistical:
accidentally so, of course. We speak of the matter merely by way of
illustrating our point, and as an oversight on the part of Mr. Dickens.

That the secret be well kept is obviously necessary. A failure to
preserve it until the proper moment of _dénouement_, throws all into
confusion, so far as regards the _effect_ intended. If the mystery leak
out, against the author’s will, his purposes are immediately at odds and
ends; for he proceeds upon the supposition that certain impressions _do_
exist, which do _not_ exist, in the mind of his readers. We are not
prepared to say, so positively as we could wish, whether, by the public
at large, the whole _mystery_ of the murder committed by Rudge, with the
identity of the Maypole ruffian with Rudge himself, was fathomed at any
period previous to the period intended, or, if so, whether at a period
so early as materially to interfere with the interest designed; but we
are forced, through sheer modesty, to suppose this the case; since, by
ourselves individually, the secret was distinctly understood immediately
upon the perusal of the story of Solomon Daisy, which occurs at the
seventh page of this volume of three hundred and twenty-three. In the
number of the “Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post,” for May the 1st,
1841, (the tale having then only begun) will be found a _prospective
notice_ of some length, in which we made use of the following words—

    That Barnaby is the son of the murderer may not appear evident
    to our readers—but we will explain. The person murdered is Mr.
    Reuben Haredale. He was found assassinated in his bed-chamber.
    His steward (Mr. Rudge, senior,) and his gardener (name not
    mentioned) are missing. At first both are suspected. ‘Some
    months afterward,’ here we use the words of the story—‘the
    steward’s body, scarcely to be recognised but by his clothes,
    and the watch and ring he wore—was found at the bottom of a
    piece of water in the grounds, with a deep gash in the breast
    where he had been stabbed by a knife. He was only partly
    dressed; and all people agreed that he had been sitting up
    reading in his own room, where there were many traces of blood,
    and was suddenly fallen upon and killed, before his master.’

    Now, be it observed, it is not the author himself who asserts
    that _the steward’s body was found_; he has put the words in the
    mouth of one of his characters. His design is to make it appear,
    in the _dénouement_, that the steward, Rudge, first murdered the
    gardener, then went to his master’s chamber, murdered _him_, was
    interrupted by his (Rudge’s) wife, whom he seized and held _by
    the wrist_, to prevent her giving the alarm—that he then, after
    possessing himself of the booty desired, returned to the
    gardener’s room, exchanged clothes with him, put upon the corpse
    his own watch and ring, and secreted it where it was afterwards
    discovered at so late a period that the features could not be
    identified.

The differences between our pre-conceived ideas, as here stated, and the
actual facts of the story, will be found immaterial. The gardener was
murdered not before but after his master; and that Rudge’s wife seized
_him_ by the wrist, instead of his seizing _her_, has so much the air of
a mistake on the part of Mr. Dickens, that we can scarcely speak of our
own version as erroneous. The grasp of a murderer’s bloody hand on the
wrist of a woman _enceinte_, would have been more likely to produce the
effect described (and this every one will allow) than the grasp of the
hand of the woman upon the wrist of the assassin. We may therefore say
of our supposition as Talleyrand said of some cockney’s bad French—_que
s’il ne soit pas Français, assurément donc il le doit être_—that if we
did not rightly prophesy, yet, at least, our prophecy _should have been_
right.

We are informed in the Preface to “Barnaby Rudge” that “no account of
the Gordon Riots having been introduced into any work of fiction, and
the subject presenting very extraordinary and remarkable features,” our
author “was led to project this tale.” But for this distinct
announcement (for Mr. Dickens can scarcely have deceived himself) we
should have looked upon the Riots as altogether an afterthought. It is
evident that they have no necessary connection with the story. In our
digest, which carefully includes all _essentials_ of the plot, we have
dismissed the doings of the mob in a paragraph. The whole event of the
drama would have proceeded as well without as with them. They have even
the appearance of being _forcibly_ introduced. In our compendium above,
it will be seen that we emphasised several allusions to an interval of
_five years_. The action is brought up to a certain point. The train of
events is, so far, uninterrupted—nor is there any apparent need of
interruption—yet all the characters are now thrown forward for a period
of _five years_. And why? We ask in vain. It is not to bestow upon the
lovers a more decorous maturity of age—for this is the only possible
idea which suggests itself—Edward Chester is already eight-and-twenty,
and Emma Haredale would, in America at least, be upon the list of old
maids. No—there is no such reason; nor does there appear to be any one
more plausible than that, as it is now the year of our Lord 1775, an
advance of five years will bring the _dramatis personae_ up to a very
remarkable period, affording an admirable opportunity for their
display—the period, in short, of the “No Popery” riots. This was the
idea with which we were forcibly impressed in perusal, and which nothing
less than Mr. Dickens’ positive assurance to the contrary would have
been sufficient to eradicate.

