GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XL. June, 1852. No. 6.

Contents

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

J. Hayter W. H. Mote

THE BROOME STREET MANUFACTORIES.

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XL. PHILADELPHIA, JUNE, 1852. No. 6.

NEW YORK PRINTING MACHINE, PRESS, AND SAW WORKS.

R. HOE & CO.

GOLD STREET WAREHOUSES.

Had it been possible for any human intellect, at the close of the eighteenth century, or the commencement of this its nineteenth successor, so to grasp and comprehend the development of science, its expansion and diffusion, and, above all, its application to the every-day wants and conveniences of ordinary human life, as to predict, only fifty years beforehand, any one of the almost incredible marvels which have long ceased to move especial wonder, as being now established facts, witnessed by all eyes, and of occurrence at all hours, the owner of that intellect would not have been merely laughed at as a crazy, crack-brained enthusiast, but would have run a very reasonable chance of being consigned to the cell of a madhouse, as an incorrigible and incurable monomaniac.

The writer of these lines, lacking several years yet of the completion of his tenth lustre, clearly remembers how, within thirty years at furthest, to assert an opinion of the feasibility of lighting streets by gas was to be sneered at for a visionary, or regarded with suspicion as a probable speculator in the fancy, even by the best informed, and most enlightened classes.

To the youngest of his readers the dictum of the then infallible Doctor Dionysius Lardner against the possibility of Ocean Steam Navigation—for, deny it now as he may, he can be clearly convicted of its utterance—is familiar as a household word.

And now, what insignificant town, to say nothing of innumerable private dwellings, innumerable factories and workshops, prison houses, as it were, and ergasteria, would it were otherwise! of plebeian labor, innumerable theatres, assembly-halls, and banquet-rooms, abodes of patrician pleasure, are not ablaze through the murkiest midnight, and light as the broadest day, with the released and radiant spirit, that lay so long enthralled and unsuspected in the hard heart of the swart coal mine?

And now, with what quarter of the world are we not in daily, if not hourly, communication by the united agencies of those two most irreconcilable powers, fire and water?

Hardly one century has elapsed since the American Franklin revealed to the admiring world the scarcely suspected fact, that the subtle spark elicited from the electrifying magazine, or from the hairs of a cat, rubbed contrariwise to their direction, is identical with the sovereign, all-pervading flash,

“Which issues from the loaded cloud,

And rives the oak asunder.”

And now, at this day, we sit quietly engaged in our study, or stand, even, as it may be, laboriously plying our trade of manual labor, and send that very lightning-flash, a tamed domestic influence, nay, but a very slave and pack-horse to our will, to speed our tidings to New Orleans, or to Newfoundland, and to bring us back the answer, before a second hour has lagged round the dial.

Time was, nor very long ago, when to receive news from Europe within thirty days, was esteemed a feat, if not a miracle, on the part of the carriers. Now, or ere a second summer shall have passed, the electric telegraph will be in operation to Cape Race, the south-easternmost point of Newfoundland, and mail steamers will be cleaving the Atlantic far to the northward, to and fro, from the green shores of Galway. Then, within seven days at the utmost, the news of farthest Europe, news from the Vistula, the Danube, and the Don; news from the Tartar and the Turk, shall be sped, more swiftly than though they “had taken the wings of the morning,” to the uttermost parts of America, shall be read almost simultaneously on the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific, and sent far aloof among the oceanic isles of the southern hemisphere, even to drowsy China and remote Taprobane, by the almost unearthly powers of steam and electricity, and last, not least, the press.

The word is out—we have said it—the press—a kindred, not antagonistic, scarcely even rival, power to the two mighty elements we have named—since it has pressed both into its service; and itself, purely human in its origin, its influence, and its importance, purely material in “its age and body, form and pressure,” derives most of its incalculable puissance from the coöperation and subservience of the two mightiest, most unearthly, most immaterial, and most spiritual of essences, existing, or which have existed, in the universe.

But we are not about to write an essay on the power, the influence, the utility of the press. These are too generally appreciated and acknowledged, to render a single paragraph necessary. In the two first particulars of power and influence, the press is incomparable—not to be equaled by any instrument or agency of humanity that ever has existed. The extent of its utility—although still unquestionable—is limited and diminished, “cribbed, coffined,” and curtailed by the weakness, the willfulness, and the wickedness of the very many men, unfit and evil-minded, who have thrust themselves forward, assuming to conduct it, and through it the public mind, with no ulterior object nobler or higher than the misapplication of the weight and moral power with which it invests them, to all sorts of immorality and wrong, to which avarice, rapacity, ambition, and the insane desire of demagogueism may impel them.

This is, however, only to admit that the press is an agency of time and mortality; and as such liable, of a necessity, to be perverted. Perhaps it is rather to be wondered, that there are few base, dishonest, licentious, and self-seeking journals in circulation, than that there are any; and it is clear, that the general tone of the reading world is so gradually and greatly improving, that few of those which now exist receive any considerable support, unless where they have the skill to introduce their false doctrines under cover of some specious sophistry, making them to wear the semblance of reforms. Even these, it may be observed, are daily becoming more and more transparent to the broad and keen eye of the public; and, in proportion as they are comprehended, lose their ill-acquired and abused popularity and power.

In one word, the utility of the press, its beneficial influences, its charities, its diffusion of knowledge and true light, and its general maintenance of the right, out-balance, as by ten thousand fold, the occasional obliquities, injustice, falsehood, and advocacy of devil’s doings here on earth, which periodically disgrace its columns.

For these the press is no more to be censured or condemned, than is the Book of Common Prayer, or the Holy Bible; because—in the middle ages—men, mad with too much, or too little learning—it matters not whether—applied their most hallowed texts, read backward, to the evocation of departed souls from Hades, or of evil spirits from the abyss of very Hell.

It is not, however, of the moral influences, but of the mere material powers of the press, as now existing in its wonderfully improved condition, with all appliances of marvelous time-saving machinery, that we would now speak—machinery born itself of machinery, self-developed from the swart, unplastic ore, with, comparatively speaking, small expense of human labor, though under the control of the all-contriving human brain, into engines of strange and mysterious potency.

It is little to say that the efficiency, and of course the utility, of the printing-press has been increased a thousand fold, that the facility and consequent cheapness, of the reproduction of books has been improved to such an extent that thousands and tens of thousands of volumes are now printed, published, and put into circulation, where there was one thirty years ago; and that too at prices, which bring it easily within the means of all—but the very idlest and poorest—to become familiar with the best thoughts of the brightest geniuses of all ages—That the whole system of journalism, and journal publishing, has passed through a complete revolution, reducing individual prices to a mere nominal fraction, and referring the question of profits, and remuneration of labor, to gross sales of tens of thousands of daily copies—the consequence of which revolution is to place the whole news of the world, including all discoveries of art or science, all arguments and disputations of the first statesmen and orators, all lectures of the most prominent literateurs and philosophers of the day, within the hand’s reach of every farmer and farm-laborer, every artisan, mechanic, clerk and shop-boy of the land, from the Aroostook to the Sacramento and Columbia.

It is little to say this—yet this is something; for it is the first step toward making those who do govern the land, fit to govern it—namely, the people—toward enabling them to judge, unlike the constituents of best European representative governments, not of men only, but, mediately, of measures; toward giving them to judge and learn for themselves, from the actual progress of recorded events, daily occuring, something of the policy of foreign nations, something of the interest of their own country; lastly, toward rendering the permanent establishment of a falsehood, or the long suppression of the truth, an impossibility.

And yet all this is to say little, as compared with what may be said—namely, that the difference between the efficiency of the modern printing-press and that of Guttenberg, Faustus and Schoffer, is almost greater than the difference between that and the manuscript system, which it superseded.

And all this is to be ascribed to the perfection of mechanics and machinery, brought by the aid of every branch of science to what we might well deem perfection, did not every coming day awake to perfectionate what was last night deemed perfect.

In all branches of human labor, in all phases of human ingenuity, for above half a century, this vast increase—both of the application and the power of machinery—has been in progress; constantly awakening the fears and jealousies, sometimes inducing the overt opposition and illegal violence of the working classes, as cheapening their labor, and about ultimately to subvert their trade and destroy their means of subsistence.

Than these fears and jealousies, nothing can be more erroneous, not to say absurd. For it is no longer a theory, but an established fact, that consumption of, and demand for, any article grows almost in arithmetical progression from the reduction of its price, to such a degree, as to render it available to all classes.

Two examples, alone, will be sufficient to make this clear:—

Some twenty years ago, the renewal of the English East India Company’s charter was refused by Parliament, and the tea-trade of Great Britain opened to all British bottoms[^[1]]. The price of tea was reduced by above one-half, and the company exclaimed loudly, as companies ever do, against the unjust legislation, which must needs ruin them.

Mark the result, however. The price of tea fell one-half; the consumption of tea increased—we speak generally—almost ten-fold. The company never were more prosperous than now.

Again—within the same period, inland postage in Great Britain was reduced to a uniform rate of one penny sterling, not without much opposition and strenuous contest, the opponents insisting that the department must become a burden on the state, from sheer inability to do the work of transportation at prices merely nominal. The results are before the public, and not a boy but knows that they precisely reverse the prediction.

The same thing is true of the growth of the cotton trade; of the growth of agricultural productions: and last, not least, and most of all to the purpose, of the growth of the so-called penny-press of New York, and the United States in general. We use the term so-called, because though nominally penny, most, if not all, of the very paying papers of this class are really two-penny papers.

While we were considering these matters, to which consideration we were led by a visit to the extraordinary machine works of Messrs. Hoe & Co., the inventors and manufacturers of the great fast power-presses, which have effected the revolution of which we have spoken, we accidentally stumbled upon the following article from the columns of the New York Tribune; and it is so entirely germane to the matter, that we have no hesitation in quoting the former portion of it, without alteration or comment.

The latter portion we omit, because we entirely disagree with Mr. Greely in the deduction which he draws from the admitted facts, as we do with most of his socialistic and communistic notions.

It is to the increase of demand, growing out of the increase and cheapness of production, that he must look for employment and profit, not to the catching at the empty bubble of ownership, or to the ambition of governing, with none to serve under him.

“LABOR AND MACHINERY.

A thoughtful laborer—for wages—sends us an account he finds current in the journals of the rapid progress of Printing by Machinery, as illustrated by a single cheap daily newspaper. That paper now prints 48,475 sheets—or 101 reams—per day, which it is enabled by rapid machinery to do from one set of types, whereas, if obliged to use the Hand-Press of former days, it would be obliged to set up its type twenty-nine times over for each daily edition, employing 812 compositors instead of barely 28, and 116 pressmen instead of some ten or twelve only. Hereupon our correspondent comments as follows:—

Mr. Greely:—It will be seen by the above, which I quote merely as a convenient text to illustrate the matter in hand, that in one establishment a difference is made of nearly or quite nine hundred men, in consequence of the invention or improvement of machinery, which has taken place within a less time than the last 25 years, from the number it would have been necessary to have employed to prosecute the same amount of business had no such progress been made. The same is true, I suppose, to an equal extent, of The Tribune and other journals of large circulation. The same—i. e., the alarming encroachment which machinery is every day making on what has heretofore been performed by human muscles alone—is not peculiar to any one branch of employment. The restless inquiry and invention of the present is rapidly and surely intruding iron muscles, which do not become hungry, or experience the depression of low wages and consequent low fare, into every department of human industry, crowding out and setting adrift thousands of the industrious, to seek new and untried means of subsistence, from which soon again to be driven, by—what many of them have come to look upon as their greatest, most persevering and relentless enemy—machinery.

Whither, I would thoughtfully and anxiously ask, do these facts, which stare us in the face from every quarter, tend? What is their mighty significancy? The unprecedented increase of the most cunningly adapted, durable, and economical machinery—on the one hand—to perform, in great part, the work heretofore done by us—the laborers; and—on the other hand—the sure and certain increase of that most reliable portion of humanity which we represent, and whose only capital is their muscles, and whose hope of bread for themselves and children is in the performance, to a large extent, of that same labor thus snatched from us by the offspring of invention. What wonder that the honest laborer, who knows no cunning but the use of the physical force which God has given him, or the mechanic who plies his trade, should stand aghast, and feel his heart sink within him, as he is forced from his legitimate occupation, to another and still another, and at last finds his employment altogether fitful and uncertain, from the number of his fellows driven to the same condition as himself. His labor is truly “a drug in the market,” and stern necessity is fast putting him, if it has not already, wholly at the mercy of capital. I could not but sadly ponder, as one—while watching the nicely adjusted movements of a cheap engine, which had ejected him and his fellow, in like condition, from the place whence, for years, they had obtained a livelihood for themselves and families—significantly observed to me that, “the best thing that could be done with that thing would be to break it to pieces, and pitch it out of the window.” They saw wood about town now, when they can get it to do, as the machinery, which they have in such successful operation in Chicago and some other cities for that purpose, has not yet been introduced here. Their daughters, too, who have, till within a six month back, had work at $2 50 per week, in the factories, are now out of employ. This, you know, is but one of countless similar illustrations which take place every day in poor families.

H.

We have thus allowed our friend to state his whole case—though he only submitted it that we might comment on its substance—and we now solicit his attention to some thoughts by it suggested.

Why does our friend go back only to the Hand-Press to exhibit the disastrous effects of Machinery on the interests of Labor? The hand-press itself is a labor-saving machine of immense capacity—far more so in its day than the power-press which is now extensively superseding it. It threw wholly out of employment and reduced to absolute destitution thousands upon thousands of skillful, accurate, admirable penmen, who had given the best years of their lives to acquire skill in a profession, or pursuit, which the press almost extirpated. To be at all consistent, “H.” must demand, not the destruction of the power-press only, but of all printing or copying presses whatever.

“Ah! but then there could be no newspapers?”—Nay; that does not follow. Kossuth’s first gazette was not printed, but a carefully prepared abstract of the sayings and doings of the Hungarian Diet, whereof copies were made by scribes for general diffusion. There have been many such instances of unprinted journals.

“Well; there could be no such journals as we now have.” No, nor could there be without the power-press. We could not afford such a paper as The Tribune now is for four times its present price, if we were obliged to print it on hand-presses; in fact, no such paper could be supported at all.

The subsisting truth, then, must be accepted and looked fairly in the face. The mountain will not come to Mahomet; he must go to the mountain. The existence and rapid progress of Machinery is a fact which cannot be set aside; the world will not, cannot go backward: Machinery cannot be destroyed; it cannot even be held where it is, but must move onward to further and vaster triumphs. We may deplore this, but cannot prevent it.”

The perusal of this article would have determined us, had we not been resolved beforehand, to lay before our readers an account of the very remarkable works to which we have before alluded, by the proprietors of which the machinery mentioned in the letter of “the thoughtful laborer” was of course manufactured, as by them it was invented; being no other than the great eight-cylinder, type-revolving, fast-printing press. Similar machines, though varying in the number of cylinders, are employed by the New York Herald and Tribune, the eight-cylinder being used by the Sun, the Philadelphia Ledger, and other journals in the United States, as also by the Parisian La Patrie, the quasi organ of the present Prince President, and, according to present appearances, future Emperor of the French.

These works are in truth one of the most remarkable sights, if not the most worthy of remark, of all that are shown to strangers in New York—and yet to how few are they shown. The changes to which they have already given birth are great enough, even now,

“To overcome us like a summer cloud,”

but the end of those changes is not yet, nor shall be, while we are. What they shall be, we may not even conjecture—perhaps the civilization, the christianizing of the world entire, and the reduction of all tongues and dialects to one universal English language.

To waste no more words, however, in mere speculation, but to come to facts, the history of the origin and progression of these truly wonderful works, of which more anon, is in itself by no means void of interest—even of something of romance.

In the well-known and ill-remembered yellow-fever summer of New York, an Englishman by birth, a carpenter by trade, landed in the city of the plague, a stranger, friendless, sick, and but scantily provided with what has been termed the root of all evil, which one-third of our people, however, regard as the sole object and aim of exertion and existence here and hereafter.

His good fortune, or rather—for we believe not in fortune—his good providence brought him in contact with that most singular of geniuses, Grant Thorburn. With him he boarded, with him struggled through the terrors of the prevailing pest, by him was tenderly nursed, and from his roof entered into business with Smith, the well-known machinist and inventor of the hand-press which still bears his name; nor is it yet superseded by more recent improvements. Their partnership terminated only with the decease of Mr. Smith; from which time, under the sole conduct of Mr. Hoe—for the stranger guest of Mr. Thorburn was no other than the father of the energetic, inventive and enterprising gentlemen, whose works we are about to describe—the business became permanently established, and yearly advanced in popularity and reputation, which constitute profits.

Still, greatly as he improved upon what had been before, at his death in 1834, the average annual sales of the concern did not exceed 50,000 dollars; they never now fall short of 400,000; and often amount to half a million. Such are, and will ever be, the consequences of energy, industry, probity and sobriety, joined to an earnest and sincere application of that talent, which each one of us in some sort possesses, to its true and legitimate increase and improvement—in other words, to quote a book so much out of fashion—find the more the pity!—in these piping times of progress, as the old church catechism, a quiet resolve to “do our duty in that state of life to which it hath pleased God to call us.”

Shortly after the death of Mr. Hoe, sen., his sons and successors, finding the then premises insufficient, moved to the ground now occupied by their great manufactories, occupying a hollow block four stories in height, of two hundred feet front on Broome street, by one hundred in depth on Sheriff and Columbia streets, as also a second lot on the other side of Broome street, containing their saw works, hardening furnaces, stables, and other necessary buildings. In these works, a bird’s eye view of which is pre-fixed to this paper, and the ground plan of which we here present, the Messrs. Hoe continually employ three hundred men, some of them persons of great ability as draughtsmen, pattern-makers, mechanicians, and the like—men literally of every nation, as nearly as may be, under the sun; among whom are comprised several Armenians, said to be persons of great intelligence and excellent deportment.

Besides this, their principal factory, they have another large and well built establishment, containing ware-rooms, counting-house, blacksmith’s shop, machine shop, and steam-engine room, in Gold street, nearly adjoining Fulton. This, though in fact headquarters, we shall pass over for the time being, premising only—in order to show the perfect method and system of time and labor-saving with which every thing belonging to this firm is conducted—that they have at their own expense, and for their own private use, erected an electric telegraph, carried by the permission of the proprietors over the roofs of houses, from the counting-room to the up-town factories, by which the smallest message or order is conveyed, and answered almost instantaneously. Nor are the proprietors dissatisfied with the result, having found by experience that the great original expense was very speedily compensated by the gain of time, and yet more of precision which it introduced.

Returning up-town, therefore, we will descend into the vault under the first yard, in which we shall find the moving puissance of all the vast machinery of hammers, planes, lathes, drills, grindstones, tools and devices, almost without name or number, which are constantly laboring with their iron nerves, noiseless, tireless, indefatigable, through every story of the great building—in the shape of the boilers and steam-engine, which, beside furnishing all the motive power, supply every part of the building, by a very ingenious application, with a constant stream of evenly tempered, pure, heated air, at the same time maintaining a thorough ventilation, and all without the slightest danger of fire.

The spent steam is brought into a series of coiled pipes within a trunk, through which a continual stream of pure external air flows without intermission, and is carried by wooden tubes through every story and room of the building; as is likewise an ample provision of Croton water, as well a provision against fire, as for the cleanliness and comfort of the men.

Of the engine there is nothing very special to be observed, as it is of the old construction, and, though perfectly efficient, not now to be imitated or adopted. It is a horizontal high pressure engine of about forty horse power, under the head of steam usually employed, though capable of exerting considerably more force, if called upon. There has been recently attached to it a singularly ingenious little machine, in the shape of a hydraulic regulator, of which great expectations are entertained, and which, in the very short time it has been tested, works to admiration, one week only having elapsed since its application. To attempt to describe this, or in fact any other complicated machine, in an illustrative article such as this pretends only to be, were an absurdity; for the operations of the simplest engines can be rendered thoroughly comprehensible, only—if at all—by thorough diagrams with numerical references, and then comprehensible only to scientific readers, conversant at least with the principles and working of the motive power, and the forces to be exerted by it.

Ascending from the subterranean regions, which are, by the way, so constructed under an open and little occupied court-yard that even in case of any untoward accident the least possible damage would ensue, and certainly no upheaval of whole edifices, as by the explosion of a powder magazine, would be the consequence, we arrive next in the order of production at the great foundery, occupying nearly one half of the ground floor on the Broome street front.

OLD STEAM-ENGINE, BROOME STREET.

Of this, although it furnishes the rude material, the first degree we mean from the actual raw metal for the whole establishment, the saw manufactory alone excepted, there is little to be noted worthy of particular attention by those who are familiar with the operation of furnaces, founderies and casting on a large scale, as in fact there is nothing in it unusual or novel, unless it be what struck us as both novel and unusual, the general absence of noise, confusion, din and turmoil, not to mention ill sounds, ill savors, and oppressive heat, which seems to pervade the whole establishment. This, ministering as it does largely to the comfort and well-being of all concerned, detracts somewhat, it must be admitted from the picturesque effect of the scenery, and its adjuncts. Even the neatness and cleanliness of the orderly and well conducted moving about each his own business noiselessly, and obeying a sign or the wafture of a hand, diminished the effect which we almost expect to feel in an iron foundery, a furnace, or a machine shop.

We well remember the impression left on our mind years ago by a visit to some gigantic iron works in Sheffield, an impression which made itself felt for many a month in strange fantastic dreams and painful nightmares—such influence, not on the imagination only but on the nerves, had the dense murky gloom of the dim vaults, suddenly kindled, as by magic, into a fierce incandescent glare by the lava-like torrents of molten iron, the volumes of black smoke, the stifling heat of the oppressed and exhausted atmosphere, and then the roar of unseen waters, suggestive of those subterranean streams of Hades, Acheron and Cocytus, the whirr and hurtling of unnumbered wheels, the terrible and deafening clang of the huge trip-hammers, literally making the solid earth jar and tremble; and last and most appropriate to the scene, the swarthy, grim-visaged workmen, fit representatives of Vulcan and his Cyclops, now glancing into lurid light, now vanishing into darkness, as the fitful flashes rose and fell. Of a verity there can be no much more appropriate representation of Pandemonium than an old-fashioned English iron works on a large scale.

But there is no room for marveling or romancing after this fashion in the machine works of Messrs. Hoe & Co., for all the rooms are well aired, well lighted, and none the less adapted to their purpose for being suitable to the accommodation of men who neither are slaves, nor in anywise resemble devils.

GREAT FOUNDERY.

From the foundery we proceed, across the open yard, to the smithy, a large, lofty, well proportioned apartment, containing two enormous steam-hammers, the speed and consequent impetus of which can be modulated by a very easy application of manual force, at the pleasure of the operator, so that they can be made either to rise and fall as slowly as the maces of Gog and Magog on the great bell of Saint Dunstan’s, or to impinge upon whatever is objected to their descent with a velocity which almost mocks the eye. In this apartment and its adjunct forge there are no less than eighteen stithies, the bellows of all which are worked by the ubiquitous power of the engine, with anvils of all manners and sizes in due proportion, and sturdy operatives plying them with tranquil and regulated industry, worth five times the amount of human force exerted unequally and impulsively, by fits and starts. These men, for the most part, and, in fact, always when not called off by some casual and unexpected pressure of business in some one department, are kept constantly employed at that peculiar species of work with which each is the most familiar, such method and system in the subdivision of labor being found to insure not only the greatest excellence, but the greatest celerity of workmanship.

SMITHY.

In this shop all such portions of the engines, presses, large and small, printing and inking machines, and of the machinery by the agency of which the above machines themselves are created, as are composed of wrought metal, are forged, welded, made new from the commencement, or repaired in case of damage. For it is worthy of remark that, although many of the labor-saving machines and tools are of English make—not a few by the celebrated Whitworth, said to be the first tool-maker in the world—there is not one that cannot, on emergency, be made, mended, or altered, within the precincts of the establishment; while many of the most admirable contrivances are patents and inventions peculiar to this country and this firm.

Immediately adjoining the smithy, is the engine and machine shop, and on the same floor the large lathe-room containing four enormous surface lathes and two turning lathes, for drilling, boring, turning, and finishing both circular and horizontal surfaces.

From this point, we shall proceed to the saw works, preferring to take each separate department of work by itself, from the commencement to the end, rather than to adhere to the precise order and position of the several rooms, as situated in the building.

The first room devoted to this branch of manufacture, which is a very considerable and important item in the business of Messrs. Hoe & Co., the annual sales amounting to not less than 140,000 dollars, in circular saws, mill-saws, pit-saws, and crosscut-saws, for all parts of the country, is known as the saw shop.

Herein is performed the business of smithing, teething, and blocking the great saws; hundreds of thousands of which are at work, driven by water or by steam-power in every portion of the boundless territories of the United States, to which the enterprising foot and adventurous axe of the white settler has found access—clearing with their restless and indomitable teeth the solid and tenacious fibres of the gnarled live-oaks in the pestilent swamps of Florida, and the dank “regions far away, by Pascagoula’s sunny bay,” into the crooked knees of mighty vessels, that shall set at naught the howling billows of the wild Atlantic, and the blasts of the mad storm-wind, Euroclydon, riving into planks and beams and timbers, that shall build up the palaces of commerce, and the happy homes of our lordly cities, the white and penetrable flesh of “those captive kings so straight and tall, those lordly pines, which fell long ago in the deer-haunted forests of Maine, when deep upon mountain and plain lay the snow.”

The machinery by which these various processes are accomplished is exceedingly fine and worthy of notice, and vastly superior to that used in England; in the dock-yards of which country the circular saws were first brought into service, if we do not err; especially that for cutting the teeth, which, worked by steam-power, does its duty with great rapidity and incomparable precision.

SAW SHOP.

This operation is performed by the vertical descent of a ponderous arm of iron, terminating in a cutter of the form of the notch to be made in the yet soft and smooth edge of the circular plate, which is made by the same power to revolve horizontally upon an axis placed at such distance from the impinging weight as the depth of the notch to be cut requires, and traversing at a rate so timed in unison with the descent of the cutters as to render the series of teeth perfectly continuous and equal; each blow of the cutter forming the interval between two teeth, and each full revolution of the plate completing a circular-saw. In the same way is effected the teething of the straight saws, the motion being a direct sliding action in a forward line, instead of a rotatory movement.

In the English saw works, owing to the influence of trade-unions, operative-unions, and the like, the application of steam-power to this machinery is prohibited, and the employer is restricted to the use of hand labor—the cutter being jerked down by man power, and the edge of the plate to be cut being subjected to the striker by hand, the formation of the teeth not being regulated by any absolute scale, but being executed by the calculation or guess-work of the artisan, and, of course, varying in accuracy, depth and precision of cutting according to the skillfulness or unskillfulness of the individual operator.

To the absence of these ingenious combinations, injurious alike to the true interest of operators and employers, the superiority in many respects of American to English machinery is in some degree due, and not less to the over stringency of the patent laws of Great Britain, which often prevent the application of really leading and most material improvements, of a radical nature, to principles secured for the benefit of the inventor.

We may here observe that the use of circular saws is very greatly on the increase in this country, more especially in the western portion of it. In the east, for some inexplicable reason, this admirable instrument is far less generally used; and the writer of this article, several years ago, when on a visit to the timber districts of Maine, on expressing his surprise at the non-adoption of this most excellent and labor-saving tool, could learn no adequate cause for the prejudice existing against it, unless it were some crude and absurd ideas concerning its vibration and consequent irregularity of cutting—objections not founded on facts, nor confirmed by experience.

From the saw shop the circular plates, now teethed and in the incipient stage of what Willis would call sawdom, are removed across Broome Street into the other building, and introduced to the saw hardening room, where they are converted into highly tempered steel.

SAW HARDENING ROOM.

This process is effected by heating the metal in charcoal furnaces to a white incandescent glow, and then cooling it by immersion in baths of oil and other drugs, the combination of which is, we believe, a secret. This done, the saws are ready for grinding which is effected in a special apartment of the main building—the flat, straight saws by hand application to a series of powerful grindstones, driven at a regular speed by gearings worked from the engine, and the circular saws by a very curious and effective patent machine, peculiar to this establishment, and invented by Mr. Hoe himself.

