The Project Gutenberg EBook of The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 3,
October, 1851, by Various

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Title: The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 3, October, 1851

Author: Various

Release Date: June 30, 2011 [EBook #36564]

Language: English

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[Pg 289]

THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

Of Literature, Art, and Science.

Vol. IV. NEW-YORK,      OCTOBER 1, 1851.      No. III.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the article. Table of contents has been created for the HTML version.

Contents

JOHN GODFREY SAXE.
GLASS OF BOHEMIA.
THE SANDWICH ISLANDS TO-DAY.
PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE.
DR. HUNTINGTON ON COPYRIGHT.
"THE SCIENCE OF DECEPTION."
ARTS AMONG THE AZTECS AND INDIANS.
ORIGINAL POEMS BY BARRY CORNWALL AND W. C. BENNETT.
A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.
MUSIC.
THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE.
CHAMOIS HUNTING.
VISIT TO THE ABERDEEN COMBWORKS.
A REMINISCENCE.
THE SHADOW OF MARGERY PASTON.
CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE.
HISTORY AND CONDITION OF THE CHEAP POSTAGE SYSTEM.
OCTOBER.
MY NOVEL.
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN AT HOME.
THE FLYING ARTIST.
ART EXPRESSION.
THE MEETING OF THE VEGETARIANS.
AUTHORS AND BOOKS.
THE FINE ARTS.
HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE MONTH.
SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES AND PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES.
RECENT DEATHS.
LADIES' LATE SUMMER FASHIONS.

JOHN GODFREY SAXE.

Every catalogue of English poets embraces the name of Butler, though he was but the most unpoetical of satirists. If Hudibras is poetry there can be no difficulty in admitting to this distinction Trumbull's Progress of Dulness and McFingal, Snelling's Truth, a Gift for Scribblers, Halleck's Fanny, Osborn's Vision of Rubeta, Lowell's Fable for Critics, and some dozen other attempts in in this line, by Americans. The disease of the satiric muse in this country has been the spleen, and the reason why we have had so little of the healthful humorous rage, ideal and lyrical, of which the old masters gave us immortal examples, is, that those among us who have attempted this kind of composition have generally had far more to do with persons than with manners, have been influenced more by envy and malice than by a generous scorn of what is ludicrous and mean and criminal. The author of "Progress" has fallen into none of the prevailing sins; he is of the school of Horace, and has as little as he may to do with fools, while he holds up, unfolds, and whips, the follies of the day.

John G. Saxe was born in Highgate, Franklin county, Vermont, on the second day of June, 1816, His youth was passed in rural occupations until he was seventeen years of age, when he determined to study one of the liberal professions, and with this view entered the grammar school at St. Albans, and, after the usual preliminary course, the college at Middlebury, where he graduated bachelor of arts in the summer of 1839. He subsequently read law at Lockport in New-York and at St. Albans, and was admitted to the bar at the latter place in September, 1843, since which time he has been [Pg 290]practising in the courts with more than the average success of young attorneys, and he is now a leading politician of the democratic party, the conductor of its local organ, the Burlington Sentinel, and District Attorney, by the grace of personal popularity—all other candidates on the same ticket having been defeated.

Mr. Saxe became known as an occasional contributor to the Knickerbocker Magazine, some eight or ten years ago. Among his pieces in that miscellany is one characteristically remarkable for a sympathetic fitness of phrase, entitled the Rhyme of the Rail, and beginning:

In this period he has thrown off scores of epigrams, &c., anonymously, besides the more ambitious performances acknowledged in the collection of his Poems, of which we have before us a third edition—showing that their quality is well appreciated—from the press of Ticknor & Co. The longest of these is Progress, first published in 1846. In skilful felicities of language and rhythm, general clear and sharp expression, and alternating touches of playful wit and vigorous sense, there is nothing so long that is so well sustained in the hundred and one books of American satire. In the beginning of it he says finely of our "glorious tongue:"

And then proceeds with a display of popular follies, and especially of those most grotesque and offensive, the sham philosophies by which it is attempted to regenerate society:

In the same vein we are treated with "novelties which disturb our peace," in literature, fashion, politics, religion, and morals; and every line is faultless in finish and in wit. The Proud Miss McBride, and The New Rape of the Lock, are in different veins, but abound in the same exquisite turns, agreeable images, and comic displays of wisdom. In the New Rape of the Lock:

At the wedding party all the aristocracy of the circle in which the Browns and Joneses were acquainted came together, and Miss Susan—

The Times, a poem read before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, in 1849, Carmen Lætum, recited last year at a meeting of the Alumni of Middlebury College, and New England Men, delivered before the literary societies of the New-York University a few weeks ago, are his other most elaborate productions, and they are all carefully finished and alike in their chief characteristics. His shorter pieces in a few instances have touches of sentiment, but this is not his forte; by the definition which limits poetry to rhythmical creations of beauty, Mr. Saxe can scarcely be called a poet of great excellence; his distinction is, that he is a wit, and that he has been eminently successful in giving to his wit a poetical expression.

As a judicious critic has said of him, "he unquestionably an artist, of a high order, in the narrow range which he has taken. His comical productions are beautifully finished. As they stand, they are terse, smooth, and fluent, and any one who has ever tried his hand at this species of composition, will readily appreciate the time, labor, and taste, which must have been expended, to jest so easily, in rhyme."

[Pg 291]

GLASS OF BOHEMIA.

This beautiful article is manufactured in various places throughout Germany—most largely amid the very mountainous districts of Bohemia; some of the best, however, is made in Bavaria and sent to Bohemia, and thence exported. The materials from which the glass is formed consist chiefly of the same as those used in England; the manufacturers themselves seem to believe that there is no difference except in the proportions of the materials, and in the fuel, which is exclusively wood, and produces, by a little attention, a more constant and intense heat than can be produced by any coal; the feeding of the furnace with the latter material, they say, always creates a change in the temperature detrimental to the fluid above, and never sufficiently intense. The wooded mountains of Bohemia are entirely inhabited by a population whose industry, morals, hospitality, and kindliness of manners, do honor, not only to this rich and beautiful kingdom, but to the whole human race. They are pure Germans, not of Sclavish origin, and the German dialect alone is spoken. Unlike every other manufacturing district I have ever visited, they retain unimpaired all their rural and primitive virtues. Clean to a proverb, in their houses and persons, hospitable and amiable in their manners, simple in their habits, cheerful and devoted in their religion, they form perhaps, the happiest community in the world. In passing through the country, a stranger would never find out that he was in a manufacturing district, but might fancy himself in the green valleys of a partly pastoral, partly agricultural people. Thickly inhabited, the beautiful little cottages, clustered into villages, or scattered along the glens, or sides of the hills, are embowered with fruit trees, and encircled with shrubs and flowers, which each cottager cultivates with a zeal peculiar to his race; on every side rich fields of grain or pasture stretch out like a vast enamelled carpet between the hills, which are clothed in dense forest of spruce, fir, pine, and beech, filled with deer, roe, and capercalzie; they extend in every direction, far beyond the reach of the eye, one vast cloud of verdure. The fabriques or factories, are placed generally in the middle of one of these villages, the extent of which can only be known by going from house to house; so closely is each hid in its own fruit-bower, and so surrounded by shrubs and flowers, that the eye can only pick up the buildings by their blue smoke, or get a glimpse of them here and there as you advance; thus some of the villages are elongated to three miles, forming the most delicious walk along its grassy road, generally accompanied by a stream, always overhung by a profusion of wild flowers, the mountain-ash, and weeping birch; many of the former only to be found in our gardens. It has a very picturesque effect to see the inhabitants of these villages with their simple costume; and if it rains, their umbrellas, often of rich colors like their glass, scarlet, green, and deep crimson, with beautiful ruby, emerald, or turquoise handles; not such as a stranger might suppose a gaudy glass bauble, but rich and massive, and having all the appearance of the solid, gold, and gem-studded handles of the oriental weapons.

The fabrique is built like the rest of the cottages, and only differs from them in size, and the shape and height of its chimney, which emitting only wood smoke, has none of the dense sulphuric cloud which blackens and poisons the neighborhood of coal-fed factories: it is never that ostentatious building for whose magnitude and embellishments the public are obliged to pay, in the increased charges on its productions. The glass fabriques of Bohemia are all small, in fact only one large apartment, in the centre of which is the furnace, a circular structure divided into eight compartments containing the melted metal for as many colors; one man and a boy are stationed at the door of each compartment, the former to extract the fluid with his pipe, the latter to hold the wooden mould[1] in which the article is blown and shaped. The number of hands employed in an ordinary[Pg 292] fabrique, are:—Eight men who work in the metal, take it from the fire, and blow it in the moulds; eight helps to hold the moulds, &c.; four to stir the metal, &c.; two breakers; four day laborers.

The best men are sometimes paid from eighteen to twenty shillings a week, and provide their own food, which is good; and as they require much nourishment from the exhausting effects of the heat, it consists of meat, vegetables, and a vast quantity of beer; those who are employed about the furnace especially, drink from twelve to fifteen quarts a day; it is a clear, bitter beverage, which they, in common with all the German race, like beyond every thing else, but it is of little strength; intoxication is almost unknown, and as a proof of their careful and excellent character, in one of the above-mentioned villages, three miles in length, a fire had not been known in the memory of the oldest inhabitants I questioned, though the houses from the ground to the roof are made entirely of wood.

The materials of which the glass is composed, as far as can be ascertained, and they seem to make no secret of it, appear to be the same as those in use in England; they say, they derive their perfection from their mode of mixing and burning the material. Thus the principal component parts are:—Sand; chalk; potash; brimstone; arsenic, mixed with various colors, regulated by the principal:—Uran oxide; cobalt oxide; coppré oxide; nickel oxide; chrom oxide; minium; tin oxide.

The gold used in ornamenting the glass is from the purest ducats, dissolved in strong acid (artz wasser), the oil with which the colors are mixed is of turpentine (harz öhl).

BOHEMIAN GLASS PAINTER.

Nothing is done in most of the blowing fabriques but mixing the material, and coloring; and for cutting, polishing, &c., from three to six wheels are used—all the finishing goes on in the little cottages by which the furnace is surrounded, and with which the valleys and sides of the hills are studded; here you find, within the contracted chambers of these small block-houses, if on the ground-flat, standing on an earthen[2] floor like our Highland cottages, an artist of the first ability, tracing the exquisite scrolls and flowers which we see in these beautiful works of art; and which are performed by men bearing all the appearance of simple cotters; but whose hand sweeps free and careless over the glass with the confidence and ease of an experienced artist; seldom being provided with more than two very ordinary looking brushes, a small one and another a size larger, and working frequently without any pattern, or indicating lines upon the glass they are painting; but perfect from habitude, the scrolls, and wreaths, and flowers, come out with the same facility as one traces a name upon the dewy pane of a window. Often the whole family are brought up from childhood in painting and in drawing on glass, and thus producing a race of hereditary artists; boys from thirteen and upwards are employed in the most delicate works in this genre of art. Each cottage where the painting and gilding go on, is provided with a small oven, into which the glass is put to bake in the colors, where it is kept for a day and allowed to cool down; the white figures and flowers, when they go into the oven, are of a dark chrome color, but come out pure white, as will be observed on examining any glass on which flowers of this color are painted; the gold, also, when laid on, is of a dead brown, and when burnt in, is polished, generally by women of the family. The gold in many instances is left unpolished, and only the stalks and fibres are burnished, which give an excellent effect. It is most interesting to go from one cottage to another; in one you are amazed by the exquisite paintings in gold, silver, and colors; in another, the cutting out all those beautiful leaf-work, lily, bell-flower, octagon, and star-shaped vases, which is done, not only by men, but by their children, girls and boys. In one cottage, I was particularly struck by a man, his two daughters, and son, sitting at as many wheels, cutting the most elaborate, but delicate, figures; shaping from the merely turned over bell vases, those beautiful varieties of lily and flower-indented lamps for suspension, and vessels for holding bouquets, tracing the scrolls, stalks, and fibres, with the same ease as the bare-footed wife and mother prepared their supper in the wooden bowl on the earth-floor behind them; for there was but one apartment for the fine arts, the nursery, and the kitchen, yet all was neatness, perfect cleanliness, and order; while on the long beam which formed the sill of the three mullion windows, was arranged a number of glass objects in the glorious colors of Bohemian art—ruby, emerald, topaz, chrysopras, turquoise; with pure crystals, which, richly cut, reflected, like a rainbow, the gems by which they are surrounded. In another cottage, in Steinchönau, I was much pleased with the designs which two young men were painting, both in gold, and colors; of which the former were scrolls of a very superior character, and the latter, flowers, butterflies, and insects. I questioned one of the men respecting the forms and characteristics of those he was painting, and which were beautiful illustrations of Natural History; when he brought me in, from a little bed-room, or rather closet, two boxes full of exquisitely preserved specimens of a great variety of native insects, which he had collected in his leisure hours, and arranged himself, to assist him in his painting. The copies were facsimiles of the originals, both as to colors and character. Among these insects I observed a beautiful miniature crawfish, not so large[Pg 293] as a shrimp, a native, also, of the streams in his neighborhood. So identified had these productions of nature become with his imagination, that he was, at the moment I came in, painting some most correctly, without any specimen before him. It is impossible to express the feelings produced by these people, so simple, so industrious, and, above all, so modest. They could not refrain from surprise at the admiration their every-day productions created in us; and these simple artisans would with difficulty believe that their works were sought for, and thus valued, in all powerful and wealthy England, where they believe nothing is unknown, nothing imperfect, nothing impossible! One man whom I visited is an extraordinary genius, rarely to be met with; he has been driven by the force of that same genius, to seek abroad, in France and Bavaria (Munich), food for his mind, and has brought back with him several folio works of engravings from the best masters, from which he designs. Placing before him one of these works, a Raphael or a Rubens, he either copies the group, or composes from them to suit the form of his vase, which he thus embellishes with the most exquisite figures; his name is Charles Antoin Günther. He lives in a little block-house, as humble as the commonest of those above described, on the declivity of a brae, by a small stream, on which stand the little scattered village of Steinschönau. It is composed of only two apartments below, of which his work-room is one, and which is not above ten feet square, with just space enough to hold four little lathes for engraving glass, at one of which he works himself, while the others are occupied by three boys, the youngest twelve and a-half years old, the eldest fifteen! They all engrave beautifully, pieces laid before them by Günther, and which they follow with a faithfulness and spirit only to be believed on personal inspection. He was at work himself on a vase goblet, of the shape of the usual green hock-glass, but which might contain a bottle; it was lapis lazuli blue, enriched by a group of Bacchanalian Cupids and vine-leaves of his own composition, and worked with a spirit and freedom worthy of some of the masters by whose works he was surrounded. What struck me most, was one of those exquisite little figures of Raphael's, in his great picture of the "Madona del Sixto," in the Royal Gallery at Dresden. The cherub leaning on the parapet, with his chin resting on one hand, as he gazes on the Virgin; it is exquisitely drawn in pencil, a fac-simile, and pinned on the wooden wall of the engraver's cottage, immediately opposite his seat. I asked him how he first traced on the glass the subjects which he was to cut; he replied by taking up a plain glass without any figure or indication on its surface, and asking me what subject I should like engraved. On my replying that, being an old deer-stalker, I should be very well pleased with a stag; he immediately applied the wheel to the glass, and in five minutes by my watch, produced one of the most splendid, spirited animals I ever saw in the forest, and really worthy of Landseer; the stag is making a spring over some broken palings and rough foreground, and his action and parts can only be appreciated by those who have lived with the deer on the hill and watched them with the feelings of a hill-man, like Günther, who has had opportunities of seeing the deer in his own native woods, where they abound. I brought this glass away with me, though in itself but an inferior article; merely as a specimen of what I had seen done by this man in the space of five minutes, without a copy or any thing to guide him on the smooth surface of the goblet.

I send you sketches of the artist and his dwelling; and as the portrait exhibits, at the same time, his native costume, it will be the more interesting, and cannot fail to give a correct idea of the character of this Bohemian mountaineer.

The sketch of Günther's House will also afford an idea of these Bohemian artisans' dwellings, more so than any written description could do. I send you with it a drawing of another of these picturesque houses.

There are two classes of persons engaged, on a large scale, in the exportation of Bohemian glass—the fabricant and the collector; generally speaking, however, the latter is the[Pg 294] direct exporter, and he also superintends the cutting, painting, and packing. The fabricant is more frequently engaged in furnishing the collector, and to a great extent, with the glass in its original and more simple forms as it comes from the furnace, and it is then cut and painted by the cottagers who surround the dwelling of the collector; so that many of these villages are entirely formed by the collector and his people. Others however, employed in the same way, cluster round the fabrique; but even their productions for the most part go to the collectors, who have their correspondents in America, Spain, Turkey, Greece, England, &c.

HOME OF CHARLES ANTOINE GUNTHER.

As might be expected, there is a considerable difference in the designs of different houses; some are much superior to others, both as to color and design. Those of Egermann, in Hyda, who has added many new and valuable discoveries in the art of making and coloring the glass, and Hoffman, in Prague, are the best I have visited, to which may be added Zahn, in Steinschönau, for whom Günter engraves. Egerman's establishment in Hyda, for cutting, painting, and engraving, is very considerable, and exhibits first-rate talent, which can only be appreciated by a personal inspection of his works; and the taste and judgment of Hoffman, in Prague, in his selections, the designs he gives, and the artists he employs, cannot be surpassed, if equalled, in Germany. He has entirely abandoned the modern school, and returned to the first principles of art,[3] and produces, both in[Pg 295] form and decorations, subjects worthy of the ancient masters.

RESIDENCE OF A BOHEMIAN ARTISAN.

The glass villages are scattered all through the mountainous districts, whose ridges, and summits, and upper ranges are covered with a forest, which extends forty or fifty miles in length, by thirty broad; the fabriquants maintain that the finer glass cannot be brought to perfection but by wood heat, and hence, the glass fabriques are only to be found in these vast forests. One of the most interesting natural formations within this circle is the volcanic rock, called "Spirlingstein," which shoots up out of a little valley on the right bank of the Elbe crowned with a shattered mass of natural towers and turrets which it is difficult to believe, till closely examined, are not the ruins of one of those feudal holds crowning the summits of so many of the hills in Bohemia. Every village has its school, in which are to be found all the children too old for the nursery, and too young to be employed. Several I visited contained as many as three hundred; the specimens of their writing are beautiful, some quite like engraving; the eldest child, whose specimen I saw, was only thirteen; they sing most sweetly, and many accompanying themselves on the guitar, the schoolmaster being almost always a musician, and capable of playing two or three instruments. There is a church and good organ in each village, and a very good choir entirely composed of these villagers, all of whom play some instrument, and form the choir by turns, generally directed by the schoolmaster. Some of these amateur bands play exquisitely, as an idea may be formed by the families or communities who occasionally visit England, and who are often from a district such as I have described, and whose sole instruction has been that which they could pick up from each other in their hours of recreation. At the fabrique of A. Kittls-Erben of Kreibitz, while at dinner in the garden, and which was provided by the hospitality of the fabriquant, and in great profusion, with a variety of Hungarian and Bohemian wines, I observed a little girl of twelve years of age, who came into the bower with a guitar, and while I was looking round for the performer, the master of the fabrique lifted the little girl on a chair, and laid a music book before her, from which she played and sang a number of Bohemian songs with much taste and execution. All the instruction she ever had was from the schoolmaster, who taught her during the leisure hours of the scholars. She was an orphan, and brought up by the fabriquant. After dinner we walked up the valley to visit a fabrique of Chichorie; in the way I remarked a little cottage, like the rest, with its fruit-trees and garden, but which had, in addition to its projecting roof and windows filled with flowers, both in pots and Bohemian glass vases, verandahs in carved oak, the scroll-work of which was quite classic, and the execution admirable. While I stopped to examine this, the fabriquant who accompanied me remarked that the owners were[Pg 296] makers of musical instruments. On inquiring of what kind, he replied a variety,—violins, accordions, and others. I was met at the door by a man whose appearance was that of a simple cottager, and his manners indicated all the simplicity of rural life. He was told that I wished to see some of his instruments, upon which he bowed, slightly elevated his shoulders, and replied, that he had nothing worth seeing, but would be happy to receive us, and showed us the way, with that natural kindness and politeness, which distinguish the peasants of this country. We followed him up a little carved-wood staircase, and he ushered us into a small, yet clean apartment, where, to my surprise, I found two rather large organs, sufficiently large for a moderate church; one was a peculiar instrument, a pan-harmomicon, invented by himself, with improvements and great facility and simplicity in tuning; it formed a concert of the single organ, brass horns, and kettle drums, having a double row of keys behind, so that the performer was masked by the instrument, which had a handsome front; the face of it could be removed to show the whole interior of the mechanical arrangement. A variety of other instruments were packed in different parts of the room, some of which were large and highly improved accordions, which, as well as the organ, are beautifully played by the brothers,[4] of whom there are three; their talent for music is extraordinary.

SPIRLINGSTEIN.

The church in this country is still the great patron of the arts. In every little chapel, however remote or small, (and in some of the minute villages in the mountains, they are not larger than an ordinary room,[5] though of a vast height in proportion to the length and breadth,) is found a good organ, and always well played. There is also an amateur choir attached to each. These chapels are decorated by paintings and frescoes, some of which are of considerable merit. In the house of a priest, who officiates in one of them, I observed a "Crucifixion," without a frame, apparently quite newly painted, and, on inquiring, I found it was the work of an artist in Antwerp; that it had been bought by the glass-makers of the district, or rather obtained in exchange for some part of a cargo sent to that city, from which they had brought and presented it to their little chapel; it was valued at Antwerp, against the glass, at seven hundred florins ($150).

The little chapels in the glass districts are also beautifully decorated with colored glass, the rich ruby lamps suspended before the altars, with their ever-burning lamps, the clusters[Pg 297] of prisms in the great centre chandelier, reflecting the ruby lights, and gold, and flowers, from the altar, are always—independent of any other feeling—subjects worthy the contemplation of the artist. All the vases for flowers which richly decorate the country churches are of native manufacture—ruby, emerald, topaz, chrysophras, turquoise, and crystal chalices, full of the rarest of those flowers which form so much the delight and pastime of the inhabitants to cultivate, shed their delicious perfume through their chapels, mingled with the incense which, renewed daily, at morning and evening service, fills the buildings with perpetual fragrance. Another great resource for the arts in this country, which is offered by the Church, is the sculpture of wood. I have often been surprised and confounded by seeing an exquisite Virgin, or Crucifixion, or figure of a patron or local saint, in some far out of the way chapel in the hills, or in some lonely shrine, and even in the niches on the exterior of these buildings: but on inquiry I found that these were often the works of the first artists! the foreman of some native Canova, or Max, whose health, impaired by inhaling the fine dust of the marble, was not obliged to work on till death put an end to his talent; but, before the disease had become incurable, forsook marble for oak, and reproduced in that material all the beauties of the original; and under the fostering wing of the Church recovered his health, and filled his native village church with works of the highest order. It is the same with artists, natives of larger towns; I do not speak of such works as are to be seen in Antwerp, and other cities of note—wonderful productions of rare art in carving, such as the figures which stand on each side of the numerous confessionals in the north transept of the glorious cathedral of the former, nearly as large as life, all emblematical of repentance and forgiveness, and other attributes of contrition and mercy; with many others of nearly, if not quite, the same merit, in the various churches with which this town abounds. These are the works of great masters whose celebrity is European; but to find in the wild and unknown districts of these mountains such works of art—to know there is a sure and safe means for the suffering artist to continue his work and regain his health, while he fills his country with fine objects of art, carved in wood, and which could never be obtained in any other way, is a blessed encouragement to talent, and a field for the arts which can only be appreciated by those who are relieved by it, or those who are dying for want of its protecting hand. Mr. Steel, in Edinburgh, the last time I had the happiness of visiting him in his studio, when he was engaged on that exquisite work the Scott statue, and which has since been placed within the monument erected to that illustrious man, told me he had, then, lately lost one or two of his best men from pulmonary complaint, brought on by inhaling the marble dust; that he had tried every means to counteract its effects, by providing the men with veils and masks, but to no purpose. His best man then at work upon this national masterpiece, was fast failing beneath the effects of the same cause, and is now probably laid with all his talent in the dust, lost to his country in the prime of life, when here such a man would soon be restored to health, while he reproduced his works in wood, and maintained himself and family in a comfortable and illustrious independence, enriching his country, and carrying the arts into the remote valleys of his native home.

Thus far we make use of a letter to the Art Journal. In the Great Exhibition we perceive that the glass of Bohemia has attracted much attention, not more for the grace and beauty of its forms than for the recent improvements which have been made in its colors. The principal agent for the sale of Bohemian Glass in the United States is Mr. Collamore, of 447 Broadway, in whose extensive establishment may be seen in particular all the varieties of those vases, and other mantel ornaments, of Bohemian Glass, which, to a great extent, are taking the place of porcelain fabrics, of the same description, in the more fashionably furnished houses. One of these vases we copy here from the Art Journal Catalogue of the Hyde Park Exhibition; others are of different forms, and of colors equalled in richness only in other manufactures of the same country.

Of other industrial pursuits in this class we shall give accounts hereafter.

[Pg 298]

THE SANDWICH ISLANDS TO-DAY.

VALLEYS AND MOUNTAINS OF WAILUKU, MAUI.

Whatever may be said of the influence of European and American profligacy in the Islands, they may be pointed to with perfect satisfaction for illustrations of the benefits of Christian civilization, and the people of this country are greatly indebted to the Rev. Henry T. Cheever, whose works on the subject we have had frequent occasion to praise, for the eminently judicious and interesting accounts he has given us of society, manners, and religion, and of industrial resources, and every kind of natural phenomena, throughout the "island world," especially in the Sandwich Islands, to which his last work[6] is altogether devoted. Of the important question of the political destiny of this group Mr. Cheever says:

The work abounds in interesting details of Island Life, and we regret that our limits will not permit us to enrich the International[Pg 299] with more liberal extracts. We can at present add but the following paragraphs on a sport for which the islanders have been celebrated ever since the days of Cook:

The volume has several spirited engravings, and is excellently printed.

HAWAIIAN SPORT OF SURF PLAYING

[Pg 300]

PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE.

Among our pleasantest friends in many years was the author of the Froissart Ballads. We think of him as a friend, but we never saw him; his features are familiar to us only by this poor counterfeit, and all we know of his voice is that it has been described to us as musically joyous, sometimes varying to a sad sweetness, sometimes wild. For half a dozen years visits to him were written of, and hoped for, and it was settled, we thought, that we were to share with him a turkey-hunt in the Old Dominion, in a few weeks, when suddenly the intelligence came that he was dead.

Philip Pendleton Cooke was born in Martinsburg, Berkeley county, Virginia, on the twenty-sixth of October, 1816. His father, Mr. John R. Cooke, was then and is now honorably distinguished at the bar, and his mother was of that family of Pendletons which has furnished so many eminent names to that part of the Union.

At fifteen he entered Princeton college, where he had a reputation for parts, though he did not distinguish himself, or take an honor, and could never tell how it happened that he obtained a degree, as he was not examined with his class. He liked fishing and hunting better than the books, and Chaucer and Spenser much more than the dull volumes in the "course of study." He had already made rhymes before he became a freshman, and the appearance of the early numbers of the Knickerbocker Magazine prompted him to new efforts in this way; he wrote for the Knickerbocker, in his seventeenth year, The Song of the Sioux Lover, and The Consumptive, and in a village paper, about the same time, humorous and sentimental verses.

When he left college his father was living at Winchester, and there he himself pursued the study of the law. He wrote pieces in verse and prose for the Virginian, and The Southern Literary Messenger (then just started), and projected novels and an extensive work in literary criticism. Before he was twenty-one he was married, admitted to the bar, and had a fair prospect of practice, in Frederick, Jefferson, and Berkeley counties. "I am blessed by my fireside," he wrote, "here on the banks of the Shenandoah in view and within a mile of the Blue Ridge; I go to county towns, at the sessions of the courts, and hunt, and fish, and make myself as happy with my companions as I can."

"So," he wrote to us in 1846, "have passed five, six, seven, eight years, and now I am striving, after long disease of my literary veins, to get the rubbish of idle habits away and work them again. My fruit-trees, rose-bushes, poultry, guns, fishing-tackle, good, hard-riding friends, a long-necked bottle on my sideboard, an occasional client, &c., &c., &c., make it a little difficult to get from the real into the clouds again. It requires a resolute habit of self-concentration to enable a man to shut out these and all such real concerns, and give himself warmly to the nobler or more tender sort of writing—and I am slowly acquiring it."

The atmosphere in which he lived was not, it seems, altogether congenial—so far as literature was concerned—and he wrote:

Soon afterward he wrote:

The poem referred to was so beautiful that we asked and obtained permission to put it in Graham's Magazine, of which we were at that time editor. The author's name was not given, and it excited much curiosity, as but two or three of our poets were thought capable of such a performance, and there was no reason why one of them should print any thing anonymously. It was most commonly, however, attributed to Mr. Willis, at which Mr. Cooke was highly gratified. The piece, which was entitled "Emily," contained about three hundred lines, and was a feigned history of the composition of tales designed to follow it, exquisitely told, and sprinkled all along with gems that could have come from only a mine of surpassing richness. For examples:

One jocund morn:

Then the poet recited ancient lays which tell some natural tales; and then:

It was a good while before the promised contents of the book were sent to us, and Cooke wrote of the delay to a friend:

At length through his cousin and friend, John P. Kennedy—(a name that makes one in charity with all mankind)—the MS. of all the poems was sent to us. It makes a book about the size of the printed volume, written with a regular elegance to match that of the old copyists. In an accompanying letter he says:

Again he wrote:

The book was at length published, but though reviewed very favorably by the late Judge Beverly Tucker, in the Southern Literary Messenger, and by Mr. Poe, in the American Review, and much quoted and praised elsewhere, it was, on the whole, not received according to its merits or our expectations. Yet the result aroused the author's ambition, and after a few weeks he remarked in a letter:

We wrote with frankness what we thought as true, of possible pecuniary advantages from the course he proposed, and were answered:

From this time Mr. Cooke wrote much, but in a desultory way, and seemed, in a growing devotion to a few friends, and in the happiness that was in his home, to forget almost the dreams of ambition. He had commenced an historical novel to be called "Lutzen," in which that great battle was to end the adventures of his hero; this he threw aside, and his love for that age appeared in "The Chevalier Merlin," suggested by the beautiful story[Pg 303] of Charles the Twelfth, as given by Voltaire, several chapters of which appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger. In the same magazine he printed "John Carpe," "The Two Country Houses," and other tales, parts of a series in which he intended to dramatize the whole life and manners of Virginia. As for any applause that these might win for him, he wrote to his friend John R. Thompson:

The chivalric poetry had filled his mind early and long, and he was only banishing it for the more independent and beautiful growth of his nature, when his untimely death destroyed hopes of fruits which the productions of his youth seemed to precede as blossoms. He died suddenly, at his home, on Sunday, the 20th of January, 1850, at the age of thirty-three.

At the time of his death he was writing "The Women of Shakspeare," "The Chariot Race," and a political and literary satire.

Undoubtedly Philip Pendleton Cooke was one of the truest poets of our day, and what he has left us was full of promise that he would become one of the most famous. Of his love poems, this little song, written when he was scarcely more than twenty, is perhaps the finest:

FLORENCE VANE.

We cannot quote others; in the lines "To my Daughter Lilly," may be discovered the tenderness and warmth of his affections; in his Ballads, the fiery and chivalrous phase of his intelligence; in "Ugolino," his pathos; in "Life in the Autumn Woods," his love of nature; and in all his writings, the thoroughly healthy character of his mind.

As a boy and as a young man, we understand, his life was always poetical—apart, original, and commanding affectionate respect. As he grew older, and married, he became practical in his views, reaching that point in the life of genius in which its beautiful ideals take the forms of duty or become the strength of wise resolves. Toward his family, including his father, mother, brothers, and sisters, he cherished a deep and unfaltering devotion. A short time before his last illness he introduced into his household morning and evening prayers. He died, as he had lived, a pure-minded gentleman and humble Christian.

Of his personal appearance a just impression is given by the portrait at the beginning of this article. His carriage was graceful and upright; his frame vigorous and elastic, trained as he was by constant hunting in the Blue Ridge; his hair was black and curling; his eye dark and bright; his expression calm and thoughtful; his manner impressed with dignity.

DR. HUNTINGTON ON COPYRIGHT.

The author of Alice and Alban has written the following piquant letter on the important subject of International Copyright.

To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle.

As an American deeply interested in the subject of international copyright, and much struck by the fallacies of some of the speakers at a meeting of authors and publishers, recently reported in the London journals, may I, as the subject is fresh so long as it is undecided, beg of your courtesy a little space to point them out.

Let me begin by admitting the force of most that was said by the distinguished chairman on that occasion, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. No man living, perhaps, has a better right than he to complain of my countrymen, to whose intellectual pleasures and moral instruction he has contributed ever since I was a boy, out of the hard labor of his brains—helping to enrich our publishers and booksellers, and to stimulate all the trade connected with bookmaking, and vivifying the circulation of magazines and newspapers—for all which he has never received a penny. The same may be said of Dickens, whose works are of course as familiar to us as to you, and whose characters have become a part of our stock of ideas, more precious than the gold from our new-discovered mines. It is true that neither of these great men has benefited us so much as he might have done if we had paid for our pleasure honorably, for the influence of genius is like that of grace—the fertilizing shower falls in vain on the arid, stony places of selfish and unjust enjoyment. Charles Dickens has never received a penny from us, although we insulted our unpaid creditor when he came among us by asking him to Boz balls and dinners, given on a scale of splendor which showed how well we could have afforded to pay our debt if we had been honest enough to have admitted it. How degrading—how incongruous—for a great nation, such as we boast of being, to be thus the literary pensioners, the intellectual beggars of England, meanly enjoying what we won't pay for? An American would scorn to be fed or clothed gratis; he would "stand treat" with the world; yet he lets an Englishman (of all men!) gratuitously amuse his leisure, satisfy his thirst for knowledge, and clothe the nakedness of his mind. If Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, or Mr. Dickens, were to offer to pay for a pair of trousers for Brother Jonathan, he would knock[Pg 304] him down; or if Miss Bell, or whatever is the name of the lady who wrote "Jane Eyre," and her sisters, pretended to make him up a dozen fine shirts as a charity, I think he would go out of his senses. He would rather go bare to the end of his days than owe such an obligation to any he or she Briton in existence; but what are such favors to those which he unblushingly accepts, year after year, from Sir Edward Bulwer and Miss Bell?

But I think, sir, with submission, that an injury has been done to the cause of copyright by resting it on false abstract grounds, which cannot be, and never have been, carried out. If a man has a rightful monopoly in his book, merely because he has produced it, your law is unjust and piratical in fixing a term to copyright—for why should you take away a man's property after he has enjoyed it a certain number of years? On the contrary, one would suppose that the longer he has enjoyed it the more perfect his right, and the greater the wrong to deprive him of it. Time converts even what is unjustly acquired into a legitimate possession—how much more that which the owner has actually created? I would put the matter on simple, concrete grounds, which all men can appreciate. The production of books is an element of civilization, by the common consent of nations. Books cannot be produced unless in some way they procure the authors a subsistence. And whoever produces by his labor a beneficial thing, is entitled to a reasonable compensation from those who are thereby benefited. In former times, when readers were scarce, as copies were costly, the rich, or sovereigns, supported authors directly, by pensions or otherwise. It is now conceded that the best mode of rewarding them is by allowing them an exclusive copyright in their works, and all civilized nations do so. But this mode of remuneration being once established, a foreign author, coming personally, or in his work, into a country, "has as much moral right to his book as he has to his baggage," and it is as barbarous to plunder him of the one as of the other. Why, when was there a time in Europe, or even in Asia or the antique world, that princes and states did not receive and cherish, and nobly reward, foreign men of letters? Are they to be more ignobly treated now that the people have become patrons? But, if deaf to the voice of honor, hear that of justice. Those who enjoy their works are bound to remunerate them for what they have produced at a great expenditure of time, money, and soul-wearing labor. That "the laborer is worthy of his hire," is a divine sentence which sooner or later will judge all those by whom that hire is by fraud "kept back." A country which refuses a fair copyright to authors, whether native or foreign, condemns itself to barbarism. It cultivates in itself a spirit of violence, aggravated by ingratitude to benefactors. There is, too, a sort of indelicacy in this injury, which even the law of reprisal cannot excuse. The benefit which the author of genius confers is something personal. You might as well, if some savage tribe ravished your women, condemn its females, when captured, to insult and dishonor.

Moreover, to refuse copyright to any class of authors (and here, again, I agree with Sir Bulwer), is to refuse it, in part, to all. The native author is robbed of his just hire by such a law, as much as the foreigner. I am compelled by the existing law of American copyright to part with my books for a sum which is under their natural price, and which is not a remunerating price, because I am undersold by reprints for which the authors are paid nothing. Look the fact in the face, ye readers of cheap reprints, who are unwilling to abandon an unjust privilege, which affords you so much pleasure at so low a rate. I have written a book. I have spent years in writing or learning to write it. Perhaps I could do nothing else. The influence of the literary atmosphere in which all who read the English language are forced to live, acting on my special organization, has made literary production a necessary resource. It is the same as if I were a poor shirt-maker, over whose sorrows a Hood has taught you to weep and be indignant. At all events, you approve of my writing, or you would not have read my book so extensively. And yet, because you can refuse to pay foreign authors for books of the same kind, you oblige me to take a nominal price for mine—a price for which it could not be produced by any man living, and less than it would command if you honestly paid for such labor in other instances. You have beaten me down most unfairly. I consider it so; and if every one of the 10 or 12,000 buyers of the cheap edition of "Lady Alice" were to send me a "quarter" (1s.) by mail, I should regard it as a simple restitution; nor would the sum total cover my expenses while writing it.

So far, then, Sir Edward Lytton and myself (if it is not too great presumption in me to join myself with him) cordially agree. And further, it is a most nonsensical and absurd policy for a country thus to swamp its native literature, and to depress and degrade the whole class of native writers. No nation can afford to let foreigners write for it; it would be as unwise as to let them fight its battles. I may add that no nation can afford to embitter its own writers against itself by producing in their minds a sense of injustice. Strong as our feeling of nationality undoubtedly is, it will not stand this for ever. It has seemed strange to some that an American should have written such a book as "Lady Alice," the author of which appears, at first sight, to have expatriated his mind, if not his heart. His being an episcopal clergyman accounts for it in part—for the Church is essentially of Old England, and its clergy and more devoted members are morally domiciled in England, with whose institutions and social system they have a stronger sympathy than with those of their own country. Moreover, for years, he lived only among Englishmen of that class which is most intensely attached to things as they are—a part of the time in England itself. These circumstances made the thing possible. But despair of obtaining any thing like a fair copyright for an American book made it actual—led him to lay aside a projected American story, and try his hand at an English novel, with a bent less serious: at first, indeed, not without some idea of caricature, in a gay, lawless, audacious spirit, in defiance of cant of every kind: but the calm, methodical, somewhat mechanical ηθος of actual English life, when he saw it and felt its restraints, tamed down these peculiarities somewhat. The result was a book which truly excited more surprise than sympathy in England—but which, in America, proved its real nationality by bursting[Pg 305] in a trice all the bonds of clique, and, in spite of its acknowledged faults, securing near a hundred thousand readers in a few months. If copyright had been protected as it ought, I should have been reimbursed by so large a sale; but, as it was, even this successful book paid me less than a day laborer could have earned in the time I was writing it, in any part of the States.

But now I want Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton and Mr. Colburn to tell me what good it will do English authors and publishers for you to imitate in this respect the injustice and folly of your transatlantic cousins. Because "literature is in a depressed state," which Sir Edward asserts to be a fact—and because Mr. Colburn cannot afford to give one hundred pounds for a book for which once he would have given £1000—they propose, if I understand them, to have recourse to an unlimited pirating of American literature. I should think (if your British pride will tolerate the expression of my opinion) that the true remedy would be to give a stringent copyright to American authors. Pray which injured the English book-market most—Mr. Colburn's issue of a few hundreds of "Lady Alice" at a guinea and a half, or Mr. Bohn's issue of as many thousands of Mayo's "Kaloolah" at a shilling? Or do they think, as Sir E. Bulwer Lytton seems to imply, that, except Cooper and Irving, we have no authors whose works are readable in Britain? "Typee," and "The Scarlet Letter," and "The Reveries of a Bachelor," and the two works above mentioned, tell a different story. Who can deny the genius and artistic power of Hawthorne, or the clear English simplicity of his style? And if Ik Marvel falls much behind Geoffrey Crayon, we, their countrymen, are no judges—although it is true that the former has fallen upon an affected age. I admit our deterioration. Or is it supposed that we shall cease producing if the possibility of English copyright is taken away? That would be a great mistake. Men who have a vocation for it will write, well or ill, even if they starve, as London garrets can testify. And there is no danger of our starving absolutely. Successful books pay their authors, not adequately, but enough to keep soul and body together. In light literature (so-called, perhaps, because it demands entire devotion and unceasing toil to arrive at excellence in it)—in light literature, which pays best here as well as elsewhere, there is a distinct demand for native works, which all the competition of the cheap pamphlet novels of the Harpers cannot wholly extinguish, and it is by the feeble, but real aid of this national taste that we exist. For my part, I feel a sort of Coriolanus pride in having got nothing, as I may say, for a book which had an unprecedented run; and if my countrymen object, as some of them do, to its principles, I tell them fairly that beggars cannot be choosers. I can live, thank Heaven, in many ways. I could not, indeed, keep school—as my countrymen, I believe, think every literary man should, the better to amuse them at his own expense. Two such drains on the cerebro-nervous system would soon lay me beneath the sod. But I can invest what remains of my patrimony in wild land, till it for my bread, and write a tale every winter, in defiance of the buccaneers.

But suppose that we continue to write (as we shall, depend on it), and that our impracticable Congress—from the difficulty of getting it to look at any question not bearing upon "Who is to be the next President?" or from the general apathy in regard to the injuries of authors, and want of perception as to the important interests of the heart—will not or does not pass an international copyright law, what sense or what honesty will there be in your strangling yourselves meanwhile by permitting Mr. Bohn his black-flag reprisals? Whom do you injure by this species of retaliation? First, and chiefly, your own authors and publishers, and your own literature (and, therefore, you must abandon such a policy sooner or later); and next, your friends on this side the water. For what does our government care if our native authors, even of the highest ability, earn less than common stevedores? Not a rush. Do the people enjoy our works with a less magnanimous gusto, because we have coined our brains and hearts in composing them for bread and patched elbows? Will they be less, in their own estimation, the greatest, the freest, the wisest, and the most enlightened nation upon earth? You retaliate, gentlemen, by injuring those whose sufferings (greater than yours) are already disregarded by the power you would influence; and if you ruined them, you would not ruffle one self-complacent feather of the American eagle. You but do what you can to depress and extinguish the only class of Americans who have a direct interest in getting you what you want, and who are already as eager to obtain it as men usually are to protect themselves from ruinous competition. I do not know what you expect from such a method, unless you think that our government, which has no pity on its native men of letters, will be touched by the distresses of yours.

Believe me, further, that it is the most unlikely way to succeed with the American people, to offer them an international copyright as a matter of bargain. They immediately suspect a design of obtaining an advantage for you, without any real equivalent to themselves. Show them, by granting a free and perfect copyright to all the world, on the same terms as your own subjects, that you regard such a course as the true policy of every state (which it is), and you will be much more likely to gain a hearing. I see nothing in this movement against foreigners getting a copyright, but selfishness overreaching itself.

The Americans are sometimes obtuse to appeals to their sense of justice, when they have an immediate interest in repudiating the claim. I admit it with regret, but it cannot be denied. They do not know how to relinquish the present advantages of a cheap pirated literature—forgetting that the endless reading of cheap books is a vice, and that this deluge of foreign under-priced novels and magazines, good, bad, and indifferent, is washing away every manly national taste. But on the other hand you are too grasping. It is undignified and unbecoming. Why should you so eagerly clutch at a foreign sale for your works, as to sacrifice what you can secure—freedom from injurious competition at home? For my own part (and I am sure I speak the sentiments of every American writer of respectability), give me on this side of the Atlantic, what you may have on yours at pleasure—a fair chance, without being under-bid by pirates—and I ask no more. I will cheerfully relinquish all the advantage to be[Pg 306] drawn from an English sale. Without vanity, justly as we are charged with it, or boasting (our national infirmity—heaven knows we came honestly by it), all we want is "a fair field" at home, "and no favor," and we will write books, if not intrinsically so good as those of English authors, yet more congenial to the tastes, and better adapted to supply the intellectual wants, of our countrymen.

To conclude: although the American people appear at times obtuse, as I have said, on the question of justice, and take, as in this instance, a "mighty narrow" view of expediency, they are very open to an appeal to their generosity. Present a bill—above all, an unusual bill—to Brother Jonathan, and he may dispute it, or turn his back on you with all the coolness imaginable; but offer to contribute your sovereign for those poor devils of authors, and he is up to the gentlemanly thing—he will cover your subscription with an eagle. I should be glad to persuade him to do justice under the idea that it was a sort of charity, convinced as I am that, as soon as he had done it, he would see the true nature of the transaction, and blush to have ever stood out about so plain a thing. You Englishmen pretend, even in your national capacity, to believe the Bible (I wish it were true of either us or you). There is one passage which I commend to your consideration, as bearing directly on the practical solution of this question, and sustaining my view of it by a sentence which cannot fail: "Give and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal shall it be measured to you again." And there is another maxim more universal still, which among us is thus familiarly expressed: "Do as you would be done by." By reversing Lord Campbell's decision, you will act ungenerously, that's certain, and I think, unjustly, you will injure your own writers more than ours, and rob us of one of our strongest arguments.

I remain, sir, very respectfully yours,

THE AUTHOR OF "LADY ALICE."
New-York, July 26.

"THE SCIENCE OF DECEPTION."

This is the title of a chapter in "The Age of Veneer," a series of papers appearing from month to month in Fraser's Magazine. At the beginning of it a certain preeminence is claimed for England which some have thought belonged to our own country, but we are not unwilling to yield the distinction:

In this series of papers on the Age of Veneer, a general confession of national sins and weaknesses is made by John Bull, and he is shown to have as discerning an apprehension for his own character as he ever had for that of any of his neighbors. The "Age of Veneer" is a happy title, and it gives alone a better idea of English society and manners than can be derived from some hundreds of volumes on the subject that have been printed within our recollection.

[Pg 307]

ARTS AMONG THE AZTECS AND INDIANS.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

BY THOMAS EWBANK

United States Commissioner of Patents, author of "Treatise on Hydraulics", &c.

To the antiquary and student of ethnology on this continent there are few subjects more interesting than those early industrial arts, which, better than any thing else, illustrate the civilization of the Aztecs, and their rude neighbors, the aborigines of the more northern parts of the country. An attempt is made in the following pages to define, in certain respects, the extent, and justly to represent the character, of those efforts, made before the Discovery, and repeated, with more or less uniformity, by portions of the American races until the present time. I have copied from the great work of Lord Kingsborough on Mexican Antiquities, four uncouth figures, of which the originals are native drawings sent to Spain by Antonio de Mendoza, the successor of Cortes, and first viceroy of New Spain. It will be confessed that few things could give us a more correct impression of the condition and character of the peoples subdued by Cortes and Pizarro than we may derive from these pictures.

Aztec Goldsmith at work. From Mendoza's Collection.

In this drawing the artist has represented a workman in the act of soldering or annealing a piece of plate. Except the rude style in which the native limners portrayed the human figure, the cut is a fac-simile of Pharaonic profiles of the same class of workmen, and of modern goldsmiths of Africa, Hindustan, Java, Sumatra, Ceylon, and Asia generally. The small portable furnace, the blowpipe, the position of the operator, the scantiness of his apparel, and the absence of any bench, are common to all; the only observable difference is in the apron (suspended by long shoulder-straps) of the American, who, in this respect, seems to have advanced beyond his brethren of the other hemisphere. Had the draughtsman possessed the skill of a modern artist, and painted the tools and processes used, in fusing the metal, in spreading it out into plates, working it into shape, and chasing in the ornaments, in drawing wire, and fabricating the famous old Panama chains, &c., many other problems of Aztec economy and art would have been solved. The smiths of Mexico, Central America, and Peru, were expert in the use of the blowpipe; and this is not to be wondered at, if, as early Spanish writers report, the bellows was unknown among them. In specimens of their industry which are extant the soldering rivals any thing executed in modern workshops, and seams often challenge and sometimes defy the keenest scrutiny to detect them. Native smiths still use the pipe.

Every enlightened worker in metals must feel interested in thus beholding an ancient red man in the actual use of the blowpipe, to say nothing of the illustration the figure affords of the state of the arts in ante-Columbian epochs, and of ancient life in this part of the world. The use of the blowpipe has been inferred from metalline remains discovered in sepulchral tumuli of the Mississippi valley. In Caleb Atwater's Antiquities of the West, (Columbus, 1833, pages 92-3,) mention is made of sixty copper beads, found in one of the mounds at Grave Creek, near Wheeling. "They were made of a coarse wire, which appeared to have been hammered out, not drawn, and were cut off at unequal lengths; they were soldered together in an awkward manner, the centres of some of them uniting with the edges of others; they were incrusted with verdigris, but the inside of them was pure copper; which fact shows that the ancient inhabitants were not wholly unacquainted with the use of metals." As it is admitted that brass was not known to the mound-builders, an analysis of the alloy that constituted the brazen solder here alluded to would be a positive addition to the little knowledge we have gleaned of these early native workers and of their arts.

No matter how far man is separated from his fellows, either on the earth's surface or by time, the general uniformity of his nature is stamped on all his normal devices. Primitive inventions are universally similar. Under agreeing circumstances and conditions, the same means are hit upon to produce the same ends. Kindred trains of thought, of resources and results, characterize the origin and early progress of the arts every where. They begin in the same wants, and suggest the same ideas, which are carried out in substantially the same ways. Still, when a primitive people is found shut from communion with others—isolated from the rest of the world and deriving no suggestions from it—some shades of difference, more or less strongly defined, often mark means they discover, in common with others, and this whether occupiers of small islands or of widespread continents. But after all, this is only what may be called a variety of expression, the same general idea being differently brought out, just as in speech the same thoughts are displayed in various idioms. All arts and all machines are but dialects of one language—reasonings and conclusions in tangible forms and figures—a universal speech, understood by all men.

Of the diverse exhibitions of a primitive[Pg 308] and common suggestion, a more interesting example cannot well be adduced than the processes for the fabrication of thread, which have been disclosed on this half of the globe. They appear so different from others, and so remarkable, if not unique, that it may safely be said, if the first spinsters were foreigners, their mode of spinning was indigenous, however difficult, if not impossible, it may be to reconcile one suggestion with the other.

Spinning lies at the threshold of human culture. It was the first or among the first born of the arts, and was doubtless the offspring of woman's ingenuity. Through all the past ages it was within the peculiar province of the sex. In it queens and even goddesses sought to excel; one of the earliest of useful efforts, it was one of the best; till it was introduced, man was a houseless wanderer, and where it is unknown, he is still a vagabond, roaming the forest. Home and its softening and soothing influences had no existence, till woman began to twirl the spindle. Till then the fount of the arts was unopened, unthought of, undreamt of. A universal acquirement, it is one in which little variation in details could be looked for among uncultivated tribes. It is, however, singular, that the thread-making idea has been less skilfully developed by the red race than perhaps any other of their mechanical conceptions. This is a striking fact, in peoples so far advanced as were the Mexicans, Peruvians, and others.

The distaff has been identified with spinning in the eastern world from the earliest times. It dates far behind historic and was a common thing in heroic epochs. It pervades the most ancient legends, and plays a part in the remotest myths. No other instrument of domestic economy is seen through the semi-historic clouds that are about the infancy of human progress; few others could be named as belonging to lower strata of time. Common in the other hemisphere through unknown periods, it was utterly a stranger in this.

Of the offices assigned to the fates, that of Clotho was to hold the distaff, while Lachesis twirled the spindle, and Atropos determined the length of the thread. Then there was Hercules, who was playfully rapped over the head by Omphale, for his awkwardness in this service. Sardanapalus, too, endeavored to rival the son of Jupiter, by spinning among his maids. Ancient Egyptian spindles and distaffs have been recovered from the tombs; and how common they both were among the Hebrews appears in Solomon's portrait of a virtuous woman: "She seeketh wool and flax—she layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff." Both spindle and distaff were frequently dedicated to Minerva, the patroness of spinning and of the arts connected with it. The goddess was herself rudely sculptured with them in the Trojan Palladium.

A glance at these classic implements, before introducing the primitive American apparatus, will better enable us to perceive the differences existing between them, more correctly to appreciate both, and to judge how far one is allied to or could have been derived from the other.

Distaff and Spindle—Ancient Greek and Roman.

This figure is from a series of bas-reliefs representing the arts of Minerva, upon a frieze of the Forum Palladium at Rome. It exhibits the process of spinning, at the moment when the spinner has drawn out a sufficient length of thread from the distaff, and just previous to the act of taking it out of the slit on the top of the spindle, to wind it on that instrument. It is said by classic writers that the spindle was always, when in use, accompanied by the distaff, as "an indispensable part of the apparatus." The following particulars are gathered from Homer, Herodotus, Ovid, Horace, Catullus, Pliny, and others: The spindle was a stick, ten or twelve inches long, having at the top a slit or notch, by which to fix the thread at the commencement; the lower end was passed through and attached to a small but heavy disc or whirl, made of wood, stone, or metal. The weight of this and of the spindle, kept the thread at a proper tension, and the momentum while turning round kept the yarn or thread twisting in the interval of repeating the operation with the fingers. When, from the length of the thread, the spindle approached the ground, or descended below the reach of the fingers, the thread was wound on the spindle, except a short piece left for insertion in the slit, preparatory to the formation of another length. The distaff was about three times as long as the spindle, and commonly made of a reed, with an expansion near the top, over which the prepared flax or wool was placed, and secured by a ribbon or tape; the fibres being left sufficiently loose to be easily drawn out by the fingers and thumb of the spinner. Distaffs as well as spindles of gold and of ivory were ascribed to goddesses, and were presented to distinguished women.

It was quite common for ancient females to keep their spindles whirling while on their[Pg 309] way to the fountain for water, or in making short visits, &c. Some striking examples have been recorded by historians, and among them the following, by Herodotus: "As Darius, king of Persia, was sitting publicly in one of the streets of Sardis, he observed a young woman of great elegance and beauty, bearing a vessel on her head, leading a horse by a bridle fastened round her arm, and at the same time spinning some thread. Darius viewed her as she passed, with intense curiosity, observing that her employments were not those of a Persian, Lydian, nor indeed of any Asiatic female. Prompted by what he had seen, he sent some of his attendants to observe what she did with the horse. They accordingly followed her. When she came to the river, she gave the horse some water, and then filled her pitcher, and having done this, she returned by the way she came, with the pitcher of water on her head, the horse fastened by a bridle to her arm, and, as before, employed in spinning."

Distaff and Spindle—Modern Asiatic and European.

In the rural districts of old Rome, women were forbidden to spin while travelling on foot. The prohibition arose from superstitious feelings; but the practice has come down to our times, being found more or less common in Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Italy, Greece, and other parts of Europe, as also over the greater part of Asia. The shank of the distaff on such occasions was secured by a sheath or strap to the person; or, as in the preceding figure of a modern spinner, was held under the left arm.

How differently the idea has been worked out by the ancient inhabitants of this hemisphere, will appear in the two next illustrations. They are coarse and uncouth, yet of unusual interest and value in an historical survey of a people who at the Conquest stood at the head of the aborigines, but whose nationality and power have been broken, and whose arts have all but vanished before those introduced by the whites.

Aztec Girl Spinning. From Mendoza's Collection.

The figure represents a girl, six years old, learning to spin, in the presence of her mother, whose portrait is omitted. She is in the act of winding on the spindle the length of thread just spun. The spindle differs but little from those of the eastern races, its lower end being furnished with a conical weight or fly, to promote rotation, and, as it would seem, for its pointed extremity to rest like a pivot in some small cavity while revolving; for the spindle, when in use, was not raised from the ground: the reverse of the eastern practice, in which the motion ceased the moment the ground was touched by the spindle. The basket-like base on which the fly rests, is the Mexican symbol of the ground, though possibly it may here represent an implement or utensil also. The bunch of cotton to be spun, after being suitably prepared, was held in the left hand, and the length of thread formed at one operation was determined by the distance the bunch could be drawn away from the spindle, this being also the converse of the Asiatic and European practices, in which the distaff, and cotton on it, are at rest—the length of thread depending on the descent of the spindle from them. We know that domestic industry was strictly enforced by the Mexicans, particularly on girls; and of this, these cuts are remarkable illustrations.

In the next, a female adult (as the headdress shows) is portrayed at the moment when a full length of thread has been twisted, or she is in the act of finishing it. To this spindle two conical weights were attached, unless the under one was fixed and had a cavity on the top to admit the point of the upper one to play in it. The process differs but little from that of the present Pimos and Maricopas tribes, as mentioned hereafter, except in[Pg 310] the hollow in which the spindle turns. It is obvious that this practice is incompatible with walking; locomotion can only be associated with a spindle suspended by the thread, and whirling free above the ground. In this absence of the distaff, and especially in twirling the spindle like a top on the floor, the process can never be viewed as one derived from abroad; but rather as a result solely of primitive ingenuity. No people, civilized or savage, of the eastern hemisphere, are known to have thus embarrassed the movements of the spindle. The idea and the practice appear to be purely American. No ancient American spinner is represented at work either when seated or standing—much less when walking.

Aztec Woman Spinning. From Mendoza's Collection.

For the following illustration and description the patent office is indebted to Mr. Squier, late United States Chargé to Nicaragua. It is interesting as showing how little the old native process has been changed.

The common foot-wheel is extensively used in spinning cotton in Nicaragua; but the simple contrivance in use before the Conquest is not yet entirely supplanted. It consists of a spindle of hard wood, sixteen or eighteen inches in length, which passes through and is fixed to a disc of heavy wood that serves as a fly, by adding momentum to the whirling spindle. The lower end of the spindle is rounded or rudely pointed, and when in use the instrument is placed in a calabash or clean iron kettle.

The mode of operation is as follows: The spinster is seated on a stool, with a bunch of loose cotton already prepared, in her lap. From this she twists a thread with her finger, and attaches the end to the spindle at the top, giving it an energetic twirl that keeps it going for some time. Meanwhile she disengages and draws out the cotton, from her lap, with both hands. The length of thread spun (from two to three feet) is then wound around the spindle, which is again set in motion, and another length added in the same manner.

In the accompanying sketch, b is the spindle, c the thread already twisted, d the disc or fly, and f the calabash. When the spindle is not in motion, the calabash prevents it from falling over, the fly resting against the sides.

Modern Spinning Apparatus of the Central American Indians.

In the regions of the Gila and Colorado the natives have been little disturbed by Europeans. The Spaniards never extended their iron sway over them, and, like the Araucanians of Peru, they have been supposed to retain many of the customs and arts of their ancestors. This is to some extent true. The country soon after the Conquest was reported to be occupied by a civilized people, who followed agriculture and dwelt in stone houses. Colonel Emory, in his Notes of a Military Reconnaissance, from Fort Leavenworth in Missouri to San Diego in California, including part of the Arkansas, Del Norte, and Gila Rivers, (Washington, 1848,) met with remains of stone and adobe houses, scattered over extensive tracts of country—sometimes continued over ten, fifteen, and even twenty miles. The Pecos tribe, he remarks, have preserved alive, till within a few years, the sacred fire that glowed on the ancient altars; nor is it certain that it is not yet preserved, for a few Indians took it with them to the Pueblos of Zuni. The name of Montezuma is said to be as familiar to those Indians, to the Apaches, Navajos, and others, as that of Washington is to us.

"Turning from some old ruins towards the Pimos village," says Colonel Emory, "we urged our guide to go fast, as we wished to see as much of his people as the day would permit. We were at once impressed with the[Pg 311] beauty and order of the arrangements for irrigating and draining the land. Corn, wheat, and cotton are the crops of this peaceful and intelligent people. All the crops have been gathered in, and the stubbles show that they have been luxuriant. The cotton has been picked and stacked for drying on the tops of the sheds. The fields are subdivided by ridges of earth into rectangles of about 200 x 100 feet for the convenience of irrigating. The fences are stakes wattled with willow and mezquite, and in this particular set an example of economy in agriculture worthy to be followed by the Mexicans, who never use fences at all." The thatched houses of the Pimos are dome-shaped, and of wicker work, about six feet high, and from twenty to fifty feet in diameter. In front is usually a large arbor, on the top of which cotton in the pod is piled for drying.

A Pimos spinster was observed at work. Her apparatus was more simple than that in the preceding figures, but closely allied to them; in fact the same, with the exception of the calabash or basket, for which a more ready substitute, one always ready, was adopted. "A woman was seated on the ground under the shade of one of the cotton-sheds; her left leg was tucked under her, and her foot was turned sole upwards; between her big toe and the next was a spindle about eighteen inches long, with a single fly of four or six inches; now and then she gave it a twist in a dexterous manner, and at its end was drawn a coarse cotton thread. Such was their spinning jenny." This application of the toes is like that practised by the wives and daughters of the Hindoo weavers: the axles of their light cane reels are thus held when winding off the thread. The foot however is in front of its owner, and in a natural position, nor does the stick grasped by the toes revolve.

The Pimos and Maricopas are in their habits, agriculture, religion, and manufactures, the same.

Indians Spinning Coarse Thread.

A process of undoubted antiquity, and occasionally followed by modern Indians, is shown in the above engraving. The spinner holds in the left hand, horizontally, a short piece of hollow reed or cane, within which the spindle is twirled by the fingers and thumb of the right hand. Sometimes a cross stick or handle is attached, as represented in the figure. A second person performs the part of a distaff, which, as the thread lengthens, recedes from the spinner, or the spinner from it. A section of this primitive apparatus is separately portrayed.

Mr. Van—a delegate now in Washington from the Cherokee nation, to obtain a settlement of claims on the United States for their lands in Georgia, Alabama, &c.—states that the large old spinning-wheel has, to his knowledge, been in the possession of the Cherokees nearly fifty years. His mother, a Creek, and over a hundred years of age, he believes, used to spin with it in her youth. Mr. Van has seen Indians twist coarse thread with apparatus like that here represented, and which in all probability formed one of the contrivances that slowly led to the whirling spindle, in both hemispheres.

A Comanche Spinning.

For the next two illustrations of spinning, by the Navajoes, Camanches, and other tribes of New Mexico, the Patent Office is indebted to Judge Peters, of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

We have here another instance in which the thread-making idea has manifested itself among the red race, and a very interesting one. The spinner has a small stick, which she holds horizontally in one hand, and on it winds the thread, as on a spindle, as fast as it is spun. The bunch of cotton is itself twirled round by means of a short and small rod, passed through the lower part, with its ends projecting. A pebble is commonly fastened to the middle of this stick (d), and serves as a fly to keep up the motion, and[Pg 312] assist, by its weight, in drawing out the thread. To keep the stone and stick in their places, a piece of yarn is wound loosely round the bunch. The length of thread is seldom over six or eight inches, before it is wound on the stick. In this singular process, the classical mode is completely reversed—the spindle, or that which corresponds to it, is held at rest, and the distaff put in motion, in which respect the operation is unique. The idea of increasing the momentum of the whirling mass by the introduction of a weight into its centre is here realized.

Navajoes Spinning.

In the case illustrated below, two pieces of board or shingle are pinned to opposite sides of the fork of a small tree or stump. A spindle (a smooth rod ten or twelve inches in length) is passed through, and made to turn in them, as in two journals. See the section S, where a, a is the spindle and b, b, the boards, and c a pin to keep the spindle in its place. To whirl the spindle, a cross stick, d, is tied to the large end. Sometimes a stone is folded in a piece of cloth, and fastened to each end of the cross stick, which answers the purpose of a rude flywheel. When a suitable stick, having a branch at right angles, can be procured, the cross stick and spindle are of one piece, as at S. A notch is made at the small end of the spindle, where the thread unites to it, and thus, while one girl turns the spindle, another, with a bunch of loose cotton, supplies it, and, as the thread lengthens, gradually recedes from it. As soon as a full length is twisted, it is wound round the spindle, another length is added, and so on, till the spindle is fully charged. The thread is then[Pg 313] wound off into a hank, and the spindle set again for working.

These illustrations of primitive art possess a deeper and a more extensive interest than that of their relation to a few Indian tribes; they are types of thought, more or less common to the species, to barbarous and semi-civilized people of all times; such as we ourselves would adopt, were we thrown on our own resources, without any knowledge or recollection on the subject.

Aztec Girl Weaving. From Mendoza's Collection.

It is difficult to determine from this figure whether the shuttle was developed in ancient Mexico. It is not represented, and appears not to have existed any more than the distaff. The loom is like those now used by American Indians. Colonel Emory, after speaking of the Pimos spinning, says, "Led on by this primitive display, I asked for their loom, by pointing to the thread and then to the blanket girded about the woman's loins. A fellow stretched in the dust, sunning himself, rose up leisurely, and untied a bundle, which I had supposed to be a bow and arrow. This little package with four stakes in the ground, was his loom, and he stretched his cloth and commenced the process of weaving. He had no shuttle, the warp being passed across the woof, a thread at a time, by a long wooden needle. One of the rods in the preceding figure is doubtless designed to represent a needle, and was used in the same way." If the figures here introduced truly indicate the progress made by the Aztecs in spinning and weaving, their advance was very moderate; and though very creditable work might be made with this weaving apparatus, by individual skill and patience, it would seem that few or no attempts had been made to render it more facile and efficient. The same remark is, however, applicable to the looms of Asia and Africa. It is worth noting, that the dress of females, pictured above, indicates a decided improvement on that of less civilized tribes. Aztec women and girls wore pantalettes, and a species of tunic, with short sleeves and ornamental borders, not unlike the Chinese female costume, except in the shortness of the sleeves. Amulets or keepsakes, suspended over the neck and resting on the bosom, seem also to have been common.

Modern Peruvian Indians spin without the distaff, and their loom is precisely like the ancient one just represented—the shuttle, or what answers the purpose of one, being a long thorn needle, which is passed through the woof, thread by thread. Every piece is woven of the precise width wanted, whether for garments, cocoa-bags, or any thing else, with no waste by cutting. Ancient specimens of cloth, of excellent execution, have been found in their tombs. The length of the needles varies with the width of the piece to be woven.

That very fine fabrics were produced in Old Mexico, and by implements little if at all better than those here figured, is doubtless true. The highly colored accounts by the conquerors are believed to have been fully warranted by the fineness of the goods which they saw. Indeed, some of the richest of modern shawls and dresses, turned out of the looms of Persia, Egypt, and Hindostan, are but a degree superior to those of the Aztecs. Personal tact and skill are every thing with semi-civilized artisans. The ancient spindle and loom of the East, singularly enough, are still preserved and used for special purposes in modern Rome, just as they were thirty or forty centuries ago. A recent writer on the Pallium (an ecclesiastical robe of lamb's wool) says, there stands about a mile outside the Porta Pia, on the road to Tivoli, an old convent of nuns, attached to the still more ancient church of St. Agnes; that these nuns are poor, and rarely receive any of Rome's high-born damsels to their lonely and neglected cloister; but that they have a small paddock appendant to the monastery, and therein keep a couple of sacred lambs, (not necessarily of the Merino breed,) and are proud and happy ministrants of their wool for the texture of this noble decoration, spinning it, not by any new-fangled jennies, but on the old patriarchal spindle, and weaving it in a loom of which the pattern might date from the days of Penelope.

In conclusion, we may remark, of this subject, that to the substitution of circular for straight motions, and of continuous for alternating ones, may be attributed nearly all the conveniences and elegances of civilized life. It is not too much to assert that the present advanced state of science and the arts is due to revolving mechanism. We may speak of the wonders effected by steam and other motive agents, but of what value would they[Pg 314] have been without this means of their employment? The applications of rotary in place of other movements are conspicuous in modern history, from those which propel steamships through the water and locomotives over land, to those which are employed in the manufacture of pins and the pointing of needles. It is by this principle that the irregular motion of the ancient flail and the primeval sieve, has become uniform, in threshing, bolting, and winnowing machines; and hence our circular saws, shears, and slitting mills; the abolition of the mode of spreading out metal into sheets with the hammer, for the more expeditious one of passing it through rollers or flatting mills; and the revolving oars, or paddle wheels, for the propulsion of vessels—the process of inking type with rollers in place of balls, the rotary printing presses, and revolving machines for planing iron and other metals, instead of the ancient process of chipping off superfluous portions with chisels, and that still more tedious of smoothing the surfaces with files. But in few things is the effect of this change of motion more conspicuous than in the modern apparatus for preparing, spinning, and weaving vegetable and other fibres into fabrics for clothing. The simple application of rotary motion to these processes has changed the domestic economy of the world, and increased the general comforts of our race a hundred fold.

The birth of the arts here, and not least among them that of the humble one of spinning, has relation to a problem in American ethnology of great and increasing interest—the early occupancy or first peopling of this hemisphere. Were there through countless ages no eyes or hearts here to respond to the smiling heaven, none to taste the teeming fruits or inhale the aroma of flowers? Was the placid atmosphere never moved by the prattle and laughter of children, the songs of birds, or the sudden start of quadrupeds arrested by the presence of the race ordained to rule over them, until a few straggling members of that race arrived (perhaps driven hither by tempests) from abroad, to claim the splendid heritage? If the red man was not indigenous to the soil, if the first settlers were aliens, how natural the desire to know who they were, whence they came, and how, and when, and over what regions extended the first rights of preëmption! to ask whether they left no memorials in the languages that have come down to us, in legends, manners, customs, traditions, religious observances and rites, no signs in arts, utensils, arms, or other relics extant? whether they left no marks in earth-works—those most lasting of records—in quarries and entrenchments, in mines, tumuli, and mounds?

It is reasonable to suppose—and difficult to suppose otherwise—that if no human form was ever reflected from the surfaces of these lakes and rivers, no human voice heard in these forests, the imprint of no human foot left on these sands, until colonized from another continent, the arts of that continent must have been considerably advanced before the means of transport, or inducements to emigrate, were evolved; and under any circumstances, a knowledge of the most essential, would be brought over. Of these, such as related to domestic habits and the occupations of women, would be prominent, and among these spinning most of all. When once introduced, this art could not have been lost, indispensable as it is to the savage and demi-savage condition, and the original process or processes, whencesoever derived, unless superseded by better, would have been continued by every generation.