It is, perhaps, but one of a thousand instances of the disadvantages,
both to the author and the public, of the present absurd fashion of
periodical novel-writing, that our author had not sufficiently
considered or determined upon _any_ particular plot when he began the
story now under review. In fact, we see, or fancy that we see, numerous
traces of indecision—traces which a dexterous supervision of the
complete work might have enabled him to erase. We have already spoken of
the intermission of a lustrum. The opening speeches of old Chester are
by far too _truly_ gentlemanly for his subsequent character. The wife of
Varden, also, is too wholesale a shrew to be converted into the quiet
wife—the original design was to punish her. At page 16, we read
thus—Solomon Daisy is telling his story:

    “I put as good a face upon it as I could, and, muffling myself
    up, started out with a lighted lantern in one hand and the key
    of the church in the other”—at this point of the narrative, the
    dress of the strange man rustled as if he had turned to hear
    more distinctly.

Here the design is to call the reader’s attention to a _point_ in the
tale; but no subsequent explanation is made. Again, a few lines below—

    “The houses were all shut up, and the folks in doors, and
    perhaps there is only one man in the world who knows how dark it
    really was.”

Here the intention is still more evident, but there is no result. Again,
at page 54, the idiot draws Mr. Chester to the window, and directs his
attention to the clothes hanging upon the lines in the yard—

    “Look down,” he said softly; “do you mark how they whisper in
    each other’s ears, then dance and leap to make believe they are
    in sport? Do you see how they stop for a moment, when they think
    there is no one looking, and mutter among themselves again; and
    then how they roll and gambol, delighted with the mischief
    they’ve been plotting? Look at ’em now! See how they whirl and
    plunge. And now they stop again, and whisper cautiously
    together—little thinking, mind, how often I have lain upon the
    ground and watched them. I say—what is it that they plot and
    hatch? Do you know?”

Upon perusal of these ravings we, at once, supposed them to have
allusion to some _real_ plotting; and even now we cannot force ourselves
to believe them not so intended. They suggested the opinion that
Haredale himself would be implicated in the murder, and that the
counsellings alluded to might be those of that gentleman with Rudge. It
is by no means impossible that some such conception wavered in the mind
of the author. At page 32 we have a confirmation of our idea, when
Varden endeavors to arrest the murderer in the house of his wife—

    “Come back—come back!” exclaimed the woman, wrestling with and
    clasping him. “Do not touch him on your life. _He carries other
    lives beside his own._”

The _dénouement_ fails to account for this exclamation.

In the beginning of the story much emphasis is placed upon the _two_
female servants of Haredale, and upon his journey to and from London, as
well as upon his wife. We have merely said, in our digest, that he was a
widower, italicizing the remark. All these other points are, in fact,
singularly irrelevant, in the supposition that the original design has
not undergone modification.

Again, at page 57, when Haredale talks of “his dismantled and beggared
hearth,” we cannot help fancying that the author had in view some
different wrong, or series of wrongs, perpetrated by Chester, than any
which appear in the end. This gentleman, too, takes extreme and frequent
pains to acquire dominion over the rough Hugh—this matter is
particularly insisted upon by the novelist—we look, of course, for some
important result—but the filching of a letter is nearly all that is
accomplished. That Barnaby’s delight in the desperate scenes of the
rebellion, is inconsistent with his horror of blood, will strike every
reader; and this inconsistency seems to be the consequence of the
_afterthought_ upon which we have already commented. In fact the title
of the work, the elaborate and pointed manner of the commencement, the
impressive description of The Warren, and especially of Mrs. Rudge, go
far to show that Mr. Dickens has really deceived himself—that the soul
of the plot, as originally conceived, was the murder of Haredale with
the subsequent discovery of the murderer in Rudge—but that this idea
was afterwards abandoned, or rather suffered to be merged in that of the
Popish Riots. The result has been most unfavorable. That which, of
itself would have proved highly effective, has been rendered nearly null
by its situation. In the multitudinous outrage and horror of the
Rebellion, the _one_ atrocity is utterly whelmed and extinguished.

The reasons of this deflection from the first purpose appear to us
self-evident. One of them we have already mentioned. The other is that
our author discovered, when too late, that _he had anticipated, and thus
rendered valueless, his chief effect_. This will be readily understood.
The particulars of the assassination being withheld, the strength of the
narrator is put forth, in the beginning of the story, to _whet
curiosity_ in respect to these particulars; and, so far, he is but in
proper pursuance of his main design. But from this intention he
unwittingly passes into the error of _exaggerating anticipation_. And
error though it be, it is an error wrought with consummate skill. What,
for example, could more vividly enhance our impression of the unknown
horror enacted, than the deep and enduring gloom of Haredale—than the
idiot’s inborn awe of blood—or, especially, than the expression of
countenance so imaginatively attributed to Mrs. Rudge—“the capacity for
expressing terror—something only dimly seen, but never absent for a
moment—the shadow of some look to which an instant of intense and most
unutterable horror only could have given rise?” But it is a condition of
the human fancy that the promises of such words are irredeemable. In the
notice before mentioned we thus spoke upon this topic—