The old method of grinding circular saws, and that still practiced in all other works of this nature, is the application of them horizontally to the great vertically-moving grindstones by the hand; and, when it is considered that these great steel plates run up to six feet diameter and eighteen of circumference, and that they consequently entirely conceal the grindstone from the eyes of the operator who applies them, it will be evident that the process is mere guess-work, and that no certainty can be attained in regulating the thickness of the blades—in a word, that nothing was effected beyond the superficial brightening and abstersion of the surface.

GRINDING ROOM.

The new machine causes the great circular plate to revolve vertically on its access, while a “pad” to which is applied some sharp, detergent mineral-powder, is moved forcibly over its surface with a triple action.

In the first place, the pad itself is made to revolve with great velocity against the circular plane, in a direction perpendicular to its line of motion. In the second place, it is driven forward against it horizontally with a force increasing or diminishing, in proportion as it may be desirable to render the saw-blades thicker or thinner in any particular part of the circumference. It is usual to leave them thicker at the centre, and to grind them away gradually toward the circumference. Thirdly and lastly, the pad, while it revolves vertically in a direction perpendicular to the revolving plane, and is forced horizontally against it, is also driven laterally to and fro across its surface; and the result is a degree of equability, or graduation of thickness, as well as of superficial polish, scarcely otherwise attainable. This machine is one of the special wonders and ornaments of the establishment.

It will not be amiss here to add, that with the improvements of their manufacture the demand for circular saws is continually on the increase; and that a single house is in the habit of taking regularly six of these powerful tools weekly from the Messrs. Hoes’ establishment.

IRON PLANING, AND CUTTING ENGINE ROOMS.

Returning hence to the leading and principal feature of these works, the manufacture, namely, of all the various instruments and appliances for the art imprimatorial, we are next ushered into the iron planing and cutting engine rooms, for the cutting the cogs of engine wheels, and finishing the surfaces of whatever portions of the machinery must be brought to a smooth and polished face. This is done by the propulsion of the pieces of metal so to be planed, in a horizontal and longitudinal direction against cutting edges, which again move horizontally across the moving planes, and are pressed downward on them vertically, so as to bring the planing to the requisite depth. The abraded portions are thrown off from the surface, of cast iron in a sort of scaly dust, from wrought iron in long, curled shavings, and the planes can be wrought up to almost any desirable degree of finish and smoothness.

The cutting engine for the formation of cogged wheels, bears some relation to that for the teething of saws, the cutter impinging downward, with an action in some degree intermediate between that of sawing and filing, upon the exterior circumference of the circular wheels, which revolve on their axis under them in a rotation so regulated to the fall of the striker as to insure absolute equality in the width of the cogs or projections.

[Conclusion in our next

A FAREWELL.

———

W. H. HOSMER.

———

Drifting on the darkened waters

Are Earth’s dying sons and daughters,

And, like ships that meet each other,

Brother gives a hail to brother:

Brief the pleasure of that meeting,

And forgotten oft the greeting.

Could I think that other faces

Would of me blot out all traces.

Though I cannot be thy lover,

Clouds my path would gather over;

From remembrance, then, endeavor

Not to blot me out forever.

Fare thee well! must now be spoken,

And another tie be broken;

Though the hour hath come to sever,

Lady! I’ll forget thee never,

But thy warmth of soul remember

Till extinct life’s wasting ember.

EDITH MORTON.

———

BY MISS S. A. STUART.

———

CHAPTER I.

Have you ever been, dear reader, in that sweet little village of A——, in Virginia? Well, if you have not, you certainly have yet to see, the most pleasant little Eden of this earth; where they have the purest air, the most beautiful sunsets, and the bluest skies imaginable—Italy not excepted—so I think. There lived my heroine; and such a heroine, at the time I have chosen to introduce her to you.

It was close upon sundown, on a lovely spring day, when a strikingly handsome, distingué looking young man, alighted from his buggy, at the residence of Mrs. Morton, in the above mentioned village. Charles Lennard—the young man spoken of—had been received as a boarder, for a few months, into Mrs. Morton’s quiet family, as his health was too delicate to allow him to trust to the precarious and uncertain kindness shown by the landladies, in general, of thriving village inns. Some moneyed affair had called him to A., and here he had arrived on this lovely spring evening; and the skies wore their rosiest blush to greet his coming.

“By all that’s pretty! ’tis a little Paradise,” was his muttered notice, as he passed through the flower-garden, whose clinging vines, creeping o’er the lattice supports, veiled the little bird-nest of white that peeped out amid the rich green foliage, varied in color by a thousand tinted flowers. “I hope Mrs. Morton has given me a room overlooking the garden; ’twill be delightful to read here whilst these perfumes are floating around one.”

The door was wide open, and a quiet, blue-eyed lady sat sewing in the back part of the wide hall, who raised her soft, kind eyes inquiringly to his face, as his shadow darkened the doorway.

“Mrs. Morton, I presume?” said he, as she approached him. “I am Mr. Lennard, whom you were so kind as to admit—”

“I am happy to see you, Mr. Lennard,” interrupted she, hospitably extending her hand to bid him welcome. “Walk into this room, sir. We are very plain folks here, Mr. Lennard—but you must endeavor to make yourself at home. Alec”—to a boy who entered—“take this gentleman’s buggy and horse and put them up.”

Turning to her guest, she conducted him into her cosy parlor, now filled with the golden moats of the glimmering sunbeams, that quivered through the foliage that draped the windows; whilst the atmosphere of the room itself breathed sweets unnumbered. They chatted of the weather, of his journey, of the village, etc., till Mrs. Morton, remembering her duty as hostess, begged her guest to excuse her, whilst she hurried off, “on hospitable thoughts intent.” Charles threw himself dreamily and indolently into the old-fashioned arm-chair, which stood invitingly in the shadow of the window.

A young, glad voice, a light, bounding step, broke on his reverie; and, as he glanced toward the door, whence the sound came—bang! almost in his face, fell a carpet-bag, half filled with books, and then an exclamation of surprise from a young fairy, who just stopped long enough to make him doubt whether she was mortal or angel—and then again bounded off like a young, startled fawn. ’Tis our heroine—Edith Morton—released from her duties at the village academy, wild with repressed play and mischief, who has done him this favor! She returned ere long with her mother, reluctant and blushing, to sanction by her presence the apology uttered for her.

“You will excuse Edith, Mr. Lennard, I hope, for her carelessness. She tells me that the light dazzled her eyes so much, that she was not aware of your presence; she has been in the habit of throwing her books into this room—the arm-chair which you now occupy being her morning study. Edith, speak to Mr. Lennard, and tell him how sorry you are for your rude greeting.”

“Do not trouble yourself, Miss Edith. Your apology is all-sufficient, my dear madam; I, too, must apologize, for having unknowingly taken possession of her study, which is indeed inviting. You must look upon me as belonging to the family, and act without restraint; for I assure you, the thought would be far from pleasant did I think I interfered in the slightest degree with your settled habits. Miss Edith, you did right to send me such a reminder at the outset, and I assure you I will be more careful in future.”

A gleam of light, like a lurking smile, might be detected in the arch eyes of Edith, as she received this apology from Lennard. And he thought, without, however, giving utterance to it, “What a bewitching little fairy.” Edith Morton, though she had not reached the age of sixteen, was an exquisite specimen of girlish beauty, as impossible to resist as to describe. Her charm did not lie in her regular features, golden ringlets, or beautifully moulded and sylph-like form; though each and every one of these adjuncts to female loveliness she possessed in a preëminent degree, but her expression—arch, spirituelle! ’Tis useless to endeavor to convey an idea of the impression she must have made on you with those divine eyes, lit up in their blue depths, with the sunlight of her merry heart, or the piquant expression of her rosy mouth, whose deeply-tinted portals, when wreathed with one of her infectious, heart-beaming smiles, disclosing white, even, little pearls, as Jonathan Slick says, shining like a mouthful of “chewed cocoa-nut.” Shy before strangers, from her secluded life, she was the life of the circle in which she was known, and loved. Full of mischief, and the ringleader in every school-girl frolick, her ringing, mellow laugh, often echoed through the play-ground of the village school, or singing merrily, as she was borne aloft in the swing, or dancing like a fairy on the green. Many were the boy-lovers who bowed at her shrine, with their simple, heartfull offerings; but none felt themselves signally favored—for, young as she was, she seemed to have erected a standard of excellence in her own mind, and her ideal hero was alone the loved.

Charles Lennard soon made himself perfectly at home with Mrs. Morton and Edith; and his first evening with them passed pleasantly enough to him. He felt himself much attracted by her exquisite beauty; and, as their acquaintanceship progressed, when her mother left the room on household duties, he was much amused by her piquant and original replies to his questions. He found her, too, not uneducated, and, young as she was, a reader and lover of many of his own favorite poets. At the close of the evening, Mrs. Morton requested Edith to sing, and, with a startled look toward Lennard, she left her seat to get the guitar from its case.

“Mother, ’tis dreadfully out of tune,” in a tone of entreaty.

“Well, Edith, that is soon remedied by your will. So, my daughter, do not make any further excuse, but sing to me as usual. Mr. Lennard will excuse the faults when he sees how willing you are to oblige.”

Edith bent low over the instrument as she tuned it, and looking up into her mother’s face, as if her shyness was not yet overcome, waited for that mother to tell her to commence.

“Are you ready? well, play then my favorite.”

And though the young voice was trembling, and not well drilled, yet she warbled her “wood notes wild” with marvelous sweetness; and she blushed with pleasure at Lennard’s seeming enjoyment of her simple music; and her “good-night” to him was as charming as to an acquaintance of longer date, accompanied as it was by such a sweet smile.

“What a nice little wife she will make for some one, in days to come,” thought he, as standing by the window overlooking the garden, he found himself musing on the singularly graceful and beautiful child whom he had left.

Charles Lennard had no idea at that moment of ever loving Edith Morton. She was too young, too unformed in mind to comprehend him, and to follow, as a kindred spirit, through the abstruse and almost transcendental range of thought, in which he often loved to engage. Delicate in health as in organization, he contented himself for the present to be a spectator in the world rather than actor, and in his day-dreams now weaving bright pictures for the future—pictures in which he was to play a most conspicuous part. We will not say but that a vision also of dazzling eyes, dancing ringlets, and woman’s light form, constituted a part of the reveries of the listless and dreamy student.

The neat breakfast-parlor of Mrs. Morton looked as fresh as herself as Charles descended, the next morning, to that meal. And there sat Edith in the old, deeply cushioned chair, book in hand, conning her morning task most zealously, but ever and anon pushing her little foot out to a kitten on the floor, as playful as herself, who, with its eyes distended to a perfect circle, sat watching it most sagely, and then jumping quickly to catch it, in retreat—so that the young girl would laugh most merrily, and then again resume her book. Charles watched her from the hall ere he entered, for on his entrance she drew herself up most demurely, and cut the kitten’s acquaintance instanter.

“May I assist you with your map-questions, Miss Edith?”

“No, I thank you. I have finished studying them. Mother always insists that if I rise early I will learn twice as fast, and also be prepared to say them when the bell rings.”

“I know,” said Mrs. Morton, “she will be obliged to stop for play every now and then. Yes, truly, Edith, you are a sad idler.”

“Ah, mother! but you should only see me in school. Here there is so much to take up my attention. I mean I am obliged to kiss you, to tend the flowers, and—and play with pussy;” and here, forgetting Mr. Lennard, she caught up her little pet, and began smoothing its soft fur with her white hand.

“For shame, Edith; will you always be a child? Come, Mr. Lennard, breakfast is ready.”

——

CHAPTER II.

The holydays had come, and Edith was at home for the summer. How pleasant were her anticipations of her joyous freedom from dull books and the restraint of school routine for months to come. The next year she was to become a boarder in a fashionable school in Philadelphia, and her mother decided that the intervening time should be spent with her needle, in preparation for that event. Yes; how delightful! so Edith thought, to sit in that sociable room sewing, where the air was redolent with perfume, and the sunshine stole so coyly in through the vine-draped windows, making shimmering and fantastic figures on the highly polished and waxed floor of that peculiarly summer-room, as the sweet south wind waved them to and fro. Oh! for her, with her young heart of hope, the summer air was so delightful when it came through that window, where she loved to sit gazing dreamily of a lucid, still morning, coming, too, laden with sweets stolen from the dewy flowers; and then a glance at those fleecy, shifting clouds in the blue sky—why ’twas better to her than the fairy scenes of a magic lantern or gorgeous theatric spectacle.

And there, too, sat Lennard, quite domesticated by this time. Notwithstanding he thought it would be so very pleasant to study in his room overlooking the garden, he as regularly walked into the parlor every morning with his book, until quite a small library began to collect. Occasionally he would read favorite passages from them to Edith, as she sat sewing, and, child as she was, looking into her eyes for sympathy in his enthusiasm. But far oftener would he be wandering into the garden with her, selecting flowers; sometimes holding the tangled skein, and that, too, so intently, that often his dark brown locks were mingled with her golden ones. The peals of merry laughter! “How much amused they are,” repeated to herself Mrs. Morton; but on entering and inquiring what caused their merriment, ’twas too little to frame into an answer. Any thing—nothing—created a laugh or smile with them, they were so happy—so very happy. Nor was music’s soft strains neglected to gild the passing hours. There, in the witching, summer twilight, still, soundless, save the low melody gushing from Edith’s lips, as she sung to her simple accompaniment on the guitar, and with the fuller, deeper music of Charles’ voice, they sat wrapt in their happiness, unconscious—(at least one of them)—of the feelings rife within their hearts of what heightened their enjoyment.

Edith was unconscious. She was fully aware, it is true, that life was gaining every day fresh charms. To her eye the blue vault had never looked “so deeply, darkly, so intensely blue.” The birds had surely never sung so sweetly, nor the very flowers borne so bright a hue; and yet, to all appearance, as time wore on, she was not so gleeful nor so wildly frolicksome as usual. No longer would her voice be detected in the ringing laugh, but smiles were rippling and dimpling o’er her face, in her quiet heart happiness. Yes, in her heart of hearts, what a spring of deep joy was bubbling up almost to overflowing, quietly unknown to others, but thrillingly alive to herself; so intense at times, that those sweet eyes would glisten with unshed tears at the very thought that death might come and bear her off from so bright, so joyous a world, where life itself was bliss. Her unusual quietness—her fitful and radiant blushes—the soul-full glances—the manner that was stealing so softly, yet so perceptibly o’er the young girl, toning down, as it were, her high spirits, was noticed by her mother; but her conclusion was simply “that Edith is growing into a woman, and will not be such a hoyden as I dreaded.”

Edith was unconscious! But not so the dreamy student. He, though albeit as much a child in the actual business of life as Edith, was much better skilled in the heart’s lore. He had seen the flash of joy which brightened her eye—had watched the cheek kindling at his approach, and the smile of womanly sweetness, wreathing her exquisite lip at his words or glance of approval.

He had become, with Mrs. Morton’s acquiescence—having nothing to occupy him, he had informed her—Edith’s instructor in French; and he saw how any thing but wearisome was the daily task; and, in the solitude of his chamber, stole welcomely into his mind the thought that he had taught her practically to conjugate through all its inflections the verb aimer. Mrs. Morton very often complained to Edith that she neglected her sewing for her book, her guitar, her evening rambles—but she was the widow’s only child, her bright gleam of sunshine; her idleness was overlooked, and she was allowed to have her own will, and continued to be the constant companion of Charles Lennard.

It was a moonlight evening in the latter end of October. Edith, Mrs. Morton, an elderly lady-visitor, and Charles, rambled about a quarter of a mile from the village, to a place called the Coolspring, to enjoy one of the nights which October had stolen from summer, and, delighted with the beauty of the lonely, sequestered spot, where the moonbeams rested so brightly and reflectingly on the rustic spring—now bubbling up from the rich green, velvetty sward—now hiding in the thick grass, and anon revealing itself by its glitter—that the old ladies seated themselves on the rude bench for a cozy chat of “auld lang syne,” and “when we were girls, you remember.” Charles and Edith were standing some distance from them, watching “the silver tops of moon-touched trees.” Very quietly had they thus stood drinking in the quiet loveliness of this enchanting scene, and no sound was heard but the mellowed hum of the village, borne but echoingly to their ear, and the rustling of the foliage, as it was kissed by the night-breeze.

“Edith!” and his voice was low, “is this not beautiful. I swear that I could be here content forever, were you but with me. But would you, dear Edith?”

A quick, eager, flashing gaze, as her eye was for the instant raised to his own, was her answer. ’Twas the look of some wondering and awakened child, as the consciousness of her feelings toward Charles stole upon her beautifully, though strangely; and something of gladness was in the melody of the child-like, trusting, and low-toned voice with which she breathed, rather than uttered, “Oh, yes!”

“Dearest Edith!” was all that Charles said for some moments, as he held the little trembling hand in his own, then placing it within his arm, he drew her to the shade of a large tree, under whose foliage lay the fallen trunk of an oak, upon which they sat.

“Dearest Edith,” he again said, as she, with downcast eyes, blushing even in that dim light at his impassioned tones and loving words, “promise me that you will love me and think fondly of me for the next two years I am doomed to wander, and then, when I have fulfilled my guardian’s wishes, that you will be my wife? My own Edith, say?”

You could almost hear the beating of that young heart, as she thus sat listening at his side, shrinking and trembling from the arm thrown around her waist, and turning in timid modesty from the eyes looking so ardently loving into the glistening depths of her own, striving to hide her feelings from those fondly searching eyes. And Charles—with the lightning’s rapidity came into his mind the words of the poet:

“She loves me much, because she hides it.

Love teaches cunning even to innocence;

And when he gets possession, his first work

Is to dig deep within the heart, and there

Lie hid, and like a miser, in the dark

To feast alone.”

“You will forget me long ere you come back,” was her answer to his reiterated appeal. “Why need I, then, to answer?” And there was a tear almost in the liquid voice, as a vision of what her life would be, should such prove the truth, arose before her mind’s eye.

“Forget you! Do you judge me from yourself, Edith, when you say that?”

“Oh, no!” was the impulsive reply of the young maiden, as she hastily and unthoughtedly now answered him. “Oh, no indeed! But you, Mr. Lennard, are going to Europe; and you will see there so many, very many things and persons to make you forget me—a school-girl—an ignorant child. I was ashamed of myself before you, to think I knew so little—so very little, and you—why you will blush for my ignorance, and then—how could you love me?”

How sweet were those tones, so full of heart-music that he, luxuriating in them, hesitated to answer, that he might catch even their echo; but at length came his reply.

“How could I love you! Rather ask, how can—how could I help it. You are to me, Edith, more perfect than any human being I ever dreamed of or imagined; so lovely, darling, that when you burst on me first, in your young, pure loveliness, I was almost in doubt if you, indeed, belonged to our dull earth. How could I love you!”

“What a simple question; yet, how deep in its very simplicity and artlessness. Yes, Edith, I almost ask myself the same question—how I could dare to love one so like an angel. I will not suffer myself to search into my right—lest I say with truth,

‘ ’Twere as well to love some bright particular star

And think to wed it.’

But, promise that you will love me—that you will think ever of me; and that when I return you will be my wife?”

“You must ask mother, Ch—Mr. Lennard I mean—Indeed, indeed I cannot answer you for—do not laugh when I tell you—I am almost frightened when you ask me such a question; though”—and here the young head, with its clustering, silken ringlets, bent low as she whispered—“though I do love you now better than any one in the world. But, let us go to mother, now, Mr. Lennard,” she quickly added, startled as it were, by her own confession; and, springing lightly from him, as he attempted still to detain her with his loving words, and almost nestling down by her mother’s side, like a truant dove returned, and yet, her heart beating with the fullness of joy at the sweet knowledge she had thus gained—her eye lit up with the lore conned from the new page of the book in her life which she had then learnt. And Charles stood by her, even more eloquent in his silence than when he wooed her beneath the shadowy, old tree.

“But they were young; oh! what without our youth

Would love be? What would youth be, without love?

Youth lends it joy and sweetness—vigor—truth,

Heart, soul, and all that seems as from above.”

——

CHAPTER III.

Events mark time more than years, and this truth, so much known, serves me to tell the change wrought in Edith. A child in years, the beautiful fable of Psyche was realized; and the next morning found her soul awakened, and from her quiet, subdued manner, no longer the child but the woman—ay, and with a woman’s loving and devoted heart. Mrs. Morton had been informed—much to her surprise, of his proposal to her daughter—by Charles, and though prepossessed in his favor, yet she demurred giving her consent to their engagement on account of Edith’s extreme youth. Charles told her of his isolated condition—his fortune; and she at last, won by his earnest entreaties, and the bashful, asking look from Edith—whom she chanced to see whilst hesitating—consented to their correspondence and conditional engagement. And, now we must hurry over the subsequent time which intervened before Lennard’s departure, nor do I design to inflict the pangs of parting on any save the lovers themselves.

January found Edith at her new school, and her days glided on tranquilly and hopefully. She was assiduous at her studies, music, etc.; determined, in the depths of her loving yet ambitious little heart, to render herself worthy of her future husband.

Charles, carrying letters of introduction to persons of some consideration, and having good credit at his bankers, soon found himself admitted into circles of the élite in England, France and Italy. But every where did he carry about with him his vivid remembrance of Edith the young and the loving. Unlike most heroes, he met with no stirring adventures—no “accidents by flood or field”—no titled dames sued for his love. He traversed England—knew London and its lions—admired its gems; dwelt long enough in Paris to speak intelligently; sailed down the Rhine; crossed the Simplon, and spent some time at Florence, Naples, Venice, and at last settled down in Rome, to drag through the second winter of his probation in Europe. And most constant had he been all this time, thinking on Edith by day—dreaming of her by night, and repeatedly sending his missives of love o’er the broad Atlantic, laden with sighs sufficient to waft the bark of itself had not steam deigned to assist him.

It was in the month of March, when Lennard fell ill at Rome. Alone—recluse and dreamy still in his habits—he had made but few acquaintances, and would, I think, have fared but badly had it not been for the attention of an American family, like himself, sojourning in the “imperial city.”

Mr. Ashton, wife and daughter, were unremitting in their kindness to the invalid, the former watching him with a parent’s care, and the daughter cheering and amusing him during the listless and languid weeks of his slow convalescence. Isabel, or rather Bel Ashton, was not beautiful; but there was that nameless charm around her which often attaches more powerfully than mere beauty. Partly educated in Europe, she had passed much of her time in Paris and other cities of the continent, and possessed by des habitudes, and by nature, that

“Grace of motion and of look—the smooth

And swimming majesty of step and tread;

The symmetry of form, which set

The soul afloat, even like delicious airs

Of flute and harp.”

Above all, her wit, sparkling and effervescing like champagne, and almost as intoxicating. How swiftly and agreeably speeded on his days. Every morning found Charles in the parlor of the suite of rooms occupied by the Ashtons, and as he gained strength, their escort in rides and sight-seeing promenades. Yet, though he admired Bel Ashton much, his betrothed Edith was not forgotten. He now, however, often caught himself contrasting them together—wondering had she changed from her spirituelle, radiant, girlish beauty, into any thing of more earthy, coarser mould. With something unpleasant pulling at his heart-strings, came the recollection that Edith’s mother had a great resemblance to her daughter, but was too much embonpoint to suit his ideas of matron comeliness, and then a haunting vision would cross his fastidious mind of his worshiped Edith becoming like her mother, a Turkish beauty as to her size. Bel, with her tact, her undulating, graceful motion, her mannerism, would come in comparison to this bug-bear—we may almost call it—of his imagination; and, though when he remembered her sweet, joyous temper; her appearance, as when standing by the moonlit spring, with her graceful, girlish embarrassment—her rare and dazzling beauty, her pure young love—Bel would yield instant precedence to Edith; yet was he constantly haunted by these ever recurring comparisons, until he began—the ingrate!—to feel his engagement as a binding chain.

“I am now strong enough,” sighed Charles Lennard, one morning, “to think of my preparations to return to America. ’Tis now May, and I must reach Virginia sometime in July, on account of my then having reached my twenty-first birthday, and am recalled by letters looking business-like, in every way. When do you think of returning, Mr. Ashton?”

“I have been debating that question very often of late with my wife, and we both have arrived at the conclusion that we have already been absentees too long, and must wend our way ‘westward-ho’ also. What say you, Mrs. Ashton, and you, ma Belle, to being traveling companions with our friend Lennard?”

“With all my heart,” said Mrs. Ashton; whilst Bel, who had been seated at the piano, ran over with taper and jeweled fingers a brilliant symphony, adding to its melody that of her own rich, mellow voice, in the words, “There is no home like my own.”

And thus ’twas decided; and Charles carried his unconscious tempter from his allegiance along with him. Their intimacy, the effect—where any agreeability exists at all—of being “alone on the wide, wide sea,” did much to render him still more dissatisfied with his engagement, and though he erred not in the letter, I fear the spirit suffered in his vows of fealty to his affianced Edith. Alas! for man’s love. It is indeed

“Of man’s life a thing apart.”

Yet, one who thinks should not wish it otherwise, for it would then be most unnatural. Man has a thousand and one things to call off his thoughts from his love to passing events, glowing and changing as rapidly as the evening clouds, tinging his thoughts and feelings, chameleon-like, with all the tints and varieties of change, and calling upon him to battle with the rough necessities of life. And all this prevents him from thinking constantly o’er his dream of love, and weakens, as a matter of course, the first passionate ardor which he felt when under the influence of the smiles, bright glances, and loving words. As Miss Landon most beautifully observes—“He may turn sometimes to the flowers on the way-side, but the great business of life is still before him. The heart which a woman could utterly fill were unworthy to be her shrine. His rule over her is despotic and unmodified, but her power over him must be shared with a thousand other influences.”

Whilst, on the other hand, woman goes steadily on with her domestic, monotonous duties, till they call for no exertion of thought, becoming purely mechanical, and the imagination having no healthy exercise, runs riot in its indulgence of day-dreams. Many and many is the maiden who sits sewing most industriously with bright smiles wreathing unconsciously her lips—ask her the subject of her thoughts—her blush will tell you better than my words. She is now feasting on her imagination till her love, by constant thought, constant association with her daily routine of duties and pleasures, becomes part and parcel of her very existence.

They have all landed in New York—the home of the Ashtons—and still Charles Lennard loiters. Day after day finds him among the groups who crowd Mrs. Ashton’s parlors to welcome their return. At length Bel and her parents decide to spend the summer at Old Point Comfort, and Charles immediately finds it necessary for his health to enjoy the sea air and bathing. And so he must answer Edith’s last letter, received whilst in Europe, and announce his arrival—excuse himself, also, for not flying at once to her presence!

——

CHAPTER IV.

And Edith? All this while of chances and changes how is the time passing with her? See for yourself reader! Follow me gently into that well-known parlor of her mother’s dwelling. There she sits, the beautiful one! as light, as graceful, and still more lovely than when we saw her last; for we now behold her a thinking, refined, intellectual woman, with all her youthful, beaming charms, heightened into exquisite and womanly perfection. She is leaning, rather pensively, on the arm of the chair, drawn to the opened and perfume draped window, with her soft, dimpled hand holding in its rose-colored palm the rounded chin; the neat, little foot patting unconsciously the floor—her eyes bent on the flowers of her garden, seeing them in all their floating hues, like the mingled colors of a kaleidoscope, before her musing gaze. Her guitar leans against her knee, and the other hand is straying across the strings, awaking its echoes like the notes of an Eolian harp.

“Mother, I will go with cousin Frank and Sallie to Old Point. They are so anxious I should do so.”

“And suppose, Edith, Mr. Lennard arrives in your absence, what shall I tell him?” said Mrs. Morton, with a smile.

“Mother, you must forgive my first breach of confidence, for I was too unhappy, too wounded in my pride and love to speak of what I am going to tell you,” said Edith, her listless attitude now abandoned for one of energy, and the usual musical tones were rapid and more harsh—“yes, mother, my very first. Mr. Lennard will be at Old Point soon after I reach there. Yesterday I received a letter from him, and such a letter!” Edith’s voice faltered, but indignantly driving back the tears which were filling her eyes, she drew from her pocket a letter, and handing it to her mother, told her to read it. Whilst Mrs. Morton arranged her glasses, Edith sunk back into the chair with a slight frown and heightened color, and one could see from the clenched hand how determined she was to overcome the agitation which was increasing by her disclosures.