Now, if the mothers of the American race came from any of the early advanced sections or outskirts of Eastern civilization, they brought the distaff and spindle with them, yet nothing of the kind was found at the conquest. It cannot of course be imagined that they, or their descendants, could have been induced to throw the former away, and to embarrass the movements of the latter in a calabash or basket. Efficient previous practice, and acquired habits and expertness, could never have been laid aside for such rude, and laborious, and unproductive substitutes. We know that the distaff and spindle have never been lost where once known, in the old world. Neither civil commotions or revolutions, nor duration of time, affected them, in Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Italy, Carthage, Persia, Scythia, Asia-Minor, or any of the great or small theatres of past history. The laws, learning, science, arts, and races, which once flourished in those countries, have mostly vanished, but women still spin there as they did thirty or forty centuries ago; and so it is here also. The principal mechanical devices of the old Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Peruvians, Chilians, &c., are no longer known; the means by which the stone architecture, the basaltic and porphyritic sculptures of Cusco, Uxmal, Copan, Palenque, and other Aztec remains scattered over the continent, were achieved, are a puzzle; yet the household labors of Indian women in those lands remain unchanged, they spin and weave with the same apparatus, and embroider, as did their kindred in and before the times of Atahualpa and Montezuma.

Admitting that repeated emigrations took place at periods remote as that of the Iliad, and up to the twelfth century of our era, that arrivals, designed or fortuitous, thus occurred, on either the Atlantic or the Pacific, or both coasts—we might still more confidently expect to find the distaff and spindle of the other hemisphere domiciled in this. If they were brought at all, it was in hands practiced in their use, and tenacious of their worth. But from the Cape of Storms in the south, to the limits of human abodes in the[Pg 315] north, instead of these the most awkward contrivances prevailed when the whites came, and such still are found to prevail. The inference therefore seems inevitable that the first colonists, and their successors for many ages, came before spinning was known in their native places, or at least before the distaff had been added to the spindle; and that the art, as practised by the Aztecs and their successors in Central America at the present day, is purely of aboriginal development, and of remote antiquity, and had not before the Conquest come in contact with the better processes of the other hemisphere.

Of the three epochs of human condition indicated by the materials of which economical implements and weapons have been made—stone, bronze, and iron—it is uncertain whether the distaff was ever developed under the first. The probabilities are that it was not. In the remote periods in which it is mentioned, some of those who possessed it had advanced far into the second, and some had entered on the third. The great mass of the occupants of this hemisphere at the time of the Conquest were toiling in the cycle of stone; while the Mexicans and Peruvians, the most advanced of the red nations, had discovered and applied the properties of copper and some of its alloys: had entered on the second, but had not progressed far into it. Had they possessed bronze weapons equal to those of the heroic ages, they might yet have preserved, in a measure, their independence and nationality.

Clothing is second only to food, and the clothing of nations in any degree civilized is of woven thread. The all but paramount importance of the manufacture of thread materials—including that made of flax, silk, cotton, worsted, and other fibrous materials—affords matter for great surprise. Compare the products of the distaff and spindle of old with that of our mills, and how difficult to realize the change which modern mechanism has wrought! The yearly amount, the lineal extent, of thread now made—who can measure it? It would reach from our planet to the planets in the farthest regions of space, and almost suffice for a net-work to include the whole system. Turn from the wood-cut illustrations here given of ancient and not yet obsolete processes, to modern manufactures, and it would seem that while in the space of time which it took Grecian Helens, Syrian Naahmahs, or Mexican Penelopes, to prepare an annual supply of clews for their families, the myriads of spindles now twirling, by steam and water, produce enough to use the Asteroids as balls on which to wind it and as bobbins from which to reel it. Even a century ago, a single mill, driven by water, is said to have spun or reeled 73,726 yards of silk—i.e., between forty and fifty miles—at each revolution of the motive axle.

Patent Office, Washington, September, 1851.

ORIGINAL POEMS BY BARRY CORNWALL AND W. C. BENNETT.[8]

TO THE AUTHOR OF EOTHEN.

ARIADNE.

A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.[9]

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.

CHAPTER XLII.

Mrs. Hazleton was an observer of all small particulars. On the present occasion she had been kept alone fully ten minutes in the drawing-room, and she was not at all pleased with this want of alacrity. Though her face was as smooth as ever when she entered the sick room, she saw that a change of feeling, or at least a change of purpose, had taken place, and that Lady Hastings felt embarrassed by a consciousness which she might not choose to communicate. But success had made her bold, and she loved to steer her course through agitated waters.

"Well, my dear friend," she said, with the sweet tones of her voice falling from her lips like drops of liquid honey, "you do not seem quite so well to-day. I hope this business which you were to undertake has not agitated you. Or perhaps you have not executed your intention. It could be very well put off until you are better."

This was intended to lead to confession; she suspected some shame at a want of resolution. But Lady Hastings remained silent, playing with her rings, and Mrs. Hazleton, a little angry—but very little—gave her one of those delightful little scratches which she was practised in administering, saying, "No one knew any thing about your intentions but myself; so no one can accuse you of weakness or vacillation."

"I care very little," said Lady Hastings, most untruly, "of what people accuse me. I shall of course form my own resolutions from what I know, and execute them or not, dear Mrs. Hazleton, according to circumstances—which are ever changing. What is inexpedient one day may be quite expedient the next."

Now, no one was more fully aware than Mrs. Hazleton that expediency is always the argument of weak minds, and that changing circumstances afford every day fair excuses to men and to multitudes for every kind of weakness under the sun. Her belief was strengthened that Lady Hastings had not acted as she had promised her to act, and she replied, with an easy, quiet, half-pitying smile, "Well, it is not of the slightest consequence whether you do it now, or a week hence, or not at all. The worst that could come would be Emily's marriage with Marlow, and if you do not care about it, who should? I take it for granted, of course, that you have not acted in the matter so boldly and decidedly as we proposed."

There was an implied superiority in Mrs. Hazleton's words and manner which Lady Hastings did not like. It roused and elevated her, and she replied, somewhat sharply, "You are quite mistaken, my dear friend; I did all that was ever intended. I sent for Emily and my husband, told them that I believed I should not live long, and made it my last request that the engagement with Marlow should be broken off."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Hazleton, with even too much eagerness. "What did they say? Did they consent?"

"Far from it," answered Lady Hastings. "My husband said he had made a promise which he could not violate on any account or consideration whatever, and Emily was much in the same story."

[Pg 317]

"That shows that your decision was not strongly enough expressed," replied her visitor. "I do not believe that any man or woman could be heartless enough to refuse a wife or mother's last request, if made in so solemn a manner."

"They did refuse, point-blank, however," said Lady Hastings. "But do you know, Mrs. Hazleton," she continued, seeing a provokingly bitter smile on Mrs. Hazleton's face, "do you know, strange to say, I am very glad they did refuse. Upon after consideration, when all anger and irritation was gone, I began to think it was hardly right or fair, or Christian either, to oppose this marriage so strongly, without some better reason than I have to assign. Marlow is a gentleman in all respects, of very good family too, I believe. He is a good and excellent young man. His fortune, too, is not inconsiderable, his prospects good, and his conduct under the deprivations which we have lately suffered, and the loss of at least two-thirds of the fortune he had a right to expect with Emily, has been all that is kind, and amiable, and generous."

Mrs. Hazleton sat by the bedside, fixing her eyes full upon the countenance of the invalid, and betraying not in the least the rage and disappointment that were at her heart. They were not a whit the less bitter, however, or fierce, or malignant; but rather the more so from the effort to smother them. No one for a moment could have imagined that she was angry, even in the least degree; and yet no disappointed demon ever felt greater fury at being frustrated by the weakness or vacillation of a tool.

After staying for a moment to take breath, Lady Hastings proceeded, saying, "All these considerations, dear Mrs. Hazleton, have made me resolve to make amends for what I have said—to withdraw the opposition I have hitherto shown—and consent to the marriage."

Mrs. Hazleton retired for a moment into herself. For a minute or two she was as silent as death—her cheek grew a little paler—her eyes lost their lustre, and became dead and cold—they seemed looking at nothing, seeing nothing—there was no speculation in them. The only thing that indicated life and emotion was a slight quivering of the beautifully-chiselled lip. There was a word echoing in the dark chambers of her heart in replying to Lady Hastings. It was "Never!" but it was not spoken; and after a short and thoughtful pause she recovered herself fully, and set about her work again.

"My dear friend," she said, in a sweet tone, "you have doubtless good reasons for what you do. Far be it from me to say one word against your doing what you think fit; only I should like to know what has made such a change in your views, because I think perhaps you may be deceived."

"Oh, no, I am not deceived," replied Lady Hastings, "but really I cannot enter into explanations. I have heard a great deal lately about many things—especially this morning; but I—I—in fact, I promised not to tell you."

Lady Hastings thought that in making this distinct declaration she was performing a very magnanimous feat; but her little speech, short as it was, contained three separate clauses or propositions, with each of which Mrs. Hazleton proposed to deal separately. First, she asserted that she was not deceived, and to this her companion replied, with a slight incredulous smile, "Are you quite sure, my friend? Here you are lying on a bed of sickness, with no power of obtaining accurate information; while those who are combined to win you to their wishes have every opportunity of conveying hints to you, both directly and indirectly, which may not be altogether false, but yet bear with them a false impression."

"Oh, but there can be no possible doubt," said Lady Hastings, "that Marlow is the heir of the Earl of Launceston."

Mrs. Hazleton's brow contracted, and a quick flush passed over her cheek. She had never before given attention to the fact—she had never thought of it at all—but the moment it was mentioned, her knowledge of the families of the nobility, and Mr. Marlow's connections, showed her that the assertion was probably true. "It may be so," she said, "but I am very doubtful. However, I will inquire, and let you know the truth, to-morrow. And now, my dear friend, let us turn to something else. You say you have heard a great deal to-day, and that you have promised not to tell me—me—for you marked that word particularly. Now here I have a right to demand some explanation; for your very words show that some person or persons endeavor to prejudice your mind against me. What you have heard must be some false charge. Otherwise the one who has been your friend for years, who has been faithful, constant, attentive, kind, to the utmost limit of her poor abilities, would not be selected for exclusion from your confidence. They seek, in fact, by some false rumor, or ridiculous tale, which you have not the means of investigating yourself, to deprive you of advice and support. I charge no one in particular; but some one has done this—if they had nothing to fear from frankness, they would not inculcate a want of candor towards one who loves you, as they well know."

"Why the fact is Emily said," replied Lady Hastings, "that could only be for a short time, and——"

"Emily!" cried Mrs. Hazleton with a laugh, "Emily indeed! Oh, then the matter is easily understood—but pray what did Emily say? Dear Emily, she is a charming girl—rather wayward—rather wilful—not always quite so candid to her friends as I could wish;[Pg 318] but these are all thoughts which, will pass away with more knowledge of the world. She will learn to discriminate between true friends and false ones—to trust and confide entirely and without hesitation in those who really love her, and not to repose her confidence in the dark and mysterious. Now I will undertake to say that Emily has thrown out hints and inuendoes, without giving you very clear and explicit information. She has asked you to wait patiently for a time. It is always the dear child's way; but I did not think she would practice it upon her own mother."

Now most people would have imagined, as Lady Hastings did imagine, that Mrs. Hazleton's words proceeded from spite—mere spite; but such was not the case: it was all art. She sought to pique Lady Hastings, knowing very well that when once heated or angry, she lost all caution; and her great object at that moment was to ascertain what Emily knew, and what Emily had said. She was successful to a certain degree. She did pique Lady Hastings, who replied at once, and somewhat sharply, though with the ordinary forms of courtesy. "I do not think you altogether do Emily justice, dear Mrs. Hazleton, although you have in some degree divined the course she has pursued. She did not exactly throw out inuendoes; but she made bold and distinct charges, and though she did not proceed to the proofs, because there was no time to do so, and also because there were particular reasons for not doing so, yet she promised within a very few hours to establish every assertion that she made beyond the possibility of doubt.

"I thought so," said Mrs. Hazleton, in a somewhat abstracted tone, casting her eyes round the room and taking up, apparently unconcerned, the vial of medicine which stood by Lady Hastings' bedside. "Pray, my dear friend, when the revelation is made—if it ever be made—inform me of the particulars."

"If it ever be made," exclaimed Lady Hastings. "No revelation needs to be made, Mrs. Hazleton—nothing is wanting but the proofs. Emily was explicit enough as to the facts. She said that you had aided and assisted in depriving my husband of his property, that in that and many other particulars you had acted any thing but a friendly part, that you were moved by a spirit of hatred against us all, and that very seldom had there been any communications between our house and yours without some evil following it—which is true enough."

She spoke with a good deal of vehemence, and raised herself somewhat on her elbow, as if to utter her words more freely. In the mean while Mrs. Hazleton sat silent and calm—as far as the exterior went at least—with her eyes fixed upon a particular spot in the quilt from which they never moved till Lady Hastings had done.

"Grave charges," she said at length, "very grave charges to bring against one whom she has known from her infancy, and for whom she has professed some regard—but no less false than grave, my dear friend. Now either one of two things has happened: the first, which I mention merely as a possibility, but without at all believing that such is the case—the first is, I say, that Emily, judging your opposition to her proposed unequal marriage to be abetted by myself, has devised these charges out of her own head, in order to withdraw your confidence from me and gain her own objects: the second is—and this is much more likely—that she has been informed by some one, either maliciously or mistakenly, of some suspicions and doubts such as are always more or less current in a country place, and has perhaps embellished them a little in their transmission to you.—The latter is certainly the most probable.—I suppose she did not tell you from whom she received the information."

"Not exactly," answered Lady Hastings, "but one thing I know, which is, that Mr. Dixwell the rector has all the same information, and if I understood her rightly, has got it down in writing."

Mrs. Hazleton's cheek grew a shade paler; but she answered at once "I am glad to hear that; for now we come to something definite. All these charges must be substantiated, dear friend—that is, if they can be substantiated—" she added with a smile.

"You can easily understand that, attached to you by the bonds of a long friendship, I cannot suffer my name to be traduced, or my conduct impeached, even by your own daughter, without insisting upon a full explanation, and clear, satisfactory proofs, or a recantation of the charges. Emily must establish what she has said, if she can.—I am in no haste about it; it maybe to-morrow, or the next day, or the day after—whenever it suits you and her in short; but it must be done. Conscious that I am innocent of such great offences, I can wait patiently; and I do not think, my dear friend, that although I see you have been a little startled by these strange tales, you will give any credence to them in your heart till they are proved. Dear Emily is evidently very much in love with Mr. Marlow, and is anxious to remove all opposition to her marriage with him. But I think she must take some other means; for these will certainly break down beneath her."

She spoke so calmly, and in so quiet and gentle a tone—her whole look and manner as so tranquilly confident—that lady Hastings could hardly believe that she was in any degree guilty.

"Well, I cannot tell," she said, "how this may turn out, but I do not think her marriage with Mr. Marlow can have any thing to do with it. I have fully and entirely resolved to cease all opposition to her union; on which I see my daughter's happiness is staked, and I shall certainly immediately signify[Pg 319] my consent both to Emily and to my husband."

"Wait a little—wait a little" said Mrs. Hazleton with a significant nod of the head. "I have no mysteries, my dear friend. I have nothing to conceal or to hold back. You are going, however, to act upon information which is very doubtful. I believe that you have been deceived, whoever has told you that Mr. Marlow is the heir to the Earl of Launceston, and it is but an act of friendship on my part to procure you more certain intelligence. You shall have it I promise you, before four and twenty hours are over, and all I ask is that you will not commit yourself by giving your consent till that intelligence has been obtained. You cannot say that you consent if Mr. Marlow proves to be the heir of that nobleman, but will not consent if such be not the case.—That would never do, and therefore your consent would be irrevocable. But on the other hand there can be no great harm in waiting four and twenty hours at the utmost. I have plenty of books of heraldry and genealogy, which will soon let me into the facts, and you shall know them plainly and straightforwardly at once. You can then decide and state your decision firmly and calmly, with just reason and upon good grounds."

Lady Hastings was silent. She saw that Mrs. Hazleton had detected the motives of her sudden change of views, and she did not much like being detected. She had fully made up her mind, too, that Marlow was to become Earl and her daughter Countess of Launceston, and the very thought of such not being the result was a sort of half disappointment to her. Now Lady Hastings did not like being disappointed at all, and moreover she had made up her mind to have a scene of reconciliation, and tenderness, and gratitude with her husband and her daughter, from which—being of a truly affectionate disposition—she thought she should derive great pleasure. Thus she hesitated for a moment as to what she should answer, and Mrs. Hazleton, determined not to let the effect of what she had said subside before she had bound her more firmly, added, after waiting a short time for a reply, "you will promise me, will you not, that you will not distinctly recall your injunction, and give your consent to the marriage till you have seen me again; provided I do not keep you in suspense more than four and twenty hours? It is but reasonable too, and just, and you would, I am sure, repent bitterly if you were to find afterwards that your consent to this very unequal marriage had been obtained by deceit, and that you had been made a mere fool of—Really at the very first sight, even if I had not good reason to believe that this story of the heirship is either a mistake or a misrepresentation, it seems so like a stage trick—the cunning plot of some knavish servant or convenient friend in a drama—that I should be very doubtful. Will you not promise me then?"

"Well, there can be no great harm in waiting that length of time," said Lady Hastings. "I do not mind promising that; but of course you will let me know within four and twenty hours."

"I will," replied Mrs. Hazleton firmly; "earlier if it be possible; but the fact is, I have some business to settle to-morrow of great importance. My lawyer, Mr. Shanks—whom I believe to be a great rogue—persuaded me to lend some money upon security which he pronounced himself to be good. I knew not what it was for; as we women of course can be no judges of such things; but I have just discovered that it was to pay off some debts of this young man who calls himself Sir John Hastings. Now I don't know whether the papers have been signed, or any thing about it; and I hear that the young man himself is absent, no one knows where. It makes me very uneasy; and I have sent for Shanks to come to me to-morrow morning. It may therefore be the middle of the day before I can get here; but I will not delay a moment, you may be perfectly sure."

She had risen as she spoke, and after pressing the hand of Lady Hastings tenderly in her own, she glided calmly out of the room with her usual graceful movement, and entering her carriage with a face as serene as a summer sky, ordered the coachman to drive home in a voice that wavered not in its lightest tone.

CHAPTER XLIII.

Mrs. Hazelton entered the carriage, I have said, at the end of the last chapter, without the slightest appearance of agitation or excitement. Although now and then a flush, and now and then a paleness, had spread over her face during the conversation with Lady Hastings, though her eye had emitted an occasional flash, and at other times had seemed fixed and meaningless, such indications of internal warfare were all banished when she left the room, the fair smooth cheek had its natural color, the eye was as tranquil as that of indifferent old age.

The coachman cracked his long whip, before four magnificent large horses heaved the ponderous vehicle from its resting place, and Mrs. Hazleton sank back in the carriage and gave herself up to thought—but not to thought only. Then all the smothered agitation; then all the strong contending passions broke forth in fierce and fiery warfare. It is impossible to disentangle them and lay them out, as on a map, before the reader's mind. It is impossible to say which at first predominated, rage, or fear, or disappointment, or the thirst of vengeance. One passion it is true—the one which might be called the master passion of her nature—soon soared towering above the rest, like one of those mighty spirits which rise to the dizzy[Pg 320] and dangerous pinnacle of power in the midst of the turbulence and tempest which accompany great social earthquakes. But at first all was confusion.

"Never," she repeated to herself—"never!—it shall never be. If I slay her with my own hand it shall never be—foiled—frustrated in every thing; and by this mere empty, moody child, who has been my stumbling block, my enemy, my obstruction, in all my paths. No, no, it shall never be!"

A new strain of thought seemed to strike her; her head leaned forward; her eyes closed, and her lips quivered.

There are many kinds of conscience, and every one has some sort, such as it is. What I mean is, that there is almost in every heart a voice of warning and reproof which counsels us to regret certain actions, and which speaks in different tones to different men. To the worldly—those who are habitually of the earth earthly—it holds out the menace of earthly shame and misfortune and sorrow. It recapitulates the mistakes we have committed, points to the evil consequences of evil deeds, shows how the insincerities and falsehoods of our former course have proved fruitless, and how the cunning devices, and skilful contrivances, and artful stratagems, have ended in mortification and reproach and contempt; while still the gloomy prospects of detection and exposure and public contumely and personal punishment, are held up before our eyes as the grim portrait of the future.

I need not pause here to show how conscience affects those who, however guilty, have a higher sense—those who have a cloudy belief in a future state—who acknowledge in their own hearts a God of justice—who look to judgment, and feel that there must be an immortality of weal or woe. Mrs. Hazleton was of the former class. The grave was a barrier to her sight, beyond which there was no seeing. She had been brought up for this world, lived in this world, thought, devised, schemed, plotted for this world. She never thought of another world at all. She went to church regularly every Sunday, read the prayers with every appearance of devotion, even listened to the sermon if the preacher preached well, and went home more practically atheist than many who have professed themselves so.

What were her thoughts, then, now? They were all earthly still. Even conscience spoke to her in earthly language, as if there were no other means of reaching her heart but that. Its very menaces were all earthly. She reviewed her conduct for the last two or three years, and bitterly reproached herself for several faults she discovered therein—faults of contrivance, of design, of execution. She had made mistakes; and for a time she gave herself up to bitter repentance for that great crime.

"Caught in my own trap," she said; "frustrated by a girl—a child!—ay! and with exposure, perhaps punishment, before me. How she triumphs, doubtless, in that little malignant heart. How she will triumph when she brings forward her proofs, and overwhelms me with them—if she has them. Oh, yes, she has them! She is mighty careful never to say any thing of which she is not certain. I have remarked that in her from a child. She has them beyond doubt, and now she is sitting anticipating the pleasure of crushing me—enjoying the retrospect of my frustrated endeavors—thinking how she and Marlow will laugh together over a whole list of attempts that have failed, and purposes that I have not been able to execute. Yes, yes, they will laugh loud and gaily, and at the very altar, perhaps, will think with triumph that they are filling for me the last drop of scorn and disappointment. Never, never, never! It shall never be. That is the only way, methinks;" and she fell into dark and silent thought again.

The fit lasted some time, and then she spoke again, muttering the words between her teeth as she had previously done. "They will never marry with a mother's curse upon their union! Oh, no, no, I know her too well. She will not do that. That weak poppet may die before she recalls her opposition—must die—and then they will live on loving and wretched. But it must be made as bitter as possible. It must not stop there."

Again she paused and thought, and then said to herself, "That drug which the Italian monk sold me would do well enough if I did but fully know its effects. There are things which leave terrible signs behind them—besides it is old, and may have lost its virtue. I must run no risk of that—and it must be speedy as well as sure. I have but four and twenty hours—the time is very short;" and relapsing into silence again, she continued in deep and silent meditation till the carriage stopped at her own gates.

Mrs. Hazleton sat in the library that night for two or three hours, and studied diligently a large folio volume which she had taken down herself. She read, and she seemed puzzled. A servant entered to ask some unimportant question, and she waved him away impatiently. Then leaning her head upon her hand she thought profoundly. She calculated in her own mind what Emily knew—how much—how intimately, and how she had learned it. Such a thing as remorse she know not; but she had some fear, though very little—a sort of shrinking from the commission of acts more daring and terrible than any she had yet performed. There was something appalling—there is always something appalling—in the commission of a great new crime, and the turning back, as it were, of the mind of Mrs. Hazleton from the search for means to accomplish a deed determined, in order to calculate the necessity of that deed, proceeded from this sort of awe at the next[Pg 321] highest step of evil to those which she had already committed.

"She must know all," said Mrs. Hazleton to herself, after having considered the matter for some moments deeply. "And she must have learned it accurately. I know her caution well. From whom can she have learned it?"

"From that young villain Ayliffe," was the prompt reply. "I was too harsh with him, and in his fit of rage he has gone away at once to tell this girl—or perhaps that old fool Dixwell. Most likely he has furnished her with evidence too, before he fled the country. Without that I could have set Marlow's discoveries at naught. Yet I doubt his having gone to Dixwell; he always despised him. Mean as he was himself, he looked upon him as a meaner. He would not go to him to whine and cant over him. He would go to the girl herself. Her he always loved, even in the midst of his violence and his rage. He would go to her or write to her beyond all doubt. She must be silenced. But I must deal with another first. Come what will, this marriage shall not take place. Besides, she is the most dangerous of the two. The girl might be frightened or awed into secresy, and it will take longer time to reach her, but nothing will keep that weak woman's tongue from babbling, and in four and twenty hours her consent will be given to this marriage. If I can but contrive it rightly, that at least may be stopped, and a part of my revenge obtained at all events. It must be so—it must be so."

She turned to the leaves of the book again, but nothing in the contents seemed to give her satisfaction. "That will be too long," she said, after having read about a third of a page. "Three or four days to operate! Who could wait three or four days when the object is security, tranquility, or revenge? Besides the case admits of no delay. Before three or four days all will be over."

She read again, and was discontented with what she read. "That will leave traces," she said. "It must be the Italian's dose, I believe, after all. Those monks are very skilful men, and perhaps it may not have lost its efficiency. It is easily tried," she exclaimed suddenly, and ascending quietly to her own dressing-room, she sought out from the drawer of an old cabinet a small packet of white powder, which she concealed in the palm of her hand. Then descending to the library again, she sat for a few minutes in dull, heavy thought, and then rang a hand-bell which stood upon her table.

"Bring me a small quantity of meat cut fine for the dog," she said, as soon as her servant appeared. "He seems ill; what has been the matter with him?"

"Nothing, madam," said the man, looking under the table where lay a beautiful small spaniel sound asleep. "He has been quite well all day."

"He has had something like a fit," said Mrs. Hazleton.

"Dear me, perhaps he is going mad," replied the man. "Had I not better kill him?"

"Kill him!" exclaimed Mrs. Hazleton; "on no account whatever. Bring me a small plate of meat."

The man did as he was ordered, and on his return found the dog sitting at his mistress's feet, looking up in her face.

"Ah, Dorset," she said, speaking to the animal in a kindly tone, "you are better now, are you?"

The man seemed inclined to linger to see whether the dog would eat: but Mrs. Hazleton took the plate from him, and threw the poor beast a small piece, which he devoured eagerly.

"There that will do," said Mrs. Hazleton. "You may leave the room."

When she was alone again, she paused for a moment or two, then deliberately unfolded the packet, and put a very small quantity of the powder it contained upon a piece of the meat. This morsel she threw to the poor animal, who swallowed it at once, and then she set down the plate upon the ground, which he cleared in a moment. After that Mrs. Hazleton turned to her reading again, and looked round once at the end of about two minutes. The dog had resumed his sleeping attitude, and she read on. Hardly a minute more had passed ere the poor brute started up, ran round once or twice, as if seized with violent convulsions, staggered for an instant to and fro, and fell over on its side. Mrs. Hazleton rang the bell violently, and two servants ran in at once. "He is dying," she cried; "he is dying."

"Keep out of his way, madam," exclaimed one of the men, evidently in great fear himself, "there is no knowing what he may do."

The next instant the poor dog started once more upon his feet, uttered a loud and terrific yell, and fell dead upon the floor.

"Poor thing," said Mrs. Hazleton, "Poor Dorset! He is dead; take him away."

The two men seemed unwilling to touch him, but when quite satisfied that there was no more life left in him, they carried him away, and Mrs. Hazleton remained alone.

"Speedy enough," said the lady, replacing the large volume on the shelf. "We need no distillations and compoundings. This is as efficacious as ever. Now let me see. I must try and remember the size of the bottle, and the color of the stuff that was in it." She thought of these matters for some minutes, and then retired to rest.

Did she sleep well or ill that night? God knows. But if she slept well, the friends of hell must sometimes have repose.

The next morning very early, Mrs. Hazleton walked out. As the reader knows, she lived at no great distance from the little town, even by the high-road, and that was shortened considerably by a path through the[Pg 322] park. There was a poor man in the place, an apothecary, who had came down there in the hope of carrying away some of the practice of good Mr. Short. He had not been very successful, and his stock of medicines was not very great: but he had all that Mrs. Hazleton wanted. Her demands indeed were simple enough—merely a little logwood, a little saffron, and a little madder. Having obtained these she asked to see some vials, and selected one containing somewhat less than half a pint.

The good man packed all these up with zealous care, saying that he would send them up to the house in a few minutes. Mrs. Hazleton, however, said she would carry them herself; but the very idea of the great lady carrying home a parcel, even through her own park, shocked the little apothecary extremely, and he pressed hard to be permitted to send his own boy, till Mrs. Hazleton replied in a rather peremptory tone, "I always say what I mean, sir. Be so good as to give me the parcel."

When she reached her own house, she ordered her carriage to be at the door at half past twelve in order to convey her to the dwelling of Sir Philip Hastings. Upon a very nice calculation the drive, commenced at that hour, would bring her to the place of her destination shortly after that precise period of the day when Lady Hastings was accustomed to take an hour's sleep. But Mrs. Hazleton had laid out her plan, and did not thus act by accident.

Almost every lady in those days acted the part of a Lady Bountiful in her neighborhood, and gave, not alone assistance in food and money to the cottagers and poor people about her, but medicine and sometimes medical advice. Both the latter were very simple indeed; but the preparation of these simple medicines entailed the necessity of what was called a still-room in each great house. In fact to be a Lady Bountiful, and to have a still-room, were two of the conventionalities of the day, from which no lady, having more than a very moderate fortune, could then hope to escape. Mrs. Hazleton was in the still-room, then, when her dear friend, who had already on one occasion given the death blow to her schemes upon Mr. Marlow's heart, drove up to the door and asked to see her.

The servant replied that his mistress was busy in the still-room, but that he would go and call her in a moment.

"Oh, dear, no," replied the lady, entering the house with an elastic step; "I will go and join her there, and surprise her in her charitable works. I know the way quite well—you needn't come—you needn't come;" and on she went to the still-room, which she entered without ceremony.

Mrs. Hazleton was, at that moment, in the act of pouring a purpleish sort of fluid, out of a glass dish with a lip to it, into an apothecary's vial. She turned round sharply at the sound of the opening door, thinking that it was produced by a servant intruding upon her uncalled. When she saw her friend, however, whose indiscreet advice she had neither forgotten nor forgiven, her face for a moment turned burning red, and then as pale as death; and she had nearly let the glass fall from her hand.

What was said on either part matters very little. Mrs. Hazleton was too wise to speak as sharply as she felt, and led the way from the still-room as fast as possible; but her dear friend had in one momentary glance seen every thing—the glass bowl, the vial, the fluid, and—more particularly than all—Mrs. Hazleton's sudden changes of complexion on her entrance.

CHAPTER XLIV.

Sir Philip Hastings sat at breakfast with his daughter the morning of the same day on which Mrs. Hazleton in the still-room was subjected to her dear friend's unpleasant intrusion. He was calmer than he had been since his return; but it was a gloomy, thoughtful sort of calmness—that sort of superficial tranquility which is sometimes displayed under the influence of overpowering feelings, as the sea, so sailors tell us, is sometimes actually beaten down by the force of the winds that sweep over it. His brow was contracted with a deep frown, but it was by no means varied. It was stern, fixed, immoveable. To his daughter he spoke not a word, except when she bade him good morning, and asked after his health; and then he only replied "Well."

When breakfast was nearly over, a servant brought in some letters, and handed two to his master and one to Emily. Sir Philip's were soon read; but Emily's was longer, and she was still perusing it, with apparently much emotion, when the servant returned to the room. Sir Philip, during the half hour they had been previously together, had abstained from turning his eyes towards her. He had looked at the table cloth, or straight at the wall; but now he was gazing at her so intently, with a strange, eager, haggard expression of countenance that he did not even notice the entrance of the servant till the man spoke to him.

"Please your worship" said the servant "Master Atkinson of the Hill farm, near Hartwell, wishes to speak to you on some justice business."

Sir Philip started, and murmured between his teeth "Justice—ay, justice!—who did you say?"

The man repeated what he had said before, and his master replied, "shew him in."

He then remained for a moment or two with his head leaning on his hand, and seemingly making an effort to recall his thoughts from some distant point; and when Mr. Atkinson entered, he spoke to him tranquilly enough.[Pg 323]

"Pray be seated, Mr. Atkinson," he said, "what is it you want? I have meddled little with magisterial affairs lately."

"I want a warrant, sir," replied Mr. Atkinson. "And against a near neighbor and relation of yours; so I am sure you are not a man to refuse me justice."

"Not if it were my nearest and my dearest," replied Sir Philip, in a deep and hollow tone. "Who is the person?"

"A young man calling himself Sir John Hastings," said Mr. Atkinson. "We are afraid of his getting out of the country. He knows he has been found out, and he is hiding somewhere not very far off; but I and a constable will find him."

Emily had lain down her letter by her side, and was listening attentively. It was clear she was greatly moved by what she heard. Her face turned white and red. Her lip quivered as if she would fain have spoken; but she hesitated and remained silent for a moment. She thought of the unhappy young man lying on his death bed; for she had as yet received no intimation of his death from Mr. Dixwell, and of his seeing himself seized upon by the officers of justice, his last thoughts disturbed, all his anxious strivings after penitence, all his communings with his own heart, all his efforts to prepare for meeting with death, and God, and judgment, scattered by worldly shame and earthly anguish—she felt for him—she would fain have petitioned for him; but she was misunderstood, and, what was worse, she knew it—she felt it—she could not speak—she dare not say any thing, though her heart seemed as if it would break, and her only consolation was that all would be explained, that her motives, her conduct, would all be clear and comprehended in a very few short hours. She knew, however, that she could not bear much more without weeping; for the letter which she had received from Marlow, telling her that he had arrived in London, and would set off to see her, as soon as some needful business, in the capital had been transacted, had agitated her much, and even pleasureable emotions will often shake the unnervous so as to weaken rather than strengthen us when called upon to contend with others of a different kind.

She rose then and left the room with a sad look and wavering step, and Sir Philip gazed at her as she passed with a look impossible to describe, saying to himself, "So—is it so?"

The next instant, however, he turned to the farmer, who was a man of a superior class to the ordinary yeomen of that day, saying, "What is your charge, sir?"

"Oh, plenty of charges, sir," replied the man; "fraud, conspiracy, perjury, forgery, in regard to all which I am ready to give information on my oath."

Sir Philip leaned his head upon his hand, and thought bitterly for two or three minutes. Then raising his eyes full to Atkinson's face, he said, "Were this young man my own child, were he my son, or were he my brother, were he a very dear friend, I should not have the slightest hesitation, Mr. Atkinson. I would take the information, and grant you a warrant at once—nay, I will do so still, if you insist upon it; for it shall never be said that any consideration made me refuse justice. But I would have you remember that Sir John Hastings is my enemy; that he has, justly or unjustly, deprived me of fortune and station, and throughout the only transactions we have had together, has shown a spirit of malignity against me which might well make men believe that I must entertain similar feelings towards him. To sign a warrant against him, therefore, would be very painful to me, although I believe him to be capable of the crimes with which you charge him, and know you to be too honest a man to make such an accusation without a reasonable confidence in its truth. But I would have you consider whether it may not bring suspicion upon all your proceedings, if your very first step therein is to obtain a warrant against this man from his known and open enemy."

"But what am I to do. Sir Philip?" asked the farmer. "I am afraid he will escape. I know that he is hiding in this very neighborhood, in this very parish, within half a mile of this house."

A groan burst from the heart of Sir Philip Hastings. He had spoken his remonstrance clearly, slowly, and deliberately, forcibly bending his thoughts altogether to the subject before him; but he had been deeply and terribly moved all the time, and this direct allusion to the hiding place of John Ayliffe, to the very house which his daughter had visited on the previous day, roused all the terrible feelings, the jealous anger, the indignation, the horror, the contempt which had been stirred up in him, by what he thought her indecent, if not criminal act. It was too much for his self-command, and that groan burst forth in the struggle against himself.

He recovered himself speedily, however, and he replied, "Apply to Mr. Dixwell: he is a magistrate, and lives hardly a stone's throw from this house. You will lose but little time, save me from great pain, and both you and me from unjust imputations."

"Oh, I am not afraid of any imputations," said Mr. Atkinson. "I have personally no interest in the matter. You have, Sir, a great interest in it, and if you would just hear what the case is, you would see that no one should look more sharply than you to the matter, in order that no time may be lost."

"I would rather not hear the case at all," replied Sir Philip, "If I have a personal interest in it, as you say, it would ill befit me to meddle. Go to Mr. Dixwell, my good friend. Explain the whole to him, and although[Pg 324] perhaps he is not the brightest man that ever lived, yet he is a good man, and an honest man, who will do justice in this matter."

"Very well, sir, very well," replied the farmer, a little mortified; for to say the truth, he had anticipated some little accession of importance from lending a helping hand to restore Sir Philip Hastings to the rights of which he had been unjustly deprived, and taking his leave he went away, thinking the worthy baronet the most impracticable man he had ever met with in his life. "I always knew that he was crotchety," he said to himself, "and carried his notions of right and wrong to a desperate great length; but I did not know that he went so far as this. I don't believe that if he saw a man running away with his own apples, he would stop him without a warrant from another justice. Yet he can be severe enough when he is not concerned himself, as we all know. He'd hang every poacher in the land for that matter, saying, as I have heard him many a time, that it is much worse to steal any thing that is unprotected, than if it is protected."

With these thoughts he rode straight away to the house of Mr. Dixwell, but to his mortification he found that the worthy clergyman was out. "Can you tell me where he is?" he asked of the servant, "I want him on business of the greatest importance."

The woman hesitated for a moment, but the expression of perplexity and anxiety on the good farmer's face overcame her scruples, and she replied, "I did not exactly hear him say where he was going, but I saw him take the foot-path down to Jenny Best's."

Atkinson turned his horse's head at once, and rode along the road till he reached the cottage. There he fastened his horse to a tree, and went in. The outer room was vacant; but through the partition he heard a voice speaking in a slow, measured tone, as if in prayer; and after waiting and hesitating for a moment or two, he struck upon the table with his knuckles to call attention to his presence.

The moment after, the door opened slowly and quietly, and Jenny Best herself first put out her head, and then came into the room with a curtsy, closing the door behind her.

"Good day, Jenny," said the farmer; "is Mr. Dixwell here?"

"Yes, Master Atkinson," replied the good dame; "he is in there, praying with a sick person."

"Why how is that?" asked Mr. Atkinson. "Best is not ill, I hope, nor your son."

"No, sir," answered the old woman; "it is a young man who broke his leg close by our door the other day;" and seeing him about to ask further questions, which she might have had difficulty in parrying, she added, "I will call the parson, to you, sir."

Thus saying, she retreated again into the inner room, and in a few moments Mr. Dixwell himself appeared.

"God day, Atkinson," he said; "you have been absent on a journey, I hear."

"Yes, your Reverence," replied the farmer, "and it is in consequence of that journey that I come to you now. I want a warrant from you, Mr. Dixwell; and that as quick as possible."

"Why, I cannot give you a warrant here," said the clergyman, hesitating. "I have no clerk with me, nor any forms of warrants, and I cannot very well go home just now. It can do no harm waiting an hour or two, I suppose."

"It may do a great deal of harm," replied the farmer, "for as great a rogue and as bad a fellow as ever lived may escape from justice if it is not granted immediately."

"Can't you go to Mr. Hastings?" said the clergyman. "He would give you one directly, if the case justifies it."

"He sent me to your Reverence," replied the farmer. "In one word, the case is this, Mr. Dixwell. I have to charge a man, whom, I suppose, I must call a gentleman, upon oath, with fraud, perjury, and forgery. Shanks, one of the conspirators we have got already. But this man—this fellow who calls himself Sir John Hastings, I mean, is hiding away here—in this very cottage, sir, I am told—and may make his escape at any minute. Now that I am here, and a magistrate with me, I tell you fairly, sir, I will not quit the place till I have him in custody."

He spoke in a very sharp and decided tone; for to say the truth he had a vague suspicion that Mr. Dixwell, whose good-nature was well known, knew very well where John Ayliffe was, and might be trying to convert him, with the full intention of afterwards aiding him to escape. The clergyman answered at once, however, "he is here, Master Atkinson, but he is very ill, and will soon be in sterner custody than yours."

There was a good deal of the bull-dog spirit of the English yeoman in the good farmer's character, and he replied tartly, "I don't care for that. He shall be in my custody first."

Mr. Dixwell looked pained and offended. His brow contracted a good deal, and laying his hand upon the farmer's wrist, he led him towards the door of the inner room, saying, "You are hard and incredulous, sir. But come with me, and you shall see his state with your own eyes."

The farmer suffered himself to be led along, and Mr. Dixwell opened the door, and entered the room with a quiet and reverent step. The sunshine was streaming through the little window upon the floor, and by its cheerful light, contrasting strangely with the gray darkness of the face which lay upon the bed of death. There was not a sound,[Pg 325] but the footfalls of the two persons who entered; for the old woman had seated herself by the bedside, and was gazing silently at the face of the sick man.

At first, Mr. Atkinson thought that he was dead; and life indeed lingered on with but the very faintest spark. He seemed utterly unconscious; for the eyes even did not move at the sound of the opening door, and the farmer was a good deal shocked at the hardness of his judgment. He was not one, however, to give up his purpose easily, and when Mr. Dixwell said, "you can now see and judge for yourself—is he likely to escape, do you think?" Atkinson answered in a low but determined tone, "No, but I do not think I ought to leave him as long as there is any life in him."

"You can do as you please," said Mr. Dixwell, in a tone of much displeasure, "Only be silent. There is a seat;" and leaving him, he took his place again by the dying man's side.

Though shocked, and feeling perhaps a little ashamed, Mr. Atkinson, with that dogged sort of resolution which I have before spoken of, resisted his own feelings, and would not give up the field. He thought he was doing his duty, and that is generally quite sufficient for an Englishman. Nothing could move him, so long as breath was in the body of the unhappy young man. He remained seated there, perfectly still and silent, as hour after hour slipped away, with his head bent down, and his arms crossed upon his chest.

The approach of death was very slow with John Ayliffe: he lingered long after all the powers of the body seemed extinct. Hand or foot he could not move—his sunken eyes remained half closed—the hue of death was upon his face, but yet the chest heaved, the breath came and went, sometimes rapidly, sometimes very slowly; and for a long time Mr. Dixwell could not tell whether he was conscious at all or not. At the end of two hours, however, life seemed to make an effort against the great enemy, though it was a very feeble one, and intellect had no share in it. He began to mutter a few words from time to time, but they were wild and incoherent, and the faint sounds referred to dogs and horses, to wine and money. He seemed to think himself talking to his servants, gave orders, and asked questions, and told them to light a fire, he was so cold. This went on till the shades of evening began to fall, and then Mr. Short, the surgeon, came in and felt his pulse.

"It is very strange," said the surgeon, "that this has lasted so long. But it must be over in a few minutes now. I can hardly feel a pulsation."

Mr. Dixwell did not reply, and the surgeon remained gazing on the dying man's face till it was necessary to ask for a light. Jenny Best brought in a solitary candle, and whether it was the effect of the sudden though feeble glare, I cannot tell, John Ayliffe opened his eyes, and said, more distinctly than before, "I am going—I am going—this is death—yes, this is death! Pray for me, Mr. Dixwell—pray for me—I do repent—yes, I have hope."

The jaw quivered a little as he uttered the last words, but at the same moment John Best, the good woman's husband, entered the room with a hurried step, drew Mr. Short, the surgeon, aside, and whispered something in his ear.

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed the surgeon. "Impossible, Best! Has the man got a horse? mine's at the farm."

"Yes, sir, yes!" replied the man, eagerly. "He has got a horse; but you had better make haste."

Mr. Short dashed out of the room; but before he left it, John Ayliffe was a corpse.

CHAPTER XLV.

Mrs. Hazleton found the inconvenience of having a dear friend. It was in vain that she tried to get rid of her visitor. The visitor would not be got rid of. She was deaf to hints; she paid no attention to any kind of inuendoes; and she looked so knowing, so full of important secrets, so quietly mischievous, that Mrs. Hazleton was cowed by that most unnerving of all things, the consciousness of meditated crime. She could not help thinking that the fair widow saw into her thoughts and purposes—she could not help doubting the impenetrability of the veil behind which hypocrisy hides the hideous features of unruly passion—she could not help thinking that the keen-sighted and astute must perceive some of the movements at least of the rude movers of the painted puppets of the face—the smile, the gay looks, the sparkling eyes, the calm placid brow, the dignified serenity, which act their part in the glittering scene of the world, too often worked by the most harsh, foul, and brutal of all the motives of the human heart. But she was irritated too, as well as fearful; and there was a sort of combat went on between impatience and apprehension. Had she given way to inclination she would have ordered one of her servants to take the intruder by the shoulders and put her out of doors; but for more than an hour after the time she had fixed for setting out, vague fears—however groundless and absurd—were sufficiently powerful to restrain her temper. She was not of a character, however, to be long cowed by any thing. She had great confidence in herself—in her own resources—in her own conduct and good fortune likewise. That confidence might have been a little shaken indeed by events which had lately occurred; but anger soon rallied it, and brought it back to her aid. She asked herself if she were a fool to dread that woman—what it was she had discovered—what it was that she could[Pg 326] testify. She had merely seen her doing what almost every lady did a hundred times in the year in those day—preparing some simples in the still-room; and gradually as she found that gentle hints proved unsuccessful, she resumed her natural dignity of demeanor. That again gave way to a chilling silence, and then to a somewhat irritable imperiousness, and rising from her chair, she begged her visitor to excuse her, alledging that she had business of importance to transact which would occupy her during the whole day.

Not one of all the variation of conduct—not one sign, however slight, of impatience, doubt, or anger—escaped the keen eye that was fixed upon her. Mrs. Hazleton, under the influence of conscience, did not exactly betray the dark secrets of her own heart, but she raised into importance, an act in itself the most trifling, which would have passed without any notice had she not been anxious to conceal it.

As soon as her visitor, taking a hint that could not be mistaken, had quitted the room and the house, with an air of pique and ill-humor, Mrs. Hazleton returned to the still-room and recommenced her operations there; but she found her hand shaking and her whole frame agitated.

"Am I a fool," she asked herself, "to be thus moved by an empty gossip like that? I must conquer this, or I shall be unfit for my task."

She sat down at a table, leaned her head upon her hand, gazed forth out of the little window, forced her mind away from the present, thought of birds and flowers, and pictures and statues, and of the two sunshiny worlds of art and nature—of every thing in short but the dark, dark cares of her own passions. It was a trick she had learned to play with herself—one of those pieces of internal policy by which she had contrived so often and so long, to rule and master with despotic sway the frequent rebellions of the body against the tyranny of the mind.

She had not sat there two minutes, however, ere there was a tap at the door, and she started with a quick and jarring thrill, as if that knock had been a summons of fate. The next instant she looked quickly around, however, and was satisfied that whoever entered could find no cause for suspicion. She was there seated quietly at the table. The vial was out of sight, the fatal powder hidden in the palm of her hand, and she said aloud, "Come in."

The butler entered, bowing profoundly and saying, "The carriage is at the door, madam, and Wilson has just come back from the house of Mr. Shanks, but he could not find him."

The man hesitated a little as if he wished to add something more, and Mrs. Hazleton replied in a somewhat sharp tone, "I told you when I sent it away just now that I would tell you when I was ready. I shall not be so for half an hour; but let it wait, and do not admit any one. Mr. Shanks must be found, and informed that I want to see him early to-morrow, as I shall go to London on the following day."

"I am sorry to say, madam," replied the butler, "that if the talk of the town is true, he will not be able to come. They say he has been apprehended on a charge of perjury and forgery in regard to that business of Sir Philip Hastings, and has been sent off to the county jail."

Mrs. Hazleton looked certainly a little aghast, and merely saying "Indeed!" she waved her hand for the man to withdraw.

She then sat silent and motionless for at least five minutes. What passed within her I cannot tell; but when she rose, though pale as marble, she was firm, calm, and self-possessed as ever. She turned the key in the lock; she drew a curtain which covered the lower half of the window, farther across, so that no eye from without, except the eye of God, could see what she was doing there within. She then drew forth the vial from its nook, opened out the small packet of powder, and poured part of it into a glass. She seemed as if she were going to pour the whole, but she paused in doing so, and folded up the rest again, saying, "That must be fully enough; I will keep the rest; it may be serviceable, and I can get no more."

She gazed down upon the ground near her feet with a look of cold, stern, but awful resolution, as if there had been an open grave before her; and then she placed the packet in her glove, poured a little distilled water into the glass, shook it, and held the mixture up to the light. The powder had in great part dissolved, but not entirely, and she added a small quantity more of the distilled water, and poured the whole into the vial, which was already about one-third full of a dark colored liquid.

"Now I will go," she said, concealing the bottle. But when she reached the door, and had her hand upon the lock, she paused and remained in very deep thought for an instant, with her brow slightly contracted and her lip quivering. Heaven knows what she thought of then,—whether it was doubt, or fear, or pity, or remorse—but she said in a low tone, "Down, fool! it shall be done," and she passed out of the room.

She paused suddenly in the little passage which led to the still-room, by a pair of double doors, into the principal part of the house, perceiving with some degree of consternation that she had been unconsciously carrying the vial with its dark colored contents in her hand, exposed to the view of all observers. Her eye ran round the passage with a quick and eager glance; but there was no one in sight, and she felt reassured. Even at that moment she could smile at her own heedlessness, and she did smile as she placed the bottle in her pocket, saying to herself,[Pg 327] "How foolish! I must not suffer such fits of absence to come upon me, or I shall spoil all."

She then walked quietly to her dressing-room, arranged her dress for the little journey before her, and descended again to the hall, where the servants were waiting for her coming. After she had entered the carriage, however, she again fell into a fit of deep thought, closed her eyes, and remained as if half asleep for nearly an hour. Perhaps it would be too much to scrutinize the state or changes of her feelings during that long, painful lapse of thought. That there was a struggle—a terrible struggle—can hardly be doubted—that opportunity was given her for repentance, for desistance, between the purpose and the deed, we know; and there can be little doubt that the small, still voice—which is ever the voice of God—spoke to her from the spirit-depth within, and warned her to forbear. But she was of an unconquerable nature; nothing could turn her; nothing could overpower her, when she had once resolved on any act. There was no persuasion had effect; no remonstrance was powerful. Reason, conscience, habit itself, were but dust in the balance in the face of one of her determinations.

She roused herself suddenly from her fit of moody abstraction, when the carriage was still more than a mile from the house of Sir Philip Hastings. She looked at the watch which hung by her side, and gazed at the sky; and then she said to herself, "That woman's impertinent intrusion was intolerable. However, I shall get there an hour before the twenty-four hours have passed, and doubtless she will have kept her word and refrained from speaking till she has seen me; but I am afraid I shall find her woke up from her mid-day doze, and that may make the matter somewhat difficult. Difficult! why I have seen jugglers do tricks a thousand times to which this is a mere trifle. My sleight of hand will not fail me, I think;" and then she set her mind to work to plan out every step of her proceedings.

All was clearly and definitely arranged by the time she arrived at the door of Sir Philip Hastings' house. Her face was cleared of every cloud, her whole demeanor under perfect control. She was the Mrs. Hazleton, the calm, dignified, graceful Mrs. Hazleton, which the world knew; and when she descended from the carriage with a slow but easy step, and spoke to the coachman about one of the springs which had creaked and made a noise on the way, not one of Sir Philip Hastings' servants could have believed that her mind was occupied with any thing more grave than the idle frivolous thoughts of an every-day society.

The shrewdest and most successful of politicians has given us the secret of his policy in the words, Follow the public so closely that you shall seem to lead it.

MUSIC.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY H. W. PARKER.

THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE:

OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.[10]

TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF H. DE ST. GEORGES.

III. THE DUEL

It was a morning of December, but one of those fitful days when, the sun shining and the sky cloudless, the weather might lead one to suppose it to be spring, were the temperature not so cold and sharp, or if the flowers would only open, and the sun were as warm as it was bright. The young Marquise de Maulear sat over her painting, with Scorpione at her feet, when the Count Monte-Leone was announced.

"Show him in," said Aminta.

The Count entered. He was very pale, and there was a secret emotion on his countenance which Aminta discovered at once.

"What is the matter?" said she; "why have you come so early to see me? I do not reproach you for this; but if you intend by what you do now to stay away this evening,[Pg 328] I object to it. I protest against this, Monsieur."

"How beautiful you are!" said Monte-Leone, "and how I love to hear you thus calculate your moments of happiness."

"Ah, Monsieur, I am very exacting, I have already told you. I will, however, grant you one hour, especially as time passes so rapidly in your company." Then she said, sadly, "Life is so short!"

"Yes, very short," said the Count; "especially when the career you promise me is pleasant—enough so to make one wish it would never end."

"I should so wish it, but you, perhaps, would think it tedious."

"It should be eternal," said Monte-Leone, "and eternity itself would not suffice for me to prove my tenderness. Besides, my purgatory here has been long enough. Have I not suffered all the tortures of hell since the day I renounced you? Ah!" said he, passionately, "you will never know how I loved, and how I now love you."

"Yes, yes," said Aminta, with a smile, "a heart like yours, I think, can love but once. I speak seriously—do you hear, sir? This word means much—so much that I tremble to think of it. You love me, and always will. I have faith in you."

"The future," said the Count, with an expression of sorrow which he could not conquer, "is your own—at least, if such is God's will, for mine is in your hands."

"What mean you?" said the Marquise, fearfully, and looking again with anxiety at the Count. "What trouble now menaces you? Would you leave Paris and myself? Well, that is a small affair. The country you dwell in shall be my country—the climate you select shall be mine. I will love the climate you love, even if it be as sombre and icy as our Italy is warm and glorious. The true country is where we find happiness."

"Dear Aminta," said the Count, with a delight he could not repress, "it would be terrible to die now."

Scorpione drew near the Count, and looked at him with a strange expression. One might have fancied that like the idiots of northern lands, who, we are assured, have a strange prescience of the future, this poor being was seized on by an unfortunate presentiment.

The words she had heard echoed sadly in Aminta's heart. "My friend," said she "for some time I have seen that you suffered. You are no longer happy in my presence. For pity's sake conceal nothing from me. Something terrible and unknown exists in your heart. To whom else but me would you confide it? Who would you permit to share my torments? Who should suffer with you? Tell me, I beseech you, for doubt is worse even than misery."

The Count felt his very soul expand as he heard this expression of Aminta's interest. He was about to speak to her. Could he, however, reveal to a young and tender woman the fate which menaced him—the duel which as was said was to be merciless? Could he tell her of the prospect of death in the midst of his dreams of happiness. All this was barbarous and impossible, and the Count sought to lull the storm he had excited, to soften her fears, and to efface her suspicions.

"My noble and dear Aminta, no violent and arbitrary power forces me to leave you. Perhaps, however, I am about to undertake a journey—a long journey," he said, with feelings he sought in vain to repress. "An important and imperious duty forces me to do so, and you see that I am sad on account of the farewell I am about to bid you."

"Farewell!" said Aminta, growing pale; "a journey, a departure! Wait but a few months, and we will go together."

This thought, so full of love, seemed sad to the Count, and at once he said,

"No, no; I must make this journey alone. But," said he, "I will return, and thenceforth leave you no more. This will be my last separation and absence." The Count pronounced these words with such earnestness that a smile of joy flitted across Aminta's countenance.

"Well," said she, "at least I know what danger menaces. I know now the secret of your distress, and the cause of the melancholy which I could not before penetrate. Count," continued she, "you have sometimes seen me brave and courageous. Judge then of my affection by the tears which I cannot repress."

Monte-Leone took the young woman's hand, and covered it with kisses. In the interim, leaning against a wall, and with his features contracted by grief, the idiot shed tears, because he saw Aminta do so. A servant appeared, and told the Count that Taddeo Rovero asked to see him. Monte-Leone looked up, and glancing at the clock, thought it was one. Aminta stopped him as he was about to go. "Shall I see you again?" said she.

"Yes, yes," said the Count—"to-night—to-morrow."

"One word more," said she; "travel has its danger, and now I know you will take care of yourself; for henceforth your life does not belong to you alone. Every day I will pray for you. I should not, however, be an Italian woman if my heart had no tender superstition. Yours, my brother has told me, is not exempt from this feeling. You have one family superstition in particular," said she. "This is an heir-loom. Take it again," said she, and she placed on the Count's finger the ring of Benvenuto, which Monte-Leone long before had sent her through Taddeo. "They tell me it has always brought you good fortune. Do not part with it again, for my sake, as I once received it for yours."[Pg 329]

"Aminta," said the Count, "again you restore confidence to me. I expected to leave you full of love—but you can yet once more make me happy."

"How so?" said she.

"Let this be our wedding-ring."

"So be it," said Aminta.

"Countess di Monte-Leone," said the Count, regaining his energy, and speaking with a transport of joy. "We will meet again—I swear we will."

He left, and the idiot followed the Count. Monte-Leone's brow became bright. He had made up his mind, and regained his firmness.

The countless indistinct voices of nature alone interrupted the silence of this solitude, the echoes of which had so often resounded with the cry of grief, or the last sighs of a dying man. It was two o'clock when Monte-Leone and his companions appeared at the rendezvous. The place was as yet solitary, but in the course of a few minutes the distant sound of wheels reached their ears, and informed them that ere long their adversaries would be present. The latter, in fact, descended as they had themselves done at the round point which led to the ruins, and before many minutes had passed the two parties had met. Two officers, one of the navy and the other of the general's regiment, accompanied the Lieutenant. The Count and the Lieutenant stood aside. The witnesses approached each other. "Gentlemen," said Von Apsberg, "the Count Monte-Leone, as well as ourselves, is ignorant what could have given rise to the atrocious insult your friend has uttered, the latter having refused to explain it. Perhaps you will think it your duty to do so."

The naval officer said, "Monsieur, we are sorrow to say, that we know nothing more of the matter than you do. Lieutenant A—— is one of the most gallant officers of the royal navy. He has requested us to attend him here to-day, swearing that his cause was just and honorable, but that he would unfold its cause only in articulo mortis, or in case his adversary fell. We have such confidence in our comrade's honor and prudence, that we determined to do as he wished us."

"You, as well as we, gentlemen," said the other second, "have read the letter sent by Lieutenant A—— to Count Monte-Leone, and are aware that it was placed out of the power of the latter to refuse the challenge, even if he thought he had as yet received insufficient provocation."

"This is enough, Messieurs," said Von Apsberg. "I have made an appeal to you, and I see with sorrow that you disagree with me. I have hitherto considered the seconds in a duel as being charged with the soul of their friend. Without however pronouncing on the reasons which seem to have influenced Lieutenant A—— in his bearing towards such a man as Monte-Leone, we agree with you that he has given more than sufficient provocation for bloodshed. Let us therefore cut short this conversation, and proceed. We claim the choice of arms."

"Very well," said the officers.

"We select pistols," said Taddeo, "and rigorously using all our rights, claim the first fire; or that his adversary object by maintaining that he has received the first insult."

"Lieutenant A—— will maintain no such thing," said the naval officer.

"Then, gentlemen," said Von Apsberg, "we will not hesitate to take advantage of the benefit allowed us by the laws of duelling."

The seconds of A—— consented, and the weapons were loaded. When the terms were explained to Monte-Leone he said, "I wish that in this unfortunate and mysterious affair the right may be on my side. I insist, therefore, that the terms be equal, and that this gentleman and myself fire together, or when we please, advancing from a distance of twenty paces on each side. I take particular care, also, to say, not from bravado merely, but because I think proper to do so, that I am an extremely good shot."

"Were I not resolved to kill you," said the Lieutenant, "I would refuse this insolent generosity. I think I have such rights over your life, and my vengeance is of so sacred character, that I accept it without hesitation."

All then were silent—the ground measured and the pistols loaded. All this passed beneath a wall of the old monastery of Longchamps. The two enemies were placed opposite. The signal was given, and each lifted his arm. Without advancing towards his enemy, who walked rapidly towards him, Count Monte-Leone fired and his ball took effect on the body of the Lieutenant, who sank on the ground before him. He did not utter a complaint, did not close his eyes, but supporting himself on his elbow he fired on Monte-Leone. The ball would have struck the Count in the breast had not a man rushed rapidly as lightning from the thicket, and covering the Count with his body, received the ball in his own heart.

Four persons cried out at once. The seconds rushed towards the victim, who was Scorpione. The poor idiot thus died for Aminta, for he rescued one she loved. When they lifted up the unfortunate lad he was dead. It was afterwards learned from the people of the house that when he saw Taddeo with the pistol case, he had gotten into a hackney coach and followed the three friends. He beyond doubt remembered the box which he had seen in the hands of the Count at the time of the difficulty with the Marquis de Maulear. He had gone thus to the rendezvous and sprang from his concealment only to receive the mortal wound.

While Von Apsberg, Monte-Leone, and Taddeo sought to reanimate Tonio, the seconds[Pg 330] of A—— supported him, and made useless efforts to staunch the blood which poured from his wound. Von Apsberg being satisfied that Scorpione was dead, offered his services to the Lieutenant. He, however, had fainted. Von Apsberg took out his case and cut two long straps of adhesive plaster for the purpose of healing the wound. He soon saw that his efforts would be useless. He said the ball is in the pylorus, and that noble organ being injured, death, unless a miracle ensue, must supervene. The seconds looked on with amazement. Just then the sound of the feet of several horses was heard, one of the officers said, "It is the forest keepers."

"Hurry away," said Von Apsberg to Monte-Leone, who yet held the hand of Scorpione and looked at him with great pity. "Hurry away. They will arrest you as the murderer of this man and what then will become of the association?"

The Count yet hesitated, for this sudden flight might seem injurious to his character. He was unwilling to shake off the responsibility of any act of his life.

"For Aminta's sake," said Taddeo, in a low voice; and the Count, rushing into the thicket, disappeared.

A few minutes passed and they waited for the horsemen, whose uniforms were seen in the distance. This was idle, for they passed within a few paces of the dead body without noticing it.

And another, too, in spite of all Von Apsberg's efforts, was dying. A convulsive whistle began to escape from the breast of the Lieutenant, his eyes rolled in his head, and his sight began to grow dim. The blood ceased to flow, and only a few black drops escaped from time to time. Suddenly the body which had become contracted, expanded, and by a last effort the eyes of the dying man began to expand and glittered strangely.

"Listen all," said he sharply and distinctly; "do not loose one word I say. These are the last words I shall ever pronounce. May God grant me power to unmask a traitor and prevent him from making new victims." All drew near, and paid attention to the words of one about to appear before his Creator. The respirations of the three auditors were distinct. "I said that I would reveal my secret only in articulo mortis, or in case my adversary fell, I will keep my promise. I did not tell you," and he turned with pain towards his seconds, "why I insulted this man who has killed me. The reason was that if I had spoken you would not have suffered me to meet him as being unworthy of the arm of an honest man. I wished to kill him first and unmask him afterwards. This brilliant Count Monte-Leone is a miserable hanger-on of the police. The people call such things eaves-droppers, but men of higher rank give them another name: Monte-Leone is a Spy in Society."

"Horror! it is a slander," said Von Apsberg and Taddeo.

"By all that is dearest to me," said the Lieutenant, whose voice became every moment weaker and weaker, "by my father's life, by my own soul, this is true. Monte-Leone denounced the General, and my father himself gave me evidence of the fact, which is beyond a doubt. He will also satisfy you—men do not lie at the hour of death, and I am dying with these words on my lips."

He closed his eyes and died.

IV—THE ANONYMOUS NOTE.

Nothing could describe the stupefaction of the four seconds of the duel at what A——said. Von Apsberg was the first to divest himself of the mute terror which seemed to have taken possession of all. "Gentlemen," said he, "I appeal to your honor. The truth of a dying man's assertions cannot be suspected. I am sure he was convinced of the truth of his assertion. This alone can palliate his statements. M. A—— would have soon recovered from his unfortunate impression in relation to the count, and it is a pity that he did not sooner impart it to us. We are able to furnish such evidence of Monte Leone's truth that he would have himself confessed that he was wrong. We will see at all risks the unfortunate young man's father and will attempt to discover the origin of this strange imputation. We will ask one favor of you, such as may be between people of honor, to suspend your judgments in relation to Monte-Leone until we are able to satisfy you this originated in some terrible mistake."

The naval officer then said: "We have no reason to be hostile to Count Monte-Leone, and his conduct in relation to the preliminaries of the duel rather inspire us with respect. We will, then, await your communications and say nothing of the circumstances."

"I thank you, sirs—all here has occurred as should between men of honor and courage. Let us now take care of the victims. Each take care of his own friend," pointing to the son of the General and to Scorpione.

A quarter of an hour afterwards there remained only a few drops of dried-up blood on the withered leaves and on the moss. When Taddeo returned with the body of Tonio, Monte-Leone was already with the Marquise. When the latter saw him, she thought in obedience to his promise he had come to bid her adieu. Then the Count told her what had happened, and the circumstances of Scorpione's death. Aminta wept.

All the self-denial of the poor lad appeared before her; his torture and suffering which began and ended his life. The arrival of Taddeo, therefore, distressed her. The Count, however, was there, and she had discovered the direction of his pretended voyage. The[Pg 331] Count, perhaps, regretted Tonio's death as much as she did, for he had been its involuntary cause and could not console himself for it.

A few hours after, Von Apsberg and Taddeo met at the bedside of the Vicomte, who was yet sick. They told him all the incidents of the duel, and they concurred in thinking the statements of the dying Lieutenant most atrocious. They determined not to speak of it to the Count whose anger and exasperation, they feared at such a statement. As Von Apsberg had said to the Lieutenant's seconds, they determined at all hazards to reach the General's cell, and thus explain the mystery. Three days passed in useless efforts to induce the authorities to accede to their request. At last the Procureur du roi relaxed in favor of Doctor Matheus who was introduced into the cell of General A—— whom he found completely overcome by the death of his son. To this grief, which was intense and terrific, was joined the most violent anger against the Count, whom he called the murderer and assassin of his son. "Yes," said the unfortunate father, "he is a villain, and coward, and has denounced the father and killed the son. What have I done to this man? why is he so enraged against me? why against mine?"

"General," said Von Apsberg, "I can understand how bitter a despair like yours must be: it should not, though, make you unjust towards a man of honor who was your associate and is ours." This was said in a low tone. "Count Monte-Leone fought honorably against your son, and but for an unforseen accident would have been killed by him. Resume, then, your coolness. Time is precious, and I beg you to tell me why you have accused Monte-Leone."

"Would to God I had kept that terrible secret to myself! would to God my son had never heard that charge! He would not then have been forced to meet him to avenge me; he would have been living now."

The sobs of the General increased. Von Apsberg suffered his grief to pass away, and asked, "Is this note yours, General?"

"What note?" asked he, and looking through his tears at a piece of paper which the Doctor gave him.

Von Apsberg whispered almost in his ear. "This note was given a few days after your arrest."

The General read it, and said: "Yes, an old servant who accompanied me to the prison, and who was afterwards taken away, was my messenger."

"And you say that you saw in the hands of the Prefect, as the basis of the charge against you, the list of the members of your vente signed by you and given by you to Count Monte-Leone."

"I do."

"Well," said the Doctor, "repel this error, and do justice to the innocent name you have aspersed, for the Count gave me that very list, and here it is." The General took the document and looked minutely at the signature. He then said, "This is not the list I gave Monte-Leone. My signature is forged. Both the list and signatures have been imitated by a forger, skilfully indeed, but the true list, the one which beyond doubt will take me to the scaffold, this list, as I say and as my blood will prove, is in the hands of the Prefect of police."

Von Apsberg grew pale and leaned against the wall. An icy paleness ran through his veins and a cloud stood before his eyes. He shuddered at this distinct statement. The fact was this list must have been taken from his own papers and imitated in his own room which hitherto he had looked on as inviolable, or the Count was a traitor, and the General right. The unfortunate Lieutenant was not mistaken, he had proved all he said, and was correct in all he did. "General," said Von Apsberg, "for the sake of the honor of a man who is dear to me, for the sake of an association the dominant idea of which you have sustained so nobly and for which you now suffer, think well—make an appeal to your memory; let not chagrin lead you astray, I beg you; by your thirty glorious years of service, I ask you if that is not your signature?"

"On my conscience, and by the memory of my son, I vow that list is an imitation, a copy of mine, and that the original was given to Angles on the day of my arrest."

"It is a strange and incredible mystery," said Von Apsberg, who continued to repel with horror the idea of treason in Monte Leone. Some enemy must have taken this paper from the Count and copied it.

"Do not look so far for this traitor. I have pointed him out to you. The man you call your friend has denounced and betrayed me by means of that fatal document. I tell you, Doctor, he is a coward, and has betrayed the father and son." The old soldier wept. They came to tell the Doctor that the time allotted for his visit was past. He was about to leave when the General seized him and said, "Do prompt justice to that man, or the day of Carbonarism is gone." Von Apsberg could not restrain an expression of terror when he heard these words and saw the look with which they were accompanied. He clasped the General's hand and followed the turnkey who accompanied him to the outer gate of the conciergerie....

Two days before this scene, MM. Ober and professor C., the two other chiefs of the central ventes, who were yet at liberty, placed in the hands of Count Monte-Leone their lists certified to as those of General A——, F——, B——, and the Count de Ch——, had been. Monte-Leone at once took those important papers to Matheus, who shut them up with the others in a secret drawer of the old bureau, a print of the lock of which we[Pg 332] saw Mlle. Crepineau's lover take. Von Apsberg, when he returned home, found Taddeo and the Vicompte waiting for him. The latter was much changed, being pale and weak. He was so anxious, however, to learn the result of the Doctor's visit to A—— that he went to his house. Von Apsberg was struck by the agitation of his friends and the desperation of their countenances. Taddeo said: "We are betrayed and lost, and Carbonarism in France is dead. Ober and C—— were last night arrested and taken to prison." Von Apsberg sank on his chair without speaking. He then arose and rushed out of the room. "What is the matter with him?" said both Taddeo and the Vicomte. Von Apsberg went to his laboratory, opened the door and then the secretary. He took out a mass of papers, and descended again with rapidity. He said to the Vicomte, "you know the signature of Ober, having corresponded with him on business," and handed him the letter.

D'Harcourt took it, and went to the window, the curtains of which he threw aside. He looked carefully at the signature; and then, after a minute examination of every letter, said, "It is forged." He then took a letter from his pocket and added, "I can prove it by this." He then laid the letter which was written by Ober side by side with the roll and said, "This is but a coarse imitation."

Von Apsberg beat his breast and exclaimed: "As you said, my friends, Cabonarism is dead in France, and one of its sons, or rather its chief, who should have defended it with his body and mind, with his blood and life, has basely slain it."

"Do you mean Monte-Leone?" asked d'Harcourt and Taddeo.

"I mean Monte-Leone," and he told all that had passed between the General and himself.

"No!" said Taddeo. "I do not and can not think so. I will not. I will not think one I have esteemed honorable to a proverb, so debased. No! Count Monte-Leone is neither a spy nor a traitor. No! he shall be slandered by none; not even by you shall such a slander be uttered against a friend, countryman, and brother."