    This is a conception admirably adapted to whet curiosity in
    respect to the character of that event which is hinted at as
    forming the basis of the story. But this observation should not
    fail to be made—that the anticipation must surpass the reality;
    that no matter how terrific be the circumstances which, in the
    _dénouement_, shall appear to have occasioned the expression of
    countenance worn habitually by Mrs. Rudge, still they will not
    be able to satisfy the mind of the reader. He will surely be
    disappointed. The skilful intimation of horror held out by the
    artist, produces an effect which will deprive his conclusion of
    all. These intimations—these dark hints of some uncertain
    evil—are often rhetorically praised as effective—but are only
    justly so praised where there is _no dénouement_ whatever—where
    the reader’s imagination is left to clear up the mystery for
    itself—and this is not the design of Mr. Dickens.

And, in fact, our author was not long in seeing his precipitancy. He had
placed himself in a dilemma from which even his high genius could not
extricate him. He at once shifts the main interest—and in truth we do
not see what better he could have done. The reader’s attention becomes
absorbed in the riots, and he fails to observe that what should have
been the true catastrophe of the novel, is exceedingly feeble and
ineffective.

A few cursory remarks:—Mr. Dickens fails peculiarly in _pure_
narration. See, for example, page 296, where the connection of Hugh and
Chester is detailed by Varden. See also in “The Curiosity-Shop,” where,
when the result is fully known, so many words are occupied in explaining
the relationship of the brothers.

The effect of the present narrative might have been materially increased
by confining the action within the limits of London. The “Notre Dame” of
Hugo affords a fine example of the force which can be gained by
concentration, or unity of place. The unity of time is also sadly
neglected, to no purpose, in “Barnaby Rudge.”

That Rudge should so long and so deeply feel the sting of conscience is
inconsistent with his brutality.

On page 15 the interval elapsing between the murder and Rudge’s return,
is variously stated at twenty-two and twenty-four years.

It may be asked why the inmates of The Warren failed to hear the
alarm-bell which was heard by Solomon Daisy.

The idea of persecution by being tracked, as by bloodhounds, from one
spot of quietude to another is a favorite one with Mr. Dickens. Its
effect cannot be denied.

The stain upon Barnaby’s wrist, caused by fright in the mother at so
late a period of gestation as one day before mature parturition, is
shockingly at war with all medical experience.

When Rudge, escaped from prison, unshackled, with money at command, is
in agony at his wife’s refusal to perjure herself for his salvation—is
it not _queer_ that he should demand any other salvation than lay in his
heels?

Some of the conclusions of chapters—see pages 40 and 100—seem to have
been written for the mere purpose of illustrating tail-pieces.

The leading idiosyncrasy of Mr. Dickens’ remarkable humor, is to be
found in his _translating the language of gesture, or action, or tone_.
For example—

    “The cronies nodded to each other, and Mr. Parkes remarked in an
    under tone, shaking his head meanwhile, _as who should say ‘let
    no man contradict me, for I won’t believe him,’_ that Willet was
    in amazing force to-night.”

The riots form a series of vivid pictures never surpassed.

At page 17, the road between London and the Maypole is described as a
horribly rough and dangerous, and at page 97, as an uncommonly smooth
and convenient one.

At page 116, how comes Chester in possession of the key of Mrs. Rudge’s
vacated house?

Mr. Dickens’ English is usually pure. His most remarkable error is that
of employing the adverb “directly” in the sense of “as soon as.” For
example—“Directly he arrived, Rudge said, &c.” Bulwer is uniformly
guilty of the same blunder.

It is observable that so original a stylist as our author should
occasionally lapse into a gross imitation of what, itself, is a gross
imitation. We mean the manner of Lamb—a manner based in the Latin
construction. For example—

    In summer time its pumps suggest to thirsty idlers springs
    cooler and more sparkling and deeper than other wells; and as
    they trace the spillings of full pitchers on the heated ground,
    they snuff the freshness, and, sighing, cast sad looks towards
    the Thames, and think of baths and boats, and saunter on,
    despondent.

The wood-cut _designs_ which accompany the edition before us are
occasionally good. The copper engravings are pitiably ill-conceived and
ill-drawn; and not only this, but are in broad contradiction of the
wood-designs and text.

There are many _coincidences_ wrought into the narrative—those, for
example, which relate to the nineteenth of March; the dream of Barnaby,
respecting his father, at the very period when his father is actually in
the house; and the dream of Haredale previous to his final meeting with
Chester. These things are meant to _insinuate_ a fatality which, very
properly, is not expressed in plain terms—but it is questionable
whether the story derives more, in ideality, from their introduction,
than it might have gained of verisimilitude from their omission.