“New York, June, 1847.

“Dear Edith,—You must pardon my seeming neglect in having left unanswered so long your last. I have been very ill, and had it not been for the unexampled kindness of an American family resident in Rome, should long ere this have slept my last sleep. And though barely recovered, I feel that my strength needs recruiting ere I can be considered aught but an invalid, and will therefore set out for Old Point Comfort the last of this month. I hope I need not assure you that I feel my exile from your presence most sensibly, and I anticipate the pleasure of visiting you in A—— as soon as I am better. I know, my dear Edith, that this is but a sorry return for your long and affectionate letter to me; but I never did excel in putting my thoughts and feelings upon paper, my weakness now, must excuse even this poor attempt. I know your kind heart will make every apology for me, and you will look upon this as only the announcement, from myself, of my return to my native land, and of course, to you. Believe me, dear Edith, as ever,

Truly yours,

Charles.”

Mrs. Morton folded the letter slowly, and gave it back to Edith.

“He may be as he says, Edith, too unwell and too weak to write as he wishes.”

“Unwell!” said Edith indignantly; “were I dying I would not have written such a letter to him. Yes, I will go to Old Point, and show Mr. Lennard that I can resign him, and still live: I am determined he shall never triumph in the thought, that I, a foolish girl, would weep, and pine away, because he has forgotten me,”—here the tears ran freely from her beautiful eyes; and, with her voice broken by sobs, she continued—as she knelt before her mother, burying her tear-stained face in her lap—“and then, dear mother, I will be all your own Edith again: no parting from you, for I will never, never love any one, or believe in their love as I have done.”

Mrs. Morton suffered her to weep, knowing it was the best for that poor, grieved heart thus to find vent from its bitterness; but she showed her sympathy in her child’s first grief by her loving words, and by softly smoothing the ringlets on her hot, throbbing brow, and by many a tender kiss. And Edith, with her head resting on her mother’s lap, sat on the floor as of old, when a little child she would listen to stories from her parent; and Mrs. Morton, very judiciously, sought to impress upon poor Edith, the instability of all things earthly, and begged her to lay her griefs, in prayer, at the feet of that kind Father, who is never tired of inviting the sorrowing and weary to lay their burthens upon him, exhorting her to pray for strength, and firm faith, so as to say from her heart—“Though thou slayest me, yet will I trust in Thee!”

Some days were passed in preparation for her trip; and, at the appointed time, she accompanied her cousin Frank and his wife. The Hygeia Hotel was crowded with fashionables and invalids from every section of the Union, and our party found they had arrived in excellent time for the fancy ball, to take place the ensuing week. Edith was only eighteen; and though really grieved at Charles’ cold letter, and supposed faithlessness, yet her indignation and wounded pride made her still bear up against her sorrow, at the thought of rupturing her engagement with Lennard—whom she really loved, with all the warmth of first and trusting love, notwithstanding this rude shock it had received. But she was hopeful and buoyant in disposition, and consoled herself with the thought—as she looked into the mirror, and saw there her loveliness—that she yet would win him back to love her still more deeply: and pleased was she, very naturally, at the universal admiration she excited among the gentlemen; looking forward, too, to her first ball—thinking Charles Lennard would then see her in a dress, on which she bent all her taste to render it bewitching—that he would feel proud to be the husband-elect of one to whom so many eyes turned in ecstasy at her exquisite beauty. All these, and many more thoughts of a like nature, kept her from becoming a prey to her heart sickness, and she was really as lively and gay as she intended appearing in his eyes. I hope no one will deem my heroine heartless, because she was not as unhappy is she first expected to have been. No, very far was Edith Morton from that: on the contrary, she possessed warm and ardent feelings, but—as I said before—she was hopeful and confident—as what really beautiful woman is not?—in the power of her attractions.

——

CHAPTER V.

It was four o’clock, and the day of the expected fancy ball. The house, and its crowd of inmates, were in all the anxieties of preparation, and pleasing anticipation of the coming fête. The Baltimore boats have just arrived, bringing fresh accessions to the already thronged hotel; and the numerous waiters, and smartly-dressed chambermaids, might be seen hurrying here and there, busily preparing for the new comers. The long piazzas—that were in front and behind the central saloon—were full of gay groups: some sauntering to and fro, others in all the careless abandonnement of loose summer garb, were sitting with their cigars, and arguing about politics—lazily and prosily, as if even that was too much of an exertion for the warm weather. Groups of lovely women were promenading through the saloon, in tasteful dinner-dress—some laughing, flirting, some chess-playing with the officers of the garrison, in their uniforms. Nor was there wanting quite a number of sprightly “middies,” with their banded caps set jauntily on their heads, for Hampton Roads had two or three frigates, awaiting final orders, ere they put to sea.

Edith was neither in the saloon nor piazzas; but if you had searched closely, you might probably catch a glimpse of the rosy tips of her taper fingers, holding up a wee bit of the curtain, to allow her bright eyes to scan the arrivals, as they came up immediately in front of her window, amid the bustling porters, hand-barrows, and saunterers, from the wharf. Her little heart was beating wildly: and—although garbed only in her loose, white peignoir—never had she looked more lovely; for the rich flush of expectation was on her cheek, and her countenance was brightening and changing with every emotion.

Charles Lennard was expected that very evening! She left the saloon immediately after dinner, that she might be alone to watch: and here she has been stationed at the window, for the last half-hour, listening—with her heart—to every step, sounding on the gravel. At length, he comes—but not alone, as Edith had thought. No; he is one of a party, who are now approaching slowly up the walk, directly in front of Edith’s window—her room being one of those delightful ones, joining the centre saloon.

Well, as I said, here he comes, bearing several shawls, and walking slowly along with a graceful girl, in a fashionable traveling-dress, whose neatly gloved hand is resting on his arm, and whose thick veil hides features that Edith is scanning most uneasily. We will not say that a pang, very like the premonitory symptoms of the “green-eyed monster,” did not dart through her heart, playing sad havoc with her whilome hopeful feelings. Pale, and rather thinner than when she last saw him—but oh! how immeasurably superior, to her loving eyes, than all the men she had hitherto seen bowing homage to her charms. And now we must leave Edith, with feelings too excited for her evening siesta, and follow Charles and his party, who, of course, are no other than Bel Ashton, and her parents.

“A fancy ball! How provoking!” said she, as Charles announced to her what was in contemplation, as he rejoined her in one of the parlors, where they were waiting for their rooms to be prepared. “Yes, ’tis too annoying to have arrived so late, for I cannot possibly now dress in character, and I have no wish to enter the ball-room, save in costume.”

“But, my dear Bel,” expostulated Mrs. Ashton; “you have so many beautiful evening dresses: you must go indeed. After resting, I shall certainly peep in myself during the evening. And you, of course, will go, Mr. Lennard?”

“Yes, madam: I would not, if possible, miss seeing such an assemblage of my fair country-women, so soon after my return. I hope that my comparisons may not be deemed at all critical by you ladies, when I shall make them. But, Miss Bel, let me add my entreaties to those of your mother, and beg for the honor of becoming your escort for the evening.”

“I will not promise you yet,” said she, smiling; “but will let you know ere ’tis time to go. And, now, Mr. Lennard, hurry them with our rooms, if you have any compassion for me.”

Mr. Lennard again left them to execute her commands, and soon returning gave them the welcome intelligence that they were ready; and having escorted them to the door, left to betake himself to his, in order to recruit from the fatigue of three days’ travel.

He had not the smallest idea of Edith’s being an inmate of the hotel; or, indeed, of her being any where except in the quiet little village of A——. I really question if a thought had turned toward her, so absorbed had he been in his attentions to Miss Ashton, who, by the bye, though ever graceful and lady-like, was sometimes exacting in her demands.

Well, he went to sleep, and when he awoke from his refreshing nap, the room was shrouded in the dimness of twilight, and a tap at his door made him spring from the bed, and throwing on his coat, gave entrance to a servant, who brought lights, water, etc., as he had given orders, at that hour, and also a little perfumed billet, with “Miss Ashton’s compliments, and would be happy to accept of Mr. Lennard’s escort to the ball.”

At nine, he was at Mrs. Ashton’s door, where he was joined by the party, ready to enter the saloon.

Have you ever been at Old Point Comfort? If you have, ’tis needless for me to attempt to describe that spacious saloon, with its corridors on each side—large enough to contain with ease at least five hundred, without incommoding each other, by jutting elbows, or pinched feet, or by making the belle concerned about the appearance of her costume, as she mingles in the mêlée, or what would appear a crowd in any common sized room. What a coup d’œil struck our party as they entered the west door from the piazza. No garden ever gleamed more brightly with clustering flowers than did that gas-lit, lofty saloon, with its pillars, flowers and mirrors reflecting its extensive range and gay groups, making it look still larger and better filled. The splendid band from the garrison was in full play, wafting strains of delicious music over the illumined and perfumed scene. There were groups of fair forms and lovely faces, that would task the most skillful artist to depict, and match in their rich complexions and brilliant robes even Titian’s exquisite coloring. Fragments of conversations, and jets of sparkling—now murmuring—laughter would fall from their ruby lips, like snatches of delicious music. And there, in other groups, could be seen distinguished statesmen and orators—here the merchant, forgetful for the nonce of his schemes of profit, as he looked on his superbly bedecked wife or fascinating daughter; there the author, whose honeyed eloquence linked his readers’ hearts to his name with chains of gold, and caused many a pulse to throb as wildly as now beat the hearts of those young houries who grace this glad scene. Dancing had not as yet commenced.

A buzz of general admiration now follows a group who have just entered. It consisted of four persons, two ladies and their escorts, en character à la Cracoviene. Upon one, in particular, of that well dressed quartette did the eye rest in amaze at her radiant beauty of form and feature, and the exquisite grace of her undulating step reminding one of the dip of a sea-gull—so easy, so light, so gliding in its motion. Her cavalier was tall, thereby making the form which leaned on his arm almost petit by comparison. Her short, full skirt of white silk, with scarlet ribbons—tight-fitting jacket of velvet, of the same brilliant dye, with its buttons and embroidery of silver—scarlet boots, à la polka, and small velvet cap, with white marabouts, completed the costume, which exactly suited the arch look of the beautiful Edith. Her luxuriant tresses of light brown were braided in wide plaits, and tied en nœuds, with ribbons to match in color her jacket.

Charles fairly started, for—unchanged, except that added years but increased her loveliness, and that her coquettish dress and the dazzling light made her look still more ethereal and fairy-like—’twas his own Edith! Yes, the truant heart, which had been straying, like a thought of the mind, was instantly brought back to its allegiance; and the deep tone with which he uttered “Edith!” had all the fervor and tenderness of the moonlight trysting scene.

A pang, too, very much like jealousy, came to annoy him, at this crisis, when he saw her dispensing her smiles to the knot of gentlemen who almost surrounded her party, and seemed soliciting her hand for the polka quadrilles they were about forming. How inconsistent are those very same “lords of creation.”

There was Charles fuming and chafing, internally, because Edith by some magnetic attraction had not been able to single him out amid that crowd of five hundred!—and he had for a few brief hours past almost forgotten her existence. He determined to get clear of Bel as soon as politeness would allow, and claim from Edith her recognizance. At the same time, however, thoughts of writing a tiny note, and conveying it to her privately, crossed the “almost twilight of his brain;” for he was fearful that the young, untrained girl, who had never mingled in European courts, and been the admiration of mustached barons and stripling lords, might be apt to get up a scene.

He might have spared himself this harrowing thought, did he but know that Edith had actually seen him on her first entrance, and was determined on showing him that her happiness was not entirely dependent on her whilome, careless lover. The chains he had been so anxious to loose he now hugged, with anxiety and joy, the closer to him, as he, notwithstanding the brilliant remarks of Bel, (to which I am fearful he answered at random,) continued absorbed and wrapped in the contemplation of Edith’s peerless beauty, and her sprightly and lady-like manner. He now entered, con amore, into the truth of Shakspeare’s lines—

It so falls out,

That what we have we prize not to the worth,

While we enjoy it; but, being lacked and lost,

Why then we know its value: then, we find

The virtue that possession would not show us

While it was ours.

He watches her—and she, at last, suffers her eye to fall upon him. “Is it possible! Am I so changed! Or, perhaps, she has so far forgotten me that, after a lapse of three years, I am not recognized.” These were some of his now agonized thoughts; and, with murmured apology, he resigned Bel to her father, and moved toward Edith. Too late! She has taken her place in the quadrille, and he only reaches her former resting place in time to hear the murmurs of admiration from the group of gentlemen left. The graceful, willowy figure of Edith is now moving through the quadrille with a young officer, whom Lennard at once dubs in his heart as “a puppy,” from the very fact of seeing him look on his own Edith! with too impassioned an eye to suit his fancy.

As she takes her place, she allows her eyes to meet those of Charles—an electric stream seems to shoot through each heart, for the bright blush of Edith suffuses even her snowy throat.

When the quadrilles were finished, he, of course, had an opportunity of advancing and addressing Edith; and that same inconsistency! which I have before apostrophized—he would rather have the embarrassment of a scene now, than the smile, and—to his excited imagination—very cool, collected reception which Edith at this time tenders him. She welcomed him, ’tis true, but shared with him—him the loved—the betrothed—the absent—the smiles which his heart so covets with the acquaintance of a day! Could mortal man bear this? Charles felt that the iron had entered into his soul and Edith saw it!

He could not find the opportunity he sought of questioning Edith. He asked her to dance—to promenade with him. She held up to him her tablets, with its lengthy list of names, and with her musical laugh cries, “Mercy, I pray you.” Charles turned off, with a bow he vainly strives to make as careless as her manner to him, and rejoins the Ashtons. Bel will not dance. She is somewhat provoked with Charles, whom she saw addressing Edith with more empressement and diffidence of manner than he exhibited toward herself, and hence the cloud.

Their party leave early, and Lennard, restless and disquieted, wanders forth to the beach seeking company from the moaning and restless waves for his own troubled thoughts. Strains of melody are borne to him on that lonely shore from the scene of gay festivity, and he feels angry with Edith, whom his jealous imagination pictures reveling in the dance, for thus enjoying herself to his own misery. He sat down on the breakwater, watching the waves, and in his despairing mood wished for death, bethinking himself of the heartlessness of all womankind, and of Edith in particular. The stars were paling in the quiet sky when he betook himself homeward, worn out and exhausted. He passed the now deserted ball-room, “whose guests had fled,” and threw himself on his bed, to toss in dark dreams the few remaining hours that intervened between then and the time he could reasonably expect to see Edith.

——

CHAPTER VI.

What a glorious night! How dazzling look the shining sand, the glistening water, in the moon’s mellow rays which fall now so brightly upon them, and bathing in its effulgence those two youthful figures who are pacing to and fro on the ramparts of Fortress Monroe, nearest the bay. The lady was gazing on the ground, and he—into her lovely face. ’Twas Edith and Lennard!

Vainly had he sought the interview during the day, but he could only see her the centre of an admiring circle, for Edith was decidedly the “star of beauty” and the “belle” amid the many who thronged the crowded saloons of the Hygeia Hotel. At last she promised to walk with him; and directly after tea had she gone with Charles to the garrison, and there, ’neath that brightly shining moon, had he told her of his fault—of his love.

And Edith?

She like a true woman forgave him, for she loved much. At first, however, she made him writhe under her assumed inconstancy, until she saw his agony, and then, when almost in despair of regaining his lost treasure—her love—came her forgiveness, like the manna to the starving Israelites. Adding, by way of coda to her musical words, the laughing exhortation, “To be a good boy, and she would—try to love him.”

A week later finds them en route for A——, Charles Lennard accompanying them; for he is as eager to ratify his engagement now as he was before to free himself. He had told Bel Ashton, the day after the ball, of his engagement, and she did not break her heart, but was soon as gay and as graceful as ever, “winning golden opinions” from all sorts of people, for Mr. Ashton was very wealthy, and Bel was his only child!

Mrs. Morton was very much astonished to see Edith return so full of happiness, and bringing back, as “quiet as a lamb,” the recreant knight. Nor did she advert to the letter or Edith’s protestation, but once, and that was when preparing for their marriage, she exclaimed with a smile: “So, Edith, instead of coming back to love no one but your mother, you only return to fill my hands full of labor and perplexity, and my heart full of grief at the thoughts of parting with you, even for a while.”

LINES,

SUGGESTED BY ROGERS’ STATUE OF RUTH.

———

BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

———

From age to age, from clime to clime,

A spirit, bright as her own morn,

She walks the golden fields of Time,

As erst amid the yellow corn.

A form o’er which the hallowed veil

Of years bequeaths a lovelier light,

As when the mists of morning sail

Round some far isle to make it bright.

And as some reaper ’mid the grain,

Or binder resting o’er his sheaf,

Beheld her on the orient plain,

A passing vision, bright and brief;

And while he gazed let fall perchance

The sheaf or sickle from his hand—

Thus even here, as in a trance,

Before her kneeling form I stand.

But not as then she comes and goes

To live in memory alone;

The perfect soul before me glows

Immortal in the living stone.

And while upon her face I gaze

And scan her rarely rounded form,

The glory of her native days

Comes floating o’er me soft and warm;—

Comes floating, till this shadowy place

Brightens to noontide, and receives

The breath of that old harvest space

With all its sunshine and its sheaves!

It is a form beloved of yore,

And when that passed the name breathed on;

But now the form lives as before

To charm even though the name were gone.

And though the future years may dim

And mar this lovely type of Truth,

Through every action, feature, limb,

The breathing stone shall whisper Ruth!

FERDINAND DE CANDOLLES.

Of all the social miseries of France, none are more fruitful in catastrophes of every kind than the idle uselessness of the well-born, and the over-education of those who are not so. France being, as one of her writers observes, the China of Europe, her habits, customs, and traditions, endure, in fact, through the organized destruction of succeeding revolutions, and whilst throne after throne lies in the dust, the prejudices of that fictitious universe called the world, are standing still, fixed, firm, and uprising in inflexible strength from roots that plunge deep into the soil. For instance, the old idea that a gentilhomme or a Grand Seigneur should not know how to spell, although obsolete as far as grammar and orthography are concerned, lives on yet in the notion that a gentleman must not work. This has hitherto proved an uneradicable opinion, and the general incapability and instinctive laziness of the upper classes in France, can, alas! amply testify to its prevalence throughout the country. It is not that the aristocracy of France are wanting in talent or intelligence; on the contrary, they have far more of what may be called native capacity than the classes beneath them—but they are unpractical, unbusiness-like, unused to any things in the shape of affairs. They are admirable if always in the first place, but rebel at the bare thought of helping on the governing machine in its hidden wheels; and whilst with us every public office counts gentlemen by the dozen, and noble names are to be found even in the most unconspicuous, though useful places; in France an ancient family would think itself degraded if one of its sons were to be discovered amongst the workers of a bureau.

The following tale, the circumstances of which are yet uneffaced from many a memory in Paris, will perhaps serve to exemplify the sad truth of what I advance, and give a slight notion of the immediate action of certain false principles upon our neighbors’ mind. The hero of the ensuing pages, Ferdinand de Candolles, was the last scion of one of the most ancient houses in France. Ferdinand’s father died whilst the boy was in early infancy, and the entire charge of her son, whom she idolized, fell upon Madame de Candolles. At eighteen, Ferdinand was a tall, handsome youth, prodigiously proud of his name, highly romantic in his notions, ready to do battle with any given number of individuals in honor of Dieu, le Roi, ou sa fame, making a terrible quantity of bad verses, but as incapable of explaining to you M. de Villèle’s last financial measure, or the probable influence of the increasing growth of beet-root sugar upon the colonial markets, as he would have been of expounding the doctrines of Confucius in Chinese.

The Revolution of 1830, fell like a thunder-bolt upon France, and the Bourbons of the elder branch allowed themselves to be driven from their post. The elements of revolution had been for the last seven or eight years fermenting far more in society, in the arts and in literature, than in the political sphere; and Ferdinand, with all his heart and soul a devoted royalist, as far as the government was concerned, was naïvely and unsuspectingly in every thing else, a determined revolutionist, overthrowing intellectual dynasties, spurning authority, mocking at control, gloating over Victor Hugo, George Sand, e tutti quanti, and fancying the whole was quite compatible with the political faith he would sooner have died than resign. Sometimes Madame de Candolles would think very seriously of what could be the future career of her son, and the word Nothing! emblazoned in gigantic ideal letters, was the only answer her imagination ever framed. In 1832, it so happened that the now prefect named in the department, was an old friend of the widow’s family—a bourgeois, it is true, still a respectable man, whose father and uncle had, in very difficult times, rendered more than one signal service to Madame de Candolles’ own parents. M. Durand and his wife drew Ferdinand and his mother as much about them as they possibly could, and whenever he found an occasion of insinuating any thing of the kind into the widow’s ear, the well-intentioned préfet would talk seriously, nay, almost paternally, of her son’s future, and the little it seemed likely to offer him. One day, after a conversation in which Madame de Candolles had more freely than usual admitted the barrenness of the lad’s prospects, M. Durand contrived to lead her insensibly toward the notion of some employment whereby a becoming existence might be insured, hinted that there were positions where political opinions need be no obstacle, to which the nomination even did not emanate directly from the government, and ended by proposing to invest Ferdinand with the dignity of head librarian to the Bibliothèque de la Ville, a place yielding some hundred and fifty pounds a year, and just left vacant by the death of Madame Durand’s nephew. Madame de Candolles’ surprise was scarcely surpassed by her indignation, and, though she managed to cover both by a slight veil of politeness, there was in her refusal a degree of haughtiness that went well-nigh to disturb the honest préfet’s equanimity. As to Ferdinand, he did not exactly know, when the offer was first made clear to him, whether he ought not to take down a certain sword worn at Marigny by his ancestor, Palamède de Candolles, and punish M. Durand with positive loss of life for his audacity; but, when what he called reason returned, he determined simply by the frigid dignity of his manners in future to make the bourgeois functionary of Louis Philippe feel the full extent of his mistake, and bring him to a proper consciousness of the wide difference between their relative positions. Nor was this all; one day, some six months after, Madame de Candolles took occasion to pay a visit to the préfecture, and leading M. Durand aside, to solicit him for the still unfilled post of librarian, in favor of Ferdinand’s foster-brother, a market-gardener’s son! He was, she said, an exceedingly clever young man, knew Latin, Greek, and all sorts of things, had just served his time in a notary’s office, and would be the very thing for the situation proposed!—(successor to Madame Durand’s own nephew!) The préfet was sufficiently master of himself to refuse politely, alleging that he had already made choice of a librarian; but when Madame Durand heard the story, she vowed undying hatred to all aristocrats, and whenever she afterward met Madame de Candolles, tossed her plumed head as though she had been a war-horse. So ended our hero’s first and only chance of official employment, rejected, we have seen with what disdain. He had then attained the age of twenty-three.

In the course of the following year General de Candolles died, leaving all he possessed to his nephew. This “all” was not much, still it was something—some twenty-odd thousand francs, or so—and if the widow had lived long enough, it might have increased; but, unfortunately, before Ferdinand had reached the age of twenty-five, his mother also died, leaving him completely—positively “alone in the world.” With what Madame de Candolles left (her chief resources had come from a small annuity) Ferdinand found himself at the head of about two thousand pounds sterling. With two thousand francs a year, which this would yield, he might have lived comfortably enough in any part of the provinces, and indulged in a quiet laugh at the préfet, who wanted to make a bibliothécaire of him. But, of course, such sensible arrangements did not enter into his head. He was (the naïf royalist and aristocrat!) wild with admiration of “Hernani” and le Roi s’amuse, and for the moment thought of little beyond the soul-stirring delights of seeing Bocage in Antony, or Madame Dorval in Marion Delorme. To Paris, of course, tended all his desires, and to Paris he accordingly went, as soon as the first months of mourning were expired, and he had put what he termed order into his affairs.

We will not dive into the details of his existence in the great capital during the first period of his residence there. Suffice it to say, that the literary mania soon possessed him entirely, and he dreamt of little short of European fame. Here, indeed, thought he, was a career into which he might throw himself with all his energy. Lamartine and De Vigny were gentlemen like himself, and there was in poetry nothing to sully his escutcheon. Unfortunately, Ferdinand mistook for talent the means afforded him by his purse for drawing flatterers about him, and for some time he bought his most fatal illusions with his positive substance. Dinners to journalists, and parties of pleasure with all the world, soon reduced his capital considerably, but what did that matter? when he should be famous, publishers would besiege him, laying thousands at his feet for a fortnight’s labor. He was already the acknowledged idol of certain salons, and when the tragedy he had written should be performed, his name would be glorious throughout the world. By dint of pecuniary sacrifices, the performance of this play at the Théâtre Français had been obtained, and what with newspaper scribblers, claqueurs, actresses, and human leeches of every sort who fastened upon his pocket, the author found himself, half an hour before the curtain drew up, on the fancied dawn of his glory, literally deprived of every farthing he possessed, except one solitary five-franc piece in his waistcoat pouch. Ferdinand smiled gayly on perceiving this, and thought what a strange thing fortune was, and fame, too, and how, on the morrow, he should be on the high road to riches!

Well, to cut the matter short, the tragedy was a dead failure, as it merited to be, and before the last act was ended, Ferdinand’s golden dreams were rudely dispelled, and he clutched the pièce de cent sous in his waistcoat-pocket as though it were to save him from going crazy. When the curtain dropped he escaped from the theatre unseen, muffled up in his cloak like some criminal flying from detection. But his fate was lying in wait for him. As he turned round the corner of the house which led into the least frequented of the surrounding streets, he perceived three or four carriages waiting for their occupants, and he stood for an instant, hesitating whether to go backward or forward. At that moment, a ray from the réverbère fell upon the face of a lady who, enveloped in mantle and hood, was waiting for the arrival of her equipage. Ferdinand had never seen that face before, but he stood riveted to the spot, for something in his heart whispered, it is she—the one! The preceding carriages received their respective charges, and whirled them off; the last one drew up, and the door was opened by the footman—the lady dropped her glove, whilst turning to bid adieu to her companion. Ferdinand, unconscious that he had sprung to her side, raised it up, and offered it to its owner. “Thank you, Armand,” said she, “what a wretched stupid play—was it not?” and then turning round—“A thousand pardons, monsieur!” she exclaimed, “I mistook you for another person;” and so, with a bow, she entered her carriage, and the door closed with a bang.

Ferdinand stood upon the spot where he had seen her stand, until a sergent de ville touched him on the arm, and told him to move on. “What a wretched stupid play!—was it not?” the sentence rang in his ear, but brought with it the echo of the tone—that magic sound that had struck upon the chords of his secret soul, and under whose vibration they were still striking their response—the honeyed voice, not the hard words, had wounded him, and he confessed that, though deadly, the poison was nectar to the taste.

Day after day, hour after hour, did Ferdinand spend in the vain attempt to discover his unknown idol, and the less he succeeded in the enterprise, the more the object of his pursuit became lovely in his eyes, and was surrounded with ideal charms. It would be useless to enter into the painful details of Ferdinand’s life during this period.

The day after the failure of his tragedy, the Marquise de Guesvillers, an ancient dowager of the Faubourg St. Germain, and his chief prôneuse, sent to beg the discomfited author would come dine with her tête-à-tête. Ferdinand had a reason now for desiring to explore to the utmost extent the upper regions of society, and he accepted the invitation. The old lady greeted him with a half-benevolent, half-mischievous smile—“My dear child,” said she, when the servant had closed the door, “now that Providence has saved you from becoming an homme de lettres, we must try to make something of you. Heaven be praised! pen and ink must have lost its charm for you at last;” (a pinch of snuff,) “it seems your play was as bad as your enemy could wish; Madame de Rouvion was there, and has just told me so—poor dear Hector de Candolles,” (another pinch of snuff,) “if he could have guessed that a great-grandson of his would write a play! But, however, that is over now, and we have only to rejoice that things were no worse: when the recollection of your aventure shall have quite subsided, we will find a wife for you, and settle you in life! Thank Heaven! you are cured of your taste for pen and ink!” and these last words the good lady repeated over and over again in the course of the evening, and each time with remarkable satisfaction. Once or twice Ferdinand was tempted to shake the monotonous little dowager to pieces, and shout in her ear—“Woman! I must live by pen and ink, or starve!” but the remembrance of the face he had seen the night before, froze the words on his tongue, and he submitted to the torture in silence.