"Why," added he, with great vehemence, "why do you not ask for another version than that which condemns him? why may not these lists have been taken and copied while in his possession? why may they not have been thus treated, so that he gave you but counterfeits when he fancied he gave you originals? Indeed," said the noble-hearted young man, "you forget too easily the qualities of those you love, and are oblivious of years of courage consecrated to the cause we sustain, and for which he has periled his life. Truly your friendship turns now into hatred and contempt."

"Taddeo," said d'Harcourt, "We too, suffer—our hearts also repel what our reason tells us is true. As you do we seek to satisfy ourselves that hate not design had produced our ruin. We, like you, are unwilling to think our friend a villain; and God grant we may not be mistaken."

Von Apsberg added that his faith in Monte-Leone had been revived by Taddeo's energetic defence. Every thing must have a cause, a reason, a motive. Why then should Monte-Leone betray us.

"Well, well, my friends," said Taddeo, clasping their hands, "if you do not suspect you are not sure of what you say; you will soon be satisfied, and in a short time will deplore your unworthy suspicion. But I who repelled it will now fathom what it means. Our safety and a brother's honor depend on our doing so."

"Gentlemen," said Von Apsberg, "we should be guilty if we concealed any longer from Monte-Leone what we intended. Certainly a determined will is required to enable one to inflict such a blow on him. He alone can enable us to trace the traitors and criminals. He can give us light—otherwise we are in darkness."

Taddeo said, "Ask me to brave death, to risk my liberty for our cause, and I will not hesitate. Do not, though, ask me to say to a man whom I think honorable, 'you are accused of having sold your brothers, of having basely denounced their secrets—you are called a traitor and a spy—that I cannot do.'"

D'Harcourt said, like Taddeo, "I feel myself incompetent to make this revelation. My lips would quiver, and in spite of my efforts, my strength would fail when I looked into his lofty brow and frank countenance. On that brow fear and shame have never spread a blush."

"Then I will speak," said Von Apsberg, "I love the Count as well as you do, and accused him just now with deep regret, my heart refuting the imputation which my mouth uttered. I will see him, I will tell him of all, and will in my devotion accomplish the most cruel task ever imposed on me."

Just then several blows were struck on the pannel of the book-case through which we have seen S. Pignana enter, and also Signor Salvatori and M. H——. "This is some important information from Pignana," said Von Apsberg, and he touched the spring. The panel opened, but behind it was Monte-Leone instead of Pignana. All experienced great emotion when they saw him. Von Apsberg was the most agitated, for he was to speak, and had thus the most painful task to perform.

"I am just now come," said Monte-Leone, "but I did not think I should enter Frederick's house openly. Prudence is now more needed than ever. You have heard," said he, "of the arrests of the chiefs of the two other central ventes?"

"Yes," said Von Apsberg, "and we were seeking to discover who is our secret enemy."

"This misfortune," said the Count, "is to[Pg 333] be attributed rather to our friends than our enemies. One piece of indiscretion may have produced all this."

"Imprudence," said Matheus, "in a conspiracy, is a crime. It endangers all who participate in it."

"My friends," said the Count, "our association is menaced from all quarters. The journals of every day reveal to all Europe the misfortunes of the secret societies of Germany and Italy—the sisters of Carbonarism in France. The latter, attacked in the person of the chiefs of our central ventes, mortally wounded by the discouragement of a great number of our brothers, has now but one of two alternatives to take."

"Revolt?" said Von Apsberg.

"Violence?" said Taddeo.

"No, my friend, prudence and inaction."

All looked at him with surprise, and Von Apsberg felt again the strange feeling which the facts we have recounted had produced.

The Count resumed. "What I say, it is evident, astonishes you. Burdened, though, with a heavy responsibility by the ventes of Europe, which await, as a signal for action, only my word, I can give it to this immense secret association, which is beneath the surface of society, only when force and number are aided by opportunity. Opportunity now is wanting; for the uneasy eye of government penetrates our ranks, and the iron hand of despotism decimates us. Force and numbers now are paralysed by fear, and I am sorry to say all our future hope is found in prudence and inactivity."

"This language is indeed strange in the month of Monte-Leone," said d'Harcourt.

"Far different," said Taddeo, "from that you used yesterday."

"Calm and cold," said Von Apsberg, "when we take into consideration the storm which howls around us—the shipwrecks which menace every day our vessels."

"Because the heavens are in a blaze—because the tempests howls around us, I would have you for the time seek a shelter."

"Once, though," said Apsberg, "you advised us to brave danger, to meet it face to face, to parry it with arms in our hands, to conquer or to die."

"Gentlemen," said the Count with dignity, "am I called on to rehearse again the offensive scene which took place at the abbey de San Paolo? Am I, as one in the supreme vente of Naples, the chief of which I was, an object of distrust to my brethren? Have I again lost the confidence of my dearest associates? If such be the case, if the pledges I have given to our cause are now valueless, if forgetfulness and ingratitude go together, say so, plainly and distinctly. I am willing to abandon the office, title, and rank, you have conceded to me. I will write to all the ventes of Europe and will henceforth become the most humble but not the least devoted brother of the association."

The suspicions of the three friends at once passed away when they heard this energetic and loyal discourse. Von Apsberg gave his hand to the Count. "Excuse us," said he, "misfortune embitters even the best men. The misfortunes of our brethen, the mysterious enemy who denounces and seems anxious to effect our ruin, overwhelm and distress us. Look," added he, with the haste with which men often discharge a painful duty, "here are the lists of the six chiefs of the central ventes. Are these the papers given you by the imprisoned chiefs A——, Ch——, B——, C——, F——, and Ober? Are these the papers you gave me?"

"They are."

"Are these their signatures?" said Von Apsberg.

"They are."

"You are mistaken," said d'Harcourt, "at least in relation to that of Ober, for here is his true signature to this letter, written the day previous to his arrest. You can yourself see how poor the imitation is."

The Count grew pale, and the other conspirators watched him as if to read his thoughts.

"Do you think the other lists also forgeries?" said the Count.

"We do."

"Then," said the Count, "all is lost."

"All is lost," said Von Apsberg, "and we wish to ascertain from you who had charge of these papers; how is it that they have been copied, and how came the originals in the hands of the police?"

"If such be the case," said Taddeo, who suffered visibly from this species of examination.

"But," said Monte-Leone, who became more and more excited, "you ask me a question I cannot answer—which God alone can explain. All this is a mystery beyond my powers."

"Well," said Von Apsberg, growing every moment more nervous, for he saw the approach of the necessity of this terrible explanation; "well, in the absence of proof, our brethren indulge in conjectures." As he spoke, the words seemed riveted to his lips, and to break from them with difficulty.

"What are those conjectures?" said Monte-Leone, resuming his sang-froid; for the idea that there was a suspicion in relation to his honor, was not within the compass of his thought. He began to seek a remedy almost before he knew what was the evil which menaced him.

"They say," said Von Apsberg, with hesitation, "that some traitor has insinuated himself among us and betrayed us to the secret police—that he has sold us to our enemies, and that the arrests of our brothers are the fruits of his treason."

"Who is that man?" said Monte-Leone.

"Who is he?" said Von Apsberg, and his very heart grew cold.

"Yes! who? who is he?" said Monte-Leone.[Pg 334]

Von Apsberg was about to speak; the bolt was about to fall. His two friends ceased almost to breathe, when the door of the room was rung violently.

"Who can it be at this hour?" said d'Harcourt.

"I cannot tell," said the Doctor, "I expect no one."

The bell was rung again.

"Some patient, perhaps," said Monte-Leone. "Go at once. A doctor should always be prompt to attend such calls."

"But," said d'Harcourt, "what if it be an officer?"

"Then there is an additional reason for answering the bell," said Monte-Leone.

Von Apsberg left the room, closing the door after him and hurrying into the anteroom, saw before him Mlle. Celestine Crepineau. The three friends listened at the door Von Apsberg had closed, to ascertain who called.

"Excuse me, Doctor," said Mlle. Crepineau, "but the matter was so urgent."

"What?"

"This note, which a very pleasant person, fair as you are, but not so handsome, asked me to deliver at once."

"Very well," said the Doctor, who took the note and shut the door in Mlle.'s face.

"Now that is not polite," said she. "After all, though, he may have been engaged in some operation when I rang, and he may have been very much annoyed by the interruption."

Von Apsberg read the letter which had been given him hurriedly and uttered an exclamation of joy. When he rejoined his friends, he said, "God has come to our assistance."

"What is the matter?" asked all of them.

"Nothing that concerns us," said the Doctor, seeking to disguise his trouble; "I have an appointment which is strictly private."

"Tell me, then," said Monte-Leone, "who is accused of having betrayed us."

"I do not know," said Von Apsberg, at once changing his tone. "No one can say who he is."

D'Harcourt and Taddeo looked at him with surprise. The Count said, "I thought our secret enemy, or the person pointed out as such, was known to you."

"He is not," said the Doctor, looking significantly at his friends. "None know who he is."

"Then," said Monte-Leone, "we must seek him out and reach him wherever he is."

"If we discover him," said Von Apsberg, "what shall be his fate."

"Our statutes provide for that case," said Monte-Leone; "he shall share his victim's fate. If our brethren die, so shall he."

"He shall die," said the Carbonari.

"Listen," said Monte-Leone, "the signature of Ober is false, but perhaps it is the only one which has been counterfeited. We must ascertain whether the others are. This point must be cleared up, and I will see to it. Gold and influence will open the dungeons of our friends, and I will see them. Besides, the papers were not out of my possession. Ah!" said he, as if he were utterly discouraged, "this is enough to make a man mad. To-morrow I shall have penetrated it, and then you will see me." He went out through the secret pannel.

When it had closed, Apsberg arose and repeating his last words, said, "Yes, my friends, to-morrow you shall know all." Taking from his bosom the letter Mlle. Crepineau had given him, he read as follows:

"To Doctor Matheus—If you would ascertain who has denounced your brethren, the miserable spy whose reports have ruined them and given to your enemies the original rolls, be to-night at 11 o'clock, p. m., at the back door of the Prefecture of Police, opening on the quai des Orfevres. You will there find the person you need. This is the hour of his rendezvous. Stand in the angle of the door, and without being seen, you may recognize the informer.

"A Brother of the third Central Vente."

V.—A TERRIBLE NIGHT.

The night of January 5th, 1820, was one of the coldest of the winter. The snow fell heavily, and the Seine was covered with large crystallized flakes which, uniting together and lodging on each bank, narrowed the current and caused it to flow more rapidly.

The steps of the patrols, or of the benighted travellers, were unheard. The light of the lamps shone redly but indistinctly amid the snowy cloak which hung around them. They seemed like eyes of fire in the long solitary streets. All was sad and gloomy in this paradise of pleasure and festival. One might have fancied a vast white shroud to be extended over a city without souls.

A man walked rapidly down the port St. Nicholas, before that part of the old Louvre which had once witnessed such joy, love, crime, and splendor. His steps seemed, from their length, to testify great impatience and an anxiety to reach his destination.

"What can they be about?" said he. "All is lost if they do not come. The anonymous note is formal and the terms are precise, "Eleven o'clock and the quai des Orfevres." This secret enemy, whose name and features we are about to know, had only to hasten to the Prefecture of Police to deprive us of the only means of unmasking a scoundrel. Yet heaven protects us, for just as I was about to reveal to Monte-Leone the villainy imputed to him, this note closed my lips and veiled the indignation my words could not but have created in his noble soul."

The man stopped. The silence of the quai was broken, and he heard the sound of persons approaching him. Soon two shadows were seen by the light of the lamps which hung from the walls of the Louvre,[Pg 335] and a voice was heard. "It is he: it is Matheus. He waits for us in the chiaro oscuro of the door." This was followed by a short dry cough, produced by the intense cold of the evening. The speaker was the Vicomte d'Harcourt, scarcely recovered from his illness. A few seconds passed and d'Harcourt and Taddeo stood by the side of Von Apsberg. The three friends had determined not to consult Monte-Leone, nor to inform him of what had taken place until they knew who had denounced them and who was to be punished.

"I came hither," said Von Apsberg, "alone, because three men together are greater subjects of remark than two; for the same reason two are more subject to comment than one; therefore, let us separate, and walking down the quai meet at the place appointed."

The clock of the Hotel de Ville struck eleven, when the three friends met in rear of the Prefecture of Police. They followed strictly the directions of the anonymous letter. They discovered the back door and stood in its shadow, being concealed by an angle in the wall. They waited there. Carriage after carriage passed, and their hearts beat violently as each approached. The carriages crossed the quai but did not stop. At about a quarter after eleven came a carriage driven rapidly, but which relaxed its speed as it reached the quai de Orfevres; it then paused a few feet only from the angle of the wall where the Carbonari were concealed. The steps were let down and the person in the carriage descended and walked rapidly to the back door of the Prefecture. In spite, though, of his haste, the Carbonari could not but remark the stature, tournure, cloak, and bearing of the stranger. The door was opened. The three friends followed and were able to hear him say, "Count Monte-Leone."

"He—he—" said they.

"The scoundrel!" said Von Apsberg.

"The villain!" said D'Harcourt.

Taddeo hurried to the carriage which was on the point of leaving.

"All doubt is gone," said Taddeo. "The carriage is his."

"They are his horses," said d'Harcourt.

"It is his driver," said Von Apsberg. Then speaking to the man who, while surrounded by the three men, began to tremble, "Who is the person who came in the carriage?" said he.

"My master," said the automaton, more dead than alive. "The Count Monte-Leone."

"Whence did your master come hither?"

"How?" said the driver, who did not understand the question.

"I wish to know, did you drive him from his hotel, or some other place?"

"My master was to-night at the Neapolitan embassy. I waited for him in the courtyard which was black as a fair on days when there is no reception. After having remained an hour there he got into the carriage and bade me drive to the quai des Orfevres, near the Prefecture of Police. Here I am, Monsieur, and so are you. Good night, then."

Whipping up his horses at the risk of driving over two of the young men who stood at their heads, he went away at a gallop.

Von Apsberg, d'Harcourt, and Rovero, were all as white as the snow, which had again begun to fall with violence, and looked at each other with that sympathy of a thousand sentiments which might have been expected in persons so terribly situated as they were. Terror, shame, and despair were all united in their glance. Then by one of those sudden and sublime emotions, they clasped each other's hands as if to say, that, henceforth they could rely on no others. Von Apsberg and the Vicomte, were about to speak, when Taddeo made them wait, and said, "No complaints, no insults. If it be he, contempt and death." As he spoke the last word his voice quivered.

"'If it be he?' what doubt can there be?" said Von Apsberg. "Have not our eyes seen? Have not our ears heard? Are we not satisfied?"

"Did you not hear the name?"

"May he not have used the name surreptitiously?"

"Was it not his form, dress, and air?"

"Did you see his face?" asked Taddeo, who was himself struck with the poverty of his reasons, and contended against his convictions.

"But, are not the driver and carriage his?"

"The driver may have been bribed," said Taddeo, who, like many others, became enthusiastic in favor of a bad cause. "I need something more, I must be certain, and will be. In two hours I will see you at Matheus's." He entered a hackney-coach and drove away; bidding the coachman go to the Neapolitan embassy.

"I know his plan," said Von Apsberg, "for if Monte-Leone was not at the embassy, the driver was mistaken, and it was not Monte-Leone we saw."

"What now shall we do?" asked the Vicomte, whose cough became more violent, and more frequent.

"Go home," said Von Apsberg, "for both your body and mind suffer. You remember I am accountable to your father, and to—your sister, for your health."

"But what will you do?" said the Vicomte.

"I will wait."

"Where—here? at this door?"

"Yes; at this door, deserted as it is. I will wait here, for the phantom or the reality. I will wait and tear off the hat which covers his brow, and read with my own eyes the shame there, and thus throw from my[Pg 336] soul the last remnant of faith in the honor of my friend."

"But if he resist?"

"So much the better: I will then kill him."

"And if he kill you?"

"His work will be complete; for, like Judas, he will have slain one he said he loved."

"I will stay," said d'Harcourt; and, despite of the entreaties of his friend and the orders of his physician, he wrapped himself more closely in his cloak, leaned against the wall, and waited. Von Apsberg followed his example....

Taddeo went to the embassy. Few persons had been there during the evening, but the rooms were brilliant with light, and contrasted with the darkness of the vast courtyard of which Monte-Leone's driver had spoken. It was almost midnight, but like most Italians the Duchess lived as much by night as day. The hour, too, at which Taddeo came was not unusually late, for at this hour he was in the habit of visiting the Duchess. Therefore, she was not surprised to see him. She lay negligently on an ottoman in that boudoir where we have already seen her receive Count Monte-Leone. There too she had probably received company during the evening, for the chairs were in a kind of ring around the ottoman. She said:

"Ah, Signor Rovero, you are welcome. I have been kept long waiting this evening for you and for one of your best friends, who expected to find you here."

"Who, Signora, is that friend?" asked Taddeo, with deep curiosity.

"Can you not guess?" said the Duchess. "Whom should we call Pylades' friend but Orestes?"

"Is it the Count you mean?"

"Yes."

"Has he been here?"

"Certainly," said La Felina.

"Certainly," repeated Taddeo, "you kept him a long time with you."

"Taddeo," said La Felina, "you are indulging in that villanous habit of jealousy. Ah!" said she, "I am learned in that." She did not give him time to reply. "It is a pity you yet love a poor woman that chagrin and suffering overwhelm, and whose heart is now as withered as her face."

"To me you are what you always were, and what you will ever be," said Taddeo. "Deign, though, to tell me, I beg you, when did the Count go?"

"The Count, again. Did you come hither to speak of him alone?"

"Not so; but an imperious reason forces me to know when he left the hotel."

"About an hour ago," said the Duchess, looking at Taddeo.

Taddeo grew pale and his fingers grasped the back of the ottoman convulsively. His head fell on his bosom, and his eyes became motionless and fixed upon the carpet. He was convinced, and in despair. From this dreary state he was aroused by the pressure of a soft hand.

"Taddeo," said a voice musical as the song of the angels, "you suffer."

"Yes," said the young man.

"I see you do. Can friendship do nothing to soothe you?"

"Nothing!"

"Thus it is with men," said La Felina; "they think of us in their pleasure and happiness, but never in their sorrow."

Taddeo looked towards the Duchess, whose features expressed so much sympathy and devotion that he felt his heart give way, and he was about to give vent to his secret—an innate and noble sentiment of generosity restrained him. It seemed to him that La Felina might fancy he took a base revenge, should he dishonor one she had loved so passionately, and, perhaps, was yet devoted to.

"Signor Rovero," said the ambassadress, after a long silence, "since you think me unworthy to share your secret, let us have done with it. Skilful physicians lull pains they cannot soothe. Let me then do as they do, and divert your mind from such bitter thoughts to present it a more pleasant prospect—that of your sister's happiness."

"What say you?" asked Taddeo, as if he were aroused from a dream.

"You understand me certainly—the approaching marriage of your sister with Count Monte-Leone is everywhere understood to be a fact."

"Never!" said Taddeo, losing his sang-froid.

A smile of triumph, which Taddeo did not observe, flitted across La Felina's face. She said, "What say you?—do you oppose the union?"

"It is no longer possible, signora," said Taddeo, giving way to his emotion—"it cannot be. Vice and virtue—the serpent and the dove—heaven and hell—may be mingled, but not Aminta and Monte-Leone. He is unworthy of her."

"Unworthy?" said La Felina—"your heroic friend unworthy of her?"

"My friend! I deny him. He was my friend, as Judas was Christ's. For he has sold his, as the recreant sold our Saviour."

"Taddeo! is it you who speak thus?"

"It is. I, whose soul has been crushed by his cruel deception—I, whose holy faith in his truth has perished—I, who must detest him whom I loved and honored!" Unable any longer to conceal the odious secret within his breast, he opened his bleeding heart to La Felina.

When the Duchess had heard him, she said, "No, it is impossible!—Monte-Leone is not a traitor, a coward, the basest of men."

"Ah! you say so; so did I. I repelled the charge with horror; yet I was forced to yield to reason and evidence."[Pg 337]

"It is evident either that you saw or did not see him."

"But the departure from your hotel," said Taddeo, "coincides so fatally with his arrival at the prefecture of police—the very answer of the driver proves all."

"All this is presumptive, yet terrible; but if you yield—if your faith in his honor is not great enough to triumph over it, do you believe that a true passion, that a deep love, such as he inspires, will also do so?"

"Ah, signora!" said Taddeo, with pain, "you have been generous long enough; you have had pity or time long enough to allow me at least to remain in doubt about your sentiments. It is cruel to choose such a time as this to own them."

"How know you what I feel?" said La Felina to Taddeo, who was about to go. "Think you the profound passion of which you speak can resist indifference and forgetfulness?—I spoke only of your sister."

"Is it true?" said the young man, forgetting all in his joy at this confession—"of my sister?"

"Yes; and her heart will not suffer her to be convinced as easily as you have been of the baseness of a man whose name and hand she was about to receive. To break the bonds which unite them, to change her love into contempt, the Marquise de Manlear will require evidence beyond dispute of a crime of which, as yet, you have only suspicions, and which my respect for Monte-Leone forces me to repudiate."

As she spoke, the Duchess, who sat on the ottoman yet, reached forth her arm to pick up a paper which lay on the carpet. Taddeo, following her motions, picked up the paper and handed it to her.

"What is that?" said she; "some letter I have dropped or which one of my visitors has lost."

"Count Monte-Leone sat there," and she pointed to a particular chair. She opened it mechanically, but scarcely had she done so than she uttered a cry of grief. Taddeo hurried to La Felina with a bottle of salts. She had let the paper fall, and it met his glance as it lay open. He saw a seal. Moved by a feeling of curiosity, which he could not repress, and hoping to discover the cause of La Felina's emotion, made confident also by the authentic character of the paper, Taddeo took and read it carefully. Scarcely had he done so than his strength gave way and he became pale as death. Sinking back in a chair he was crushed, as it were, by terror. The Duchess had recovered, and their countenances exhibited to each other the terrible feelings which filled their minds.

"Did you read?" said La Felina.

"I did," said Rovero. "Here it is."

"I recognize as an attaché of the Police Count Monte-Leone, who acts by my authority."

"This is awful," said she.

"Do you yet doubt?" said Taddeo, quivering with grief.

"What will you do with that paper?" said La Felina, also trembling.

"What people do with a decree which holds a man to public infamy—fasten it to the scaffold, that all may know who is the wretch society expels from its bosom. I will nail it to his brow."

"No, no! you will not do so; you will not be hard-hearted and cruel enough to act thus."

"I will do my duty," said Taddeo, sternly.

"And I," said Signora de la Palma, taking possession of the paper, "will not suffer you to do so." Then, quicker than thought, she crushed the paper in her hands, and threw it in the fire.

"What have you done?" said Taddeo. "You have destroyed the irrefragable proof of his guilt."

"You read it, that is enough for you—it is too much for him." Then rushing from the room where she was alone, she said aloud—"It is enough, too, for me, for now she will never marry him."

VI.—THE ACCUSATION.

What had occurred was a sufficient reason for the Duchess not to return to the room. Taddeo hurried to Von Apsberg's. D'Harcourt and the Doctor did not come until two o'clock. The door they watched did not open, and he they were so anxiously waiting for prudently left by some other egress.

"Well," said the Doctor to Taddeo, "was he at the Duchess's?—did he go out as his driver said?"

"May we yet doubt?" said D'Harcourt.

Taddeo was silent, and seemed not even to have heard them. With his head on his hands, he sat before a table in the centre of the room. His eyes were red with tears and watching, and he had written a few lines rapidly; at last he said:

"Read that, which is my answer."

They did so, and a painful sigh escaped their breasts.

He continued—"I, who defended, accuse him; I do so because I saw the proof of his infamy. I know not its object and motive, which confounds my reason; I cannot, however, doubt it, for I have read the letter, and devote this man to the hatred and vengeance of the brethren he has betrayed." He then told all that had passed.

Von Apsberg took the pen and wrote his name below Taddeo's. D'Harcourt did the same. This act, simple as it was, had a lugubrious and solemn character, for which it was indebted to the physiognomy and emotion of the three men whose hearts beat under the same emotion, and who shed tears together. At last it seemed that they had evidence which lighted up their future path of vengeance.

"My friends," said the Doctor, "Carbonarism[Pg 338] in France is dead. The arrests of the chiefs of the central ventes tell you plainly enough what fate is reserved for us. We are free men only because our liberty contributed to the plans of our enemies. We cannot dissemble that we are sold and betrayed by a spy. Our retreats and plans also are revealed, and the dungeon, exile, or death, is the fate of our brethren and ourselves. I propose to you, therefore, no isolated vengeance, but one for all affiliated with us. By the terms of our association, a sentence has been passed on the traitor, and been signed." He pointed to the paper to which they had affixed their names. "Who will execute it? The supreme annual vente will assemble in a few days at the Masonic lodge of the Friends of Truth. The supreme vente will decide."

"No, gentlemen," said the Vicomte D'Harcourt, "my mind and education object to nocturnal vengeance. I prefer daylight and the sword to obscurity and the dagger. His sword is not worthy to be crossed with mine, but better thus than murder."

"So be it. But not your sword, but those of all of us will be directed to his heart. To-morrow, like three shadowy avengers, we will tell him of his crime and punish it."

"To-morrow be it," said D'Harcourt and Taddeo. Then, clasping each other's hand with a mingled feeling of anger, sorrow, and despair, they separated.

On the morning of the night after these scenes, Monte-Leone, immersed in reflection, sat in his hotel. It might be about ten o'clock. The snow, which had been falling since the evening before, intercepted the faint light of day, and added to the sadness of the vast room. By means of his anxious research and skilful investigations, Monte-Leone, since the previous evening, had ascertained beyond doubt that the true lists of members of the central ventes were in the hands of the police. Thenceforth all seemed an impenetrable mystery to the Count, which his intelligence and the fertile resources of his mind could not fathom. "How had originals been replaced by copies?—how had the police obtained the originals?" This impenetrable enigma appeared to the Count as a new evidence of his evil genius, which had been for a long time apparently growing darker and darker before him, and seemed to hurry him to ruin and destruction. The defection of the world had become more and more sensible—the coldness every day became more marked and decided. The incredible and brutal challenge of Lieutenant A——, the causeless duel, and the death he had been forced to inflict on one who, for his father's sake, he almost loved, appeared before him. The embarrassment which he saw with sorrow supervene in the intercourse of his friends with him, caused a vague torment in his usually energetic and decided mind. The tenderness of Aminta, the esteem and affection of the Prince, opposed these impressions, but could not dispel them entirely. The Count was thus disturbed by this overwhelming trouble and fatigue, produced by painful and distressing reflection, when Giacomo appeared before him. He entered with such calmness and silence, that the Count did not perceive his intendent until he stood at his side, and said:

"A person is waiting to speak to your excellency in the cabinet."

"I am at home for no one."

"That is bad," said Giacomo, "for I have said you were in, and even bade the person wait in the next room. Really I think it was time to do so, for the poor woman trembled so she could scarcely stand."

"Who is she?" asked the Count.

"That I cannot give your excellency; in the first place, because she did not tell me her name, and, in the second place, because she wears a veil, which her little hand holds fast. This, too, is always the case: ladies never come at this hour to see a bachelor without a veil—this is the uniform of the sex."

"Who can it be?" thought he. The idea occurred to him that it might be the Duchess. The recollection of La Felina's disinterested kindness pleaded in her favor. Monte-Leone bade Giacomo show her in. The intendent left and soon returned, preceded by a veiled lady of an elegant and distinguished air. Scarcely had the old man retired, when the visitor lifted up her veil, and exhibited the features of Aminta. He was rejoiced indeed, and said:

"You here—at my house!" and Monte-Leone fell at her feet. "I never would have dared to ask you to grant me such a favor. I never would have hoped, you would concede such."

"Count," said Aminta, trembling as much, as possible, "I took this step for a reason which is imperious to me. Are we alone?" said she, looking timidly around her.

"We are alone," said the Count. "Speak to me, and tell me to what I am indebted for your presence here?"

"To my sorrow and despair," said the Marquise.

"What then is the matter?" asked the Count with terror.

"I do not know, but some danger menaces us.... The Prince, my second father, who, as you know, always treated me as a daughter—who hitherto always has received you with such kindness, and has acted so that our proposed marriage is no longer a secret, came yesterday to see me. His countenance expressed the greatest trouble, and his eyes sparkled with rage. He said, 'My daughter, I am about to grieve you greatly, and you must arm yourself with all your courage and resolution. Your marriage with Count Monte-Leone is now impossible, and I beg you, in the name of my love of you, to abandon him for ever.'"

"What do I hear?" said Monte-Leone, almost[Pg 339] beside himself. "What does this mean?—why this change?—whence did he obtain a right thus to ruin and crush me?"

"He did not pause there, that is but half of my sacrifice. He said, 'You must not again receive Count Monte-Leone's visits. The doors of this house henceforth are closed to him.'"

Monte-Leone said with vehemence, "Is it not enough to separate us?—would he add insult to cruelty? What is my crime? Of what am I accused? Why was I worthy of you yesterday, and am so base to-day?"

"My prayers and tears," said the Marquise, "could not induce the Prince to reveal this strange secret to me. He said, 'The Count has no longer a right to your hand, for he has deceived us. If he insists again on speaking of his passion, say to him, that I know all, and have heard it from one who cannot lie, and whom it is the duty of every Frenchman to have faith in next to God—from the King!'"

The Count stood silent and amazed. It seemed to him that an invisible net surrounded him, and that the iron threads perpetually closed around him. All grew darker and deeper; the mysteries amid which he walked seemed more intense, and his reason began to give way beneath the heavy hand which weighed on his brow. Aminta looked at him with deep distress. The silence of the Count appeared to acknowledge the Prince's words. He seemed stupified by an accusation, of the justice of which he was aware. Aminta trembled at the idea that she had loved a criminal. He, however, at last looked up, and his eyes bore only the expression of deep sadness. He said, "Aminta, by all that is most holy, by our own life, I swear that I know not the meaning of this. From the language, though, that the Prince has used, and from the King's name being, I know not why, involved in my affairs, it is clear that my honor has been doubted by the Prince. This I have hitherto allowed no one to do. However, one has been found bold enough to do this."

"The Prince is almost my father," said Aminta, timidly.

"He is my mortal foe, for he seeks to separate us."

"Listen," continued he, in a more gentle tone, and he sat beside her; "my love is so great, I dread so to bring any cloud across your brow, that hitherto I have concealed my sufferings."

"You have been unhappy and I ignorant of it!"

"I am in that terrible condition in which a man feels that his reason is about to escape from him. I hear my voice—I see my face, and seek to discover in their expression if there be any symptom of folly or not—I am not myself—I am not what I was—I am like the leper in the Bible, for all flee from me—I am repelled everywhere, as if death and disease followed in my train. French society, across which I strode like a king once, now seeks to make me atone for my fleeting triumph. To public esteem and universal consideration have succeeded distrust and coldness. I see hatred and fear in eyes that once shone with admiration and respect; and, when I look into my life, when I examine my most secret acts, I find no cause for this repulsion, and can not but ask myself if my fancy be not diseased, and calls not up the chimeras which distress me."

"No, no," said Aminta, with that womanly pride which always actuated her in relation to him she loved, "your reason and mind are yet the same. Some dark and odious calumny may perhaps have been circulated to your disadvantage."

"Who will tell me what it is?" said the Count; "who will exhibit it to my eyes? who will show me the phantom which robs me of name and fame, and secretly immolates my honor?"

Just then the bell of the hotel rang. The Count hurried to the door to exclude any one. He was, however, too late; for rapid steps were heard in the anteroom.

"Who is it?" said he to Giacomo.

"The three persons to whom these doors are never closed, M. Von Apsberg, d'Harcourt, and Rovero."

The Marquise uttered a cry of terror.

"They will come hither," said he, "in spite of both Giacomo and myself, and this room has no other egress."

The voices of the Carbonari fell on the ears of the Marquise.

"Go in there," said Monte-Leone to the Marquise; and he opened an elegant closet. "In a few moments I will dismiss them."

The young woman did so—and scarcely had the door been closed than the three young men entered the room. Their brows were stern and severe, and bore the impress of their feelings.

"What is the matter now?" asked Monte-Leone.

Not a sound was heard, but six eyes glared at him with disdain and arrogance. Von Apsberg took a paper from his breast, and without speaking, gave it to Monte-Leone.

"What means this?" said he. He read——

"Statutes of French Cabonarism.

"Article 1.—Whosoever shall denounce or betray his brethren, confesses that he deserves death, and sentences himself for the crime at the time of its commission."

"Well," said the Count, looking at his friends, "I know all that. I signed that article as well as you."

"Go on," said Taddeo. The Count continued:

"We, chiefs of the central ventes, supreme judges of the members of the association, we to whom our brethren have confided the sacred right of life and death, declare, swear, and affirm, that a base traitor and informer is among us. Each of us therefore demands[Pg 340] on this man the punishment which he has made himself liable to, which is death."

"His name? his name?" asked Monte-Leone.

"His name," said Von Apsberg, "we hesitated to tell you the other day, but do so no longer. His name is Count Monte-Leone!"

Monte-Leone stood mute at this reply, and cast glances of surprise and terror on his companions. His blood ran as if it would burst the arteries. His eyes became fiery, and the nails of his fingers drew blood from his palms. He was silent. One might have fancied him the animating spirit of a cloud charged with thunder. After the reading of the sentence, the silence was broken by Von Apsberg, who said:

"He who was our chief, who was our dearest friend"—his voice trembled at this sentence—"should not die like a common Carbonaro. We have therefore forgotten our aversion to his crime, and offer to risk our lives against his in strife."

The Count let the Doctor conclude, and then said, "I was right! I saw what I fancied I did. This is no dream—no hallucination. A man has dared to couple my name and the reproach of a denunciator together."

"There are three who dare, and their names are Rovero, D'Harcourt, and Von Apsberg."

"Gentlemen," said he, "sometimes one is forced to condescend to be affronted when dealing with people too low to reach their mark. I, however, cannot condescend to stoop to the gutters where such epithets are gathered up as you throw on me."

"These epithets," said D'Harcourt, "are not addressed merely by three men to Count Monte-Leone. All Paris does so."

"Public rumor," interrupted Von Apsberg, "accuses you of having betrayed A——, Ober, B——, and our other friends."

"Public rumor!" exclaimed the Count, whose eyes seemed ready to spring from his head.

"Public rumor says that Count Monte-Leone, ruined and desperate, obtains the money he now spends, most disgracefully. He has sold his brethren to enable him to continue his luxury."

The Count uttered an exclamation of horror.

"Count Monte-Leone, proscribed two months ago in France, owes the right of remaining in the realm to the fact that he is in communication with the French police, whose agent he is."

"Are you done?" said Monte-Leone, sarcastically.

"Count Monte-Leone has sold the secrets of his brethren in every land, and filled the prisons of France, Spain, and Italy, with his victims."

"Then," said Monte-Leone, with a far different accent from what might have been expected from an injured man or discovered criminal, for his tone was almost joyous, "this is the explanation of the obscurity amid which I have wandered. No, it is impossible! Paris may speak thus, but you do not! You do not think me such a being?"

"On our honor we do," said the three.

The ball which reaches the soldier's heart, the bolt which falls on the traveller, have not a more sudden effect than these words on Monte-Leone.

"They, too!" said he, "they, too!"

"Yes," said Von Apsberg, "we accuse you more distinctly even than the rest of the world. We have horrible proof."

"What is it?"

"General A—— swore on the soul of his son that you betrayed him; and that he saw the list he gave you in the hands of the Prefect of Police." "This one you gave me," said the Doctor, handing the document to him. "Here are the lists of the five other ventes, all of which are false and counterfeit. You alone had these lists, and could give them up."

"Horrible!" said Monte-Leone.

"A man," said D'Harcourt, "went yesterday, at eleven o'clock at night, into the Prefecture of Police. This man got out of a carriage which was your own. The man gave your name to the keeper of the gate. He did not however know that two of his brethren overheard him. Those who overheard him are now before you. Will you deny it?

"The carriage and name mine?" said Monte-Leone, beside himself.

"Finally," said Taddeo, "I saw the disgraceful brevet you received from the police. I saw the name of Monte-Leone linked with the infamous word 'Spy.'"

Taddeo had no sooner finished reading this letter than Monte-Leone hurried towards a press, and took out pistols, one of which he threw at Taddeo's feet.

"Take it," said he, "kill me before I shoot you; for I will not survive this insult one moment, or live with him who has pronounced it."

At that moment, a cry was heard in the next room. The door was thrown open, and the Marquise of Maulear fell between her brother and Count Monte-Leone.

VII.—DESCENT OF THE POLICE.

When the Marquise de Maulear regained consciousness her attention was directed to a woman who knelt before the sofa. This person was the confidential female servant of the Count Monte-Leone, who rendered to the Marquise cares he could not extend himself. Having retired into the next room he anxiously waited for an opportunity to see her again. Doctor Von Apsberg having become satisfied that the young woman had merely fainted, and that there was nothing serious in her condition, joined D'Harcourt in his efforts[Pg 341] to hurry Taddeo from the hotel; and Monte-Leone's ideas having been suddenly changed by the apparition of the lady, which had effaced all his sufferings, scarcely perceived their sudden departure. The Marquise, when she recovered, remembered this terrible scene.

"My brother!—Taddeo!—Monte-Leone! where are they? For God's sake hide nothing from me—take me to them—let me terminate that terrible combat, the very idea of which makes me mad."

"Here is the Count, madame," said the woman, pointing to Monte-Leone, who drew near.

"One word—tell me where my brother is."

Count Monte-Leone bade the servant leave him; and when he was alone with her, he said bitterly, "Your brother is gone, madame, with his friends, after having overwhelmed me with insults."

"By your love to me," said Aminta, "falling on her knees, I ask his life."

"But you did not hear this terrible scene," said he.

"I did. Every word fell on my heart as if it would crush it. They were, though, the results of error and anger. The honor of Monte-Leone is above such imputations."

"Aminta," said the Count, "they are only the echoes of the world. My fury cannot reach the thousand mouths which dishonor me. I can speak only through their interpreters. Blood alone can wash out the insults they have subjected me to—ask me, then, for my own life, but not for the life of those who have thus insulted me."

"One of them is my brother,—is your friend."

"My dearest friend," said the Count, "one who knows my very inmost life, and has had a thousand opportunities to judge me. He was bold enough to repeat that odious calumny to me. Ah!" continued he, with sombre vehemence, "that this corrupt world, which knows me not, should have been able thus to heap suspicion on me! The world has judged me by itself; but Taddeo is the very reflection of my own soul. The name of friend seemed too little for him. I loved him as I would have loved my mother's son. He was the object of my second love on earth. Aminta, Taddeo has leagued himself with my enemies, and came hither to affront me mortally. This is too much for my heart and physical endurance." Count Monte-Leone, who in danger was so firm, wept at the idea that his friends had so misconceived him.

"My friend," said the Marquise, sobbing, and pressing the face of Monte-Leone to her bosom, "Taddeo would shed tears of despair and regret could he only see how you grieve. Certainly he is wrong to doubt your honor, but he will repair his wrongs, and expiate all by repentance. He will defend you, will convince and confound your enemies and will again be your friend."

"He has suspected me," said Monte-Leone, sadly, "and cannot be my friend again, even if he confessed his injustice on his knees before me. He is your brother, though, Aminta, and that imposes a sacrifice on me which my love for you alone can inspire. I will either not avenge the insult, or demand satisfaction for it from another. God grant that other may kill me, for then Taddeo will live without being called on to expiate this outrage."

"Ah!" said Aminta, "that misfortune was absent, but now he wishes to die."

"Yes, Aminta," said the Count, "I wish to die rather than drag out a disgraceful life, without the power of effacing from my brow the stigma placed there, rather than read suspicion in every eye, rather than see myself despised. All parts—all Europe—all the world, perhaps, will repeat this awful charge."

"I do not believe it," said the young woman; "I am sure there is no heart on earth more worthy than yours, and that you may challenge the esteem of all. What I know, though, all others must.——In eight days, Count Monte-Leone, you must marry me. I will be Countess Monte-Leone."

"What!" said the Count, to whom that idea gave a glimpse of heaven amid the hell around him, "you Countess Monte-Leone!"

"Who then will dare to say that I married a disgraced man?"

"Aminta," said the Count, falling at the feet of the noble-hearted woman, "God knows my gratitude is equal to your love, but I cannot marry you. You know that I love you, that I would give my life for your hand, but my father's name I cannot confer on you, dishonored as it now is. Hear then my oath," said the Count. Aminta trembled, but he said, "I swear by the sacred soul of my father, not to accept your hand until my enemies are confounded, until the infernal imposture of which I am the victim be recognized as the basest and foulest of calumnies."

"So be it," said Aminta. "We will not wait long for that day, and my prayers will appeal to heaven for it. Let Taddeo's life, though, be sacred to you. I confide him to your love of me...." "No,—no," said she, seeing he was about to reply, and perhaps resist her; "do not speak, but remember that Taddeo is my brother, and that his death will separate us for ever."

A few moments after this scene, a carriage, which was standing at the end of the quai, bore the Marquise rapidly to her hotel. We need not say that she was completely overcome by the incidents of the day....

At about ten o'clock the next day, the Duke d'Harcourt, was at the breakfast table with all his family. The eyes of the old man were suddenly struck with the following passage in the Journal des Debats, which he was glancing over. He read it aloud:[Pg 342]—

"The terrible secret association, on the track of which the police has very long been, has been discovered—even its name is known—the whimsical one of 'Carbonarism!' We are assured that every rank of life has representatives in this vast affiliation. Even young men of the most noble families of France have been found on its rolls, and they have been already pointed out to the attention of the government."

The Viscount d'Harcourt grew visibly pale as he heard his father read, and Marie called the Duke's attention to the fact. She hurried to his side.

"It is nothing," said he, "but a sudden spasm of pain. It will soon pass away, and in a few minutes I shall be better."

The Duke d'Harcourt had finished his paper, and looked sternly on his son. His glance was like that of the judge on the criminal, a mute appeal to conscience, which the young man could not be insensible of. "René," said the Duke, in his most penetrating tone, "if I did not know that you have overcome the influence of those political chimeras which produced your expulsion from Italy, the agitation caused by what you have heard read would make me think the cause of those conspirators your own." The Count's trouble increased. The old noble continued to speak in this tone, extolling, also, the advantages of a monarchical government, and pointing out the evils likely to result from the possible realization of the plans of the Carbonari. He, however, heard the sounds of many feet in the anteroom of the saloon, where he sat with his children. The secretary of the Duke, the brave D'Arbel, an old officer of the army of Condé, who had emigrated with the Duke, and never left him, appeared at the door. His features expressed the greatest agitation. He said:—

"The Duke does not know what is going on."

"What is the matter, my dear D'Arbel?" said the Duke, taking a seat in the chair the old man handed to him.

"The door of our hotel has been broken open in the King's name, and is now in possession of the police. The chief has placed all the household under surveillance and is about to come hither."

"What means this?" said the Duke. "Why is my house thus invaded?"

"Ah, my God!" said Marie, trembling, "what do these people want?"

"What do they want?" said the Vicomte, completely beside himself. "They want vengeance on me."

"To arrest you! For heaven's sake, sir, tell me what you have been doing."

"What you censured so violently just now. Father, I have sought to overturn a government of which my opinions do not approve. I am now to experience the penalty of having failed. In such matters success makes great men, and failure criminals."

"Criminal or not, they shall not take away my son. I will defend him."

"Brother, brother," cried Marie, wildly, and embracing the Vicomte.

"Monsieur," said D'Arbel, "a few moments yet remain for you to attempt to enable the Vicomte to escape."

"Whither? how?" said the Duke, who was overcome with terror and distress.

"Through the garden. The gate on la rue Baylonne perhaps is yet practicable."

"D'Arbel is right," said the Duke, "come, come;" and he took his son's hand, and led him to the end of the room where he opened the window fronting on the portico.

"Here," said the secretary, "is a cloak and hat with a broad brim which will somewhat conceal the features of the Vicomte." He placed his own hat and cloak on Rene's head and hurried him towards the outer door.

"Remain here, my daughter," said the Duke to Marie, "to detain them as long as possible, and enable us to escape."

"This way—this way, Duke," said the secretary to M. d'Harcourt and his son. "The principal alley is too much exposed for us to escape unseen." He led them close to the wall where the foliage was very thick, and thence to the gate. The Duke's eyes were so filled with tears, that he stumbled at every step, and his son was forced to guide him to the goal of all their hopes. At last they stood at the gate. The Secretary took a pass-key from his pocket, put it in the lock and opened the door. Here, though, were six officers of police. The Duke uttered a painful cry, and to keep from falling leaned against the wall.

"I am your prisoner," said D'Harcourt to these men. "I am the Vicomte."

"We know you well enough. You have long been pointed out to us, and we have had our eyes on you."

The Duke, when he heard these words, felt as if his heart would break, for a cruel idea occurred to him. His son had long been under surveillance, and had also for a long time deceived his father.

"Come, then," said the Vicomte, "I am ready to accompany you."

"You are acting correctly, M. le Vicomte," said the agent. "You submit without difficulty. Let us go, but not in this direction; if you please, we will go through the garden to the hotel."

"And why?"

"Because such are our orders. The chief intends to examine your papers and draw up the proces verbal in your presence. M. H—— never puts himself out except on great occasions like this."

Without replying, the Vicomte took his father's arm, and followed by the old secretary, and surrounded by the police agents, went to the house. The Duke, during the whole route, did not speak, but sobbed audibly.[Pg 343] From time to time, he clasped the arm of his son as if he would have retained possession of him. When they returned home, Marie, who thought her brother safe, uttered a cry of terror, and fainted. The Duke hurried to her side and sent for her women to take care of her. The Vicomte, in the interim, was taken to his room by M. H——, to be present at the examination of his papers. A few minutes after, the door was thrown open, and Count Monte-Leone entered. Faithful to the promise he had made to the Marquise to ask no explanation from Taddeo of the outrage he had received, he had come to obtain satisfaction from René. The appearance of the police in the vestibule of the house, the terrified air of the servants, made Monte-Leone apprehend some new disaster. He entered the room without being impeded, for the guards had orders to keep persons from going out, not from entering.

"Ah, Count," said the Duke, when he saw Monte-Leone, "you are come to share our trouble. My son is arrested and lost."

"Arrested?"

"Yes; as an accomplice in one of those awful plots in which you were yourself once involved. What sorrow to my house!"

"Where is he now—has he left the hotel?" asked the Count.

"No, sir," said the secretary, "the police is now examining his papers."

"His papers seized! You were right, sir, in what you said—your son is lost."

The Duke, with an activity and vehemence due entirely to the over-excitement caused by his misfortune, said, "And how, Monsieur, do you know any thing about my son's papers?"

"I know but too well," said the Count in despair; "for I shall doubtless ere long share his fate and captivity, as I have his hopes and anticipations."

"Alas!" said the Duke, "your antecedents, your exalted opinions, a powerful instinct which cannot deceive a father's heart, all tell me that you have led my son astray. You have ruined him."

Before the Count could reply, the Vicomte returned, followed by M. H——, chief of the political police, and his officers.

"My father," said the Vicomte, "I was unwilling to leave the hotel without imploring your pardon for the wrong I have done you." He knelt before the Duke, who could scarcely stand. "I forgive you, my son, for having thus wrung from me the only tears I ever shed on your account. They are bitter, though, indeed, and cannot but shorten my life."

Marie had recovered, and embraced her brother.

What the Duke said to his son, the tender and touching embrace of the young girl, appeared not to be observed by René. His glance was fixed, and stern, and full of horror. His features were discomposed by violent rage, and, pointing to Count Monte-Leone, he exclaimed:

"Ah! why look for the informer?—there he is. Father, father, that scoundrel has sold me to the persons who tear me from your arms. There is the man whose name henceforth is Judas."

The Duke and Marie shrank from the Count as from a reptile.

"René," said the Count, "thank God that my hand has no dagger to reach your heart for this new insult!"

"Ah! I believe you. One more crime would have cost you nothing. You would then slay the body as you did the soul. A coward is but a coward—a spy is but an assassin."

"A spy!" said Monte-Leone, rushing towards the Vicomte.

He then paused as if he had been seized by a new idea, and, turning towards the chief of police, said, pointing to René, "Tell this man that I am not one of your creatures. Tell him that I do not know you. If he needs proof, arrest me, for I am far more criminal than he is."

"We have no orders to arrest Count Monte-Leone," said M. H——, with a smile.

"Well," the Count said, "if you have no orders, I will give you reason to do so. Instead of being an agent of police, I am the head of the secret association you seek after. I am the leader of those who seek to ruin you, the soul of the invisible world which conspires against the throne of your king and hated government. Now, far from avoiding, I call on you to act. Earn your rewards, and arrest the most implacable enemy of your master—the chief of Carbonarism—arrest me!"

The Duke, the Vicomte, and the witnesses of this scene, looked with amazement at Monte-Leone, who, as it were, rushed to the block. René d'Harcourt felt something of remorse at what he had said. M. H——, piqued at the defiance, as it were, cast in his face, said to Monte-Leone, "Instead of admitting you guilty of the crimes with which you charge yourself, we protest against your statement: were you as guilty as you say, you would not dare thus to speak. Besides, this bravado is useless. We know to what your conduct is to be attributed, and that you have pursued a very different course from what you say. If you suffer, it is because you have forced me thus publicly to make an explanation." The Count was stricken down by this overwhelming statement, and by the attempt to establish complicity between himself and the police. His sight, his very thoughts became dim, and his lips, contracted by fury, gave vent only to indistinct mutterings. Before he recovered his sang-froid, before he could repel this disgraceful imputation, René, in obedience to a signal from M. H——, disengaged himself from his sister's arm, and, clasping his father[Pg 344] to his bosom, went from the room. Pausing at the door, he pointed to H——, and said to Monte-Leone, "the words of this man tear away my last doubt; I maintain all I have said. May an old man and young woman's tears, may my blood rest on your head." The Vicomte left. When the old man saw his son depart, he went to Monte-Leone, and with a gesture of anger and contempt said to him: "Away! you have betrayed my son to the executioner; away, you will also kill me." He then sank in the arms of his servant.

From Fraser's Magazine.

CHAMOIS HUNTING.

I had been staying at Fend (one of the highest inhabited spots in Europe) for some days, existing on a light and wholesome regimen of hard-boiled eggs, harder baked rye bread, and corn brandy, exploring the magnificent scenery round me, and had returned the way I came, to a collection of brown packing-boxes, by courtesy called a village, which rejoiced in the euphonious name of Dumpfen, nestling cozily under the grand belt of pines that feathered the flanks of the mountains, which rose high and clear behind. In front roared, rattled, and grated, a wide glacier torrent, the color of ill-made gruel, and on the opposite side stretched, some quarter of a mile, a flat plain of gravel and worn boulders, here and there gemmed with patches of short sweet turf, till it reached the base of a noble range of cliffs, which rose gray and steep into the clear blue sky, so lofty, that the fringe of world-old pines along their summits could scarcely be distinguished.

On the narrow patch of turf between the village and the torrent I found—it being a fine Sunday afternoon—much mirth and conviviality. The rifle-butts were pitched on the opposite side of the torrent, with a small hut close to them to shelter the marker, a fellow of infinite fun, attired in bright scarlet, and a fantastic cap, who placed marked pegs into the bullet-holes, and pantomimed with insane gestures of admiration, contempt, astonishment, or derision, the good or bad success of the marksmen. And splendid specimens of men they were—firm, proud, yet courteous and gentle, well dressed in their handsome and handy costume, strong as lions, which, in fact, they "needed to be" to support the weight of those young eighteen pounders which they called rifles, with brass enough in the stocks to manufacture faces for a dynasty of railroad kings. Never did I see finer fellows. And the women! How lovely are those Tyrolese damsels, with their dark brown glossy hair braided under the green hat, with a brilliant carnation stuck over their left ear in a pretty coquettish fashion, enough to send an unfortunate bachelor raving. And their complexions! the very flower in their hair paling, looking dull beside their blooming cheeks; and their clear soft hazel eyes, with such a soul of kindness, gentleness and purity peeping through them, as one scarcely sees, even in one and another elsewhere.

The shooting was at last over, the winner crowned with flowers, and, the targets borne in triumph before them, the whole party retired to the wooden hut with a mystic triangle in a circle over the door, to eat, drink, and be merry; and very merry we were, albeit the only tipple strongly resembled very indifferent red ink, both in taste and color. Talk of the dura messorum ilia! what insides those fellows must have had!

We were sitting listening to interminable stories of Berg-geister, and Gemsen Könige, and rifle practice at French live targets, when two herd lads came in from some of the higher mountain pastures, and reported three chamois, seen that morning low down on the cliffs.

Hereupon up rose a vast clatter among the yägers as to the fortunate man who was to go after them, for chamois hunting, gentle reader, requires rather less retinue and greater quiet than pheasant shooting in October.

The lot fell upon one Joseph something or another; I never could make out his surname, if he had one—which I rather doubt. He was a fine, handsome, jaunty fellow, with "nut-brown hair" curling round his open forehead, and a moustache for which a guardsman would have given his little finger.

Now, as it fell out, I also got excited; I too thirsted after chamois' blood; but how to get it? How could I, small five foot seven, and rather light in the build, persuade that Hercules to let me accompany him, unless he put me in his pocket, which would have been derogatory? It is true that I, being light myself, was perfectly convinced that weight was rather an incumbrance than otherwise in the mountains; but how could I persuade the "heavy," whose opinions, of course, ran the other way, to agree with me?

However, as the men thinned off, and the place became quieter, I determined to make the attempt, at least, and commenced the attack by "standing" Joseph a chopine of the aforesaid red ink, and then, fearing the consequences, followed it up by an infinity of "gouttes" of infamous corn brandy, all the while raving about the Tyrol, Andreas Hofer, and the Monk, and abusing the French, till I quite won his heart; he, innocent soul, never imagining the trap I had set for him. At last I glided into chamois hunting, the darling theme of a Tyroler, making him tell me all sorts of wild stories, and telling him some in return, (every whit as true, I have no doubt, as his own,) till at last I boldly demanded to be allowed to accompany him the next morning.

Joseph humm'd and ha'ed for some time; but gratitude for the tipple, my admiration[Pg 345] for Hofer, and, perhaps, the knowledge that I had been over some of the stiffest bits of the surrounding ranges solus, and had been after the gems, though unsuccessfully, before, made him relent, and it was finally settled that I should go. He went home to get comfortably steady for the next morning, and I laid violent hands on every thing eatable to stuff into my knapsack; whilst the others, after vainly trying to persuade me out of my determination, retired, shaking hands with me as if I was ordered for execution at eight precisely the next morning. Whereupon I vanished into the wooden box, which it is de règle to get into in that part of the world when one wants to sleep, and slumbered incontinently.

I had been asleep about five minutes, according to my own computation, though, in fact, it was as many hours, when I suddenly awoke to a full perception of the fact that I was "in for it." Alas, those treacherous fumes of "Slibowitz" no longer deluded me into the idea that I was fully up to any existing mountain in the known world; that jumping a ten-foot crevasse was as easy as taking a hurdle; or that climbing hand over hand up rocks "so perpendicular" that one's nose scraped against their stony bosoms, was rather safer, if any thing, than taking sparrows' nests from the top of a stable ladder! However, the honor of England was at stake. Go I must. So I resigned myself to the certainty of breaking my only neck, and jumped up, thereby nearly dashing in the roof of my brain-pan against the top of my box, adding, most unnecessarily, another headache to the one I already possessed—and turned out.

Unfortunately, there was no one awake to see my magnanimity; and it was too dark to see if there had been; so I groped my way down, with my upper garments on my arm. After "barking" my shins against stools and trestles, and being nearly eaten up by a big dog in the dark, I sallied out, preferring to make my morning ablutions in the clear but cold brunnen that plashed and sparkled on the little green before the door, to dipping the tip of my nose and the ends of my fingers into the pie-dish which had been considerately placed for my private use.

How intensely beautiful that dawn was! with the pine-woods steeped in the deepest purple—here and there a faint, gauzy mist, looking self-luminous, marking the course of some mountain brook through the forest. The gray cliffs stood dark and silent on the opposite side of the stream, and one far-off snow-peak, just catching the faint reflected light of dawn, gleamed ghost-like and faint, like some spirit lingering on the forbidden confines of day.

How intense was that silence!—broken only by the harsh rattle of the torrent and the occasional faint tinkle of a cow-bell in the distance, or now and then by a spirit-like whispering sigh amongst the pines, that scarcely moved their long arms before the cold breath of the dying night.

I had finished my toilet, and was just beginning to hug myself in the idea that I had escaped, and had a very good excuse to slip into bed again, when I heard the clang of a pair of iron-soled shoes advancing down the torrent bed that did duty for a road, and to my unmitigated disgust saw Joseph looming through the darkness, like an own brother to the Erl King, a "shooting-iron" under each arm, and a mighty wallet on his back. There was no escape—I was in for it!

Setting our faces to the mountains, we entered the pine-forest, and toiled up and up through the dark, silent trees, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, till the day began to break, some three-quarters of an hour after our start, when we stopped with one accord, of course only to look back and see the sunrise, though I doubt if either of us could have kept up that steady tread-mill pace much longer, with any degree of comfort.

Well, we halted to look, perhaps for the last time, at the valley and the village now far below us. We had got to the height of the cliffs on the opposite side, and could look over their summits at the tumbled alp-billows that tossed their white crests for many a league beyond; the sun steeping the snow-peaks in tints of purple, pink, and crimson, and here and there a rock-peak shone with the brightest silver and the reddest gold,—enough to send one "clean wud" with their exquisite beauty. Down below in the valley, the sun had not yet risen, though man had; the little columns of blue smoke wreathed gracefully upwards in the calm morning air, and the lowing of the cows, and the faint tinkle of their bells, as they were being driven to their morning pasture, floated up ever and anon in strangely diminished tones, that seemed to come from some fairy world far down in the Alp-caverns.

Having rested, we turned our faces again to the mountains, and toiled anew through the pine-forest, now no longer dark and gloomy, but fleckered with gleams of yellow morning light, and sparkling with a thousand dew-diamonds.

Up, up! still up! across the little sparkling runlets, tumbling head over heels in their hurry to see what sort of a world the valley below might be;—up! over masses of rock, ankle-deep in rich brown moss, bejewelled with strawberries and cowberries, garlanded with raspberries, twisting and straggling out of their crevices, covered with rich ripe fruit;—up! over bits of open turf, green as emeralds, set in pure white gravel, sparkling like a thousand diamonds;—up! through tangled masses of fallen pines, their bleaching stumps standing out like the masts of great wrecks—terrible marks of the course of the avalanche wind!—up! through one short bit more of pine-wood, over the split fir[Pg 346] fence, and into the little mountain meadow, smiling in the level sunlight, with its bright stream tinkling merrily through it, its scattering boulders, and wooden sennhutt, with the cows and goats clustered round it, standing ready to be milked,—one of the latter, by the bye, instantly charges me, and has to be repelled by my alpenstock, bayonet fashion,—while all around, the sweet breath of the cows mingles deliciously with the aromatic fragrance of the pine forest, and the rich scent of the black orchis and wild thyme.

Seat yourself on that wooden milking-stool by the door—(beware! it has but one leg, and is "kittle to guide")—after a hearty shake of the hand from that grey old giant of a herdsman, and enjoy yourself.

"Joseph, what's i' the fardel? Turn out your traps, and let us see what 'provaunt' you have got." A mighty mass of cold boiled mutton, an infinity of little drabs of rye-bread, the size of one's hand, and as hard as flints; and—what is that thou art extracting with such a grin on thy manly countenance, as if thou hadst found the best joke in Europe, tied up in the corner of the bag?

A quart bottle of corn-brandy!—I simper, the grey herdsman simpers, and Joseph simpers most of all, as if he was conscious of having done a monstrous clever thing, but was modest. "Schnaps at six in the morning!—hardly correct," say I.

Joseph thinks that it is apt to make one thirsty (it certainly always appears to have that effect upon him); and the grey herdsman shakes his head, and smacks his lips dubiously, as if he were not quite certain, but would rather like to try.

"Well, just one thimbleful, Joseph, 'just to kill the larvæ, ye ken.' Ah! you don't understand, it is a mountain excuse, too. Never mind—hand us the becher."

Here we breakfasted luxuriously, eking out our store with sour milk and crumbly new white cheese from the sennhutt. The grey herdsman eyes me intently, and longs to know what manner of man I am. I take pity on his thirst for knowledge. "Ein Englander?"—I am his friend for life! He has heard of the 30,000l. sent over in the French war-time, and his nephew has seen the letter in a glass-case at Innspruck. "And I want to shoot chamois?" He looks almost sorrowfully at me, but I have gone too far to retreat, and am very valiant. "Yes, there are three up about the Wildgrad Kögle." That is enough, Adé Andre! Pack up, Joseph, Forward!

Stop a bit, let us load here; we may stumble on something shootable. I am soon ready; but loading with Joseph is a very solemn affair, not to be undertaken lightly, or finished in a hurry.

First, he takes a dose of stuff out of a cow's horn, which I, in my ignorance, suppose to be very badly made No. 7 shot. A small quantity of this he places in the pan of his rifle, and crushes with the handle of his knife, the rest he pours down the barrel, and I perceive that it is powder; then he looks up and down, round and about—what the deuce is he after? Is he cockney enough to be going to flash off his rifle, and afraid of some one hearing him? No, there he has it—a bunch of grey moss, "baum haar," as he calls it, from that blasted pine. Wonder again; what in the name of goodness is he going to do with that? Use it as a pocket-handkerchief? I do not believe he carries one; at any rate, if he does, he only uses that pattern said by the Fliegende Blätter to be so popular amongst the Gallician deputies of the Paul's-Kirche Parliament. No,—wrong again; he carefully pulls it to pieces, and making it into a round ball, rams it down upon the powder; and a most excellent dodge it is. Colonel Hawker has only re-discovered an old secret, or, more likely, learnt it on the shores of the Bodensee; then the greased patch and the ball, and all is ready. On we go!

After leaving the meadow, we entered again into the pine forest, which gradually became more open, the trees more stunted and fantastic, and their long straggling arms clothed more and more as we ascended with the ash-grey baumhaar; dead trees and thunder-riven stumps became frequent, rotting in and into the black bog mould, which gives a scanty root-hold to the blushing alpen-rose. Soon we leave the trees behind us altogether; nothing but wild chaotic masses of gravel and stones, tossed and heaped one on the other, by the fierce avalanche—the very rocks grey and crumbling with age; here and there patches of black bog, with little oases of emerald green turf perched in their centre, the black orchis growing thick upon them, and perfuming the air yards around.

Ere long, even these traces of vegetation became more scarce, and the appearance of every thing around us wilder and more steril. Still the brilliant peaks of the Wildgrad Kögle gleamed brightly before us, and beckoned us on.

Our path lay now, steep and rugged, along the edge of a ravine, at the bottom of which we heard the torrent chafing and roaring many a yard below us. There was a precipitous bank of rocks and screes to our right, quite unclimbable, which seemed only to want the will—they certainly had the way—to topple us into the abyss. Just as we were turning an abrupt angle very gingerly, with our eyes fixed on our slippery path, and longing for an elephant's trunk, to try the sound bits from the rotten ones, we suddenly heard a rushing "sough," like the falling of a moist snow avalanche, and a cloud passed across the sun. Glancing hastily upwards, I—yes I, in the body at this present, inditing this faithful description of my chase,—saw, not a hundred paces from me, an enormous vulture! Any thing so fiercely, so terribly grand, as this great bird, saw I never before, and can[Pg 347] scarcely hope to see again. He was so near that we could distinctly see the glare of his fierce eye, and the hard bitter grip of his clenched talons. The sweep of his vast wings was enormous—I dare not guess how broad from tip to tip; and their rushing noise, as he beat the air in his first labored strokes, sounded strangely wild and spirit-like in the mountain stillness. A dozen strange strokes, and he took a wild swoop round to our right, and away, like a cloud before the blast, till a neighboring peak hid him from our sight, followed by a wild shout of astonishment from Joseph. I opened not my mouth, or if I did—left it open.

Nothing ever gave me such a feeling of reality as the sight of this vast vulture so near me. Often and often had I seen them, both in Switzerland and the Tyrol, sailing so high that, although well up the mountain flank myself, I almost doubted whether they were realities, or mere muscæ volitantes, produced by staring up in to the clear bright sky, with one's head thrown back. This fellow there was no doubt of—we saw his very beard! We were really then chamois-hunting—we had penetrated into the very den of the mountain tyrant. No fear of gigs and green parasols here; we were above the world!

Soon after our friend had departed, and we had recovered from the astonishment into which his unexpected visit had thrown us, we reached the end of our mauvais pas, and found ourselves at the foot of a wild valley, entirely shut in by ranges of lofty cliffs, with here and there patches of snow lying on the least inclined spots. In front, still far above us, towered the wild rock masses of the Wildgrad Kögle. The Kögle itself ran up into one sharp peak, that seemed from where we were, to terminate in a point. Great part of its base was concealed by a range of precipices, with broad sheets of snow here and there, resting at an extraordinary high angle, as we soon found to our cost, and having their crests notched, and pillared, and serrated in the wildest manner. The floor of the valley was covered with masses of rock and boulder, hurled from the surrounding cliffs, and heaps and sheets of rough gravel, ground and crushed by the avalanches, and fissured by the torrents of melted snow. The silence of the Alp-spirit, as silent as death itself, was in it; only at intervals was heard the whispering 'sough' of some slip of snow, dislodged by the warmth of the mid-day sun.

We advanced stealthily, concealing ourselves behind the boulders, and searched valley and cliff in vain for our prey. Joseph was the proud possessor of a telescope, mysteriously fashioned out of paper and cardboard; a pretty good one, nevertheless, brought from Italy by some travelling pedlar, and an object of great veneration, but one which failed in discovering a single chamois. Our only chance now was that they might be feeding in some of the smaller valleys, between the cliffs at the head of the basin in which we were and the Kögle itself.

"Feeding! what could they be feeding on, when you say yourself that you left all kinds of 'green stuff' behind you long ago."

So I thought, too, doubtless, by this time, most impatient reader; but on the screes at the head of the valley, Joseph showed me, for the first time, the plant on which these extraordinary animals in a great measure live. It has a thick green, trilobate leaf, and a flower so delicate and gauze-like, that one wonders how it can bear for a moment the harsh storms to which it is exposed. Its petals have a most curious crumpled appearance, and are of the softest pink imaginable—almost transparent. As for its class and order, you must go elsewhere for them; I know them not; nor the name either which the Latins would have called it if they had been aware of its existence. Joseph called it "gemsenkraut," or chamois herb, and that was enough for me.

Having finished our botanical investigations, we pushed on to the upper end of the valley, and found that the cliffs, and screes, and snow-patches looked uglier and steeper the nearer we approached them. However, there was no retreat—onward we must go, or be declared "nidding" through the length and breadth of the Tyrol.

Oh! those screes—those screes! lying at an angle of goodness knows how much with the horizon—sharp, slaty, angular pieces of stone, like savage hatchets, slippery as glass, glancing from under our feet, and casting us down sideways on their abominable edges, "sliddering" down by the ton, carrying our unfortunate persons yards below where we wanted to go, crashing and clattering, and then dancing and bounding far down into the valley, like mischievous gnomes, delighted with the bumpings and bruisings they had treated us to! How Joseph did anathematize! For my part, mine was a grief "too deep for swears!"

After crossing, still ascending, two or three beds of screes, we came to the edge of the first snow-field; not very broad, it is true, but lying at a higher angle than I ever thought possible, and frozen as hard as marble on the surface—one sheet of ice, with an agreeable fall of some hundred feet at its lower edge. We were in despair! We had now got excited and confident—our "blood was up;" and here came "the impossible to stop us."

"But what is it that Joseph has picked up from the snow, and is examining so carefully?"

"No matter—'twas not what we sought," but it was something closely connected with it.

"Yes, there is no doubt of it; they have been here, and lately too! See the sharp[Pg 348] hoof-prints just above! They must have crossed this morning! Go it, ye cripples (in prospectu), we must cross this, come what may."

We got along steadily, without any slides, though with many slips, always sticking our staves convulsively into the snow the moment our heels seemed to have the slightest disposition to assume the altitude of our heads. It was nervous work—one slip, one moment too late in thrusting our staff perpendicularly in the snow, as an anchor, and away we should have shot like a meteor over the glittering surface for a hundred terrible yards, and then with a wild bound have been launched into the abyss below. However, we could not have turned back if we had wished it, and at last, to our intense satisfaction, we grasped the rough rock that bounded the further side of the field. Grasped it!—we embraced it!—we clung to its rough surface as if we had been six months at sea, and had landed in the Hesperides!

At length on the summit of the ridge, we were able to crouch down and look through a crack in the rock into the next valley. Round and about, above and below, we examined every hole and corner; half-a-dozen times some villanous stone made our hearts leap to our mouths. But alas! "it was no go;" there was not a living thing in sight—barrenness, barrenness, and desolation.

Our chance of chamois was utterly over for the day. N'importe. Better luck to-morrow. Who can feel out of spirits in that brisk mountain atmosphere? There is the highest peak of the Wildgrad Kögle right before us—and hang him, we'll dine on his head.

The ridge on which we found ourselves was but a few feet broad, and about a hundred and fifty feet above the snow on each side. It was composed of innumerable irregular pillar-like masses of rock, of different heights and distances, impossible to descend at the point where we found ourselves, but as it ran at the same general level, we fancied that we could get on the sloping mass of snow which lay on the side of the peak at some distance on. Jumping from one small table of rock to another—now only saved from "immortal smash" by Joseph's strong arm, and now swaying doubtfully on a plateau the size of a small dumb-waiter top, uncertain whether we should be off or not—we hopped along, wishing we were kangaroos, till we found a crevice which seemed practicable, and down which I went with a run—or rather a slide, much quicker than was agreeable, being only brought up by my feet coming on Joseph's broad shoulders, he taking, as I must confess he generally did, the first place, whereby he always came in for a double allowance of stones and gravel, but about which he seemed utterly indifferent.

On reaching the bottom, we found that, as usual, the snow had melted some distance from the rock, leaving a mighty pretty crack to receive us. However, a lucky jump landed us safely, and for a moment erect, on the snow, and then head over heels, rolling, and bumping, and kicking, we spun over the slippery surface till we managed to bring ourselves up about fifty yards below where we had started. But in spite of tumbles we were in high spirits: there were no gems to frighten, and no more tottering avalanches, ready to fall on our heads if we as much as ventured to use our pocket-handkerchiefs.

We toiled up the terribly steep snow-patch merrily enough, not without retracing our path several times in a manner at once undignified and unexpected—though it certainly was not to be complained of as far as speed went—and reached, at last, utterly blown and sick with exertion, the base of the rock forming the summit of the mountain. Hardly giving ourselves time to recover, we climbed up the last sixty or seventy feet of cliff, and I found myself—first this time, for a wonder—on a small platform, the summit of the Wildgrad Kögle.

The platform was some ten or twelve feet square, and the only approach to it was on the side we had ascended; on every other the cliff ran down in a sheer wall, how deep I know not, for I never could judge of distances from above.