The _dramatis personae_ sustain the high fame of Mr. Dickens as a
delineator of character. Miggs, the disconsolate handmaiden of Varden;
Tappertit, his chivalrous apprentice; Mrs. Varden, herself; and Dennis,
a hangman—may be regarded as original caricatures, of the highest merit
as such. Their traits are founded in acute observation of nature, but
are exaggerated to the utmost admissible extent. Miss Haredale and
Edward Chester are common-places—no effort has been made in their
behalf. Joe Willet is a naturally drawn country youth. Stagg is a mere
make-weight. Gashford and Gordon are truthfully copied. Dolly Varden is
truth itself. Haredale, Rudge and Mrs. Rudge are impressive only through
the circumstances which surround them. Sir John Chester is, of course,
not original, but is a vast improvement upon all his predecessors—his
heartlessness is rendered somewhat too amusing, and his end too much
that of a man of honor. Hugh is a noble conception. His fierce
exultation in his animal powers; his subserviency to the smooth Chester;
his mirthful contempt and patronage of Tappertit, and his _brutal_ yet
firm courage in the hour of death—form a picture to be set in diamonds.
Old Willet is not surpassed by any character even among those of
Dickens. He is nature itself—yet a step farther would have placed him
in the class of caricatures. His combined conceit and obtusity are
indescribably droll, and his peculiar misdirected energy when aroused,
is one of the most exquisite touches in all humorous painting. We shall
never forget how heartily we laughed at his shaking Solomon Daisy and
threatening to put him behind the fire, because the unfortunate little
man was too much frightened to articulate. Varden is one of those free,
jovial, honest fellows at charity with all mankind, whom our author is
so fond of depicting. And lastly, Barnaby, the hero of the tale—in him
we have been somewhat disappointed. We have already said that his
delight in the atrocities of the Rebellion is at variance with his
horror of blood. But this horror of blood is _inconsequential_; and of
this we complain. Strongly insisted upon in the beginning of the
narrative, it produces no adequate result. And here how fine an
opportunity has Mr. Dickens missed! The conviction of the assassin,
after the lapse of twenty-two years, might easily have been brought
about through his son’s mysterious awe of blood—_an awe created in the
unborn by the assassination itself_—and this would have been one of the
finest possible embodiments of the idea which we are accustomed to
attach to “poetical justice.” The raven, too, intensely amusing as it
is, might have been made, more than we now see it, a portion of the
conception of the fantastic Barnaby. Its croakings might have been
_prophetically_ heard in the course of the drama. Its character might
have performed, in regard to that of the idiot, much the same part as
does, in music, the accompaniment in respect to the air. Each might have
been distinct. Each might have differed remarkably from the other. Yet
between them there might have been wrought an analogical resemblance,
and, although each might have existed apart, they might have formed
together a whole which would have been imperfect in the absence of
either.

From what we have here said—and, perhaps, said without due
deliberation—(for alas! the hurried duties of the journalist preclude
it) there will not be wanting those who will accuse us of a mad design
to detract from the pure fame of the novelist. But to such we merely say
in the language of heraldry “ye should wear a plain point sanguine in
your arms.” If this be understood, well; if not, well again. There lives
no man feeling a deeper reverence for genius than ourself. If we have
not dwelt so especially upon the high merits as upon the trivial defects
of “Barnaby Rudge” we have already given our reasons for the omission,
and these reasons will be sufficiently understood by all whom we care to
understand them. The work before us is not, we think, equal to the tale
which immediately preceded it; but there are few—very few others to
which we consider it inferior. Our chief objection has not, perhaps,
been so distinctly stated as we could wish. That this fiction, or indeed
that any fiction written by Mr. Dickens, should be based in the
excitement and maintenance of curiosity we look upon as a misconception,
on the part of the writer, of his own very great yet very peculiar
powers. He has done this thing well, to be sure—he would do anything
well in comparison with the herd of his contemporaries—but he has not
done it so thoroughly well as his high and just reputation would demand.
We think that the whole book has been an effort to him—solely through
the nature of its design. He has been smitten with an untimely desire
for a novel path. The idiosyncrasy of his intellect would lead him,
naturally, into the most fluent and simple style of narration. In tales
of ordinary sequence he may and will long reign triumphant. He has a
_talent_ for all things, but no positive _genius_ for _adaptation_, and
still less for that metaphysical art in which the souls of all
_mysteries_ lie. “Caleb Williams” is a far less noble work than “The Old
Curiosity-Shop;” but Mr. Dickens could no more have constructed the one
than Mr. Godwin could have dreamed of the other.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Wakondah; The Master of Life. A Poem. George L. Curry and Co.:
    New York._