For months in the salons, whither Madame de Guesvillers carried him, he sought out the object of his dreams, but she never appeared, and Ferdinand went on leading la vie de Bohème, until hope began almost entirely to fade away. One evening, he had, for the fiftieth time, accepted an invitation to some soirée, where his indefatigable patroness insisted upon his going; and he was, as usual, looking on whilst others amused (or fancied they amused) themselves, when the conversation of two ladies near him attracted his attention—he knew not why.

“So Blanche Vouvray is come back at last?” said one.

“She is coming here to-night,” replied the other.

As the two talkers moved away, a certain movement might have been observed toward the middle of the room, and many and loud greetings welcomed a new comer, who seemed to have been long absent. Mysterious magnetism of the heart! Ferdinand knew what had happened, and was prepared, when he turned round, to recognize at last—standing in the midst of a group, who were pressing eagerly around her—the one, so long, so vainly sought; the vision that had risen over his ruin like a star over the tempest-torn sea, that had come and vanished in the momentous night, when it was proved to him that his sole resources, for a bare existence, must depend, in future, upon hard, ignoble, unavowed and insufficient toil!

There she stood—bright, beautiful and glad, beaming on all about her; dispensing favors in look, gesture and smile, and inflicting wound after wound on Ferdinand’s heart by the incomparably sweet voice that, do what he would, seemed to his ear always to repeat—“What a wretched, stupid play!—is it not?” It was the only link between them—the one sole sign whereby she had acknowledged his existence.

How long the soirée lasted, was what M. de Candolles never knew; he simply thought it a time—it might be one protracted moment—during which there was light; then, the light went out, and darkness spread over every thing around. He would not ask to be presented to Mademoiselle de Vouvray; he was content to watch her; and, when she was gone, he mechanically closed his eyes, locked up his vision within his inmost self, and then, re-awakening, went forth, to be once more alone with his idea!

Time passed on, and Ferdinand’s passion increased with every hour. Three or four times in the week he found means to feast his eyes upon the object of his adoration, and the remaining days and nights were spent in trying to draw poetic inspiration from what threatened to be the source of something very nearly akin to madness. Ferdinand’s actual talent, however, was of such a perfectly ordinary stamp, that it profited in no degree by the strong element love afforded it, and one fine morning—when he least expected it—a blow so stunning was dealt him that his whole fabric of existence was well-nigh shivered to the earth. The proprietor of the paper wherein, for the last year or two, M. de Candolles had published anonymously the chief productions of his pen, suddenly told him that he should in future be obliged to refuse his contributions unless signed by his own name! M. de Candolles, he urged, was known in many salons of the beau monde, and probably what he might write would be read by a good number of people, whereas the lucubrations of Jaques Bargel—Ferdinand’s pseudonyms—only occupied space, and brought neither fame nor money to the journal. M. de Candolles received the announcement, which went near to show destitution staring him in the face, with becoming fortitude. He would sooner have died than allow his name to be dragged forward into publicity; and at the thought of the elegant, aristocratical, disdainful lady of his worship discovering that he lived by writing feuilletons, he felt the very ground fail beneath his feet.

Ferdinand was, after the circumstance we have just related, reduced to a species of misery even he had as yet not suspected. Unable to pay for the lodging, small and dirty as it was, that he had hitherto inhabited, he was now reduced to rent a small attic belonging to the collection of servants’ rooms in a tolerably good-looking house. The one thought that absorbed him was fear lest Blanche de Vouvray should discover the necessities of his life. This, and this alone, combated the wild passion wherewith she had inspired him. But he reckoned without feminine instinct and feminine curiosity. Blanche de Vouvray had not been half-a-dozen times in the same salon with M. de Candolles, before she felt she was adored, and her next feeling was one of considerable anxiety to know how she should bring her slave to confess the charm. Blanche was a person of irreproachable conduct; but still, it was tiresome to be so evidently worshiped, and yet know nothing at all about it!

Poor Ferdinand! The struggle for existence was rapidly wearing him out. The want of almost every necessary of life, the constant recourse to a morsel of bread, or a little rice, and a few potatoes, for daily food, coupled with the perpetual tension of the brain, required to secure even these, miserable as they were—all this was doing its deadly work, and M. de Candolles’ health was visibly failing every day. One evening, this was so plain to all eyes that, at Madame de Guesvillers’ house, many good-natured persons told Ferdinand he really must take care, or they should hear of his going off in a galloping consumption. An hour or two later, some one opened a window behind where he was standing—

“Do not remain where you are—pray!” said a voice beside him. It was timidly yet earnestly said—the sweet voice was unsteady, and there was such an expression in the last word, “Pray!” Ferdinand turned without answering: his eyes met Blanche de Vouvray’s—she looked down, but not before she had involuntarily replied to his passionate and melancholy glance.

M. de Candolles soon left the room. His brain was on fire, and he rushed homeward like one possessed. Part of his prudence was gone. He snatched up pen and ink, and wrote—wrote to her! All that Ferdinand had never yet found, was found now—the hidden spring was reached, and the tide of eloquence gushed forth, strong, rapid, irresistible.

Such a letter as few women have ever received was put, the next morning, into Mademoiselle de Vouvray’s hands. The first effect of it was electrical—she became confused, and like one in a dream; but, almost as soon, the feminine instinct awoke, and involuntarily she admitted that her end was gained—he had spoken at last! What lay beyond was uncertain—might be dangerous, and had best be altogether set aside. She would avoid M. de Candolles in future. This was not so easy: that very night she met him in the vestibule of the Grand Opera, with little, old Madame de Guesvillers on his arm. He bowed to, but did not look at her; was cold, silent and reserved, and really did seem as though he had one foot in the tomb. He would, perhaps, not live another year—that was a shocking thought—and Blanche shivered as she rolled over the Pont Royal in her comfortable carriage. There could be no harm in answering his letter from a certain point of view she now adopted, and accordingly she did answer it, and a very virtuous, and consoling, and amiable composition her answer was. From this moment the possibility of writing tempted both; and, from time to time, they availed themselves of it, though it never degenerated into a habit. Ferdinand’s pecuniary resources growing less and less with every day, he literally starved himself, in order to cover the extravagance of his heart-expenses. For a bouquet dropped in at her carriage-window, as she drove from the Italiens—for a perfume to put upon his own handkerchief, that she should inhale, he constantly observed a four-and-twenty hours’ fast, broken only by a crust of bread and a glass of water.

There were days, it cannot be denied, when the fair Blanche de Vouvray admitted to herself that it might have been better for her never to have seen M. de Candolles. His strange adoration captivated and preoccupied her by its very strangeness, probably far more than if it had followed the ordinary method in such cases.

One day, after saving during three weeks, and Heaven only knows with what pains, the sum of fifteen francs, Ferdinand therewith secured the loan of a really handsome horse, from one of the dealers in the Champs Elysées. When the carriage came in view—than which there was no other in the world for him—he made his steed execute certain evolutions gracefully enough, for he was a remarkably good horseman, darted off upon the road to the Bois de Boulogne, crossed once or twice the path of the calèche he was pursuing, received one look of recognition, one sign from a small gloved hand, and was over-paid! That evening, they met in the same salon: a lady—who was standing by the piano whereon Blanche had just been playing a new waltz—asked Ferdinand whether she had not seen him on horseback in the Champs Elysées.

“I thought I would try how it might suit me now,” was his reply: “but I find it will not do; the exercise is too strong, and I am unequal to it.” Blanche de Vouvray grew pale, and bent down to look over some music.

“If riding is too much for his nerves,” observed—later in the evening, to his neighbor—one of the beardless lions who happened to be present, “I should imagine such a monstrous quantity of cake must be equally so!” and jumping forward to Ferdinand’s side—

“Halte là, mon vieux!” he exclaimed, with all the elegance and atticism of Mabille in his intonation. “Leave a little of that Savarin for me, will you? Que diable! why, one would swear you hadn’t eaten since yesterday!”

Ferdinand turned round suddenly upon the ill-bred youth, and in his haggard glance there was a flash of positive ferocity: it was but a flash, but to an observer it would have sufficed to testify the truth of the horrid words uttered in jest. An instant after, the impression was chased away, and a laugh was the only visible result of the incident; but any one who could have decyphered what was engraven on M. de Candolles’ countenance that night, would have seen that a convulsion so violent had passed over his whole being; that reason was almost shaken from its throne.

The constant recurrence of these violent emotions acted more and more visibly each day upon Ferdinand’s wasted frame; and, at last, a moment came when he disappeared altogether from his habitual haunts. Few marked his absence, except a few women, in whose albums he wrote bad verses, and for whom he procured autographs from great theatrical celebrities. Upward of ten days passed, and M. de Candolles had not yet been heard of. His old friend, Madame de Guesvillers, drove herself to his door, and the answer at first was—as usual—that he was “out.” Two days later, however, the porter admitted that he was in reality very ill, but that the doctor had forbidden any one from visiting him, as the slightest agitation or exertion might produce the worst effects. That very evening, whilst her circle of habitués was around her, Madame de Guesvillers received a note from Ferdinand, expressing his gratitude for her inquiries, but saying that his illness was little or nothing—a cold—and that he hoped in a few days to be able to resume his place at her tea-table. Blanche was present, heard the contents of the note, and if it had been any one’s interest—which it luckily was not—to watch her, would have betrayed by many little signs, her involuntary joy. But, on returning home, that joy was turned to dismay. There was a letter, too, for her—such a letter—it was written from a death-bed, and contained a last farewell! She dismissed her maid, and sat through the first hours of the night, with the letter lying before her. Every feeling of commiseration, of womanly sympathy was touched, and the true womanly wish to comfort and console aroused.

When she arose the next morning, it was with the determination to afford the last sad alleviation in her power to the sufferings she had caused. She accordingly, after attiring herself as modestly as possible, sallied forth, and, on foot, reached M. de Candolles’ abode. Here, for a moment, she paused, and her courage began to fail.

It was a bright, sunny morning, and it would have seemed that all the shopkeepers in the street were determined to take their part of air and light, for Blanche thought they were all congregated upon their respective thresholds to see her pass. She blushed at every step, and felt so confused, that more than once she had nearly stumbled. Before entering the porte cochere she stood an instant still, all the blood rushed to her heart, and she was ready to faint, lest she should be too late! When she had mastered this first strong emotion she began to reflect upon the means of gaining the sufferer’s presence.

Blanche commenced her ascent, but when she reached the topmost stair of the fifth flight, and saw before her the narrow, winding, dirty steps that led to the last story, she paused, and began to wonder whither she was going. How strange that M. de Candolles should live in such a place! M. de Candolles, who was “one of her set,” and whom she had pictured to herself surrounded by the same elegancies of life which, to the small number of individuals she called every body were indispensable!—what could it mean, and where was she going?

She mounted the flight of stairs, and found herself in a long, winding corridor, lighted by skylights placed at stated distances. Doors were on either hand, and they were numbered. Blanche de Vouvray drew her silk dress and her cachemire shawl closely around her, to avoid the contact of the greasy looking wall. She was hesitating whether she would not return at once, when a low moan, followed by a short, hollow cough, struck her ear—all the woman’s pitying sympathy was instantaneously re-awakened, and she advanced, her hand raised in order to knock.

But, reader, let us in a few words depict to you the scene that is yet hidden by that closed door. On a miserable bed stretched upon a paillasse of straw, lies the invalid, upon whose pallid features a ray of light falls mournfully after having filtered through a ragged piece of green calico hung up before the dim pane of the roof-window. The walls are dingy and bare; in one corner only hangs something in the form of clothing, covered by an old square of ticking. On a broken-backed straw chair at the bed-head, rests a broken tea-pot, apparently filled with tisane; whilst upon a small table near the door are crowded together papers and perfume-bottles, inkstands and soiled gloves, a wash-hand basin and a candlestick, a hair-brush and two or three books—the heterogeneous symbols of all the wretched inmate’s wants, vanities and toil!

The night had been a bad one, and the morning sun brought but small alleviation to Ferdinand’s sufferings, whilst the malady itself held him prisoner in its clutches; the want of proper sustenance so weakened his frame that it could oppose no resistance to disease. The brain, without as yet precisely wandering, still from time to time created for itself fair illusions, gentle dreams. One form ever floated before Ferdinand’s mental vision—far, far off, as in another sphere—and he would stretch forth his arms toward the image, and longing, cry to it for a look, a sign of recognition.

A knock came at his door, uncertain, timid, loud; why did they disturb him?—Another knock!—He groaned forth the word to enter, and a hand was laid upon the key.

“Come in,” he again peevishly repeated. The door opened!

To describe what passed in the minds of the two thus suddenly face to face to one another, is impossible. All the squalid, ugly, poverty and apparent degradation we have tried to depict, flashed like lightning over Blanche de Vouvray’s comprehension—she stood aghast, but the involuntary scream that escaped her was drowned in the violence of the exclamation that burst from M. de Candolles’ lips. With one hand drawing over him convulsively the blanket which was his only covering, and waving the other imperiously—“Depart hence, depart,” he shrieked in bitter agony, and with eyes that started with horror from their sockets.

The terror was mutual; and she who had come to console fled in dismay, and he, who would have paid with his heart’s blood a touch of her hand, drove her from him as ruthlessly as though she had been his deadliest foe!

Ferdinand de Candolles did not die then; he went raving mad, was confined at Charenton for many years, grew to be a harmless maniac, and died in the year 1848. Blanche de Vouvray is still a reigning beauty in the salons of Paris, universally respected, and only known by a very few as the heroine of this sad tale.

THE GHOST-RAISER.

My Uncle Beagley, who commenced his commercial career very early in the present century as a bagman, will tell stories. Among them, he tells his Single Ghost story so often, that I am heartily tired of it. In self-defense, therefore, I publish the tale in order that when next the good, kind old gentleman offers to bore us with it, every body may say they know it. I remember every word of it.

One fine autumn evening, about forty years ago, I was traveling on horseback from Shrewsbury to Chester. I felt tolerably tired, and was beginning to look out for some snug way-side inn, where I might pass the night, when a sudden and violent thunder-storm came on. My horse, terrified by the lightning, fairly took the bridle between his teeth, and started off with me at full gallop through lanes and cross-roads, until at length I managed to pull him up just near the door of a neat-looking country inn.

“Well,” thought I, “there was wit in your madness, old boy, since it brought us to this comfortable refuge.” And alighting, I gave him in charge to the stout farmer’s boy who acted as ostler. The inn-kitchen, which was also the guest-room, was large, clean, neat and comfortable, very like the pleasant hostelry described by Izaak Walton. There were several travelers already in the room—probably, like myself, driven there for shelter—and they were all warming themselves by the blazing fire while waiting for supper. I joined the party. Presently, being summoned by the hostess, we all sat down, twelve in number, to a smoking repast of bacon and eggs, corned beef and carrots, and stewed hare.

The conversation turned naturally on the mishaps occasioned by the storm, of which every one seemed to have had his full share. One had been thrown off his horse; another, driving in a gig, had been upset into a muddy dyke; all had got a thorough wetting, and agreed unanimously that it was dreadful weather—a regular witches’ sabbath!

“Witches and ghosts prefer for their sabbath a fine moonlight night to such weather as this!”

These words were uttered in a solemn tone, and with strange emphasis, by one of the company. He was a tall, dark-looking man, and I had set him down in my own mind as a traveling merchant or pedler. My next neighbor was a gay, well-looking, fashionably-dressed young man, who, bursting into a peal of laughter, said:

“You must know the manners and customs of ghosts very well, to be able to tell that they dislike getting wet or muddy.”

The first speaker giving him a dark, fierce look, said:

“Young man, speak not so lightly of things above your comprehension.”

“Do you mean to imply that there are such things as ghosts?”

“Perhaps there are, if you had courage to look at them.”

The young man stood up, flushed with anger. But presently resuming his seat, he said calmly:

“That taunt should cost you dear if it were not such a foolish one.”

“A foolish one!” exclaimed the merchant, throwing on the table a heavy leathern purse. “There are fifty guineas. I am content to lose them, if, before the hour is ended, I do not succeed in showing you, who are so obstinately prejudiced, the form of any one of your deceased friends; and if, after you have recognized him, you allow him to kiss your lips.”

We all looked at each other, but my young neighbor, still in the same mocking manner, replied:

“You will do that, will you?”

“Yes,” said the other—“I will stake these fifty guineas, on condition that you will pay a similar sum if you lose.”

After a short silence, the young man said, gayly:

“Fifty guineas, my worthy sorcerer, are more than a poor college sizar ever possessed; but here are five, which, if you are satisfied, I shall be most willing to wager.”

The other took up his purse, saying, in a contemptuous tone:

“Young gentleman, you wish to draw back?”

“I draw back!” exclaimed the student. “Well! if I had the fifty guineas, you should see whether I wish to draw back!”

“Here,” said I, “are four guineas, which I will stake on your wager.”

No sooner had I made this proposition than the rest of the company, attracted by the singularity of the affair, came forward to lay down their money; and in a minute or two the fifty guineas were subscribed. The merchant appeared so sure of winning, that he placed all the stakes in the student’s hands, and prepared for his experiment. We selected for the purpose a small summer-house in the garden, perfectly isolated, and having no means of exit but a window and a door, which we carefully fastened, after placing the young man within. We put writing materials on a small table in the summer-house, and took away the candles. We remained outside, with the pedler amongst us. In a low, solemn voice he began to chant the following lines:

“What riseth slow from the ocean caves

And the stormy surf?

The phantom pale sets his blackened foot

On the fresh green turf.”

Then raising his voice solemnly, he said:

“You asked to see your friend, Francis Villiers, who was drowned, three years ago, off the coast of South America—what do you see?”

“I see,” replied the student, “a white light arising near the window; but it has no form; it is like an uncertain cloud.”

We—the spectators—remained profoundly silent.

“Are you afraid?” asked the merchant, in a loud voice.

“I am not,” replied the student, firmly.

After a moment’s silence, the pedler stamped three times on the ground, and sang:

“And the phantom white, whose clay-cold face

Was once so fair,

Dries with his shroud his clinging vest

And his sea-tossed hair.”

Once more the solemn question:

“You, who would see revealed the mysteries of the tomb—what do you see now?”

The student answered in a calm voice, but like that of a man describing things as they pass before him:

“I see the cloud taking the form of a phantom; its head is covered with a long veil—it stands still!”

“Are you afraid?”

“I am not!”

We looked at each other in horror-stricken silence, while the merchant, raising his arms above his head, chanted in a sepulchral voice:

“And the phantom said, as he rose from the wave,

He shall know me in sooth!

I will go to my friend, gay, smiling and fond,

As in our first youth!”

“What do you see?” said he.

“I see the phantom advance; he lifts his veil—’tis Francis Villiers! he approaches the table—he writes!—’tis his signature!”

“Are you afraid?”

A fearful moment of silence ensued; then the student replied, but in an altered voice:

“I am not.”

With strange and frantic gestures the merchant then sang:

“And the phantom said to the mocking seer,

I come from the South;

Put thy hand on my hand—thy heart on my heart—

Thy mouth on my mouth!”

“What do you see?”

“He comes—he approaches—he pursues me—he is stretching out his arms—he will have me! Help! help! Save me!”

“Are you afraid, now?” asked the merchant in a mocking voice.

A piercing cry, and then a stifled groan, were the only reply to this terrible question.

“Help that rash youth!” said the merchant, bitterly. “I have, I think, won the wager; but it is sufficient for me to have given him a lesson. Let him keep his money and be wiser for the future.”

He walked rapidly away. We opened the door of the summer-house and found the student in convulsions. A paper, signed with the name “Francis Villiers,” was on the table. As soon as the student’s senses were restored, he asked vehemently where was the vile sorcerer who had subjected him to such a horrible ordeal—he would kill him! He sought him throughout the inn in vain; then, with the speed of a madman, he dashed off across the fields in pursuit of him—and we never saw either of them again.

That, children, is my Ghost Story!

“And how is it, good uncle, that after that, you don’t believe in ghosts?” said I, the first time I heard it.

“Because, my boy,” replied my uncle, “neither the student or the merchant ever returned; and the forty-five guineas, belonging to me and the other travelers, continued equally invisible. Those two swindlers carried them off, after having acted a farce, which we, like ninnies, believed to be real.”

WHAT DOST THOU WORK FOR?

———

BY CAROLINE F. ORNE.

———

What dost thou work for, oh, tree of the forest,

Spreading thy branches so wide and so free?

Why hast thou many years wrought in thy season?

What is the end of thy work and of thee?

“Earth, mother earth, I have wrought for and toiled for,

Life still bestows her beneficent breast;

When for her I shall garner up treasures no longer,

Back shall I sink to her bosom to rest.”

What dost thou work for, sweet flower of the wild-wood,

Spreading thy garlands of beauty and bloom?

Why dost thou toil to bring buds into blossom?

Who shall come hither to seek thy perfume?

“Earth, mother earth, ’tis for her that I labor.

Cheerfully work I by night and by day,

All she hath given, and more, shall I measure

Into her bosom, where yet I shall lay.”

Man, that art heaping up riches and treasure—

Man, that art seeking for praise and for fame—

Man, that art chasing the phantoms of pleasure—

Whose is your toil? Who your labor can claim?

“Earth, mother earth; ’tis for her we are toiling,

These are her gifts, and to her they return;

All we have gathered must go to her keeping,

When she ourselves shall in darkness inurn.”

Then who art filling each hour’s golden measure

Full of good deeds, and of kindness and love,

Who bindeth the wounded, and helpeth the weary,

For what is thy toil—who thy work shall approve?

“High heaven will approve, though my labors are humble,

For the soul’s truest welfare I toil, not in vain;

Earth from her bosom such treasures bestows not,

With the soul back to heaven return they again.”

APRIL.

By April, of the sunny tress,

The mighty spell of death is broke,

As marble, with a food caress,

To life the son of Belus woke.

W. H. C. H.

TOM MOORE. (See page [593].)

TOM MOORE.—THE POET OF ERIN.

———

BY BON GAULTIER.

———

The celebrated poet of the Irish Melodies—so long a member of that glorious company of British bards which, a perfect galaxy of genius, illuminated the first quarter of the present century—is no more. He saw them all run their high careers, and pass away—and now he, too, is gone. For the last couple of years, his brilliant and active mind had given way—the soul had sunk before its “dark cottage,” and his life was second childishness and mere oblivion. None of his old cotemporaries remain, at present, but the last among them—Samuel Rogers, the banker-poet, now between 80 and 90 years of age—who, seeing that his poems are not likely to descend to posterity, has, at least, resolved to go a good part of the way himself. We do not mention Montgomery—he was never ranked in the peerage of Parnassus, to which Moore belonged.

It was time for Thomas Moore to depart; he had seen star after star decay:—many a glorious head stoop to the dust, many a soaring spirit extinguished—the passionate and wayward Byron, dying in a barrack, alone, at Missolonghi—an old, worn-out man at thirty-seven; and the delicate and sensuous Keats, in the morning of his days, exhaled into the clear blue sky of Rome; and “the pard-like spirit” of Shelley, passing, ere the noon, through the portals of his familiar haunt, the sea, to mingle with the elements which he so fearfully, so fearlessly worshiped in the world; and the Cervantic and fine-hearted Sir Walter—noblest of Scottish Chiefs; and the consummate lyric poet of Hope and Poland and, “by Susquehanna’s side, fair Wyoming;” and the three kings of bardish Cumberland—the weird and metaphysical Coleridge, as magnificent as Skiddaw—and as misty, for the most part—Thalaba, Southey, the library hermit—and Wordsworth, the consecrated hermit of the Mere and the Mountain; and, along with these “dead kings of melody,” the Shepherd of Ettrick, Allan Cunningham, Motherwell, the stormy, metallurgic soul of Ebenezer Elliott, and the swan-like music of Hemans. He saw them all pass away into the world of shadows—a more goodly and powerful troop of poets than any other age of British literature could boast—and he himself was not unworthy of that splendid and memorable brotherhood.

Moore was born in May, 1779, at Aungier street in the city of Dublin, of Catholic parents. His father was a highly respectable grocer and spirit-dealer. Young Moore was sent to the school of Mr. Samuel Whyte, a man who enjoyed a high reputation as pedagogue in the metropolis. He had a very refined and dignified notion of his own vocation and literature, and was, withal, a good and kind-hearted man. He greatly encouraged the habits of public reading and elocution in his school; and the fashion of private theatricals being then very prevalent in the aristocratic families of Ireland, he was often called to superintend them at various houses. He encouraged his scholars to act scenes from plays, and was a great hand at furnishing prologues and epilogues for stage “pieces de circonstance.” Mr. Whyte was no common man; for it is, in all human probability, to his peculiar mode of training that English literature is indebted for two of its most brilliant ornaments. His encouragement of theatricals and songs, among the boys, gave Richard Brinsley Sheridan a tendency to the drama, and Moore a turn for lyrical composition and high-life; for we firmly and potently believe in the truth of the old hexameter embalmed in the Lindley Murray of our childhood—

’Tis Education forms the tender mind;

Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.

About a quarter of a century before Moore entered the school, Mr. Whyte had the teaching of young Sheridan, whom, curiously enough, he pronounced “an incorrigible dunce,” after a year’s instruction of the boy! A dunce he was, perhaps, at the methodical “branches,” taught in a methodic way by Mr. Whyte; but we venture to say quick enough, when the fit was on him, at the gay work of tinkering or acting plays, or pieces of plays—thus taking unconsciously the bias which had its results in the School for Scandal and the Duenna. As for Tommy Moore, he was always a spry, vivacious, black-eyed little chap, who took at once to the business of the boards, and recited and performed to the great satisfaction of his master. The latter, whenever he went to the houses of the nobility and gentry to get up plays, would usually take with him his smart show-actor—the precocious little Catholic boy, and give him parts to sustain in the representations. In this way the plebeian youngster was introduced—greatly to his pride and satisfaction—into the highest families of Dublin and its vicinity, where the circumstances of gayety and splendor, contrasting with the exclusions generally operating against those of his class and creed, heightened the zest with which he enjoyed his privileges, and thus early created those feelings and sentiments of pleasure and brilliancy which influenced his subsequent career in the world.

From reciting and acting, the transition to writing verses was a very natural thing, and Moore showed himself as apt at rhyme as at every thing else. Indeed, like Pope and Ovid, “he lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.” He himself gives us from memory, part of a juvenile effusion on resuming school tasks after the business of the stage was over:

Our Pantaloon, who did so aged look,

Must now resume his youth, his tasks, his book,

And Harlequin, who skipped, laughed, danced and died,

Must now stand trembling at his master’s side.

And he says: “I have thus been led back, step by step, from an early date to one still earlier, with the view of ascertaining, for those who may take any interest in literary biography, at what period I first showed an aptitude for the now common craft of verse-making, and the result is—so far back in childhood lies the epoch—that I am really unable to say at what age I first began to act, sing, and rhyme.” At the age of twelve he wrote a Masque, in which he adapted verses to Haydn’s “Spirit-Song,” and this was performed by himself, his sister, and some young friends in his father’s house in Aungier street. There have been few instances of a healthy precocity of mind beyond that of Thomas Moore.

In 1793, at which time the French Revolution was suggesting to the kings of Europe a little leniency to their people, Moore was permitted by the repeal of a penal statute, to enter Trinity College Dublin—a Protestant University. Here, being always anxious to distinguish himself, he gave in a specimen of English verse at one of the examinations, and was gratified by the praise of the examiners and a copy of the Voyage of Anacharsis—a book which must have greatly helped to Orientalize the genius of Moore. His first step in regular authorship was the publication of the Translation of Anacreon the Greek poet. His sprightly facility of weaving verse had been exercised during his stay in College, on this congenial task; and in 1799, when nineteen years old, he went to London to keep his terms as a barrister at the Middle Temple, and to bring out his English Anacreontics. These last he was permitted, through the interest of some of his aristocratic Irish patrons, to dedicate to George, the Prince Regent—against whom, nevertheless, at a future period, Moore discharged some of his sharpest arrows of personal and political satire. After the publication of the lyrics, this young poet gradually gave up his idea of becoming a lawyer. Themis and her Courts were relinquished for Musa lyræ solers et cantor Apollo; law was completely driven out of his head by the gay society into which his poetical and musical qualities introduced him, and he seems to have looked more to the patronage of his titled friends and the trade of authorship than to any settled walk or profession. The Earl of Moira was his great patron, and the influence of this nobleman raised the young Irishman to a companionship with the highest and most refined societies of the land. And certainly, the son of a Dublin grocer—a Catholic, too—must have possessed, in a very wonderful degree, the accomplishments and amenities of the head and heart which could thus win the favor and friendship of a very exclusive and fastidious class. Moore’s temperament was, in fact, a happy one, and counseled as well by prudence as his love of pleasure, he exerted himself to the utmost to conciliate the partiality of the aristocracy and to live at ease among them.