As for describing what we saw from our elevated dining-table, it is clean out of the question; we saw nothing but mountains—or rather the tops of mountains, for we were far above the general level of their crests; one wide sea of rock and snow surged around us; shoreless, no bounding range, no sweet glimpses of broad green valleys and glistening rivers in the distance; no pretty villages nestling cosily under the pine forest—nothing but peak on peak, ridge on ridge; bright pinnacles and clusters of pinnacles shooting up here and there far above the rest into the calm blue sky—deep grooves marking the course of distant valleys, like tide-marks on the sea. But no trace of man or beast, herb or tree; the very wind that whistled past us brought no sound or scent from the valleys it had passed, but sounded harsh, and dry, and dead. Vain, indeed would be the effort to convey the slightest idea of the solemn grandeur of that scene! Manfred? Manfred gives the finest and truest picture ever perhaps painted of Swiss Alpine scenery, as seen looking towards the mountains, or from the cliffs bordering some rich pastoral valley; but we had passed all that long ago—we were in the very heart of the range. Alp was still piled on Alp, but we had reached the summit of the pile. The only valleys we saw were fearful scars in the mountain flank, half filled with eternal snow, and the crumbling skeletons of dead Alps. No sound—no herdsman's jödle—no cowbell's tinkle ever reached to half way up our[Pg 349] rocky perch: we were far above the vulture and the chamois. We were alone with the rock, and snow, and sky! It seemed profanity to whisper—and yet there was Joseph, after a glance round, and a short "schöne panorama!" whistling and fishing up the eatables and drinkables from the bottom of his wallet, as coolly as if he was seated in his own smoky, half-lighted cabin. He had been born in it, and was used to it. I doubt whether I myself felt the grandeur of the scene as much then as I have often done since, on recalling it bit by bit to my recollection. The really grand gives one at first a sort of painful feeling that is indescribable. One cannot think—one only feels with that strange undescribed sense, that strives, almost to heart-breaking, to bring itself forth, and yet stays voiceless.

We sat long, drinking in alternate draughts of sublimity and Slibowitz (as Joseph called the brandy), till the Berg-geist kindly put an end to our exstasies by drawing a dark gray veil over the whole picture, and pelting us with snow-flakes, as a gentle hint to be off and leave him to his cogitations. It began, indeed, to snow in real earnest, and the weather looked mighty dark and unpromising, so we scrambled hastily down the way we came, and leaning well back on our alpenstocks with our feet stretched out before us, shot down the long sheet of snow, at a considerably quicker rate than we had ascended; and gliding scornfully past our columnar friends, whose fantastic capitals had given us so much trouble in the morning, we reached, with many a tumble and much laughter, the stony ravine at its foot.

Scorning to finish the day without drawing blood from something besides ourselves, we determined to commit slaughter on whatever came across us. We soon heard the shrill signal-whistle of the marmot, and for want of better game, determined to bag at least one of these exceedingly wide-awake gentlemen. Creeping to the top of a neighboring ridge, we peeped cautiously over into a little valley floored with a confused mass of mossy stones and straggling alpen-rosen. Here several of these quaint little beasts, half rat, half rabbit, were frisking in and out of their burrows, cutting all sorts of what Joseph called, 'Burzelbaume,' Anglicè, capers; little suspecting that the all-destroying monster, man, had his eye upon them. One fellow, the sentinel, took my particular fancy as he sat up on his nether end on a large stone. There was an expression of unutterable self-conceit and conscious wide-awakefulness about his blunt muzzle and exposed incisors that was perfectly delicious. Him I determined to bring to bag, and cautiously raising my carbine—crack! Over he rolled, I have no doubt, too astonished to feel any pain, his friends tumbling madly head over heels into their burrows, whilst the astonished echoes repeated crack! crack! again and again, in all sorts of tones and modulations, till warned to silence by the harsh rattle of an old mountain a mile off. We bagged our friend, who looked every wit as conceited in death as he did when alive, and recommenced our descent. On our way we shot a brace of "schnee huhner," a species of ptarmigan, a pack of which very slow birds were running stupidly in and out amongst the rocks—and hurried on. It was growing very dark, the snow fell heavily, and the wind began rushing and eddying round us, depositing the largest and coldest of the snow-flakes in our ears and eyes, till we were half-blinded and wholly deaf. Joseph began to look serious, and hunted about for a small torrent he knew of, to serve as a guide, and after some trouble and anxiety, we found it, and stumbled down its rocky banks till we came to a solitary sennhutt, which was to be our resting-place for the night.

After some trouble, we got the door open, and found that the hut was fortunately not entirely filled with hay; a space about six or eight feet broad had been boarded off between it and the outer wall for the use of the wild-hauer. This was to serve us as parlor and kitchen and all, except bed-room, which was to be sought for in the hay-stack itself. Our floor was the bare earth; the logs which formed the wall were badly jointed, and the wind whistled through the gaping cracks in the most uncomfortable manner; one could almost fancy that it was trying to articulate the dreaded word, rheu—matism.

However, the ever-active Joseph, bustling about, found some dry wood, and we made a blazing fire on the floor at the imminent risk of burning our beds, and slightly thawed ourselves; we continued our researches, and found a shallow wooden pail, carefully covered over, holding some two gallons of sour milk, left by the charitable hay-man some fortnight before, for the use of any benighted hunter who might have the luck to stumble on the hut, and one of those abominable one-legged milking-stools, so common in that part of the world, which, having vainly endeavored to sit on, and having tumbled into the fire in consequence, to Joseph's intense amusement, I hurled madly over the hay out into the storm.

As the clatter made amongst the shingles of the roof by its hasty exist subsided, we heard a noise which struck terror into both our hearts, and would doubtless have chilled our very marrow, if it had not been below freezing-point already. Devils! Berg-geister! Fly! out into the black storm! over the precipice! into the torrent! before some fearful mopping and mowing face, too ghastly horrible for human eye-ball to see without bursting, or human brain to conceive without madness, gibber out upon us from that dark corner! Listen: there it is again! And—mew-w-w-w-w! down tumbled between us a miserable, half-grown, gray kitten,[Pg 350] nearly dead with cold and starvation, doubtless absent on some poaching expedition when the hut was deserted, and not thought worth the going back for. Oh! the joy of that unfortunate little beast at seeing man and fire once more! How she staggered about with tail erect, vainly trying to mew and purr at the same time! having to be perpetually pulled out of the fire, and "put out," to prevent her playing the part of one of Samson's foxes with our beds, filling the cabin with unspeakable smells of singed hair! And now she would persist in walking up our backs, and tickling us to madness with her scorched tail!

Having disposed of "Catchins," as she was immediately named, as well as we could, by tossing her by the tail to the top of the hay, whenever she descended to thank us, which happened about three times in every two minutes, we "fixed" our suppers, broiling the schnee-huhner over the bright fire, and enjoyed ourselves mightily. After a smoke and a short cross-examination from Joseph as to our friends, family, and expectations, and particular inquiries for the shortest overland route to England, and the number of years required for the journey, we climbed up into the hay, and grubbed and wormed our way for two or three feet below its surface, and, making unto ourselves each a "spiracle" or blow-hole over our respective noses, tried to slumber.

Now, a bed of short, sweet Alpine grass, fragrant with the spirits of a thousand departed flowers, is as warm, cozy, and elastic as a bed can be, but it has one unfortunate drawback,—the small straws and dust falling down the before-mentioned spiracle, tickle and titilate one's unfortunate face and nose in a most distracting manner; and as you utterly destroy the snug economy of your couch, and let in a rush of cold mountain air, as often as you raise your hand to brush away the annoyance, some fastidious persons might possibly prefer a modest mattress, with a fair allowance of sheets and blankets.

At last, however, I was dozing off, tired of hearing Joseph muttering what certainly were not his prayers, rustling fretfully, and sneezing trumpet-like at intervals, as some straw, more inquisitive than usual, made a tour of inspection up his nostril, when I suddenly heard a round Tyrolese oath rapped out with great fervor, and something whirled over my head and plumped against the timbers of the roof. Dreamily supposing that it was the aforesaid cumbrous Tyrolese execration, which Joseph had jerked out with such energy as to send it clean back into oblivion, when something with an evil smell, and making a noise like a miniature stocking-machine, tumbled down my spiracle, plump into my face. Waking fully, I at once perceived that it was the cat, not the oath, I had heard fly over me shortly before, she, in the excess of her gratitude, being determined to stick as closely to us as possible. Following Joseph's example, I seized her by the tail, and whirled her, purring uninterruptedly, as far as I could. Ere many minutes had elapsed, she was again launched forth by the infuriated Joseph, and backwards and forwards she flew at least half-a-dozen times between us, without appearing in the least disconcerted, perhaps, indeed, finding the exercise conducive to the assimilation of the sour milk, till Nature could stand no more, and we fell fast asleep.

Whether she spent the night on our faces, in alternate watches, I know not, but I had ghastly dreams, and when I woke in the morning, I found my hand and arm thrust forth from the hay, reposing on a cool and clean counterpane of snow, which had drifted in during the night, as if I had been repelling her advances even in my sleep.

Feeling very cold and damp, we turned out as soon as we woke, and blowing up the embers of the fire, warmed ourselves as well as we could, and took a peep out into the night. The storm had passed away, leaving everything covered with a veil of snow, that gleamed faintly under the intense black-blue sky. The stars were beginning to assume that peculiar sleepy, twinkling appearance which shows that their night-watch is drawing to a close, and everything lay in still, calm rest around us.

We breakfasted sparingly, as our provisions were beginning to run short, thanks to the keen mountain air and our hard work the day before, and just as the first cold chill of the approaching dawn began to be felt, we left the cabin, shutting up Catchins, and hanging the marmot on a peg out of her reach, till our return.

Our day's route lay more round to the left of the Wildgrad Kögle. The scene was for some time a repetition of that of the day before, but the cliffs were still more precipitous and the ravines narrower and more difficult to traverse. Many a tumble we got for the first hour amongst the boulders covered with treacherous moss and cowberry plants, but before sunrise we had left all vegetation behind us again, and were up amongst the crags and the snow.

As we ascended, we saw a valley to our left, filled to the brim with dense mist, which, as soon as the sun began to tinge the highest peaks, rose in swirling columns, and shut out every thing that was not in our immediate vicinity. This was advantageous, as, although it prevented our seeing, it at the same time prevented our being seen, from the cliffs before we reached our best ground. We toiled on steadily, crossing vast beds of snow, and occasionally the roots of some glacier, that threw itself into the valleys to our left, climbing, scrambling, and slipping, but still steadily ascending, till we got to where Joseph expected to fall in with chamois, when we called a halt, and sheltering ourselves behind a[Pg 351] mass of rock from the keen morning wind, waited for the clearing of the mist.

The Alp-spirit seemed to be amusing himself mightily with this same mist! at one moment, catching it up in huge masses, he piled it on the sharp peaks, as if to make himself a comfortable cushion; and then, sitting suddenly down to try its efficacy, drove it in all directions by his "lubber weight." Enraged, he tossed and tumbled it about for some time, and at last spread it into one broad level plain, with the higher peaks standing out clear and sharp, like rocks from a calm sea. Now and then the mist would disappear entirely for a few moments, leaving everything clear and bright; then a small cloud, "like a man's hand," would form on the side of some distant peak, and spreading out with inconceivable rapidity, would envelope us in its boiling wreaths, while the wind, ever and anon rushing down some unexpected gully, cut a tunnel right through it, giving us glimpses of distant mountains and snow-fields, looking near and strange as if seen through a telescope.

At last the sun began to shine out cheerily and steadily, and the breeze gave a freshness and buoyance to our spirits never to be felt except on high mountains. The heavy atmosphere of the valley squeezes one's soul into its case, and sits on the lid like an incubus. That blessed mountain-spirit is the only power who takes the lid off altogether, and lets the soul out of its larva-case to revel in the strange beauties of his domain without restraint!

After a time, we found ourselves in a region of snow-fields, filling up broad valleys, lying calm and shadowless in the bright sunshine. Here and there, they were marked by delicate blue lines, where the crevasses allowed the substratum of ice to be seen, showing that these apparently eternal and immovable plains of snow were slowly but steadily flowing downwards, to appear as splintered glaciers in the valley far below; and here and there again, dark ridges, standing sharply up from the snow-bed, marked the course of buried mountain ranges, and gave some idea of the vast depth of the deposit.

But wonderfully beautiful as these plains were, and strange and wild as they appeared to an English eye, with a brilliant August sun pouring his whole flood of light and warmth upon them, they were not the great points of interest to us. Those mighty ranges of cliff, rising tier above tier to our right, fretted with a pure white lace-work of fresh fallen snow, with here and there vast beds of screes shot from above, giving promise of gemsenkraut, were the bits we scanned with the greatest eagerness. We had come for chamois, and I am afraid, looked upon the rest as of very secondary importance.

We were advancing along the base of the lowest tier of cliff, which had a sort of step of snow running along it about half-way up for some half-a-mile, bounded at one end by an immense mass of screes and precipice, and at the other by a sudden turn of the rock, when Joseph suddenly dashing off his hat and throwing himself prostrate behind a stone, dragged me down beside him, with a vice-like grasp, that left its mark on my arm for many a day after. Utterly taken aback at the suddenness of my prostration, I lay beside him, wondering at the change that had come over his face; he was as white as marble, his moustache worked with intense excitement, and his eyeballs seemed starting from their sockets as he glared at the cliff. Following his line of sight, I glanced upwards, and my eye was instantly arrested by something—it moved—again—and again! With shaking hand I directed the telescope to the point, and there, at the end of it, hopping fearlessly on the shivered mountain side, scratching its ear with its hind foot, and nibbling daintily the scattered bits of gemsenkraut that spring up between the stones, stood fearless and free—a chamois!

After watching him with intense interest for some moments, we drew back, scarcely daring to breathe, and sheltering ourselves behind a large stone, held a council of war. It was evidently impossible to approach him from where we were: we could not have moved ten steps towards him without the certainty of being discovered; our only chance was to get above him and so cut him off from the higher ranges. Crawling backwards, we managed to place a low range of rock between ourselves and the cliffs, and then making a wide sweep, we reached their base at some distance from where the chamois was feeding.

After examining the precipice for some time, we found that the only mode of access to its summit, here some three or four hundred feet above us, was by a sort of ravine, what would be called in the Swiss Alps, a cheminée a species of fracture in the strata the broken edges of which would give us some foot and hand hold: at its upper termination we could see the end of a small glacier, slightly overhanging the cliff, from which a small stream leapt from ledge to ledge, only alive in the last hour or two of sun-warmth, giving promises, which certainly were faithfully fulfilled, of additional slipperiness and discomfort. But we had no choice; we had already spent nearly an hour in our cautious circuit. Our scramble, wherever it took place, would cost us nearly another before we got above our expected prey, and if we hesitated much longer, he might take a fancy to march off altogether in search of the rest of the herd. So up we went, dragging ourselves and each other up the wet slippery rocks, getting a shivering "swish" of ice-cold water in our faces every now and then, till we got about half-way up, when, just as we were resting for a moment to take breath, we heard a tremendous roar, followed by a[Pg 352] splintering crash just above our heads, and had the pleasure of seeing the fragments of some half-a-ton of ice, which had fallen from the glacier above, fly out from the shelf of rock under which we were resting, and spin down the rugged path we had just ascended.

Thinking that this was quite near enough to be pleasant, and "calculating" that by every doctrine of chances the same thing would not happen twice in the same half-hour, we scrambled up as fast as we could before the next instalment became due, and at last reached safely the top of the precipice.

We certainly had not much to boast of as far as walking went, when we got there, for the snow and rocks were tumbled about in a very wild manner. If we slipped off a rock, we tumbled waist-deep into the soft, melting snow-drifts, and when we tumbled on the snow, there was always some lurking rock ready to remind us of his presence by a hearty thump; however, as we were fairly above the chamois, our excitement carried us on. I do not think that Joseph swore once; we found afterwards indeed, to our cost, that in one of his involuntary summersets, he had broken the bottle, and narrowly escaped being bayoneted by the fragments: however, we did not know it then, and so scrambled on in contented ignorance, until we reached the spot on the cliffs to our right, which we had marked as being above our prey. Here, however, we found that it was impossible to get near enough to the edge to look over, as the fresh-fallen snow threatened to part company from the rock and carry us with it, on the slightest indiscretion on our parts. Crouching down in the snow, we listened for some hint of our friend's whereabouts, and had not waited more than a minute, when the faint clatter of a stone far below convinced us that he was on the move: keeping low, we wallowed along till we came to where the crest of the cliff showing a little above the snow, gave us a tolerable shelter; carefully crawling to the edge, we peeped over, and saw, as we expected, that the gems had shifted his quarters, and as luck would have it, was standing on the snow-bed half-way up the cliff, immediately below us.

Trembling, partly with excitement, and partly from the under-waistcoat of half-melted snow we had unconsciously assumed in our serpentine wrigglings, we lay and watched the graceful animal below us. He evidently had a presentiment that there was something "no canny" about the mountain-side; some eddy had perhaps reached his delicate nostrils, laden with the taint of an intruder. With his head high in the air, and his ears pointed forwards, he stood examining—as wiser brutes than he sometimes do—every point of the compass but the right. One foot was advanced; one moment more, and he would have gone; when crack! close to my ear, jut as I was screwing up my nerves for a long shot, went Joseph's heavy rifle. With a sinking heart I saw the brute take a tremendous bound, all four hoofs together, and then, like a rifle-ball glancing over the bosom of a calm lake, bound after bound carried him away and away over the snow-field, and round the corner to our right, before I had recovered my senses sufficiently to take a desperate snap at him.

What we said, or felt, or how we got over the face of that cliff, I know not. A dim recollection of falling stones and dust showering round us—pieces of treacherous rock giving way in our hands and under our feet, bruising slides, and one desperate jump over the chasm between the cliff and the snow,—and there we were both, standing pale and breathless, straining our eyes for some scarcely expected trace of blood to give us hope.

Not a drop tinged the unsullied snow at the place where he had made his first mad bound, nor at the second, nor at the third; but a few paces further on, one ruby-tinged hole showed where the hot blood had sunk through the melting snow.

Too excited to feel any uprising of envy, hatred, or malice against my more fortunate companion, I raced along the white incline, leaving him behind reloading his rifle,—which was always a sort of solemn rite with him,—and following, without difficulty, the deep indentations of the animal's hoofs, I came to where the cliff receded into a sort of small bay, with its patch of snow on the same plane with the one I was on, but separated from it by a rugged promontory of cliff and broken rock. Cautiously I scrambled round the point, removing many a stone that seemed inclined to fall and give the alarm to the watchful chamois, and peeping cautiously round the last mass of rock that separated me from the snow-patch, I saw the poor brute, standing not more than sixty yards from me, his hoofs drawn close together under him, ready for a desperate rush at the cliff at the first sound that reached him; his neck stretched out, and his muzzle nearly touching the snow, straining every sense to catch some inkling of the whereabouts of the mischief he felt was near him.

With my face glowing as if it had been freshly blistered, a dryness and lumping in my throat, as if I had just escaped from an unsuccessful display of Mr. Calcraft's professional powers, and my heart thud-thudding against my ribs at such a rate that I really thought the gems must hear it in the stillness, I raised my carbine. Once, at the neck just behind the ear, I saw the brown hide clear at the end of the barrel, but I dared not risk such a chance; and so, straining my nerves, I shifted my aim to just behind the shoulder,—one touch of the cold trigger, and as the thin gases streamed off, rejoicing at their liberation, I saw the chamois shrink convulsively[Pg 353] when the ball struck him, and then fall heavily on the snow, shot right through the heart. With a who-whoop! that might have been heard half-way to Innspruck, I rushed up to him;—one sweep of the knife—the red blood bubbled out on to the snow that shrunk and wasted before its hot touch, as if it felt itself polluted, and there lay stretched out in all its beauty before me the first gems I ever killed—just as Joseph came up, panting, yelling, and jödling, and rejoicing at my success, without a shade of envy in his honest heart.

Now I believe, in all propriety, we ought to have been melancholy, and moralized over the slain. That rich, soft black eye, filming over with the frosty breath of death, and that last convulsive kick of the hind legs, ought perhaps to have made us feel that we had done rather a brutal and selfish thing; but they did not. This is a truthful narrative, and I must confess that our only feeling was one of unmixed rejoicing.

I have occasionally moralized over a trout, flopping about amongst the daisies and buttercups, and dying that horrible suffocation death of my causing; but it was never, if I remember right, the first trout I had killed that day. My feelings always get finer as my pannier gets fuller, particularly if it be a warm afternoon, and I have lunched.

But as for the unfortunate gems, we rejoiced over him exceedingly; we shook hands over him; we sat beside him, and on him; we examined him, carefully, minutely, scientifically, from stem to stem. I firmly believe that I could pick him out at this moment from the thousand ghosts that attend the silver-horned Gemsen König, if I had but the good luck to fall in with his majesty and his charmed suite.

Joseph's ball had struck him high up on the neck, but had not inflicted any thing like a severe wound. Had we fired on him from below, he would have scaled the cliffs in a moment, and been no more seen, at least by us; but as he knew that the mischief was above him, he dared not ascend—to descend was impossible; and so, getting to a certain extent pounded, he gave me the rare chance of a second shot.

Long we sat and gazed at the chamois; and the wild scene before us—never shall I forget it!—shut in on three sides by steep and frowning cliffs, in front the precipice, and far, far down, the wild rocky valleys, divided by shivered ridges, rising higher and higher till they mounted up into the calm, pure snow range, set in the frame of the jutting promontories on each side of us—looking the brighter and the "holier" from the comparative shade in which we were. Not a sound but the occasional faint "swish" of the waterfall that drained from the snow-bed,—not a living thing now but our two selves standing side by side on the snow. We had killed the third, and there he lay stiffening between us!

But, hillo! Joseph! we are nearly getting sentimental, after all, over this brute, (that I should say so!) who has all but broken our necks already, and who in all human probability will do so entirely before we have done with him. Fish up the decanter, and let us have a schnaps over our quarry; my throat and lips are burning, as if I had lunched off quicklime. Well, what are you fumbling at? Oh, horror! Joseph's hand returns empty from the bag, with a large cut on one of the fingers—weeping tears of blood! The bottle is smashed!—smashed to atoms! and the unconscious Joseph has had the celestial liquor trickling down his back—how long he know not, and care not; it is "gone, and for ever!"

But it is of no use blaspheming in that manner, Joseph; not one of those ten hundred and fifty millions of bad spirits you are invoking so freely, will bring us back one drop of our good ones; so we must e'en "girn and bide." But still it is as bad as bad can be,—not a drop of water for hours to come, perhaps.

Munching snow only chars one's lips like hot cinders, and the cool "swish" of the waterfall there below us only makes one the more thirsty. Let us be off out of ear-shot of it, at any rate. Take up the gems, and let us dream of cool, bubbling runlets and iced sour milk as we go.

Dream! quotha! we must dream of how we are to go at all, first, and a very nightmarey sort of dream it promises to be; we are regularly pounded; not a vestige of a crack or crevice up which to worm ourselves in the whole face of the semicircular range of cliffs beneath which we stand; and moreover, they are all of that upside down, overhanging style, that precludes all climbing. We must retrace our steps as we best can, and try where we descended.

"Well, Joseph, where did we come down—eh?" Not there! Nonsense!—impossible! Yes! too true; there it was; there are our tracks in the snow, and the dust and stones that were so obliging as to accompany us to the bottom, and be hanged to them! But the cliff has surely grown since then. It looks as high as Gallantry Bower, in dear old North Devon.—I wish I were at the top or bottom either of that, instead of where I am! There is not a hundred feet difference between them. Three hundred feet, the cliff is, if an inch! We can never do it! Let us make a cast round by the screes, and see if we cannot get down that way.

We did so, but found that they were quite impassable. What looked like a continuous shoot when seen from below, we found to be divided by two or three ledges of rock, and the angle at which they lay, rendered it impossible for any thing heavier footed than a[Pg 354] gems to pass them. We must up the cliff! We had no choice.

Now, to begin, it was no easy thing to get at the cliff at all. That confounded gap between the snow and the rock was bad enough to get across from above; but to jump up from the sloping snow slap against the face of the rock was ten times worse. However, Joseph having uncoiled a few yards of line from his waist, and made it fast to the gems, tightened his belt, and took the crack gallantly, lighting on a narrow ledge, with his nose almost touching the rock, to which he stuck like a limpet for a moment, and then, having steadied himself, turned round and seated himself, with his legs dangling over the chasm. Now came my turn. Having thrown the end of the line to Joseph—after vainly looking for a promising ledge to land on, I yielded to his entreaties, and swung myself right at him. We grasped each other pretty tight, you may be assured, gentle reader; and after swaying for a moment or two over the abyss, I climbed up him, and getting my feet on his shoulders, I managed to draw myself up to a ledge a few feet higher. Now came my turn to turn, and a most unpleasant piece of gymnastics it was. The ledge was not an inch too broad, and the rock below only rough enough to scratch against, not to give any firm foot-hold. However, I at last got my back against the rock pretty firmly; and Joseph, who had dragged the gems up from the snow, threw me the end of the line, which, after one or two unsuccessful grabs, that nearly toppled me over from my "bad eminence," I caught, and with his assistance, got the gems up to me, and rested it across my knees. Joseph now turned his face to the rock, and getting up to me, placed one of his iron-soled shoes on my thigh, and the other on my shoulder, and climbed over and past me. As soon as he was firmly fixed, I threw him up the end of the line, and, felt much relieved of the weight of the chamois, whose rough hide rubbed lovingly over my face as it passed me, and turning round, and standing upon my ledge, laid hold of Joseph by the ankle, and again climbed up him and past him, to be climbed up and over in my turn. Over and over we had to repeat the same manœuvre, varied occasionally by our being unable to turn or to sit down from the narrowness of the ledges, and then the strain was terrible. If we had not come sometimes to a broader ledge than usual, which allowed us to lie down and get an easier hold of the line, as it dangled like a plummet over the cliff, we, or at least I, could never have reached the top of the cliff with the gems, and I very much doubt whether either of us would have cared much to have done so without it. What was before me I hardly knew. Imitating as well as I could the happy insouciance of a snail "sliming" up the side of the Parthenon, I tried to restrict my range of vision to points immediately near me. I never felt giddy in my life; but I felt that it would be running a terrible risk to look into the immensity that lay stretched out below me, like another world.

However, every thing in this world must have at least one end, even an Alpine cliff. And at last, as I drew myself up, I found myself face to face with the snow. The last step was by no means the easiest or safest; but in a few moments all three of us, Joseph, the chamois, and myself, were lying on the snow-bed, one hardly more alive than the other.

As soon as we had recovered a little, we stumbled back amongst the sloppy snow, and the half-hidden rocks, one of which had doubtless caused the untimely emptying of our spirit bottle, till we arrived at the cheminée up which we had scrambled in the morning. Now scrambling up is one thing, and scrambling down is another—decidedly more difficult, particularly with the addition of a "beastie" twice as large as a well-grown fawn. So we decided to return over the small glacier which had so nearly knocked our brains out in our ascent, not without a lurking hope of finding some water in its delicate green chalices.

The small ice-stream on which we pursued our thirsty search, flowed down from the upper snow-beds through a chasm in the cliffs, and lay right across our path. The crevasses were small and easy to traverse, though had they been ten times the breadth, we should have welcomed them for the prospect of water they held out. We soon discovered what we wanted, and throwing ourselves on the ice, from which the sun had long since melted the last night's snow, leaving nothing but the pure water crystal, revelled in long draughts of ice-cold water, regardless of the consequences.

We lay there resting ourselves, and peering down the crevasses for some time. How deliciously refreshing was that cool green light, filtered through the translucent ice, to our eyes, wearied by the eternal glare of the snow-fields! I have often wondered why no poet had ever chosen one of these same crevasses, with its tinkling stream, and fairy bridges and battlements of pure green ice, bathing in a strange unearthly phosphorescent light, for the home of some glacier Undine. Where could one find a fitter palace for some delicate Ariel than such places as the moulins of the Mer de Glace, the ice-grottoes of the Grindenwald, or the Rhone glacier, or even the commonest crack in the most insignificant sheet of frozen snow. How exquisitely beautiful are those little emerald basins, fit baths for Titania, filled with water so pure and clear that one almost doubts its presence, till its exquisite coolness touches one's parched lips! I never wondered at the excitement of that enthusiastic Frenchman, who being held by the legs to prevent him throwing himself into the arms of the ice-nymph, whom he doubtless saw beckoning to[Pg 355] him from below, hurled his hat into the moulin, and then raced down to the source of the Arveiron to see it appear, hoping, doubtless, that it would bring him some tidings of fairyland. But the nymph answered not: perhaps she was cold, and retained the chapeau for her own private wearing. At all events, M. le Baron never got it again, as far as I could learn.

Our labor was now nearly over; we quickly traversed two or three small snow-fields, and after a little trouble in hauling ourselves and the gems up and down the ridges that separated them, we reached a smooth declivity of snow, down which we shot merrily, getting many a roll, it is true, but merely laughing thereat, as every tumble carried us all the faster downwards, and at last reached safe and sound the region of rocks and gravel we had left so long.

How deliciously refreshing to the wearied eye was the first patch of green turf!—how brightly glowed the alpen-rosen amongst the rocks! And—yes! there is actually a honey-bee droning about that orchis, singing his welcome song of home, and fire-sides, and kindly greetings!

Happy as two school-boys, we marched on, carrying our quarry alternately, yodling, and shouting, and playing all sorts of practical jokes on each other, rejoicing at the success of our expedition, caring nothing now for the frowns of the grim old giants around us, caring nothing for the bitter blasts and swirling snow-squalls that swept past us; and at last, as night closed in, we found ourselves once more in the little cabin, that seemed quite home-like to us, and which we had fancied more than once in the course of the day that we should never see again, with Catchins gyrating pound us, "making a tail" at the chamois, and welcoming us as old friends. We did not dawdle long over our supper, which consisted principally of the rat-like marmot, broiled on the embers, and a draught from the neighboring torrent, and turned into our hay beds, wet and wearied enough, with our brains in a whirl from the strange excitements of the day, and slept, too done up to care for tickling straws or feline impertinences.

When I woke in the morning, I lay for some time trying to collect my thoughts, half fearing that all was but a dream, and that we had still our work before us; but on scrambling down, the sight of the gems reassured me, and was an agreeable balm for the intolerable aching I felt from head to heel. Joseph I must say groaned quite as much as myself, and we hobbled about in the dark to find bits of wood for our fire, like a couple of unfortunates just escaped from the rack. The skin of our faces and necks was peeling off, as if we had been washing them in oil of vitriol, and using sand-paper for a towel; but we were used to that, and had been as badly burnt many a time before; but we ached!—ye gods, how we did ache! It took a long warming and some mutually administered friction, to get us at all in walking trim. As soon as we become "lissom" again, having nothing to detain us, and very little to eat, we wended on our way, one bearing Catchins in the now empty bag, and the other with the gems, down towards the pines, covered with last night's snow, and following the course of the torrent, strode on as merrily, or perchance more so, as the first morning we started. The sun soon shone out bright and warm, the snow began to drip from the boughs, and every step we took showed the black mould and the decaying needle leaves of the pines. We heard the rustling of several black-cock, and it being my turn to carry Catchins' light weight, I shot one villanously, as he sat on a pine branch, and stuck his tail in my hat, after the fashion of all true yägers.

Soon we left the melting snow and dripping woods behind us, and reached the bright meadows glowing beneath an Italian sky. Strange sounded the shrill chirping of the red and green grasshoppers in our ears, kindly each herdsman's yodle and maiden's laugh rang to our hearts, and palace-like seemed the little cabin that received us after our sojourn amongst the ice and snow, now seeming more like uneasy dreams than realities which we had undergone but a day before. Bright smiles greeted us, bright brown eyes laughed a welcome to us, and many a sturdy hand was clasped in ours as we sat resting ourselves on the bench before the door.

But we tarried not long; we burned to show our trophy "at home;" and we sped down the Oetzthal, and reached Dumpfen early in the afternoon, to be cheered and complimented, and welcomed back with all the warmth of the honest Tyrolese heart. The people had been in great distress about us—about me, at least—as they supposed that I must, of necessity, have broken my neck. I suspect, indeed, that they never thought that I would really go, and were rather astonished when they woke, and found me gone. As for Joseph, it was his certain fate—if not now, another time. But they rejoiced in their mistake, and with my hat crowned with flowers by many a rosy finger, and my hands tingling from many a giant squeeze, and perhaps my heart, too, a little, from more than one gentle one, I hung my gems on a nail outside the door for inspection, and seated myself once again in the little chamber, looking out upon the torrent and the cliff.

I cannot linger over the simple pleasures of that evening; as Shallow says, "the heart is all." "Jenkins of the Post" may love to record his reminiscences of a ball at Almack's, or an "æsthetic tea" at the Comtesse of Cruche Cassé's; but such remembrances always bring as much pain as pleasure to me, making me yearn for those free days spent[Pg 356] amongst the mountains, and the torrents, and the happy single-hearted mountaineers, far from the cares, troubles, and tribulations of "our highly civilized society."

And now, most patient reader,—are you there still? Farewell! I have tried to give you some faint description of the indescribable, and have, of course, failed. But take at least my advice, and a knapsack, and a thick pair of shoes, and eschewing hackneyed Switzerland, leave for once the old bellwether, and try one summer in the Norischer Alpen; and if you are disappointed—I can only say, that you richly deserve to be!

From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.

VISIT TO THE ABERDEEN COMBWORKS.

Within our recollection, comb-making was considered one of the most miserable of trades, and as destitute of any thing like an organized modus operandi as that of the perambulating artisans who possessed a certain skill in the fashioning of rams' horns into spoons and rejoiced in the expressive designation of Horners. On a late visit to Aberdeen, however, we found the manufacture of combs carried on there not only to an extent far exceeding our preconceived notions, but flourishing in a state of skilful organisation; and we hastened to visit the comb-works of by far the largest comb-maker in this country or in the world. We have no room to follow the steps by which Aberdeen came to be the seat of this particular branch of industry; but before describing the system of comb-making there, we shall take a short retrospective glance at the general history of the comb, in order to illustrate the various changes it has passed through, and its gradual elevation to a respectable position in the manufactures of the country.

It is impossible to state with any degree of accuracy the time when it first became an indispensable requisite of the toilet; but by what we can glean from the ancient writers it would appear to have been of Egyptian origin. The Greeks and Romans used combs made of boxwood, which they obtained as we do, from the shores of the Euxine Sea, and the mountain-ridge of Cytorus, in Galatia. According to Guasco, a modern Italian author, combs were also formed of silver, iron, bronze, but in no instance do we find the modern material, shell or horn. In addition to the wooden combs found in their tombs, it has been proved that the Egyptians had ivory combs, toothed on one side, which gradually came into use among the Greeks and Romans; but from specimens of the remains found at Pompeii, with representations on the Amyclæan tables, it would seem that the Greeks, who were remarkably studious and careful in arranging their hair, used them, with teeth on both sides, exactly similar to our small-tooth-combs.

The mediæval progress of the comb exhibits, like that of every thing else of its class, much curious elaboration with but little improvement in utility. In the fifteenth volume of the Archæologia there is a representation of an ivory comb found in the ruins of Inkleton Nunnery, Cambridgeshire, containing some Anglo-Saxon design exquisitely carved in relief, but with such teeth as a common boor in our day would treat with contempt. We find Chaucer commenting on the many absurd articles of female attire, at a time when both sexes tied up their hair in a "licorous fashion" with ivory pins; and one of the earliest specimens of English combs extant, was dug up in 1764 from beneath the lowest of the three paved streets, which lie—memorials of their several ages—under the present Shiprow Street of Aberdeen; and it was supposed to have lain there ever since Edward III. burned and ruined the city in 1336.

In modern days the comb probably reached its most costly and ornamental state at the court of Louis XIV., where hair-dressing was an art more appreciated and often better paid than the higher efforts of genius. Combs of ivory and of tortoise-shell, richly inlaid with gold and pearl, formed an essential adjunct of the toilet of the court beauties. In Great Britain the fabrication of horn into combs was a very ancient process, chiefly in Yorkshire and the midland counties. But towards the end of the last century the increased demand for combs caused makers to establish themselves all over the country; and in Scotland there were one or two houses of some eminence in the trade at the period—some twenty-five years back—at which we have now arrived. It was, however, one of those trades that, as its artificers were concerned, would not stand investigation. Making combs on nearly the same principles as those pursued by their forefathers—that is, by simply cutting out the interspace between the teeth, with various sorts and sizes of saws—its followers, barely entitled to the name of skilled workmen, were dissipated, unsettled, and irregular in their habits.

We come now to treat of the grand era in the comb trade—of the time when it was destined, like the great staple manufactures of our country, to undergo a revolution. The introduction of machinery and steam-power, with the division of labor, is suggestive of an important stride in the progress of the trade. About the year 1828 Mr. Lynn invented a machine of a singularly ingenious design, having for its principal object that of cutting two combs out of one plate of horn or shell; and two years afterwards Stewart, Rowell & Co. commenced the manufacture in Aberdeen. To the first of these circumstances the trade was indebted for the successful idea of a machine, which affected at the same time a saving of half the material, and an increase of produce almost inconceivable. To the latter it is still more indebted for the first application of steam-power to the machinery;[Pg 357] and, what we think of infinitely greater importance, the introduction of those true principles in the philosophy of production contended for by Adam Smith—a philosophy which, in its legitimate application, has the invariable effect of elevating alike the character of the produce and the producers.

We shall most appropriately represent the combined effect of these improvements on the trade by taking the reader along with us in a cursory view of the principal departments of the Aberdeen Combworks. Provided with an intelligent cicerone in the person of one of the clerks of the office, we began our investigations, and as an essential preliminary, were first shown specimens of the various kinds of raw material. In the order of its intrinsic value, this consists of tortoise-shells, horns, and hoofs. Ivory, in our day, is reserved almost exclusively for the manufacture of small-tooth combs, which form a branch of the ivory trade distinct from the one before us. Of the first of these materials, tortoise-shell, that best adapted to manufacturing purposes is the shell, or scales of a horny contexture which inclose the sea-tortoise, Testudo imbricata. It is found in all warm latitudes; but the best species are indigenous to Hindostan, the Indian Archipelago, and the shores of the Red Sea. The price we are apt to think excessive. At present it is thirty-five shillings per pound, and ten years ago it was nearly double that price. It forms however a valuable article of importation. There are two chief divisions in horn, buffalo and ox horns, both of which are imported from various parts of the globe. Buffalo horn is for the most part used in the manufacture of knife-handles, and such articles, in the cutlery trade. In comb-making it is chiefly used for dressing-combs, and, generally speaking, all combs of a deep black color are formed of this material. The best buffalo-horns are obtained from the East Indies, and the finest are those of the Indian buffalo from Siam. We were shown a beautiful specimen of Siamese horns, which, on account of their extraordinary dimensions, had been preserved and polished. One of them measured five feet from tip to base, eighteen and a half inches in circumference at the widest part, and weighed fourteen pounds. Some conception may be formed of the size of an animal which can support such a weight on the frontal-bone, if we recollect that an English ox-horn weighs only a single pound.

Ox-horns, the staple of comb-makers, are imported with hides from South America, the Cape of Good Hope, and New South Wales. The imports, however, are chiefly from the enormous herds of South American black-cattle, which have multiplied to such an extent in the Brazilian territories, that they are now slaughtered for the sake of their hides and horns, and their carcasses left to be devoured by the innumerable carnivorous animals which infest the jungles. The ox-horns entered for consumption in Great Britain in 1850 numbered 1,250,000, and the average price is about fifty pounds per ton.

Hoofs are from the German and home markets, and are worth about twelve pounds per ton. They are used generally in the cheapest description of combs, but although the least valuable material, are subject to the most costly and ingenious processes of manufacture.

At the time of our visit the quantity of horns and hoofs in stock amounted to upwards of one hundred tons of each. Enormous piles of different varieties—from the delicate curvature of the small Highland ox to the equally beautiful but enormous cornu of the ferocious buffalo of the Cape; from the Smithfield horns to those of the gigantic buffalo of Thibet and Siam—all lay piled in inextricable confusion.

After a glance at the steam-engine, fifty horse-power, and the largest of the horizontal kind in Scotland, we proceeded to see the first stage of the manufacture, where horns are cut into assorted sizes by a circular saw. A horn is twice cut transversely, and afterwards, if a large one, longitudinally. The tips or extremities here cut off are sent to Sheffield, where they are converted into table-knife and umbrella handles; and for this purpose sixteen thousand horns can be cut up in a week. Instead of being divided in this manner, the hoofs are, after being boiled a certain time, to render the fibre soft, cut into two pieces; or rather the sole is stamped out by vertical punching-machines of the same irregular conformation.

The horns and hoofs thus cut are then brought in pieces into the pressing department. The first thing that strikes the visitor on entering is the peculiar and easily distinguishable odor of burnt horn, which indeed is predominant throughout the works. This arises from the high temperature necessary to the fabrication of horn, which to a greater or less extent effects decomposition of the material, and is invariably accompanied with the disengagement of the peculiar gases which create the odor. Along the floor of this department are thirty-six furnaces of a peculiar construction, and at each of these a man and boy were busily engaged in shaping the cut horns into flat plates, by heating the pieces, and then cutting them to the required shape with knives. They were then inserted between screw-blocks, and pressed flat. If, however, the plates are required for stained combs, as the greater part of them are, a different mode of pressing is pursued. Into a rectangular cast-iron trough about two and a half feet long by twelve inches wide and deep, a number of iron hot-plates are put; they are then oiled on their surface, and the plates of horn[Pg 358] inserted between them; a wedge is next driven into the press by the percussion-force of a weight falling eight feet, producing a force of about one hundred and twenty tons. This pressure on the horn in the iron plates has the effect of breaking the fibre to a certain degree, and forcing it to expand in a lateral direction. Whatever may have been the original color of the horn, it is now of a uniform dark green color, and perfectly soft. This treatment renders the tissues more pervious to the action of acids, and will be better understood when we arrive at the operation of staining.

But there are other means of pressure. Around the apartment were arranged one hundred and twenty iron screw-presses—levers of the second order, and differing only from a common vice in pressing under the screw after the manner of nut-crackers. They are fitted with steel dies, with a variety of engraved designs, and in these braid-combs, the outside coverings of pocket-combs and side-combs are pressed. We were shown a new impression on pocket-combs of the Crystal Palace. A man exerting his strength on one of these presses can produce a force of upwards of fifty tons. But however great, the pressure is still insufficient. The enormous demand for the cheap side-combs of hoof led to the application of hydraulic pressure. The two portions of the hoof, after being boiled a second time in a number of little troughs, with a steam-jet in each of them to preserve the necessary temperature, the excrescences still adhering are pared off. They are then transferred to an adjoining room, where sixteen hydraulic presses, are in operation; and here are subjected to a pressure of three hundred tons, with a degree of speed and precision that is astonishing. They come out of the press in the form of small, semi-transparent, rectangular plates, having on each side the rounded projection or beading observable on most side-combs. To illustrate the resistless force of this pressure, we were informed that the very steel dies which give shape to the hoof are soon crushed and worn out; and it was not without some nice calculation and experiment that the application of hydraulic pressure to the purpose was successfully attained. After having received the necessary formation by the various modes of pressing, the plates are laid aside to dry in a room where a high temperature is preserved by means of steam-pipes, and where they are also assorted into different sizes, and the edges squared with circular saws. The number of such plates, of shell, horn, and hoof, in stock at the time of our visit, was somewhere about four millions and a half.

From this they are distributed to the different processes in order—the first of which is cutting the teeth. Certain classes of horn-plates, however, are subjected to a farther process of planing on the surface preliminary to this operation; but in all plates which have been hot-pressed, and are intended to be stained, this is unnecessary, and therefore they are taken when perfectly dry to the cutting department. On entering this department the visitor is sometimes bewildered. The incessant and peculiar clatter of the machinery, the heat of the place, and apparent confusion, produce together a curious effect. A little observation, however, shows that we have arrived at the basis of all the modern improvements in comb-making. On benches around the apartment, in close proximity to each other, were twenty-four "twinning-machines"—the invention, with its subsequent improvements, to which we have referred. Each of these is worked by a man, with an attendant who keeps up a supply of hot plates from the fires arranged for that purpose in the centre of the room. It is impossible without diagrams to explain the principles and construction of this apparatus; but there can be no mistaking its effect. A plate of horn, after being heated, is placed on a small carriage within the cast-iron frame of the machine, which travels by means of a particular arrangement of gearing on parallel slides. Immediately over this are two angular-shaped chisel-like cutters, which, on the application of motive power, descend on the horn with an alternating motion, and an inconceivable degree of rapidity and force. Before we could well see, far less understand, the rationale of the process, we were shown the horn cut in two pieces—one half literally taken out of the other, and each presenting the well-defined outline of a comb. In this cutting department resides the perfection of that beautiful mechanism that revolutionized the trade and reduced it to mathematical precision. To appreciate this we have only to look at the increase it has effected in the production. A comb-maker of the old school could not perhaps, with all his skill, cut more than eighty or a hundred combs per day; while with this machinery a man and boy will cut upwards of two thousand of the same kind, and with a consumption of only half the material. The finer dressing-combs, and all small-tooth combs, are still cut by circular saws in the next department. Here, however, a moderately curious visitor will not linger. A dense atmosphere of horn dust fills the large apartment, and gives to every thing within its influence the white appearance that distinguishes a flour-mill, to which indeed at first sight it bears a striking resemblance. From the notes we took, we learn that here there are wheels on the fine self-acting machinery, in connection with the cutting and pointing of combs, that revolve 5000 times in a minute, and saws so delicately fine as to cut forty teeth within the space of an inch.

We inquired as to the effect on the operatives of this animalized atmosphere, and were informed that it was not known to be[Pg 359] injurious. On the contrary, it was stated as a singular fact, in connection with the late visitation of cholera in Aberdeen, that not a single comb-maker had been affected by the disease, at least fatally; whence it may be inferred, although we do not pretend to assign the reason, that the fabrication of horn must be attended with considerable anti-miasmatic effects. At all events it is certain that horn-dust cannot exercise that injurious action on the air-passages and the lungs which is experienced in many trades, such as that of the steel-grinders of Sheffield.

Passing over one or two intermediate stages after the combs are thus cut and twinned—such as "thinning" on the outer edge by means of grindstones, and "pointing," by means of peculiarly-shaped bevel-saws—we arrive at the next department, where the finishing is given by the hand. Here we meet with artificers who, with a pertinacious reverence for ancient usages, preserve among themselves the appellation of comb-makers par excellence, forgetting that the very boys and girls in their respective departments play as important a part in the aggregate production. And yet, in their province, they are deserving of commendation. The specimens of elaborate and skilful decoration displayed here, especially on ladies' braid-combs, were admirable, and one pattern was shown us wherein there was a species of chain, formed of beautifully stained horn, woven with the head of the comb, which, although we examined it minutely, and knew there must have been a joint in each alternate link, we nevertheless failed to discover. It is in this department that the teeth are smoothed and rounded—an operation technically termed "grailling"—which is effected by different sorts of cutting rasps. So far as the making or formation is concerned, the combs are now finished.

At the opposite side of the buildings we were taken to the department where the staining is carried on. This will be better understood if described as the imitation on the various classes of combs of the natural diversity of tint in tortoise-shell. The horn, whether in plates, as in the side-combs, or after being "twinned," as in dressing-combs, is immersed in diluted nitric acid, which, with its characteristic action on all organized tissues, creates a deep and permanent yellow stain. This resembles the ground color of tortoise-shell; and to produce the variegation, the horns are then treated with a particular composition of red oxide of lead, with certain alkaline compounds, which has the effect of neutralizing the action of the acid, and imprinting a stain of a deep orange color. After being carefully washed, dried, and polished, the surface of the combs presents the beautiful and natural appearance desired. Indeed, the imitation is so perfect in the best classes of stained combs, that a practised observer can only detect it. We were shown, for example, two specimens of braid-combs, one of real tortoise-shell and another of stained horn; and so much alike were they in color and configuration, that we could not tell which was which, and yet the one comb was worth about ten times as much as the other. This operation of staining, which is somewhat artistic, is performed by women.

There are still some minor departments, which we need not describe in detail. "Buffing" consists in smoothing the rough surfaces of the horn by means of wheels covered with walrus skin. Side-combs and braids are bent to their peculiar curve by being first heated and then fastened to wooden blocks—an operation that lasts only a few minutes. Pocket-combs have of course a different and peculiar treatment in some stages; such as the formation of the joint, and the putting together of the handles. And there is a department exclusively devoted to the fabrication of horn-spoons, which becomes chiefly remarkable from the circumstance of there being no modern application of machinery to the manufacture. The last process, however, to which all combs are subjected, is that of polishing, which is effected by wheels, covered with leather of different degrees of softness. After this they are despatched to the warehouse, to be assorted the last time—the side-combs being stitched to cards, or packed in fancy boxes, which affords constant work to about twenty women.

We were finally shown the patterns of the different kinds of combs, many of them exceedingly beautiful; but we can only notice them in regard to number. Of dressing-combs (counting the different sizes of all the patterns), there were 605; ladies' braid-combs, 612; ladies' side-combs, 525; pocket, small-tooth, horse combs, and sundry articles, 186: in all, 1928 different varieties.

The aggregate number produced of all these different sorts averages upwards of 1200 gross weekly, or about 9,000,000 annually. The annual consumption of ox-horns is about 730,000, being considerably more than half the imports of 1850; the consumption of hoofs amounts to 4,000,000; the consumption of tortoise-shell and buffalo-horn, although not so large, is correspondingly valuable: even the waste, composed of horn-shavings and parings of hoof, which, from its nitrogenized composition, becomes valuable in the manufacture of prussiate of potash, amounts to 350 tons in the year; the broken combs in the various stages of manufacture average 50 or 60 gross in a week; and as the crowning illustration of the enormous extent of these comb-works, the very paper for packing costs L.600 a year.

There are so many beautiful instances of the division of labor that the task of selecting is not easy. But let us take the cheapest article in the trade; namely, the side-combs,[Pg 360] sold retail at 1d. per pair: in its progress from the hoof to the comb—finished, carded, and labelled "German shell"—it undergoes eleven distinct operations. This comb, which twenty years ago was sold to the trade at 3s. 6d. per dozen, can now be purchased in the same way for two shillings and sixpence per gross! thus effecting a reduction in price of about 1600 per cent. As an illustration of the value of labor, we give the following comparative estimate of the produce of the three materials:——

Regarded in this aspect, in the relation of labor to material, we find that hoofs—intrinsically the least valuable of the materials—become, with the application of labor, the most valuable—that is, proportionably: and the converse is true in the case of tortoise-shell.

At the time of our visit there were employed 456 men and boys, and 164 women—in all, 620 persons—exactly four times the number employed in the comb-trade in all Scotland when the house commenced business.

From the National Era.

A REMINISCENCE.

BY ALICE CAREY.

Some four or five years ago, there came to reside in the neighborhood in which I then lived a family consisting of three persons—an old lady, a young man, and a child of some fourteen years. The cottage they took was divided by a little strip of woods from my own home; and I well remember how rejoiced I was on first seeing the blue smoke curling up from the high red chimneys, for the house had been a long time vacant, and the prospect of having near neighbors gave me delight. Perhaps, too, I was not the less pleased that they were new neighbors. We are likely to under-estimate persons and things we have continually about us; but let separation come, and we learn what they were to us. Apropos of this—in the little grove I have spoken of I remember there was an oak tree, taller by a great deal than its fellows; and a thousand times I have felt as though its mates must be oppressed with a painful sense of degradation, and really wished the axe were laid at its root. At last, one day I heard the ringing strokes of that fatal instrument, and, on inquiry, was told that the woodman had received orders no longer to spare that tree. Eagerly I listened at first—every stroke was like the song of victory; then the gladness subsided, and I began to marvel how the woods would look with the monarch fallen; then I thought, the glory will have departed, and began to reflect on myself as having sealed its death warrant, so that when the crash, telling that the mighty was fallen, woke the sleeping echoes from the hills, I cannot tell how sad an echo it waked also in my heart. If I could see it standing once more, just once more! but I could not, and till this day I feel a twinge when I think of the tall oak.

But the new neighbors. Some curiosity mingled with my pleasure, I confess, and so, as soon as I thought they were settled, and feeling at home, I made my toilet with unusual care for the first call.

The cottage was somewhat back from the main road, and access to it was had by a narrow grass-grown lane, bordered on one side by a green belt of meadow land, and on the other by the grove, sloping upward and backward to a clayey hill, where, with children and children's children, about them,

A little farther on, but in full view of its stunted cypresses and white headstones, was the cottage. Of burial grounds generally I have no dread, but from this particular one I was accustomed, even from a child, to turn away with something of superstitious horror. I could never forget how Laura Hastings saw a light burning there all one winter night, after the death of John Hine, a wild, roving fellow, who never did any real harm in his life to any one but himself, hastening his own death by foolish excesses. Nevertheless, his ghost had been seen more than once, sitting on the cold clay mound beneath which the soul's expression was fading and crumbling into dust—so, at least, said some of the oldest and most pious inhabitants of our village. There, too, Mary Wildermings, a fair young girl who died, more sinned against than sinning, had been heard to sing sad lullabies under the waning moon sometimes, and at other times had been sitting by her sunken grave, and braiding roses, as for a bridal, in her hair. True, I never saw any of these wonderful things; but a spot more likely to be haunted by the unresting spirits of the bad could not readily be imagined. The woods, thick and full of birds, along the roadside, thinned away toward the desolate ridge, where briers grew over the grave-mounds, and about and through the fallen palings, as they would, with here and there a little clearing among weeds and thistles and high matted grass, for the making of a new bed.

It was the twilight of a beautiful summer day as I walked down the grassy lane and past the lonesome graveyard to make my first call at the cottage, feeling, I scarcely knew why, strangely sad. By an old broken bridge in the hollow between the cottage and the graveyard I remember that I sat down, and for a long time listened to the trickling of the water over the pebbles, and watched the golden patches of sunlight till they quite faded out as "came still evening on, and twilight gray, that in her sober livery all things clad."

So quietly I sat that the mole, beginning its blind work at sunset, loosened and stirred the ground beneath my feet, and the white,[Pg 361] thick-winged moths, coming from beneath the dusty weeds, fluttered about me, and lighted in my lap, and the dull, flabby beating of the bat came almost in my face.

The first complaint of the owl sounded along the hollow and died over the next hill, warning me to proceed, when I heard, as it were the echo of my own thought, repeated in a low, melancholy voice, the conclusion of that beautiful stanza of the elegy in reference to that moping bird. I distinctly caught the lines——

Looking up, I saw approaching slowly, with arms folded and eyes upon the ground, a young and seemingly exceeding handsome man. He passed without noticing me at all, and I think without seeing me. As he did not observe me, I had the better opportunity of observing him, though I would fain have foregone that privilege to have won one glance. He interested me, and I felt humiliated that he should pass me as though I were a stick or a stone. His face was pale and very sad, and his forehead shaded with a mass of black, heavy hair, pushed away from one temple, and falling neglectedly over the other.

"Well!" said I, as I watched him ascending the opposite hill, feeling very much as though he had wantonly slighted some claim I had upon him, though I could not possibly have the slightest, and, turning ill-humoredly away, I walked with a quick step toward the cottage.

A golden-haired young girl sat in the window reading, and on my approach arose and received me with easy gracefulness and well-bred courtesy, but during my stay her manner did not once border upon cordiality. She was very beautiful, but her beauty was like that of statuary. The mother I did not see. She was, as I was told, slightly indisposed, and, on begging that she might not be disturbed, the daughter readily acquiesced. Every thing about the place indicated people accustomed to refined and elegant habits, but whence they came, how long they proposed to remain, and what relation the young man sustained to the other members of the family I confess I would gladly have known.

Seeing a flute on the table, I spoke of music, for I conceived it to belong to the absent gentleman. I received no enlightenment, however; and as the twilight was already falling deeply, I felt obliged to take leave, without obtaining even a glimpse of the person whom I had pictured in imagination as young and fair, and of course agreeable.

The sun had been set some time, but the moon had risen full and bright, so that I felt no fear even in passing the graveyard, but walked more slowly than I had done before, till, reaching the gate, I paused to think of the awful mystery of life and death and immortality.

This is not a very desolate spot after all, thought I, as leaning over the gate, something of the quiet of the place infused itself into my spirits. Here, I felt, the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. Here the long train of evils that attach themselves to the best phases of humanity fade to silent dust. Here the thorn-crown of pain is loosened from the brow of sorrow by the white hand of peace, and the hearts that were all their lifetime bowed under the shadow of a great and haply unpitied affliction, never ache any more. And here, oh, best of all, the frailties of the unresisting tempted are folded away beneath the shroud from the humiliating glances of pity—from the cold eyes of pride. We have need to be thankful that when man brought upon his primal nature the mildew of sin, God did not cast us utterly from him, but in the unsearchable riches of his mercy struck open the refuge of the grave. If there were no fountain where our sins of scarlet might be washed as white as wool—if the black night of death were not bordered by the golden shadows of the morning of immortality—if deep in the darkness were not sunken the foundations of the white bastions of peace—it were yet an inestimable privilege to lay aside the burden of life, for life becomes—sooner or later, a burden, an echo among ruins.

In the corner of the burial ground, where the trees are thickest, a little apart from the rest, was the grave of Mary Wildermings, and year after year the blue thistles bloomed and faded in its sunken sod.

The train of my reflections naturally suggested her, and, turning my eyes in the direction of her resting place, I saw, or thought I saw, the outline of a human figure. I remembered the story of her unresting ghost, and at first little doubted that I beheld it, and felt, I own, a tumult of strange feeling on finding myself thus alone so near a questionable shape.

Then, I said, this is some delusion of the senses; and I passed my hand over my eyes, for an uncertain glimmer had followed my intensity of gaze. I looked towards the cottage to reassure myself by the light of a human habitation, but all there was dark—a cloud had passed over the moon, and, without venturing to look towards the haunted grave, I withdrew from the gate, very lightly; nevertheless, it creaked as I did so. Any sound save the beating of my own heart gave me courage; and when I had walked a little way, I turned and looked again, but the dense shadow would have prevented my seeing any thing, if any thing had been there. Certain it is, I saw nothing.

On returning home, I asked the housekeeper, a garrulous person usually, if she remembered Mary Wildermings, and if she was not buried in the graveyard across the wood.[Pg 362]

"Yes, I remember her, and she is buried in the corner of the ground on the hill. They come to my house, I know, to get a cup, or something of the sort, with which to dip the water from her grave, for it rained terribly all the day of her funeral. But," she added, "what do you want to talk of the dead and gone for, when there are living folks enough to talk about?"

Truth is, she wanted me to say something of our new neighbors, and was vexed that I did not, though I probably should have done so had they not been quite driven from my thoughts by the more absorbing event of the evening; so, as much vexed and disappointed as herself, I retired. The night was haunted with some troublous dreams, but a day of sunshine succeeded, and my thoughts flowed back to a more cheerful channel.

Days and weeks went by, and we neither saw nor heard anything of our new neighbors, for my call was not returned, nor did I make any further overtures towards an acquaintance.

Often, as I sat under the apple tree by the door, of twilights, I heard the sweet mellow music of the flute.

"Is that at the cottage?" said the housekeeper to me, one night: "it sounds to me as though it were in the corner of the graveyard."

I smiled as she turned her head a little to one side, and, encircling the right ear with her hand, listened for some minutes eagerly, and then proceeded to express her conviction that the music was the result of no mortal agency.

"Did you ever hear of a ghost playing the flute?" said I.

"A flute!" she answered, indignantly, "it's a flute, just as much as you are a flute; and for the sake of enlightening your blind understanding, I'll go to the graveyard, night as it is, if you will go with me."

"Very well," I said. "Come on."

So, under the faint light of the crescent moon, we took our way together. Gradually the notes became lower and sadder, and quite died away. I urged my trembling companion to walk faster, lest the ghost should vanish too; and she acceded to my wish with silent alacrity, that convinced me at once of the sincerity of her expressed belief.

Just as we began to ascend the hill, she stopped suddenly, saying,

"There! did you hear that?"

I answered that I heard a noise, but that it was no unusual thing to hear sounds of the sort in an inhabited neighborhood at so early an hour.

It was the latching of the gate at the graveyard. She answered, solemnly.

"As you value your immortal soul, go no further."

In vain I argued, that a ghost would have no need to unlatch the gate. She positively refused to go farther, and with a courage not very habitual to me, I confess, I walked on alone.

"Do you think I don't know that sound?" she called after me. "I would know if I had forgotten everything else. Oh, stop till I tell you! The night Mary Wildermings died," I heard her say; but I knew the sound of the gate as well as she, and would not wait even for a ghost story. I have since wished I had, for I could never afterwards persuade her to reveal it.

Gaining the summit of the hill, I perceived, a little way before me, a dark figure, receding slowly; but so intent was I on the superhuman, that I paid little attention to the human; though afterward, in recalling the circumstance, the individual previously seen while I sat on the bridge became in some way associated with this.

How hushed and solemn the graveyard seemed! I was half afraid, as I looked in—quite startled, in fact, when latching and unlatching the gate, to determine whether the sound I had heard were that or not, a rabbit, roused from its light sleep, under the fallen grass, sped fleetly across the still mounds to the safer shelter of the woods. I saw nothing else, save that the grass was trampled to a narrow path leading towards Mary's grave.

During the summer, I sometimes saw the young girl in the woods, and I noticed that she neither gathered flowers nor sang with the birds; but would sit for hours in some deep shadow, without moving her position in the least, not even to push away the light curls which the wind blew over her cheeks and forehead, as they would. She seemed to neither love nor seek human companionship. Once only I noticed, and it was the last time she ever walked in the woods, that he whom I supposed to be her brother was with her. She did not sit in the shade, as usual, but walked languidly, and leaning heavily on the arm of her attendant, who several times swept off the curls from her forehead, and bent down, as if kissing her.

A few days afterwards, being slightly indisposed, I called in the village doctor. Our conversation, naturally enough, was of who was sick and who was dead.

"Among my patients," he said, "there is none that interests me so deeply as a little girl at the cottage—indeed, I have scarcely thought of anything else, since I knew that she must die. A strange child," he continued; "she seems to feel neither love of life nor fear of death—nor does she either weep or smile; and though I have been with her much of late, I have never seen her sleep. She suffers no pain—her face wears the same calm expression, but her large, melancholy eyes are wide open all the time."

The second evening after this, though not quite recovered myself, I called at the cottage, in the hope of being of some service to[Pg 363] the sick girl. The snowy curtain was dropped over the window of her chamber—the sash partly raised, and all within still—very still. The door was a little open, and, pausing, I heard from within a low, stifled moan, which I could not misunderstand, and pushing open the door, I entered without rapping.

In the white sheet, drawn straight over the head and the feet, I recognised at once the fearful truth—the little girl was dead. By the head of the bed, and still as one stricken into stone, sat the personage I so often wished to see. The room was shadowy, and his face buried in his hands—nevertheless, I knew him—it was he who had passed me on the bridge.

Presently the housekeeper, or one that I took to be she, entered, and whispering to him, he arose and left the room, so that I but imperfectly saw him. When he was gone, the woman folded the covering away from the face, and to my horror I saw that the eyes were still unclosed. Seeing my surprise, she said, as she folded a napkin, and pinned it close over the shut lids——

"It is strange, but the child would never in life close her eyes—her mother, they say, died in watching for one who never came, and the baby was watchful and sleepless from the first."

The next day, and the next, it was dull and rainy—excitement and premature exposure had induced a return of my first indisposition, so that I was not at the funeral. I saw, however, from my window, preparations for the burial—to my surprise, in the lonesome little graveyard by the woods.

In the course of a fortnight, I prepared for a visit of condolence to the cottage, but, on reaching it, found the inhabitants gone—the place still and empty.

On my return, I stopped at the haunted burial ground—close by the grave of Mary Wildermings was that of the stranger child. The briers and thistles had been carefully cut away, there was no slab and no name over either, but the blue and white violets were planted thickly about both. That they slept well, was all I knew.

From Household Words.

THE SHADOW OF MARGERY PASTON.

A suggestive book, "The Paston Letters; Original Letters, written during the reigns of Henry the Sixth, Edward the Fourth, and Richard the Third:" the private history of a family of rank, some four centuries ago. In this collection of ancient memorials of domestic life, we trace the nature of the contests between themselves of a poor, ambitious, and turbulant aristocracy, when the right of the strong arm was paramount over law; we see the growth of that power which was derived from the profitable exercise of industry; and view the middle classes, amidst the partial oppression and general contempt of the high-born, securing for themselves a firm position and a strong hold, whilst the exclusive claims of feudality were crumbling around them. Here we learn how harsh were many of the domestic relations of parent and child—how public oppression had its counterpart in private tyranny. The love passages of the book are singularly interesting. A humble friend of the Paston family has won the affections of one of its daughters. They are betrothed. The mother insults the "Factor." The brothers despise him. The power of the Church is opposed to the union. Yet the ardent girl is constant—and she triumphs. How she finally emerged from her persecutions is not recorded. But the last letter of the angry mother, which describes these struggles, is thus endorsed:—"A letter to Sir John Paston from his mother, touching the good-will between her daughter Margery P. and Ric. Calle, who were after married together."

The shadows of the young lady and her lover arise before us, and we try to piece out their dim history.

Margery Paston is sitting in the accustomed solitude of the Brown chamber in her mother's dowry house at Norwich. Dame Margaret Paston, her mother, has just returned from spending the Easter of 1469 in her son's ruinous castle of Caister. He holds this castle under a disputed will; and the great duke of Norfolk is preparing to dispossess him of it, not by the feeble writs of the King's Court at Westminster, but by gun and scaling ladder. On the return of the lady she receives unwelcome intelligence. Her chaplin, Sir James Gloys, has intercepted a letter addressed to her daughter. The young lady is the object of constant anxiety and suspicion—watched—persecuted. Up to the age of twelve or fourteen she had seen little of her parents, but had been a welcome inmate in the family of Sir John Fastolf, at Caister; who, in his caresses of the fair girl, indulged the strong affection which old men generally feel towards a playful and endearing child. He had no children of his own, and little Margery was, therefore, a real solace to the ancient warrior. There was another child, a few years older than Margery, who was admitted to play, and to learn out of the same book, with the daughter of the Pastons. This was Richard Calle, the only son of an honest and painstaking man, who acted in the capacity of a steward for Sir John Fastolf, and conducted many of the complicated affairs with which the old knight amused himself in the evening of a busy life—his friends complaining of "the yearly great damage he beareth in disbursing his money about shipping and boats, keeping a house up at Yarmouth to his great harm, and receiveth but chaffer and ware for his corns and his wools, and then must abide a long day to make money."[11]

[Pg 364]

Richard Calle has now grown into manhood. He is reputed to have received a goodly inheritance from his father, which he has increased by provident enterprises in trade. When the Pastons wanted money, he was once always to be applied to. But he has presumed to address his play-fellow Margery with the language of affection; and though Sir John Paston had once said that, for his part, Richard Calle might have his dowerless sister and welcome, for he had always been a warm friend of the Pastons; his mother is indignant that a trader should think of marrying into a gentle family; and John of Gelston, the second son, in an hour when the fortunes of the house seemed in the ascendant, has vowed that Richard Calle "should never have my good-will for to make my sister to sell candles and mustard, at Framlingham."[12]

Margery Paston sits in the Brown chamber, with her bright blue eyes dimmed with tears. She is endeavouring to forget her own sorrows by reading a tale of imaginary griefs, which for four hundred years has never been read with a tearless eye. She is at that passage of "The Clerk's Tale" of Chaucer, where Grisildis has her infant daughter taken from her, under pretence that it is to be put to death:——

The door of the chamber is hastily opened, and an old servant stands before Margery with a face of affright. All in that household love the gentle maiden; and so the old man, seeing the tear in her eye, bids her be of good cheer, for though his worshipful mistress is now in a somewhat impatient humor, and demands her instant attendance in the Oaken parlor, she is a good lady at heart, and would soon forgive any slight cause of offence.

Dame Paston has called in two allies to constitute, with herself, the tribunal that is about to sit in judgment on Margery Paston. Dame Agnes Paston, the aged mother of the late heir of Caister, sits at the table with her daughter-in-law and the priest.

Margery enters; and, in a moment, is kneeling at the feet of her mother, with the accustomed reverence of child to parent. "Oh, minion," says the mother, "rise, I beseech you; it is not for such as you to kneel to a poor forlorn widow, left with few worldly goods. Mistress Calle has plenteousness all around her, and has nothing to ask of the world's gear. She has her good house at Framlingham, and her full store at Norwich. Mistress, know you the price of salted hams at this present? Are pickled herrings plenteous? We have some wool in loft, which we should not be unwilling to exchange for worsteds. How say you, Mistress Dry-goods; will you deal, will you chaffer?"

"My mother, what mean you?"

"Oh, minion, you know full well my meaning. You are an alien from your family. You are betrothed to a low trader, with no gentle blood in his veins."

"The good Sir William Paston, Knight, and whilom Judge of His Majesty's Court of the Common Pleas, would rise from his grave to save a granddaughter of his from inter-marrying with mustard and candle," quoth the ancient lady. "Faugh! a factor!"

"And one whom I shrewdly suspect to be a heretic," says the priest, looking earnestly at Mistress Margaret Paston.

"Oh, my mother, why am I thus persecuted?"

"Persecuted, foosooth!" responds the elder dame; "I took other rule with my daughters; and well do I remember that when Elizabeth Clere, my niece, tried to intercede with me for her wilful cousin Mary, forasmuch as she had been 'beaten once in the week or twice, and sometimes twice in a day, and had her head broken in several places,'[13] I told her that it was for warning and ensample to all forward maidens who dared to think of love or marriage without their parents' guidance. And with the help of my worthy lord, the good Sir William Paston, Knight, and Judge of His Majesty's Court of the Common Pleas—His Majesty Henry the Sixth gave him two robes and a hundred marks yearly; and may God him preserve upon his throne——"

The priest and Mistress Margaret drown the good old lady's somewhat disloyal gratitude (seeing that the House of York is in the ascendant) by judicious clearings of the voice, as they prepare to read the intercepted letter of Richard Calle, with sundry glosses.

"Minion," says the mother, "know you this superscription?"

"It is a letter from my own Richard," cries the delighted girl; "will you give it me?"

"Assuredly not. It convicts you of being a false liar,—or it lies itself. Did you not, with the fear of close custody, and bread and water, and maybe some healing stripes, before your eyes, affirm that there was no contract between the dry-goodsman and yourself?"

"Mother, I own my sin; I did affirm it, but I was wrong, and I am penitent."

"Vile brethel!" exclaims the mother.

"She mentioned it not, even under the seal of confession," adds the priest.

"Yes, once in the week or twice, and sometimes twice a day, and she made an excellent wife, by reason of the frequent beatings, and brought up her children accordant," soliloquises the old lady.