“Wakondah” is the composition of Mr. Cornelius Mathews, one of the
editors of the Monthly Magazine, “Arcturus.” In the December number of
the journal, the poem was originally set forth by its author, very much
“_avec l’air d’un homme qui sauve sa patrie_.” To be sure, it was not
what is usually termed the _leading_ article of the month. It did not
occupy that post of honor which, hitherto, has been so modestly filled
by “Puffer Hopkins.” But it took precedence of some exceedingly
beautiful stanzas by Professor Longfellow, and stood second only to a
very serious account of a supper which, however well it might have
suited the taste of an Ariel, would scarcely have feasted the Anakim, or
satisfied the appetite of a Grandgousier. The supper was, or might have
been, a good thing. The poem which succeeded it _is not_; nor can we
imagine what has induced Messrs. Curry & Co. to be at the trouble of its
republication. We are vexed with these gentlemen for having thrust this
affair the second time before us. They have placed us in a predicament
we dislike. In the pages of “Arcturus” the poem did not come necessarily
under the eye of the Magazine critic. There is a tacitly-understood
courtesy about these matters—a courtesy upon which we need not comment.
The contributed papers in any one journal of the class of “Arcturus” are
not considered as _debateable_ by any one other. General propositions,
under the editorial head, are rightly made the subject of discussion;
but in speaking of “Wakondah,” for example, in the pages of our own
Magazine, we should have felt as if _making an occasion_. Now, upon our
first perusal of the poem in question, we were both astonished and
grieved that we could say, honestly, very little in its
praise:—astonished, for by some means, not just now altogether
intelligible to ourselves, we had become imbued with the idea of high
poetical talent in Mr. Mathews:—grieved, because, under the
circumstances of his position as editor of one of the _very_ best
journals in the country, we had been sincerely anxious to think well of
his abilities. Moreover, we felt that to _speak ill_ of them, under any
circumstances whatever, would be to subject ourselves to the charge of
envy or jealousy, on the part of those who do not personally know us.
We, therefore, rejoiced that “Wakondah” was not a topic we were called
upon to discuss. But the poem is republished, and placed upon our table,
and these very “circumstances of position,” which restrained us in the
first place, render it a positive duty that we speak distinctly in the
second.

And very distinctly shall we speak. In fact this effusion is a dilemma
whose horns _goad_ us into frankness and candor—“_c’est un malheur_,”
to use the words of Victor Hugo, “_d’où on ne pourrait se tirer par des
periphrases, par des quemadmodums et des verumenimveros_.” If we mention
it at all, we are _forced_ to employ the language of that region where,
as Addison has it, “they sell the best fish and speak the plainest
English.” “Wakondah,” then, from beginning to end, is trash. With the
trivial exceptions which we shall designate, it has _no_ merit whatever;
while its faults, more numerous than the leaves of Valombrosa, are of
that rampant class which, if any schoolboy _could_ be found so
uninformed as to commit them, any schoolboy should be remorselessly
flogged for committing.

The story, or as the epics have it, the argument, although brief, is by
no means particularly easy of comprehension. The design seems to be
based upon a passage in Mr. Irving’s “Astoria.” He tells us that the
Indians who inhabit the Chippewyan range of mountains, call it the
“Crest of the World,” and “think that Wakondah, or the Master of Life,
as they designate the Supreme Being, has his residence among these
aerial heights.” Upon this hint Mr. Mathews has proceeded. He introduces
us to Wakondah standing in person upon a mountain-top. He describes his
appearance, and thinks that a Chinook would be frightened to behold it.
He causes the “Master of Life” to make a speech, which is addressed,
generally, to things at large, and particularly to the neighboring
Woods, Cataracts, Rivers, Pinnacles, Steeps, and Lakes—not to mention
an Earthquake. But all these (and we think, judiciously) turn a deaf ear
to the oration, which, to be plain, is scarcely equal to a second-rate
Piankitank stump speech. In fact, it is a bare-faced attempt at animal
magnetism, and the mountains, &c., do no more than show its potency in
resigning themselves to sleep, as they do.

    Then shone Wakondah’s dreadful eyes

—then he becomes _very_ indignant, and accordingly launches forth into
speech the second—with which the delinquents are afflicted, with
occasional brief interruptions from the poet, in proper person, until
the conclusion of the poem.

The _subject_ of the two orations we shall be permitted to sum up
compendiously in the one term “rigmarole.” But we do not mean to say
that our compendium is not an improvement, and a very considerable one,
upon the speeches themselves,—which, taken altogether, are the
queerest, and the most rhetorical, not to say the most miscellaneous
orations we ever remember to have listened to outside of an Arkansas
House of Delegates.

In saying this we mean what we say. We intend no joke. Were it possible,
we would quote the whole poem in support of our opinion. But as this is
_not_ possible, and moreover, as we presume Mr. Mathews has not been so
negligent as to omit securing his valuable property by a copyright, we
must be contented with a few extracts here and there at random, with a
few comments equally so. But we have already hinted that there were
really one or two words to be said of this effusion in the way of
commendation, and these one or two words might as well be said now as
hereafter.

The poem thus commences—

    The moon ascends the vaulted sky to-night;
      With a slow motion full of pomp ascends,
      But, mightier than the Moon that o’er it bends,
    A form is dwelling on the mountain height
    That boldly intercepts the struggling light
      With darkness nobler than the planet’s fire,—
      A gloom and dreadful grandeur that aspire
    To match the cheerful Heaven’s far-shining might.