About this time, 1801-2, he spent a good deal of his time at Donington Park, the seat of the Earl of Moira, “under whose princely roof,” as he says himself—(and great was the charm which these princely roofs ever had for the poet!) “I used often and long in those days find a hospitable home.” Here the young Irishman became somewhat intimate with kings and princes—members of Bourbon and Orleans families of France; for whom he was in the habit of playing and singing, and with whom he could bandy courtesies and converse. These were the Count of Provence, afterward Charles X.; Louis Philippe and his brothers Montpensier and Beaujolais—“all dismounted cavalry,” as Curran called them, in a whisper, when he first found himself sitting among them; and with these the Duke de Lorge, the Baron de Rolle, and many others of the emigrant noblesse. No wonder Moore’s ideas should be so redolent of sparkling wines, exquisite shapes of beauty, and all the perfume and rose-color of life. He lived at Donington in the happiest and most luxurious manner; and the range of a magnificent library was not wanting to complete the aristocratic charm of his existence at that period. Shut up in it for whole days he has felt, in the midst of his schemes of authorship, like Prospero in his enchanted island. How different was the fate of his old friend, Robert Emmett! At that very time the latter was plotting desperately against the English government, and preparing that rebellious uprising in which he perished.

In 1803, at the early age of 23, Moore began to reap some of the solid fruits of his connection with the English aristocracy. He got the place of Registrar of the Court of Admiralty at Bermuda, through the interest of the Earl of Moira, and went to the island to take possession of his office. But instead of doing the duties of it, he procured a deputy, and went rambling and rhyming over the islands and on the continent of America. He highly enjoyed the natural softness and beauty of the Summer Islands; but many a song and poetical epistle proved that “his heart was in Albion—his heart was not there”—that he was sighing for what he called

The flourishing Isle of the brave and the free,

the splendid hospitalities of Donington and the pays de cocagne of the British aristocracy in general.

Passing from Bermuda, he came to Norfolk in Virginia, and thence made a pretty lengthened tour through the States, by Washington, Philadelphia, Buffalo and the lakes. The young votary of the Anacreontic muses—the musical pet of the higher English circles—did not like the American Democracy at all, and has left on record about as unfavorable an opinion and prophecy concerning the republic as has been written at any time since. Every thing seemed tough and unrefined; and when he made his bow to President Thomas Jefferson, he felt a mental shock from the sight of that simple man, wearing “Connemara stockings and slippers,” at the head of a nation. To be sure the society of British officers and Federal Whigs among whom he chose his friends and acquaintances was not calculated to impress him with any favorable idea of the democratic party. But, every allowance made, Moore said enough to show that, Catholic as he was, and come of plebeian forefathers (at least in an immediate manner; for the name O’Moore is high on the old rolls of Irish peerage and rebellion) he never had any hearty sympathy with republicanism and the cause of the people. He was all for the glorious distinctions of rank and historic prestige—the pride, pomp and circumstance of lordly life; and, in fact, looked on America as a sort of moral wilderness. He had no hopes of it, indeed. He said society here was rotten to the core; and he wrote poetical prophecies of its speedy decay and disappearance from among the nations of the earth!

And yet there were many things here to conciliate the fastidiousness of the young traveler. Among the other tokens of an exceptional civilization, was one which he himself recalls with an evident feeling of gratified pride. The American master of the packet in which he crossed Ontario—knowing that the young gentleman was a poet—the author of “Anacreon Translated,” and “Juvenile Poems and Songs”—refused to accept any money for his passage—would thus show his sense of what was due to literature! We believe very few ship-masters in any of the old countries would have done so courteously magnanimous a thing as that; and Moore himself probably thought so too. The poet was, in fact, much better pleased with the natural scenery than the people of the continent; and scattered through the verses occasioned by his visit will be found many tributes to the picturesque wildernesses he passed through. Speaking of Niagara and other grand scenes he says—

Oh lady, there are miracles which man

Caged in the bounds of Europe’s narrow span

Can scarcely dream of—which his eye must see

To know how wonderful this world can be.

Moore, as well as hundreds of others, has left us his first impressions on the sight of Niagara Falls. He says, “When we arrived at length at the inn, in the neighborhood of the Falls, it was too late to think of visiting them that evening, and I lay awake almost the whole night with the sound of the cataract in my ears. The day following I consider a sort of era in my life: and the first glimpse I got of that wonderful cataract gave me a feeling which nothing in this world can ever awaken again. It was through an opening among the trees, as we approached the spot where a full view of the Falls was to burst upon us, that I caught this glimpse of the mighty mass of waters folding smoothly over the edge of the precipice, and so overwhelming was the notion it gave me of the awful spectacle I was approaching, that during the short interval that followed, imagination had far outrun the reality; and vast and wonderful as was the scene that then opened upon me my first feeling was that of disappointment. . . But in spite of the start thus got by imagination the triumph of the reality was, in the end, but the greater; for the gradual glory of the scene that opened upon me soon took possession of my whole mind, presenting from day to day, some new beauty or wonder, and like all that is most sublime in nature or art, awakening sad as well as elevating thoughts. . . I should find it difficult to say on which occasion I felt most deeply affected, when looking on the Falls of Niagara, or when standing by moonlight among the ruins of the Coliseum.”

In 1806 Moore republished his Juvenile Poems, along with the translations and those poems written at Bermuda and in America. But the Edinburgh Review came down upon the book with the sharpest force of sarcasm and severity. The first publication of his licentious love-songs, it said, might have been excused by the great youth of the poet, but the republication was atrociously prepense and unpardonable. The poor lyric butterfly was broken terribly upon the wheel; but not so much as to disable him (—we mean the poet—changing the figure) from challenging the Auld Reekie editor; and the bard and critic—Francis Jeffrey—met at Chalk Farm, to settle their differences by the duello. But the police officers were too quick for them, and arrested both; whereupon it was reported, amidst much laughter of the press and public, that there were no balls in the pistols! Moore went to the trouble of denying that he knew the state of his adversary’s engine or his own. In this violent business the poet’s feelings were sorely tried. But his publisher managed to thrive upon the business. The book had, of course, received a very unexpected advertisement. Moore’s vexations did not terminate with the foregoing. Over two years afterward, when young Lord Byron, then in his twentieth year, charged gallantly down upon all the poets, poetasters and critics of the English Parnassus, he laughed at the duel, among the other matters, and “Little’s leadless pistol.” Here was another outrage; and out came our poet once more with a challenge to the peer. But his lordship had gone off to make material for his Giaours and Childe Harolds in the East, and the letter remained unread till his return, near two years after. By this time, his “sensitive and surly” feelings had gone off, and he wrote to Moore a frank and good-natured reply. The latter, who had, in the interim, married his wife—Miss Dyke—and thus given hostages to fortune, felt how much pleasanter it would be to have the young baron’s friendship than his bullet in the body, and therefore wrote a very warm Irish letter in return, which paved the way to their mutual friendship. On this occasion Rogers got Byron, Moore and Campbell together round his mahogany, and there they became acquainted with one another, and shook hands all round, for the first time.

In 1808 and 1809 Moore published his poems, “Intolerance” and “Corruption,” satires; one on the English Constitution, and the other on the English Church. They are fluent, but want vigor, and are read no longer. In the “Skeptic” he writes like a good Catholic who prefers ignorant obedience in all matters of Faith to the philosophy of Locke. But he now prepared to sing a loftier strain. His next publication was the First and Second Numbers of the Irish Melodies—a work which will secure to him whatever immortality awaits his name. The melodies became popular, at once, in England and Ireland alike. The sparkling grace and flexibility of his verse presented an agreeable contrast to the generality of songs sung at that period. The mixture of vivacity, pathos, and epigrammatic point in their composition placed their author at the head of modern song-writers; and, if the politics of poor Ireland were doomed to be disastrous, the poetry of her beautiful music now found itself vindicated and triumphant in the halls and palaces of the British aristocracy. There was a savor of rebellion in some of these songs which wonderfully took the fashionable fancy of the English; while in Ireland the repeated allusions to the ancient glories of the land, and the graceful sorrow which seemed to weep its many misfortunes, touched the popular heart, and led the people—(we mean the reading people)—to look on Moore as the genuine poet of Erin, and to applaud him accordingly.

As for the poet himself, it would seem that his sympathy with his native land was more a matter of sentiment than of practical reality. He could excite the finest feelings of drawing-room rebellion. But he was not a Tyrtæus to rouse up that deeper and more daring sentiment which prompts people to rush into the field. He was the friend and college-mate of Emmett and other disaffected spirits; and attended the Debating and Historic Societies in which these ardent and enlightened young men, mostly Protestants, spoke of the rights of man and the liberty of Ireland. They were members of United Irish Societies; but Moore never belonged to the last. The influence of his parents and relations was exercised against the malcontent spirit of the time; and when the unhappy rebellion was crushed, the young bard went to seek his fortune in the very heart of the English aristocracy. There Moore’s patriotism was subdued and refined; and it ever afterward delighted to exhibit itself in the language of polemics and lyric poetry. The Irish sentiment of the Irish Melodies is not strong enough to nourish any sort of rebellion upon. It is remarkable that, in all Moore’s historic allusions, he seldom or never speaks of the prowess of the Irish against the English—the struggles of the Desmonds, O’Neills, O’Moores, and so forth, against the Henries, Elizabeth, or the Stuarts. He goes back into the indistinct times of Milesian sway, the palace of Tara, and the stand of Brian or Malachi against the Danes. He passes over the recent and authentic, such as would come more home to the present period, and weeps or flushes, with remarkable prudence, among the legends and the whole Irish apocrypha. But it would be too much, perhaps, to expect that the little Catholic boy, whose early impressions were formed in the midst of the aristocratic societies of Dublin, to which he was admitted on sufferance, a gratified guest, could ever grow up a democrat or a rebel.

Indeed it is not difficult to discover from the tone of Moore’s writings that he had formed a low opinion of Irish nationality—entertained a poor notion of its past glories of all sorts, and little hope that Ireland would ever do any thing to right herself. Indeed, if Ireland had not her beautiful melodies, to suggest the weaving of lyric verse, and to give it some promise of immortality, we should not probably have had so much Irish reminiscence from Moore. It is, in fact, by a sort of poetic licence, that he allows himself, in some of his songs, to sing with an air of heroism or pathos, of those ancient men and things, in which he himself, as may be gathered from the pages of his History of Ireland, and from other places, had a very slender historical faith. But, after all, the Melodies are beautiful things, and deserve the fame they have won. They are full of felicities, and the hearts have been cold indeed that have been able to resist the fascination they exercise, in congenial moments, whether spoken or sung. The charm of an exquisite phraseology sparkles everywhere, and the feelings with which we hear them sung, seem incapable of more apt and musical expression.

In the intervals of several numbers of the Melodies Moore employed himself on other things. In 1812, he began to think of his great romance—his Opus Magnum—Lalla Rookh. Moore gives us the history of this poem, manufacture, sale and all; but the sale of it (in MS.) went before the manufacture. It was sold to the Messrs. Longman for 3000 guineas—not pounds: literary payments in England having been and being still made, by respectable publishers, in the more aristocratic coin. Mr. Perry, proprietor of the Morning Chronicle, made the bargain for his friend, the bard, and we suspect that without his influence and shrewdness, Moore would not have got that sum. For poets, and people of refined feelings, are the worst hands at a bargain in the world, as everybody knows. Perry said the poet of the Melodies should have the highest price ever given for any poetic work; and that being 3000 guineas, he held out for it and got it. The Longmans bought their pig in a poke, as the saying is. They were to take whatever poem Moore was pleased to write, and also to wait till it was written. This was a very pleasant sort of trade for the poet, and he went to work with that inspiration and cheerfulness of spirit which publishers, for their own sake, should do every thing to encourage in their writers. Moore retired to Mayfield Cottage, in Derbyshire, a little way from Donington Park and its library, and began to seclude himself from mankind. Having resolved that his romance should be Oriental, he crammed himself with every thing written about the East that he could, in any way, lay hands on—its manners, customs, history, religion, languages, geography, and so forth. He then began to write a long story called the “Peri’s Daughter;” but, after going a little way in it, his Pegasus stuck fast, and the attempt was put aside. He tried other ideas; but to little purpose. At last, an Irish idea struck him—that of poor Catholics persecuted and kept down for their religion. By a happy dexterity he metamorphosed them into Guebres, and so, setting up the frame-work of the “Fire-Worshipers,” and clothing his Hibernian sentiments—half romance half religion—in all the sparkling phraseology of the East, he got on swimmingly. The monster, “Prophet of the Khorassan,” “Paradise and the Peri,” and the “Light of the Harem,” followed favorably; and in 1816, after three years’ incubation, he gave Lalla Rookh to the purchasers of the manuscript. To Moore’s honor, it must be said, that seeing the monetary and other embarrassments of that year, he offered to release the Longmans from their engagement, if they desired it. But they stuck manfully to their bargain; and it is pleasant to add, made handsomely by it.

Moore was now very famous. Lalla and the Melodies gave him a reputation only second to that of the noble young “Childe Buron” himself. His “Fire-Worshipers” was quoted with fervor in Ireland; the songs in his “Light of the Harem” had charmed all the world; a herd of imitators sprang up like mushrooms, and bulbuls, peris, roses, flashing swords, and sparkling goblets, were the general order of the day. In the meantime, Moore went with Mr. Rogers to Paris. There he gathered the materials of the Fudge Family, which he published on his return.

In 1819 he traveled again to Paris, in company with Lord John Russell; and both went thence to Italy. Lord John passed on to Genoa, and Moore proceeded to visit Lord Byron at Venice, where the noble exile lived in a very savage condition, drinking gin and water o’nights, and writing his heart out. There the poets passed some agreeable days together, riding along the Lido together, and going over the lagoons in a gondola. It was on this occasion that Byron confided to Moore his “Memoirs,” to be used as the latter should think fit. Moore afterward sold them to Murray for 2000 guineas. But when Byron died, his widow and family interfered, and induced Moore to withdraw and burn the manuscript—forfeiting the money, of course. Moore has been blamed for consenting to this sacrifice. But it is very likely he has preserved in his Life of Byron every thing of interest contained in the papers, and that very little was lost, except certain scandalous particulars, which the world would very willingly let die—though the offal-eating scandal-mongers of the day groaned horribly under the privation at the time. After leaving Venice, Moore went to Rome. He confesses that, in the midst of the ruins and splendors of past Roman civilization and art, he was painfully conscious of his own want of artistic taste and enthusiasm. He says that a sunset on the Simplon touched him with more admiration than any thing he had seen in the Italian galleries of art. This would hardly have been expected from Moore, who has been termed the poet of artificial things. After his return from this tour, he published his Rhymes on the Road and the Fables of the Holy Alliance.

But his return did not extend to England. He knew that country was no place for him, just then. He had made a blunder in his business of the Bermuda registrarship, the consequences of which had now reached him. He had taken no security of the deputy he had appointed to do the duties of that office. The latter, in the course of time and trade, fell into temptation—the easy carelessness of Moore led him, perhaps, into it—and he made way with the proceeds of some American cargoes, and then, with himself—leaving the unprophetic little bard, in the heyday of his glory, to be responsible for near six thousand pounds. The terrible Court of Admiralty now issued a law process against “the smiling bard of pleasure,” which the latter did not think it wise to confront in person, and so stopped short at Paris, where—along with his family, which had joined him—he remained till the close of 1822. His friends, in the mean time, came forward to the rescue; and if, for a moment, he wronged his better genius by hard thoughts against the honor or honesty of his fellows, he was soon brought round to the nobler and better human creed, by generous offers of gifts, loans, etc. Thus, sustained in his exile, he passed his time pleasantly enough, at La Butte Coaslin, near Paris, singing Spanish songs to the guitar in the evening, in company with Madame V——, a neighbor, and spending the mornings of the two summers he remained in France, wandering through the noble park of St. Cloud, spinning and polishing verses and jotting down new ideas in his memorandum-book. His exile was, certainly, pleasanter than that of his erotic, erratic brother, Ovid, lamenting his frost-bitten muses, long ago, on the inhospitable shores of the Black Sea. Moore had a great many visitors at Coaslin, among them our Washington Irving, “who still, I trust,” he says, “recollects his reading to me some parts of his then forthcoming work, ‘Bracebridge Hall,’ as we sat together on the grass walk that leads to the Rocher, at La Butte.” To meet his awkward liabilities, Moore had agreed with Messrs. Murray and Wilkie to write a Life of Sheridan; but finding himself too distant from documents and authorities, he went on with his customary business of verse, and projected an epistolary romance, with Egyptian characters. But this romance was postponed: and it appeared afterward, done in prose, as the “Epicurean.” He also took up the allegory of “The Loves of the Angels,” and working away with his usual octosyllabic facility, he had soon woven it into shape. For this poem he was allowed one thousand guineas by his publisher.

On Moore’s return to England, he found that his friends had negotiated the Americans down to a thousand pounds; and that the uncle of the faithless deputy had been induced, in a grumbling way, to contribute £300 of that sum. A friend had deposited the balance in the bank to Moore’s credit, for the canceling of the Bermuda claim; and the poet was happy to hand him an order on his publisher for that amount. In this connection, Moore records (without naming the giver, but with a quotation from Ovid, to the effect that “gifts are agreeable which are made precious by him who makes them,”) a present of £300, made him at that time of difficulty—the proceeds of a maiden-work—a biography—which had been just published. The donor was Lord John Russel; the firm friend of the poet to the end of his life.

Mr. Moore now went to live at Sloperton, two miles from Devizes, and not far from the country seat of the Marquis of Lansdowne. His dwelling was at first a somewhat rude cottage, in a wooded lane. But, on taking it, the new occupants made it very comfortable and pleasant, by means of enlargements and other improvements. In 1824, Moore published his “Memoirs of Captain Rock,” in which he set forth the misgovernment of England since the conquest of the island by Strongbow. In this book he never forgets the manner for the matter: he is full of point and learned illustration, and festoons his deplorable facts with many felicities of metaphor and arguments of theology. But no Irishman, how hot-headed soever, could take the Memoirs as the text-book of rebellion, or feel his blood excited by them. Mr. Moore’s learning and imagery, in fact, weakened his theme, as the accompaniment of rich, heavy baggage used to obstruct the movements of the great historic armies, long ago. The “Memoirs” are obsolete, though the Irish sufferings seem to be much the same as usual.

At Sloperton, Moore wrote, also, his History of Ireland and the Biographies of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and Lord Byron—the last the best of the three, a biography ranking with Boswell’s Life of Johnson, and Lockhart’s Life of Scott. After his “Captain Rock,” Moore published the “Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion,” in which he girds at all Protestant doctrine, with his usual power of theologic reading and pointed argument; and then gave to the world his “Epicurean;” in which he intertwines his favorite ethics of religion with the frame of a very dull story. Moore’s mind had a strong devotional tendency, and seems to revert—with a sense of its own insufficiency—to the problem of existence beyond the last scene of all that ends the strange eventful history of life. His doubtings, if he ever had any, seem to have taken ultimate refuge in Catholic orthodoxy. He was, in fact, a dutiful son of mother Church: and great was the uneasiness he exhibited, lest his friend, Lord Byron, should adopt, in all their force, the atheistical ideas of Percy Bysshe Shelley, with whom his lordship had become very intimate, in Italy. Moore earnestly expostulated with Byron on the project of the “Liberal” newspaper, got up by the restless Childe and supported by Hunt, Shelley, and Hazlitt. He told his lordship that such a conjunction, with such a radical purpose, was very far from respectable—not by any means respectable enough for an English nobleman to engage in.

The last productions of Moore were those light and satirical verses which appeared in the Morning Chronicle and other papers, up to 1837. They are the happiest things of their kind, in the world, and to those who can admire the gay dexterities of wit, woven into the tapestry work of rhyme, they possess an interest surviving the subjects of them. In the interweaving of pointed and witty things with the flow of colloquial phraseology, Moore has shown himself more skillful than any of his contemporaries, and no writer of the present day can match him.

A bright, sensuous, Celtic genius dies with Tom Moore. As a poet, he will be chiefly remembered for the undying melodies of his native land, with which his words are beautifully identified. His translations of Anacreon are clever school-boy exercises—very free versions and amplifications of the original, and contain many points and prettinesses which the old Cyclic bard never thought of. The juvenile and erotic songs which obtained for Moore the name of the modern Catullus, are very slight things—mere floating gossamers of literature—flashing a little in the light—“the purple light of love,” and then fading away from the general appreciation. But these songs were, nevertheless, greatly in vogue in their day, and the pathos or gayety of them found echoes in the hearts of ten thousand festive saloons. Never was the youth of any poet spent in the midst of greater incitements of love, friendship, and song, than those that solicited Moore on every side during the heyday of his years, in the high society of England. It was therefore morally impossible that his verse should be any thing but “brilliant and light,” full of all the levities and luxuries of sentiment. The real arduousness, effort, and pain of life find no expression at all in Moore. The poems respecting America and his West India voyage, exhibit his want of sympathy with republicanism, and his ceaseless longing after the grand associations and lordly homes of England. Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that he found some congenial persons and things on this continent. He has recorded the enjoyment of his sojourn in our own city of “brotherly love,” where, in the society of Mr. Dennie’s family, he almost forgot he was in a republic. His recollections of Philadelphia were happy ones.

LINES WRITTEN ON LEAVING PHILADELPHIA.

Alone by the Schuylkill a wanderer roved,

And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;

But far, very far were the friends that he loved,

And he gazed on the flowery banks with a sigh.

Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain

Unblest by the smile he had languished to meet;

Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again,

Till the threshold of home had been pressed by his feet.

But the lays of his boyhood had stolen to their ear,

And they loved what they knew of so humble a name;

And they told him with flattery welcome and dear

That they found in his heart something better than fame.

The stranger is gone, but he will not forget

When, at home, he shall talk of the toils he has known,

To tell with a sign, what endearments he met

When he strayed by the wave of the Schuylkill alone.

The “Canadian Boat Song,” composed on the St. Lawrence, is the most popular of the songs written at the earlier period of life—indeed, at any period of his life. It is more frequently heard in society than any thing else he has composed—the finest of the Melodies not excepted. As regards these last, it has been said they are not Irish. It is, indeed, true that Moore modified the native airs a good deal—retrenched most of the wild cadences and free modulations which indigenously belong to them. This, however, may not be such a very great loss after all, seeing that, if some of the melodies, with his arrangement, would not be intimately recognized at wakes and cow-milkings, etc., they were all the better liked, for the curtailment and polish, in the dining-rooms and drawing-rooms. Certainly no modern festive song-writer has produced the effects which usually accompanied the singing of Tom Moore’s lyrics. He was eminently the poet of the saloons. Burns was the lyrist of Love and the lowly hearts and homes of the people. But Moore’s songs were sung in the most splendid halls of English-speaking land, where he himself, of all guests or sojourners in lordly dwellings, was ever the most welcome and caressed. And when we consider the low birth, Irishism and uncompromised Catholicity of the man, we cannot possibly over-estimate those talents of graceful conviviality, good-humor and brilliant wit which could secure for him such social honors and triumphs through life. Well might Byron have called him “the poet of all circles and the idol of his own.” Moore had an exquisite musical taste, and sung some of his own melodies in the most delightful manner. His voice was rather low, and without compass, but it had great softness, and the expression with which he half-chaunted, half-recited, while accompanying himself at the piano, in “Go Where Glory Waits Thee,” “Fly Not Yet,” and others, was a thing to be enjoyed and remembered. On some occasions when he has gone to the piano, the servants of the house—Devonshire House, we believe—have been permitted to come and stand at the doors to listen, along with the delighted crowd of noble listeners. Moore’s performance was considered one of the best treats of the evening at such gay reunions; and Mr. N. P. Willis speaks of the little bard’s appearance, at Lady Blessington’s piano—for a singing-while—as if his singing in this way were an expected gratification which he was too well-bred or too good-natured to refuse to his friends. A touching instance of the effect he could produce on these occasions is given in a fact to which he himself alludes. The beautiful young daughter of Colonel Bainbridge, who was married at Ashbourne Church, in Derbyshire, in 1815, died, a few weeks afterward, of fever. During the delirium that accompanied her illness she sung several hymns from Moore’s collection of “Sacred Songs” which she had heard the poet himself sing in the course of the preceding summer. Alluding to her, he says, in the song “Weep not for Those”—

Mourn not for her, the young bride of the vale,

Our gayest and loveliest, lost to us now,

Ere life’s early lustre had time to grow pale,

And the garland of love was yet fresh on her brow.

Lalla Rookh is a splendid and elaborate romance. Hazlitt said Moore should not have written it for three thousand guineas. This was Moore’s own affair, not Hazlitt’s; and we question if the latter would have refused such a sum, under such circumstances. Nevertheless, Lalla Rookh seems below the pretensions of the poet of the Melodies. Its themes and characters are oriental and the interest they excite is feeble. There is a forced and exotic air over the whole performance which fails to win our sympathies; and, in spite of the beauty of the imagery and all the sparkling artifice of the versification, no one, we believe, was every cordially disposed to read this romance a second time. The rythmus of the “Veiled Prophet” is eloquently rhetorical, but loosely constructed, and it offends our sense of what the heroic couplet is, in the hands of Dryden, Shelley, Goldsmith and Byron. Moore’s metre, in this grave mode, is a continuous outrage against the cæsural canons, and reads with a certain prosaic effect—eloquent enough, to be sure; but prosaic, nevertheless: “The Fire-Worshipers” has been considered the best portion of Lalla Rookh. It contains a great deal of impassioned eloquence and shows great mastery and music of versification; but the impression it leaves is vague and uncongenial, and the catastrophe is painful, merely—like that of the “Veiled Prophet”—both with a melodramatic and impossible air about them. “Paradise and the Peri” has the merit of a more attractive human interest—though almost overlaid by ornament and orientalism. We think the “Light of the Harem” the most agreeable of all. It is perfectly in character—a picture of Eastern luxury from beginning to end—a feast of roses and a flow of fountains, in which we look for nothing but sighs and perfumes—and we find them in all customary Mooreish prodigality. The verse of this little poem is woven music. The portrait of Nourmahal is a piece of lyric gracefulness which aptly exemplifies the art of Moore’s sensuous and harmonic genius:

There’s a beauty, for ever unchangingly bright,

Like the long sunny lapse of a summer day’s light,

Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender,

Till Love falls asleep in its sameness of splendor.

This was not the beauty—oh, nothing like this,

That to young Nourmahal gave such magic of bliss!

But that loveliness, ever in motion, which plays

Like the light upon Autumn’s soft shadowy days,

Now here and now there—giving warmth as it flies,

From the lip to the cheek, from the cheek to the eyes.

When pensive, it seemed as if that very grace,

That charm, of all others, was born with her face!

And when angry—for even in the tranquillest climes,

Light breezes will ruffle the blossoms sometimes,

The short, passing anger but seemed to awaken

New beauty, like flowers that are sweetest when shaken.

If tenderness touched her, the dark of her eye

At once took a darker, a heavenlier dye,

From the depth of whose shadow, like holy revealings

From innermost shrines came the light of her feelings.

Then her mirth—O, ’twas sportive as ever took wing

From the heart with a burst like the wild-bird in spring,

Illumed by a wit that would fascinate sages,

Yet playful as Peris let loose from their cages;

While her laugh, full of glee, without any control,

But the sweet one of gracefulness, rung from her soul,

And where it most sparkled no glance could discover,

In lip, cheek or eyes, for she brightened all over;

Like any fair lake which the breeze is upon

When it breaks into dimples and laughs in the sun!

No wonder “the magnificent son of Acbar” should be set excessively beside himself on account of such a miracle of womanhood.