"Daughter, I conjure you to hear what this vile Richard Calle sayeth to you. Tell me that it is false—tell me that he is a bold liar, when he affirmeth that you are contracted,[Pg 365] and you shall at once have all freedom and reasonable pleasure; but if not——"

"Mother, I listen."

"Hear, then, what this abominable bill imports. Sir James, please to read."

"'To Mistress Margery Paston:

"'Mine own lady and mistress, and before God very true wife, I, with heart full, very sorrowfully recommend me unto you, as he that cannot be merry, nor nought shall be, till it be otherwise with us than it is yet; for this life that we lead now is neither pleasure to God nor to the world, considering the great band of matrimony that is made betwixt us, and also the great love that hath been, and as I trust yet is, betwixt us, and as on my part never greater. Wherefore I beseech Almighty God comfort us as soon as it pleaseth Him; for us that ought of very right to be most together, are most asunder. Meseemeth it is a thousand years ago that I spake with you——"

Margery here bursts into a passion of tears; and her mother, almost weeping too, ejaculates, "My poor child!" The priest looks at the lady somewhat spitefully, and proceeds:——

"'I had liever than all the good in the world I might be with you. Alas! alas! good lady full little remember they what they do that keep us thus asunder. Four times in the year are they accursed that let matrimony——'"

"Accursed are they?" exclaims the priest. "Ban and anathema against us, my worshipful lady! But there are others, I wot, that the Church holds accursed; and this base mechanical be one of them, if I mistake not. Did I not once hear him say—for the varlet ever had privilege to speak in this house, when his betters held their peace—did I not hear him once say that his father had told him that he had seen the heretic priest, John Waddon, burnt at Framlingham, and that he (shame that such an unbeliever might presume to speak upon matters of the Church!) thought that the knowledge of the truth was not advanced by such terrors, and that those who lit the fires for the Lollards had no sanction in the Gospel of Christ. For mine own part, I well believe that he has seduced our daughter from her obedience by his false and damnable opinions. Mistress Margery, did he never open in your presence the book of that arch heretic, John Wiclif, which is called, 'The Book of the New Law'—the book which, in the Constitution of Archbishop Arundel, was forbidden to be read, under pain of the greater excommunication?"

The maiden answers not. The priest, looking earnestly at Mistress Margaret Paston, asks her if she did not think that there was a possibility of such a devilish corruption having gone forward; and Mistress Margaret, her cheek coloring a deep red, and then having an ashy paleness, speaks no more for good or evil to her daughter, but quails before the priest. He has her secret. There is a treasured volume in that house, which has been carefully locked up for half a century, to be looked upon in the secret hour, when prying eyes are sleeping, and in the hour of tribulation, when careful eyes are waking. With Richard Calle, Mistress Margaret had often spoken of this book; although even to possess it was to risk a charge of "Lollardie," with all its penalties. The priest sees his triumph; and proceeds to make an end of as much of the letter as he chooses to read:——

"'I understand, lady, ye have had as much sorrow for me as any gentlewoman hath had in the world, as would God all that sorrow that ye have had had rested upon me, and that ye had been discharged of it; for I wis, lady, it is to me a death to hear that ye be entreated otherwise than ye ought to be; this is a painful life that we lead. I cannot live thus without it be a great displeasure to God.'"

"He thought not of God's displeasure when he presumed to speak of love to a daughter of the Pastons," says the priest. "A granddaughter of Sir William Paston, one of his Majesty's Justices," mutters the ancient lady. Sir James continues to read the missive:——

"'I suppose they deem we be not ensured together and if they do so I marvel, for then they are not well advised, remembering the plainness that I brake to my mistress at the beginning, and I suppose by you, both; and ye did as ye ought to do of very right; and if ye have done the contrary, as I have been informed ye have done, ye did neither consciencely, nor to the pleasure of God, without ye did it for fear, and for the time, to please such as were at that time about you; and if ye did it for this cause, it was a reasonable cause, considering the great and importable calling upon ye that ye had; and many an untrue tale was made to you of me, which, God know it, I was never guilty of."[14]

"And now, pretty Mistress Margery," says Sir James, "will you affirm that this man sayeth untruly, when he sayeth that you are ensured together? You have before said that you are not so ensured. Will you cast off your mother and your brothers to be the wife of a low factor, and a companion for idle queans and the wives of fat burgesses, instead of wedding some noble knight, who will give you a castle to dwell in, with all worship and authority? Deny the contract; there is guilt in affirming it even if it had been made in a moment of imprudence."

"Sir James Gloys, and you, my honored mother," answers the maiden, "Richard Calle says truly, that I did not consciencely, nor to the pleasure of God, when I concealed our contract for fear, and for the time. We are betrothed; and I rejoice at the handfasting. No pain, no fear, shall ever again lead me to deny it. He is my true husband, and may I ever be to him a reverent and loving wife.[Pg 366] For who can I love as I have loved, and do love, Richard Calle,—the companion of my childhood, the instructor of my girlhood: a true man, as brave as if he were the sturdiest of belted knights—as wise as if he were the clerkliest of learned scholars. He has abundance; he is generous. When did a Paston ask Richard Calle for aid that his hand was not open? We may not want his help just now; but if the time arrive, and assuredly it may be not far off, that hand would be again stretched out for succour. Come Richard Calle of gentle or simple, I heed not; he is my own true man, and to him is my faith plighted, for ever and aye."

"Twice in a day, and had her head broke in several places," grumbles the ancient dame.

"Mistress Margery," responds the priest, "you must take your own course. But this is not now a matter for daughter and mother to settle between them. It must before the Lord Bishop. In the name of Holy Church, I prohibit all intercourse by message or letter between Richard Calle and yourself. You must be in strict durance for a short season; and then a higher than us shall decide, contract or no contract. Heaven forfend that I, or any servant of the altar, should let matrimony."

"My child, go to your chamber," whispers the subdued mother.

We see the shadow of Margery Paston, before she quits the Oaken parlor, kneeling for her mother's blessing.

The Michaelmas of 1469 is nearly come. Margery Paston is still in durance at her mother's house. Every art has been tried to make her deny the betrothal. The priest has worked upon the fears of the mother—the daughter has been studiously kept from her presence. But this state of things cannot abide. Dame Margaret thus writes to Sir John Paston: "I greet you well, and send you God's blessing and mine; letting you weet that on Thursday last was, my mother and I were with my Lord of Norwich, and desired him that he would no more do in the matter touching your sister till that ye, and my brother, and others, that were executors to your father, might be here together, for they had the rule of her as well as I; and he said plainly that he had been required so often to examine her, that he might not, nor would, no longer delay it: and charged me, in pain of cursing, that she should not be deferred, but that she should appear before him the next day. And I said plainly that I would neither bring her nor send her. And then he said that he would send for her himself, and charged that she should be at her liberty to come when he sent for her."

On the next day—it is a Friday—Margery Paston is brought into the Bishop's Court. There, surrounded with the panoply of the Church, sits old Walter Lyhart—he that built the roof of the nave, and the screen, of Norwich Cathedral. The maiden trembles, but her spirit remains unbroken. The bishop puts her in remembrance how she was born,—what kin and friends she has—"And ye shall have more, young lady, if ye will be ruled and guided after them. But if ye will not, what rebuke, and loss, and shame will be yours? They will evermore forsake you, for any good, or help, or comfort that ye shall have of them. Be well advised. I have heard say that ye love one that your friends are not well pleased that ye should love. Be advised—be right well advised."

"I am the betrothed wife of Richard Calle. I must cleave to him for better for worse."

"Rehearse to me what you said to him. Let me understand if it makes matrimony?"

"We have plighted our troth—we are handfasted. How can I repeat the words? Richard said——Oh, my lord! spare me, I am bound in my conscience, whatsoever the words were. If the very words make not sure, make it, I beseech you, surer ere I go hence."

And then the bishop dismisses the maiden with many frowns.

Richard Calle is summoned. He briefly tells the time and place where the vows were exchanged. The bishop is bewildered. He scarcely dare hesitate to confirm the marriage. But the subtle priest is at his side, and he whispers the fearful word of "Lollardie." Then the bishop hastily breaks up the court, and says, "That he supposed there should be found other things against him that might cause the letting the marriage; and therefore he would not be too hasty to give sentence."

Margery Paston stands again upon her mother's threshold. The aged servant is weeping as he opens the door: "Oh, my dear young mistress! I am commanded to shut this gate against you." The figure of Sir James Gloys looms darkly in the hall. "Begone, mistress!" he exclaims. "I will go to my grandmother," sobs out the poor girl. "Your grandmother banishes you for ever from her presence," retorts the churlish priest.

It is night. The pride and the purity of the unhappy Margery forbid her to seek the protection of her Richard. She has been watched. Exhausted and heart-broken, she gladly accepts the shelter which Roger Best offers her. That shelter becomes her prison.

Here closes the record. But what a succession of Shadows is called up by the endorsement of the letter which tells of these sorrows: "They were after married together." The contract could not be dissolved.

At one time we see the shadows of Richard and Margery Calle sitting cheerily together in their peaceful home at Framlingham. The intrigues that are carrying on in the Duke of Norfolk's castle, under whose walls they abide, touch them not. They are not called[Pg 367] upon to declare either for York or Lancaster.

At another time we fancy John of Gelston, Margery's younger brother, a wandering fugitive after the battle of Barnet, throwing himself upon the despised Factor for refuge and succor. The fortunes of the Pastons are now at the lowest ebb. Norfolk holds Caister. Edward the Fourth has pardoned their revolt—but he will not trust them, or employ them. At length Norfolk dies. Caister is restored to the Pastons—but they are penniless.

We see the shadow of a great feast within those half-ruinous walls. The Factor has procured the means from his friends the Lombards. He now sits upon the dais. Sir John Paston calls him brother. Dame Paston greets him as son. John of Gelston says, "I would that my sister should not sell mustard and candles at Framlingham—and assuredly she shall not. Richard Calle has managed his substance better than we; he can win broad lands enow. Kiss me, sister."

There is one shadow of Margery which rests upon our mind. She sits with her mother in the Oaken parlor at Norwich, reading from a volume, now opened without fear, "Blessed are the peace-makers."

From the London Times.

CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE.

But a few years ago, the imperishable records of the Assyrian empire were discovered amidst the sands of the Euphrates by the intelligence and enterprise of a single English traveller. What is the value of the ruins of Pompeii by the side of these awful records of the genius and power of a mighty nation, which had passed from the earth apparently as a wave passes away on the surface of the sea? The official persons charged with the direction of such matters would, of course, satisfy themselves in the first instance that there was no trickery, no spice of adventure or imposition, about the project of removing the Assyrian marbles to England. When this was done, was it not natural to suppose that they would have clutched at the opportunity of adding yet another trophy to the relics of the Parthenon? The history of Mr. Layard is there to show how weak is the character of that enthusiasm which must work out its effects at a distance—in what driblets any assistance from the public purse is vouchsafed to an enterprise which is not recommended to notice by the untiring zeal of a projector! Consider the money fooled away on the basin at Keyham on the one hand, and the inefficient aid afforded to Mr. Layard for the removal of the Assyrian marbles on the other, and our meaning will be at once evident. We desire to-day to call attention to another public shortcoming of the like nature.

Englishmen who travel from their native country to the British Indian empire, as they pass through Alexandria, take occasion to visit two tall obelisks of red Thebaic granite on the south side of the Great Harbour. These relics of the remotest periods of Egyptian history are covered with inscriptions which possess great interest for the antiquarian, independently of the value which attaches to the shafts or pillars themselves. In our columns yesterday will be found a long and particular account of the traditions which must ennoble these mute interpreters of the past in the eyes of the latest posterity; we do not, therefore, deem it necessary to repeat the tale in this place. One of the two obelisks remains erect in its original site; the other lies prostrate on the sand, with which it is partly covered. A portion of its pedestal has been built into the wall which at that spot constitutes the fortification of the town. The one which yet remains upright on the spot where once stood the temple of the Cæsars is the property of the Egyptian Government; the other, which lies neglected on the earth, belongs to the English nation. It is ours by conquest—it is ours by gift. It is a trophy won by our arms when the gallant Abercromby fell at the head of his victorious troops. As though this title were not sufficient, in 1820 Mehemet Ali, then Pasha of Egypt set at rest any doubt which might have existed as to our title to this trophy by its long abandonment on the field of battle. He solemnly presented it to George IV. Nor has a shadow of doubt ever been cast upon our right to this memorial of past times and of our own military glory, save by a modest inuendo of the French consul in 1830, when the French were busy removing the obelisk of Luxor. That worthy and intelligent functionary suggested that, "as the English had so long neglected the Pasha's present, they might be considered to have relinquished it, and therefore it might as well be taken away in the French vessel which had come for the other obelisk." To this modest proposition the English government demurred, and accordingly Cleopatra's Needle has been left upon the sand in the harbour of Alexandria, until it may suit the English to take some efficient steps for its removal. All authoritative reports from the spot inform us that the inscription is partly defaced upon one side, but in no other respect. The sand from the desert has in great measure preserved the monument which has been so long abandoned to its fate. Truth, however, compels us to call attention to the language of our report, which adds, that if the obelisk "be not removed at once, it will doubtless, ere long, become utterly ruined and worthless." This result will not be attributable to the ravages of time, but to the injuries inflicted by idle or mischievous persons on this valuable record and monument of by-gone days.

A correspondent furnishes the Times with the following interesting historical notices of this celebrated monument:[Pg 368]

From the London Times

HISTORY AND CONDITION OF THE CHEAP POSTAGE SYSTEM.

A traveller sauntering through the Lake districts of England, some years ago, arrived at a small public-house just as the postman stopped to deliver a letter. A young girl came out to receive it. She took it in her hand, turned it over and over, and asked the charge. It was a large sum—no less than a shilling. Sighing heavily she observed that it came from her brother, but that she was too poor to take it in, and she returned it to the postman accordingly. The traveller was a man of kindness as well as of observation; he offered to pay the postage himself, and in spite of more reluctance on the girl's part than he could well understand he did pay it, and gave her the letter. No sooner, however, was the postman's back turned than she confessed that the proceeding had been concerted between her brother and herself, that the letter was empty, that certain signs on the direction conveyed all that she wanted to know, and that as neither of them could afford to pay postage they had devised this method of franking the intelligence desired. The traveller pursued his journey, and as he plodded over the Cumberland fells he mused upon the badness of a system which drove people to such straits for means of correspondence, and defeated its own objects all the time. With most men such musings would have ended before the hour, but this man's name was Rowland Hill, and it was from this incident and these reflections that the whole scheme of penny postage was derived.

The value of this reform is felt in every household throughout the kingdom, but its extent will be well shown by the extraction of some figures from a return which has just been made to the House of Commons. The first general reduction of postage took place on the 5th of December, 1839—a fourpenny rate being interposed for a short time before the universal charge of a penny. At this time the number of letters delivered annually in the united kingdom was about 75 millions, the actual estimate for 1839 being 75,907,572. The gross amount of the tax levied upon this delivery was no less than 2,339,737l., of which, as the cost of management was only 687,000l., there was 1,652,424l. carried to the account of profit. Last year the number of letters delivered in the united kingdom was estimated at upwards of three hundred and forty-seven millions, while the penny tax upon the same amounted to no more than 2,264,684l., so that while our payments to the Exchequer have been actually lessened, the service rendered to the public has been multiplied fivefold—in other words, we pay less for five letters than we formerly paid for one.

It is worth remark that the correspondence in the three kingdoms has increased almost equally. In 1839 the deliveries were 59,982,520; 8,301,904; and 7,623,148, in England, Ireland, and Scotland, respectively; while last year they were 276,252,642; 35,388,895; and 35,427,534. The rate of increase has been continuous, though not quite constant, ever since the reduction. The first effect of the reform was to double the deliveries at once, and turn the 75 millions into upwards of 160 millions. From that time to this the increase has proceeded at the rate of 10 or 20 millions a year, the smallest augmentation being in the famous year of 1848, when the delivery exceeded only by 6 millions that of 1847; and the largest in the equally famous times of 1845, when railway speculations added 28 millions of epistles to correspondence of the year preceding. The return before us includes, we hardly know with what view, a weekly account taken once a month for 1850, and from this curious table it would seem that during the month in which ladies talk least they write most; at any rate the largest number of letters yet counted was for the week ending February the 21st.

The cost of management has, of course, been swelled considerably under the new system, though by no means in proportion to the increased service, for whereas the deliveries, as we have said, are multiplied fivefold, the expenses are only multiplied about twice and a half, being 1,460,785l. in 1850, against 686,768l. in 1839. The return does not comprise the items out of which this sum is made up, though it specifies the amounts paid in each year for the conveyance of mails by railway. These amounts fluctuate rather curiously from 12,623l. in 1839, to 206,357l. in this present year of 1851—not increasing gradually or even constantly, but rising or falling occasionally, though with an ultimate tendency to rise. We should have rather liked to see the expenses of management and conveyance stated separately, and some means of comparison given between the cost of railway carriage and that of the old mail coaches. About 10,000l. per annum of the total disbursements is devoted, we are told, to pensions, and must therefore be distinguished from the direct expenses of the Post-office service. All things considered, perhaps, this "non-effective" charge is not heavy; in fact, we believe that Post-office servants are by no means extravagantly paid either for their work or at their retirement.

The Money Order office forms a distinct establishment of itself, and a curious institution it is. The amount of orders issued in 1840, the first year of the system, was 240,063l. for England and Wales, 47,295l. for Ireland, and 25,765l. for Scotland. In the[Pg 371] year 1850 these amounts had increased in England to no less a sum than 7,173,622l., in Ireland to 623,732l., and in Scotland to 697,143l. The total sum was 8,494,498l., and the number of orders of which it was composed 4,439,713, showing an average of some shillings less than 2l. per order. The proportion between the number and the amount of the orders does not vary greatly in the three kingdoms, though the average amount of each order is somewhat larger in Scotland than Ireland, and in England than Scotland.

The Scotch transactions fell off considerably in the year 1849, but the English and Irish offices have steadily increased their business, nor is any effect perceptible in the latter country, either from the famine or the rebellion. The return of "money orders issued" is distinguished from that of "money orders paid," and the difference between these gross amounts is no less than 11,000l. in favor of the Post-office for the year ending the 31st of last December. Some of these orders will no doubt have come in for payment during the current year, but we suspect that ignorance, negligence, or accident must be leaving an appreciable balance to accumulate on the side of the office. Country bankers, we believe, used to reckon upon a gain of 5l. per cent. on the score of notes lost, mislaid, hoarded, destroyed, or otherwise not presented for payment. Money orders are doubtless more rigorously exchanged for cash, but there must still, we imagine, be a profit from this source, especially as the Post-office circumscribes the term of its liability, which bankers did not. The total expenses of the Money Order offices, both in London and the country, are returned at 70,577l. and the total amount of commission received at 73,813l.—a fair balance of charge and service.

The actual benefits, however, of this prodigious reform extend far beyond those immediately represented in the figures we have given. It is not the mere saving of 4d. or 5d. on a letter by which the country has so enormously gained. The facilitation of business, the diffusion of information, the correspondence of friends, and the maintenance of family connexions, which in old days were severed for ever, are the real and inestimable advantages of Mr. Rowland Hill's invention. Like most reformers, he had to contend with violent and not always sincere opposition. The system, indeed, was long deprived of a fair trial by the obstinate resistance of those who should have aided him, and it is mainly owing to this concerted hostility that the results are not as favorable to the revenue as they are to the welfare of the country. But the principle is now established, and of all the reductions which a Chancellor of the Exchequer has ever made there has been none attended with such universal relief, convenience, and benefit as this sacrifice of 800,000l. for the sake of the letter writers.

OCTOBER.

BY MISS ALICE CAREY.

MY NOVEL:

OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.[18]

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.

BOOK VII.—INITIAL CHAPTER.

"What is courage?" said my uncle Roland, rousing himself from a reverie into which he had fallen after the Sixth Book in this history had been read to our family circle.

"What is courage?" he repeated more earnestly. "Is it insensibility to fear? That may be the mere accident of constitution; and, if so, there is no more merit in being courageous than in being this table."

"I am very glad to hear you speak thus," observed Mr. Caxton, "for I should not like to consider myself a coward; yet I am very sensible to fear in all dangers, bodily and moral."

"La, Austin, how can you say so?" cried my mother, firing up; "was it not only last week that you faced the great bull that was rushing after Blanche and the children?"

Blanche at that recollection stole to my father's chair, and hanging over his shoulder, kissed his forehead.

Mr. Caxton, (sublimely unmoved by these flatteries.)—"I don't deny that I faced the bull, but I assert that I was horribly frightened."

Roland.—"The sense of honor which conquers fear is the true courage of chivalry: you could not run away when others were looking on—no gentleman could."

Mr. Caxton.—"Fiddledee! It was not on my gentility that I stood, Captain, I should[Pg 372] have run fast enough, if it had done any good. I stood upon my understanding. As the bull could run faster than I could, the only chance of escape was to make the brute as frightened as myself."

Blanche.—"Ah, you did not think of that, your only thought was to save me and the children."

Mr. Caxton.—"Possibly, my dear—very possibly I might have been afraid for you too—but I was very much afraid for myself. However, luckily, I had the umbrella, and I sprang it up and spread it forth in the animal's stupid eyes, hurling at him simultaneously the biggest lines I could think of in the First Chorus of the 'Seven against Thebes.' I began with Eledemnas pedioploktupos; and when I came to the grand howl of Ιω, ιω, ιω, iô],—the beast stood appalled as at the roar of a lion. I shall never forget his amazed snort at the Greek. Then he kicked up his hind legs, and went bolt through the gap in the hedge. Thus, armed with Æschylus and the umbrella, I remained master of the field; but (continued Mr. Caxton, ingenuously) I should not like to go through that half minute again."

"No man would," said the Captain kindly. "I should be very sorry to face a bull myself, even with a bigger umbrella than yours, and even though I had Æschylus, and Homer to boot, at my fingers' ends."

Mr. Caxton.—"You would not have minded if it had been a Frenchman with a sword in his hand?"

Captain.—"Of course not. Rather liked it than otherwise," he added grimly.

Mr. Caxton.—"Yet many a Spanish matador, who doesn't care a button for a bull, would take to his heels at the first lunge en carte from a Frenchman. Therefore, in fact, if courage be a matter of constitution, it is also a matter of custom. We face calmly the dangers we are habituated to, and recoil from those of which we have no familiar experience. I doubt if Marshal Turenne himself would have been quite at his ease on the tight-rope; and a rope-dancer, who seems disposed to scale the heavens with Titanic temerity, might possibly object to charge on a cannon."

Captain Roland.—"Still, either this is not the courage I mean, or there is another kind of it. I mean by courage that which is the especial force and dignity of the human character, without which there is no reliance on principle, no constancy in virtue—a something," continued my uncle, gallantly, and with a half bow towards my mother, "which your sex shares with our own. When the lover, for instance, clasps the hand of his betrothed, and says, 'Wilt thou be true to me, in spite of absence and time, in spite of hazard and fortune, though my foes malign me, though thy friends may dissuade thee, and our lot in life may be rough and rude?' and when the betrothed answers, 'I will be true,' does not the lover trust to her courage as well as her love?"

"Admirably put, Roland," said my father. "But apropos of what do you puzzle us with these queries on courage?"

Captain Roland, (with a slight blush.)—"I was led to the inquiry (though, perhaps, it may be frivolous to take so much thought of what, no doubt, costs Pisistratus so little) by the last chapters in my nephew's story. I see this poor boy, Leonard, alone with his fallen hopes, (though very irrational they were,) and his sense of shame. And I read his heart, I dare say, better than Pisistratus does, for I could feel like that boy if I had been in the same position; and, conjecturing what he and thousands like him must go through, I asked myself, 'What can save him and them?' I answered, as a soldier would answer, 'Courage!' Very well. But pray, Austin, what is courage?"

Mr. Caxton. (prudently backing out of a reply.)—"Papœ! Brother, since you have just complimented the ladies on that quality, you had better address your question to them."

Blanche here leant both hands on my father's chair, and said, looking down at first bashfully, but afterwards warming with the subject, "Do you not think, sir, that little Helen has already suggested, if not what is courage, what at least is the real essence of all courage that endures and conquers, that ennobles, and hallows, and redeems? Is it not Patience, father?—and that is why we women have a courage of our own. Patience does not affect to be superior to fear, but at least it never admits despair."

Pisistratus.—"Kiss me, my Blanche, for you have come near to the truth which perplexed the soldier and puzzled the sage."

Mr. Caxton, (tartly.)—"If you mean me by the sage, I was not puzzled at all. Heaven knows you do right to inculcate patience—it is a virtue very much required in your readers. Nevertheless," added my father, softening with the enjoyment of his joke—"nevertheless, Blanche and Helen are quite right. Patience is the courage of the conqueror; it is the virtue, par excellence, of Man against Destiny—of the One against the World, and of the Soul against Matter. Therefore this is the courage of the Gospel; and its importance, in a social view—its importance to races and institutions—cannot be too earnestly inculcated. What is it that distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon from all other branches of the human family, peoples deserts with his children, and consigns to them the heritage of rising worlds? What but his faculty to brave, to suffer, to endure—the patience that resists firmly, and innovates slowly? Compare him with the Frenchman. The Frenchman has plenty of valor—that there is no denying; but as for fortitude, he has not enough to cover the point of a pin. He is ready to rush out of the world if he is bit by a flea."[Pg 373]

Captain Roland.—"There was a case in the papers the other day, Austin, of a Frenchman who actually did destroy himself because he was so teased by the little creatures you speak of. He left a paper on his table, saying that 'life was not worth having at the price of such torments.'"[19]

Mr. Caxton, (solemnly.)—"Sir, their whole political history, since the great meeting of the Tiers Etat, has been the history of men who would rather go to the devil than be bit by a flea. It is the record of human impatience, that seeks to force time, and expects to grow forests from the spawn of a mushroom. Wherefore, running through all extremes of constitutional experiment, when they are nearest to democracy they are next door to a despot; and all they have really done is to destroy whatever constitutes the foundation of every tolerable government. A constitutional monarchy cannot exist without aristocracy, nor a healthful republic endure with corruption of manners. The cry of equality is incompatible with Civilization, which, of necessity, contrasts poverty with wealth—and, in short, whether it be an emperor or a mob that is to rule, Force is the sole hope of order, and the government is but an army.

"Impress, O Pisistratus! impress the value of patience as regards man and men. You touch there on the kernel of the social system—the secret that fortifies the individual and disciplines the million. I care not, for my part, if you are tedious so long as you are earnest. Be minute and detailed. Let the real human life, in its war with Circumstance, stand out. Never mind if one can read you but slowly—better chance of being less quickly forgotten. Patience, patience! By the soul of Epictetus, your readers shall set you an example!"

CHAPTER II.

Leonard had written twice to Mrs. Fairfield, twice to Riccabocca, and once to Mr. Dale; and the poor, proud boy could not bear to betray his humiliation. He wrote as with cheerful spirits—as if perfectly satisfied with his prospects. He said that he was well employed, in the midst of books, and that he had found kind friends. Then he turned from himself to write about those whom he addressed, and the affairs and interests of the quiet world wherein they lived. He did not give his own address, nor that of Mr. Prickett. He dated his letters from a small coffee-house near the bookseller, to which he occasionally went for his simple meals. He had a motive in this. He did not desire to be found out. Mr. Dale replied for himself and for Mrs. Fairfield, to the epistles addressed to these two. Riccabocca wrote also. Nothing could be more kind than the replies of both. They came to Leonard in a very dark period in his life, and they strengthened him in the noiseless battle with despair.

If there be a good in the world that we do without knowing it, without conjecturing the effect it may have upon a human soul, it is when we show kindness to the young in the first barren foot-path up the mountain of life.

Leonard's face resumed its serenity in his intercourse with his employer; but he did not recover his boyish ingenuous frankness. The under-currents flowed again pure from the turbid soil, and the splintered fragments uptorn from the deep; but they were still too strong and too rapid to allow transparency to the surface. And now he stood in the sublime world of books, still and earnest as a seer who invokes the dead. And thus, face to face with knowledge, hourly he discovered how little he knew. Mr. Prickett lent him such works as he selected and asked to take home with him. He spent whole nights in reading; and no longer desultorily. He read no more poetry, no more Lives of Poets. He read what poets must read if they desire to be—Sapere principium et fons—strict reasonings on the human mind; the relations between motive and conduct, thought and action; the grave and solemn truths of the past world; antiquities, history, philosophy. He was taken out of himself. He was carried along the ocean of the universe. In that ocean, O seeker, study the law of the tides; and seeing Chance nowhere—thought presiding over all—Fate, that dread phantom, shall vanish from creation, and Providence alone be visible in heaven and on earth!

CHAPTER III.

There was to be a considerable book-sale at a country-house one day's journey from London. Mr. Prickett meant to have attended it on his own behalf, and that of several gentlemen who had given him commissions for purchase; but, on the morning fixed for his departure, he was seized with a severe return of his old foe, the rheumatism. He requested Leonard to attend instead of himself. Leonard went, and was absent for the three days during which the sale lasted. He returned late in the evening, and went at once to Mr. Prickett's house. The shop was closed; he knocked at the private entrance; a strange person opened the door to him, and in reply to his question if Mr. Prickett was at home, said with a long and funereal face, "Young man, Mr. Prickett, senior, has gone to his long home, but Mr. Richard Prickett will see you."

At this moment a very grave-looking man,[Pg 374] with lank hair, looked forth from the side-door communicating between the shop and the passage, and then stepped forward—"Come in, sir; you are my late uncle's assistant, Mr. Fairfield, I suppose?"

"Your late uncle! Heavens, sir, do I understand aright—can Mr. Prickett be dead since I left London?"

"Died, sir, suddenly, last night. It was an affection of the heart; the Doctor thinks the rheumatism attacked that organ. He had small time to provide for his departure, and his account books seem in sad disorder: I am his nephew and executor."

Leonard had now followed the nephew into the shop. There, still burned the gas lamp. The place seemed more dingy and cavernous than before. Death always makes its presence felt in the house it visits.

Leonard was greatly affected—and yet more, perhaps, by the utter want of feeling which the nephew exhibited. In fact, the deceased had not been on friendly terms with this person, his nearest relative and heir-at-law, who was also a bookseller.

"You were engaged but by the week, I find, young man, on reference to my late uncle's papers. He gave you £1 a week—a monstrous sum! I shall not require your services any further. I shall move these books to my own house. You will be good enough to send me a list of those you bought at the sale, and your account of travelling expenses, &c. What may be due to you shall be sent to your address. Good evening."

Leonard went home, shocked and saddened at the sudden death of his kind employer. He did not think much of himself that night; but, when he rose the next day, he suddenly felt that the world of London lay before him, without a friend, without a calling, without an occupation for bread.

This time it was no fancied sorrow, no poetic dream disappointed. Before him, gaunt and palpable, stood Famine.

Escape!—yes. Back to the village; his mother's cottage; the exile's garden; the radishes and the fount. Why could he not escape? Ask why civilization cannot escape its ills, and fly back to the wild and the wigwam.

Leonard could not have returned to the cottage, even if the Famine that faced had already seized him with her skeleton hand. London releases not so readily her fatal step-sons.

CHAPTER IV.

One day three persons were standing before an old book-stall in a passage leading from Oxford Street into Tottenham Court Road. Two were gentlemen; the third, of the class and appearance of those who more habitually halt at old book-stalls.

"Look," said one of the gentlemen to the other, "I have discovered here what I have searched for in vain the last ten years—the Horace of 1580, the Horace of the Forty Commentators—a perfect treasury of learning, and marked only fourteen shillings!"

"Hush, Norreys," said the other, "and observe what is yet more worth your study;" and he pointed to the third bystander, whose face, sharp and attenuated, was bent with an absorbed, and as it were with a hungering attention over an old worm-eaten volume.

"What is the book, my Lord?" whispered Mr. Norreys.

His companion smiled, and replied by another question, "What is the man who reads the book?"

Mr. Norreys moved a few paces, and looked over the student's shoulder. "Preston's translation of Boethius, The Consolations of Philosophy," he said, coming back to his friend.

"He looks as if he wanted all the consolations Philosophy can give him, poor boy."

At this moment a fourth passenger paused at the book-stall, and, recognizing the pale student, placed his hand on his shoulder and said, "Aha, young sir, we meet again. So poor Prickett is dead. But you are still haunted by associations. Books—books—magnets to which all iron minds move insensibly. What is this? Boethius! Ah, a book written in prison, but a little time before the advent of the only philosopher who solves to the simplest understanding every mystery of life——"

"And that philosopher——"

"Is Death!" said Mr. Burley. "How can you be dull enough to ask? Poor Boethius, rich, nobly born, a consul, his sons consuls—the world one smile to the Last Philosopher of Rome. Then suddenly, against this type of the old world's departing wisdom, stands frowning the new world's grim genius, force—Theodoric the Ostrogoth condemning Boethius the Schoolman; and Boethius, in his Pavian dungeon, holding a dialogue with the shade of Athenian Philosophy. It is the finest picture upon which lingers the glimmering of the Western golden day, before night rushes over time."

"And," said Mr. Norreys abruptly, "Boethius comes back to us with the faint gleam of returning light, translated by Alfred the Great. And, again, as the sun of knowledge bursts forth in all its splendor, by Queen Elizabeth. Boethius influences us as we stand in this passage; and that is the best of all the Consolations of Philosophy—eh, Mr. Burley?"

Mr. Burley turned and bowed.

The two men looked at each other; you could not see a greater contrast. Mr. Burley, his gay green dress already shabby and soiled, with a rent in the skirts, and his face speaking of habitual night-cups. Mr. Norreys, neat and somewhat precise in dress, with firm lean figure, and quiet, collected, vigorous energy in his eyes and aspect.

"If," replied Mr. Burley, "a poor devil like me may argue with a gentleman who[Pg 375] may command his own price with the booksellers, I should say it is no consolation at all, Mr. Norreys. And I should like to see any man of sense accept the condition of Boethius in his prison, with some strangler or headsman waiting behind the door, upon the promised proviso that he should be translated, centuries afterwards, by Kings and by Queens, and help indirectly to influence the minds of Northern barbarians, babbling about him in an alley, jostled by passers-by who never heard the name of Boethius, and who don't care a fig for philosophy. Your servant, sir,—young man, come and talk."

Burley hooked his arm within Leonard's, and led the boy passively away.

"That is a clever young man," said Harley L'Estrange. "But I am sorry to see yon young student, with his bright earnest eyes, and his lip that has the quiver of passion and enthusiasm, leaning on the arm of a guide who seems disenchanted of all that gives purpose to learning and links philosophy with use to the world. Who, and what is this clever man whom you call Burley?"

"A man who might have been famous, if he had condescended to be respectable! The boy listening to us both so attentively interested me too—I should like to have the making of him. But I must buy this Horace."

The shopman, lurking within his hole like a spider for flies, was now called out. And when Mr. Norreys had bought the Horace, and given an address where to send it, Harley asked the shopman if he knew the young man who had been reading Boethius.

"Only by sight. He has come here every day the last week, and spends hours at the stall. When once he fastens on a book, he reads it through."

"And never buys?" said Mr. Norreys.

"Sir," said the shopman, with a good-natured smile, "they who buy seldom read. The poor boy pays me twopence a-day to read as long as he pleases. I would not take it, but he is proud."

"I have known men amass great learning in that way," said Mr. Norreys. "Yes, I should like to have that boy in my hands. And now, my lord, I am at your service, and we shall go to the studio of your artist."

The two gentlemen walked on towards one of the streets out of Fitzroy Square.

In a few minutes more Harley L'Estrange was in his element, seated carelessly on a deal table, smoking his cigar, and discussing art with the gusto of a man who honestly loved, and the taste of a man who thoroughly understood it. The young artist, in his dressing robe, adding slow touch upon touch, paused often to listen the better. And Henry Norreys, enjoying the brief respite from a life of great labor, was gladly reminded of idle hours under rosy skies; for these three men had formed their friendship in Italy, where the bands of friendship are woven by the hands of the Graces.

CHAPTER V.

Leonard and Mr. Burley walked on into the suburbs round the north road from London, and Mr. Burley offered to find literary employment for Leonard—an offer eagerly accepted.

Then they went into a public house by the wayside. Burley demanded a private room, called for pen, ink, and paper; and placing these implements before Leonard, said, "Write what you please, in prose, five sheets of letter paper, twenty-two lines to a page—neither more nor less."

"I cannot write so."

"Tut, 'tis for bread."

The boy's face crimsoned.

"I must forget that," said he.

"There is an arbor in the garden under a weeping ash," returned Burley. "Go there, and fancy yourself in Arcadia."

Leonard was too pleased to obey. He found out the little arbor at one end of a deserted bowling-green. All was still—the hedgerow shut out the sight of the inn. The sun lay warm on the grass, and glinted pleasantly through the leaves of the ash. And Leonard there wrote the first essay from his hand as Author by profession. What was it that he wrote? His dreamy impressions of London? an anathema on the streets, and its hearts of stone? murmurs against poverty? dark elegies on fate?

Oh, no! little knowest thou true genius, if thou askest such questions, or thinkest that there, under the weeping ash, the task-work for bread was remembered; or that the sunbeam glinted but over the practical world, which, vulgar, and sordid, lay around. Leonard wrote a fairy tale—one of the loveliest you can conceive, with a delicate touch of playful humor—in a style all flowered over with happy fancies. He smiled as he wrote the last word—he was happy. In rather more than an hour Mr. Burley came to him, and found him with that smile on his lips.

Mr. Burley had a glass of brandy and water in his hand; it was his third. He too smiled—he too looked happy. He read the paper aloud, and well. He was very complimentary. "You will do!" said he, clapping Leonard on the back. "Perhaps some day you will catch my one-eyed perch." Then he folded up the MS., scribbled off a note, put the whole in one envelope—and they returned to London.

Mr. Burley disappeared within a dingy office near Fleet Street, on which was inscribed—"Office of the Beehive," and soon came forth with a golden sovereign in his hand—Leonard's first-fruits. Leonard thought Peru lay before him. He accompanied Mr. Burley to that gentleman's lodging in Maida Hill. The walk had been very long; Leonard was not fatigued. He listened with a livelier attention than before to Burley's talk. And when they reached the[Pg 376] apartments of the latter, and Mr. Burley sent to the cookshop, and their joint supper was taken out of the golden sovereign, Leonard felt proud, and for the first time for weeks he laughed the heart's laugh. The two writers grew more and more intimate and cordial. And there was a vast deal in Burley by which any young man might be made the wiser. There was no apparent evidence of poverty in the apartment—clean, new, well furnished; but all things in the most horrible litter—all speaking of the huge literary sloven.

For several days Leonard almost lived in those rooms. He wrote continuously—save when Burley's conversation fascinated him into idleness. Nay, it was not idleness—his knowledge grew larger as he listened; but the cynicism of the talker began slowly to work its way. That cynicism in which there was no faith, no hope, no vivifying breath from Glory—from Religion. The cynicism of the Epicurean, more degraded in his style than ever was Diogenes in his tub; and yet presented with such ease and such eloquence—with such art and such mirth—so adorned with illustration and anecdote, so unconscious of debasement.

Strange and dread philosophy—that made it a maxim to squander the gifts of mind on the mere care for matter, and fit the soul to live but as from day to day, with its scornful cry, "A fig for immortality and laurels!" An author for bread! Oh, miserable calling! was there something grand and holy, after all, even in Chatterton's despair!

CHAPTER VI.

The villanous Beehive! Bread was worked out of it, certainly; but fame, but hope for the future—certainly not. Milton's Paradise Lost would have perished without a sound, had it appeared in the Beehive.

Fine things were there in a fragmentary crude state, composed by Burley himself. At the end of a week they were dead and forgotten—never read by one man of education and taste; taken simultaneously and indifferently with shallow politics and wretched essays, yet selling, perhaps, twenty or thirty thousand copies—an immense sale; and nothing got out of them but bread and brandy!

"What more would you have?" cried John Burley. "Did not stern old Sam Johnson say he could never write but from want?"

"He might say it," answered Leonard; "but he never meant posterity to believe him. And he would have died of want, I suspect, rather than have written Rasselas for the Beehive! Want is a grand thing," continued the boy, thoughtfully. "A parent of grand things. Necessity is strong, and should give us its own strength; but Want should shatter asunder, with its very writhings, the walls of our prison-house, and not sit contented with the allowance the jail gives us in exchange for our work."

"There is no prison-house to a man who calls upon Bacchus—stay—I will translate to you Schiller's Dithyramb. 'Then see I Bacchus—then up come Cupid and Phœbus, and all the Celestials are filling my dwelling.'"

Breaking into impromptu careless rhymes, Burley threw off a rude but spirited translation of that divine lyric.

"O materialist!" cried the boy, with his bright eyes suffused. "Schiller calls on the gods to take him to their heaven with him; and ye would debase the Gods to a gin palace."

"Ho, ho!" cried Burley with his giant laugh. "Drink, and you will understand the Dithyramb."

CHAPTER VII.

Suddenly one morning, as Leonard sat with Burley, a fashionable cabriolet, with a very handsome horse, stopped at the door—a loud knock—a quick step on the stairs, and Randal Leslie entered. Leonard recognized him and started. Randal glanced at him in surprise, and then, with a tact that showed he had already learned to profit by London life, after shaking hands with Burley, approached, and said with some successful attempt at ease, "Unless I am not mistaken, sir, we have met before. If you remember me, I hope all boyish quarrels are forgotten?"

Leonard bowed, and his heart was still good enough to be softened.

"Where could you two ever have met?" asked Burley.

"In a village green, and in single combat," answered Randal, smiling; and he told the story of the Battle of the Stocks with a well-bred jest on himself. Burley laughed at the story. "But," said he, when this laugh was over, "my young friend had better have remained guardian of the village stocks, than come to London in search of such fortune as lies at the bottom of an inkhorn."

"Ah," said Randal, with the secret contempt which men elaborately cultivated are apt to feel for those who seek to educate themselves—"ah, you make literature your calling, sir? At what school did you conceive a taste for letters?—not very common at our great public schools."

"I am at school now for the first time," answered Leonard, dryly.

"Experience is the best school-mistress," said Burley; "and that was the maxim of Goethe, who had book-learning enough, in all conscience."

Randal slightly shrugged his shoulders, and, without wasting another thought on Leonard, peasant-born and self-taught, took his seat, and began to talk to Burley upon a political question, which made then the war-cry between the two great Parliamentary parties. It was a subject in which Burley showed much general knowledge; and Randal, seeming to differ from him, drew forth alike his information and his argumentative[Pg 377] powers. The conversation lasted more than an hour.

"I can't quite agree with you," said Randal, taking his leave; "but you must allow me to call again—will the same hour to-morrow suit you?"

"Yes," said Burley.

Away went the young man in his cabriolet. Leonard watched him from the window.

For five days, consecutively, did Randal call and discuss the question in all its bearings; and Burley, after the second day got interested in the matter, looked up his authorities—refreshed his memory and even spent an hour or two in the Library of the British Museum.

By the fifth day, Burley had really exhausted all that could well be said on his side of the question.

Leonard, during these colloquies, had sat apart, seemingly absorbed in reading, and secretly stung by Randal's disregard of his presence. For indeed that young man, in his superb self-esteem, and in the absorption of his ambitious projects, scarce felt even curiosity as to Leonard's rise above his earlier station, and looked on him as a mere journeyman of Burley's. But the self-taught are keen and quick observers. And Leonard had remarked that Randal seemed more as one playing a part for some private purpose, than arguing in earnest; and that when he rose and said, "Mr. Burley, you have convinced me," it was not with the modesty of a sincere reasoner, but the triumph of one who has gained his end. But so struck, meanwhile, was our unheeded and silent listener, with Burley's power of generalization, and the wide surface over which his information extended, that when Randal left the room the boy looked at the slovenly purposeless man, and said aloud—"True; knowledge is not power."

"Certainly not," said Burley, dryly—"the weakest thing in the world."

"Knowledge is power," muttered Randal Leslie, as, with a smile on his lip, he drove from the door.

Not many days after this last interview there appeared a short pamphlet; anonymous, but one which made a great impression on the town. It was on the subject discussed between Randal and Burley. It was quoted at great length in the newspapers. And Burley started to his feet one morning, and exclaimed, "My own thoughts! my very words! Who the devil is this pamphleteer?" Leonard took the newspaper from Burley's hand. The most flattering encomiums preceded the extracts, and the extracts were as stereotypes of Burley's talk.

"Can you doubt the author?" cried Leonard, in deep disgust and ingenuous scorn. "The young man who came to steal your brains, and turn your knowledge——"

"Into power," interrupted Burley, with a laugh, but it was a laugh of pain. "Well, this was very mean; I shall tell him so when he comes."

"He will come no more," said Leonard. Nor did Randal come again. But he sent Mr. Burley a copy of the pamphlet with a polite note, saying, with candid but careless acknowledgment, that "he had profited much by Mr. Burley's hints and remarks."

And now it was in all the papers, that the pamphlet which had made so great a noise was by a very young man, Mr. Audley Egerton's relation, and high hopes were expressed of the future career of Mr. Randal Leslie.

Burley still attempted to laugh, and still his pain was visible. Leonard most cordially despised and hated Randal Leslie, and his heart moved to Burley with noble but perilous compassion. In his desire to soothe and comfort the man whom he deemed cheated out of fame, he forgot the caution he had hitherto imposed on himself, and yielded more and more to the charm of that wasted intellect. He accompanied Burley now where he went to spend his evenings, and more and more—though gradually, and with many a recoil and self-rebuke—there crept over him the cynic's contempt for glory, amid miserable philosophy of debased content.

Randal had risen into grave repute upon the strength of Burley's knowledge. But, had Burley written the pamphlet, would the same repute have attended him? Certainly not. Randal Leslie brought to that knowledge qualities all his own—a style simple, strong, and logical; a certain tone of good society, and allusions to men and to parties that showed his connection with a cabinet minister, and proved that he had profited no less by Egerton's talk than Burley's.

Had Burley written the pamphlet, it would have showed more genius, it would have had humor and wit, but have been so full of whims and quips, sins against taste, and defects in earnestness, that it would have failed to create any serious sensation. Here, then, there was something else besides knowledge, by which knowledge became power. Knowledge must not smell of the brandy bottle.

Randal Leslie might be mean in his plagiarism, but he turned the useless into use. And so far he was original.

But one's admiration, after all, rests where Leonard's rested—with the poor, shabby, riotous, lawless, big, fallen man.

Burley took himself off to the Brent, and fished again for the one-eyed perch. Leonard accompanied him. His feelings were indeed different from what they had been when he had reclined under the old tree, and talked with Helen of the future. But it was almost pathetic to see how Burley's nature seemed to alter, as he strayed along the banks of the rivulet, and talked of his own boyhood. The man then seemed restored to something of the innocence of the child. He cared, in truth, little for the perch, which continued[Pg 378] intractable, but he enjoyed the air and the sky, the rustling grass and the murmuring waters. These excursions to the haunts of youth seemed to rebaptize him, and then his eloquence took a pastoral character, and Isaac Walton himself would have loved to hear him. But as he got back into the smoke of the metropolis, and the gas lamps made him forget the ruddy sunset, and the soft evening star, the gross habits reassumed their sway; and on he went with his swaggering, reckless step to the orgies in which his abused intellect flamed forth, and then sank into the socket quenched and rayless.

CHAPTER VIII.

Helen was seized with profound and anxious sadness. Leonard had been three or four times to see her, and each time she saw a change in him that excited all her fears. He seemed, it is true, more shrewd, more worldly-wise, more fitted, it might be, for coarse, daily life; but, on the other hand, the freshness and glory of his youth were waning slowly. His aspirings drooped earthward. He had not mastered the Practical, and moulded its uses with the strong hand of the Spiritual Architect, of the Ideal Builder: the Practical was overpowering himself. She grew pale when he talked of Burley, and shuddered, poor little Helen! when she found he was daily and almost nightly in a companionship which, with her native, honest prudence, she saw so unsuited to strengthen him in his struggles, and aid him against temptation. She almost groaned when, pressing him as to his pecuniary means, she found his old terror of death seemed fading away, and the solid, healthful principles he had taken from his village were loosening fast. Under all, it is true, there was what a wiser and older person than Helen would have hailed as the redeeming promise. But that something was grief—a sublime grief In his own sense of falling—in his own impotence against the Fate he had provoked and coveted. The sublimity of that grief Helen could not detect: she saw only that it was grief, and she grieved with it, letting it excuse every fault—making her more anxious to comfort, in order that she might save. Even from the first, when Leonard had exclaimed, "Ah, Helen, why did you ever leave me?" she had revolved the idea of return to him; and when in the boy's last visit he told her that Burley, persecuted by duns, was about to fly from his present lodgings, and take his abode with Leonard in the room she had left vacant, all doubt was over. She resolved to sacrifice the safety and shelter of the home assured her. She resolved to come back and share Leonard's penury and struggles, and save the old room, wherein she had prayed for him, from the tempter's dangerous presence. Should she burden him? No; she had assisted her father by many little female arts in needle and fancy work. She had improved herself in these during her sojourn with Miss Starke. She could bring her share to the common stock. Possessed with this idea, she determined to realize it before the day on which Leonard had told her Burley was to move his quarters. Accordingly she rose very early one morning; she wrote a pretty and grateful note to Miss Starke, who was fast asleep, left it on the table, and before any one was astir, stole from the house, her little bundle on her arm. She lingered an instant at the garden-gate, with a remorseful sentiment—a feeling that she had ill-repaid the cold and prim protection that Miss Starke had shown her. But sisterly love carried all before it. She closed the gate with a sigh, and went on.

She arrived at the lodging-house before Leonard was up, took possession of her old chamber, and, presenting herself to Leonard as he was about to go forth, said, (story-teller that she was,)—"I am sent away, brother, and I have to come to you to take care of me. Do not let us part again. But you must be very cheerful and very happy, or I shall think that I am sadly in your way."

Leonard at first did look cheerful, and even happy; but then he thought of Burley, and then of his own means of supporting her, and was embarrassed, and began questioning Helen as to the possibility of a reconciliation with Miss Starke. And Helen said gravely, "Impossible—do not ask it, and do not go near her."

Then Leonard thought she had been humbled and insulted, and remembered that she was a gentleman's child, and felt for her wounded pride—he was so proud himself. Yet still he was embarrassed.

"Shall I keep the purse again, Leonard?" said Helen coaxingly.

"Alas!" replied Leonard, "the purse is empty."

"That is very naughty in the purse," said Helen, "since you put so much into it."

"I!"

"Did you not say you made, at least, a guinea a-week?"

"Yes; but Burley takes the money; and then, poor fellow! as I owe all to him, I have not the heart to prevent his spending it as he likes."

"Please, I wish you could settle the month's rent," said the landlady, suddenly showing herself. She said it civilly, but with firmness.

Leonard colored. "It shall be paid to-day."

Then he pressed his hat on his head, and putting Helen gently aside, went forth.

"Speak to me in future, kind Mrs. Smedley," said Helen, with the air of a housewife. "He is always in study, and must not be disturbed."

The landlady—a good woman, though she liked her rent—smiled benignly. She was fond of Helen, whom she had known of old.

"I am so glad you are come back; and perhaps now the young man will not keep[Pg 379] such late hours. I meant to give him warning, but——"

"But he will be a great man one of these days, and you must bear with him now." And Helen kissed Mrs. Smedley, and sent her away half inclined to cry.

Then Helen busied herself in the rooms. She found her father's box, which had been duly forwarded. She re-examined its contents, and wept as she touched each humble and pious relic. But her father's memory itself thus seemed to give this home a sanction which the former had not; and she rose quietly and began mechanically to put things in order, sighing as she saw all so neglected, till she came to the rose-tree, and that alone showed heed and care. "Dear Leonard!" she murmured, and the smile resettled on her lips.

CHAPTER IX.

Nothing, perhaps, could have severed Leonard from Burley but Helen's return to his care. It was impossible for him, even had there been another room in the house vacant, (which there was not,) to install this noisy, riotous son of the Muse by Bacchus, talking at random, and smelling of spirits, in the same dwelling with an innocent, delicate, timid, female child. And Leonard could not leave her alone all the twenty-four hours. She restored a home to him, and imposed its duties. He, therefore, told Mr. Burley that in future he should write and study in his own room, and hinted with many a blush, and as delicately as he could, that it seemed to him that whatever he obtained from his pen ought to be halved with Burley, to whose interest he owed the employment, and from whose books or whose knowledge he took what helped to maintain it; but that the other half, if his, he could no longer afford to spend upon feasts or libations. He had another to provide for.

Burley pooh-poohed the notion of taking half his coadjutor's earning, with much grandeur, but spoke very fretfully of Leonard's sober appropriation of the other half; and, though a good-natured, warm-hearted man, felt extremely indignant against the sudden interposition of poor Helen. However, Leonard was firm; and then Burley grew sullen, and so they parted. But the rent was still to be paid. How? Leonard for the first time thought of the pawn-broker. He had clothes to spare, and Riccabocca's watch. No; that last he shrank from applying to such base uses.

He went home at noon and met Helen at the street door. She too had been out, and her soft cheek was rosy red with unwonted exercise and the sense of joy. She had still preserved the few gold pieces which Leonard had taken back to her on his first visit to Miss Starke's. She had now gone out and bought wools and implements for work; and meanwhile she had paid the rent.

Leonard did not object to the work, but he blushed deeply when he knew about the rent, and was very angry. He payed back to her that night what she had advanced; and Helen wept silently at his pride, and wept more when she saw the next day a woeful hiatus in his wardrobe.

But Leonard now worked at home, and worked resolutely; and Helen sat by his side, working too; so that next day, and the next, slipped peacefully away, and in the evening of the second be asked her to walk out in the fields. She sprang up joyously at the invitation, when bang went the door, and in reeled John Burley—drunk;—And so drunk!

CHAPTER X.

And with Burley there reeled in another man—a friend of his—a man who had been a wealthy trader and once well to do, but who, unluckily, had literary tastes, and was fond of hearing Burley talk. So, since he had known the wit, his business had fallen from him, and he had passed through the Bankrupt Court. A very shabby-looking dog he was, indeed, and his nose was redder than Burley's.

John made a drunken dash at poor Helen. "So you are the Pentheus in petticoats who defies Bacchus," cried he; and therewith he roared out a verse from Euripides. Helen ran away, and Leonard interposed.

"For shame, Burley!"

"He's drunk," said Mr. Douce the bankrupt trader—"very drunk—don't mind—him. I say, sir, I hope we don't intrude. Sit still, Burley, sit still and talk, do—that's a good man. You should hear him ta—ta—talk, sir."

Leonard meanwhile had got Helen out of the room, into her own, and begged her not to be alarmed, and keep the door locked. He then returned to Burley, who had seated himself on the bed, trying wondrous hard to keep himself upright; while Mr. Douce was striving to light a short pipe that he carried in his buttonhole—without having filled it—and, naturally failing in that attempt, was now beginning to weep.

Leonard was deeply shocked and revolted for Helen's sake: but it was hopeless to make Burley listen to reason. And how could the boy turn out of his room the man to whom he was under obligations?

Meanwhile there smote upon Helen's shrinking ears loud jarring talk and maudlin laughter, and cracked attempts at jovial songs. Then she heard Mrs. Smedley in Leonard's room, remonstrating, and Burley's laugh was louder than before, and Mrs. Smedley, who was a meek woman, evidently got frightened, and was heard in precipitate retreat. Long and loud talk recommenced. Burley's great voice predominant, Mr. Douce chiming in with hiccupy broken treble. Hour after hour thus lasted, for want of the drink that would have brought it to a premature close. And Burley gradually began to talk himself somewhat[Pg 380] sober. Then Mr. Douce was heard descending the stairs, and silence followed. At dawn, Leonard knocked at Helen's door. She opened it at once, for she had not gone to bed.

"Helen," said he very sadly, "you cannot continue here, I must find out some proper home for you. This man has served me when all London was friendless, and he tells me that he has nowhere else to go—that the bailiffs are after him. He has now fallen asleep. I will go and find you some lodging close at hand—for I cannot expel him who has protected me; and yet you cannot be under the same roof with him. My own good angel, I must lose you."

He did not wait for her answer, but hurried down the stairs.

The morning looked through the shutterless panes in Leonard's garret, and the birds began to chirp from the elm-tree, when Burley rose, and shook himself, and stared round. He could not quite make out where he was. He got hold of the water-jug, which he emptied at three draughts, and felt greatly refreshed. He then began to reconnoitre the chamber—looked at Leonard's MSS.—peeped into the drawers—wondered where the devil Leonard himself had gone to—and finally amused himself by throwing down the fire-irons, ringing the bell, and making all the noise he could, in the hopes of attracting the attention of somebody or other, and procuring himself his morning dram.

In the midst of this charivari the door opened softly, but as if with a resolute hand, and the small quiet form of Helen stood before the threshold. Burley turned round, and the two looked at each other for some moments with silent scrutiny.

Burley, (composing his features into their most friendly expression.)—"Come hither, my dear. So you are the little girl whom I saw with Leonard on the banks of the Brent, and you have come back to live with him—and I have come to live with him too. You shall be our little housekeeper, and I will tell you the story of Prince Prettyman, and a great, many others not to be found in Mother Goose. Meanwhile, my dear little girl, here is sixpence—just run out and change this for its worth in rum."

Helen, (coming slowly up to Mr. Burley, and still gazing earnestly into his face.)—"Ah, sir, Leonard says you have a kind heart, and that you have served him—he cannot ask you to leave the house; and so I, who have never served him, am to go hence and live alone."

Burley, (moved.)—"You go, my little lady?—and why? Can we not all live together?"

Helen.—"No sir. I left every thing to come to Leonard, for we had met first at my father's grave. But you rob me of him, and I have no other friend on earth."

Burley, (discomposed.)—"Explain, yourself. Why must you leave him because I come?"

Helen looks at Mr. Burley again, long and wistfully, but makes no answer.

Burley, (with a gulp.)—"Is it because he thinks I am not fit company for you?"

Helen bowed her head.

Burley winced, and after a moment's pause said,—"He is right."

Helen, (obeying the impulse of her heart, springs forward and takes Burley's hand.)—"Ah, sir," she cried, "before he knew you he was so different—then he was cheerful—then, even when his first disappointment came, I grieved and wept; but I felt he would conquer still—for his heart was so good and pure. Oh, sir, don't think I reproach you; but what is to become of him if—if—No, it is not for myself I speak. I know that if I was here, that if he had me to care for, he would come home early and—work patiently—and—and—that I might save him. But now when I am gone, and you with him—you to whom he is grateful, you whom he would follow against his own conscience, (you must see that, sir,)—what is to become of him?"

Helen's voice died in sobs.

Burley took three or four long strides through the room—he was greatly agitated. "I am a demon," he murmured. "I never saw it before—but it is true—I should be this boy's ruin." Tears stood in his eyes, he paused abruptly, made a clutch at his hat, and turned to the door.

Helen stopped the way, and taking him gently by the arm, said,—"Oh, sir, forgive me—I have pained you;" and looked up at him with a compassionate expression, that indeed made the child's sweet face as that of an angel.

Burley bent down as if to kiss her, and then drew back—perhaps with a sentiment that his lips were not worthy to touch that innocent brow.

"If I had had a sister—a child like you, little one," he muttered, "perhaps I too might have been saved in time. Now——"

"Ah, now you may stay, sir; I don't fear you any more."

"No, no; you would fear me again ere night time, and I might not be always in the right mood to listen to a voice like yours, child. Your Leonard has a noble heart and rare gifts. He should rise yet, and he shall, I will not drag him into the mire. Good-bye—you will see me no more." He broke from Helen, cleared the stairs with a bound, and was out of the house.

When Leonard returned he was surprised to hear his unwelcome guest was gone—but Helen did not venture to tell him of her interposition. She knew instinctively how such officiousness would mortify and offend the pride of man; but she never again spoke harshly of poor Burley. Leonard supposed that he should either see or hear of the humorist[Pg 381] in the course of the day. Finding he did not, he went in search of him at his old haunts; but no trace. He inquired at the Beehive if they knew there of his new address, but no tidings of Burley could be obtained.

As he came home disappointed and anxious, for he felt uneasy as to the disappearance of his wild friend, Mrs. Smedley met him at the door.

"Please, sir, suit yourself with another lodging," said she. "I can have no such singings and shoutings going on at night in my house. And that poor little girl too! you should be ashamed of yourself."

Leonard frowned and passed by.

CHAPTER XI.

Meanwhile, on leaving Helen, Burley strode on; and, as if by some better instinct, for he was unconscious of his own steps, he took the way towards the still green haunts of his youth. When he paused at length, he was already before the door of a rural cottage, standing alone in the midst of fields, with a little farm-yard at the back; and far through the trees in front was caught a glimpse of the winding Brent.

With this cottage Burley was familiar; it was inhabited by a good old couple who had known him from a boy. There he habitually left his rods and fishing-tackle; there, for intervals in his turbid, riotous life, he had sojourned for two or three days together—fancying, the first day that the country was a heaven, and convinced before the third that it was a purgatory.

An old woman of neat and tidy exterior came forth to greet him.

"Ah, Master John," said she, clasping his nerveless hand—"well, the fields be pleasant now—I hope you are come to stay a bit? Do; it will freshen you; you lose all the fine color you had once, in Lunnon town."

"I will stay with you, my kind friend," said Burley, with unusual meekness—"I can have the old room, then?"

"Oh yes, come and look at it. I never let it now to any one but you—never have let it since the dear beautiful lady with the angel's face went away. Poor thing, what could have become of her?"

Thus speaking, while Burley listened not, the old woman drew him within the cottage, and led him up the stairs into a room that might have well become a better house, for it was furnished with taste, and even elegance. A small cabinet pianoforte stood opposite the fire-place, and the window looked upon pleasant meads and tangled hedgerows, and the narrow windings of the blue rivulet. Burley sank down exhausted, and gazed wistfully from the casement.

"You have not breakfasted?" said the hostess anxiously.

"No."

"Well, the eggs are fresh laid, and you would like a rasher of bacon, Master John? And if you will have brandy in your tea, I have some that you left long ago in your own bottle."

Burley shook his head. "No brandy, Mrs. Goodyer; only fresh milk. I will see whether I can yet coax Nature."

Mrs. Goodyer did not know what was meant by coaxing Nature, but she said, "Pray do, Master John," and vanished.

That day Burley went out with his rod, and he fished hard for the one-eyed perch; but in vain. Then he roved along the stream with his hands in his pockets, whistling. He returned to the cottage at sunset, partook of the fare provided for him, abstained from the brandy, and felt dreadfully low. He called for pen, ink, and paper, and sought to write, but he could not achieve two lines. He summoned Mrs. Goodyer, "Tell your husband to come and sit and talk."

Up came old Jacob Goodyer, and the great wit bade him tell him all the news of the village. Jacob obeyed willingly, and Burley at last fell asleep. The next day it was much the same, only at dinner he had up the brandy bottle, and finished it; and he did not have up Jacob, but he contrived to write.

The third day it rained incessantly.

"Have you no books, Mrs. Goodyer?" asked poor John Burley.

"Oh yes; some that the dear lady left behind her; and perhaps you would like to look at some papers in her own writing?"

"No, not the papers—all women scribble, and all scribble the same things. Get me the books."

The books were brought up—poetry and essays—John knew them by heart. He looked out on the rain, and at evening the rain had ceased. He rushed to his hat and fled.

"Nature, Nature!" he exclaimed when he was out in the air, and hurrying by the dripping hedgerows, "you are not to be coaxed by me! I have jilted you shamefully, I own it; you are a female and unforgiving. I don't complain. You may be very pretty, but you are the stupidest and most tiresome companion that ever I met with. Thank heaven, I am not married to you!"

Thus John Burley made his way into town, and paused at the first public-house. Out of that house he came with a jovial air, and on he strode towards the heart of London. Now he is in Leicester Square, and he gazes on the foreigners who stalk that region, and hums a tune; and now from yonder alley two forms emerge, and dog his careless footsteps; now through the maze of passages towards St. Martin's he threads his path, and, anticipating an orgy as he nears his favorite haunts, jingles the silver in his pockets; and now the two forms are at his heels.

"Hail to thee, O Freedom!" muttered[Pg 382] John Burley; "thy dwelling is in cities, and thy palace is the tavern."

"In the king's name," quoth a gruff voice; and John Burley feels the horrid and familiar tap on the shoulder.

The two bailiffs who dogged have seized their prey.

"At whose suit?" asked John Burley, falteringly.

"Mr. Cox, the wine-merchant."

"Cox! A man to whom I gave a cheque on my bankers not three months ago!"

"But it war'nt cashed."

"What does that signify?—the intention was the same. A good heart takes the will for the deed. Cox is a monster of ingratitude; and I withdraw my custom."

"Sarve him right. Would your honor like a jarvey?"

"I would rather spend the money on something else," said John Burley. "Give me your arm, I am not proud. After all, thank heaven, I shall not sleep in the country."

And John Burley made a night of it in the Fleet.

CHAPTER XII.

Miss Starke was one of those ladies who pass their lives in the direst of all civil strife—war with their servants. She looked upon the members of that class as the unrelenting and sleepless enemies of the unfortunate householders condemned to employ them. She thought they ate and drank to their villanous utmost, in order to ruin their benefactors—that they lived in one constant conspiracy with one another and the tradesmen, the object of which was to cheat and pilfer. Miss Starke was a miserable woman. As she had no relations or friends who cared enough for her to share her solitary struggle against her domestic foes; and her income, though easy, was an annuity that died with herself, thereby reducing various nephews, nieces, or cousins, to the strict bounds of a natural affection—that did not exist; and as she felt the want of some friendly face amidst this world of distrust and hate, so she had tried the resource of venal companions. But the venal companions had never staid long—either they disliked Miss Starke, or Miss Starke disliked them. Therefore the poor woman had resolved upon bringing up some little girl whose heart, as she said to herself; would be fresh and uncorrupted, and from whom she might expect gratitude. She had been contented, on the whole, with Helen, and had meant to keep that child in her house as long as she (Miss Starke) remained upon the earth—perhaps some thirty years longer; and then, having carefully secluded her from marriage, and other friendship, to leave her nothing but the regret of having lost so kind a benefactress. Agreeably with this notion, and in order to secure the affections of the child, Miss Starke had relaxed the frigid austerity natural to her manner and mode of thought, and been kind to Helen in an iron way. She had neither slapped nor pinched her, neither had she starved. She had allowed her to see Leonard, according to the agreement made with Dr. Morgan, and had laid out tenpence on cakes, besides contributing fruit from her garden for the first interview—a hospitality she did not think it fit to renew on subsequent occasions. In return for this, she conceived she had purchased the right to Helen bodily and spiritually, and nothing could exceed her indignation when she rose one morning and found the child had gone. As it never had occurred to her to ask Leonard's address, though she suspected Helen had gone to him, she was at a loss what to do, and remained for twenty-four hours in a state of inane depression. But then she began to miss the child so much that her energies woke, and she persuaded herself that she was actuated by the purest benevolence in trying to reclaim this poor creature from the world, into which Helen had thus rashly plunged.

Accordingly, she put an advertisement into the Times, to the following effect, liberally imitated from one by which, in former years, she had recovered a favorite Blenheim:

Now, it so happened that Mrs. Smedley had put an advertisement in the Times on her own account, relative to a niece of hers who was coming from the country, and for whom she desired to find a situation. So, contrary to her usual habit, she sent for the newspaper, and, close by her own advertisement she saw Miss Starke's.

It was impossible that she could mistake the description of Helen; and, as this advertisement caught her eye the very day after the whole house had been disturbed and scandalized by Burley's noisy visit, and on which she had resolved to get rid of a lodger who received such visitors, the good-hearted woman was delighted to think that she could restore Helen to some safe home. While thus thinking, Helen herself entered the kitchen where Mrs. Smedley sat, and the landlady had the imprudence to point out the advertisement, and talk, as she called it, "seriously" to the little girl.

Helen in vain and with tears entreated her to take no step in reply to the advertisement. Mrs. Smedley felt it was an affair of duty, and was obdurate, and shortly afterwards put on her bonnet and left the house. Helen conjectured that she was on her way to Miss Starke's, and her whole soul was bent on flight. Leonard had gone to the office of the Beehive with his MSS.; but she[Pg 383] packed up all their joint effects, and, just as she had done so, he returned. She communicated the news of the advertisement, and said she should be so miserable if compelled to go back to Miss Starke's, and implored him so pathetically to save her from such sorrow that he at once assented to her proposal of flight. Luckily, little was owing to the landlady—that little was left with the maid-servant; and, profiting by Mrs. Smedley's absence, they escaped without scene or conflict. Their effects were taken by Leonard to a stand of hackney vehicles, and then left at a coach-office, while they went in search of lodgings. It was wise to choose an entirely new and remote district; and before night they were settled in an attic in Lambeth.

CHAPTER XIII.

As the reader will expect, no trace of Burley could Leonard find; the humorist had ceased to communicate with the Beehive. But Leonard grieved for Burley's sake; and, indeed, he missed the intercourse of the large wrong mind. But he settled down by degrees to the simple loving society of his child companion, and in that presence grew more tranquil. The hours in the daytime that he did not pass at work he spent as before, picking up knowledge at book-stalls; and at dusk he and Helen would stroll out—sometimes striving to escape from the long suburb into fresh rural air; more often wandering to and fro the bridge that led to glorious Westminster—London's classic land—and watching the vague lamps reflected on the river. This haunt suited the musing melancholy boy. He would stand long and with wistful silence by the balustrade—seating Helen thereon, that she too might look along the dark mournful waters which, dark though they be, still have their charm of mysterious repose.

As the river flowed between the world of roofs and the roar of human passions on either side, so in those two hearts flowed Thought—and all they knew of London was its shadow.

CHAPTER XIV.

There appeared in the Beehive certain very truculent political papers—papers very like the tracts in the Tinker's bag. Leonard did not heed them much, but they made far more sensation in the public that read the Beehive than Leonard's papers, full of rare promise though the last were. They greatly increased the sale of the periodical in the manufacturing towns, and began to awake the drowsy vigilance of the Home Office. Suddenly a descent was made upon the Beehive, and all its papers and plans. The editor saw himself threatened with a criminal prosecution, and the certainty of two years' imprisonment: he did not like the prospect, and disappeared. One evening, when Leonard, unconscious of these mischances, arrived at the door of the office, he found it closed. An agitated mob was before it, and a voice that was not new to his ear, was haranguing the bystanders, with many imprecations against "tyrans." He looked, and, to his amaze, recognized in the orator Mr. Sprott the Tinker.

The police came in numbers to disperse the crowd, and Mr. Sprott prudently vanished, Leonard learned then what had befallen, and again saw himself without employment and the means of bread.

Slowly he walked back. "O, knowledge, knowledge!—powerless indeed!" he murmured.

As he thus spoke, a handbill in large capitals met his eyes on a dead wall—"Wanted, a few smart young men for India."