If we were to shut our eyes to the repetition of “might,” (which, in its
various inflections, is a pet word with our author, and lugged in upon
all occasions) and to the obvious imitation of Longfellow’s Hymn to the
Night in the second line of this stanza, we should be justified in
calling it _good_. The “darkness nobler than the planet’s fire” is
_certainly_ good. The general conception of the colossal figure on the
mountain summit, relieved against the full moon, would be unquestionably
_grand_ were it not for the _bullish_ phraseology by which the
conception is rendered, in a great measure, abortive. The moon is
described as “ascending,” and its “motion” is referred to, while we have
the standing figure continuously intercepting its light. That the orb
would soon pass from behind the figure, is a physical fact which the
purpose of the poet required to be left out of sight, and which scarcely
any other language than that which he has actually employed would have
succeeded in forcing upon the reader’s attention. With all these
defects, however, the passage, especially as an opening passage, is one
of high merit.

Looking carefully for something else to be commended we find at length
the lines—

    Lo! where our foe up through these vales ascends,
      Fresh from the embraces of the swelling sea,
      A glorious, white and shining Deity.
    Upon our strength his deep blue eye he bends,
    With threatenings full of thought and steadfast ends;
      _While desolation from his nostril breathes_
      _His glittering rage he scornfully unsheathes_
    _And to the startled air its splendor lends._

This again, however, is worth only qualified commendation. The first six
lines preserve the personification (that of a ship) sufficiently well;
but, in the seventh and eighth, the author suffers the image to slide
into that of a warrior unsheathing his sword. Still there is _force_ in
these concluding verses, and we begin to fancy that this is saying a
very great deal for the author of “Puffer Hopkins.”

The best stanza in the poem (there are thirty-four in all) is the
thirty-third.

    No cloud was on the moon, yet on His brow
      A deepening shadow fell, and on his knees
      _That shook like tempest-stricken mountain trees_
    _His heavy head descended sad and low_
    _Like a high city smitten by the blow_
      _Which secret earthquakes strike and topling falls_
      _With all its arches, towers, and cathedrals_
    _In swift and unconjectured overthrow._

This is, positively, not bad. The first line italicized is bold and
vigorous, both in thought and expression; and the four last (although by
no means original) convey a striking picture. But then the whole idea,
in its general want of keeping, is preposterous. What is more absurd
than the conception of a man’s head descending _to his knees_, as here
described—the thing could not be done by an Indian juggler or a man of
gum-caoutchouc—and what is more inappropriate than the resemblance
attempted to be drawn between a _single_ head descending, and the
_innumerable_ pinnacles of a falling city? It is difficult to
understand, _en passant_, why Mr. Mathews has thought proper to give
“cathedrals” a quantity which does not belong to it, or to write
“unconjectured” when the rhythm might have been fulfilled by
“unexpected” and when “unexpected” would have fully conveyed the meaning
which “unconjectured” does not.

By dint of farther microscopic survey, we are enabled to point out one,
and alas, _only_ one more good line in the poem.

    Green dells that into silence stretch away

contains a richly poetical thought, melodiously embodied. We only
refrain, however, from declaring, flatly, that the line is not the
property of Mr. Mathews, because we have not at hand the volume from
which we believe it to be stolen.

We quote the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth stanzas in full. They
will serve to convey some faint idea of the general poem. The Italics
are our own.

                       VI.

    _The spirit lowers and speaks: “Tremble ye wild Woods!_
      Ye Cataracts! your _organ-voices_ sound!
      Deep Crags, in earth by massy tenures bound,
    Oh, Earthquake, _level flat_! The peace that broods
    Above this world, and steadfastly eludes
      Your power, howl Winds and break; the peace that mocks
      Dismay ’mid silent streams and voiceless rocks—
    Through wildernesses, cliffs, and solitudes.

                       VII.

    “Night-shadowed Rivers—lift your dusky hands
      And clap them harshly _with a sullen roar_!
      Ye thousand Pinnacles and Steeps deplore
    The glory that departs; above _you_ stands,
    _Ye_ Lakes with azure waves and snowy strands,
      A Power that utters forth his loud behest
      Till mountain, lake and river shall attest,
    The puissance of a Master’s _large commands_.”

                       VIII.

    So spake the Spirit with a wide-cast look
      Of bounteous power and _cheerful_ majesty;
      As if he caught a sight of either sea
    And all the subject realm between: then shook
    His brandished arms; his stature scarce could brook
      Its confine; _swelling wide, it seemed to grow_
      _As grows a cedar on a mountain’s brow_
    By the mad air in ruffling breezes _took_!

                       IX.

    The woods are deaf and will not be aroused—
      The mountains are asleep, they hear him not,
      Nor from deep-founded silence can be wrought,
    Tho’ herded bison on their steeps have browsed:
    Beneath their hanks in _darksome stillness_ housed
      The rivers loiter like a calm-bound sea;
      _In anchored nuptials to dumb apathy_
    _Cliff, wilderness and solitude are spoused_.