Moore shows himself very incapable of sustaining himself in any flights of imagination to compare at all with the soaring of Shelley or Byron. The sight of his mind is less keen and ardent than theirs, his thoughts feebler and his verse less vigorously constructed. But in his own genial sphere—on the lower sunny slopes of the mountain, he can snatch a thousand warbling graces beyond the art of these louder instruments.

His is the lay that lightly floats,

And his are the murmuring, dying notes

That fall as soft as snow on the sea,

And melt in the heart as instantly;

And the passionate strain, that, lightly going

Refines the bosom it trembles through

As the musk-wind, over the waters blowing,

Ruffles the wave but sweetens it too!

Moore has happily expressed the pathetic morals, gayeties and tendernesses of sentiment. But we think he has been still more happy in those humorous, satirical, wit-elaborated performances in which it was his wont to assail the public men and things of English government and English society. His metrical onslaughts on the Tory party, the Prince Regent, the Church Establishment—individually or collectively—have been among the most genial and applauded things he has written. In the other walks of poetry he had overpowering rivals—in this he was unrivaled—“within this circle none durst walk but he.” He was well aware of the power of satire to influence the gravest argument in the world, and felt that

A song may reach him who a sermon flies.

Much of his sarcasm was launched against the English Church Establishment. Its existence in Ireland has long been a just cause of popular complaint, and thousands of pamphlets have been written pro and con in the matter. The witty little poet took the hackneyed question, put it into his lyric mill, and having given it a few turns, brought it out in the following manner—intelligible to all comprehensions—answering as well the cause of his Catholic countrymen as the cause of simple truth and justice:

A DREAM OF HINDOSTAN.

“The longer one lives the more one learns,”

Said I, as off to sleep I went,

Bemused with thinking of tithe concerns,

And reading a book, by the Bishop of Ferns,

On the Irish Church Establishment.

But lo! in sleep not long I lay

When fancy her usual tricks began,

And I found myself bewitched away

To a goodly city in Hindostan:

A city, where he who dares to dine

On aught but rice, is deemed a sinner:

Where sheep and kine are held divine,

And, accordingly, never drest for dinner.

But how is this? I wondering cried,

As I walked that city, fair and wide,

And saw, in every marble street,

A row of beautiful butchers’ shops—

“What means, for men who can’t eat meat,

This grand display of loins and chops?”

In vain I asked—’twas plain to see

That nobody dared to answer me.

So on from street to street I strode:

And you can’t conceive how vastly odd

The butchers looked: a roseate crew,

Inshrined in stalls, with naught to do:

While some on a bench, half dozing, sat,

And the sacred cows were not more fat.

Still posed to think what all this scene

Of sinecure trade was meant to mean,

“And pray,” asked I, “by whom is paid

The expense of this strange masquerade?”

“The expense—oh, that’s of course defrayed”

(Said one of these well-fed hecatombers)

“By yonder rascally rice-consumers.”

“What! they, who mustn’t eat meat?”—“No matter:”

(And, while he spoke, his cheeks grew fatter,)

“The rogues may munch their Paddy crop,

But the rogues must still support our shop:

And depend upon it, the way to treat

Heretical stomachs that thus dissent,

Is to burden all that wont eat meat

With a costly Meat Establishment.”

On hearing these words so gravely said,

With a volley of laughter loud I shook:

And my slumber fled, and my dream was sped,

And I found myself lying snug in bed,

With my nose in the Bishop of Ferns’s book.

In spite of the prestige of Moore’s earlier poetry, the world has regarded him, and very justly, as a moral man and a good Catholic. In the domestic relations of life, as well as the social, he seems to have gone through the world blamelessly. For the last ten years or so of his life, he was in receipt of £300 a year from the British Government, procured for him by his friends the Marquis of Lansdowne and Lord John Russell.

Moore died on the 26th of last February, and was buried, according to his desire, in the church-yard of Bromham, between Devizes and Chippenham, where two of his children were buried before him—Anastasia Mary, who died in 1829 aged sixteen, and John Russell, who died in 1848 at the age of nineteen. Another son of the poet died in the French service at Algiers. He had, we believe, four children, all of whom passed away before himself. Doubly dark, indeed, was the close of a life begun so hopefully and enjoyed so much in its middle course.

If the poet had died in Ireland, he would have had a good funeral. As it was, but a single coach, containing four persons, went to the grave with the hearse which carried his remains. Byron reached Huckwell, in 1824, pretty much in the same way; but, we believe, with a somewhat larger attendance—not much, however. Moore attended his noble friend’s funeral to the bounds of London, as the slender cortège passed through, but went no farther.

Moore was of small stature. “He is a little, very little man,” says Sir Walter Scott, speaking of him in 1825. Hunt said of him in 1820: “His forehead is long and full of character, with bumps of wit large and radiant enough to transport a phrenologist: his eyes are as dark and fine as you would wish to see under a set of vine-leaves.” The poet’s face was, in fact, very plain, and only redeemed by the brightness of his eyes. Irish festivity and enjoyment formed the prevailing expression of his aspect, in his better days when he was the delight and pride of every society he appeared in—the gayest, happiest, most appreciated wit of his time. Poor Tom Moore! He was always called Tom Moore; except in cotemporary criticisms of his poems or polemics, nobody thought of calling him Mr. Moore. We cannot fancy him a man of seventy-two! There is an incongruity in the idea which we cannot get over. Old and insane. Alas for the brightest vaunt of human intellect and glory! But Tom Moore will be ever freshly remembered with the undying melodies of his native land.

A LIFE OF VICISSITUDES.

———

BY G. P. R. JAMES.

———

[Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1852, by George Payne Rainsford James, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts.]

(Continued from page 494.)

LONDON, FIFTY YEARS AGO.

There was a night coach to London, and I was very anxious to arrive in the great city; but Father Bonneville was now feeling strongly the effects of age, and I would not expose him to the fatigue of a long night journey. We set off therefore on the following morning, and I can hardly express the effect produced upon my mind by the first sight of the vehicle which was to convey us. It was the stage-coach in its utmost perfection, light, small, and compact, beautifully painted, newly washed, with leather harness, and four bay horses, which seemed, to my eyes, fitted for the race-course. It was so unlike any thing I had ever seen in Germany, in France, or in America, so light, so neat, so jaunty, so rapid, so perfect in all its parts and appointments, that it stood out at once from every thing else in my mind, as a pure and unadulterated bit of England—an exponent, as it were, of the habits of the country and the mind of the people. When we came to get in, indeed, and take our seats, we found ourselves a little cramped for room. The back, too, was stiff and rigid, and our legs had but little space to stretch themselves out, intertwined with those of our fellow passengers.

“This, too, is a bit of England,” I thought.

When at length the coachman had mounted the box—when the reins were gathered up, and the first smack of the whip given, poor Father Bonneville looked more nervous and uneasy than he had done while I was driving him down the hill over the frontier of France. On we went, however, at a pace which seemed to take away his breath, rattling in and out amongst carts and wagons, and horses and dogs, touching nothing, though seeming every moment about to be dashed to pieces against some great lumbering dray, or to kill a score or two of old people and children. The coach was heavily laden on the top: men’s legs and feet were hanging down in all quarters, and we seemed to sway from side to side with a terrible inclination to precipitate ourselves into the window of some early-risen shopkeeper in Portsmouth.

At length, much to my satisfaction, we were out of the town; and after passing over some wide and curious-looking downs, unlike any thing else I had ever seen in other lands, we entered upon a richer and better cultivated country, and the real face of England—old England—merry England, as it has been endearingly called, spread out before me like a garden. And it is a garden—the garden of the world. I know not why, but the very heaths and moors—and we passed several of them—seemed to have an air of comfort and sunny cheerfulness, superior to the cultivated fields of other lands. From time to time when we stopped to change horses, though it was done with a marvelous rapidity, which allowed but little time for questions, I asked an ostler or a waiter the names of various places we had passed; and I remarked that the English must be very fond of the devil, as they had made him god-father to every place for which they could not well find an epithet. I heard of Devil’s dykes, and Devil’s punch-bowl, and Devil’s jumps, at every step.

We paused to dine, as it was called, at a small town, beautifully situated amongst some fine sweeping hills, and on asking the name, found that it was called Godalming.

“Gott Allgemein,” I said, turning to Father Bonneville, who nodded his head. But it was an unfortunate speech; for one of our fellow-travelers, a great, fat, black-looking man, dressed in mourning, who had never opened his mouth during the day, but who had continued reading a book, let the coach rattle and roll as it would, now fixed upon me as an antiquary, and tormented me during the whole of the rest of the journey with a dissertation upon pottery, and sepulchral urns, and Roman coins, when I wished to observe the country, and gain information regarding the new land which I had just entered. He evidently took me for an Englishman; but my companion he soon found out to be an emigrant, and compensated in some degree for his tiresomeness, by giving us the names of several good inns—“Where,” as he added, with a gentle inclination of his head toward Father Bonneville, “there were waiters who could speak French.”

My good old friend was a little mortified, I believe; for he flattered himself that his English was without accent.

Night fell while we were yet some distance from London, and still we rattled on at the same velocity, till our heavy friend in the corner thought fit to inform us that we were entering London. It did not seem to be an agreeable entrance at all; for the dark streets, lighted by very dim globe lamps shining through a fog, into which we seemed to plunge, had a somewhat forbidding aspect to the eye of a stranger, and the multitude of figures hurrying along on both sides of the way, now seen, now lost, as they came under the lamps, or passed the blazing shop-fronts, looked like phantoms of the dead pursued by some evil spirit. The noise too was intolerable; for vehicles were running in every direction, making an awful clatter as we clattered by them, while through the whole was heard a dull, everlasting grumble, as if the city suffered under one continual thunder-storm.

At length, we dashed up to the door of an inn, and every one began to jump out or down, and to scramble for trunks or portmanteaus, as best he might.

I cannot say that our first night’s residence in London was peculiarly agreeable; for besides being both heated and tired, stiff and cramped, we had the delight of being half-devoured by bugs till dawn of day.

Poor Father Bonneville rose late, nearly as much fatigued with his night’s rest as with his day’s journey. But immediately after breakfast, we set out to seek for better accommodation. I proposed that we should go to one of the inns which had been mentioned; but he advised, strongly, that we should take a small lodging, adding—“London, when I recollect it, was the greatest place for lodgings in the world.”

So we still found it; for in many streets as we walked along, we saw “Furnished lodgings to let,” written on a piece of paper, and stuck up in the window of almost every other house. Some of these we passed by, as likely to be too fine and expensive for our purposes. We looked at others, and were not satisfied. In one, dirt and smoke were too evident to both eye and nose. At another, the young ladies of the mansion appeared not such as we wished to dwell amongst. In other places, again, we were not fortunate enough to give satisfaction ourselves. One stout lady, to whom Father Bonneville addressed some inquiries, stuck her large, bare, blue arms akimbo, and said she would not let her lodgings “to foriners,” adding—in not a very indistinct tone—“They’se all on um so dirty.”

The good Father, the cleanest man upon the face of earth, was deeply mortified at this insinuation, and turned away indignant. I laughed and followed; and at length we found a little place, which seemed to suit us well, in a street running from the Haymarket, westward. For a guinea and a half a week, we were to have two bed-rooms and a sitting-room. The lady of the house, or her she helot, was to cook for us for five shillings per week more, and all promised very well, when I had nearly spoiled the whole bargain by inquiring if there were any bugs.

“Bugs!” cried the indignant dame. “Bugs! If you think there are any bugs, you had better not come here, young man.”

I found afterward that no house in London is ever admitted to have bugs during the day, however potently they may make their existence known during the night. She was quieted down at length, however, and seemed quite pacified, when I paid her down the first week’s rent before hand, so as to secure her revenue whether there were bugs or not; and when she saw four or five very respectable looking trunks of American manufacture brought to the house from the inn, she became exceedingly reverential, and, to do her all justice, remained so till the end of our stay.

To finish with bugs, however, at once and for ever, I may as well add that, two days after our arrival, I found a very unpleasant looking gentleman, in a brown coat, walking over my dressing-table, and calling the landlady, I pointed it out to her.

“Good lauk-a-daisy!” she exclaimed, in a tone of sweet simplicity: “What can it be? I never saw such a thing in my life. If it’s a bug, sir, you must have brought it from the inn with your pokemantles. That would be a sad case to have the house stocked with um.”

I said, nothing more, lest I should provoke her to bring an action for damages against me; but I found that, in the course of the morning, she went over all the rooms with a curious sort of an instrument, like a tin kettle, from which she emitted jets of scalding steam into all the cracks and crevices, and I will acknowledge that boiled bugs are not half so offensive as raw.

It took us a whole day to get shaken into our new abode, and to eat some exceedingly fat mutton-chops—about the fourth part of what the lady had provided for our dinner. What became of the remainder we never discovered, and I perceived, though Father Bonneville did not, that either from the sea air which we had lately enjoyed, or from some other cause, we had become inhumanly carnivorous, consuming at least, ten times the quantity of beef and mutton in a week than we had ever consumed in our lives before, together with an enormous quantity of bread and butter, and tea enough to have poisoned a Mandarin.

On the following day, with the good Father on my arm, I set out in search of Madame de Salins, taking care to ask our landlady, in the first place, the way to Swallow street.

“If you will just strike away by the market, sir—that is, St. James’ market—I don’t mean Carnaby, that’s a great way off, and take away up toward Oxford street, you’ll come right upon the end of Swallow street—or you can turn in by Major Foubert’s passage.”

I explained to her that I knew neither of the markets she mentioned, and had not the slightest acquaintance with her military friend who kept the passage; and then she laughed, and cried—

“Good lauk-a-daisy! I forgot. What a head I have to be sure; but there are so many things always a runnin’ in it.”

She then entered more into detail, told me the streets I was to take, by the designation of right hand and left hand, and counted up the turnings on her fat fingers, with which better information we set out, and steered pretty accurately. As we went, I could not refrain from talking to my good old friend about Madame de Salins and Mariette.

“Dear little thing,” I said: “I wonder if she recollects me.”

“She is probably no little thing now, Louis,” replied Father Bonneville, with a smile. “You always speak of her as if she was still a child; but she must be nearly a woman now.”

I gave a sigh; for I would fain have had Mariette always a child—the same little Mariette I had loved so well. I did not think she had any right to grow older; and the idea of that sweet little creature metamorphosed into a great, raw school-girl, of between fourteen and fifteen, was almost as painful to me, as the sight of sweet Anne Page changed into a great lubberly boy to poor Slender.

I was destined to a worse disappointment, however. Of all the streets in London, Swallow street was perhaps the most dim, dingy, and unprepossessing I had as yet seen, and when we found out number three, it presented to us a chemist’s shop, of a very poor class, with the windows so dirty, and spotted with dust and rain, that the blue and red bottles within were hardly visible. Over the door was the name of the proprietor “Giraud,” which was promising as a French name, and in we dived to make inquiries. Monsieur Giraud himself, proved, as we expected, a French emigrant, but he was the most sullen, uncommunicative, repulsive Frenchman I ever met with. I suppose exile, misfortune, and a poor trade had soured him. However, he showed us nothing but brutality as long as we spoke English, and was not very civil when we began to talk to him in French.

He knew nothing of Madame de Salins, he said: there was no such person in his house. There had been a whole heap of them, he added, when he bought the place some six months before, and he believed there was a woman and her daughter amongst them, but he had turned them all out, and knew nothing more of them.

The idea of Madame de Salins and my pretty little Mariette being forced to dwell at all in such a dim and dingy den, and then being turned into the street by such an old weazle-faced animal as that, roused my indignation, and I replied sharply, that he seemed to have very little compassion for his fellows in misfortune.

“Sacre bleu! Why should I have compassion upon any men?” he asked bitterly; “they have had no compassion upon me. But I can have compassion, too. There’s that old rogue of a marquis up stairs. I let him have the room, dirt cheap, at his prayers and entreaties, although he would have turned up his nose at me in Paris. You can go and ask him if he knows any thing of the people you want—There, up that stairs.”

I mounted fast, and Father Bonneville followed me; the chemist shouting after me to go up to the third floor. There, in a wretched garret, we found one of the most miserable objects I ever beheld. Seated by a little fire, in a room hardly habitable, was an old man of upward of seventy, shrunk in body and limbs, but with his face bloated and heavy. He had got on an old, tattered dressing-gown, and a thick, black night-cap, and one of his legs was swathed in flannel. He held a little sauce-pan in his hand, over the fire, cooking a ragout for himself, and an empty plate, with a knife and fork, stood upon the table, on which also lay a broad ribbon and a star. When we entered, he started up, and seeing two well-dressed strangers, set down the sauce-pan, wrapped his gown a little closer round him, and then drawing his two heels together, made us the bow of a dancing-master. He forgot not his politesse for a moment, and besought us to be seated, with a simpering, half-fatuous smile, pointing to one whole and one half-chair, and then begged to know to what he might attribute the felicity of our visit—perhaps we were mistaken, he added, as he had not the pleasure of knowing us. We might be in search of some other person, but his poor name was Le Marquis d’ Carcassonne. I felt Father Bonneville, who was behind me, catch my arm suddenly, as if to check me for some reason; but I was anxious to obtain intelligence of Madame de Salins, and I asked the old gentleman if he could give us any news of her. He was profoundly grieved, he said in answer, that it was out or his power. He knew the family, by repute, well, and had heard of them even in London; but it was his inexpressible misfortune not to know where they were or what they were doing. He bowed as he spoke, as if he sought to signify that our audience was at its close, but before we retired, he added—

“May I inquire, monsieurs, if it be not indiscreet, whom I have the honor of seeing? I only ask, that I may tell Madame de Salins that you have done her the honor of calling upon her, in case I should meet with her in society.”

I replied briefly that my name was “Monsieur De Lacy,” but those words produced in an instant the most extraordinary effect. The bloated face of the old man, red and carbuncled as it was, turned deadly pale. He stood for a moment, and I could see him shake. I thought he was going to faint, but the next instant he walked to the chair, seated himself slowly, and waved his hand, saying—“Go, go.” At the same moment, Father Bonneville pulled me by the arm, exclaiming more vehemently than was usual with him:

“Come away, Louis, come away!”

I followed him down the stairs, and out into the street, and then asked—with a heart beating strangely—what was the meaning of all that had occurred, and who that old man was.

“The bitterest enemy of your family,” replied Father Bonneville; “the murderer of your father. And is this the end of all his pride, ruthless ambition and blood-thirsty persecution of the innocent! Ask me no questions, Louis, but avoid that man. The venom may be extinct, but he is a serpent still.”

——

BANKING MATTERS.

I walked home from the house in Swallow street exceedingly melancholy. That there was some dark mystery about my fate, was clear, and it presented itself in a more painful and tangible shape to my mind now, than it had ever done before; but, in truth, I must own that this was neither the sole nor the principal cause of the gloom that now fell upon me. I had looked forward to the meeting with Madame de Salins and Mariette, with a sort of childish, delighted expectation, which had given a relief to darker and more sorrowful thoughts. A thousand sweet memories of childhood had risen up like flowers to cover the grave of more mature affection; and now they had withered also. A sensation of despondency came upon me; an impression: a feeling that I was never to be happy in affection; and this sort of sombre prepossession seemed to connect itself somehow with the fate of my family and my race.

It must not be thought, indeed, that I gave myself up to such dreary feelings without struggling against them, and even on the way back, I strove to speak cheerfully, and to answer Father Bonneville’s hopeful assertion, that we should find Madame de Salins yet, not quite as confidently, but without any display of the doubts which had possession of my own mind. At heart, however, I had given up all hope. I had never been one of those sanguine people, who believed their fortunes to be written in the chapter of accidents; and what but accident could produce a meeting between us and those we sought for, now that all clue was lost. Where, in that vast world of London—where in that thickly-peopled country, were we ever to hear of two unknown, and probably poor, exiles, such as Madame de Salins and her daughter. The very crowds that passed us in the street, hurrying eagerly and rapidly along, each one thinking of himself with eager face, and hardly noticing the others who passed, seemed to forbid such expectations.

“No, no,” I said to myself. “They are lost to us now, probably forever.”

I would not transact any business that day, although several hours of daylight still remained, and it would have been much better probably to have plunged into dry details at once; but there is generally an apathy about disappointment, at least there was with myself, and obtaining some books from a library, I sat reading somewhat listlessly during the whole evening, for many hours after Father Bonneville had retired to rest. From time to time I laid down the book, indeed, and thought of myself and of my future, and cross-examined myself in regard to the past. The book I had been reading was a sentimental one of the day, but not without considerable power. It treated of Love, amongst other things, and painted that passion with a fire and vehemence rarely seen in the works of English writers. I tried to test my love for my poor Louise, by the sentiments there expressed, and I felt sorry and angry with myself to find that my own feelings had never come up to the standard before me. That I had loved her with a deep, sincere, and strong attachment, I knew.—I was sure; and her gentle sweetness during her last hours, and her early fate, had only endeared her to me more, and made her memory precious to me. But yet I felt disappointed, grieved that I had not experienced that strong, vehement passion which the book before me depicted. It seemed almost to me as if I wronged her—as if she had been worthy of better, more earnest love than mine.

Upon the whole, the reading of that night, and the reflections which came with it, served not at all to cheer me; and I determined the next day to do what I had better have done at once—plunge into business, arrange my affairs, and ascertain precisely what my future means were to be. My first visit, of course, was to be made to the banker who had received the remittances from Germany, and I asked Father Bonneville to go with me. He declined, however, saying that he had some little affairs to transact himself, and would meet me at dinner in the evening. At this time, by an easy transition, he and I seemed to have in some degree changed places. I was anxious about him, careful of him, and hardly fancied that in that vast strange place he was capable of taking care of himself. I made him promise, therefore, that he would take a hackney-coach, and went away, not wishing to seem inquisitive as to his errand, although I could not help believing that I had personally something to do with the business he was about to transact.

At the bankers it was soon perceived by the clerks that I was utterly ignorant of business; but on giving my name, and stating what I wanted, I was introduced into a small, dingy room at the back of the building, where candles were lighted, and were necessary. By their light I perceived a fine-looking old gentleman, with a square face, and a large bald head, glossy as a mirror. My name had been announced to him before I entered, and he rose and shook me warmly by the hand, congratulating me on my safe arrival in England.

“We have had a little trouble,” he said, “about this business, for our friends at Hamburgh have a strange way of remitting money, by mercantile bills, for all sorts of sums, and at very various dates—none of them very long, it is true, but it gives our clerks a great deal of pains in collecting; and if you had arrived a month ago, you would have found that part of the business not concluded, Count.”

“I beg your pardon,” I said, with a smile, “I believe I have no right to the title you give me, although my recollections of France do not go further back than a period when all titles had been abolished. Citizen was the ordinary name in those days, and if strangers gave me any title at all at my age, it was ‘Gamin.’ ”

The banker seemed surprised, and for a moment looked a little suspicious, as if he thought it might be a case of personation. “But you are the gentleman,” he said, “who married the daughter of Professor—Professor—”

“Of Professor Haas,” I said, in a grave tone.

“Ay, exactly, exactly—Professor Haas,” rejoined the banker. “But you have, of course, the letter announcing this remittance to our hands?”

“Oh, yes,” I answered, now seeing in which way his suspicions turned; “I have both the letter from Hamburgh, and the marriage contract, which I shall always keep. There is the letter;” and taking out my pocket-book, I handed it to him. The banker himself could make nothing of the contents, for it was written it German, of which he did not understand a word; but he sent for a clerk who did, and in the meanwhile pointed out something I had never remarked before in the address, which was written in a good, round, text hand. At the top was written as usual, “à monsieur,” and underneath appeared, somewhat run together, the words “Le comte,” which I had read Louis.

“You see he gives you the ‘Count’ at all events,” said the banker, rubbing his hands.

“I did not remark it before,” I answered; “and I shall certainly never take the title here.”

“By the way, by the way,” said the banker, “if I recollect right, there is a letter for you here;” and handing the one I had given him to the Clerk who had now entered, he said to him, “Be so good as to read that, and let me know what it says.”

The clerk read off fluently, and translated with ease the contents of the notary’s letter, and then said, pointing to me, “This must be the Count de Lacy, sir.”

“He wont have the count—he wont have the count,” cried the banker, laughing.

“Well, sir, I suppose that is as he pleases,” said the grave clerk; “but had I not better get the letter that is here for him?”

It was soon brought, and I found it was from my good friend the notary, containing two documents of much but very different interest. The one was an inscription for the tomb of my poor Louise, drawn up by his fellow executor, in which she was styled Countess de Lacy; and the other was a letter from London, which had been received by one of the principal authorities of Hamburgh, informing him that a rumor had reached persons in England, interested in the welfare of a young gentleman named Louis Count de Lacy, to the effect that he and his tutor Father Bonneville, having emigrated from France, and been driven out of Switzerland, were directing their steps toward the North of Germany, or to Russia; and requesting the authorities of Hamburgh, if they should appear in that city, to notify to Father Bonneville that the allowance previously made would be continued; but that the banking-house at which it was paid was changed to one which had been mentioned in a previous letter.

“This will be good news for Father Bonneville,” I said, handing the letter to the banker, who could make that out very well. He seemed now perfectly satisfied, but still inquired where Father Bonneville was to be found. I replied that he was with me in London, which seemed to satisfy him still more; and the clerk nodded his head, and said in a significant tone, “It’s all right, sir.”

Wonderful it is, how many men who transact a great deal of very important business, are mere machines, guided by their subordinates. They are but the hands of the clock, moved by wheels below them. Probably but for the clerk’s saying, “It’s all right, sir,” I should have got through very little business that day.

Now, however, every thing went on smoothly. Accounts were produced; calculations rapidly made; various particulars, which might as well have been written in Sanscrit, were explained to me in terms which might as well have been Arabic; and in the end I found myself possessed of property which the banker informed me would produce, if rightly invested, an income of about eight hundred pounds a year. As I had never been accustomed to calculate in pounds sterling, I found it somewhat difficult to get the idea thereof disconnected from that of dollars, and the banker had to explain to me, that eight hundred pounds a year made so many marks banco, before I perceived that I was what might be considered a very wealthy man—at least in Germany. I knew that the good professor had possessed the reputation of being so; but I was not before aware to what extent his accumulations had gone. My good friend the banker advised me to have the amount invested for the time in public funds, offered his assistance and advice as to its future employment, and ended by inviting both myself and Father Bonneville to dine with him on that day week.

I accepted for myself, but expressed a fear that my old companion would not be well enough to go into society, and then took my leave, for it was by this time late, and the banking-house was at the far end of that dingy, busy, industrious ant-hill called “the city.”

When I got home to our little lodging, I found that Father Bonneville had returned, and was waiting dinner for me; and I could see by his face in a moment, that whatever had been the object of his expedition in the morning, he had been disappointed. I gave him a general account of what had occurred, told him the amount which we might annually count upon, and in the end gave him the letter which had been sent to the authorities at Hamburgh, which seemed to afford him some satisfaction, but not so much as I had anticipated. He made very few comments upon the letter itself, but pointed to the title of Count which had been given to me with a melancholy smile, saying, “You have a right to it, Louis, but if you take my advice, you will not assume it in this country.”

“I do not intend, my dear friend,” I replied; “but really all these mysteries are painful to me. The time must come when all these things should be explained, and I would fain know when that will be.”

“Yet a little, yet a little, Louis,” replied the good father, with a deprecating look. “It may be one or two years, but not more, I think—not more.”

“But, good father,” I answered, “you ought, at all events, to give me the means of tracing out my own history, even though I use them not for the time you mention. Life is uncertain, and were you taken from me, I have not the slightest clue.”

“You will find it amongst my papers, whenever death calls me hence,” replied Father Bonneville. “Every information and proof I collected long ago; and in all the passages which we have lately undergone—in exile—in poverty, and in peril, I have preserved them safely. But I really would not take this name of Count—I would call myself merely Mr. De Lacy. That is a common name in England; and you may very well pass for an Englishman—the other title might do harm.”

I again assured him that I had no intention of assuming any title at all. But however strong might be my resolution, I found it difficult to keep. The banker’s clerks knew me by that title; and the banker himself, when I went to dine with him, used it in introducing me to several people. I declined it, however, wherever I could do so without affectation, and made it sufficiently apparent that it was no assumption of my own.