A crimp accosted him—"You would make a fine soldier, my man. You have stout limbs of your own." Leonard moved on.

"It has come back, then, to this. Brute physical force after all. O Mind, despair! O Peasant, be a machine again."

He entered his attic noiselessly, and gazed upon Helen as she sat at her work, straining her eyes by the open window—with tender and deep compassion. She had not heard him enter, nor was she aware of his presence. Patient and still she sat, and the small fingers plied busily. He gazed, and saw that her cheek was pale and hollow, and the hands looked so thin! His heart was deeply touched, and at that moment he had not one memory of the baffled Poet, one thought that proclaimed the Egotist.

He approached her gently, laid his hand on her shoulder—"Helen, put on your shawl and bonnet, and walk out—I have much to say."

In a few moments she was ready, and they took their way to their favorite haunt upon the bridge. Pausing in one of the recesses or nooks, Leonard then began,—"Helen, we must part."

"Part?—Oh, brother!"

"Listen. All work that depends on mind is over for me; nothing remains but the labor of thews and sinews. I cannot go back to my village and say to all, 'My hopes were self-conceit and my intellect a delusion!' I cannot. Neither in this sordid city can I turn menial or porter. I might be born to that drudgery, but, my mind has, it may be unhappily, raised me above my birth. What, then, shall I do? I know not yet—serve as a soldier, or push my way to some wilderness afar, as an emigrant, perhaps. But whatever my choice, I must henceforth be alone; I have a home no more. But there is a home for you, Helen, a very humble one, (for you, too, so well born,) but very safe—the roof of—of—my peasant mother. She will love you for my sake, and—and——"

Helen clung to him trembling, and sobbed out. "Any thing, any thing you will. But I can work; I can make money, Leonard. I do, indeed, make money—you do not know how much—but enough for us both till better times come to you. Do not let us part.[Pg 384]

"And I—a man, and born to labor, to be maintained by the work of an infant! No, Helen, do not so degrade me."

She drew back as she looked on his flushed brow, bowed her head submissively, and murmured, "Pardon.'"

"Ah," said Helen, after a pause; "if now we could but find my poor father's friend! I never so much cared for it before."

"Yes, he would surely provide for you."

"For me!" repeated Helen, in a tone of soft deep reproach, and she turned away her head to conceal her tears.

"You are sure you would remember him, if we met him by chance?"

"Oh, yes. He was so different from all we see in this terrible city, and his eyes were like yonder stars, so clear and so bright; yet the light seemed to come from afar off, as the light does in yours, when your thoughts are away from all things round you. And then, too, his dog whom he called Nero—I could not forget that."

"But his dog may not be always with him."

"But the bright clear eyes are! Ah, now you look up to heaven, and yours seems to dream like his."

Leonard did not answer, for his thoughts were indeed less on earth than struggling to pierce into that remote and mysterious heaven.

Both were silent long; the crowd passed them by unheedingly. Night deepened over the river, but the reflection of the lamplights on its waves was more visible than that of the stars. The beams showed the darkness of the strong current, and the craft that lay eastward on the tide, with sail-less spectral masts and black dismal hulks, looked deathlike in their stillness.

Leonard looked down, and the thought of Chatterton's grim suicide came back to his soul, and a pale, scornful face with luminous haunting eyes seemed to look up from the stream, and murmur from livid lips,—"Struggle no more against the tides on the surface—all is calm and rest within the deep."

Starting in terror from the gloom of his reverie, the boy began to talk fast to Helen, and tried to soothe her with descriptions of the lowly home which he had offered.

He spoke of the light cares which she would participate with his mother—for by that name he still called the widow—and dwelt, with an eloquence that the contrast round him made sincere and strong, on the happy rural life, the shadowy woodlands, the rippling cornfields, the solemn lone churchspire soaring from the tranquil landscape. Flatteringly he painted the flowery terraces of the Italian exile, and the playful fountain that, even as he spoke, was flinging up its spray to the stars, through serene air untroubled by the smoke of cities, and untainted by the sinful sighs of men. He promised her the love and protection of natures akin to the happy scene: the simple affectionate mother—the gentle pastor—the exile, wise and kind—Violante, with dark eyes full of the mystic thoughts that solitude calls from childhood,—Violante should be her companion.

"And oh!" cried Helen, "if life be thus happy there, return with me, return—return!"

"Alas!" murmured the boy, "if the hammer once strike the spark from the anvil, the spark must fly upward; it cannot fall back to earth until light has left it. Upward still, Helen—let me go upward still!"

CHAPTER XV.

The next morning Helen was very ill—so ill that, shortly after rising, she was forced to creep back to bed. Her frame shivered—her eyes were heavy—her hand burned like fire. Fever had set in. Perhaps she might have caught cold on the bridge—perhaps her emotions had proved too much for her frame. Leonard, in great alarm, called on the nearest apothecary. The apothecary looked grave, and said there was danger. And danger soon declared itself—Helen became delirious. For several days she lay in this state, between life and death. Leonard then felt that all the sorrows of earth are light, compared with the fear of losing what we love. How valueless the envied laurel seemed beside the dying rose.

Thanks, perhaps, more to his heed and tending than to medical skill, she recovered sense at last—immediate peril was over. But she was very weak and reduced—her ultimate recovery doubtful—convalescence, at best, likely to be very slow.

But when she learned how long she had been thus ill, she looked anxiously at Leonard's face as he bent over her, and faltered forth—"Give me my work! I am strong enough for that now—it would amuse me."

Leonard burst into tears.

Alas! he had no work himself; all their joint money had melted away; the apothecary was not like good Dr. Morgan; the medicines were to be paid for, and the rent. Two days before, Leonard had pawned Riccabocca's watch; and when the last shilling thus raised was gone, how should he support Helen? Nevertheless he conquered his tears, and assured her that he had employment; and that so earnestly that she believed him, and sank into soft sleep. He listened to her breathing, kissed her forehead, and left the room. He turned into his own neighboring garret, and, leaning his face on his hands, collected all his thoughts.

He must be a beggar at last. He must write to Mr. Dale for money—Mr. Dale, too, who knew the secret of his birth. He would rather have begged of a stranger—it served to add a new dishonor to his mother's memory for the child to beg of one who was acquainted with her shame. Had he himself been the only one to want and to starve, he[Pg 385] would have sunk inch by inch into the grave of famine, before he would have so subdued his pride. But Helen, there on that bed—Helen needing, for weeks perhaps, all support, and illness making luxuries themselves like necessaries! Beg he must. And when he so resolved, had you but seen the proud bitter soul he conquered, you would have said—"This which he thinks is degradation—this is heroism. Oh, strange human heart!—no epic ever written achieves the Sublime and the Beautiful which are graven, unread by human eye, in thy secret leaves," Of whom else should he beg? His mother had nothing, Riccabocca was poor, and the stately Violante, who had exclaimed, "Would that I were a man!"—he could not endure the thought that she should pity him, and despise. The Avenels! No—thrice No. He drew towards him hastily ink and paper, and wrote rapid lines that were wrung from him as from the bleeding strings of life.

But the hour for the post had passed—the letter must wait till the next day; and three days at least would elapse before he could receive an answer. He left the letter on the table, and, stifling as for air, went forth. He crossed the bridge—he passed on mechanically—and was borne along by a crowd pressing towards the doors of Parliament. A debate that excited popular interest was fixed for that evening, and many bystanders collected in the street to see the members pass to and fro, or hear what speakers had yet risen to take part in the debate, or try to get orders for the gallery.

He halted amidst these loiterers, with no interest, indeed, in common with them, but looking over their heads abstractedly towards the tall Funeral Abbey—Imperial Golgotha of Poets, and Chiefs, and Kings.

Suddenly his attention was diverted to those around by the sound of a name—displeasingly known to him. "How are you, Randal Leslie? Coming to hear the debate?" said a member who was passing through the street.

"Yes; Mr. Egerton promised to get me under the gallery. He is to speak himself to-night, and I have never heard him. As you are going into the House, will you remind him?"

"I can't now, for he is speaking already, and well too. I hurried from the Athenæum, where I was dining, on purpose to be in time, as I heard that his speech was making a great effect."

"This is very unlucky," said Randal, "I had no idea he would speak so early."

"M—— brought him up by a direct personal attack. But follow me; perhaps I can get you into the House; and a man like you, Leslie, of whom we expect great things some day, I can tell you, should not miss any such opportunity of knowing what this House of ours is on a field night. Come on!"

The member hurried towards the door; and as Randal followed him, a bystander cried—"That's the young man who wrote the famous pamphlet—Egerton's relation."

"Oh, indeed!" said another. "Clever man, Egerton—I am waiting for him."

"So am I."

"Why, you are not a constituent, as I am."

"No; but he has been very kind to my nephew, and I must thank him. You are a constituent—he is an honor to your town."

"So he is; enlightened man!"

"And so generous!"

"Brings forward really good measures," quoth the politician.

"And clever young men," said the uncle.

Therewith one or two others joined in the praise of Audley Egerton, and many anecdotes of his liberality were told.

Leonard listened at first listlessly, at last with thoughtful attention. He had heard Burley, too, speak highly of this generous statesman, who, without pretending to genius himself, appreciated it in others. He suddenly remembered, too, that Egerton was half-brother to the Squire. Vague notions of some appeal to this eminent person, not for charity, but employ to his mind, gleamed across him—inexperienced boy that he yet was! And while thus meditating, the door of the House opened, and out came Audley Egerton himself. A partial cheering, followed by a general murmur, apprised Leonard of the presence of the popular statesman. Egerton was caught hold of by some five or six persons in succession; a shake of the hand, a nod, a brief whispered word or two, sufficed the practised member for graceful escape; and soon, free from the crowd, his tall erect figure passed on, and turned towards the bridge. He paused at the angle and took out his watch, looking at it by the lamp-light.

"Harley will be here soon," he muttered—"he is always punctual; and now that I have spoken, I can give him an hour or so. That is well."

As he replaced his watch in his pocket, and re-buttoned his coat over his firm broad chest, he lifted his eyes, and saw a young man standing before him.

"Do you want me?" asked the statesman, with the direct brevity of his practical character.

"Mr. Egerton," said the young man, with a voice that slightly trembled, and yet was manly amidst emotion, "you have a great name, and great power—I stand here in these streets of London without a friend, and without employ. I believe that I have it in me to do some nobler work than that of bodily labor, had I but one friend—one opening for my thoughts. And now I have said this, I scarcely know how, or why, but from despair, and the sudden impulse which that despair took from the praise that follows your success, I have nothing more to add."

Audley Egerton was silent for a moment, struck by the tone and address of the stranger;[Pg 386] but the consummate and wary man of the world, accustomed to all manner of strange applications, and all varieties of imposture, quickly recovered from a passing and slight effect.

"Are you a native of ——?" (naming the town he represented as member.)

"No, sir."

"Well, young man, I am very sorry for you; but the good sense you must possess (for I judge of that by the education you have evidently received) must tell you that a public man, whatever be his patronage, has it too fully absorbed by claimants who have a right to demand it, to be able to listen to strangers."

He paused a moment, and, as Leonard stood silent, added, with more kindness than most public men so accosted would have showed—"You say you are friendless—poor fellow. In early life that happens to many of us, who find friends enough before the close. Be honest, and well-conducted; lean on yourself, not on strangers; work with the body if you can't with the mind; and, believe me, that advice is all I can give you, unless this trifle,"—and the minister held out a crown piece.

Leonard bowed, shook his head sadly, and walked away. Egerton looked after him with a slight pang.

"Pooh!" said he to himself, "there must be thousands in the same state in these streets of London. I cannot redress the necessities of civilization. Well educated! It is not from ignorance henceforth that society will suffer—it is from over-educating the hungry thousands who, thus unfitted for manual toil, and with no career for mental, will some day or other stand like that boy in our streets, and puzzle wiser ministers than I am."

As Egerton thus mused, and passed on to the bridge, a bugle-horn rang merrily from the box of a gay four-in-hand. A drag-coach with superb blood-horses rattled over the causeway, and in the driver Egerton recognised his nephew—Frank Hazeldean.

The young Guardsman was returning, with a lively party of men, from dining at Greenwich; and the careless laughter of these children of pleasure floated far over the still river.

It vexed the ear of the careworn statesman—sad, perhaps, with all his greatness, lonely amidst all his crowd of friends. It reminded him, perhaps, of his own youth, when such parties and companionships were familiar to him, though through them all he bore an ambitious aspiring soul—"Le jeu vaut-il la chandelle?" said he, shrugging his shoulders.

The coach rolled rapidly past Leonard, as he stood leaning against the corner of the bridge, and the mire of the kennel splashed over him from the hoofs of the fiery horses. The laughter smote on his ear more discordantly than on the minister's, but it begot no envy.

"Life is a dark riddle," said he, smiting his breast.

And he walked slowly on, gained the recess where he had stood several nights before with Helen; and dizzy with want of food, and worn out for want of sleep, he sank down into the dark corner; while the river that rolled under the arch of stone muttered dirge-like in his ear;—as under the social key-stone wails and rolls on for ever the mystery of Human Discontent. Take comfort, O Thinker by the stream! 'Tis the river that founded and gave pomp to the city; and without the discontent, where were progress—what were Man? Take comfort, O Thinker! wherever the stream over which thou bendest, or beside which thou sinkest, weary and desolate, frets the arch that supports thee;—never dream that, by destroying the bridge, thou canst silence the moan of the wave!

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.

From the London Art-Journal.

The recent judgment of Lord Campbell in Boosey v. Jeffreys, which has settled finally the much litigated question of the right of a foreigner to copyright in this country, whether of books, pictures, or music, has been alleged as an excuse for a public meeting of authors and publishers, to appeal against the concession of such a right, and to procure a reversal of the decision, should his lordship be disposed to overrule his own judgment in the House of Lords. The direct impulse to the present agitation, however, appears to have been certain proceedings commenced against Mr. Bohn and others, by Mr. Murray, for their alleged invasion of his copyrights in the works of Washington Irving; of which cheap editions have been issued, on the faith of a recent opinion of Lord Cranworth, wholly at variance with that which has lately been pronounced by the Court of Error, by no fewer than four publishers. The defendants in these cases are of course the leading instigators of this movement, and appear to have prevailed upon Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton to take the chair at a public meeting of Authors and Publishers, at the Hanover Square Rooms, for the purpose of discussing the question in all its bearings. Although the authors and publishers of England were but slenderly represented on the occasion, and even those who were present were far from unanimous, several ingenious and even brilliant speeches were delivered, and resolutions were carried, tending to support the Chairman's view of the subject; viz., to procure a revision of the law which declares foreign authors resident abroad, to be entitled to copyright in this country; to form a society to consider the steps necessary to obtain the proposed readjustment of the law; and lastly, to collect subscriptions to indemnify the gentlemen now acting on the defensive, in the various actions for the alleged invasion of copyright, in the expensive process of appealing against Lord Campbell's decision to the House of[Pg 387] Lords. We confess that we have not been convinced by any of the arguments adduced on this occasion, able and plausible as many of them were, that we should violate that great principle of justice, which forbids that we should do evil that good may come; and that because foreign nations cannot be brought to a sense of the dishonesty of their habitual invasions of British Copyright, we should make reprisals upon their authors, and deny them that protection which they so dishonestly withhold to us. Still less can we affirm a proposition which would go back from twenty five to thirty years, and deprive English booksellers of copyrights for which, on the faith of the law as it then stood, they have paid very considerable sums of money. The impression, that if we deprive American authors of the copyright they have hitherto enjoyed in England, we shall force them and their readers to agree to an international arrangement, we believe to be entirely fallacious. There are very few American authors whose copyrights have proved of any material value to English publishers; and even of that few, the majority have retired for some years past, almost wholly from the field of literature. Washington Irving, Cooper, and Prescott, are almost the only authors who have a marketable value in this country; and two out of the three have written little that is worthy of their genius for many years. Besides, the American buccaneer knows full well that the chief weight of the sacrifice, if American copyrights were to be declared null and void in this country, would fall upon neither Mr. Irving, Mr. Cooper, nor Mr. Prescott, but upon Messrs. Murray and Bentley, the British possessors of their copyrights. If, therefore, the question be mooted at all, it should not be with a view to a retrospective operation. But we more than doubt, if America, uninfluenced by worthier motives, will ever be driven to a recognition of the rights of British authors, for the sake of protecting the interests of the very few of its native writers who look to England for the chief reward of their literary labor. America, in her rage for cheap editions, has almost annihilated her own literature, and her unwarrantable piracy of our best authors, does but react on those of her own. If unable to understand the impolicy of her present course, will mulcting Mr. Murray and Mr. Bentley induce her to abandon her wholesale appropriations of English literary property? or, will our becoming robbers ourselves diminish the wholesale piracy of our neighbors? We think not. The arguments of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, which apply to the conduct of America in refusing to entertain the question of international copyright, are unanswerable; but if she prefers the selfish demands of the million to the interests of her own writers, she is not likely to be deterred from continuing the work of spoliation because we, at length, determine to follow her example. It cannot be doubted, for one moment, that it was the intention of the act at present in force, to recognize the copyright of foreigners whose works were first published in this country, and it is equally clear that the law for the protection of the patents of foreigners in England, was conceived in the same spirit. Why should we refuse protection to the writings of a foreign author, and concede it to his scientific discoveries? If we are to interpret the law as Sir E. Bulwer Lytton and Mr. Bohn would have us do, why should we grant to any foreign inventor the patent by which his property is secured in this country? More than twenty years ago the late Mr. Murray paid Washington Irving 1500l. for his Tales of a Traveller; 3000l. for his Columbus; 1000l., for his Granada; and 1000l. for his Bracebridge Hall. Is it to be endured, that because American booksellers are engaged in an unauthorized republication of every English book which they consider worth reprinting, we should, after so long a forbearance, become pirates in our turn; and thus despoil, not the foreign aggressor, but our own respectable publishers, of a right in which so large an amount of capital and enterprise has been embarked.

Whatever difference of opinion, therefore, there may be as to the measures which are most likely to force upon our neighbors a fair recognition of the rights of our authors, by a system of reprisal which we could never be brought to admire, and which we consider beneath the dignity of our national character, there can be none as to the absurdity of attempting so to do, by a retrospective operation which has neither justice nor common honesty to recommend it. We are far from desiring to attach any moral blame to the gentlemen whose reprints, in this country, of the works of Irving and others, have given occasion for the present controversy. The state of the law, as interpreted by Lord Cranworth, and other of our eminent jurists, appears to have warranted their belief that they were perfectly authorized in so doing. There are, however, considerations of courtesy which ought always to be observed by persons of the same profession towards each other, which should prevent them from doing all that even the law entitles them to do, where, by such a course, they are prejudicing the interests of their respectable brother tradesmen, on occasions on which they had good ground to believe that they have done every thing they could to secure the rights to which they lay claim. Neither is the position of the author to be wholly overlooked. So far back as 1813 or 1814, Washington Irving was a resident in this country, engaged in mercantile pursuits, as a partner in a British firm, and was as much an Englishman as either Mr. Leslie or Mr. Stuart Newton. He was, indeed, a resident in England at the date of the publication of several of his works. But the principle, if carried out fairly, would[Pg 388] compromise the interests of painters and print-publishers, as well as of litterateurs and booksellers. If the arguments employed at the late meeting, are at all tenable, the valuable copyrights of Messrs. Moon, Graves & Co., Colnaghi, or Hogarth, and other printsellers, in the engravings executed from the works of Leslie, Newton, Ohalon, and others, are completely at the mercy of any one who may think it worth his while to reproduce them. The sort of retaliation, therefore, which is now suggested, would be equivalent to that of cutting off the nose for the purpose of being revenged upon the face.

It is quite true that in 1845, in Chappell v. Purday, the Court of Exchequer was of opinion that a foreign author residing abroad, who composed a work there, could have no copyright in this country; a decision which was subsequently confirmed in the same Court in Boosey v. Purday. These judgments have, however, been entirely overruled by Lord Campbell, who on a late occasion pronounced an opinion in the teeth of these decisions, and whose impressions on this question are said to be shared by a large majority of the Judges of the Court of Queen's Bench. The point may therefore be considered as settled; and as further litigation in the Court of Chancery can only be productive of ruinous expense and vexation, it is much to be desired that an amicable arrangement of the differences of the respective publishers may be entered into, which, whilst it recognizes the proper principle, will avert the necessity of further contests on the subject. Mr. Colburn was, it appears, in favor of the anti-foreign copyright disputants, and has, therefore, clearly invited the invasion of his own copyrights of the works of American authors. As, however, he is understood to have virtually, if not ostensibly, retired from the publishing trade, he has for the future, at least, but little interest in the matter.

The speeches of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton and of Mr. Bohn, at the late meeting, contain many facts and illustrations, which will be found of service in considering the question of international copyright. Mr. Bohn has already done much by the publication of cheap editions of standard authors, at a very moderate price, to render good books accessible to the public, and is placed by his position as a bookseller, beyond the suspicion of having been actuated by mercenary or unworthy motives in the matter. We question however if the general interests of authors and publishers have not suffered materially from his reprints. When Mr. Colburn attributed to American piracy the discouraging fact that for books for which he could once afford to pay 1000l., he cannot now give more than from 100l. to 150l., he appears to have overlooked the prevalence of cheap literature generally in this country; and the ruinous competition which is now going on among rival booksellers. Who is likely to purchase his guinea and a half editions of Cooper's novels, when he can obtain from Mr. Bohn the works of Washington Irving (large and handsomely printed volumes) at two shillings each? Besides, the same system of piracy was at work when he purchased Mr. Cooper's copyrights, as is in operation now. He recommends British publishers not to purchase another copyright from an American author until his government have consented to enter into some international arrangement; and so far we agree with him in his suggestion. It is a remarkable fact, however, that whilst British authors are protesting in their speeches and writings against foreign appropriations of their copyrights, they are often very much flattered by their adoption. The audacious single-volume piracies of Galignani and Baudry of Paris, of the poetry of Byron, Scott, Southey, Moore, Coleridge, Shelley and others, were often looked upon by the parties who might be expected to consider themselves most aggrieved, as conferring a distinction upon their writings calculated to increase their reputation in this country. In several instances within our knowledge, the materials for the biographical notices which prefaced the respective volumes were supplied by the authors themselves! Lord Byron, so far from expressing any indignation at the liberty which Messrs. Galignani had taken with his writings, assisted them in identifying them, and wrote interesting autograph letters to aid in their illustration.

Southey, as we gather from one of his letters, was rather flattered than otherwise at the republication of his poetry in Paris, and if rumor may be credited, Moore corrected the proofs, and furnished materials for the biography of one or more of the foreign editions of his works. Mr. Bowles and several other poets whose writings were included in this series, not only furnished notes for the Biographical Prefaces, but indicated to the editor the publications from which their fugitive writings should be collected. Mrs. Hemans furnished several notes and suggestions for one of the American editions of her works, and sent copies to her friends as evidence of her translantic popularity. In fact we have rarely met with an author whose writings have been deemed worthy of being reprinted abroad, who has not considered himself flattered by the preference. We do not of course profess to believe that their publishers were equally complimented by this unceremonious invasion of their property. So long as the sale of such piracies were limited to the continent, we doubt if they were the means of abstracting a great deal from the pockets of either the author or publisher; but for very many years they were allowed to be imported in single copies, during which period they were introduced into this country in large quantities. They were, however, purchased rather from their compactness than for their cheapness, and the instant Mr. Murray[Pg 389] published a handsomely printed single volume edition of the Poetry of Lord Byron at a moderate price, the trade in French and Belgian piracies of British copyrights was almost destroyed. Why should we not print cheap editions for exportation? The drawback on the paper, and the superiority of our printing and binding would be sufficiently obvious to enable us to obtain a better price than would be given for such coarse reprints as are usually hurried into circulation in America. We cannot but believe that such an enterprise might be carried out successfully. There is scarcely an edition, at a moderate price, of any American author, that is worthy of the library; and looking at the quality of the paper and print, we doubt if the American booksellers could afford a volume of similar quality at the price charged by Mr. Bohn for his reprints.

Any plan is, however, better than that suggested at the late meeting, of becoming pirates ourselves to cure our neighbors of their buccaneering propensities. The comparatively small number of works of mark which are now produced in America (there have been no prose writers of any very great eminence since the heyday of the literary lives of Irving, Cooper, and Channing, if we except Mr. Prescott) goes far to show that national literature is all but annihilated in that country, and that the evil must eventually, in a great measure, correct itself. In a recent American newspaper it is stated that protection is not refused in that country to any British author who will go through the necessary forms by which he becomes qualified for the privilege. Our readers will smile to hear that one of these conditions consists of an oath, by which the candidate for copyright in America is required to "renounce for ever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereign, whatever, and particularly to the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland!" The late Captain Marryat declined to comply with these terms, although another English author, of undeniable reputation, has, it is affirmed, not scrupled to bolt this denationalizing pill. We have not heard if he has turned his privilege to any account.

From Fraser's Magazine.

A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN AT HOME.

BY C. ASTOR BRISTED.

It was a lovely October day; the temperature perfectly Elysian—not half a degree too hot or too cold—and the air moister than is usual in the dry climate of the Northern States, altogether reminding one of Florence in early autumn, only less enervating. Ashburner and the Harry Bensons were gliding up the Hudson in a 'floating palace,' which is American penny-a-liner for a northriver steamboat. Gerard Ludlow was on board, handsome and distingué as ever, but a little thinned and worn by numberless polkas. He had got rid of his wife by a mighty effort, and was going to play le Mari à la Campagne—not at Ravenswood, however, but with some of the Van Hornes who lived higher up the river. While the young exquisite was rattling on in a sort of Macaronic French to Mrs. Benson about the mountains of Switzerland and the pictures of Italy, the ascent of the Nile and "that glorious Clos-Vougeot Blanc Mousseux at the Anglais"—every topic, in short, that had not the least connection with America—Ashburner was witnessing for the third time, with unabated admiration, the magnificent scenery of the classic American river—for classic it is to a New-Yorker since Washington Irving has immortalized its legends.

"I am glad to see you are not ashamed to show a little enthusiasm," said Benson, as he marked his friend leaning over the forward railing, absorbed in the view before him. "Some people don't care much for this sort of thing. There's my cousin Ludlow, how supremely indifferent he is to it all! He is talking to my wife about the last comic opera he saw in Paris, which represents Shakespeare and Queen Bess getting very jolly together."

"Certainly one would hardly be able to tell what countryman Ludlow was, without previous knowledge. He seems, like many of your fashionables, very much out of place here."

"That's true enough; and the man most out of place among them all is my brother Carl, whom we are just going to visit."

Ashburner's recollection and knowledge of Carl Benson were pretty much comprised in a certain luncheon at Ravenswood, which he had found very much in place, and a very good place for. Henry went on to explain himself.

"He prides himself on a regard for two things—sincerity and equity—two very estimable virtues, no doubt, but capable of being ridden to death like all hobbies."

Benson further proceeded to state that he was afraid they would find his brother in no very genial mood—that, in fact, he had two special reasons at that time for being in bad humor. The anti-rent epidemic had broken out in the vicinity, and his place was threatened with perforation by a railroad. The former, however perilous to some of his acquaintance, was no very terrible danger to Carl himself, he having as many tenants in the country as his brother had in town—to wit, just one. The latter was considerably more serious in itself, and rendered particularly aggravating by attendant circumstances. An equally convenient and much safer inland route for the railway had been originally proposed; but Mr. Jobson, the chief engineer, started the project of a new one close along the shore, running through the beautiful private grounds that lined the whole east bank of the river for a hundred[Pg 390] and fifty miles. The true motive for this change was, that the company would thus have to pay less for right of way, since the inland route would have passed through the cornfields and vegetable-grounds of farmers, to whom they must have made full compensation at the market value of the land, whereas by cutting through a private lawn they could take the ground at a merely nominal rate, the damage caused to a gentleman by the destruction of his place for all the purposes of a country-seat being a "fancy value," which jurors and commissioners chosen from the mass of the people, and regarding the aristocratic landholder with an envious eye, would never pay the least attention to. But either from a lingering regard for outward decency, or from some other motive, this, the real reason, met with only a passing allusion in Mr. Jobson's report. He came out boldly, and recommended the river route as calculated to improve the appearance of the shore, by filling up bays and cutting off sharp points.[20] What made it worse was, that the majority of these very gentlemen proprietors had been induced to subscribe largely to the road under the solemn assurance from leading members of the company (which took care not to make itself officially and corporately responsible) that the inland route would be adopted, which assurance was thrown to the winds as soon as the books were filled up. Carl was not to be taken in so; he had refused to subscribe to the road, and opposed it to the extent of his small influence from the first; he might be the victim of such people, but he would not be their dupe. This was one consolation to him. Another was, that the railway, when it did come upon him, which would not be for two years yet, would not absolutely ruin his place. It would not go through his house, or across the lawn in front of it, or break down his terrace, for which Nature was to be thanked, and not Mr. Jobson. Ravenswood was partly within one of the to-be-improved bays, and, consequently, the rails would cut it close along the water under the terraced bank. It merely stopped his access to the river, which, as he did not yacht, and had room for the little boating he wanted in the adjoining bay, was no great deprivation. At any rate, the danger anticipated by Harry turned out all moonshine. When they stopped at Van Burenopolis (the landing nearest Ravenswood), Carl's rockaway was on the ground, and in ten minutes their host received them at his front door, both his hands out-stretched, and his face lighted up with unfeigned pleasure.

Carl Benson was an unflattered likeness of his brother, with a larger nose, large feet, that got into every one's way, coarser hair, and narrower chest; altogether a rougher and inferior type of form; but he had a fresh and ruddy complexion, and though he was Henry's senior by six years, there did not seem to be more than a twelve-month between them. In dress he was as quiet as Harry was gay; never cared how old his clothes were, so long as he had plenty of clean linen; was often two years behind the fashion; affected black coats and gray trousers; eschewed enamelled chains, jewelled waistcoat-buttons, and other similar fopperies of Young New-York; preferred shoes (not of patent leather) to boots, and usually tied his cravat in the smallest possible bow. Nor was the contrast in manner between the two brothers less marked; the elder was shy and retiring before strangers, and would have been called a very awkward man anywhere but in England. You might easily guess from his way of behaving himself on a first introduction, the uncertain style of his movements, and his "butter-finger" fashion of taking hold of things, that he had none of that dexterity in the little every-day occasions of life which distinguished Harry; who, for instance, could harness a horse about as soon as his groom, while Carl would have been half the day about it, and not have done it well after all; Harry could carry out a complicated affair of business at one interview, without coming off worst; but his elder brother would have pottered about it three days, and probably been cheated in the end. This inaptitude for small business, this want of promptitude and dexterity, of presence of mind and body, so to speak, is not very detrimental in Europe, where a gentleman with a tolerably well-filled purse can have so much done for him; but in America, where the richest man has to do so much for himself, it is a constantly recurring inconvenience, and it struck the Englishman almost immediately that this, though not especially alluded to by Henry, was one of the things that made Carl out of place in his own fatherland.

The mansion at Ravenswood, which had braved the storms of eighty-five winters (a venerable age for an American house), was pitched on a hill commanding a view of the Hudson for forty miles. Without, it was built of rough stone, with an ample wooden stoop running all round it, and a great variety of vines and creepers running round all the pillars of the stoop;—within, it branched off into large halls and spacious rooms, filled with antediluvian furniture, and guiltless of the ambitious upholstery attempts of Young New-York, which in such matters goes ahead of Paris itself. The library alone, in which Carl lived,—that is to say, he did everything but dining and sleeping there,—was fitted up in modern style, furnished with luxurious arm-chairs and sofas, the walls and ceiling neatly painted in oak, and the principal window composed of one oval pane of glass set in a frame, to which the external landscape supplied an exquisite picture. The hill swept[Pg 391] down to the water's edge almost, where it terminated abruptly in a lofty terrace, ninety feet above the level of the shore. The woodlands all about—on Benson's place, on the places adjoining, on the opposite bank—would have been beautiful at any time of the year; now, when the foliage was changing color, in anticipation of the coming frost, they were surpassingly so. As the trees change not all at once, but different ones assume different tints successively, the natural kaleidoscope is varied from day to day. The sumach leaf is one of the first to alter; it becomes a vivid scarlet; then the maple assumes a brilliant red and gold; then others put on a rich sienna, and others a warm olive. Here and there were interspersed patches of evergreens, pines looking almost blue, and cedars looking quite black from the contrast of the gorgeous and fiery coloring that surrounded them. The river water was deep blue; in the little bay north of Ravenswood it shaded off into a soft olive from the reflection of the foliage and grass about it; while beyond the further bank of the Hudson rose the Kaatskill[21] chain, richly wooded to their summits, and painted with the myriad dyes of autumn,—a fitting background to the landscape. Of course the finest part of this view was beyond the limits of Ravenswood, but so much of it as belonged to Carl (and his grounds covered some two hundred acres) was cleverly disposed with the help of an ingenious landscape-gardener; the trees were cut into picturesque clumps and vistas, opened at the desirable points. Henry, who bragged for all the family as well as for himself, took care to inform Ashburner how, when the place came into Carl's possession (or rather into his wife's, for by the laws of New-York, the wife's property is absolutely hers, and out of her husband's control) by the demise of his father-in-law, there was hardly a carriage-road on it, and how he had devoted all his spare income to it for seven years, "and made it what you see it."

As the Englishman had nothing to do for some days but to ramble about Ravenswood, and talk to the owner of it, he had full opportunity of ascertaining how far his brother's estimate of him was correct, and also how far the difference between the two, particularly in their practical aptitude for business, was attributable to the fact, that one of them had finished his education in England, and the other in America, which, for a New-Yorker, means in Paris, in Germany, half over the continent of Europe, in short. His conclusion was, that some of the qualities which made his host so "out of place" were natural, and that others had been superinduced upon these by his English education.

Harry Benson had truly stated, that his brother's prominent trait of character was sincerity. He used to say of himself, that the fairy had bestowed on him true Thomas's gift, "the tongue that ne'er could lie," and that the consequent incapacities predicted by the Scottish minstrel had fallen upon him; he could neither buy nor sell, nor pay court to prince or peer, (that is, in America, to the sovereign people,) nor win favor of fair lady. Certainly this is a dangerous quality in any country, unless tempered with an exquisite tact, which was not among Carl's possessions; but it is peculiarly dangerous in America, for there is no public (not excepting the French or Irish) that feeds so greedily on pure humbug as the American. Populus vult decipi there with a vengeance; and when the general current of feeling has set towards any show or phantasm, moral, political, literary, or social, woe to the individual who plants himself in its way!

Equally correct was the assertion that equity was a leading idea of his mind. "Give the devil his due," was one of his favorite proverbs; and when he said that a thing "was not fair," it seemed to him a conclusive argument against it. His conception of the virtues was the genuine Aristotelian one—a medium between two extremes. Not that he was a lukewarm partisan on all subjects; but of the people he most disliked—and he was a really "good hater" of some classes, Romanists, for instance, and Frenchmen, and Southern slaveholders—he could not bring himself to take any unfair advantage. Now it is no news to any one who knows anything of the Americans, that they are a nation of violent extremes; the different political parties, theological sects, geographical divisions—the literati of different cities, even—vituperate and assail one another fearfully, hardly respecting the laws of the land, much less the principles of natural justice. Add to all this, that Carl had a naturally elegant and fastidious taste, certain to make him aristocratic in sentiment, however democratic he might be in principle, and it will be seen that he had a tolerable stock of incompatibilities to start with before having anything to do with England.

But, as if to settle his business completely, and prevent him from ever becoming a contented and contenting citizen of his own country, it chanced that just at the period of his youth, when, according to the wont of Young America, dress and billiards formed the main topic of his conversation, and he was aspiring to the possession of a fast trotter, accident took him to England, and a series of accidents kept him there, and caused him to make it his home for several years, and his standpoint for all his continental excursions. He grew up to mature manhood among and along with a generation of Englishmen. He acquired a taste for classical studies, and for that literary society, and those habits of literary and ethical criticism which are nowhere else found in such perfection. His life had always been strictly, even prudishly moral; and while casting off the frivolities and fopperies of his boyhood, he[Pg 392] also parted with much of the impulsive and imperfectly understood religion of his younger days, and replaced it by a more sedate and permanent feeling, which never rose to ecstasy of emotion, but was always present to him as a daily habit, and was deeply earnest, with little outward show.

Such a man's tendencies were visibly towards the church; and had Carl been an Englishman, or continued his sojourn in England, he would have taken orders naturally and inevitably, and might have made a tolerable parson. But at home he soon found it impossible to assimilate himself to that Evangelical party which constitutes the great bulk of the American religious community.

The three leading tendencies of his character already alluded to, fostered as they were by his residence abroad, had ended by making him very eclectic and very unconventional. He took what seemed good to him from every quarter, without reference to antecedents; and the fact that all the world about him were going one way, was just the reason to make him go the other. The Puritan denunciations of all who differed from them on points of transcendental theology, or of social institutions, seemed to him illiberal and uncharitable. His religion acted upon him somewhat like the Socratic Dæmon; it restrained him from actions, rather than prompted him to them. He abhorred all parade of godliness, and shrunk from disclosing his religious experiences, as he would have done from disclosing his loves to a mixed assemblage. There were many things about these people besides their abhorrence of the fine arts, that shocked his æsthetic sensibility, and their inquisitive censoriousness he deemed ungentlemanly in point of manners, and little short of persecution in point of principle. What most of all repelled him was their unmitigated "seriousness." A certain notorious personage, whom it is no scandal to call the greatest of living charlatans, is reported to have taken for his motto, "Praise God, and be merry." Now this was exactly what Carl wanted to do, to praise God, and be merry; and he did not think the latter clause of the device implied any necessary incompatibility with the former. He held strongly to the "neque semper arcum," and thought that a man was all the better man, and better Christian, for an occasional season of healthy enjoyment. He did not think "teetotalism" necessary to prevent gentlemen from becoming drunkards, and he took his regular exercise on Sunday as well as on other days. His sincere nature revolted equally from the idea of dissembling a merriment which he felt, and from that of simulating a religious enthusiasm which he did not feel. With all personal respect for such men, and all reverence for the service they had done to the cause of vital religion, and civil, no less than religious liberty, he very soon found that he could not amalgamate with them, and gave up all intention of going into the church. Thus it came to pass, that letting himself slide into the place which his fortune and connections had marked out for him, he became a man of society, and a gentleman of the world. It proved that he was not entirely free from the national error of quitting one extreme for another: it could only be said in his defence, that his new rôle rather came to, than was sought for by him. Perhaps his fastidiousness partly led him into it; but this trait of his mind showed itself more in intellectual criticism than in material Sybaritism, and more in the choice of companions than either. Certainly he had no great qualifications for the part, especially in New-York, and very wild work he made of it with his peculiar ideas, some of which were rather English, and all of which were considerably the reverse of American.

The first offence that Carl gave was by getting married in church as quietly as anything can be done in New-York, and going out of the way immediately afterwards, instead of standing his bride up for eight hundred people to look at. He was shamefully negligent of his duties to society in not having given "a reception." Carl said that he married for the present happiness and future comfort of himself and his wife, not for the amusement of society; and that was all the explanation he deigned to give his fashionable acquaintances.

His next eccentricity was refusing to read The Sewer, to let it enter his house, or to talk about it. He said, that in Europe, scandalous newspapers were not taken in by respectable families, that even young men read them at their clubs and by stealth, and never mentioned them before ladies; that people making pretensions to superior morality and decency ought not to patronize an immoral and blasphemous print—and more to the same effect. Men and women who referred to France as the standard of half the things they did, taunted him with referring to England. Benson did not think it worth while to discuss the merits of that case, but answered by a quotation from Aristophanes, how "clever folks learn many things from their enemies,"—which he had to translate before his auditors understood it,—and by another of like purport from a Latin bard, which they were less slow to comprehend, as it has become part of the stock in trade of our public speakers, and even the editors know what it means. Then one man liked The Sewer because it had the best reports of trotting matches; and another, because it published the news from Washington half-an-hour sooner than any of its contemporaries; and they all said, that all the papers were so bad, it was merely a question of degree, and not of kind. Nobody agreed with Carl, not even the people who were abused by The Sewer, and he made no converts out of his own family—his wife, brother, and sister.

But his great crime was blaspheming the[Pg 393] polka, for which I believe Young New-York thought him absolutely insane, and would gladly have put him into a straight-jacket. He thought that a matinée which lasted from noon to midnight was an absurd and wicked waste of time; that even six hours a day was too much for a reasonable being to devote to the Redowa; that at a ball or party there should be some place for people who like to converse, and a non-dancing man should not be stuck into a corner all the evening on pain of being knocked over by the waltzers; that the tipsy excesses of the young gentlemen who lorded it in the ball-room rendered their society not the most edifying for ladies; and as whatever he thought he gave utterance to in pretty plain language, he made himself prodigiously unpopular, and was a great nuisance to the exclusives.

On the other hand, he found things enough to annoy him. He had no like-minded, and it seemed no like-bodied men to associate with; no gentlemen to converse with on classical subjects, no acquaintances to join him in his long walks and drives. He was not over-fond of the French. "They make the best coffee and gloves in the world," he used to say, "but coffee and gloves, after all, are a very small part of life." Therefore it was irksome to him to hear the French always appealed to as the standard of dress, furniture, and manners. Above all, it worried him to find their language the recognized one of the salon and the opera. That two or three persons, whose native tongue was English, should go on talking imperfect French, (for the knowledge acquired by a two years' residence in Paris must be comparatively imperfect,) though no foreigners were present, struck him as a mischievous absurdity, and directly calculated to hinder mental growth. But all these were petty troubles compared to the misery he endured from the gossiping and scandalous propensities of his fashionable acquaintance. He now found his error in supposing that there is any peculiar illiberality and uncharitableness in a religious community, as distinguished from a worldly one; and discovered, that in avoiding the Evangelical connection, he had not escaped the spirit of inquisitive censoriousness. A common error of young men is this: they fancy, that because people of the world talk of their liberality, and parade it ostentatiously, they must possess an extra share of it. And doubtless they are more charitable towards their favorite propensities; the "jolly good fellow" will judge leniently of his bottle companion's trippings, and so on through the calender of vices: though even this proposition is not to be received absolutely. Catiline will sometimes be found complaining of sedition; most offenders have some lingering sense remaining of original right and wrong; not enough to keep them straight, but enough to blame others for the self-same obliquities. But to try the question correctly, we should examine the worldly, not in their judgments of one another, but in their judgments of the religious, and see how much liberality they show them. We should watch the hatred of virtue and purity, and the envy of fair fame, developing themselves in every form of slander and detraction, from the sly innuendo to the open falsehood. All merely fashionable society has a necessary tendency to be scandalous; fashionable people must talk a great deal without any definite purpose, and personal topics are always the readiest at hand for small talk, in a momentary dearth of others—this one's dress and appearance—that one's style of living—who is attentive to whom—and so on; so that besides the gossip which springs from deliberate wickedness, there is a great deal that is the result of mere thoughtlessness and vacuity. And New-York fashionable society is probably more scandalous than any other, because there are fewer public amusements for persons of leisure than in the continental cities of Europe, while the men have not that vent in political life, or the women in outdoor exercise, which Londoners find.

Now Carl was imbued with the idea (I believe it was one of his acquired English ones), that the first duty of a gentleman is to mind his own business. He had a horror of interfering with any one's private affairs, and an equal horror of any one interfering with his. It sickened him, therefore, to be among people who were always speaking ill of one another, and fetching and carrying stories. He grew tired of every one in the not very large circle of his acquaintance, which his fastidiousness, before adverted to, had always kept small; for he hated immoral people, and had a very imperfect sympathy for vulgar ones; and the man who begins by excluding these two classes, will make a large hole in his visiting list. He was in danger of becoming morbid and misanthropic. The natural and proper resource for a person so situated, is to take up some active and steady occupation—ride some hobby, if he can do nothing better,—at any rate, give himself enough to do. Carl was not a man of hobbies, and all the available ones were ridden to death already. The first resort of a young Englishman, with good fortune and connections, is politics; it is the very last resort of a New-Yorker similarly situated. He usually has enough of it at college; is a violent politician at sixteen, and by nineteen gives up all thoughts of shining in that way. Why this is so, I will not stop to explain at present, as I have no intention of writing a treatise à la De Tocqueville on the working of democratic institutions in America. I only mention the fact; perhaps you will find some further light thrown on it before we get to the end of this paper.

Two refuges lay open before him—business and literature. "Business"—banking, or commerce of some sort, is the shortest way for a New-Yorker to dispose of himself; but Carl had neither taste nor ability for trading or[Pg 394] finance, and was too frank and unsuspecting to make his way profitably in a very sharp mercantile community. To literature his ideas naturally turned; and in some countries a productive literary life might have been his happy destiny. He was not necessitated to write for a livelihood, and was just the sort of man to write for reputation. It was the occupation for which his tastes and his education fitted him.

But he had been too well educated for an American litterateur. His standard of excellence was pitched too high. The popular models provoked his criticism, not his emulation. The exaggerated flattery of newspaper puffs, and the Little-Peddlingtonism of sectional cliques disgusted him. He would not toady others, and disliked being toadied himself. He had too correct an appreciation of newspaper editors, and too much candor to disguise this appreciation. His accurate taste was shocked by little mechanical deficiencies—the carelessness of compositors and proofreaders—the impossibility of getting a Greek quotation set up correctly. He wrote for elegantly and thoroughly educated men, such as had been the associates of his youth, and found few of his countrymen to read, and fewer to understand him; consequently, after a brief experience, he gave up all writing for publication except one species of authorship, which had only a semblance of doing others any good, and which did himself a great deal of harm.

This was the controversial and satirical, to which he was prompted by an honest abhorrence of shams, and in which he was encouraged by the morbid public appetite for any thing savoring of personality or approaching to a "row" upon paper. Carl had a knack of saying disagreeable things in a disagreeable way, with some point and smartness—was clever in prose parody, in the reductio ad absurdum, in quoting a man against himself,—in short, up to all the "dodges" of belligerent criticism, and had a lively sense and keen perception of the ridiculous; but not priding himself as a gentleman and a Christian on these accomplishments, he did his best to keep them down, just as he did to keep down any tendency to say ill-natured things in social intercourse, and only gave them play when provoked by any flagrant exhibition of imposture. But having once found by experiment how this sort of writing took, how an hour's ebullition of sarcasm would command attention, when two months of research and polish were unheeded, and having no lack of material to tempt him, he was seduced into it again and again. If a sciolist undertook to put forth a new theory of the Platonic philosophy without having mastered his Greek grammar, Carl Benson was at hand to turn him inside out, and show up his pretensions. If a demagogue took up the formulas and watchwords of other times and countries, to malign his betters, and stir up one class against another, Carl was the first to dissent from the popular voice of panegyric, and demonstrate in plain terms what mischievous nonsense the lecturer had been uttering. If a Radical magazine blazoned out the discovery of some prodigious mare's nest—some awful conspiracy of England against American liberty or letters, who was so ready as Carl to point out that the editor could not spell the most ordinary foreign name straight, and did not exactly know the difference between Fraser and the Edinburgh! Booksellers and periodicals were glad enough to publish these squibs, and the reading public read them fast enough, with considerable amusement, and no profit or intention of profiting by them; it was parvis componere magna, like Aristophanes and Cleon; the bystanders cheered the exposer, and followed the exposed as fast as ever. Carl began to set up for a professed satirist,—one of the worst things that can befall a man, for the benefit he confers on others is very problematical, and the evil he inflicts on himself positive and inevitable.

He who had been the merriest of young men found himself growing ill-natured and morbid when he should have been in the prime of life. It was hard to say which he disliked most, the exclusives or the democracy, and he uttered his mind about both pretty freely. He was sick of the newspapers, with their bad print and worse principles—of the endless debates about the same old questions in Congress—of literary pretenders and the thousand and one "most remarkable men among us,"—of all the continuously succeeding popular delusions—of the gossiping young men in illimitable cravats, and all the personal intelligence about Mr. Brown and Miss Jones. Still he clung to old Gotham for a reason that influenced few people in it. He had strong conservative feelings and local attachments; his childhood (unlike his brother's) had been spent in the city, and the scenes of his childhood were dear to him, however little interest he might feel in the new characters that peopled them. But when in the rapid march of "up town" progress, the house which his father built, where his parents had died, and he and his brother and sister played as children, became so surrounded by shops, and stores, and manufactories, that he was fairly driven out of it, then he withdrew from the city altogether, and established himself for all the year round at his—that is to say, at his wife's—place on the Hudson. His contemporaries speedily forgot him, or if they ever thought of him, it was only as an unhappy recluse, Bellerophon-like, eating his own heart, and shunning the ways of men.

He was nothing of the sort. In quitting the town, he quitted most of his sources of discontent. He had great capacity of self-amusement when fairly left to himself, and could always find interesting occupation in his library. He now reaped the fruit of his early studies, though not exactly in the way[Pg 395] he had once hoped and anticipated. His place, too, amused him greatly, and, not keeping up two establishments, he had money in abundance to spend on it. He revelled in out-of-door exercise; it was a constant pleasure to him to gallop his blood mare (a taste for horses ran in the family) over fresh grass, where there were no omnibuses or fast trotters in his way. Nor was he without society; those who are unpopular with the majority can generally boast a few of the warmest personal friends, and it was so in his case. They came to visit him by intervals and relays,—real worthies of literature, who had been his father's friends before they were his,—quiet men of general tastes and accomplishments, like Philip Van Horne; now and then a like-minded stranger, such as Ashburner, or his sister and her husband, a good-natured, gentlemanly, ornamental Philadelphian; or his brother Harry. But most of all was he happy in his family circle: a man of the warmest domestic affections, he rejoiced in the society of his children and the cheering presence of his wife. We owe this lady an apology for not bringing her forward sooner: it would have been more in accordance with the grammar of gallantry to "put the more worthy person first." And yet, reader, may it not be better to keep the good wine till the last, and after telling you a great deal about a man whom you may not like, then to tell you something about a woman whom you must, or, at least, you ought to like? So let me present you to Mrs. Carl Benson.

Henry Benson used to say that Carl had carried out his eclectic principles in the choice of his wife, for she was something between a blonde and a brunette, and had dark eyes and light hair. She was a tall woman (according to the American standard of female height—I am not sure that she would have been considered so in England), and her figure rose up straight and springy as a reed. Altogether, she was in beautiful preservation, which is more than can be said for every American woman who has mounted into "the thirties," and is the mother of three children. Her shoulders were magnificent, her bust good, her arms and hands exquisitely moulded, her feet and ankles neatly turned, her features regular, yet not wanting in expression, and her complexion almost perfect. Still, with all these elements of beauty, and though of good family (she was one of the Van Hornes) and sufficient worldly prospects, she had never been a great belle, and this was an additional charm in her husband's eyes, who would never have deeply loved a woman that all the world ran after. Indeed, she had not belle accomplishments or tastes, preferred singing English ballads to Italian arias, and galloping over the county all the morning to dancing at a ball all night. And she was so insensible to the advantage of a cavalier per se, that she would rather talk to an amusing woman than to a stupid man, however handsome and fashionable. Of toilet mysteries she knew enough to keep her from dressing badly, but not enough to make her dress well and effectively. Her talents were not of the showy order, and did not fit her for shining in a salon. She had good (not extraordinary) natural abilities, and had been beautifully "coached," first by her father, and afterwards by her husband, so that without any pedantry or bas-bleu-ism, she displayed an extensive acquaintance with literary topics, but she was not brilliant in small talk, in playful raillery, or cut-and-thrust repartee. When she was in Paris (as Miss Louisa Van Horne), the French could make nothing of her; they thought her a handsome bit of marble, cold, unimpassioned, and uninteresting. And when more lately Vincent Le Roi came, as Henry's umbra, to pass a few days at Ravenswood, the Vicomte went away saying that Madame Carl Benson was undoubtedly an angel, but, for his part, he didn't like angels; they were very misty and insipid; he much preferred les filles d'Eve. And all who knew Le Roi agreed that he would not know well what to do with an angel. On the other hand, it must be set off against the deficiencies above mentioned, that she was a true and loving wife, a fond mother, a benevolent lady, and a sincere Christian.

Such was—no, such was not the mistress of Ravenswood. I feel the attempted portrait is inadequate. A passing description cannot do justice to the woman any more than a passing interview. Her superficial blemishes—want of ease in her conversation, or of crinoline in her dress,—were obvious to the casual observer; but the sterling qualities of her character, her truth and honesty, her constancy of affection, her unworldly disposition, her loftiness of soul—all these, as they could only be properly appreciated by those who had known her for years, so can they only be generally and vaguely hinted at in a brief sketch like this. The great mystery was, how she came to marry Carl. Every one said she was too good for him, and he would have been the last man to deny it. Perhaps she was pleased with his simple integrity, and foresaw that he would make a most affectionate husband, though it was not in his nature to be a passionate lover. Perhaps she pardoned his awkwardness in regard for his honesty.

After all, I would not claim that she was morally perfect; very few of us are. I am afraid she was rather censorious, and judged harshly of sinners; that in her own comfortable position she did not always weigh accurately the temptations of others. It is a common practice of very good and moral people to indemnify themselves for their virtue by depreciation of others; 'tis an error that lurks at the heels of Christian duty; for are we not commanded to hate sin? and the transition from the abstract to the concrete is so easy.[Pg 396]

I fancy, too, she did not harmonize altogether with Mrs. Henry Benson. Indeed, the two sisters-in law made little secret of their mutual incompatibility. Clara said that Louisa was very proper and very stupid, regular as a machine, and with no fun or frolic in her—that the only man she ever had about her, her cousin Philip, was as dull as herself,—that she dressed badly, and talked bad French,—that she went to church in the morning, and gossiped in the afternoon, and was more charitable to the bodies of her inferiors than to the souls of her equals. Louisa looked down upon Clara as a worldly and frivolous little creature, who fostered her beauty to attract admirers and worried her husband to death by her caprices, who wasted her time in dancing and flirting, and her money in Parisian nick-nacks, or in giving parties to people who did not care for her. In short, the two ladies said many hard things of each other when separate, and were painfully amiable when together.

But these bickerings did not greatly impair the happiness of our party at Ravenswood. The brothers loved each other as much as if they had not been brothers, and had not had to divide a large family estate between them. Even their wives' quarrels could not make them quarrel.

Many a jolly turn had they and their guest, lounging with their cigars after breakfast on the vine-trellised stoop, or under the spreading horse-chesnuts at one corner of the house, watching the white sails that glided by on the sunny water, and the fantastic cloudlets that floated in the clear sky; strolling through the winding walks, or across the terrace at evening, when the setting sun had piled red clouds like a huge volcano over the Hudson, and the Kaatskills looked like great blocks of lapis lazuli, their summits half veiled in fiery mist; riding through the adjacent country in bright moonlight nights, now threading their way among the uncertain bridle-paths of a dense wood, and anon startling a village with their clattering hoofs and boisterous merriment as they swept by it at full gallop; driving four-in-hand a livelong day to visit friends who lived north or south of them on the rivers, by roads that rose up over the hills and showed all the glorious panorama of the Hudson, and then dipped down inland among picturesque glens and water-courses and mill-streams. Capital game breakfast they had, which the women were not too sentimental to help them in doing justice to; and excellent plain dinners, with oceans of iced champagne; and when the cloth was drawn, Carl would chirp over his claret with as comfortable a melancholy as ever any "ruined" Protectionist gentleman in Old England gave utterance to.

At a very early period of their acquaintance, Henry Benson had put Ashburner up to the way of getting at the dark side of things in America. "Never assail anything," he said; "if you do, the people will tackle you, from the highest to the lowest. Let an American gentleman talk; give him his head, and he will soon lead you on the track you want." Acting on this hint, the Englishman let his host talk; what little he said himself would come in the form of a query or suggestion. "You lead a very nice life here," he would say, "but it is rather quiet. I should think an active man like yourself would choose some more stirring form of existence." Then Carl blazed out.

"Go into politics, I suppose! A nice business that for an honest man and a gentleman! Why, Ashburner, the democracy of our State, who are always in fear of being reduced to vassalage by a few thousand easy and unambitious rich men, have lost their liberties without perceiving it to hundreds of thousands of alien settlers with their foreign priests. A successful politician here is either a hack lawyer of thirty years' standing, who has had opportunity enough of getting used to the devil's work in his first business, or an upstart demagogue, who has made his way by dint of sheer brass; either a blind partisan, who knows nothing outside of "the regular ticket," or a "non-committal" man, who says everything to everybody, and never gave an intelligible, manly, straightforward opinion in his life. One party would sell us body and soul to the Slaveholders, and the other to the Anti-renters, and both to the Irish. If I could bring myself to enter the lists with such people, I should have to start with the dead weight of being a "millionaire" (as they call every man here who has two or three hundred thousand dollars) and an "aristocrat" (as they call every man who has the habits and education of a gentleman). There is not a voter in this county has less influence than I have;—to be sure, I don't try for any, because I well know that by doing so, I should only make myself more unpopular, without becoming any more influential. Or be a leader of fashion, perhaps—one of those people who talk scandal about one another all day long when they are not dancing, who try to pursue pleasure in a place where every one else is at work, and are so destitute of resources, that they quarrel for pure want of something to do. See what they have made of my brother, who is a clever fellow and a well-educated man, though I say it. He is becoming a third-rate dancer—one of Tom Edwards's corps; is growing frivolous and scandalous, and getting his earnest honesty knocked out of him every day. Or profess literature, possibly—Henry does a little of that too; you may see him in the magazines sandwiched between the last learned cobbler and the newest Laura Matilda of the West. No, I don't want to belong to any "Mutual Admiration" Society, and if I did, it's too late now. My mind has been spoken so often and so freely,[Pg 397] that were I to write a book as good as one of Fenimore Cooper's, (if you can imagine the possibility of such a thing even in hypothesis) no editor would notice it, and no one read it—unless it contained something personal. Here I shall stay and amuse myself in what one of our ex-great men used to call "dignified retiracy;" and if this railroad drives me out, why, then, ingens iterabimus æquor—to England, were I a bachelor, but my wife couldn't live there; no American woman can, after the attention she has been used to at home, except the ambassador's wife—so it will probably be to Italy, or perhaps to Paris, for a man can find occupation there, whatever be his peculiar bent, and fill up his time well in the place without knowing or liking the people."

"It does surprise me," said Ashburner, "that the terminus of a refined American's dream should always be Paris,—that whenever a man has means and leisure, he runs off thither, and stays as long as he can: and if not there, in some other place—anywhere but at home."

"Come now," broke in Henry Benson; he had retired with the ladies after dinner, and now rejoined the men to have some more claret,—"don't you English run over to Paris perpetually, and all around the continent? Don't we meet you everywhere in the four quarters of the globe? You don't like to stay at home any more than we do; only we are franker than you, and avow it."

"We go away from home, but we don't like to stay away," replied the Englishman.

"Exactly; and if we had a pied-à-terre close to the continent as you have, we should not like to stay away from home either—more than half the year. Here has Carl been making his moan to you about our unappreciated condition; it's always his way over the decanters—one of his amusements merely. (Carl, old fellow, pass the Laffitte this way.) Well, I think," and he paused to fill a brimming glass, "that we are very jolly victims; and for my part, I am quite disposed to play, regardless of my doom. Look at our wives and children, our houses and horses, our whole style of living. Ponder well on this Bourdeaux; ruminate on those woodcocks we have been discussing. What miserable misused fellows we are! We do live in a great country—we have such civil and religious liberty as is enjoyed in only one other country in the world; and if we don't have the management of the government, why no one here or abroad holds us responsible for what the government does, and that is just the condition Plato thought a philosopher should pray for. Fill up again, brother mine, and thank your stars that you have your time to yourself, and are not a parliament man, as Ashburner is going to be, and are not set to work twelve hours a day among blue books and red tape."

And now, reader, these papers, which have been running on for a year or more, are wound up. I did not begin them intending to give you anything marvellous, or new, or profound about the aspect, prospects, and destiny, political, religious, or literary, of the great people among whom I am a small unit. I only intended to present you with some phases of outward life and manners—such things as would strike or interest a stranger in our beloved Gotham, and in the places to which regular Gothamites—American cockneys, so to speak—are wont to repair. For I am but a cockney in my own country; I have never travelled far in it,—good reason why, when they are apt to hang up a man at one end of the Union for what is a sort of religion at the other. They did not aspire to be "Sketches of American Society" (that was an honorary prefix of yours, Mr. Editor), nor even Sketches of New-York Society, but only of a very small class of persons in New-York; and therefore I had originally headed them "The Upper Ten Thousand," in accordance with a phrase established by Mr. Willis, though even that is an exaggeration, for the people so designated are hardly as many hundred. In truth, I began the series chiefly to amuse some Cantab friends of mine, who were curious to know how the gentlemen that were their contemporaries and representatives in our Atlantic cities, lived, and eat, and dressed, and amused themselves; what their habits and pursuits and propensities were. The last thing that I expected was that any of them should be read, much less republished, on my side the water. To a New-Yorker, many things which they contain must necessarily appear stale, stupid, and commonplace. For instance, in one number half a page is taken up with the description of a trotting-wagon; to an American I should as soon think of describing a pair of boots; the one is as familiar an object to him as the other. But at the very first number, some clever folks took it into their heads that they were to be very personal,—that every character described or even alluded to in them was to represent a real living prototype; that was enough to make them sought after. And it really did happen that in that first number I had described a sleigh which actually existed in real wood and iron somewhere about the city; and the inference above detailed was obvious. It is not every story in Gotham that has so much foundation; in fact, they get them up frequently without any foundation to speak of, only unfortunately the narratives don't fall to the ground as readily as the houses do. It is hardly worth while contradicting such idle rumors, but to my American readers (since I have some, much to my own amazement) I wish to say one thing once for all—that Harry Benson is not meant to represent any living individual whatsoever, and that his wife, house, horses, and other accessaries, are not designed after[Pg 398] the corresponding appurtenances of any real person. And the same remark applies with equal force to all the appendages of Carl Benson, as delineated in this very sketch.

Still, I suppose I ought to be obliged to the members of "our set" who got up this idea; for the factitious interest thus communicated to these papers has caused them to be reprinted (in the cheap and multitudinous style of American reprints), and thus to become known to the outsiders both of our own city and of other parts of the country, who could perhaps judge them more fairly on their own merits, from having no knowledge of, or interest in, the local celebrities supposed to be portrayed in them. Some have been disposed to accept them as what they were really meant for—light sketches of life and manners in a certain circle; some have had the bad taste to wax furious at them. I understand that a few southern editors have departed from their usual stoical calmness and dignified reserve on the subject, to assail me for my occasional allusions to "the peculiar institution;" and am told (life is too short, and time too precious, to read such things oneself, but there are always good-natured friends to put you up to them) that a correspondent of the Ochloratic Review and No Government Advocate, who probably never wore a decent coat in his life, and regards every man in a clean shirt as an oppressor of the people, has seriously taken me to ask for representing some of my characters as elegantly dressed! If this individual could find nothing worse to say of my papers, after nine months examination of them, methinks he might have continued to hold his tongue; but I suppose any trash will do for the Ochlocratic.

Whether the abuse of these persons, or the praise of others, or my own inclination, may tempt me hereafter to essay something more definite and connected, I will not say at present. Of the things that "lie on the knees of the Gods," it becomes no man to speak prematurely. Meanwhile, make a long arm across the Atlantic—So—shake hands, and good-bye!

Frank Manhattan.

From Dickens's Household Words.

THE FLYING ARTIST.

Karl Herwitz is a German. He is about fifty years of age, and one of the most original of characters. Since I have know [known] him, I have passed whole nights in listening to his adventures, which are in general as instructive as they are amusing. Married at a very early age, he left the military career for that of inventions. He had a most marvellous talent for conceiving novel machines, often of practical utility; but his soul was set upon perfecting a flying machine. To this he had devoted nearly his whole life. He made models, he tried experiments, he brought to bear all his prodigious knowledge of mathematics on the subject of travelling in air, with an enthusiasm, a childish earnestness, which is not uncharacteristic of genius. He studied every natural law which was likely to advance him towards the consummation of all his hopes and desires—namely, the ability to fly. At one time his little garden was turned into an aviary. He filled it with birds of various kinds, to study the mechanism of their powers of flight. There was the eagle and the dove, the vulture and the sparrow, all of which were made subservient to his darling object. He has often explained all this to me. "The Golden Eagle," he once said, "can cleave the air at the rate of forty miles an hour. Now, if I can succeed in imitating the mechanism by which he travels in space, exactly and efficiently, of course, my machine will move in the air at the same pace." What could I say? No argument, no warning, availed. Still he went on, hoping and working, and buying expensive tools and materials. He completed aërial ships one after another; and although none of them answered, he was never discouraged.

At one time, however, he thought he had succeeded. His contrivance was a curious affair, shot out of a bomb; but it was about as buoyant as a shot, fell, and failed, disheartening everybody but the persevering projector. Still he did not wholly neglect useful productions, and several times made improvements in mechanism, and sold them for very good prices. But the money went as fast as it came. His winged Pegasus was a merciless Ogre, which swallowed up all the money the old German earned.

Last Christmas-eve, in Paris, five of us were collected, after dinner, round a roaring fire, half wood, half charcoal. For some time the conversation was general enough. We spoke of England and of an English Christmas. The magic spell of the fireside was felt, and the word "home" hung on the trembling lip of all; for we were in a foreign land; we were all English, save one. There was a lawyer, the most unlawyer-like man I ever knew, a noble-hearted fellow, whom to know is to like; there was a poet, of an eccentric order of merit, whose love of invective, bitter satire, and intense propensity to hate—whose fantastic and Germanic cast of philosophy will ever prevent his succeeding among rational beings; then there was an artist, a young man well known in the world, not half so much as he deserves, if kindness of soul could ever make a man famous; there was Citizen Karl Herwitz, as he loved to be called; lastly myself. I had been speaking of some far-off land, relating some personal adventure; and, with commendable modesty, feeling that I had held possession of the chair quite long enough, paused for a reply.

"Tell us your adventures at the Court of Konningen," said the poet, standing up to see that his hair hung tastefully around his shoulders, addressing at the same time Karl, and mentioning the name of one of the smaller German states. "I have heard it before,[Pg 399] but it will be new to the rest, and I promise them a rich treat."

"Ah!" sighed the German, with a huge puff at his long pipe; "that was an adventure—or rather a whole string of adventures. I have told it several times; but, if you like, I will tell it again."

All warmly called on the German to keep his promise. After freshly loading his pipe, and taking a drain at his glass, he drew his arm-chair closer to the fire, settled his feet on the chenets, and began his narrative in a quaint and strange English, which I shall not seek to copy:—

"I had spent all my money. I had sold all my property. There remained nothing but a little furniture in my house, which was in a quiet retired quarter of the town; but then I had completed a machine, and sent it for the approval of the Minister of the Interior, who promised to purchase it for the government. I now looked forward with delight to a long career of success, and saw the completion of my flying machine in prospect. On this I depended, and still depend, for fame, reputation, and fortune.

"I had then a good wife and four children; she is dead now." The German paused, puffed away vigorously at his pipe, and tried to hide his emotion from our view by enveloping himself in smoke.

"I was naturally impatient for some result," he continued, when his face became once more visible.—"I used to go every day to the Minister, and wait in the antechamber, with other suitors, for my turn. Weeks passed, and then months, and yet it never came. But we must all eat, and six mouths are not fed for nothing. We had no resources, save our clothes and our furniture. My clothes were needed to go out with, so the furniture went first. One article was sold, and the produce applied by my careful wife to the wants of the family. We had come to that point when food is the only thing which must be looked on as a necessity. We lived hardly indeed. Bread, and a little soup, was all we ever attempted to indulge in."

Six months passed without any change for the better. I went to the Minister's every day; sometimes I saw him, and sometimes I did not. He was always very polite, bowed to me affably, said my machine was under consideration, should be reported on immediately, and passed on his way. It was the dead of winter. Every article of furniture was now gone, my wife and children having not gone out for two months for want of clothes. We huddled together, for warmth, on two straw mattresses, in the corner of an empty room, without table, without chairs, without fire. Catherine had nothing to wear but an old cotton gown and one under-garment. We had not eaten food for a day and a night, when I rose in the morning to go to the Minister's. I felt savage, irate, furious. I thought of my starving and perishing family, of the long delay which had taken place in the consideration of my machine. I compared the luxurious ease of the Minister with my own position, and was inclined to do some desperate act. I think I could have turned conspirator, and have overthrown the Government. I was already half a misanthrope.

When I entered the Minister's antechamber, I placed myself, as usual, near the stove. I kept away from the well-dressed mob as much as possible. They were solicitors, it is true, and humble enough, some of them; but then they had good coats on, smart uniforms, polite boots, and came, perhaps, in carriages. I came on foot, clad in a long frock reaching almost to my heels, patched in several places; with trousers so darned about the calves as to be almost falling to pieces; with boots which were absolutely only worn for look, for they had no soles to them. My hat, too, was a dreadful-looking thing. This day, being faint with hunger, and pinched by the cold, the heat of the room overcame me, and I grew dizzy. I am sure I knew nothing of what passed around. I saw my wife and children, through a misty haze, starving with hunger and cold. A basket full of logs of wood lay beside my knee. Reckless, wild, not caring who saw me, I took a thick log, huddled it under my frock, and went away. I passed the porter's lodge unseen; I was in the open air; I was proud, I was happy. I had stolen a log of wood; but my children would have fire for one day.

When I got home I went to bed. I was feverish and ill; wild shapes floated round me; I saw the officers of justice after me; I beheld a furious mob chasing me along interminable fields; and on every hedge, and every tree, and every house, and every post, I read, in large letters, the word "thief." It was evening when I awoke. I looked around for some minutes without moving or speaking; a delicious fragrance seemed to fill the air, a fire blazed on the hearth, and round it huddled my wife and children, sitting on logs of wood. I rubbed my eyes. The presence of these logs of wood seemed to convince me that I still dreamed. But there was an odor of mutton broth, which was too real to be mistaken.

"Catherine," said I, "why, you seem to have some food."

All came rushing to my bedside, mother and children. They scarcely spoke; but one brought a basin of broth, another a hunch of bread, another a plate of meat and potatoes, which had been kept hot before the fire. I was too faint and sick to talk. I took my broth slowly. Never did food prove a greater blessing. Life, reason, courage, hope, all seemed to return, as mouthful by mouthful I swallowed the nourishing liquid. It spread warmth and comfort through every fibre of my frame. When I had taken this, I ate the meat, and vegetables, and bread, without[Pg 400] fear. While I did so, my wife, sending the children back to the fire-place, told me, in a whisper, how she had procured such unexpected subsistence. It seems that scarcely had I got home, and, after flinging my log on the ground, rushed to bed, when a knock came to the door. Catherine went to answer it. A man of middle age entered. He gave a hurried glance around, seemed to shudder at its emptiness, looked at the next room through the open door, saw that it was as bare as the other, turned his eyes away from the crouching form of my half-dressed wife, and spoke:—

"Have you any children?"