Let us endeavor to translate this gibberish, by way of ascertaining its
import, if possible. Or, rather, let us state the stanzas, in substance.
The spirit _lowers_, that is to say _grows angry_, and speaks. He calls
upon the Wild Woods to tremble, and upon the Cataracts to sound their
voices which have the tone of an organ. He addresses, then, _an_
Earthquake, or perhaps Earthquake in general, and requests it to _level
flat_ all the Deep Crags which are bound by massy tenures in earth—a
request, by the way, which any sensible Earthquake must have regarded as
tautological, since it is difficult to level anything otherwise than
_flat_:—Mr. Mathews, however, is no doubt the best judge of flatness in
the abstract, and may have peculiar ideas respecting it. But to proceed
with the Spirit. Turning to the Winds, he enjoins them to howl and break
the peace that broods above this world and steadfastly eludes their
power—the same peace that mocks a Dismay ’mid streams, rocks, et
cetera. He now speaks to the night-shadowed Rivers, and commands them to
lift their dusky hands, and clap them harshly _with a sullen roar_—and
as _roaring_ with one’s _hands_ is not the easiest matter in the world,
we can only conclude that the Rivers here reluctantly disobeyed the
injunction. Nothing daunted, however, the Spirit, addressing a thousand
Pinnacles and Steeps, desires them to deplore the glory that departs, or
is departing—and we can almost fancy that we see the Pinnacles
deploring it upon the spot. The Lakes—at least such of them as possess
azure waves and snowy strands—then come in for their share of the
oration. They are called upon to observe—to take notice—that above
them stands no ordinary character—no Piankitank stump orator, or
anything of that sort—but a Power;—a power, in short, to use the exact
words of Mr. Mathews, “that _utters forth_ his loud behest, till
mountain, lake and river shall attest the puissance of a Master’s _large
commands_.” _Utters forth_ is no doubt somewhat supererogatory, since
“to utter” is of itself to emit, or send forth; but as “the Power”
appears to be somewhat excited he should be forgiven such mere errors of
speech. We cannot, however, pass over his boast about uttering forth his
loud behest _till_ mountain, lake and rivers shall obey him—for the
fact is that his threat is _vox et preterea nihil_, like the
countryman’s nightingale in Catullus; the issue showing that the
mountains, lakes and rivers—all very sensible creatures—go fast asleep
upon the spot, and pay no attention to his rigmarole whatever. Upon the
“large commands” it is not our intention to dwell. The phrase is a
singularly mercantile one to be in the mouth of “a Power.” It is not
impossible, however, that Mr. Mathews himself is

    —busy in the cotton trade
    And sugar line.

But to resume. We were originally told that the Spirit “lowered” and
spoke, and in truth his entire speech is a scold at Creation; yet stanza
the eighth is so forgetful as to say that he spoke “with a wide-cast
look of bounteous power and _cheerful_ majesty.” Be this point as it
may, he now shakes his brandished arms, and, swelling out, seems to
grow—

    As grows a cedar on a mountain’s top
    By the mad air in ruffling breezes _took_

—or as swells a turkey-gobbler; whose image the poet unquestionably had
in his mind’s eye when he penned the words about the ruffled cedar. As
for _took_ instead of _taken_—why not say _tuk_ at once? We have heard
of chaps vot vas tuk up for sheep-stealing, and we know of one or two
that ought to be tuk up for murder of the Queen’s English.

We shall never get on. Stanza the ninth assures us that the woods are
deaf and will not be aroused, that the mountains are asleep and so
forth—all which Mr. Mathews might have anticipated. But the rest he
could not have foreseen. He could not have foreknown that “the rivers,
housed beneath their banks in _darksome stillness_,” would “loiter like
a calm-bound sea,” and still less could he have been aware, unless
informed of the fact, that “_cliff, wilderness and solitude would be
spoused in anchored nuptials to dumb apathy_!” Good Heavens—no!—nobody
could have anticipated _that_! Now, Mr. Mathews, we put it to you as to
a man of veracity—what _does_ it all mean?

    As when in times to startle and revere.

This line, of course, is an accident on the part of our author. At the
time of writing it he could not have remembered

    To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

Here is another accident of imitation; for seriously, we do not mean to
_assert_ that it is anything more—

    I urged the dark red hunter in his quest
    Of pard or panther with a gloomy zest;
    And while through darkling woods they swiftly fare
    _Two seeming creatures of the oak-shadowed air_,
    I sped the game and fired the follower’s breast.

The line italicized we have seen quoted by some of our daily critics as
beautiful; and so, barring the “oak-shadowed air,” it is. In the
meantime Campbell, in “Gertrude of Wyoming,” has the _words_

    —the hunter and the deer a shade.

Campbell stole the idea from our own Freneau, who has the _line_

    The hunter and the deer a shade.

Between the two, Mr. Mathews’ claim to originality, at this point, will,
very possibly, fall to the ground.