The party was large; the house in the west end of the town, most magnificent; and a great number of persons were present, some of whom I found were of the élite of London society. It was very much the same sort of party as all others in great capitals; and most of my readers must have seen a thousand such. There were several insignificant puppies, several equally insignificant, but very pretty young women, a majority, however, of highly respectable, well-informed, gentleman-like, but not very interesting people, and two or three of higher qualities, polished, but not worn down in the polishing, with hearts as well as minds, and not only with information, but with the will and the power to apply it. It fortunately happened for me that some of these sat near me at the table. One was a lady of the middle age, who was called Lady Maria, and whose husband, a Commoner, and an eminent lawyer, sat higher up the table; and another was a young man, dressed in the very height of the fashion, and having a somewhat foppish air, which at first prejudiced me a little against him. I soon found occasion to change my opinion however; for, though he did not talk much, whatever he did say was to the point; and allusion having been made to one of those very common cases in great cities, where a man of high rank had behaved very ill to a lady somewhat inferior in station, my friend with mustaches, on the right, burst suddenly forth in a strain of indignant reprobation, which made some of the other guests smile, and one of the ladies say, laughingly, “You have been so long away, Charley, following your uncivilized trade of fighting, that you have forgotten how delicately such civilized vices require to be treated.”

“They shall never be treated delicately by me, my dear aunt,” replied the young gentleman; “and at all events, I haven’t forgotten one thing in my trade of fighting, that there is such a thing as honor, which must be remembered as much in our conduct toward a woman, as in our conduct toward a man.”

When the ladies had retired, he remained next to me, and we had a good deal of conversation. I found he was a cavalry officer, who had seen some service, notwithstanding his youth; and was in London for a few months on leave of absence, in order to recover completely from a severe wound in the chest. He once or twice called me Count; but as we grew better acquainted over the wine, I begged him to drop the title, as it was not my intention to assume it at all, while in England at least.

“It is my right, I believe,” I said; “but I quitted France at a very early period, and have never been so called.”

“Well, I think you are right,” he replied. “Since England has become the exile’s home, as we are proud to call it, we have had such a crowd of Counts and Marquises of different kinds, that we have a difficulty in distinguishing the genuine from the false. You would, of course, pass muster, both from your appearance, and from the fact, which our good friend the banker here has taken care to communicate to tongues that will spread it, that you are that phœnix amongst Counts and Marquises—a rich émigré. But the title of Count would do you no good amongst our best people, who will like you quite as well as plain Mr. De Lacy; and as such, if you will permit me, I will ask for you to-morrow.”

I expressed the great pleasure I should have to see him, giving him my address. But I will not dwell longer on this dinner-party, as the few incidents I have related were the only ones which occurred that had any effect upon my fate.

——

GLIMPSES OF THE LOST.

New circumstances justified many new arrangements, upon which I will only dwell for a moment. The morning after the dinner-party at the banker’s, Father Bonneville and I had a long conversation in regard to our future proceedings. The sum I now possessed seemed almost as large to the good Father’s notions as to my own; for, to say truth, he had not much more experience in money matters than myself. It was agreed that we should set up house-keeping together, I insisted that he should have a little vehicle—one of those neat one horse equipages, in producing which England excels the whole world—and he hinted that I had better have a saddle-horse, when one man would do for both. Between twelve and one o’clock my new friend, Captain Westover, came to see me, and was taken into our councils. He somewhat clouded our sanguine views of wealth, by explaining to us the expenses of English living: but still with all allowances made, we found that we had ample means for any thing within our ambition, and in the course of the explanations which took place, I learned that, in addition to what I had myself, Father Bonneville counted on receiving from some source or another, the sum of three hundred pounds per annum. After half an hour’s chat, Captain Westover proposed to drive me out in search of horses and houses, in a machine of his, then very fashionable in London, called a tilbury, which had brought him to the door. His servant was turned out, and I took the vacant place. He advised me strongly, for a time at least, to take a furnished cottage at some little distance from London. “You can come in when you like,” he said, “and there you will be more out of harm’s way. Excuse me, De Lacy,” he continued with a laugh, “but every man entering a great town like this, must be a little green at first, whatever may be his experience of other places. It would be better for you to come to a knowledge of London by degrees, and that can only be done by living a little way out of it. With all its vices, its knavery, and its abomination, there is no place like this great capital of ours in the world for the comfort of having every thing that one can want, or desire, or dream of, ready for one in an instant. Each man can choose according to his means or his ambition. From the St. Giles cellar of the thief or the professional beggar, to the princely palace of the nobleman or the great merchant, every thing is at hand, and two or three taps of an enchanter’s wand bring it into presence in a moment. So I will answer for it, that we shall find what you want in the way of a house, in two or three hours; but don’t have it too big: otherwise people will be coming to dine with you and stay all night, a most harmonious and agreeable way of being eaten out of house and home.”

Though brisk, active, generous and dashing, Captain Westover was a good man of business, knew whatever he did know, well, was aware of the right price of every thing, and I believe in the course of the next two or three weeks, saved me several hundred pounds, besides putting me completely in the way of doing the same for myself at an after period. I will not dwell upon all our perquisitions. Let me come to the result. Behold me, in the spring of the year, possessed of an exceedingly neat, detached cottage, close upon Blackheath, with a beautiful garden filled with shrubs and flowers, furniture excellent and abundant, two horses in the stable, as pretty a little pony carriage as it was possible to imagine, and a middle-aged groom, who though an active, honest and excellent servant, had just been dismissed by a noble lord, because he had got the asthma, and puffed like a grampus. He did his duty well, however, and I did not mind his puffing. His name, moreover, was Lucas Jones, or Jones Lucas—which, I never could make out, and I do not think he knew well himself.

All the world was at that time volunteering.

Napoleon Bonaparte threatened an invasion of England, and fondly fancied he could swallow up that stubborn little island as easily as he had gulped down half the kingdoms of the continent; but little did he know the spirit that he roused in the people of the land by the very threat. All Great Britain was bristling in arms, and instead of men being dragged away from their homes by forced conscriptions, people of all ranks, classes and degrees, of all ages and characters, of all parties and sects, were rushing in to enroll their names among the defenders of their country, and submitting day after day, to toilsome drills, and unaccustomed modes of life, to the loss of time and money and convenience. But not a lip murmured, not a heart was depressed.

Blackheath was the great training-ground in the neighborhood of London for this military race; and every day in my rides, I met with large bodies of men, in red, and green, and blue, marching and counter-marching, going through the manual, and expending great quantities of powder and perspiration. Magistrates, lawyers, clerks, shopkeepers, and draymen, were all jostling side by side in the charge; and the first battle in England, would have left upon the ground, the most motley assemblage of professions that ever was found in one place.

By pausing often to watch the manœuvres of the volunteers, I accustomed my horse to stand fire very well, and it was with great delight I heard from Captain Westover, that in order to try the skill and precision of the volunteers, a great sham-fight was to be given on Blackheath itself, in which were to be enacted all the operations that might be supposed likely to take place, if a French force were to sail up the Thames, and effect a landing near the little town of Greenwich. I told my gallant informant, that although I had been in the middle of a great battle, and had crossed a considerable portion of the field between the two lines, I had not the most distant idea of what it all meant.

“No, nor have half the men who were in the battle,” said Captain Westover. “We do what we are told; we fight; we succeed, or are beaten off; but all that we know about it is, that there’s a great deal of smoke, a great deal of dust, and a great number of men tumbling down round about us, with a very awkward expression of countenance; and two or three weeks after, when the newspapers come from England, we hear all about the glorious victory we have obtained from the dispatches of the general in command. This is generally what a subaltern knows of the matter; but somehow or another, more comprehensive views are beaten into our heads after awhile, and I will try, if possible, to give you some notion of what is going on on Wednesday. But there is some talk of making me an aid-de-camp for the nonce, which will be a great bore; for I have a whole troop of lady friends coming down to see, without peril, a battle without bullets.”

The day came; and good Father Bonneville, who had a great objection to noise and bustle of any kind, and whose recollections of the battle of Zurich were not the most agreeable, retreated for a couple of days to an inn, at a place called Bromley, while I remained to enjoy the sight.

I must dwell with some detail upon the events of that morning, as they were more important to me than those of any engagement I ever was in.

At an early hour I was out, walking round the scene where the mimic fight was to take place. All was already in a state of bustle and preparation. Cannon were planted: troops were taking up their position: long lines of what were called fencibles, armed with pikes, were stationed on the river bank, and a number of persons were arriving every moment from London to witness the gay scene.

Expecting that the hospitalities of my cottage might be called upon, I had laid in ample provisions, and soon after my return about nine o’clock, Westover was there, mounted on a splendid horse, and dressed in brilliant uniform. He came hurrying in, would not sit down to eat any breakfast, but stood by the table, and dispatched a roll and a cup of coffee while my horse was being saddled.

“We must be quick,” he said. “We must be quick; for I expect the whole staff on the ground by ten, and I wish to introduce you to some good people first.”

We were soon upon horseback, and cantering over the field. My companion led me to the head of several regiments, and introduced me to their colonels, who were generally old soldiers retired from the service, who had sprung into arms again at the first news of danger. One I particularly remember, a Colonel C——, as the finest looking man I almost ever beheld. He could not have been much less than seventy, but he was as upright as a pike-staff, his face blooming like a boy’s, and his hair loaded with a red sort of powder, called I believe, marechal powder, common in his youth. He swore a good deal; but in every other respect, he demeaned himself with an easy, dignified courtesy which I have never seen surpassed.

He was surrounded by a great number of very pretty women, who seemed to adore him, and rather inconvenienced him by their presence; for after giving one or two gentle hints that they had better betake themselves to spots appointed for spectators, he exclaimed, with a wave of his sword, which somewhat frightened them, “Damn it, my dear girls, you had better get out of the way, or by —— we shall have some of the soldiers’ bayonets in your eyes, which would be to my loss, your loss, and all the world’s loss. I’m going to order the charge in five minutes, and though no gallant gentleman will doubt your powers of resistance, we shall carry you at the point of the bayonet, I’ll answer for it. Captain Westover, will you and your friend take my niece Kitty, and these darlings, up to the mill there, where the carriages have been stationed? You had better get on your horses, and drive them before you like a flock of geese.”

We accomplished the service, however, more easily; and I learned from Westover that the gallant old colonel had been one of Wolfe’s officers at the taking of Quebec.

Not long after, the fight began; and by my companion’s management, I remained with the staff during the greater part of the day. I need not pause to describe the roaring of cannon, the firing of musketry, the charging of lines of troops, the taking and retaking of different positions; but I must notice one little event, which occurred about the middle of the day. There had been a sort of lull in the noise and confusion, when suddenly a carriage and four came dashing over the ground toward the mill, just as a battery horse-artillery was galloping like lightning across in a different direction to take up a new position, while at the same moment a cavalry regiment was dashing up to support a party on the right. The gayly dressed post-boys tried to pull in their horses, but men, horses, and ladies in the carriage, were all equally scared, and before they knew what they were doing, were enveloped on every side by the troops. The commander-in-chief spoke a word to Captain Westover; for it was a great object to all that the day should pass over without serious accident, and one seemed now very likely to take place. Away went Westover. Away went I after him, and just arrived in time to turn the horses off the road before the guns were upon them.

“Oh, good Heaven, what shall we do?” exclaimed a lady in the carriage, with her head covered with ostrich feathers.

“Drive across to that little road, and off the ground as fast as you can go,” shouted Westover to the post-boys. “You will get these ladies killed if you do not mind.”

“But where can we see?” screamed the lady from the window.

“You cannot see at all, madam,” answered Westover, impatiently. “If you wanted to see, you should have come earlier—Drive on and clear the ground, boys.”

Away the postillions went. The lady drew back her head from the window with an indignant air, and I saw just opposite to her, in the carriage, the loveliest face I ever beheld. Delicately and beautifully chiseled, every feature seemed to me perfect, in the brief glance I had. But that was not the great charm; for there before me, for that single instant, were those beautiful, liquid, hazel eyes, with the long fringe of dark lashes, which I had never seen any thing like since I had last beheld Mariette.

My first impulse was to gallop after the carriage as fast as possible; but the troops swept round, the carriage dashed away, and all I could do was to ask my companion if he knew who were its denizens.

“Not I,” he answered, hurriedly—“Some vulgar people they must be—none but vulgar people get themselves into such situations as that—a devilish pretty girl in the back of the carriage though, De Lacy—Why, what’s the matter with you, man?”

“Why, I think I know her,” I replied, “and have been looking for her and her mother for a long time.”

“Well, then, ride away after her,” answered Westover; “the post-boys will insist upon feeding their horses, depend upon it; and you will find them either at the Green-Man, or at some of the inns down below. Join me again at the mill after it’s all over; for I intend you to give me some dinner; and I must see all my aunts, and cousins, and mothers, who are congregated there, if it be but for a moment, before they go back to London. They have thought me rude enough already, I dare say.”

I followed his advice, and I believe that I would very willingly, at that moment, have given at least half of all I had in the world to catch that carriage; but I sought in vain. Not a trace of it was to be found, and though there were post-boys enough at all the inns, I could not see one in the same colored jacket as those I was in search of.

“Could it be Mariette?” I asked myself. The features were very different; much more beautiful than those of my little companion. The face was no longer round, but beautifully oval. The hair seemed somewhat darker, too, but the eyes were Mariette’s; and I asked myself again, “Could it be Mariette, or had some other person stolen her eyes?”

Sad, thoughtful, disappointed, I rode slowly back up Blackheath hill, little caring what I should find going on above. But I had been absent nearly two hours; the sham-fight was now over; drums and fifes, trumpets, and all manner of instruments, were playing gay and triumphant airs, friends and enemies were sitting down on the dry grass, eating the plentiful viands prepared for them, and post-boys were leading up strings of horses to draw back the gay parties who had come to witness the scene, to dinners and festivities afar.

I directed my course at once toward the mill, from which several carriages were already driving away; but as I approached, I saw Westover still there, on horseback, at the side of an open vehicle to which the horses had just been attached. He was talking to some ladies inside, one of whom I had seen on the night when he and I first met, and who noticed me by a gentle inclination of the head. Another was a much handsomer and somewhat younger woman, but still past her youth. She seemed to be taking little notice of any thing, and there was a deep, grave melancholy upon her face, not harmonizing well with the gay and exciting scene around. I did not go very near; for the drivers had their feet in the stirrups, ready to mount, two servants in livery were already on the box, and there was no time for conversation. Westover’s aunt, however, beckoned me up, saying, “How have you been pleased, count?” and at the same moment, the other lady fixed her eyes full upon me, and I could see her turn deadly pale. She said a few words to her companion, however, in a hurried and eager manner, although I was replying with some commonplace answer at the moment.

My acquaintance turned her head, saying, loud enough for me to hear, “The young Count de Lacy. Shall I introduce you to him, Catherine?”

There was no reply. The other lady whom she called Catherine, had sunk back in the carriage, and her eyes were closed. She looked to me very much as if she had fainted. I saw her face, but Westover did not; for I was upon his left hand, and his aunt was between him and her companion.

“Shall I tell them to drive on?” he asked.

The other nodded her head, and the word was given; but as they dashed away, I said in a tone of some anxiety, “Do you know, I think that lady has fainted.”

“Which, which?” he cried. “Lady Catherine?”

“Not your aunt,” I said.

“They are both my aunts,” he answered, turning his horse sharply. “You ride on to your hut, De Lacy; I’ll join you in a minute, when I see what has befallen dear Aunt Catherine. She is never well, and rarely goes out. This has been too much for her.”

Away he darted, and I, less pleased with the events of the day, I suppose, than most others there present, took my way slowly over the least incumbered parts of the heath, toward my cottage on the other side, threading my way amongst groups of soldiers, and large masses of gorse. At the pace I went, and by the course I pursued, it took me nearly half an hour to reach my own gate; but I had already dismounted, before Westover overtook me, although he came at a quick trot, with an orderly following him.

I remarked that he was very grave, but his only comment on what had just passed, was, “You were right, De Lacy. My aunt had fainted. Poor thing, she has not strength for such scenes. And now, my friend, I have taken a great liberty with you by inviting in your name, two foreign gentlemen, who could get no dinner anywhere else—for Greenwich is as completely eaten out as an overkept cheese—to come and dine with you. In revenge, you shall come and dine with me next week, and eat and drink enough for three if you can.” I told him I was very glad to see his friends, and the rest of the day passed pleasantly enough, although I must say, I never saw Westover so dull and thoughtful, notwithstanding all his efforts to be gay. The two gentlemen, who followed him soon to my house, I need not notice particularly, as I never saw them afterward, and never cared about them at all. They were the sort of things that do very well to fill a seat at a dinner table, or to be shot at in a line of battle, behaving creditably in both situations, but doing very little else.

——

OLD FEELINGS AND NEW ACQUAINTANCES.

I did not go to bed till nearly two o’clock in the morning, not that my guests stayed late—far from it. They all took their departure about ten o’clock; but the events of the day, trifling as they may seem, had produced upon my mind an effect difficult to be conceived, or even accounted for. I felt convinced that it was Mariette I beheld, and I reasoned upon her state and condition at the time, without guide it is true, but with more accuracy than might have been expected. I by this time knew the situation of emigrants in general in Great Britain. They had been treated with great kindness by the people of the country; subscriptions had been opened for them, aid had been afforded them; but most of them had fled from France in a state of destitution, and were actually in extreme poverty at that moment. Some were eking out the means of subsistence by teaching, others by mere handicraft employments. I had no reason to believe that Madame de Salins had carried much away with her, and on the contrary, I had much reason to believe, from the wretchedness of the lodging in which she must have dwelt in Swallow street, that she was at one time, at least, in actual distress. The beautiful girl I had seen in the carriage was exceedingly simply dressed, and I asked myself whether my pretty Mariette, as so many had done, might not have engaged herself as a governess in some family, and might not, even now, be undergoing all the miseries and scorns of that most painful situation.

But this was not all. In regard to Mariette I had been guided in my conclusions—to some extent at all events—by plain, simple reason. There were other impressions, however, upon my mind—other matters for cogitation, with which reason had far less to do, and which gained their importance, perhaps from the active embellishment of imagination, perhaps from some of those deeper and more mysterious operations of the mind, or of the heart, which leave reason far behind in their rapidity, and surpass imagination by their truth. The face of that lady, whom they called Lady Catherine, haunted me. The manner in which she had gazed at me—the eager, keen, almost wild glance which she had given me, the paleness which had overspread her face so suddenly, and the fainting fit into which she had fallen immediately my name was mentioned, were not matters of marvel to me, but of deep thought and consideration. It was very natural, where such a mystery hung over my birth and early fate, that I should feel inclined to connect it with every thing strange and unexplained which I saw. But there was something more than all this—something that I cannot explain or describe; which seemed to bear down all thought and argument against it, and which made me feel a conviction, stronger than any reason could have supplied, that there was some tie between that lady’s fate and my own. I did not recollect her in the least—not one feature in her face was familiar to me; but yet the very moment I beheld her—before she even turned her eyes upon me, the sight seemed to waken in an instant, dreams of happy early days—sweet thoughts and feelings, which had slumbered for years unawakened by the careless storekeeper, Memory.

It was therefore over these thoughts and feelings that I paused and reflected, for so many hours.

I have often remarked in the course of life—in others as well as myself—a somewhat curious phenomenon: namely, that when some great and important—shall I call it change? No, not change. There are no changes in human fate. They are all steps—steps toward a certain goal—That when some great and important step, then, in human fate, is to be taken, we feel an impression of the coming fact—we see, as it were, with the eyes of the spirit, without the interference of the cold, hard, short-sighted intellect, the awful magnitude of that which is before us; and we are impelled to mark what at other times would seem the merest trifles with anxious acuteness—to scan, as it were, the very pebbles in our path, lest a rolling stone should make us lose our footing, and hurl us over the precipice which we feel to be near at hand, though the mists and darkness of our earthly being may hide the actual presence of the yawning gulf.

What was to me a lady fainting in a carriage? What was there extraordinary in a delicate woman giving way after an exciting scene, and long and unusual fatigue? What was there in all that I had seen, which could not be explained by a multitude of ordinary circumstances—which I should not have left, at any other time, to rest unthought of amongst the common, insignificant events of a day? And yet I sat and pondered for four long hours, and even after I retired to bed I could not sleep, but was kept awake with the same anxious thoughts.

Father Bonneville returned about two o’clock on the following day; but with a lack of confidence which I rarely showed toward him—for he was so gentle and so good, who could want confidence in him—I did not mention at all, the little incident which had occurred at the mill. I told him, however, all about the supposed sight I had caught of Mariette, but the good Father only smiled at me.

“You are always thinking of Mariette, Louis,” he said, “and if you go on so, I shall really fancy you are in love with her memory.”

“And so I am,” I answered frankly, “I can imagine a father would so love a child, as I love Mariette; and I shall always love her so.”

“My dear boy,” replied Father Bonneville, laying his hand impressively upon my arm, “that is impossible. You and Mariette are no longer children; you might love her as a brother when you last saw her; but if you love her at all, you must love her otherwise now.”

I fell into thought, and I felt that he was right. He gave me but little time to ponder, however, asking me who else I had seen, and I mentioned several names, Colonel C——, the commander-in-chief, a number of young officers, the two strangers who had dined with me, and lastly, in as easy a tone as I could assume, Westover’s two aunts.

Father Bonneville asked their names, and I replied, “Lady Winslow, and a lady they called Lady Catherine—I suppose Lady Catherine Westover; for he said, in the course of the evening, that she was his father’s sister.”

I looked somewhat keenly at Father Bonneville as I spoke; but my words did not seem to produce the slightest effect worth noticing.

“It is droll,” he said. “I do not remember the name of Westover in the English peerage. It must be some new creation, I suppose.”

“I should think not,” I replied, “for there is a calm quietness about them—a want of all arrogance and presumption—an easy, self-possessed tranquillity, which I have always remarked, in this country, accompanies ancient rights, and well assured position.”

“Do you know,” said Father Bonneville, suddenly darting away from the subject, “that it has once or twice struck me, Louis, that there is a great deal of likeness between your friend Captain Westover and yourself?”

I smiled; for I could not conceive two men more different in appearance—in complexion—in eyes, in height; for I was much taller, and dark, while he was fair; but still the good Father’s words lingered in my mind, and I determined the next time I saw my friend to learn, if possible, something more of his history.

It was with great satisfaction then that, on the Friday morning, I received a note from Westover, asking me to dine with him, either on the Tuesday or the Wednesday following, and to name which day.

“Do come, De Lacy, on the one day or the other; for there are some people, who will come on either day, to whom I much wish to introduce you. My leave will soon expire, and I may not have another opportunity.”

I immediately answered his note, fixing the first named day, and then, as it was a beautiful morning in the spring, I went out to fish in a river which ran at some miles distant from my cottage, and where I had hired a right—for the English are as tenacious of the right of stream and wood as any old feudal lord that ever lived.

I had been engaged in the sport for about an hour, wandering along through the beautiful meadows, and had done tolerably well, when I saw a gentleman, of the middle age, walk slowly across from the other side, and pause upon a little wooden bridge, observing my proceedings. He was a tall, handsome man, about fifty, but thin and pale, dressed in a sort of military blue coat, richly braided, but not very new; and his air was exceedingly gentlemanly and prepossessing, though his riches were evidently of Nature’s giving, not the world’s. After watching me a few minutes, he came up with easy grace, and asked, with a strong foreign accent, “If I had had good sport.”

I replied that it had been pretty well, adding a French proverb of no particular significance.

“Ha!” he said, “have I the pleasure of speaking to a countryman?”

I replied in the affirmative; and he soon began to ask all sorts of questions, in that courteous manner which renders inquisitiveness not impertinent in a Frenchman. I told him I had quitted France very early, and recollected but little of my native land; to which he replied, that was a “malheur,” asking the year of my emigration.

I told him, and he replied, with a smile, that it was the same in which he had left France; but added, that he had returned there since, and fought in La Vendee. He then asked me if I knew many of my countrymen. I replied in the negative, saying with a smile—for the opportunity seemed too good to be missed—that there were only two, whom I had known so well in my boyhood as to make me very anxious to hear of them again.

“May I be permitted to ask their names?” he said, quietly. “I am acquainted with several, though, indeed, not very many; for my means are too limited to allow of my mingling much in society.”

I at once named Madame de Salins and her daughter.

My new acquaintance paused and mused, as if he were trying to recollect some circumstance, such as where he had heard of them, and I began to entertain some hopes of information.

“Perhaps,” he said, at length, “I may be able to assist in your search in some degree, although I am not sure. May I ask how old you were when you quitted France?” and his eye ran over my person, which perhaps showed signs of age beyond what my years warranted.

“Between twelve and thirteen,” I replied.

“Ay! and you have remembered them so long,” he said, in a tone of interest. “Well, I will do my best to give you news of them. But I know not where to send it to you, if I should prove fortunate enough to be able to do so.”

I immediately gave him my card, which he examined, repeating the name, and then turned the conversation in another course. I found him exceedingly agreeable, mild and dignified in his manners, and full of general information, though probably not a very learned man. He asked me if I had been to pay my respects, while on the continent, to his majesty the king—afterward known as Louis the Eighteenth—and expressed himself sorry when he heard I had not.

“I think it would have been advisable in many respects,” he added. “This madness will not last forever in France. Nor can the other powers of Europe ever consent as a body to the existence of a state of things in that country antagonistic to all their interests and all their principles. Napoleon Bonaparte, in making himself emperor, has performed an act which places France in a false position that she cannot maintain. As long as he was merely the head of the republican party—the incarnation of the spirit of revolution—he was certain of support at home, and under no absolute necessity to protract the war with foreign powers, one moment after they chose to make peace with the republic. As emperor, however, he has taken upon himself an obligation to wage eternal warfare; for by war alone can he maintain himself as emperor. He may have gained a little with other monarchs by recognizing the monarchical principle, but he has lost more with the French people. France was divided into two. He has now divided it into three, and put two parts against him. The one that he wields, the military part, may be the most powerful for the present, but its adherence to himself depends upon two conditions—war and success. Thus his dynasty can never stand; for no civilized nation can ever be entirely military; and he who attempts to make it so, will always fall as soon as the military part cannot command success; and unless the whole nation be military, success can never be ensured. My belief is that in a few years our old race of kings will be upon the throne again.”

He talked with me for more than an hour, while I continued my sport; and I then returned to my little cottage, very well satisfied with my interview.

Father Bonneville seemed very well satisfied too, when I told him my hopes of discovering the abode of Madame de Salins. He asked me many questions about the gentleman I had met with, and made me describe him accurately. When I had done, he said, nodding his head slowly with a smile, “I think we shall find them now, Louis. I think we shall find them now, and I am almost as glad of it as you are; although I trust they have not been suffering so much from poverty as you imagine.”

A day or two passed on, however, without any intelligence, and the Tuesday came on which I was to dine with Westover, in London. I dressed myself with some care; for I knew that my friend was moving in the most fashionable circles of the capital, and I drove in with the groom in the little phæton, so as to be at his door at the very moment named. He was lodging in a very handsome house in Brook street, and I found him dressed for dinner, but alone.

“My other friends will not be as punctual as you are, De Lacy,” he said, shaking me warmly by the hand; “and I dare say you will have to wait half an hour for your dinner; but in the meantime I can introduce you to them as they come in.”

In about ten minutes, two young and dashing men made their appearance, and I was made acquainted with them in form. Then, five minutes after, came an old peer, stout, beetle-browed, heavy in look but not in intellect, and exceedingly loose in his apparel, which seemed to have been thrown on with a pitchfork, but which did not at all detract from the indefineable something which marks the gentleman. He had not been there two minutes when the door again opened, and the Earl of N—— was announced.

“Ah! your grandfather,” said the last comer. “That is an honor for a grandson, Captain Westover.”

“I consider it as such, I assure you,” said my friend, as he advanced to meet his relation, and I need not say that my eyes fixed eagerly upon the father of Lady Catharine.