"Four," said Catherine, tremblingly; but, still, answering at once, so peremptory was the tone of the stranger.

"How long have you been in this state?"

"Six months."

"Your husband is Karl Herwitz, the mechanist?"

"He is, sir."

"Well, madam, please to tell him that I recognized him as he came out of the Minister's of the Interior, and, noticing what he clutched with such wild energy, followed him here. Tell him, I am not rich, but I can pay my debts; I owe him the sum contained in this purse. I am happy to pay it."

"And did he owe it you?" said I, anxiously.

No, replied Karl; he had never seen me or heard of me before. Generous Englishman! I shall never forget him. I found out afterwards that he was a commercial traveller, with a large family and a moderate income. On what he left we lived a month, by exercising strict economy. I did not go to the Minister's for several days. I feared some one might have seen me, and I was bowed by shame. But, at last, I mustered courage, and presented myself at the audience. I was, as usual, totally unnoticed, and I resumed my wretched dangling in the antechamber, as usual. The result was always the same. Generally I caught a glimpse of the Minister; but, when I did, it was eternally the same words. Meanwhile time swept rapidly by, and soon my misery was as great as ever. My children, who during the past month had recovered a little their health and looks, looked pale and wan again. I was more shabby, more dirty, more haggard and starved-looking than ever. Once again I went out, after our all being without food for some twenty-four hours. I knew not what to do. I walked along the street turning over every possible expedient in my mind.

Suddenly I saw, on the opposite side of the way, a lieutenant belonging to the regiment I had quitted. He had been my intimate friend, but so shabby was I, that I sought to avoid him. He saw me, however, and, to my surprise, hurried across and shook me heartily by the hand. I could scarcely restrain tears; so sure was I, in my present state, to be cut by even old friends. But, in my worst troubles, something has always turned up to make me love and cherish the human heart.

"My poor Karl," said he, "the world uses you badly."

"Very;" said I: and in a few words I told my story.

"My dear Karl!" he exclaimed, when I had concluded, "I was going to ask you to dine with me on what I have left. I am come up to claim a year's arrears of pay, and have been sent back with a free passage and promises. But I have a little silver; and, as I said, meant to ask you to devour it. But after what you have told me, will you share my purse with me for your wife and children's sake?" And he pulled out a purse containing about the value of five shillings English, forced me to take half, shook me heartily by the hand, and hurried away to escape my thanks.

Home I rushed with mad eagerness, a loaf in one hand, the rest of the money in the other. My poor wife once more could give food to her little ones. On the morning of the third day after I had obtained this little help, I lay in bed, ruminating. I was turning over in my mind every possible expedient by which to raise enough money to go on with, a brief time, until my machine was really decided on by the Government. Suddenly I sat up in my bed and addressed my wife:

"How much money have you got left, Catherine?"

She had threepence of your money.

"Can you manage with the loaf of bread then, and three-halfpence for to-day?"

"I have often managed on less," said she.

"Then give me three-halfpence to take out with me."

"But what are you going to do? We may have nothing to-morrow, and then the three-halfpence will be missed."

"Give!" said I, rather sternly, reflecting as I was on my scheme; "be assured, it is for our good."

My poor wife gave me the money with a very ill grace, but without another word; and, rising, I went out. When in the street, I directed my footsteps towards the outskirts. They were soon reached. I halted before a tavern frequented wholly by workmen, and going into the public room, called for a choppe of beer. I had purposely chosen my position. Before me was a handsome, neatly-dressed young workman, who, like all his companions, was smoking and drinking beer. Quietly, without saying a word, I drew out a small note-book and a drawing-pencil. I was then considered a very good artist; but had only used my pencil to sketch models. But I now sketched the human face with care and anxiety. Presently, as my pencil was laid down, a man sitting next to me peeped over my shoulder.

"Why!" he cried, "that's Alexis, to the life."[Pg 401]

"How so?" said the man I had been sketching, holding out his hand, into which I put my note-book.

"Good!" cried he, while a smile of satisfaction covered his face. "Will you sell this? I should like to keep it."

"I will sell it if you like," replied I, as quietly as I could, though my heart was nigh bursting with excitement.

"How much?"

I knew my man, and asked but six sous, threepence, which the workman gladly paid, while five others followed his example, at the same price. I went home a proud and happy man with my thirty-six pence of copper. Would you believe it? that was the commencement of a long and prosperous career, which lasted until the Revolution of 1848 threw me back again. Six months after, I received a thousand florins for a portrait in oil of the Grand Duchess of B——; and about the end of the same year I drove up to the Hotel of the Minister of the Interior in a splendid carriage, a gentleman by my side; it was the English commercial traveller.

We had a letter of audience, and were admitted at once. The Minister rose, and after a very warm greeting, requested us to be seated. We took chairs.

"My dear Herwitz," said the Minister, a little, bowing, smirking man, "what can I do for you? Glad to see you doing so well. The Grand Duchess says wonders of you. I will have the committee on your machine."

"I beg your pardon," said I, "but I have come to request your written order for its removal. I have sold it to the English house represented by this gentleman."

"Its removal!" cried the astonished Minister; "impossible! so excellent an invention should not pass into the hands of foreigners."

"So I thought," replied I, coldly, "when for nine months I waited daily in your antechamber, with my family starving at home. But it is now sold. My word is my bond."

The Minister bit his lip, but made no reply. He took up a sheet of paper, and wrote the order for removal. I took it, bowed stiffly, and came away.

We all heartily thanked the old German for his narrative. Since the Revolution, and the consequent impossibility of selling his machines in Germany, he has come to Paris, and taken to portrait-painting once more. His perseverance and endurance are untiring. His wife died long since, and he is like a mother to his four girls;—all of whom are most industrious and devoted. He still believes in his flying machine; but, for the sake of his parental love, his hard-working head and fingers—for the sake of his goodness of soul, his eccentricities, he must be forgiven for this invincible credulity.

None can fail to admire the original dreamer when he is also a practical worker; while few will be willing to patronize the mere visionary, who is always thinking and never doing.

From Ainsworth's Magazine.

ART EXPRESSION.

"What is the highest degree of expression that art can delineate?" said Piombino. "Sleep," replied the master, to the surprise of all present, not excepting Leonardo. "I will explain," resumed Michael Angelo, "lest you should have misapprehended me. When I say that sleep is the highest expression that artist can put into form, I mean that it is the last and crowning effort of art; that it is the figure surmounting the pyramid on whose sides are prefigured life's many phases—all passion, emotion, thought. And to elevate the idea to its highest limit, it is necessary to depict it in youth—witness the Venus asleep—in order that man may feel how turbulent a sea of life is calmed under its spell." "But would not death itself express as much—a peace to the same passions, a peace more lasting?" said Piombino. "No," said Michael Angelo, "the passions live in sleep; are growing; in death they are at an end; hence in sleep the eye is closed to hide the naked forms of passion that lie within; in death the eye is open and sightless, a circumstance so effectually related in marble—a material in which the open eye has a look of death united to immortality."...

"But you have not told us," said Leonardo da Vinci, on observing that Piombino was satisfied, "in what consists this long debated notion which we call the fine ideal?" "By the fine ideal," said Michael Angelo. "I presume we both understand not the work of art itself, but the conception out of which it springs. Art is the exercise of an imitative faculty upon visible things; but fine art is the transcendental idea entertained after the study of nature, and transferred from the mind itself to the canvas or marble." "How is that idea acquired?" asked Leonardo. "The study of unsophisticated nature yields the ideal, or similitude of things seen; and this study, impressing the recollection, affords in due time a conception of abstract beauty itself to curious and sensitive minds." "By what process can such conception be achieved?" "Alas! to make real progress in this enterprise demands, on setting out, the possession of the finest faculties; powers so transcendental as few are able to value. Such is, however, the prospect of all who deserve success in the highest departments of knowledge." "Let us suppose one to be thus endowed; what then?" "Well, let him go forth in a genial mood and make himself master of the real; this done, he will have observed the groupings of inanimate forms, and have learned nature's failures and successes in giving features to the world. He will then ask what each feature would express, whether it be not something spiritual which lies deeper than the outer shape. Does the human face alone give utterance through its lineaments to thought and feeling? are not those of the landscape also pregnant with meaning?"

[Pg 402]

From the Paris Journal des Debats.

THE MEETING OF THE VEGETARIANS.

The Vegetarians lately held a meeting in London, under the presidency of Mr. Brotherton, M.P. There were about 400 persons present; as many women as men; a great many children, and a great many Quakers; and as in that country people dine à propos of everything, even when they only live on vegetables, there was a banquet of Vegetarians. We have no need to say that the flesh of all kinds of animals was rigorously excluded; the bill of fare consequently could be neither so brilliant nor so full of variety as those of Guildhall or the Hotel de Ville. These was only little pies of mushrooms, toasted bread and parsley, rice cakes, blanc mange, cheese tarts, and all sorts of pastry. The desert was composed of raspberries, cherries, and preserves; the whole washed down with tea, milk, coffee, and iced water. After dinner there naturally came speeches. It is probable, from the bill of fare, that the speakers were in full possession of their sang froid; they have then no excuse for making, and it is not permitted for any one to make, after such dinners, such speeches as they delivered. If a speech be inevitable in an English banquet, there is also something inevitable in the speech, a quotation from the Bible. The Bible (we ask pardon for the expression on account of the circumstance) is served up with all sorts of sauce. The President of the Vegetarians, then, relied on the verse in Genesis, in which it is said: "And God said—Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed: to you it shall be for meat." That is very good, but something else is to be found in the Bible; and if the Vegetarians quote to us the 29th verse of the first chapter of Genesis, we may answer them with the 28th, in which God, after having created man and woman, said: "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth!" So much for the theological part of the question; but there remains the political part, that of economy and health. In a political point of view, the Vegetarians place their panacea above all others; according to them, society will not be regenerated until all men shall live on parsley and tapioca: "Passing in review," says the report, "all the plans of social reform, the Peace Congress, popular education, &c.," the chairman expressed the opinion that none of these plans attack the root of the evil, and that a reform in eating and drinking should precede all others, "For," said he, "a man who, from conscientious motives, shall abstain from the slaughter of animals, will not be guilty of murder of his fellow creatures." As to the economic part of the question, the Vegetarians are decided free-traders, decided partisans of direct exchange. "It has been proved," said the chairman, "that the nutritious quality of animals is derived from vegetables, and, consequently, men take their good second-hand." The Vegetarians declare then for the abolition of intermediaries and for direct consumption. As for health, the advantages of the vegetable system are presented to us under the most encouraging colors. Thus, the East Indians, the porters of Cairo and Constantinople, and in general a great part of the Orientals, never eat meat, and yet they are the finest types of the human race. The Russians eat black wheat, the Scotch oats, and they are very industrious laborers. To this it may be answered, that if the Orientals eat little or no flesh, it is probably for them an affair of temperature as well as of temperament; that the conditions of health are not the same in all countries; that if the peasants of the North do not eat meat, it is probably because they cannot get it; if the English army were fed on rice, oats, and milk, instead of roast beef and beer, we should be curious to know the results of the régime. But that does not prevent men from being in good health by indulging in an enormous consumption of parsley; that herb is only fatal to parrots. The chairman of the Vegetarians, Mr. Brotherton, is a living proof of it. For forty two years he has followed the vegetable régime, and he affirms that it suits him. There was also in the meeting an American, who came expressly all the way from Philadelphia, and who had belonged to the fraternity for forty years. He declared that he enjoyed the best health, that he had five children, all well, that his children had married vegetarians, that he had twenty-one grandchildren, who could never be made to taste meat. There is in the society one member of parliament, and, we may perceive sometimes, that the others do not live on raspberries and cream; there is a magistrate, before whom there will be no necessity of appealing to Philip Sober; there is an alderman, and we hope that he was not the other day at the Hotel de Ville; there are 21 medical men, but they are there for the sake of experiment; there are ten members of the clergy, but that is not many; there are ten literary men—alas! it is, perhaps, not their fault! And there are 50 lawyers, 26 merchants, 11 fundholders, 871 workmen—in all 718, of whom 513 are men, and 205 female. We remember having seen at Paris an Englishman who made a very large fortune by selling pills entirely composed of extracts of vegetables. A caricature once represented his patients in full flower, that is covered with carrots, turnips, and potatoes, proving the success of the medicine. Perhaps we shall see it proved that it is forbidden to men to eat animals, and we do not despair of seeing it proved that it is permitted to animals to eat men.

[Pg 403]

Authors and Books.

The magazine literature of Germany is quite different from ours, a fact which generally speaking is not to its discredit. Indeed there are several periodicals in Germany which may be compared with the best English magazines for their varied excellence, while their cost is comparatively trifling. Among these are the Deutsche Monatschrift, a republican monthly, edited by Adolf Kolatscheck, and published at Stuttgart; and the Grenzboten, a weekly, of conservative and constitutional opinions, edited by Gustav Freytag, and Julian Schmidt, and published at Leipzig. The American reader of these two periodicals, will have an excellent apprehension of the general scope and tendencies of current thought in Germany, as well as some knowledge of the new books as they make their appearance. Those who wish a convenient and cheap mode of becoming acquainted with the productions of German novelists, may find it in the Illustrirtes Familienbuch, (Illustrated Family Book), published monthly at Treves. This is mainly made up of romances by the best writers of the day; there is also a department for artistic criticism, but it is not very good. The engravings are tolerable.

German Poets are prolific just now. Mr. Hoppl has brought out a volume at Stuttgart, full of suppressed tears and melancholy miseries. He is unloved and unappreciated, and must, therefore, have a bad time in this dreary and woeful world. Of a similar strain is the second edition of Carl August Lebret's Gedichte, likewise published at Stuttgart; if anything he is more pitiable and stupid than Hoppl. Adolph Glassbrenner, of Berlin, serves up poems of another sort, in his freshly printed third edition. He is known to every reader of current German literature as a comic writer of no small ability, and these poems prove his talent. They are mostly political in their tendency, and are good of their kind. Dunkles Laub (Dark Leaves) is a youthful poem of Mr. Frederik Ruperti, published at Bremen. It recounts the awful experiences, and spiritual and other struggles of the author's youth. He suffers especially from an unhappy passion, and is apparently convinced that the man never lived who endured so much. Still, he shows great poetic ability, and now that his youth is disposed of something may be hoped from him.

Freiligrath, the German poet, is the subject of a searching, yet mildly expressed criticism, in that excellent periodical, the Grenzboten, of Leipzig. The writer finds that he is superficial in feeling, without a genuine sense of poetic melody, and not remarkable for mental power.

A tenth edition of Brockhaus's Conversations-Lexicon is now passing through the press. The first edition was published in 1796. Of the fifth edition, which appeared in 1818, 32,000 copies were sold; of the seventh (1826) 27,000; of the eighth (1832) 31,000; of the ninth (1843) 30,000. The supplementary works issued between the editions, and devoted to current matters, have also had a large sale. Of the Conversations-Lexicon der Neuesten Zeit und Literatur, (4 vols. 1832-34) 27,000 copies were sold; of the Conversations-Lexicon der Gegenwart (4 vols. 1838-1841) 18,000; and the Gegenwart which is now appearing is also sold largely. The new edition promises to be written in the same spirit of moderation and liberalism as its predecessors, but if the articles of the Gegenwart afford an indication, it will be more "progressive" and radical, and less careful to satisfy all parties.

An excellent German critic says of the preface to Lamartine's History of the Restoration, that it is as coquettish as everything in the historic way that has come from Lamartine's pen of late years. He coquets with the conflict of his own understanding and sentiments. His heart still beats for the ancient dynasty; his mind decides for the republic—a very serious state of things, not only for a statesman, who is called to share in the immediate development of affairs, and who can never arrive at unity of action, as long as feeling and reflection impel him to different courses, but also for the historian. Lamartine, says the writer, is a remarkable example of that mixture which is often found among the French, of fantastic sentimentality, and frivolous, superficial reflection. He is especially remarkable, because he has converted this mixture, of which in most cases, the person is unconscious, into a sort of system, and justifies it accordingly. The understanding says Yes, the heart says No, but both speak vivaciously and clearly, showing that he has them both in a high degree. This consoles him for the want of harmony between the two; he never thinks that in such harmony the reality of both consists.

Robert Prutz, the well-known German historian, has just made his appearance as a novelist with a romance in three parts, called Das Engelchen (The Little Angel). A large portion of it has been previously published in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, where it has excited a profound interest. From the author's previous achievements as a lyric and dramatic poet, his success in this new sphere is only what was to be expected. The Little Angel is a novel of modern society.[Pg 404]

Zwrei Monate in Paris (Two Months in Paris), by Adolphe Stahr, is published by Schulze in Oldenburg. Lest our readers should infer from the name of the author that this is a political work of solid character, we subjoin the following remark by a German reviewer, "Written in a light, easy, careless vein, this work helps to augment the already colossal pile of books relating to Paris, but is by no means such as we should have expected from the representative of the Prussian revolution. Nay, it has been already surpassed by two recent and similar productions—the one by a lady, a little art-criticism, a little literature, a few theatrical items, a bal mabille, a visit to Heine, and the sketch of a meeting of workmen, with their songs, all written in that tolerably piquant, lively style, with which we have however of late been surfeited, form a book, agreeable enough, it is true, but not such as we should, in these earnest, serious times, have expected from such a writer." The American reader may however draw a very different conclusion from that of this "earnest and serious reviewer."

The last lesson usually taken by the student of ancient art is that in gems—cameos, intaglios, and the like—a fact the more surprising since nine-tenths of the spirit of classic life and beauty is thus extant in miniature. The Venus di Medicis and the Apollo Belvidere, the Parthenon and the Temple of the Winds—every variety of mosaic, and half-obliterated scrap of fresco are familiar to the dilettante, ere he reflects over the incredible grace, beauty, and spirit displayed in the exquisite design of nearly every classic gem. Those, however, who have learned to appreciate this department of ancient art, will welcome the appearance of Kohler's Gesammelte Schriften, (and the collected essays of H. K. E. Kohler), forming the best work known on this subject. In it we find, treated in a masterly manner, all the intricate methods of judging of ancient gems with modern inscriptions, gems of an uncertain era, and modern imitations of ancient cutting. The "darker side" of the work consists of violent and unmerited attacks on rival writers. Published by Leopold Vossin, Leipzig.

Among the cheapest and most attractive books for children which we have met with are the recently published Munich Bilderbücher, or picture-books, consisting of thin folios of all manner of neatly-designed fancies, many of them by eminent artists. They contain fairy tales, humorous sketches, historical illustrations, and a vast number of pictures in the well-known Slovenly Peter style, but far more attractive. Many are colored, and the publisher has judiciously printed a number on thick, parchment-like paper, well adapted to withstand the wear and tear of the nursery.

Books are no longer written in Latin. For literature and learning that good old language has finally given way, in almost every country, during the present century. In the United States there have been produced some fifty volumes in Latin since the Revolution, nearly all of which are by foreigners. The Life of Washington, by Francis Glass, a western schoolmaster, is the most considerable contribution to Latin literature by a native American. In Europe only a few pedantic churchmen continue to write to dead nations, and it is perhaps well enough that they should do so, since scarce any of them have fit thoughts for the living age, or for tongues that have been used by free and thinking men. We find an exception to the prevailing law in De Caroli Timothei Zumptii Vita et Studiis Narratio August. Wilh. Zumptii. Every body is familiar with the name of Zumpt as that of one of the most learned Latinists of the last half century, and it is appropriate that his life should be written in a language to the study and illustration of which it was almost entirely devoted. The Lives of Hemsterhuys by Ruhnken, of Ruhnken by Wyttenbach, and of Wyttenbach by Mahne, have long been the delight of scholars, and have furnished some of the best specimens of modern Latinity. Zumpt will not take rank among philologers with these great lights of the eighteenth century, but he rendered services to learning which will deserve a memorial, and in moral qualities he was not inferior to any of them. He became in succession a teacher in other Gymnasia in Berlin, and ultimately Professor of History in the Military College, and of Latin Eloquence in the University. He published the first edition of his celebrated Grammar in 1818, and it soon became known throughout the civilized world. Of his other publications the most considerate is his edition of the Verrine Orations of Cicero; his Dissertations on the Population of the Ancient World, De Legibus Judiciisque Repetundarum, and several others, show that he was well versed in antiquities, but grammar, criticism, and style were his proper field. Wolf pronounced himself and Zumpt the only men in Berlin who could write Latin. His incessant labors undermined his constitution, and brought on a premature decay; and for some time before his death he had become entirely blind. He died at Carlsbad in 1849.

A third edition of Thibaut's well-known work, Uber Reinheit der Tonkunst, with a preface by the Minister R. Bahr, and a portrait of Palestrina, has just made its appearance, from the establishment of the well-known publisher Mohr, of Heidelberg.

A new course of Proces Celebres is to be published by Brockhaus, of Leipsic. Number one contains the Proces du Comte et de la Comtesse Bocarme.[Pg 405]

Remak Rob. Untersuchungen über d. Enturckelung der Wirbelthiere, Berlin, 1851. All who are interested in theories of the development of organic life will welcome the appearance of this work, which has been received with cordial approbation by the most eminent German physiologists. This second volume is devoted to the development of "the chicken in the egg," and is illustrated with seven admirable copper-plates. Notwithstanding the researches of Everard Horne, Ratke, and others into this department, this work of Remak's is distinguished by an even more accurate and detailed examination of phenomena, and it may confidently be classed among the first of the age. This is the opinion of The Centralblatt. The engravings are by Haase. This Robert Remak is the brother of Gustav Remak, an eminent German lawyer in Philadelphia.

In the Archives for the Study of Modern Languages and Literature we observe a paper by one G. Jap, entitled, Why does the English Language, in its acquisition and combination of new words, rather incline to the classic tongues than the copious and flexible German element? To which we may answer, "Alas, why, indeed?" Why is not the study of the Saxon Testament generally introduced? and why are not school-boys familiarized with the older forms of our own language—as they are in Germany made to study the Neibelungen Lied, and Wackernagel's Reader? We can imagine no argument in favor of a study of Greek which might not be with equal force applied to Saxon and good old English.

A work has recently appeared in Breslan bearing the title, The Higher Classes, as they are, and as they should be, by Count Arnim Blumberg: written in the month of February, 1851. That the aristocracy of Germany at the present day are far from being the practical philanthropists which they should be is beyond a doubt, but that they will become such by inspiring them with piety, in the unfortunate, melancholy sense in which that word is generally taken at the present day on the continent, is still more doubtful. Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, is piety in America—something contrasting remarkably with the mystical and world-renouncing pietismus of modern Germany.

A second "completely renewed and greatly increased" edition of Berthold Auerbach's Deutsche Abende, or German Evenings, has been published by Bassorman, of Mannheim. Auerbach is in this country rapidly attaining the popularity which was held a few years since by Zschokke. Apropos of the latter, we remark a neat and very cheap edition of all his works, now publishing by Sauerländer, of Aarau.

One of the most important architectural works which has ever made its appearance is now being published by Meissner, of Hamburg, bearing the title Denkmaler der Bankunst aller Zeiten und Lander (Monuments of the Architecture of every Era and Country), by Jules Gailhaband, and published for Germany under care and contribution of Dr. Franz Kugler. The literary and artistic excellence of the original work is too well known to render description necessary, and its improvement is guaranteed from its being under the care of Kugler, who is perhaps better qualified, æsthetically, for such a task, than any German, or indeed any one living. The 197 and 198 livraisons which now appear, contain engravings of the Chateau Chambord in France, the Mosque of Hassan in Cairo, the Temple of Gerschen in Nubia, the Baths of Caracalla, sketches of bridges of the middle ages, the Palace of Strozzi, and many others. In connection with this we may mention the Entwurfez Land-und. Stadt Gebauden, or Sketches for Domestic Architecture by F. W. Holz, a work which may be commended as suggestive rather than practical, but still on that very account to be commended to young architects desirous of developing their creative powers.

Without wishing to render aught save honor to all who diligently pursue the minutest departments of science, we are still at times reminded, by occasional works, of the professor who was honored as one inspired by "a full German blood and a Fatherland's spirit," for a book—the result of thirty years' unwearied application—on bigamy and polygamy among grasshoppers. We are irresistibly reminded of this anecdote by a "preliminary notice" of some thirty odd years' observations of "certain varieties of thrushes," which are shortly to appear in an ornithological magazine at Stuttgart.

Among a mass of Lutheran Church literature recently published in Germany, we observe Vogel Ernst Gust's Bibliotheca Biographica Lutherana, Ubersicht der zedruckten Dr. Martin Luther betreffenden biograph. Schriften, id est, (Gustavus Ernst Vogel's Biographical Lutheran Library: a notice of all the printed works extant referring to the life of Dr. Martin Luther.) This work will be found extremely interesting to all readers of the History of the Reformation, since it embraces notices of many important works which might otherwise escape attention.

A work interesting to those who like to follow out the different political trains of thought developed in these "working" times, has recently been published by Rumpfer of Hanover, bearing the title. The Excellence of a Constitutional Monarchy for England, and its inapplicability to the other countries of Europe.[Pg 406]

The German critics notice an increased interest in what relates to Art and Literature in the Middle Ages. Among other singular but interesting works, we observe the commencement of a series of "Manufacturing or Trade Chronicles" of that time, containing "researches into the mediæval sources and archives of many German cities, and consisting of items never before printed," published at St. Gall, in Switzerland, by Scheitlin and Zollikoffer. As Switzerland is eminently the country wherein the ancient guilds, or business associations of the Middle Ages, have longest continued in their original form, we may remark a peculiar appropriateness in the fact that such a work should there make its first appearance. This volume consists of The Chronicles of the honorable Association of Butchers. Also, the publication of a manuscript, Thetmari magistri, iter ad Terram Sanctum, 1217, (Thetmar's Journey to the Holy Land, in 1217,) by Huber & Co., of St. Gall: edited by T. Tobler. With which we would cite Koninc Ermenrikes Düt. The death of King Ermenrich, an old Flemish Song and Legend of Theodoric, discovered with notes, by Jac. Grimm, Hanover: pub. by Ehlerman, price 15s. groschen. This work, which we have as yet not seen, has, however, been spoken of in terms of high praise, as "although in many places wanting, still excellent, as giving yet another glance into the rich vein of German Legendary, and Lyrical Life." Fault is, however, found with the publisher for a want of precision and accuracy. Conrad Schwenck publishes through Saunerlander, a "Mythology of the Ancient German" while the "Origin of the three oldest cities on the Rhine," namely, Mayence, Bonn, and Cologne, by Franz Ritter, is not without claims to interest.

One of the most exquisite artistic literary productions which has for years appeared in Germany, is that which has lately been published by Rudolph Besser, of Hamburg, bearing the title, Dr. Martin Luther, der Deutsche Reformator: In bildlichen Darstellunzen von Gustav König; in geschichtlichen Umrissen von Heinrich Gelzer. (Dr. Martin Luther, the German reformer: artistically illustrated by Gustavus König, with historical sketches, by Henry Gelzer.) This is one of the works of which Protestant Germany may well feel proud, inasmuch as it has in every line the impress and spirit of national art. The entire work sets forth the artistic feeling which characterized the Nuremberg artists of the sixteenth century, and we are continually and irresistibly reminded, in turning over these exquisite engravings, of Albert Dürer, Cranach Wohlgemuth and Hans Sebald Beham. The work consists in a great part of short sketches and scenes from the life of Luther, illustrated, as the title implies, by the eminent artist König, who, though an artist of Munich, is by birth a Coburger. From Munich he has, however, drawn all the learning and inspiration of the middle age and high Catholic art, the which knowledge he has however admirably and consistently applied to an eminently Protestant subject. Peculiarly in the modernised Dürer style, is one of the first engravings representing Luther as a boy singing for bread, (as is even yet the custom in some parts of Germany,) before the door of a house. Luther gives himself a naive account of this: "They say, (quoth Luther,) and truly, that the Pope himself hath been in his time a wandering student, therefore let us not despise the lads who beg before the doors 'panem propter Deum', and sing for bread. Such an one have I also been, and received bread before the doors of houses, particularly at Eisenach, in mine own dear town." Very animated and expressive is also the scene representing Luther as accidentally coming upon a copy of the Bible for the first time in the University Library. In his left hand he holds a massy folio Aristotle, and near him lie tomes of scholastic philosophy and theology, while his eye with the rapid glance of intelligence and conviction peruses the history of Anna. This is in short a work which every patron of art will certainly obtain, nor will it prove less acceptable to the scholar and theologian from the graphic and excellent character of the literary matter.

Deutsches Volkskalender auf das Jahr, 1852. Herausg, von Gustav. Nientz. There are two works, which, generally speaking, are found in every Christian family—the Bible and—the almanac. The Almanac has in fact the greater antiquity of the twain, for in the remote East, as in Norway, it was universally published "for the million," on blocks of wood or stone, or on walking-canes, even in the days of paganism. And since it is so generally distributed, would it not be well for some of our higher literati to take the matter in hand, and make it a medium for something better than criminal trials, quack advertisements, and similar subjects? This of Nieritz is well gotten up, and contains excellent contributions from Jer. Gotthelf, Karl Barth, A. Wildenhahn, Karl Simrock, and A. Grube. The best in the collection appears to be The Broom-maker of Rychiswyl, by Gotthelf. All of the engravings are admirable, and the work is published for "next to nothing."

An Austrian Biographical Dictionary is now publishing, by Moritz Bermann, at Vienna; useful to students of history and politics.

In Sweden, is the title of two volumes of Sketches of Travel, by Hans Christian Andersen, just published at Leipzic. They are replete with all the poetic charm and genial humor which his pen imparts to every subject it touches.[Pg 407]

Henrich Zeise is a Danish novelist with whose works we have in this country no acquaintance, but who has just been introduced to the Germans by a translation into their language of his Novels of Christian Winther, which are praised by the critics as not only well written, but as affording an excellent idea of Danish social life. Zeise is the son of a country parson of Lolland; was born in 1796; and first distinguished himself by his fugitive poems, which in 1820 were collected in a volume. He travelled in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, and in 1832 published a collection of translations from the German poets and other writers. In 1835, he brought out a second series of his own poems, in which he abandoned to a great degree his previous popular style, and put on the manners of fashionable society. This was not a successful experiment. His novels are more recent; the best, Osterie, was published in 1843. In 1849 he translated Reinecke Fuchs into Danish, preserving the original metre. He now has a pension from government, and lives at Copenhagen.

Tegner, the great Swedish poet, is known to American and English readers through Frithiof's Saga and Longfellow's translations of his Children of the Lord's Supper. A German version of his more recent writings is now making its appearance at Leipzic. The first number contains Gerda, a fragment of an unfinished heroic poem which is spoken of as very admirable, and a few little comic poems which are said to be charming. Adam and Eve figure in one of these.

Heinrich Von Ortenburg has published a second edition of his poetical tale, entitled Nachtbluthen—Night-blooms, or Night-flowers—and John G. Seide, the Viennese, an increased edition of The Songs of the Night. The two will serve to bind up with Voices of the Night—though perhaps there are German or Sclavonic poems that would better serve this purpose.

Bomische Rosen, Czechische Volkslieder (Bohemian Roses, or National Songs), by Ida Von Duringsfeld, and published by Kern, of Breslau, will undoubtedly attract the attention of the rapidly increasing circle of friends of Sclavonic literature. Also Sketches of Travel, by the same authoress, published by Schlodtmann, of Bremen.

An edition of Hoffman von Fallersleben's Heimatklange, or Regrets for Home, a collection of songs, has just made its appearance. Apropos of ultra-liberal political bards, we see that Freligrath publishes the second volume of Neuere Polit und Sociale Gedichte, or Recent Political and Social Poems, by Schaub, of Düsseldorf. Freligrath's reputation as a poet appears to have much advantage from his persecution as a patriot.

The Italians were surprised lately by the announcement that the ex-minister Guerrazzi, who is in prison awaiting trial for high treason, was about to publish An Apology for his Political Life, and that sheets of this Apology are from time to time forwarded to Signor Lami, Minister of Greece and Justice, who revises them, when they are returned to Guerrazzi for final correction. It seems incredible—altogether inconsistent with Italian policy—that a state prisoner should thus be suffered to pre-occupy the public mind with his defence. But the ministerial paper of the 8th of August indiscreetly solved the mystery with the following notice:

This certifies the publication to be a bargain between Guerrazzi and the Tuscan Ministry to give vent to their hatred of the Constitutional party and of Piedmont. Guerrazzi writes in prison, from prison sends to the printers, and the Minister acts as reviser. It is really an odd thing—but characteristic of Italian affairs, perhaps,—for a disgraced and impeached minister to buy his life by turning "States' Evidence." In better days such results were for rascals of a lower grade.

F. A. Gualterio brings out an account of the late Italian revolution—Gliultimi Rivolgimenti Italiani, Memorie Storiche, con Documenti inediti—the first part of which, in three large octavo volumes, only comes down to the accession of Pius IX. to the Pontificate. The work is published in Florence, and has made considerable sensation, especially in Tuscany and Piedmont. The publications on the subject that appear in Italy are of course all on one side. The other side is represented by a party, or by several parties, who are in exile, and the number of books published on Italy and Italian affairs, in London and in Paris, is very great: more than a hundred during the last year.[Pg 408]

In Berlin we observe that Sigismund Wiese, the author of two pious plays, entitled respectively Moses and Jesus of Nazareth, has put forth another pair of similar dramatic productions, bearing the names of the Apostle Peter, and The Apostle Paul. Whether this be a retrograde movement toward the ancient Bible mysteries of the middle ages, or whether the theatre in Berlin (as we should infer from certain recent curious works and movements) is actually undergoing a spiritual renovation, we have not as yet ascertained.

A work called Essai de Socialisme Rationnel, by M. Colins, has appeared at Paris, where it is exciting some attention. It is dedicated to Emile de Girardin, though in the dedication the author declares his complete dissent from the doctrines of that eminent journalist. M. Anatole Leroy is reviewing it in a series of articles in La Presse. The motto of M. Colins is this: "What I understand by socialism is the abolition of all pauperism, whether moral relating to knowledge, or material relating to riches. I affirm that this socialism has become necessary to order, and that it can be established without disorder."

Pleasant reading is there in the Memoires Pittoresques d'un Officier de Marine, just published at Paris in two handsome octavos, with the name of Captain F. Laconte as their author. The French in general are not great travellers, but the best narrators in the world. Our Captain adds to the reputation of his people in both respects. He tells the story of his adventures and experiences in out-of-the-way parts of the world with a gayety and laissez-aller which charm the reader. For the rest, what he saw in the South Sea, in Russia, in Turkey, at Madagascar, was well worth the telling in such a style. When he prints another book we hope to hear of it.

A book which our students of belles-lettres should have is M. de la Villemarque's Poemes des Bardes Bretons du VI^e Siecle. It is an excellent proof of the thorough study now devoted to the early popular literature of France, whose richness, by the way, is not much suspected by the elegant scholars of other countries. M. de la Villemarque has treated his subject with equal conscientiousness and affection. He gives abundant specimens of the songs of the bards in the form of translations from the original Celtic into French. The work is concluded by some philological disquisitions of value to whoever wishes to study the Celtic tongue.

M. Perrymond, one of the most intelligent and learned staticians of France, has published a reply to Thiers's Report on Paupers and Public Charity: the title of Perrymond's work is Le Pain du Proletaire, ou le Commerce des Peuples. It is socialistic.

The political and social theory of Mazzini, and especially his doctrine that the idea of duty, with the utter subjection of the individual to the general interest, is the sole base for society and government, is the subject of some vigorous and unmerciful essays in the Journal des Debats, by Alexandre Thomas.

A late number of the Revue des Deux Mondes, has an article by M. Taillandier, on the Swiss popular poets, in which they are duly praised, and considerable extracts given from their writings. M. Taillandier thinks, however, that Switzerland is in serious danger of moral and mental corruption from the inroads of the Hegelian philosophy.

Those who wish in the briefest space to get an idea of the philosophical system of Auguste Comte, will find a valuable aid in some articles by M. Romain Cornut, now published in La Presse. M. Cornut proposes to give a succinct yet complete summary of all the teachings of the great Positivist.

A work has just begun to appear at Paris, which must excite the attention of every student of history, and claim a place in every library that pretends to any degree of completeness. It is a collection of the speeches and parliamentary reports of the principal French orators from 1789 to the present day. The first volume is published containing the speeches of Mirabeau, with a biography and a great variety of critical notices of the great revolutionist and his career. The speeches of Robespierre will appear promptly, as well as those of Bussot, Vergniaud, Danton, Maury, Cazalles, &c. The price is seven francs the volume.

We have mentioned with the praise which we believe it deserved, the History of the Protestants of France, by G. S. Felice, lately published by Mr. Walker. This work was simultaneously translated, by the author of Mr. Walker's version, and by a very accomplished woman whose labors that version made profitless. On the same subject we have from Lea & Blanchard, of Philadelphia, in two volumes, a History of the Protestant Reformation in France, by Mrs. Marsh, the authoress of "Emily Wyndham," &c. This work will be popular. Several years ago we read a History of the Reformed Religion in France, by Mr. Smedley, published by the Harpers, who still, we believe, have it on their trade lists. It is quite as eloquently written, as dramatic, and in all respects as able as either of the others; and any of the three may be commended as not less engrossing than the last new novel.

The library of the poet Gray, which had been kept together in the family of William Penn, was at length scattered by a sale at auction, in London, on the 26th of August.[Pg 409]

When M. Guizot, many years ago, published his "Collection of Memoirs relating to the History of the Revolution in England," in twenty-seven volumes, he added to that great work biographical sketches of the various authors whose works he had translated. Those biographical studies, carefully revised and corrected, with some that he had contributed to dictionaries, and others entirely new, are now collected into a volume of Bohn's Library (New-York, Bangs & Brother), and, with the memoirs of General Monk, constitute a sort of gallery of portraits, in which personages of the most different characters appear in contrast—chiefs or champions of sects or parties, Parliamentarians, Cavaliers, Republicans, and Levellers, who, either at the termination of the political conflicts in which they were engaged, or when in retirement towards the close of their lives, described themselves, their own times, and the parts they played therein. M. Guizot has written the History of the English Revolution in these lives of the Revolutionists; for all parties were revolutionary in those days—the Cavaliers by their denial of right no less than the Parliamentarians by their assertion of it. The studies are of Denzil Hollis, Edmund Ludlow, Thomas May, Sir P. Warwick, John Lilburne, Fairfax, Mr. Hutchinson, Sir Thomas Herbert, John Price, Lord Clarendon, Burnet, the Duke of Buckingham, Sir John Reresby, with notices of the Eikôn Basiliké, &c., and Memoirs of James II.—a sufficient variety to enable the author to exhibit all the facettes of the diamond.

At the distribution of prizes awarded to pupils in the various colleges of Paris, three or four weeks ago, the new Superior Council of Public Instruction, including MM. Thenard, Giraud, Daniel-Poinsot, and Ortila, attended officially at the Sorbornne: they were placed behind the Minister of Public Instruction, beside whom were M. Portalis, President of the Court of Cassation, and M. Saint-Marc Girardin, Secretary of the Council. The other members of the Council who assisted the Minister were M. Dupin, President of the National Assembly; M. Laplagne-Barras, wearing the magnificent dress of the superior officers of the Court of Cassation; Cardinal Gousset, seated, wearing the scarlet robe and hat of his office, &c. But the real hero of the solemnity was Guizot, who, on his entrance into the hall to resume his ancient place among the professors, was greeted with loud acclamations and the most respectful salutations, which were repeated still more warmly when the name of his son, William Guizot, was pronounced as of one of the prizemen.

A new novel, in two volumes, by Eugene Sue, with the title of Miss Mary; a tale by Henri Murger, called Claude et Marianne; and volumes iv. and v. of Ange Pitou, by Alexander Dumas, have just appeared in Paris.

The witty feuilletoniste, Jules Janin, has published in a volume the letters he wrote from London during the Great Exhibition to the Journal des Debats. J. J., as everybody knows, is the most delightful journalist of art and society in the world, and all Paris anticipates the articles under his signature as a principal part of each day's satisfaction. Apropos of this new book of his, the London Morning Chronicle says, "From the first line to the last, he has rioted in his own peculiar style—laughed, cried, sung, danced, in the same, and almost in every breath—jumped about in one page like a kitten catching its tail—and struck himself into an awful attitude of moral meditation, with an aspect as wise as Aristotle's, in the next—accomplishing all these literary feats by a most miraculous outpouring of words—capital words, fanciful, witty, fantastic, scholarly words—and jumbled, tossed, piled up on each others' backs—jerked this way and that—sharpened one against the other, glittering and gleaming, one by the aid of another—a perfect firework of words, Roman-candle sentences, and Catherine-wheel periods—rockets of epithets, and girandoles of antitheses!" But yet Janin's self-respect would not allow him to say that, in some instances, he has "sacrificed thought and sense, pith and shrewdness, to build up a barley-sugar temple of verbal prettiness, and to deck and wreath it with artificial flowers of rhetoric and of phraseology, which for a moment may seem to have smell, and sap, and savor, but which, upon closer inspection, too often reveal themselves in their true, and dry, and dreary substance of wire, and gauze, and calico."

One M. Leon de Montbeillard has published a work on Spinoza. If that Philosopher has one characteristic more eminent than another, it is commonly supposed to be the precision and exactness of his logic. To say that Spinoza was a rigorous logician is a platitude, a truism. M. Montbeillard declines to walk in such a beaten path. He denies that Spinoza has any skill whatever in the science of reason, that he is a mere rhapsodist!

M. Xavier Sauriac, author of the Socialist tragedy entitled The Death of Jesus Christ, was lately tried, along with his two booksellers, for pernicious and insurrectionary doctrines put into the mouth of the Redeemer. They were heard by counsel, and the dramatist was admitted to plead at length; but the jury convicted the three, and the court inflicted long imprisonment, and fines.

Mr. Theodore Marten, a frequent contributor to the Edinburgh Review, and the author of the well-known Bon Gaultier Papers in Tait's Magazine, has been married to the celebrated actress, Miss Helen Faucit Saville (best known without the last name).[Pg 410]

Thomas Cooper, author of the Purgatory of Suicides, &c., has been on a lecturing tour through Ireland and Scotland, lately, and has given an account of what he observed, in several letters to the London Leader. We copy from them a few paragraphs:

The name of the "Baroness Von Beck" has been familiar through the English reviews, during the last year or two, as the authoress of a book on the late Hungarian war. This woman turns out to have been no baroness, not even a "friend" of Kossuth, but a paid spy in the service of the National Hungarian Government, and lately a paid spy in the "recently established foreign branch of the English police force." She was on the thirtieth of August apprehended at Birmingham for obtaining money under false pretences, and died in the anteroom of the court, from a sudden affection of the heart, induced by the emotion caused by her detection. She had played a remarkable part. Her Memoirs were published by Bentley, and had a large sale, but they appear to have been written by another person. At the time of her arrest she was procuring subscriptions for a new volume descriptive of her pretended Adventures.

Mr. Thackeray is writing a novel in three volumes, to be published in the winter. The scene is in England early in the eighteenth century, and among the characters will be Bolingbroke, Swift, and Pope; and Steele will play a prominent part. Mr. Thackeray has concluded to publish no more "serials," and we hope his new scenes and persons will suggest to him a little respect for human nature, which hitherto he appears to have regarded as a mere trick and imposture.

A pension of 200l. a year on the civil list has been conferred on Mr. Silk Buckingham. A pension of 200l. a year has also been given to Colonel Torrens, the author of several works on political economy. Mr. Buckingham had just obtained 400l. a year, as we have before mentioned, from the East India Company. It seems to us that these pensions can have but little to do with the "encouragement of literature."

The venerable poet James Montgomery will be eighty years of age on the fifth of November, and the people of Sheffield are preparing suitable honors for the occasion. A statue, to be set up in a conspicuous place, is talked of, and a general desire is felt that the festival which is proposed, and the honors which are to be given, shall be worthy of the man and the city.

A curious Diary of Edmund Bohen, a voluminous writer of the seventeenth century, has been discovered in Suffolk, England, his native county, and is about to be published under the editorship of S. W. Rix, of Beccles, author of the Fauconberge Memorial.

John Stuart Mill, we are advised by letters from England, is hereafter to be editor of the Westminster Review, which is now the grand organ of the socialists and disorganizers of society.[Pg 411]

We have from Mr. Hart, of Philadelphia, in two beautiful volumes, Memoirs of the Life of Mary Queen of Scots, by Miss Benger. They are written with neatness, and could not fail of a dramatic interest. Indeed, we know of no memoir of Mary Stuart, in the two or three dozen we have read with more or less attention, that is in all respects as attractive as Miss Benger's. But it seemed an unfortunate time to publish this, when the History of Mary Queen of Scots by M. Mignet, Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, was advertised, and it was known that its character would be such as necessarily to give it precedence of all other works on the subject. We noticed the design of M. Mignet two or three months ago, and we have now before us a translation, published by Bentley, of London, of his first volume. It fully realizes our expectations, in evident candor, research, and ability. It owes its existence to Prince Labanoff's collection of the queen's letters, and is the substance of a series of papers on that extraordinary work in the Journal des Savants. But M. Mignet had obtained access to original documents (chiefly the dispatches of the Spanish embassies in England, France, and Rome) which even Prince Labanoff had not explored, and has thus been able to give an original character to his narrative. It is an excellent specimen of condensed yet clear historical writing. Leading incidents stand out boldly, and no essential facts are omitted, yet there is not an excess of details. Motives are discriminated, and doubtful questions cleared, while we are spared the fatigue of elaborate disquisition. The book is little more than a sketch—but it is a most valuable one. With more materials before him than any previous biographer, the author has had to contend with fewer prejudices of his own. He is neither the apologist, nor the traducer of his heroine. Neither as Catholic nor as Protestant, as Scotchman nor as Englishman, does he sit in judgment on her history; he views the scenes of her career with an impartiality as far removed from harshness as from indulgence and may perhaps be pronounced her first unbiassed biographer. It is right at the same time to add that his historic coldness of temperament does not always enable him to judge quite fairly the difficulties under which both parties (but especially the Protestant party) labored at particular times; and perhaps it stops short, now and then, of the compassionate considerations which would best explain some points of Mary's conduct.

Upon the whole, it will be seen from M. Mignet's judicial and masterly exhibition of the case, that there is very little ground upon which to base a belief of the poor queen's innocence of the great crimes of which she is accused. For her wit, beauty, and misfortunes, notwithstanding her wickedness, the world clings to her memory, and until human nature is changed men will receive proofs of her guilt as they would such proofs against a sister. M. Mignet presents these proofs so that they cannot be rejected.

Among the recent French Lives of Mary Stuart, is one by M. Duguard—a sentimental romance that acquired a temporary rage, and was aided by George Sand in an elaborate letter of compliment addressed to the author. Miss Agnes Strickland will devote to the same heroine one entire volume of her Lives of the Queens of Scotland.

Among the recently established publishing houses of this country no one appears to be conducted with more judgment—so far at least as the selection and execution of books is concerned—than that of W. M. Moore & Co. of Cincinnati. Among their original publications we have Service Afloat and Ashore During the Mexican War, by Lieut. Semmes, (a second edition is just issued,) which by the common consent of reviewers is in attractiveness and absolute value inferior to none among the very large number of works that treat of the Mexican campaigns; and the list of their republications includes The Course of Creation, by the Rev. Dr. Anderson, of Scotland, in which, with unusual ability, candor, and eloquence, the relations of natural science and the divine revelation are discussed; The Footprints of the Creator, the most able, and, in a scientific point of view, the most interesting of the works of Hugh Miller; and Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland, by the same author—a singularly entertaining performance. They have in press a volume on Aesthetiks, by Professor Moffat, of Miami University, said to be written with singular ability, and designed chiefly for purposes of education.

Among the most attractive books in recent religious literature is The Ancient and Modern History of the Rivers of the Bible, lately published in London and just reprinted in New-York by Stringer & Townsend, with an introduction by the Rev. Dr. George B. Cheever. The Euphrates, the Hiddekel or Tigris, the Chebar, the Ulai, the Jordan, the Jarmuk, the Jahbok, the Arnon, the Kishon, and the Nile, the brooks Zered, Cherith, Kedron, Elah, Eshcol, and Besor, and the pool of Siloam, are treated with a degree of knowledge and a pleasing simplicity of style somewhat rare in works of this description. The author has given particular attention to the discoveries of Rich, Layard, and others, by the Euphrates and the Tigris, and we have nowhere else a better exhibition in brief of the appearance of the classical and sacred lands through which these rivers have flowed, half the time since the creation was witness of the most remarkable events in human history. The volume is illustrated by excellent wood-engravings of natural scenery, antiquities, and existing cities.[Pg 412]

Among the passengers from this port to Europe, in the steamer of the 10th September, was the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, for three years past an active archæological student in Mexico—that land of monuments and traditions, whose ancient history is second only to that of Egypt in its features of gloom and mystery. Some of the results of the Abbe's researches have been indicated in his recently published Cartas, addressed to the Duc de Valmy, which are only the introduction to an elaborate work, within which it is the author's design to bring all that is known of the ancient and modern history of Mexico. Among the various materials for the illustration of that part of this work relating to the aborigines, the Abbe has succeeded in obtaining from the neglected and not yet half explored libraries of Mexico, the following original and valuable materials.

1. Part 1. of a manuscript, by a priest of Chiapas, named Ordoñes, entitled, "Historia del Cielo y de la Tierra," etc. etc., being a translation of an ancient Tzendal hieroglyphical MS. containing the Indian account of the first settlement of Southern Mexico, the founding of Na Chan, or Palenque, etc. Also, portions of Part II. of the same MS. 2. Another manuscript of Ordoñes, without title, being a sort of memoir upon the ruins of Palenque, and on Antonio Del Rio's expedition. 3. A few chapters of a MS. of Santa Clara, taken from an inedited history of Peru, but relative to Mexico. 4. The original MS. of Cabrera upon Palenque. 5. Principles of a Grammar of the Tzotzil language. 6. Principles of a Grammar, Doctrinarium, and part of a Vocabulary of the Tzoque language (Chiapas). 7. A complete Vocabulary of the Maya and Spanish, with a great many etymological explanations. 8. A Vocabulary of the Spanish and Maya, less complete, 9. Codex Chimalpopoca, being the manuscript of the collection of Boturini, catalogued under the name of "Historia de los Reyes de Culhuacan," in the Aztec or Nahua language. 10. Codex Gondra, being the same known in the collection of Boturini, under the name of "Historia Tultaca," often cited by Gama; Spanish and Mexican. 11. "Fuente de los Verbos y Substantives Mexicanos," a host of Spanish and Mexican vocabularies. 12. Relacion que le envia su Magestad por D. Juan Baptista de Pomar, en 9 dias de Marz de 1582. This is a relation concerning Tezcuco. 13. A MS. in Mexican hieroglyphics, being a title of property in the Kingdom of the Tezcucan Prince Nezahualpilli, with a portrait of this prince, all on Papel Maguey. 14. Several prayer books in Mexican (MS.). 15. A few prayers in Maya, MS. 16. The original MS. explanation of the Codex Borgia, composed by the Father Fabrega, for Cardinal Borgia, of which speaks Baron Humboldt in his "Vues de Cordilleres," etc. in Italian. 17. A short vocabulary of the Huabi language spoken near Tehuantepec. The Abbe has also four or five Mexican Grammars printed in Mexico, and other rare books not included in the catalogue of Ternaux Compans. The collection is, therefore, more complete than any other made by any individual, and in the hands of an indefatigable student like the Abbe Bourbourg, will not fail to throw a flood of light on the ancient history of Mexico.

A few weeks ago Mr. Schoolcraft published a complaint that his Indian in his Wigwam had been published without his knowledge by G. H. Derby & Co, of Buffalo, under the title of "The American Indians, their History, Condition and Prospects." Messrs. Derby & Co. have replied in the Literary World, that they came honestly by the stereotype plates of the book, and that as to the title, they "had an undoubted right to alter it." We beg these gentlemen and all others in like circumstances to reflect a little upon this doctrine, before endorsing it too positively. However indisputable the title of Derby & Co. to the copyright of the book in question, they had no more right to change its name than they had to steal Mr. Schoolcraft's money. He is a very silly person who maintains the contrary. Only the author of a book has the right to change even the place of a comma in it.

Mr. Simms has just published Norman Maurice, or the Man of the People, an American Drama, in Five Acts. The scene is partly in Philadelphia, partly in St. Louis, and the plot involves the election of a senator from Missouri—as various passages disclose, in the present time. This is one of the chief faults of the piece, as the history of Missouri politics is so familiar that no illusion in the case is possible. Aside from this, it is in many respects an admirable play—bold, simple, and yet striking in conception, and wrought out with a general fitness and force of incident and style that should secure it, in our opinion, immediate and very eminent success on the stage. There has never been acted an American play of equal merit. It was originally printed in the Southern Literary Messenger.

We are gratified to learn that the Rev. Dr. Albro, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has in preparation a complete edition of the works of the "learned and renowned Mr. Thomas Shepherd," who was the first minister in that town. These works will fill several octavo volumes, and we regard them as among the most valuable relics of the Puritan age in New-England. We have had for several years the very rare but incomplete collection of them published by Prince, in 1747. Dr. Albro will have some advantages in writing Shepherd's biography, which have not been enjoyed by others who have recently essayed that service.[Pg 413]

A new edition of The Works of Henry Fielding will be published in a few weeks by Stringer & Townsend. Monsieur de Marivaux in France, says Bishop Warburton, and Henry Fielding, in England, stand the foremost among those who have given a faithful and chaste copy of life and manners, and by enriching their romance with the best part of the comic art, may be said to have brought it to perfection. Without attempting a defence of the impurities which may be found in the novels and descriptions of Fielding, it should not be forgotten that the language used, and the manners depicted were those of the age in which he lived, and for which he wrote without further regard to posterity than as his would serve as records and illustrations of past times. In our admiration of a new school of comic writers, many may have forgotten this "prose Homer of human nature," and it will not be an unpleasing or profitless task for any to review and compare Fielding and Smollet with Dickens, Lever, Thackeray and others now living, who have attempted in the same manner to add to the general happiness.

The Theory of Human Progression, and Natural Probability of a Reign of Justice, a work which has received much attention in England, has just been republished by B. B. Mussey & Co., of Boston. The author says, "The truth I endeavor to inculcate is—That Credence rules the world—that credence determines the condition and fixes the destiny of nations—that true credence must ever entail with it a correct and beneficial system of society, while false credence must ever be accompanied by despotism, anarchy, and wrong—that before a nation can change its condition, it must change its credence; that change of credence will of necessity be accompanied sooner or later by change of condition: and consequently, that true credence, or in other words knowledge, is the only means by which man can work out his well being and ameliorate his condition on the globe." The author, who appears to be familiar in some way with the writings of Comte, is unquestionably a man of abilities, and the work is in some respects eminently suggestive; but it has not escaped severe criticism in some of the theological and philosophical journals.

Mr. Bartlett's Nile Boat, or Glimpses of the Land of Egypt, has been republished in a beautiful large octavo by the Harpers. The well-known author aims at affording a few distinct and lively impressions, by pencil and pen, of the more interesting objects on the banks of the Nile, with such historical and archæological explanation as may satisfy the reader without confusing him with redundant details. Exaggeration has been studiously avoided, and accuracy studied, and the illustrations have been copied from original sketches taken on the spot.

Dr. Kitto's very valuable Daily Bible Illustrations have been published by Messrs. Carter in four small octavo volumes. The entire work is to consist of eight volumes, and will comprise a series of original readings on selected passages of Scripture, illustrative of the history, biography, geography, antiquities, and theology of the Bible. The subjects are arranged so as to extend over two years' daily reading. While specially designed for the family circle, to the youthful members of which the illustrations will render the Scripture histories particularly agreeable, the work is characterized by a degree of scholarship and ability that will make it eminently entertaining and instructive to even the best informed general reader.

The Early Life and First Campaigns of Napoleon, with a History of the Bonaparte Family, and a Review of French Politics, to the year 1796, by B. P. Poore, has been published by Ticknor & Co. of Boston, and will be continued in several parts, completing the life of the Emperor. Mr. Poore while residing in Europe as the Historical Agent of Massachusetts, collected many important documents illustrating his subject, and he will undoubtedly succeed in producing not only a very interesting biography, but a comparatively original one.

Mr. George Taylor, a young lawyer who has distinguished himself in his profession, is the author of a clever book, entitled Indications of the Creator, or the Natural Evidences of a Final Cause. (Charles Scribner.) Mr. Taylor takes the side of the Christian Religion, and of the real against the sham student of nature, in a reviewal of the general subject, in astronomy, geology, comparative physiology, and natural geography.

The History of Pontiac, which, while in press, several weeks ago, we noticed at considerable length in this magazine, has since been published by Little & Brown of Boston, and Bentley of London, and by the common consent of the reviewers it places Mr. Parkman among our most able and pleasing historians. Certainly no subject of its kind has hitherto been treated with as much felicity.

The beautiful edition of the Works of Thomas De Quincey, which Ticknor & Co. have for some time been publishing in Boston, will soon be completed, and the eight or ten duodecimos which it will comprise will be added to as many libraries as are owned by persons of a genuine appreciation in literature. They have never before appeared collectively.

Mrs. (Fanny Forester) Judson has been several weeks in England, on her way via the Cape of Good Hope, to the United States. She is in better health than she had been during the last year of her residence in the East.[Pg 414]

An octavo volume has just been published in Philadelphia under the title of The Female Prose Writers of America, with Portraits, Biographical Notices, and Specimens of their Writings, by John S. Hart, LL. D. The book is beneath criticism, and we will dismiss it very briefly after demonstrating the truth of this statement. We have scarcely ever seen so melancholy an illustration of incompetence for a task voluntarily assumed. It appears that to every woman whose name he had ever seen in print Dr. John S. Hart sent nearly a year ago a circular from which the following paragraphs are extracts:

The sort of "criticism" which the volume contains may easily be inferred, as may be the class of literary women who would take any notice of an application conceived in a spirit so offensive to delicacy and common self-respect. Accounts of the writings of Miss Sedgwick, Mrs. Kirkland, Mrs. Oakes Smith, Mrs. Sigourney, Miss McIntosh, Margaret Fuller, and a few more, were to be found in a well-known book published in the same city, and of course therefore are included, but to show how ignorant the author is of the field he attempts to survey, let us place in one column some of the names he has altogether omitted, and in another an equal number from among those he has inserted.

Of the persons named in the second column we believe not one has the slightest claim to be mentioned in a survey of the compositions of the Female Prose Writers of America. It is not unlikely that some of them have capacities for literature, but if so the public has no sufficient proof of it. On the other hand, see whose places they occupy.

Mrs. Robinson and Madame d'Arusmont were born in Europe, but this fact could not have influenced Dr. Hart, who has given a conspicuous place to Miss Caroline May, an Englishwoman, who has been in this country less than a quarter as long as either of these distinguished persons. Mrs. Robinson is the wife of our great orientalist, and is herself one of the most learned women in the world; she has distinguished herself in American history, in romance, and in criticism, beyond almost any writer of her sex. The authoress of "A Few Days in Athens," must certainly be regarded as one of the most able literary women of this age, whatever may be thought of some of her principles. Mrs. Haight is well known by two of the most brilliant volumes of travels ever published by the Harpers. Mrs. Rives (wife of our minister to France), in her "Tales and Souvenirs of a Residence in Europe" (published by Lea and Blanchard), and in other writings, displays abilities that make her right to recognition in such a work unquestionable. Mrs. Conant (wife of the eminent Hebrew professor) is a woman of great and varied erudition, and ranks, generally, with Mrs. Robinson. Mrs. Willard is universally known by her valuable writings on education, in history, and in science, and by her interesting "Journal of a Residence in Europe." Catherine E. Beecher, the authoress of "Letters on the Difficulties of Religion," we believe is regarded as one of the ablest of the celebrated family to which she belongs, and as having the most profound and masculine intelligence exhibited in contributions made by her countrywomen to literature. Mrs. Mowatt is entitled to a high rank among our female novelists. Mrs. Lee, by her lives of Jean Paul and the Buckminsters and the Old Painters, her novel of "Naomi or Boston Two Hundred Years Ago," and other works, is omitted with about as much reason as the Prince of Denmark might be from Hamlet. Another lady of this name, the authoress of "The Huguenots," "The Three Experiments of Living," "The Life and Times of Luther," &c., we believe has done more good by her writings than any other woman in America, and for literary abilities she is entitled to distinguished praise. Miss Peabody is too well known by her essays in Æsthetics to need characterization. Mrs. Follen is one of the best known, and most esteemed female writers of the time. Mrs. Brooks's "Idomen, a Tale of the Vale of Yumuri," is an exquisite production, which alone would preserve the name of Maria del Occidente in the lists of illustrious women. Mrs. Whitman is a writer of remarkable acuteness and richness, as is shown by her essays on the Transcendental Philosophy. Mrs. Putnam (a sister of James Russell Lowell), is distinguished not more for that masterly controversy which she carried on last summer with the North American Review, respecting the Revolutions in Northern Europe, than for that extensive and varied learning, among the fruits[Pg 415] of which were the first American translations of Swedish and Danish literature, including some of the novels of Miss Bremer. Mrs. Southworth, by her "Deserted Wife," "Mother-in-law," &c., appears to have acquired a larger share of popularity than is enjoyed by any of her female American contemporaries. Miss A. E. Dupuy, authoress of "The Conspirator" (lately published by the Appletons), has won praise from eminent critics in the same department. Miss Alice Carey, by her "Ill-starred," and other novelettes, has evinced the possession of such genius as entitles her to a place in the very highest rank of our literary women. And who that knows any thing of American literature forgets Mrs. Sedgwick, who wrote "Allen Prescott;" or Mrs. Louisa J. Hall, who wrote "Joanna of Naples?"

We think we have shown that Dr. John S. Hart knows nothing about "The Female Prose Writers of America." Our readers certainly can judge for themselves; but to us the selection of the persons who are named in the second of the above columns, to the exclusion of those whose names are in the first column, would seem to be an elaborate quiz, if the manner of the thing did not evince a genuine earnestness of purpose. We might have dismissed the book with half a dozen lines, but when we have occasion to condemn any performance thus decidedly, we think it but fair to prove the justice of our judgment.

A second edition of Mrs. Lee's Memoirs of the Rev. Joseph Buckminster, D.D., and of his Son, the Rev. Joseph Stevens Buckminster, has just been issued by Ticknor, Reed & Fields, of Boston. In the religious and literary history of this country there have been few more interesting characters than the Buckminsters, and this volume of their memoirs is very judiciously and tastefully written. Mrs. Lee began her task in an attempt to furnish some materials respecting her father, and brother, for the Rev. Dr. Sprague, of Albany, who has been several years engaged on a work to be entitled "Annals of the American Pulpit, or Biographical Notices of Eminent American Clergymen, of various Denominations."

A very elegant edition of the Moral Reflections, Sentences and Maxims, of Rochefoucauld, has been published by the well-known bibliopole, Mr. Gowan, of Fulton-street. The wise French worldling maintains still a precedence of all the writers of his class, and such an impression of his master-work will increase his audience.

Among the new works announced by Mr. Hart of Philadelphia is the Principles of Organic Chemistry, by Dr. Carl Lœwig, professor of Chemistry in the University of Zurich, translated by David Breed, M.D., of New-York.

In a brief and hastily written paragraph in the last International, we referred to a novel by Dr. Huntington, as Alice, or the Mysteries, instead of Alice, or the New Una,—a mistake which any reader of ordinary intelligence, who had ever seen the work in question, might easily have corrected. The character of the literary performances of Dr. Huntington is such as to justify some curiosity respecting his personal history, and in too carelessly attempting to give it, we fell into some errors, which he "corrects" in a letter to the Courier and Enquirer, saying—

We may amend our statement thus: Dr. Huntington is the author of a work entitled, Alice, or the New Una, which was very commonly regarded as the most licentious publication of its season; we understand that in his youth he was somewhat remarkable for the grimness of his Calvinism; that while a Congregationalist he became a doctor in medicine; that he afterwards took orders in the Episcopal church; that he left that church to enter a society of Roman Catholics; and that it was rumored soon after that he had become a priest, but, it is now understood, was prevented by disqualifying domestic relations. We admit that our paragraph had some little inaccuracies, but certainly they are more easy of explanation than Dr. Huntington's intimation in his letter of July to the London Morning Chronicle that the author of Alban and Alice is a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church!

Harper & Brothers have just published Forest Life and Forest Trees, by G. S. Springer, of Boston; Judge Haliburton's recent work on America which we noticed last month; and Lamartine's Restoration of the Monarchy in France, the most brilliant, superficial and false production of a writer never remarkable for depth or conscience. They have in press a new volume of Mr. Hildreth's capital History of the United States; Mr. G. P. R. James's Lectures on Civilization, delivered in various parts of the country last winter; Sixteen Months in the Gold Diggings, by Daniel B. Woods; Wesley and Methodism, by Isaac Taylor; The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, by Professor Creasy; new volumes of Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers and Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of Scotland; and several new English and American novels.

A very interesting handbook of London, somewhat different from any work of the kind yet published, is soon to appear in this city under the title of Memories of the Great Metropolis, profusely illustrated with wood engravings, and with a higher literary finish than is common in such performances.[Pg 416]

The Rev. Dr. Henry A. Boardman, of Philadelphia, one of the wise, learned and faithful divines by whom is preserved the best reputation of the best vocation, has just published (Lippincott, Grambo, & Co.) a volume of discourses entitled, The Bible in the Family, or Hints on Domestic Happiness. It is quite aside, and evidently was intended to be, from the usual routine, though not beyond the legitimate domain of the pulpit. We have treatises on the relative duties, but no book, we believe, of this sort—not a treatise,—which is adapted to American society. Dr. Boardman's work is attractive for its original and striking observation and scholarly finish as a piece of literature, while calculated to be eminently useful for its illustrations of practical religion.

Among the novelties about to be issued from the press of Mr. Redfield, of Clinton Hall, is a series of Portraits or Biographies by Arsene Houssaye, of the men and women of the eighteenth century, comprising the philosophers, poets, artists—indeed all who lent a grace to or stamped their impress on the long and desolate reign of Louis Quinze. They are executed with a firm hand and possess the brilliant coloring of fiction, without deviating from historic truth. It is the only work that gives a just idea of the gay, witty and dissipated society that existed in France previous to the Revolution, and was one of the causes of that event. Mr. Redfield also announces The Ladies of the Covenant, a series of interesting biographical illustrations of the religious history of Scotland, by the Rev. James Anderson; Sorcery and Magic, by Thomas Wright, of the Shakspeare and Percy societies; and a volume of Tales and Sketches, by Miss Caroline Chesebro.

There is in the possession of descendants of Jonathan Edwards a MS. volume of Discourses on Christian Love, in his own handwriting. The paper looks dingy, but the writing is regular and clear. It is now being transcribed, and will be published during the autumn by Robert Carter & Brothers. The same house have in the press Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, delivered at the University of Virginia, during the Session of 1850-51, among the contributors to which are the Rev. Drs. Alexander, Breckenridge, Plumer, McGill, Rice, Sampson, Ruffner, &c.

The Knickerbocker has recently contained several chapters under the title of The Sketch Book of Me, Meister Karl, which have the best quality of Rabelais and Sterne. We have heard them attributed to Mr. Charles G. Leland, of Philadelphia—one of the youngest of our authors, and one of the finest scholars and rarest humorists of this time, We believe Pennsylvania has no other son or citizen who gives fairer promise of distinction in letters.

Isaac Taylor's Elements of Thought, a concise Explanation of the Principal Terms employed in the several branches of Intellectual Philosophy, has been published by W. Gowans, from the ninth London edition.

Mr. Carlyle's Life of John Stirling is in the press of Phillips & Sampson of Boston, and will soon be issued. From the same house we are to have Memoirs of Sarah Margaret Fuller, Marchesa d' Ossoli, edited by Ralph Waldo Emerson and William H. Channing; and a new and very beautiful edition of Robinson Crusoe, with new illustrations.

The American annuals for the present season are not very numerous. Mr. Walker, of Fulton-street, has published The Odd Fellow's Offering, which contains excellent contributions by Mr. Simms, Mr. Saunders, Mrs. Hewitt, Mrs. Kirkland, Mrs. Kimball, Mrs. Oakes Smith, and other writers; and Lippencott, Grambo & Co., of Philadelphia, have published the handsomest book of its class for the year, in The Iris, with unique and beautiful illustrations from drawings by Captain Eastman, U.S.A., whose wife writes a large portion of the contents.

Vagamundo, or the Attaché in Spain, by John E. Warren, is a very delightful book illustrative of society, scenery, &c., in "old, renowned, romantic Spain," where the author was attached to the American legation. As Mr. Warren while abroad was a correspondent of The International, it may be suspected that we have some prejudice in his favor—which indeed is very true—and therefore we inform our readers that of the English edition of this work, and of the American edition, all the critics have given such opinions as delight an author and bring money to his publisher. Mr. Warren is the author of Para, or Scenes and Adventures on the Banks of the Amazon, lately published by Putnam. It is his vocation to travel and make books, as these two performances very plainly show. (Charles Scribner.)

Mr. Charles Astor Bristed, whose very clever sketches of American Society we have copied from month to month from Fraser's Magazine, has in the press of Putnam a work entitled Five Years in an English University. Mr. Putnam has in press also The Shield, by Miss Fenimore Cooper, and The Monuments of Central and Western America, by Dr. Hawks, besides several beautiful souvenir volumes, for the coming holidays, which embrace contributions by the best authors and artists of the country.

Mr. Simms, has just published (by A. Hart), a new novel under the title of Catherine Walton, which is equal to his best productions. The scene is in South Carolina, during the Revolution.

[Pg 417]

The Fine Arts.

Paul Delaroche's picture of Marie Antoinette is to be engraved on a large scale. Delaroche has represented the unfortunate Autrichienne descending the stairs from the terrible tribunal which pronounced her death-sentence. She is attired in black, with a white scarf round her shoulders. A singular but striking effect, which the painter has rendered with habitual felicity, is the altered color of her hair, which is said to have turned white. The artist has shown the alteration, by a few stray auburn locks, blanched at the root. In the background is represented the mob which greeted with execrations the "widow Capet" on the morning of the 15th October, 1793.

The Print of the London Art-Union for the current year is from one of Mr. Frith's pictures, An English Merry-making in the Olden Time, engraved by Holt, so carefully as to bring out every detail and shade of character in the original with the greatest fidelity and spirit. The merry-making consists mainly in the performance, beneath some noble trees, of the old country-dance of Sir Roger de Coverley, by a party of rustics. A couple of lovers are seated in the foreground, and close by them is a group of merry damsels hauling a jolly old farmer to the dance, while the dame encourages their attack.

A few friends of the poet Motherwell, of Glasgow, have just erected a beautiful monument to him in that city. It is the work of Mr. Fillans, a friend of the deceased, and is in the form of a small Gothic temple, consisting of a quadrangular pediment of solid masonry, supporting a light dome on four pillars; the dome being decorated with carvings of shields and fleurs de lis. In the space between the pillars is a sarcophagus, on which is placed a termini bust of the poet.