It appears to us that the author of “Wakondah” is either very innocent
or very original about matters of versification. His stanza is an
ordinary one. If we are not mistaken, it is that employed by Campbell in
his “Gertrude of Wyoming”—a favorite poem of our author’s. At all
events it is composed of pentameters whose rhymes alternate by a simple
and fixed rule. But our poet’s deviations from this rule are so many and
so unusually picturesque, that we scarcely know what to think of them.
Sometimes he introduces an Alexandrine at the close of a stanza; and
here we have no right to quarrel with him. It is not _usual_ in this
metre; but still he _may_ do it if he pleases. To put an Alexandrine in
the middle, or at the beginning, of one of these stanzas is droll, to
say no more. See stanza third, which commences with the verse

    Upon his brow a garland of the woods he wears,

and stanza twenty-eight, where the last line but one is

    And rivers singing all aloud tho’ still unseen.

Stanza the seventh begins thus

    The Spirit lowers and speaks—tremble ye Wild Woods!

Here it must be observed that “wild woods” is not meant for a double
rhyme. If scanned on the fingers (and we presume Mr. Mathews is in the
practice of scanning thus) the line is a legitimate Alexandrine.
Nevertheless, it cannot be _read_. It is like nothing under the sun;
except, perhaps, Sir Philip Sidney’s attempt at English Hexameter in his
“Arcadia.” Some one or two of his verses we remember. For example—

    So to the | woods Love | runs as | well as | rides to the | palace;
    Neither he | bears reve | rence to a | prince nor | pity to a |
      beggar,
    But like a | point in the | midst of a | circle is | still of a |
      nearness.

With the aid of an additional spondee or dactyl Mr. Mathews’ _very_ odd
verse might be scanned in the same manner, and would, in fact, be a
legitimate Hexameter—

    The Spi | rit lowers | and speaks | tremble ye | wild woods

Sometimes our poet takes even a higher flight and _drops_ a foot, or a
half-foot, or, for the matter of that, a foot and a half. Here, for
example, is a very singular verse to be introduced in a pentameter
rhythm—

    Then shone Wakondah’s dreadful eyes.

Here another—

    Yon full-orbed fire shall cease to shine.

Here, again, are lines in which the rhythm demands an accent on
impossible syllables.

    But ah winged _with_ what agonies and pangs.
    Swiftly before me _nor_ care I how vast.
    I see _visions_ denied to mortal eyes.
    Uplifted longer _in_ heaven’s western glow.

But these are trifles. Mr. Mathews is young and we take it for granted
that he will improve. In the meantime what does he mean by spelling
lose, _loose_, and its (the possessive pronoun) _it’s_—re-iterated
instances of which fashions are to be found _passim_ in “Wakondah”? What
does he mean by writing _dare_, the present, for _dared_ the
perfect?—see stanza the twelfth. And, as we are now in the catachetical
vein, we may as well conclude our dissertation at once with a few other
similar queries.

What do you mean, then, Mr. Mathews, by

    A sudden silence _like a tempest_ fell?

What do you mean by “a quivered stream;” “a shapeless gloom;” a
“habitable wish;” “natural blood;” “oak-shadowed air;” “customary peers”
and “thunderous noises?”

What do you mean by

    A sorrow mightier than the midnight skies?

What do you mean by

    A bulk that swallows up the sea-blue sky?

Are you not aware that calling the sky as blue as the sea, is like
saying of the snow that it is as white as a sheet of paper?

What do you mean, in short, by

    Its feathers darker than a thousand fears?

Is not this something like “blacker than a dozen and a half of
chimney-sweeps and a stack of black cats,” and are not the whole of
these illustrative observations of yours somewhat upon the plan of that
of the witness who described a certain article stolen as being of the
size and shape of a bit of chalk? What do you _mean_ by them we say?

And here notwithstanding our earnest wish to satisfy the author of
Wakondah, it is indispensable that we bring our notice of the poem to a
close. We feel grieved that our observations have been so much at
random:—but at random, after all, is it alone possible to convey either
the letter or the spirit of that, which, a mere jumble of incongruous
nonsense, has neither beginning, middle, nor end. We should be delighted
to proceed—but how? to applaud—but what? Surely not this trumpery
declamation, this maudlin sentiment, this metaphor run-mad, this
twaddling verbiage, this halting and doggerel rhythm, this
unintelligible rant and cant! “Slid, if these be your passados and
montantes, we’ll have none of them.” Mr. Mathews, you have clearly
mistaken your vocation, and your effusion as little deserves the title
of _poem_, (oh sacred name!) as did the rocks of the royal forest of
Fontainebleau that of “_mes déserts_” bestowed upon them by Francis the
First. In bidding you adieu we commend to your careful consideration the
remark of M. Timon “_que le Ministre de l’Instruction Publique doit
lui-même savoir parler Français_.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

[Illustration: SPRING FASHIONS. 1842 IN ADVANCE.]

                 *        *        *        *        *

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. Other errors have
been corrected as noted below.

A cover has been created for this ebook and is placed in the public
domain.

page 97, joyous laugh, Miss Heyward resumed ==> joyous laugh, Mrs. Heyward
  resumed

[End of _Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XX, No. 2, February 1842_, George R.
Graham, Editor]



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