The German Painter Winterhalter, whose pencil is mainly dedicated to courtly chronicles and countenances, has just completed another of his numerous royal family groups. It represents the Duke of Wellington in the act of offering an affectionate souvenir to his little godson Prince Arthur, on the occasion of his first birth-day anniversary.

The Count de Thun, a distinguished Austrian painter, and M. Ruben, director of the Royal Academy of the Fine Arts in Prague, have been commissioned by the Austrian government to examine into the several organizations of the schools of the arts of design in England, France, and Germany, with a view to propose such ameliorations as the examination may suggest in the various schools of Austria.

In the closing weeks of the Great Exhibition in London, several chef-d'œuvres of art have been received, and among them one by the celebrated Dutch sculptor, Van der Ven, representing the Temptation of Eve. It attracts a great deal of attention. The treatment of the subject is bold and original, the form of the first woman being developed with freedom, grace, and life-like effect. One of its chief excellencies is, that in its composition there is no trace of that disposition to borrow from the classic styles of antiquity, instead of relying upon nature, which so often detracts from the merit of modern sculpture. Mr. Spense, an English artist at Rome, has also lately contributed a statue of Burns's Highland Mary, which is much admired.

Mr. Ruskin has published a new pamphlet entitled Pre-Raphaelitism, in which nature, and not the critical writers, the applauded models of the day, or tradition, is declared the only true guide to excellence in art; and all modern art is held to be depraved in taste, as it were, an arid desert, in which he endeavors to set up two landmarks, John Everett, Millais, and Joseph Mallord Turner. Between these two poles stand William Hunt, who paints still life; Samuel Prout, of street architecture renown; John Lewis, the harem-scene delineator; and finally, Mulready and Landseer. The essay is keenly reviewed in the Athenæum, Times, &c., but is admitted by all to be characteristically eloquent.

The American Art-Union opened its galleries on Monday evening, September 22. The collection of pictures we understand is unusually good. The occasion was one of much good feeling and enjoyment. Speeches were made by the President of the Art-Union, by Mr. Conrad, Secretary of War, by Rev. Dr. Osgood, Parke Godwin, C. A. Dana, Mr. Thompson of the Southern Literary Messenger, Judge Campbell, General Wetmore, and several other gentlemen.

Powers's celebrated statue of Eve, which was lost off Cape Palos in May, 1850, arrived in New-York a few days ago, in the British schooner Volo, from Carthagena, not having sustained any material injury. A letter from Mr. Powers respecting this statue was printed in the last number of The International.

Mr. Leutze, after a long absence from this country, has returned, bringing with him his greatest work, Washington Crossing the Delaware, which will soon be exhibited at the Stuyvesant Institute. Mr. Leutze was received with great applause at the late meeting of the Art-Union.

[Pg 418]

Historical Review of the Month.

In the United States, since our last publication, no events have occupied more attention than the great Agricultural State Fair which was held recently at Rochester, and of which we shall give a particular account, illustrated with numerous engravings, in our next number; and the Railroad Festival at Boston, which was held at the same time. At the latter were present the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, and other members of the Cabinet, the Governor-General of Canada, his Aids and Cabinet, the principal members of the Canadian Parliament, and the leading merchants in the Canadian cities, the Governors of New England states, the Presidents of the railways in New England, the Mayors of the cities of New England and many other influential persons interested in railways and steam navigation. Speeches were made by the President of the United States, by Lord Elgin, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, and many others, and the occasion was altogether one of the most brilliant and satisfactory of its kind ever known in this country.

On the 10th of September Mr. Gorsuch, a citizen of Maryland, accompanied by several officers and other persons, proceeded from Philadelphia to Christiana, near Lancaster, for the purpose of arresting two negroes claimed under a law of the United States as fugitive slaves. In order to resist the execution of the law the negroes of the vicinity rallied to the number of seventy or eighty, armed themselves with guns, and fired on the party of whites, killing Mr. Gorsuch, and mortally wounding his son. The negroes were also considerably injured by a discharge from revolvers by the party with the officers. It appears from a statement published by the Rev. Mr. Gorsuch, a son of the claimant of the negroes, that a conspiracy was planned beforehand, to resist the officers of the law in the execution of their duty; and that it was not confined to the negroes, but was apparently under the guidance and control of whites. Mr. Gorsuch says that while the officers were awaiting the decision of the blacks, a white man rode up; that his presence seemed to inspire the negroes with renewed hostility; that he refused, when summoned, to aid the officers, and threatened them with bloodshed if they persisted in executing the law. It is further alleged that it was after receiving some communication from this person that the negroes rushed on the officers and killed Mr. Gorsuch. Since then a correspondence on the subject has been held between the national executive and the executives of the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania. The slaves have not been recovered, but many arrests have been made of persons charged with conspiracy to prevent the execution of the laws, and with treason.

The Free Soil party of Massachusetts, at a State Convention, held Sept. 16, nominated for Governor, John G. Palfrey, and for Lieutenant-Governor, Amasa Walker. The nomination for Governor was first tendered to Stephen C. Phillips, of Salem, who declined. The democrats held their State Convention on the 26th of August. They passed resolutions decidedly in favor of the Union, and against all anti-national and anti-sectional agitation. George S. Boutwell was nominated for Governor, and Henry W. Cushman for Lieutenant-Governor, and Charles G. Greene, Henry H. Childs, and Isaac Davis, were appointed delegates to the National Democratic Convention, which was recommended to be holden at Baltimore in May, 1852. The Whig State Convention was held at Springfield on the 10th of September and, on the first ballot, Robert C. Winthrop was nominated as their candidate for Governor, and George Grinnell as their candidate for Lieutenant-Governor. The proceedings were very harmonious, and the address of the chairman, and the resolutions passed by the convention, were of a strong national and Union character. Edward Everett, George Ashmun, and Seth Sprague, were chosen delegates from the State at large to the National Whig Convention.

In New-York the Whig State Convention assembled at Syracuse on the 11th of September. George W. Patterson, was nominated for Controller; James M. Cook, for Treasurer; Samuel A. Foote, for Judge of the Court of Appeals; James C. Forsyth, for Secretary of State; Daniel Ullmann, Jr., for Attorney-General; Henry Fitzhugh, for Canal Commissioner; and A. H. Wells, for State Prison Inspector. Resolutions were adopted, declaring that the proceeding of the two Whig State Committees at Albany, for the union and co-operation of the party, was "the result of honorable and patriotic devotion to the Constitution, and for the best interests of the whole people, and that it is adopted and approved by this Convention;" and pledging the whigs to the most liberal conduct in the matter of internal improvements. The Democratic Convention met at the same place on the tenth. Resolutions were adopted reaffirming the principles avowed in the resolutions adopted by the State Convention held at the same place last year. The following persons were nominated for the several state offices: John C. Wright, for Controller; Henry S. Randall, for Secretary of State; Levi S. Chatfield, for Attorney-General; Benjamin Welch, Jr., for Treasurer; Horace Wheaton, for Canal Commissioner; W. J. M'Alpine, for State Engineer; General Storms, for Inspector of State Prisons; and A. S. Johnson, for Judge of the Court of Appeals.

The Maryland Whig State Convention at Baltimore, September 17th, nominated, with great unanimity, the following State ticket: For Controller of the Treasury, George C. Morgan; Lottery Commissioner, O. H. Hicks; Commissioner of the Land Office, George C. Brewer. The Democrats, at their State Convention held at Baltimore, on the 12th, nominated Philip Francis Thomas, of Baltimore City, for Controller; James Murray, of Annapolis, for Commissioner of the Land Office; Thomas R. Stewart, of Caroline, for Lottery Commissioner.

In Virginia, an election for members of Congress, under the old system and apportionment, takes place on the fourth Thursday in the present month. The question of the ratification of the new constitution is to be decided under the universal suffrage system, on the same day. Members of the Legislature are also to be elected, according to the old apportionment; but if the new[Pg 419] constitution is ratified, the legislative election is to be superseded by a new election, under the new apportionment, in December next. At the same time, a Governor and Lieutenant-Governor &c., are to be elected; and next spring, the county officers will be chosen in another election; after which the State elections will occur regularly from time to time.

In South Carolina a large meeting was held at Charleston, on the 28th of August, in favor of co-operation between the slaveholding states, and opposed to separate State Action for the purpose of resistance to the National Government. John Rutledge presided, and in the list of other officers we find the names of many of the most distinguished citizens of the State. Our advices from California, to the 14th of August, are of a favorable character. In San Francisco business is active in spite of the effects of the recent conflagration, and the administration of justice is placed on a more substantial basis. Great activity prevails in the mining districts, and the work of constructing canals on various gold-bearing streams is vigorously advancing. Accounts from Utah represent the new territory in a prosperous condition, with the exception of some slight Indian difficulties. The crops are unusually fine. The emigrants for Salt Lake and Oregon are progressing prosperously. The Mormons have extended their settlements along the base of the mountains, northward, and facing the Great Salt Lake, ninety miles, nearly to Bear River ferry. They are fast taking up all the good land in the Valley, and are engaged in building a railroad to the mountain, some seven or eight miles, on which to transport the materials for their great temple. Dr. John M. Bernhisel has been chosen Territorial Delegate to Congress.

It has been stated that the Survey of the Mexican Boundary Commission was progressing rapidly westward. The astronomers and surveyors of the American and Mexican Commissioners had joined forces, and their advanced parties had reached a point thirty miles west of Rio Mienlies. The line was to run eight or ten miles south of Cooks Spring, thus giving the United States the whole of the road to the Copper Mines, and the only route which can be traversed by wagons. We have later intelligence, that in consequence of a disagreement between the Commissioners and the Surveyor, the operations of the Commission are almost suspended.

Dr. Gardner, of fraudulent Mexican claim notoriety, has returned to Washington, surrendered himself into the hands of the United States authorities, and given bail in the sum of $40,000 to appear for trial at the December term. Senator Chase, of Ohio, has issued a manifesto in which he announces his intention to adhere to the platform and support the ticket of the Ohio Democratic Convention. But the ground of this determination is, that he considers the action of that Convention, besides being acceptable on other topics, as in effect indorsing the Free Soil doctrines. John McPherson Berrien has declared his intention of acting with the Union party. Gen. Quitman, before the late election, withdrew from the contest, as the secession candidate for Governor of Mississippi. The Special Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church for the election of an Assistant Bishop fur the Diocese of Illinois, was held at Pekin, Sept. 8, and resulted in the election of Dr. Whitehouse, of New-York. The annual meeting of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was held at Portland, on the 9th day of September. The President, Theodore Frelinghuysen, presided, and the affairs of the society and its prospects, were presented in several very interesting reports.

In the last number of this magazine, we stated the failure of some ineffectual risings in CUBA, and supposed that the peace of that island was reestablished, at least for a considerable period. But, about the end of August, the country became exceedingly interested respecting the fate of the steamer Pampero, which, it had become known, had left New Orleans with several hundred men, under the command of General Narciso Lopez, with the intention of landing at some point on the Cuban coast. It afterwards was disclosed that the party, which consisted of 480 men, designed to go to the River St. John, and effect a junction with an artillery force which was waiting there, and then land at some point in the central department; but on touching at Key West for stores, they were informed of a revolt of the Vuelta de Abajo, and Lopez resolved to land in that district. The party disembarked at the small town of Morillos, at two o'clock, on the morning of the 12th of August; and, soon after, General Lopez sent a pronunciamento to Los Pazos, in which he informed the inhabitants he was about to march on them, and would give no quarter to any who did not join him. Being without means of transportation, he ordered Colonel Crittenden to remain and protect the baggage, together with 1000 musket cartridges, 3000 muskets, and 700 pounds of powder in kegs. He told Crittenden that he would send for him at Los Pazos, and took with him 323 men, leaving 130 with Crittenden, who, at 11 o'clock that night, started to rejoin him. Their advance was slow, and on the morning of the 13th, while eating breakfast, they were surprised by a report of musketry, and the whistling of bullets, from a body of the enemy, who were repulsed with a loss of nine killed. A short time after they repeated the attack. Crittenden charged, and forced them to retreat to a chaparral, from which, as the invaders advanced, they opened a destructive fire. Finding he could not maintain his position, Crittenden ordered a return, and the enemy again advanced. At this time, he wished a small party to attain a position at the right flank of the enemy, to charge from that side at the same moment he charged on the front. Lieutenants Van Vechten and Crafts, with twenty men, volunteered, and attained the position. After remaining about half an hour, and hearing nothing of Crittenden, they were compelled to retreat, leaving their baggage and stores. The next morning this party succeeded in joining Lopez at Los Pazos, half an hour before he marched from that place. Gen. Enna, commander of the Spanish troops, immediately attacked Lopez with 800 men. After a hard fight, the enemy retreated, leaving a large number (among whom were several of their highest officers) dead and wounded. Lopez lost in killed and wounded, thirty men, among whom were Col. Dowzeman, Lieut. Laviseau, killed; Gen. Pragay, Capts. Brigham and Gonti, mortally wounded. On the morning[Pg 420] of the 14th, Lopez marched into the mountains, and on that day he was attacked by 900 men. The action lasted three hours, and the Spaniards retreated with a large loss. At the moment that the Spaniards retreated in one direction, Lopez issued an order to retreat in an opposite one, and made a forced march of 18 miles in 5 hours, over a mountain road. On the 19th, being still in the mountains, two leagues from Bahia, he was overtaken by a heavy rain storm, which destroyed the greater part of his ammunition, and rendered the firearms entirely useless. On the morning of the 20th, the sentry was surprised and shot, and Lopez was completely routed, flying to the mountains. Lopez escaped on horseback, with nothing but what he wore. He encamped on one of the mountains, exposed to the violence of a terrific storm. On the evening of the 21st, having been forty-eight hours without food, a horse was killed and divided among 125 men, who were all that remained with him. They wandered about until mid-day of the 24th, when a halt was ordered, and on examination it was found that they had only 60 serviceable muskets, and about 40 dry cartridges. They commenced a retreat, when a force of 900 charged on the party. They dispersed, threw away their arms, and fled to the mountains; seven men only remaining with Lopez, and a large number being overtaken and killed. Lopez was taken with six of his men in the Pinos de Rangel; his captors were Jose Antonio Castañeda, guide of a pursuing force, and fifteen peasants of the country. The capture took place on the 29th, just seventeen days from his landing. The news of it spread at once through the country, and people began to flock into the camp to see the prisoners; to avoid inconvenience, Col. Ramon de Lago, who commanded the column, conveyed them to Havana by a night march.

The second day after being separated from Lopez, the party under Colonel Crittenden was captured by a detachment of Spanish soldiers and carried into Havana, where, on the sixteenth of August they were shot, by order of the Captain General. Very much exaggerated accounts of the circumstances attending their execution were circulated in the United States; and by forged letters respecting successes by the invaders, adhesions to them by the people of the island, indignities to Americans, &c., it was sought to excite the public indignation so that further expeditions should be set on foot that would be altogether irresistible. The party whose managements consisted of such systematic and persevering falsehood lost all its energy when news came of the capture of Lopez and the remnants of his army. At seven o'clock on the morning of the first of September, Lopez was garroted—that being the Spanish punishment for treason—in the presence of from eight to ten thousand troops. Brought from the prison he ascended the platform with a firm and steady step. Facing the multitude he made a short speech, and his last words were, "I die for my beloved Cuba." He then took his seat—the machine was adjusted; at the first twist of the screw his head dropped forward—and he was dead. He was a brave man, but of feeble capacities, and the leading members of the Cuban junta in the United States had no confidence in any movements subject to his direction. A few of the prisoners taken about the time of the capture of Lopez have been set at liberty, and others have been transported to Spain. The result of the whole business shows that the bodies of the prisoners shot at Havana with Crittenden and Kerr, were not mutilated nor anywise maltreated, as had been stated, but that the story that they had been was fabricated to excite indignation and procure reinforcements in this country; that the invaders achieved no important success at any time, beyond the killing of General Enna and the consequent repulse of the detachment led by him; that they killed not more than two hundred of the Spaniards; that they at no time were able to act on the offensive, but fought for their lives from the first, and were at length surprised and utterly routed; that, though they were landed in the very quarter of Cuba where Lopez was most likely to obtain aid, yet they received none of any kind, and were not joined by a single corporal's guard from the hour of their setting foot on the soil of Cuba; that the Creoles, or natives of Cuba, so far from affording them such aid as even cowards friendly to them might safely have done, evinced the most active and deadly hostility throughout to the invaders and their cause. We cannot doubt that they furnished the information which led to the surprise and route of Lopez; we know that they finally deceived, betrayed, bound and delivered him to Concha.

The Canadian Parliament was prorogued by the Governor-General on Saturday, the 30th of August, to the 8th of October. The royal speech represents the revenue as in a satisfactory state, and refers to the grants for improving the navigation of the St. Lawrence, and to the reduction of the emigrant tax. Six bills were reserved for the approval of the Queen, three of which relate to churches and rectories, two to the reduction of salaries, and one to the incorporation of the Fort Erie and Buffalo Suspension Bridge Company. The reciprocity question was left unsettled. The paraphernalia of the Canadian Government has since been removed from Toronto to Quebec. The general election in the Province of Nova-Scotia for members of Parliament, has resulted in a majority for the existing Government. The Provincial Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Financial Secretary, leading members of the Cabinet, have been reëlected. The construction of the railway from Halifax to Portland, and through New-Brunswick to Quebec, may be considered as secured. The question has been one of the prominent points in the election—the Liberals being in favor of, and the Conservatives opposed to it.

The Mexican Congress have passed a bill for the formation of an alliance, offensive and defensive, between all the Spanish American republics. With a foreign debt beyond her ability to pay; with a deficit accruing every year; with a whig government, threatened by insurrection at home, and blockade from a foreign power, Mexico may well look around her for some method of prolonging her existence. Opposition continues to the Tehuantepec treaty; and it is stated that two vessels sent from New-Orleans to commence the canal were seized by the Mexican authorities.

In South America there has been more than the usual amount of revolution. The President of Ecuador, General Nueva, left Querto on the seventeenth of July, to visit his family at Guayaquil. On approaching the city he was met by a military cavalcade, apparently for the purpose of[Pg 421] escorting him in: but was seized by them, and hurried off to sea in a vessel lying in the river; the destination of the vessel, and the fate of the prisoner were unknown. General Urbina immediately entered upon the administration of affairs. In Chili, Don Manuel Montt has been elected President by a large majority. Advices from Montevideo to July thirtieth, state that Urguiza and Garzon passed the Uraguay on the twentieth with seven thousand five hundred men, and that General Servando Gomez at once went over to them from the army of Oribe with two thousand cavalry, some staff officers and one thousand extra horses. It is expected that all of Oribe's forces will desert him in the same manner. Garzon, who formerly served with Oribe, is very popular among his forces. A Brazilian army of twelve thousand men is marching to join Urguiza and Garzon. The war will now be carried into the territories of Buenos Ayres. It will doubtless be a most ferocious contest; with Rosas it is a matter of life and death; the power he has built up with such bloodshed and tyranny will either be destroyed utterly or confirmed by the result. In Peru, the best understanding is said to exist between the Legislative and Executive bodies in the Government. Movements are being made for the greater extension of freedom of trade, and for prohibiting the circulation of Bolivian money within the Republic.

A revolution has broken out in the provinces of Antiochia and Popayan, in New-Grenada, which at the last advices (July twenty-fourth), was rapidly spreading over the country. The rising is headed by General Borrero, who took up arms with one thousand men, and has since received large accessions to his forces. General Borrero has the reputation of being an accomplished soldier and a sincere patriot. The city of Carthagena was thrown into great confusion by the reception of the intelligence, the militia being called out and the people supplied with arms.

In Nicaragua a revolution has displaced the government, and M. Montenegro, who was elected successor of the deposed President, died in a few days after, and the chief of the opposite faction, General Muños, is probably now in authority.

From Great Britain the news is various but generally of small importance. The Queen and Royal Family have been making a tour in Scotland, which gave occasion to the usual rejoicings and demonstrations of loyalty. The most grave questions discussed in the journals are connected with the Roman Catholic Disabilities subject. On the 19th August a great gathering of the Roman Catholic clergy and laity took place at the Rotunda in Dublin. The object in view was the organization of a party and the commencement of an agitation to bring about the repeal of the obnoxious act of Parliament. So strongly was public feeling excited on the occasion, that the military and police forces were held in readiness for action. Fortunately the peace was not disturbed; although the spiritual leaders themselves boldly set the law at defiance by the use, in one of their resolutions, of the very titles prohibited by the recent enactment. Among the notices of motion that have been placed on the books of the House of Commons for "next session," is one by Mr. Hume to move that "after a day to be fixed by Parliament, no person, male or female, shall be admitted to the service of the public, in any permanent civil office or department, unless they shall pass an examination by competent persons appointed for that purpose, and shall be found capable of fluently reading and writing the English language". In England the Railway Companies have held their annual meetings. The increase of travel has not kept pace with the increase of railways; the average profit is 3 per cent. The Times has had some forcible articles recently on the possibility of running a railroad straight from London to Constantinople, and thence through Ask Minor to India, so as to make Calcutta accessible in seven days. This the Times describes not only as practicable, but even of probable accomplishment, in a given number of years.

The harvest in England, Scotland, and Ireland has been of the most gratifying description. The weather was generally favorable, and a large quantity of grain was secured in excellent condition. As the harvest proceeded the reports from the agricultural districts improved, and previous estimates of crops, both as to quantity and quality, under rather than over what is realised. The aggregate produce of the kingdom is expected to be fully equal to that of good average seasons. Accounts of the potato blight have been greatly exaggerated. The disease has no doubt reappeared, but in much less degree than at the corresponding time in any previous year since its first appearance. But notwithstanding the prospect of a good harvest, the tide of emigration continues to roll on as unceasingly as in the spring months. Day after day the journals chronicle the departure of hundreds of emigrants, the major portion of whom are represented as possessing sufficient capital to enable them to purchase land on their arrival in America. The Monaghan Standard remarks that the greater proportion of emigrants now are of a very different description from the hordes of unhappy creatures, poverty stricken and debilitated with disease, who formerly struggled across the Atlantic. The greater number of those who now crowd our emigrant ships are men who, with a capital varying from £100 to £300, have been in the habit of conducting, with the aid of their sons and daughters, the cultivation of their land. An honorable trait of the character of the Irish in America is shown in a fact stated in the Ballinesloe Star, that in six weeks upwards of £20,000 were received from relations in America, in sums varying from £5 to £30, by persons in Ireland, the great majority of whom had been receiving relief in the work-houses up to the time of the money reaching them. In many cases the poor people have kept the matter secret, through a mistaken fear that if it were known to the poor law officials, a portion of the money would be impounded to pay for their maintainance while in the work-house. The money is consigned to some third party—some shopkeeper, or person who could be depended upon, to have it safely conveyed to its intended destination, without the knowledge of the work-house officers.

Much excitement has been created in England by a match between the yacht America, owned by Mr. John C. Stevens, of New-York, and the yacht Titania, and by other matches between the America and the most celebrated yachts in England, in all of which the America was successful.[Pg 422]

The America arrived out early in July. Hitherto the dozen or more yacht clubs in the United Kingdom had never dreamed of foreign competition. It was just known that there was an Imperial Yacht Club of St. Petersburg, maintained to encourage a nautical spirit among the nobility; and that owners of yachts at Rotterdam had enrolled themselves as the "Royal Netherlands Yacht Club;" but, till the America appeared, the few who were aware of the fact that there was a flourishing club at New York did not regard it as of the slightest consequence, or as at all likely to interfere with their monopoly of the most useful of sports. The few trial runs the America made after her arrival proved she was possessed of great speed, and that the owners were not so little justified as at first they had been thought in offering to back an untried vessel against any yacht in the English waters for the large sum of £10,000. As the day of the Royal Squadron's grand match drew near, the entries became numerous. In the memory of man Cowes never presented such an appearance as on the 22d of August. A large portion of the peerage and gentry of the United Kingdom had left their residences, and forsaken the sports of the moors, to witness the struggle. There must have been a hundred yachts lying at anchor in the roads; the beach was crowded, from Egypt to the piers; the esplanade in front of the Club thronged with ladies and gentlemen, and with the people inland, who came over in shoals, with wives, sons, and daughters, for the day. Eighteen yachts entered as competitors; the largest of which was a three-mast schooner, the Brilliant, 392 tons; and the smallest a cutter, Volante, 48 tons. Nine of the yachts were of above 100 tons, and nine were of less than 100 tons. The America's burden is 170 tons. The umpire in the case was Earl Wilton, and the triumph of the America complete. The "Cup of All Nations" was presented to Commodore Stephens and his brother, the owners of the America, after a dinner in the club-house that night. Mr. Abbot Lawrence was present, and acknowledged the compliments paid to this country. The yacht has since been sold to an English gentleman,—to be a model for British naval architects.

THE YACHT "AMERICA"

In the American section of the Great Exhibition, Mr. Hobbs has been the great centre of attraction, and his colloquial powers have been severely tested by the thousand and one explanations he is obliged to give of the mode in which his late achievements were effected. He contents[Pg 423] himself with asserting the vulnerability of all British locks and the impregnability of his own. He looks on the picking of Chubb's locks as the smallest of his feats; and it appears that the Directors of the Bank of England (no bad judges in such matters), have given in their adhesion, by ordering several of Mr. Hobbs's patent locks.

"Every practical success of the season," says the Times, "belongs to the Americans." Their reaping machines, their revolvers, their yachts, are great "facts," and every one in England seems willing to admire the skill and enterprise that produced them. Narrow-minded critics, who are too wise to learn, find out that the reasons for the "America's" success were exceedingly trifling; it was only a difference in her build, and in the construction of the sails, &c. Precisely so, and it was only a stroke with a knife that enabled the egg of Columbus (which it is true must be stale by this time) to stand perpendicular. Every one can do it now, just as with the aid of fire and coals, and some water, they can rush from continent to continent, and baffle the wind or the waves. Every discovery that is useful is simple. In the works of nature, there is no perplexing machinery.

The war at the Cape of Good Hope, still threatens to be expensive and protracted. The British troops have shown great gallantry in action, and the greatest endurance and even cheerfulness under the severe fatigue inseparable from the nature of the country, and the wide range embraced by the operations. But they are few in number; the policy of the insurgents is to avoid as much as possible a general engagement; the frontier is too extended to be effectually protected by stationary posts; the troops, therefore, are necessarily harrassed by constant patrol duty, and with no more decisive result than an occasional skirmish, in which four, five, or six Caffres are put hors de combat.

The directors of the Manchester Commercial Association, and of the Chamber of Commerce, continue to prosecute their endeavors to encourage the cultivation of cotton in India. In the early part of this year, letters were received by the association that fresh New-Orleans cotton seed was scarce in the districts of Tinnivelly and Coimbetore, and other parts of the Madras territory; and fearing that the India Board, if appealed to, might not be sufficiently prompt in supplying that deficiency. Mr. John Peal, one of the members of the association, has imported at his own risk thirty tons of this seed, and placed it at the disposal of the Court of Directors.

A California has been discovered in an interior county of New South Wales. The Sydney Morning Herald of May 20, quotes from the Bathurst Free Press of a few days previous, an article which describes "a tremendous excitement" in the town of Bathurst and the surrounding district of the counties Bathurst, Roxburg, and Westmoreland, on the discovery that "the country from the mountain ranges to an indefinite extent in the interior is one immense gold field."

In India the British government has derided to take and keep possession of certain parts of the Nizam's dominions unless he repays at once the monies due to the Government of India, amounting to upwards of eighty lacs of rupees, with interest at six per cent. The districts of country about to be absorbed are, it is said, all those on the other side of the Kishna river, Bachore, and Neildroog, besides Berar. But it is considered in Bombay that the Nizam "has the means to pay," and that at the eleventh hour he will pay and save his territory.

Traces appear to have been discovered of the movements of Sir John Franklin, in the earlier part of his voyage, but throwing little light, as we apprehend, on the painful question of his subsequent fate—of little more importance, in fact, than would be the vestiges he may have left behind him in Scotland. Yet we doubt whether it would be justifiable to abandon the pursuit, until their fate has been demonstrated by actual observation. This melancholy satisfaction, at least, is due to science, to humanity, and to surviving relatives. The Americans are foremost in this work of philanthropy. They have furnished the latest and most valuable information on the subject. Captain de Haven, Mr. Penny, and Dr. Kane, of the United States expedition, are especially entitled, with the officers and crews of their ships, to general admiration.

On the 1st August, a large party of the Corporation of London, and of the Royal Commissioners of the Great Exhibition, repaired to Paris, by invitation of the Prefect of the Seine. They were entertained on the way, and on August 2, a magnificent banquet was given at the Hotel de Ville in Paris, followed by a comedy and a concert. The total number of persons present was 4,000. The next day, Sunday, the wonders of Versailles and the grandes eaux were exhibited, and it is supposed that 100,000 persons were present. On Monday, the Lord Mayor and his suite, with the other distinguished visitors, inspected some of the most remarkable prisons in Paris, and in the afternoon left for St. Cloud, where they were received by the President, who expressed the extreme happiness he derived from the visit of the chief magistrate of the city of London, and his warm sense of the kind feeling towards France; manifested by the English nation. On Tuesday, a splende déjeuner was given at the English Embassy, in honor of the English visitors; and in the evening a grand ball took place at the Hotel de Ville, which was attended by 6000 persons. On Wednesday a mimic fight took place in the Champ de Mars; and in the evening, at the Grand Opera, an operatic entertainment was produced called Les Nations, written expressly in honor of Great Britain, by M. Adolpbe Adam. It was a tasteful and well-imagined trifle, of two scenes, the principal being one of the Crystal Palace.

From France the political news is of little moment, or at least is without any distinguishing event. The project for a revision of the constitution having failed, all parties are preparing for the important event of electing a new President. The Prince Joinville may be considered to be in the field as the representative of the Bourbon dynasty; and it is probable that the real conflict will be fought between the adherents of Napoleon and those of the exiled monarchy. A majority of the Councils of Arrondissement—according to some, a majority of no less than two thirds—have decided against any revision of the Constitution. At Lyons a conspiracy against the state was discovered, its leaders arrested, and their trial has excited much attention. Their object it is said was to give the south-eastern departments of France a secret organization,[Pg 424] sufficiently strong and complete to enable them to break out in simultaneous insurrection on a given signal; to secure the frontier of Switzerland and of Savoy as a means of assistance or retreat; to support the French movement by the advance of the refugees collected at Geneva; to take possession, if possible, of the ports of Toulon and Marseilles, and thus to command Algiers and the fleet; to inflame by this insurrection the south-eastern provinces pledged to the movement, and subsequently the eastern departments supposed to be favorable to it; and thus to lead to a general republican rising throughout the country, especially where the garrisons—were weakest. The prisoners were tried by a council of war, and their council in the course of the trial threw up their briefs in despair of obtaining a fair inquisition. Three of the prisoners, M. Gent, their leader, who had been conspicuous in affairs during the provisional government, and Longomazino, and Ode—were condemned to deportation; thirteen to detention for terms from three to fifteen years as felons, with police surveillance for life; nine to imprisonment for short terms; eleven were acquitted, besides ten who were condemned, and two acquitted by default. The punishment of deportation is the highest penalty for political offences now known to the French law, and has been expressly substituted by a recent enactment for the punishment of death. It consists in transportation to Nonkahiva or Vuitkan, in the Marquesas, the most desolate islands in the Pacific Ocean, one day to be peopled, as an enterprising public writer has observed, with the chiefs and leaders of political parties in France. At Paris, on the 31st of August, 125 persous were arrested, charged with a conspiracy against the State. Among the number was an advocate, named Maillard, formerly Secretary to Ledru Rollin. Rollin is said to be implicated in the conspiracy. A general Socialist Revolution was the object of the conspiracy. There was less excitement upon the subject in Paris than might have been anticipated. It is reported that an expedition will be sent to the Sea of Japan, under the orders of a rear-admiral, who has long navigated in the Pacific Ocean and the Chinese seas. The expedition will, it is added, be at once military, commercial and scientific, and has for its object the opening to European commerce of ports which have been closed against it since the sixteenth century.

We learn from Paris, that the Cabinet had held two councils, at which the President of the Republic presided, to discuss the Cuban affairs, and it was unanimously resolved to take, if necessary, efficient measures, with or without the concurrence of England, to protect the rights of Spain.

Letters from Toulon state that the Mediterranean squadron has received orders to proceed forthwith to the coast of Italy. The disturbed state of the Peninsula, and especially of Naples, is said to be the cause of this movement on the part of the French. Naples, and indeed all Italy, is becoming daily more and more uneasy.

In Italy there is little of importance, except constant atrocities by the government, irritating more and more the people of the several states, and driving them toward such excitements as will make revolution unavoidable. An "Italian League of Princes" is talked of, at the head of which is to be Austria; and a visit of the Cardinal Prince Altieri to Lombardy is said to be for the purpose of coming to an understanding with that Court on the subject. The Pope would be nominal president of the league, the object of which is to preserve the peace of Italy, and unite in suppressing every revolutionary movement at home, and aggression from abroad. A profound sensation has been created throughout Europe by the publication of two letters by Mr. Gladstone, a member of the British Parliament, exposing the despotism of the government of Naples. Mr. Gladstone, a scholar, a man of academic reputation, an eminent member of the conservative party of English politicians, and distinguished among members of that party for his calm and logical mind, and for his profound views of the nature and functions of a church—this man went to Italy in the winter of 1850-51, and spent three months in Naples, where, against his will, he was convinced that the conduct of the government was more cruel and unjust than had ever before been tolerated in a civilized country. He returned to England to arraign the despot Ferdinand at the bar of public opinion. Of his disclosures we can merely state, that twenty thousand of the most intelligent and virtuous men in that kingdom are now suffering both moral and physical torture as prisoners of state. Besides this, a catechism is used in the schools inculcating the most absolute doctrines of despotic government. What is thus proved of Naples is equally true of Modena. In fact, it pervades Italy. The organs of the Neapolitan Government give the lie to Mr. Gladstone's statements, and hirelings have been employed in London and Paris to answer them, but the result has been a triumphant vindication of his letters.

The correspondent of the Daily News, at Naples, states that more than one of the hangers-on of the Neapolitan Court have offered to reply to Mr. Gladstone's Setters, and n notorious spy has sent a manuscript to his Majesty: but "the King, I am assured, prefers availing himself of such journals in England or France as are open to an offer." Material has been sent off to the Univers, the organ of the Jesuits in France; and "an Englishman, well known for certain transactions in Italy, is to do all the pen fighting work for Ferdinand in London. Really," says the Daily News, "the princes of this epoch have much to redeem. Almost every crowned, or would-be crowned, head, as he appears on the scene, does so as a mean intriguer, a lying varlet, a wearer of false colors. None have the courage to avow the nature of their policy or claims; all pretending to be all things, and all as unscrupulous as the most reckless of adventurers in private life."

The Voss Gazette of Berlin, publishes a letter from Vienna of the 7th, which states that an extensive conspiracy has been discovered in Italy, and it was on that account the rigors of the state of siege in the Austrian provinces have been increased. It is added that on the fourth of July a gentleman at Venice died suddenly of apoplexy, and that on placing seals on his papers the scheme of a conspiracy, signed by more than 400 persons, was discovered. The object of it was, it is said, to kill the Emperor in the event of his going to Italy, and to kill all Austrian officers on the same night. Only one conspirator resided at Venice; thirty-seven were at Brescia, and the rest at Bologna. All have, it is said, been arrested.[Pg 425]

There is considerable activity among the military in Italy. The Austrian garrison and stations are strengthened along the whole line of frontier, especially towards Piedmont. Radetzky is understood to have applied for reinforcements from Germany. Connected with these movements—perhaps arising out of them—are numerous but rather vague reports of plots and contemplated insurrections. The Court of Saxony, long notorious for its zeal in propagating the Roman Catholic faith, has offered to mediate between the King of Sardinia and the Pope. The intimate family relations which connect the Courts of Saxony and Turin have prompted this step: it appears to be contemplated not without alarm by the Italian Liberals.

Great excitement has been created throughout Europe, by the promulgation of the two decrees of the Emperor of Austria, in which he declares that his ministers are henceforth to be responsible to no other political authority than the throne. The very terms of the Constitutional Government are abolished. The Emperor has violently suppressed the "Free Congregations," established by Ronge, and that once popular reformer has published some masterly letters on the subject, calling on the people of England to give the aid of their sympathy to the liberal thinkers of Germany. The Austrian Government has summarily expelled from its dominions Mr. Warrens, late Consul-General of the United States at Vienna, and for the last few years the proprietor of the widely-known newspaper, The Lloyds. The cause assigned is the publication of some unpalatable political remarks. This circumstance, coupled with the late bad treatment of Mr. Brace, will embitter our diplomatic relations with Austria.

From Russia information as to the war in its Caucasian departments is indefinite and uncertain. There had been several conflicts but none decisive or very important.

The Emperor of Russia has declared himself hostile to the incorporation of the non-German territories of Austria into the Germanic Confederation. This would seem to indicate that the Autocrat still clings to his project of a Panaslavonic union.

In the beginning of July, several prisoners, detained in the citadel at Warsaw, were condemned by Court Martial, and had their sentences communicated to them. The families of these unfortunates expected to obtain their pardon from the Emperor during his stay in Warsaw, or at all events during the celebration at Moscow on the 25th anniversary of his coronation, but they had hoped in vain. On the 20th of July, four of the convicted were publicly flogged. One received 2,000 lashes, two 1,500 each, and the fourth 2,000. This last fell dead after having received 1,000 lashes, and they placed the body of the dying man on a stretcher, where they administered the remaining thousand to his corpse. Thirty others, of whom the greater part were entitled to the amnesty granted to refugees, were sent to Siberia.

The census for Hungary, recently published in Austria, gives the following statistics: The collective mass of the native population is given at 7,659,151 souls. Of these there are 3,782,627 males, 3,876,624 females. These again are divided into 2,090,459 unmarried males, 1,943,946 unmarried females; 1,580,465 married males, 1,588,772 married females. One of the consequences of the civil war is to be found in the fact, that there are 134,113 more widows than bereaved males! The following is an estimate of the polyglott population—Magyars, 3,749,652—Sclavonians or Sclaves, 8,656,311—Germans, 834,350—Romanis, 538,373—Ruthenians, 347,734—Jews, 23,564—Croats, 82,003—Wends, 49,116—Gipsies, 47,609—Serfs, 20,994. Other nationalities, made up of Illyrians, Moravians, Bohemians, Italians, Armenians, Poles, 81 French, 25 English, 12 Swiss, and 2 Belgian, in all, 9,435. These classified according to religion, show of—Roman Catholics, 4,122,738—Greek Catholics, 676,398—Protestants of both confessions, 2,139,520—Greek not united, 396,931.

Revolution appears to be making the tour of the globe. Even the supposed unchangeable China is visited by the spirit of mutability. According to the latest intelligence, it is highly probable that the malcontents, who have been variously represented as brigands and rebels, are masters of all the provinces south of the Yellow River, and have seized upon the great entrepot of Canton. This would be a revolution; for Pekin, which derives its supplies of provisions by the great canal from those Southern provinces, would be starved into submission; and the principal seat of foreign commerce would fall into the hands of a party more bigotedly hostile to intercourse with foreigners than even the Celestial Government. Nor is such a revolution either impossible or improbable. Our knowledge of Chinese history is dim and obscure; yet enough appears to show that the Mantchoo authority has never been so firmly established to the South as to the North of the Yellow River—that the purely Chinese element of society has always preponderated in the Southern provinces. The pretended Emperor, at the last dates, was reported to be stopping at Sinchau, a departmental city of Kwang-si, having a water communication with Canton, whence it is distant about 200 miles. In a letter from one of his followers, it is stated that Teen-teh is himself at the head of the rebel forces, whom he led to victory "in the middle term of the third month of the present year" (early in June), "when 10,000 of the Government troops were destroyed, being hemmed in in a narrow pathway through a wood in a mountain pass." Having been duly proclaimed Emperor, Teen-teh dates the commencement of his reign from the month of September of last year, and has published an almanac, which his emissaries are busy distributing in various parts of the empire.

In Siam two changes of policy appear to be impending. The King, who refused to treat with Sir James Brooke, died on the 3d of April, and his throne is now occupied by two of his brothers; the eldest being first, and the other second king. This division of authority is not without precedent in Siam, and has taken place in the present instance in accordance with a legal nomination, made by the late King. There is little doubt but that for the future a different and more enlightened course of policy will be pursued towards foreigners. The new ruler-in-chief is a man of more than usual education, speaking English, and being somewhat acquainted with literature and science, and he has stated that if the English and American ambassadors return, they will be kindly received, and liberal treaties negotiated with them.

[Pg 426]

Scientific Discoveries and Proceedings of Learned Societies.

At a recent meeting of the Royal Society of Literature, Colonel Rawlinson read a most interesting paper, containing the announcement of a discovery of great historical importance. In looking over the large collection of new cuneiform inscriptions recently brought by Mr. Layard from Assyria, he has met with one recording the annals of the "Koyunjik King." Under the head of the third year occurs a notice which determinately proves the king in question to be the biblical Senacherib, and contains some other remarkable verifications of Scripture. The record, after giving an account of the king's war against the king of Sidon, and describing the battle between the Assyrians and Egyptians, in conformity with the statements of Josephus and Herodotus, presents a distinct notice of the proceedings of Senacherib against Hezekiah, king of Judea. The names in the inscription are Khazakiyah, Ursalimma, Jehuda; and the tribute which the Jewish king pays, in order to free himself from his enemy, is stated almost in the very words of Scripture. The annals of Senacherib in this inscription extend over seven years, and a cylinder has been met with which gives the events of two years more. Other points of identity between these annals and the Greek and the biblical notices of Senacherib likewise occur; but the chief point of interest is the establishment of the identity of the king who built the great palace of Koyunjik with that sovereign. A secure starting-place is now obtained for historical research, and it rapid progress will be made in fixing the Assyrian chronology. Colonel Rawlinson's paper was read at one of the four evening meetings which the Society has held this season for the reception of its foreign members and friends. The Earl of Carlisle was in the chair.

Attempts to discover a Perpetual Motion are still made in almost every country. In the United States a successful result is attained, according to the newspapers, about twice a year, and in Europe the inventive genius of the people is nearly as well rewarded. We read in the French paper appearing in Constantinople, that a Polish refugee of the name of Rudinski has discovered a sort of perpetuum mobile, at least an engine which somewhat approaches perpetual motion, for when once put in motion it can preserve it for twenty years. The power of this engine is said to be greater than that of any other yet known. The article in the same paper says that the inventor has made as a model a small carriage, 22 inches long, 11 inches wide and 14 inches high; that it carries a burden of one ton; and that its speed is a mile in a minute. The inventor is now occupied in building a mill after his method for the Turkish Government. The last American effort in this line is a "Static Pressure Rotary Engine," advertised by a Mr. Sawyer, and vindicated by Mr. Andrews, in a series of letters in the Tribune. Professor Loomis, of the New-York University, has taken the trouble to show that there is no discovery in the case. Mr. Sawyer's machine consist a of a covered cylindrical basin, 26 inches in diameter and two inches deep, to which is attached a vertical tube four inches in diameter and of any required length. A spiral groove runs the whole length of the tube, and this, together with the basin, is supposed to be filled with quicksilver. The whole is to be rapidly revolved about a vertical axis, when the centrifugal force of the mercury in the basin drives the mercury out through a valve on the edge of the basin, and leaves a vacuum behind. The mercury, as it escapes from the basin, falls into a reservoir communicating with the bottom of the spiral groove, through which it is forced by the pressure of the atmosphere with such velocity that the reaction of the sides of the groove causes the tube and the attached basin to revolve with great momentum, evolving new centrifugal force by which the vacuum is perpetuated. Mr. Sawyer supposes that the centrifugal force of the revolving mercury is sufficient to maintain its own revolution unimpaired, and leave a large surplus capable of being applied to any useful purpose. This conclusion is founded upon the computations of Professor Bull. Professor Bull has computed that a wheel 16 inches in diameter, and weighing 531 pounds, revolving 25 times in 10 seconds, will have a centrifugal force of 2,716 pounds; and that this velocity may be produced by a power of 166 pounds applied 1-1/2 inches from the centre, or a power of 452 pounds acting on the spiral groove already mentioned. Hence, says Mr. Sawyer, we have "a clear surplus of 2,264 pounds more than is required to turn the wheel." If this were so, it would constitute the most beautiful perpetual motion ever dreamed of by the visionary. Professor Loomis discusses the subject at length, and his chief objection may be summed up as follows: According to Sawyer &, Co.'s own data, the centrifugal force of a revolving wheel exceeds the power required to produce the rotation only at exceedingly high velocities—and in order to avail themselves of the full extent of this centrifugal force, they must employ air of such density that no vessel could possibly resist its pressure.

In the archives of Venice an interesting discovery has been made, from which it would appear that a Frenchman of the name of Gautier, professor of mathematics at Nancy, and member of the Royal Society at Paris, was the first to invent navigation by steam. In the year 1756 he submitted his plan to the society, of which he was a member, and it met with no countenance from that body. He then published a treatise on the subject, which attracted the attention of the Venetian Republic, and procured for him an invitation to the shores of the Adriatic; he went, but death soon put an end to his labors. A year or two afterwards the theory of Gautier was practically exemplified on the Seine, amidst the acclamations of the Parisians. The treatise by Gautier on "Navigation by Fire" the discovery alluded to above.

A paper was read before the British Association entitled "A Comparison of Athletic Men of Great Britain with Greek Statues," by Mr. J. B. Brent. Mr. Brent, in order to obtain those of the athletic, measured and weighed celebrated boxers, cricketers, wrestlers, rowers, pedestrians, and others. These he compared to the heights and[Pg 427] weights of soldiers and policemen, and thence with certain celebrated Greek statues. And from such a comparison it appears that the wrestlers of Cornwall, Devon, and the north of England, are not inferior to those statues.

A letter from St. Petersburg says that the Geographical Society of that city is displaying great activity. "Scarcely has the expedition which is sent to seek out the sources of the Nile returned when the society is preparing a new expedition having for its object to explore the peninsula of Kamskatka. The Count de Czapski is to have the direction of this new attempt, and he has subscribed 20,000f. a year towards the expense."

A recent traveller in Abyssinia has discovered a tribe of Jews in that country. They are called Falasha. Their chief priest, the Rabbi Yshaq (Isaac), told the traveller that they first entered the country in the time of King Solomon, and that they have uninterrupted traditions, though no written history, of the principal events that have occurred to them since that remote period. Their religious rites and belief are the same in substance as those of the European Jews, but some of their doctrines are quasi-Christian. Indeed, they say that it was from them that the early Christians took some of their customs and points of belief. They have a tradition of St. Paul having been in communication with them, and they hold him in great respect. They never, it seems, quitted their own country, and were shocked at the idea of going to sea in ships. "How at sea," they asked, "can the Sabbath be respected?" They know little or nothing of Europe; but on being told that vast numbers of their fellow believers resided in it, expressed pleasure and sent them their fraternal good wishes.

A French gentleman, M. Mariette, has made some important discoveries in the ruins of Memphis, and the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences has called on the government to afford him the pecuniary means of continuing his researches. The National Assembly, on the demand of the government, voted 20,000 francs ($6,000) for this purpose. M. Mariette has brought to light a number of basso-relievos, some statues, and about five hundred bronze figures. But his greatest discovery is the Temple of Serapis, and it is to free it from the soil which has covered it for ages that the money has been specially granted. One of the most magnificent temples which this deity possessed, or, indeed, which existed in the world, was that at Memphis; and it enjoys the peculiarity of containing ornaments in the Grecian as well as the Egyptian style, it having been in its highest glory about the time at which some of the Grecian idolatry was introduced into the ancient worship of Egypt. It is known to contain twelve statues of deities mounted on symbolical animals, all of more gigantic size than any hitherto found, also two splendid figures of the Sphinx, and two enormous lions in the Egyptian style: but the Sanctuary of the Temple, which has not yet been explored, will, it is expected, bring to light things far more curious, and of the highest historical importance. Altogether, it is expected that M. Mariette's excavations at Memphis will rival those of Dr. Layard at Nineveh.

It will be remembered that an island, about 120 feet high and 2,000 feet in circumference, suddenly sprang up in 1831 between Sicily and La Pantellaria. It disappeared about a month after, and at a later period even the sounding lead could give no indications of its existence; but vessels passing over the place it had formerly occupied would sometimes feel a sort of shock, which showed that it was of volcanic origin. In March last, however, the French vessel Eole, which was taking soundings in the vicinity, discovered some traces of its existence; and we now learn from Naples that in the course of the last month Her Majesty's ship Scourge, Captain Kerr, verified the truth of the preceding observation, and further discovered that the island, which had been christened "Isola Giulia," was only nine feet under water. Captain Kerr had a pole with a streamer and an inscription set up on the spot.

The experiments for the production of Photographs in Natural Colors appears to have been carried on simultaneously by Mr. Hill in this country and by several persons abroad. The Athenæum says that in some experiments made by Sir John Herschel a colored impression of the prismatic spectrum was obtained on paper stained with a vegetable juice. Mr. Robert Hunt published some accounts of the indications of color in their natural order obtained on sensitive photographic surfaces. These were, however, exceedingly faint, and M. Biot and others regarded the prospect of producing photographs in colors visionary,—not likely, from the dissimilar action of the solar rays, ever to become a reality. M. Becquerel has a process by which, on plates of metal, many of the more intense colors have been produced; but it appears to have been reserved for the nephew of the earliest student in photography, Niepce, to produce on the same plate, by one impression of the solar rays, all the colors of the chromatic scale. Of this process, called by the discoverer, Heliochromy—sun-coloring—we have had the opportunity of seeing specimens. They are three copies of colored engravings,—a female dancer and two male figures in fancy costumes; and every color of the original pictures is faithfully impressed on the prepared silver tablet. The preparation of the plates remains a secret with the inventor, but the plate when prepared presents a dark brown, nearly a black surface, and the image is eaten out in colors. We have endeavored by close examination to ascertain something of the laws producing this remarkable effect; but it is not easy at present to perceive the relations between the colorific action of light and the associated chemical influence. The female figure has a red silk dress, with purple trimming and white lace. The flesh tints, the red, the purple, and the white are well preserved in the copy. One of the male figures s remarkable for the delicacy of its delineation:—here, blue, red, white and pink are perfectly impressed. The third picture is injured in some parts:-but it is, from the number of colors which contains, the most remarkable of all. Red, blue, yellow, green, and white are distinctly marked,—and the intensity of the yellow is very striking. Such are the facts as they have been examined by the Athenæum, and these results superior to those which were given to the world when photography was first announced.

[Pg 428]

Recent Deaths.

James Fenimore Cooper, the first American who gave to American literature a name in other nations, and the most illustrious of the authors of his country, died at Otsego Hall, his residence in Cooperstown, on Sunday, the fourteenth of September, aged sixty-two years. Of his literary life and character we have recently written at large in these pages; of his noble personal qualities, which entitled him to no less eminence in society, we shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet, LL, D., the pioneer of Deaf-Mute Instruction in this country, died in Hartford, Connecticut, the 10th of September, at the age of sixty-four. At an early period of his life, Mr. Gallaudet became interested in the Deaf and Dumb. In the autumn of 1807, a child of Dr. Mason F. Cogswell, of Hartford, through a malignant fever, lost her hearing and soon after her speech. Mr. Gallaudet interested himself in the case of this child, and attempted to converse with and instruct her. His efforts was rewarded with partial success; and through the exertions of Dr. Cogswell, he was commissioned to visit Europe for the purpose of becoming a teacher of the Deaf and Dumb in this country. Seven gentlemen of Hartford subscribed sufficient funds to defray his expenses, and he departed on the 25th of May, 1815. Meanwhile, the friends of the project employed the interval in procuring an incorporation from the Legislature, in May, 1816. In May, 1819, the name of "the American Asylum at Hartford for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb," was bestowed on the first Institution for Deaf-Mutes established in this country. After spending several months in assiduous prosecution of his studies, under the Abbe Sicard and others, Mr. Gallaudet returned in August, 1816, accompanied by Mr. Laurent Clerc, a deaf and dumb professor of the Institution at Paris, well known in Europe as a most intelligent pupil of Sicard. Mr. Clerc is now living in a vigorous old age and is still a teacher at Hartford. The Asylum was opened on the 15th of April, 1817, and during the first week of its existence received seven pupils; it now averages 220 annually. Mr. Gallaudet became the Principal at its commencement, and held the office until April, 1830, when he resigned, and he has since officiated as Chaplain of the Retreat for the Insane at Hartford. His interest in the cause of the Deaf-Mute Education has continued unabated, and his memory will be warmly cherished by that unfortunate class, as well as by a large class of devoted friends. His last act in connection with the great cause to which all his best energies had been devoted, was the dictation of the following letter to his son, Mr. Gallaudet of the New-York Institute, who presented it to the recent Convention at Hartford:

Hartford, Aug. 29, 1851.

To the President, Officers and Members of the Convention of those interested in the Cause of Instruction of Deaf-Mutes, vote in session in this City—

M. Beverley Tucker, the half-brother of John Randolph, died on the 26th of August, of a chronic affection, at Winchester, in Virginia. He was one of the last of a generation and family, every member of which was remarkable for high and peculiar endowment. The subject of our notice was not inferior to the kinsman whose fame was so peculiar, in all the essentials of a high character and an exquisite genius. His writings, like the speeches of John Randolph, were distinguished by freedom, grace, wonderful raciness and spirit, and remarkable eloquence and point. He was the author of a series of lectures on Government—that of the United States in particular. He was a politician of the States Rights School, unbending and unyielding in his faith and tenacious of its minutest points. These lectures cannot be too carefully studied, especially by the young men of the north, as they embody the doctrines of Virginia and the South generally, and exhibit the extent of the political requisition of that great section of our country. They are beautifully written—are, in short, among the best specimens of political writing which we possess. Judge Tucker (he was sometime on the Bench in Missouri) was the author of many other works which deserve to be better known. His province was fiction as well as politics, and he wrote poetry with singular vigor. He was the translator of Goethe's Iphigenia, which was published in the Southern Literary Messenger, and has left among other manuscripts, an original drama, entitled "Viola," written in blank verse. His novel of "George Balcombe," will be remembered by many readers, as a prose fiction at once highly interesting and well written. His "Partisan Leader," another prose fiction in two volumes, is a political romance, embodying the Southern hostility to Mr. Van Buren's administration, and "illustrating the tendencies of his party to a general usurpation of all the attributes of sovereign power." His latest production, we believe, is a scattering criticism in the July issue of the Southern Quarterly Review, of Garland's life of John Randolph, a work which he bitterly denounced. Like his half-brother, the orator of Roanoke, Judge Tucker, was a person of intense feelings and great excitability, an eager impulse, and a keen power of sarcasm. He wrote with all the eloquence with which the latter spoke. His style is marked by great ease and freedom, by felicities of expression which give an epigrammatic point to his sentences, and by a sweetness and harmony of arrangement, which bestow music upon the ear without falling into monotony. His thought was equally free and melodious. He thought deeply and earnestly, and was never satisfied with the shallows of thought. In diving, he was no less clear than deep; he brought up pearls where the awkward diver brings up mud only. Judge Tucker was a fine man; of warm passions, but noble nature; of powers of satire, but of benevolent heart. He was probably sixty-eight years old when he died. He has left a wife and several children. We must not omit to mention that at the time of his death he held the chair of Law in the College of William and Mary, at Williamsburg, Va. Judge Tucker's last appearance in affairs was as a member of the Nashville Convention.[Pg 429]

Levi Woodbury was born in 1790, at Francestown, a good farming village in the interior of New Hampshire, where he received his early education, attending the district school during the winter months, and working on his father's farm in the summer. From his boyhood he showed a decided taste for learning, and on attaining the proper age, was sent to an academy, in order to prepare for college. He entered Dartmouth college in 1805, and after passing through the usual course, received his first degree, with a high reputation among his teachers and classmates for industry, talent, and uncommon perseverance. He at once selected the law as his future profession, and having studied for the requisite term of three years at Litchfield, Boston, and Exeter, as well as his native place, was admitted to the bar in 1812. At that time party spirit was raging with intense fervor in every portion of New England. Mr. Woodbury took a decided stand in favor of Madison's administration and the war with Great Britain. He was soon acknowledged as a shrewd and powerful leader of the party, which was then in the minority in his native state. Devoted with youthful zeal to the cause which he had espoused, he exerted no small influence in changing the political character of the state, and aiding the Democratic party in gaining the ascendency, which they secured in 1816. On the first meeting of the legislature, after his friends came into power, Mr. Woodbury was chosen Secretary of the Senate, and at the commencement of the following year was appointed a Judge of the Superior Court He was then but twenty-seven years of age, the youngest Judge, so far as we remember, that was ever elevated to a seat on the bench. The appointment caused great surprise to men of all parties, on account of the comparative youth of the incumbent, and his limited experience of practice at the bar. He acquitted himself, however, of the duties of his arduous station with great credit. His name became still more widely known, and in 1823 he was elected Governor of New Hampshire by a large majority. Failing to be chosen, for a second term, he resumed the practice of his profession in Portsmouth, to which place he had removed in 1819, and where he continued to have his permanent residence until the time of his decease. He immediately entered upon an extensive practice of his profession, and was surrounded with clients from all quarters. In 1825 he was chosen to the state legislature from the town of Portsmouth, and at the commencement of the session was elected Speaker of the House, although it was the first time that he had been a member of any legislative assembly. During this session he was chosen to fill a vacancy which had occurred in the Senate of the United States, and upon taking his seat in that body, he ably sustained the position of a leader of his party. His term of service in the Senate expired in March, 1831. He had previously declined a re-election. On the reorganization of President Jackson's cabinet, in the month of April following, he was invited to take the office of Secretary of the Navy. He accepted the appointment, and discharged the duties of the office until 1834, when he became Secretary of the Treasury, in place of Mr. Taney, whose nomination had been rejected by the Senate. He continued in that post till the close of Mr. Van Buren's presidency, when he resumed his seat in the Senate, to which he had been elected for six years from the 4th of March, 1841. Mean time, on the decease of Judge Story, during the administration of Mr. Polk, he was appointed to fill the place of that eminent jurist, and became a Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1846. From that time the deceased withdrew from active participation in political life, and devoted himself to the duties of his high station, which he discharged with assiduity and success. He died at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, September 3d, at the age of 61.

Without possessing the highest order of intellect, remarks the Tribune, Judge Woodbury had a large share of native shrewdness and unfailing quickness of political forecast, a very retentive memory, and a more than common power of logical reasoning. He was an effective speaker in debate, and understood the art of bringing men over to his views, even if they failed to comprehend his arguments. His style of writing was turgid and obscure, doing little justice to his acknowledged clearness of intellect. He made little use of common artifices for obtaining personal popularity, and though respected for his intelligence and solidity of character, was never a great public favorite. In the private relations of life his character was unblemished.

Gen. McClure, of Elgin, Illinois, died at that place on the 15th of August, at the age of eighty years. Gen. McClure was a native of Londonderry, Ireland, and emigrated to this country and settled at Bath, in the county of Steuben, prior to the year 1800. He removed from Bath to his late residence in Illinois, in 1835. During his residence in that state he held many offices of distinction, such as Surrogate, Judge, Sheriff, and member of the legislature. In 1813 he was in command of the American forces on the Buffalo frontier. He was severely censured for the burning of Newark (now Niagara), which took place whilst he was in command, but a subsequent discussion of that matter resulted in a very general conviction that the Secretary of War, General Armstrong, was mainly responsible for the act. Whatever of error he may have committed during a protracted life spent mostly in the service of the public, he will be remembered by the early settlers of Western New York as an active and enterprising man, possessed of a sound head and an honest heart.

Lorenz Oken, who was in his seventy-third year, died early in August The Leader says, "He will be known to many readers as the originator of that theory of cranial homologies which has effected so great a revolution in anatomical science. His discovery of the skull as a continuation of the vertebral column—of its being, in fact, nothing but a congeries of four vertebræ, as the brain itself is but a congeries of nervous ganglia —will immortalize his name; but if any unwary man of science opens the Lehrbuch der Natur Philosophie with the expectation of studying a work of positive science, he will be considerably astonished at finding Nature subjected to the forms of Schelling's metaphysics; nor will he be reconciled to its startling formulas by Oken's assuring him, that where God is called Fire or Water,[Pg 430] these expressions are only to be understood symbolically—nur symbolisch zunehmen seyn. The British reader is the last to learn with patience that "Nothing exists but the Nothing:" es existirt nichts als das Nichts. Nor can you pacify him by the assurance that Nichts does not mean no existence, but means no special phenomenon, the only true existence being The Absolute. He very properly discards such "metaphysic wit:" and when Oken teaches that, "God is the self-conscious Nothing; Creation is but God's act of self-consciousness; and that God came first to his self-consciousness through the spoken word (λογος) the world. If God did not think, there would be no world; nay, he himself would not be"—when we say Oken teaches him in all seriousness such "high arguments" as these, the British reader is apt to ask, "My dear sir, how do you know all this?" A translation of Oken was published by Mr. Tulk among the works of the Ray Society, and excited both astonishment and merriment in England. But, as we said, Oken's name is indelibly associated with a great advance in science; to his labors we owe the admirable researches of Professor Owen, and no amount of German metaphysics can quite obscure his renown."

The incidents of Oken's life are not many. In 1816, he began a journal called Isis, to which he intended to give an encyclopædic character. As the government of Saxe-Weimar then allowed the press greater freedom than other German states, many complainants selected this journal as their organ. Oken, whose views were liberal, printed such complaints whenever they were of general interest. The consequence was, that the government of Saxe-Weimar was compelled, by the great powers of the German confederacy, to make him discontinue the Isis, or discharge him from the professorship. Oken chose to give up the latter, and continued to live in Jena, with few interruptions. In 1827, he was made professor in the new university of Munich, where he has continued to lecture ever since. His activity is apparent from the list of his works: Outlines of the Philosophy of Nature, of the Theory of the Senses, and the Classification of Animals founded thereon, 1802; Generation, 1805; Biology, a text-book for his Lectures, 1805; Oken's and Kieser's Contributions to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, 1806; On the Signification of the Bones of the Cranium, 1807; On the Universe, a Continuation of the System of the Senses, 1808; First Ideas towards a Theory of Light, Darkness, Colors, and Heat, 1808; Sketch of the Natural System of Metals, 1809; On the Value of Natural History, 1809; Origin and Cure of Hernia Umbilicalis, 1810; Manual of the Philosophy of Nature, 1808, 1810, and 1811; Manual of Natural History, 1813, 1815, and 1816; New Armament, New France, New Germany, 1813; Natural History for Schools, 1821. In 1833 he became professor at Zurich, and it was there he wrote his General Views of Natural History, for all Classes, from 1833 to 1846.

Count Von Kielmansegge, the Hanoverian general, died lately at Linden, aged eighty-three. He was born at Ratzebourg, in the Duchy of Lauenburg, in the year 1768, entered the army in 1793, and served against the French at Nieuport in Holland, at Hamburg, at Quatre Bras, and Waterloo, where he commanded a brigade.

H. E. G. Paulus, Doctor of Theology, of Philosophy, and of Laws, a man who, for more than half a century, has been celebrated as one of the most able and active among the theological and philosophical writers of Germany, died at Heidelberg, on the 10th of August. Dr. Paulus was born at Lemberg, near Stuttgard, in 1760. He studied chiefly at Tubingen, but visited several other universities in Germany, Holland, and England. While at Oxford, in the year 1784, he was appointed Professor of Oriental Languages at Jena, chiefly through the recommendations of Griesbach. In 1793, he succeeded to the theological chair, and gave lectures on theology above forty years at Jena, Wurtzberg, and Heidleberg, till advancing age and its infirmities compelled him to retire from his public duties. He published upwards of thirty different works, and gave us the best edition of Spinoza. He was a man of truly German erudition; and with Eichorn, Planck, and Lessing, one of the leaders of Rationalism, which has ended in Strass and Bruno Bauer—unless we are to carry the influence further, and leave it in the hands of Feierbach and Max Steiner, avowed Atheists. His profound learning, penetrating judgment, unshrinking courage, and unwearied assiduity, obtained for his writings, which were very numerous, a wide circulation, and his researches, historical and critical, as well as the inferences he deduced from them, produced, without doubt, considerable effect on the public mind. In private life he was singularly amiable, easy of access, courteous to strangers, bestowing kind and unostentatious attention on all who sought his assistance, and ever actively employed up to his ninetieth year in endeavoring to promote freedom, order, and peace, piety, virtue, and humanity. Paulus had the degree of Doctor of Laws from Frieberg, in consequence of his critique of the famous process of Fonk. We have referred to the number of his works (those on oriental literature are enumerated by Meusel), but allusion should be made to his periodicals: his Sophronizon, established in 1819, devoted to church and state, and received with great favor by both Protestants and Catholics. In 1825 he began Der Denkglaubige, (the Thinking Believer), and in 1827, Kirchenbeleuchtungen, in which he aimed to show the true state of Romanism and Protestantism.

Joseph Rusiecki, one of the oldest and the most distinguished of the Polish emigrants in France, died early in August, in the hospital at Vierzon. He was born in 1770, and commenced his military career in 1787. He fought against the Russians in 1794, under the command of the immortal Koscinsko. After the partition of Poland he entered the service of the French Republic, fondly hoping, like many others who were equally deceived, that his country's independence would be restored through French influence. He made the campaigns of Italy with the First Consul, and formed part of the expedition to St. Domingo under Rochambeau. He served subsequently in the cuirassiers, commanded by General Hautpoul, who died in his arms on the sanguinary field of Eylau. On the cuirassiers, who were cut to pieces in that battle, being reorganized, it was observed to Napoleon that Lieutenant Rusiecki was not the height for a cuirassier. The Emperor commanded him to alight, and placing[Pg 431] himself back to back with him, he remarked to his aid-de-camp, "You are mistaken, sir, he is not a dwarf, he is my size," and at the same time he promoted him to the rank of captain in that corps. He was named Major in the year 1812, during the campaign of Russia. He commanded the 22d regiment of the line during the war of Independence, in the year 1831. His remains were accompanied to the grave by the principal inhabitants of Vierzon, and by the National Guard.

John Gottfried Gruber, Professor of Philosophy at Halle, was born at Naumburg on the 29th November, 1774, and educated at the University of Leipsic, where he was distinguished for attainments in philosophy, philology, mathematics, and natural science generally. In addition to numerous learned works on history, archæology, mythology, etc., he was the principal editor of the celebrated Universal Encyclopædia, in 109 volumes. He died at Halle about the middle of August.

John Hobart, second Earl of Clare, was born in Queens, 1792, and graduated at Christchurch, Oxford, where in 1812, he was second in classics. He, throughout life, cultivated his taste for literature, and for the society of literary men. He was a college associate and intimate friend of Lord Byron. He was a Knight of St Patrick, G.C.H., a Privy Councillor, Vice President of the Royal Society, and far many years was Governor of Bombay. He died at Brighton on the 18th of August.

Sir Henry Jardine, a son of Rev. Dr. Jardine, who projected the first Edinburgh Review, in 1755, was born in Edinburgh on the 30th of January, 1766, and after a successful career in the law, retired from public employment in 1837, with a yearly pension of £1400. He was knighted by King George IV., on the 29th of April, 1825. He was a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and of most of the literary, scientific, and charitable institutions of Edinburgh. The Society of Antiquaries, in particular, profited largely by the interest which he took in its affairs for many years. He was a contributor to the Bannatyne Club, of the pleasing and characteristic "Diary of James Melville, minister of Kilrenny." In private life, Sir Henry Jardine had many friends, among whom were Sir Walter Scott, and other distinguished men of his time.

Lady Louisa Stuart died in London on the 4th of August, aged nearly 94. She was the youngest daughter of the Earl of Bute, the celebrated minister during our revolution, and was granddaughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, to whose works she wrote the charming introductory anecdotes prefixed in Lord Wharncliffe's edition. She remembered to have seen her grandmother, Lady Mary, when at old Wortley's death that celebrated woman returned to London after her long and still unexplained exile from England. Lady Louisa herself was a charming letter-writer.

Ladies' Late Summer Fashions.

The season being now far advanced, no change of fashions can be looked for until autumn shall have fairly set in; but a great variety in costume is obtained by the different combinations of the articles already introduced.

White Muslin Mantelets are much worn. The selection for our illustration is of the shawl form, much rounded at the back. The ends in front are also slightly rounded. The mantelet is made of thin, soft, white muslin, and is trimmed with worked volants from six to seven inches broad, and set on rather full. The back and front are edged with two volants; and a third, passing over the armhole, forms a sort of sleeve. The dress worn with this mantelet is of white muslin, ornamented with needlework; but the mantelet is intended to be worn in outdoor costume with a dress of silk or barège. The pattern of the needlework consists of a deep scallop, with a notched or dentated edge. Within each large scallop there is a sprig, the leaves of which are formed in open work.

Several Evening Dresses, worn at the most recent parties, are of a style which would not be inappropriate for winter soirées; for instance, some of the new silk dresses intended for evening wear are trimmed with black lace flounces, the corsage ornamented and edged with narrow black velvet. Many dresses of printed organdy have been prepared for evening costume; one has the design[Pg 432] printed in pink, the pattern being small bouquets; another, with the pattern in blue, is made with seven flounces, and each flounce is edged with narrow gauze ribbon, the corsage also ornamented with gauze ribbons. This style of trimming renders the dress very elegant.

The Headdresses worn at evening parties present no novelty. Natural flowers may be worn in the hair with greater advantage at this season than at any other, as they fade less rapidly, than the summer flowers.

The newest style of Full Dress for Little Girls comprises some very pretty white muslin dresses, ornamented with tabliers of needlework. Bows of ribbon ornament the sleeves, and one is fixed at the waist behind. A white muslin dress, worn over a pink or blue slip is a fashionable style for little girls. With these dresses should be worn a sash with flowing ends. Some of these dresses are made with basques, notwithstanding that the corsage is low and the sleeves short. The skirt is always short, and trousers are indispensable.

For Little Boys who have not yet attained the age for wearing the jacket, the tunic or blouse is adopted. The Russian blouse is made all in one piece, but opening on the left side; or the blouse may be made in a style called the Scottish blouse, namely, with a plain corsage, having basques or tails, the skirt very full, and cut bias way. Either of the above forms are fashionable, and they are made of almost every kind of material, but those of chequered silk, especially for very little boys, are the most distingué. Short trousers and socks complete the costume.

The dress in the first of the above figures is of a plaided barège, of a delicate pink. The second is of a light silk dress of salmon-colored silk, van-dyked; bonnet of white chip. In all the recent patterns the advance toward autumn modes is too slight to need specification.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The International Monthly, Volume 4,
No. 3, October, 1851, by Various

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