He was a tall, thin old man, of very distinguished appearance. I learned afterward that he must have been a good deal over seventy; but he certainly did not look more than sixty. He was perfectly straight and upright, though not stiff in appearance, and was dressed entirely in black, which was not usual in England at that period. Every article of his apparel fitted exactly. His shoes, in which he still wore buckles, were as polished as a looking-glass, and his gloves fitted him as if they had been made upon his hands. His linen was marvelously fine, and as white as snow; and his hair probably would have been as white as his linen, even had it not been filled with powder. His face was very fine, and his complexion peculiarly delicate; but there was no effeminacy about him. There sat a world of resolution on his broad, towering brow, and his teeth, of which he did not seem to have lost one, were always pressed firm together when he was not speaking. His step was slow and deliberate, but still there was none of the feebleness of age in it, and there was a strong composure, if I may so express myself, which never varied but for one moment.

Between the two peers there was no need of an introduction; and they shook hands with each other cordially. One of the other gentlemen, Lord N—— knew also; and the third was introduced to him. Westover then turned, and presented me as Monsieur De Lacy. For a single instant, as he spoke, the earl seemed moved. A slight change came over his face, a twitch of the muscles about the mouth, evidently involuntary, and passing away in one moment. He forgot not his courtesy, however, in the least, did not shake hands with me, but bowed gracefully, and said a few words about France and England, not at all depreciatory of my own country, although he expressed a hope that I would not find my enforced residence in Great Britain altogether without compensation.

He then turned to speak with his grandson and the other gentlemen. Two others were added to the party, and shortly after we moved in to dinner.

By Westover’s arrangement I was seated next to his grandfather; but at first he did not seem inclined to take much notice of me, and, to say the truth, I was very busy with my own thoughts, and inclined to be somewhat silent. After a time, however, a gentleman opposite engaged me in conversation, and something I said seemed to please or strike the old earl, for he joined in with a good deal of tact and wit. That conversation dropped, but the earl continued to talk with me, with his heart a little opened, perhaps, by good wine and good food, which I have remarked have a great effect in producing urbanity—especially with Englishmen. His lordship asked me how I liked the country, whether I had seen much of it, and where I intended to pass the summer. I answered briefly that I had seen very little of the land, and that my plans were all unsettled.

“It is a pity that Charles must so soon rejoin his regiment,” said the earl, “otherwise he might have shown you a good deal that is worth seeing in England, and what is more, you could not be in safer hands. I need not tell you, Monsieur De Lacy, that, for a young man, and a stranger in this country, it is highly necessary that he should choose his acquaintances well.”

“I am quite aware of the fact, my lord,” I replied, “and I consider myself highly fortunate in having been early introduced to Captain Westover. I have few if any acquaintances but those to whom he has introduced me, and the banker to whom I had letters.”

“Ha!” replied the earl, thoughtfully, and after meditating for a moment, as if something puzzled him, he said, “I think I heard you called the Count De Lacy, in society—have you dropped the title?”

“I never took it willingly, my lord,” I replied, “although it is mine, I believe, by right. I was driven out of France very early, and probably never should have known of my countship; but it so happened that I formed some connections in the city of Hamburgh, which led to a considerable bequest from an old friend there, and that caused a communication, in regard to myself, to take place between Hamburgh and England.”

“But how did they know that you were a count, in Hamburgh, if you did not know it yourself?” asked the earl.

“By a letter from England,” I answered, perhaps a little dryly. “It referred to some money matters, of which, to say the truth, I understand nothing; but it was addressed to some of the authorities at Hamburgh, and in it I was designated by the title of count. The same title was repeated in after correspondence, and thus it happened to be given to me here, much to my annoyance; for I would fain drop the countship altogether, not having the means to maintain any distinguished position.”

“Ha! I see, I see,” said the earl, “you speak English remarkably well, Mr. De Lacy. You must have learned it very young.”

“I do not remember the time when I did not speak it,” I replied.

“That is singular in France,” rejoined the old nobleman. “Did your father speak English?”

I could feel a cloud come over my face, and I replied with very painful feelings, “I never knew my father, my lord, and am not aware of who or what he was. I have heard that he was murdered—but that is all I know.”

“I beg pardon—I beg pardon,” said the old earl; “I did not intend to wound you. There are painful subjects in all families—may I drink wine with you?”

During the rest of the evening his tone toward me became a little less stiff and more kindly. He asked no more questions, however, but conversed entirely upon indifferent subjects, and seemed well pleased with my remarks. He retired early, indeed, and I remained for some time longer, in the hope of being able to draw something more from Westover, regarding his aunt, Lady Catharine. I had lost the opportunity of the favorable ten minutes during which I was alone with him before dinner, and no other presented itself for any private conversation. I could only venture to express a hope before others, that his aunt, Lady Catharine, had not suffered seriously from the fatigues of the review. He said she had not been at all well since; and I remarked that I thought her very beautiful.

“She was once the loveliest creature in all England, I am told,” was my friend’s reply; “but that is past, and she can hardly, I think, be called beautiful now—except, indeed, as a beautiful ruin.”

He spoke very gravely—nay, very sadly, and I did not like to press the subject further. I remained some time longer to see if the other guests would go, but they showed no intention of doing any thing of the kind, and as I had a long drive before me, I took my departure, Westover promising to ride down in a day or two, and take me upon some expedition.

——

THE LONGED FOR MEETING.

Habitual reverence is a curious thing—more strong than most other habits. I was certainly of a somewhat impetuous disposition, eager and impatient of delay, notwithstanding all the drilling I had had in long wanderings and many difficulties and distresses; but yet the habitual reverence which I entertained for good Father Bonneville was not to be mastered. It was one of those impressions received in youth, which, like the foot-prints of certain animals that we discover in the rock, had been pressed down there when the substance was soft, but had been rendered indelible as it hardened. I returned from London disappointed in one of my expectations, and I would fain have had a long conversation with good Father Bonneville, in regard to all the doubts and mysteries surrounding my own peculiar fate. The promise he had given of knowledge at a future time did not satisfy me, and I thought that if he would but touch upon the subject again, I would press him hard for further explanation. Nay, more, I judged that the very party at Westover’s would open the way, and resolved that I would not fail to take advantage of the very first opportunity.

When the good Father came down to breakfast, however, with his calm, placid countenance, and his usual quiet taciturnity, although there was nothing in the least repulsive, none of that impenetrability which sometimes characterizes the Roman Catholic priest, yet I felt a repugnance to the idea of urging upon him a subject which he had shown so much anxiety to avoid, and he certainly gave me no direct encouragement. He merely asked if I had met a pleasant party at Captain Westover’s; and when I in return told him of whom that party consisted, and dwelt somewhat particularly upon the appearance and demeanor of the Earl of N——, he seemed, I thought, a little surprised, and I could not help fancying that a shade from some strong, and not pleasant emotion, passed over his countenance: yet he asked not a question, and made no observation of any kind. I then suffered the subject to drop, notwithstanding all my resolutions.

Some days passed quietly and dully enough. English people are not fond of making new acquaintances. None of our neighbors had yet called upon us, and the gentleman whom I had met by the side of the brook, did not make his appearance. Quiet tranquillity is the most burdensome of all things to an impatient spirit; and I confess I fretted myself a good deal during those dull three or four days. It seemed to me as if all the world had forgotten us; and I felt much more solitary there, with every comfort around me, than I had done in my long wandering from Switzerland to Hamburgh, when I might very well have believed myself almost alone upon the earth.

It rained, too, incessantly; and I began to feel very English, and to abuse the climate heartily—though, by the way, it is the best I ever saw, except, perhaps, in the central parts of France. I could not ride out. I got tired of reading. I had nobody to write to. I was weary of myself and the whole world—even Father Bonneville’s calm, sweet placidity, his tranquil employments, and patience under the load of dullness, half vexed me.

It was on the Saturday morning early, however, that a change took place; the sky became clearer; light clouds, like enormous flakes of snow, succeeded the dull, gray, pouring banks of rain; blue sky appeared here and there; and, to complete all, as I looked out of the window, after breakfast, I saw Westover riding up toward the house, with a servant behind him, and a little valise behind the servant.

There was no horse or carriage-way up to the house, which was approached by a path through a pretty little garden; and as he dismounted at the gate, I heard my friend desire his groom to bring in the valise, to take the horses to the inn, and to give Miss Kitty a feed and a half. He then walked slowly up to the house, nodding to me as he came; and I could not help remarking that he seemed pale and ill.

He was in his usual good spirits, however, and shook hands with me and Father Bonneville heartily, saying, “Did you hear my order, De Lacy; to bring in my valise? An unlucky thing for you, my friend, that I was at the taking of your house, and know that you have a spare room; for I come to beg quarters of you till Monday.”

I welcomed him gladly, and seating himself somewhat languidly, he said—

“I have been unwell for the last few days, and they tell me I should leave that bustling, tiresome town of London; so I have come to see if you will give me quiet lodging here, just as a trial—not that I think it will do me any good.”

“Why—what is the matter, Westover?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing but that tiresome ball,” he replied, laying his hand upon his chest. “It has taken another move I suppose, and set me spitting blood again.”

“What, has it not been extracted?” I asked.

He shook his head mournfully, answering—

“No, no, it is there for life, they say, be life long or short; and it is the strangest thing in the world, how a trifle like this—having an ounce of lead in one, without knowing where to find it—will weigh upon a man’s spirits, how it is ever present to his thoughts—a something he cannot get rid of—the sword hung by a single hair over his head, during the whole of the great festival of life.”

“Well, we will keep you here quietly,” I answered; “which we can do with the most marvelous perfection.”

“If you had been here during these last three days,” said Father Bonneville, with a quiet smile at me; “you would have had quiet enough, Captain Westover—more quiet than our friend Louis likes, I believe; for, as you may remark, he has literally worn the carpet by walking from that table to the window. I always think we may gain good lessons from the brute creation. God teaches them what is best under all circumstances; and I copy the cocks and hens, and the great dog, all of which, I remark, invariably sit quite still, and take every thing quietly during rainy weather, knowing, that walk as fast as they would, or as much, they cannot change the wind, or make the clouds withhold a drop.”

Westover smiled, but replied—

“It is not exactly quiet I am seeking, my reverend friend, but to be out of the air, and the parties, and the smoke of cities, and the impertinent chattering, which is the smoke of society. No, no—no quiet for me. If I am soon to ride with my troop, I may as well ride here, and so I intend to make De Lacy mount his horse, and gallop away with me to Eltham or Esher, or some of those places memorable in the past, where we can sit down, and play the part of Volney for an hour, amongst the ruins of empires. Then to-morrow, I intend to go with you to Mass; for all Protestant as I am, I cannot help admitting that you sing a great deal better in your worst chapels than we do in our best.”

Father Bonneville looked at me with a faint smile, and I informed Westover that we had both of us, in the course of the last two years, abandoned the church of Rome.

“It was not from any motives of interest, Captain Westover,” said Father Bonneville, “neither from fear nor for favor, but from pure conviction. The fact is, that in a time of great distress and anxiety, I found so much consolation in the Bible, that I could not remain attached to a church which denied it to my fellow men, and, moreover—without being uncharitable—I thought I could see the reason of its being withheld from men in general, in its manifest condemnation of the practices of those who withhold it. Louis came to the same conclusion while we were far apart; and parting as Roman Catholics we met as Protestants.”

Westover seemed much more surprised, and even moved by this intelligence than I could have expected. He shook me warmly by the hand, congratulating me, and saying—

“I am glad of it, De Lacy, I am glad of it. That makes a very great difference—I am sincerely glad of it. We will talk no more of going to Mass; though I do like to hear a good Mass well sung—so much so, indeed, that my noble grandfather is every now and then in terror of his life, for fear I should turn Papist, in which case, as he is the most ultra Protestant that ever lived, he would, doubtless, cut me off with a shilling, and be very sorry that he could not deprive me of the fortune my Uncle Westover left me, lest I should spend it in favor of the Propaganda—but come, De Lacy, let us take a walk to the inn, mount our horses, and ride.”

We were soon upon our way, and as we passed slowly along through the little village of Lewisham, Westover, who was looking round him, exclaimed, “Good heaven, what a beautiful face!”

I turned my head sharply, but could see no one. The road was vacant, except where a laboring man was wheeling a barrow, and a carrier was taking a trunk out of a cart. At the side of the road, indeed, was one of those little picturesque cottages, only to be seen in England, where fine taste and love for the beautiful, has decorated with a thousand charms the very lowliest of dwellings. It was only one story in height. The windows were mere lattices, with diamond-shaped panes of glass, rattling in leaden frames. The roof was thatched, and the door seemed hardly tall enough for the entrance of a man, but the thatch was covered with the rich green house-leek, and the whole front of the house was in a glow with roses, trained beautifully between the little windows, and every here and there holding out a long blossom-bearing arm, as if to invite the passing stranger.

“She’s gone,” said Westover, “run away at the sight of two men on horseback, as if it were the first time in life she had seen that sort of Centaur. But I certainly never did see a more lovely creature.”

I made him describe her to me; but what description can ever give an idea of a face? His was incomplete enough, but he said she had the most lovely eyes in the world, and that was quite sufficient to set my foolish fancy filling up the outline with the features of Mariette. I caught myself in the midst of this portrait-painting, a new sort of castle-building, and could not help smiling at my vain imaginations.

“What are you laughing at, De Lacy?” asked my companion.

“At myself, Westover,” I replied. “The truth is, your description is so like some one I have been long seeking, and would give both my hands to find, that, for a moment, you set my fancy wild with the idea that she and your cottage-girl might have been the same.”

“O, ho,” said Westover, with a laugh; “but if your love affair has been of long duration, this cannot be the same, for she seemed quite young—not more than seventeen or eighteen.”

“That might well be,” I answered; “and yet my love affair, as you call it, might date from twelve years ago. The person I seek is the companion of my youth, one who is now an emigrant like myself, and I much fear that she and her mother both, may be in some distress, while I have the power of relieving it, and know not where to find them.”

“Yours must be a strange, curious history,” said Captain Westover. “I wish, some dull evening, when you have nothing better to do, you would tell it me, point by point. I am fond of a dreamy talk with a man over his past times.”

“I should have thought there were attractions enough in the metropolis,” I answered, “to occupy all the time of you men of fashion, in other ways than that.”

“Attractions,” replied Captain Westover, “which either leave no remembrance, or a sting. Take my word for it, De Lacy, there are multitudes of us who would gladly leave wax candles to blaze, and champagne to sparkle, and bright eyes—with no heart behind them—to shine, in order to sit beneath a shaded lamp with a man of real action, who has seen something of different countries, and a different world, and a different life from ourselves, and listen to tales of the heart’s realities, while all else around us is but the tinseled pageantry of a dream. Come, when shall it be, De Lacy?”

“To-night, if you will,” I answered; “we are certain of being uninterrupted.”

“But the old man,” he said. “Young men can never talk with open hearts before old ones. There is a power in age which controls us even when there is no real authority.”

“O, he goes to bed always at nine,” I said; and so we arranged it should be, and so it was.

When we returned after our ride, Father Bonneville informed me that there were some persons in the neighborhood, upon whom he wished me to call with him on the Monday following; and Westover and I went up to dress for dinner—a much more important operation than it has since become, even within my own knowledge. We had the usual English dinner, a small turbot, some boiled chickens and ham, preceded by soup after the French fashion, (which I knew Father Bonneville could not do without,) and followed by the inevitable apple-tart. After his coffee, the good Father remained for an hour or so, then lighted his candle, and having apologized, with the grace of an old courtier, for his early habits, retired to rest. My story was then told much as I am now telling it, only with more brevity, and I must say that Westover not only listened with the fortitude of a martyr, but showed a deep interest, if I may judge by his questions, in many parts of my narrative. Once or twice he rose, and walked up and down the little room, sitting down when I paused, and saying, “Go on, De Lacy, I am listening.”

I could not finish the whole in one night; but on the Sunday evening the tale was concluded, and on the Monday, in spite of remonstrance, he set out, saying he was going back to London. Why, I know not, but I watched him from the window, across the heath, meditating on the state of his health, and the risk he ran in joining his regiment again, with an unextracted ball still in his chest.

Suddenly, to my surprise, I saw him pull in his horse, at the distance of some five hundred yards from the house, beckon up his servant, and speak to him for a moment. The master then took the left-hand road, which led toward Lewisham, and the groom rode upon the way to London.

It is utterly impossible to describe the sensations which I experienced at that moment. There was a mixture of anger, and suspicion, and jealousy, which I can hardly characterize even to my mind at present. Fancy was as busy as a fiend; and I felt quite sure that he was going back toward the cottage, in order, if possible, to form some acquaintance with the beautiful girl he had seen. I persuaded myself in a moment—although I had unpersuaded myself before—that she must be Mariette; and I pictured to myself, Westover, with his handsome person and winning address, making instant love to her, and banishing poor Louis de Lacy for ever from her heart.

It took me an hour’s struggle to overcome such feelings, and when I had done my best I was still dissatisfied.

Toward twelve o’clock, Father Bonneville proposed that we should go out for our visit, and for the first time, I asked where that visit was to be.

“Why, Louis,” he replied, “you seemed so indifferent when I spoke of it on Saturday, that I did not tell you the acquaintance you made while fishing, came to call upon us during your ride with Captain Westover. He is a gentleman of good family, and we must of course return his visit, even were it not that I believe he can now inform us where to find Madame de Salins.”

“Is Mariette not with her?” I asked eagerly.

“I believe so,” replied Father Bonneville, with a smile; “but let us go, I said we should be there before one.”

I did not delay him, but I must confess, I thought he walked marvelously slow, and wished from the bottom of my heart, that I had ordered the pony carriage for our excursion. He took his way straight toward Lewisham, turned to the left in the village, keeping on the left-hand side, directly to the cottage with its roses. I do not know what had got into my heart; but it brought to my remembrance a trick which I had seen a charlatan play with an egg, which, by some contrivance, he made to jump out of a pot the moment it was put in. He stopped at the door—at the very door, and then suddenly said:

“Why, what is the matter with you, Louis? You are as pale as death.”

“O, nothing, nothing,” I replied, and knocked hard for admittance. I was red enough then. A small servant-girl opened the door, and Father Bonneville asked—“Whether Monsieur Le Comte was at home?”

My hopes about Mariette began to fail, and diminished to a very small point when, on entering a little room, containing a good number of books, I found my acquaintance of the brook-side alone, and without a vestige of woman’s occupation any where visible.

He shook hands with us both, welcomed us heartily, and in common civility I was obliged to repress my curiosity for a time.

“This is my little study,” he said, after some preliminary conversation, “where I teach a few young pupils French, in order to eke out the small means of subsistence I have left. But I thank God for all things, and only regret that I have not enough to aid those of my countrymen who have even less than myself.”

“That is what I fear,” I answered, “that there are many, and amongst them some I deeply love, who may be suffering great distress, while I have a superabundance.”

“There are, indeed, many, Monsieur De Lacy,” he said; but as the words were upon his lips the door opened, and a voice of music said, “May I come in?”

“Certainly, my child,” he replied; but she had taken it for granted, and was in the room. There were the same eyes, the same look, the same beautiful face which I had seen in the carriage, but with a figure, how full of exquisite grace, how perfect in all its symmetry!

If my heart had not told me, at once, that it was Mariette, the glad spring forward with which she flew to the arms of Father Bonneville would have shown me the fact at once.

What possessed me I cannot tell, but I could not speak a word, and stood like a fool, the more confounded from feeling that the eyes of a stranger were upon me—yes, he gazed at me, earnestly, inquiringly. I must, somehow, have betrayed myself.

“Do you not know me, Louis?” asked Mariette, holding out her hands to me.

“Know you!” I cried, and if the whole world had been present, I could not have refrained from taking her in my arms and kissing her cheek.

“Know you!” I repeated, “O, yes, I knew you the very first moment I saw you in the carriage on Blackheath.”

“And I did not know you,” said Mariette, artlessly; “but how should I, Louis? Here, you are a great tall man, six feet high; and yet you’re still the same—the same eyes, and the same mouth, only your hair is darker and not so curly.”

“I rode after you all through Greenwich,” I replied, apropos to nothing; for my whole head was in a whirl, and she had left her hand in mine, which did not tend to stay the beating of my heart, “but I could find no trace of you.”

“Sit down, sit down, my children,” said the master of the house, “you are both agitated with your young memories. I will go and call your mother.”

“Let me—let me,” said Mariette, and running to the foot of the little stairs, she exclaimed, “Mamma, mamma, here are Louis and Monsieur De Bonneville.”

Madame de Salins ran down lightly and eagerly, and indeed she was very little altered—looking, perhaps, better than when I had last seen her. It was clear she was sincerely glad to meet us again; and seated round the table, a thousand questions were asked, and about half the number answered. All old feelings and memories revived. We talked of our little cottage on the Rhine, of our meeting in Paris, and our adventures by the way. The stranger joined in frankly and familiarly, evidently knowing all that had befallen us. We formed again, as it were, one family, and at length, emboldened by this renewal of old associations, I turned smiling from the gentleman of the house to Madame de Salins, saying, perhaps abruptly—

“Who is this? May I not be formally introduced to him?”

“Do you not know him, Louis?” she exclaimed, with a look of surprise. “It is my husband—The Count de Salins. How else should I be here?”

“You forget, mamma, you forget,” said Mariette. “Louis always thought that he was dead,” and casting herself upon her father’s neck, she shed a few tears over the memory of the terrible days when first we met.

I looked surprised and bewildered, as well I might; and looking round at Madame de Salins, I murmured—

“You told me he was dead.”

“I thought so when I told you so, Louis,” she replied, “I saw him fall before my eyes, wounded in several places, and to all appearance dead. But a glimmering of hope, springing from what source, I know not, led me to trust my child to you and hurry back to the court of the château where he had fallen. The assassins were gone; my husband’s blood was still reeking from the ground; but his body was not there, and after a long period of terrible suspense—it was but two hours, but it seemed an eternity to me—I found that one of our good farmers had carried him away, and was nursing in his own house a feeble spark of life which he had found yet remaining. I flew to him; I tended him many weeks in secret; I saw him recover consciousness and hope. None who beheld him then, however, would have recognized the gay and handsome De Salins; and it was agreed that he should be carried some ten or twelve leagues by night, and thence removed to Paris in a litter as a dropsical patient going to seek the aid of our good friend Doctor L——. All the peasantry were in our favor. It was but the people of the cities who were infected with the epidemic madness of the times. Every one aided—every one was as secret as death. The very dogs of the farm-houses seemed to comprehend and enter into our purposes. They barked not when the litter entered the yard, but moved round us watchfully, as if to defend, rather than betray us. It was necessary that I should part with him, however; for my presence would have discovered all; and I hurried back to seek my child, and meet him in Paris. Monsieur L—— was already prepared for his coming; but he did more than could have been expected or even hoped. He took him into his own house, and kept him there in profound secrecy for some months. During that time I lay concealed under the appearance of abject poverty. Mariette visited him every day, upon the pretence of carrying little articles of food to the good Doctor’s house; and neither by word or look, did she betray the secret—even to you, Louis. Do you forgive us?”

I put my hand in my bosom, and drew out the ring which Madame de Salins had given me, and which still remained suspended round my neck by the little gold chain. I pressed it to my lips for my only reply; and gently bending her head with a sweet smile, she proceeded, saying, “I could see him but seldom—I dared rarely venture; but at length Dr. L—— formed the scheme for us of making our escape from Paris, crossing the Rhine, and waiting there for my husband’s coming. He was to follow as speedily as possible, in the character of an officer of the Republican army, who had been wounded at the battle of Jemappes. A thousand obstacles intervened, however, and I remained in terrible anxiety, till at length a letter informed me that he whom I had well-nigh given up for lost, had crossed the Rhine in safety, and was then at Dusseldorf waiting my coming. It was still necessary to maintain the most profound secrecy; for emigrants were surrounded by spies and traitors, and one indiscreet word might have brought the head of good Doctor L. to the block. I joined my husband in safety with Mariette, however, and our good farmers had gathered together a sum of money sufficient to enable us to cross the sea to this island, and to live for some time obscurely here. That sum would have been exhausted long ago, had we not by a fortunate chance been driven from our small lodging in Swallow street by a brutal man, whom I believe to be a spy, but who had once received great favors from our family when a poor apothecary in Paris. He, a sensual, horrible patron, the Marquis de Carcassonne, had no mercy upon us; but having purchased the house, turned us out in the street four years ago. We heard of this little cottage and took it; and a blessing it was; for Monsieur de Salins has obtained a little class of pupils, by which our small means have been somewhat saved.”

“We sought you in that house in Swallow street,” said Father Bonneville, “Louis was impressed with the idea that you must be in want, and he has been hunting for you far and wide ever since we came to England.”

“Real want, we have never known,” said Monsieur de Salins, “though we have been poor enough—ay, so poor, as to induce me to let my child go on a long visit to some rich and vulgar people, in order to economize our little pittance. They thought that Mariette de Salins was reduced so low as to accept the hand of their coarse son, and think it an honor and a favor; but they have learned better now.”

“And did you visit that house in Swallow street?” asked Madame de Salins, looking at me with an anxious and inquiring glance. “Who did you see there?”

I told her all the particulars, Father Bonneville adding a word here and there, and the account seemed to strike both Monsieur de Salins and his wife with much surprise.

“He does not know,” said Madame de Salins, in a low and thoughtful tone, turning her eyes upon her husband, “he does not know.”

“And so you found Monsieur de Carcassonne in poverty and distress?” said Monsieur de Salins, “the one viper, I suppose, has stung the other. God of heaven, my dear wife, how thankful we should be to Him on high, that we sit here, and eat the daily bread of his mercy, with consciences clear of offense, and hearts unloaded by a weight of guilt. Let them take all from us, but our innocence and our honor, and we shall be rich compared with these men, even were they wealthy and powerful as in days of old.”

“And is it possible, Monsieur de Salins,” I asked, following the line of thought in which my mind had been principally running, though there were many other subjects eagerly appealing for attention, “Is it possible that you, and dear Mariette, and Madame de Salins, have been living here in comparative poverty, while I have been enjoying wealth and all that wealth can give? This must be no longer——”

I saw a slight shade come over his countenance, and I added, “Madame de Salins has been a mother to me; Mariette has been a sister. I have sought them eagerly, daily since I have been in England, in order to perform toward them the duties of a son and a brother. Surely Monsieur de Salins,” I continued, taking his hand in mine, “you will not suffer my having the good fortune to find you with them, to deprive me of my right of adoption?”

“Dear, noble, generous Louis,” said Mariette, throwing her beautiful arm round my neck, as if I had been indeed her brother.

“Why, I taught her to read and write,” I said, drawing her gently toward her father. “She was my first and dearest pupil—I have all her little books now, in which she spelt her early lessons.”

“And the pictures, and the pictures you drew, Louis,” cried Mariette.

“All, all safe through all my wanderings,” I replied. “Come, Monsieur de Salins, I have a beautiful little place hard-by—ample means for all of us. Every thing shall be soon prepared for you, and Madame de Salins, and dear Mariette. We will share house and fortune and all, and be one family again, as we were in our sweet cottage by the Rhine.”

I knew not what it was I urged—all the objections that a father’s eye might see—all the difficulties in regard to the world, and the world’s opinion; and I was not aware, till I found that even Father Bonneville remained silent, and did not second me, that I was asking too much.

Monsieur de Salins, for his part, smiled at my enthusiasm, while Madame de Salins wept at it; but he answered kindly and affectionately, putting quietly aside all points difficult to deal with, and saying jestingly, “Why, you would not have us quit this little, rosy dwelling where we have been so happy; but be assured, my dear young friend, that no guest will be more loved and honored within its walls than the Count De Lacy.”

I felt from his tone, that it would be in vain to press my request further that day; but I knew the effect of perseverance, and I had hope for the future. At all events Mariette and I had met again. I was resolved that nothing should make me lose sight of her thenceforth, and like all young hearts, I gave myself up to the present joy with trustful confidence in the happiness of to-morrow.

Several hours glided sweetly by, and it was late in the day when Father Bonneville and I retrod our steps to our own dwelling, each full of thought.

[Conclusion in our next.

I WOO THEE, SPRING.

———

BY WILLIAM ALBERT SUTLIFFE.

———

I woo thee, Spring, and I wed thee, Spring,

To a kindly-thoughted lay,

And I sing thee, Spring, in thy blossoming,

Through the lee-lang sunny day!

When young loves bud and old loves bloom—

When the warm earth bans all shade of gloom,

And bees hum summerly.

I woo thine ears to a kindly tale,

And what shall the story be?

I will tell thee dearest bonds are frail,

And that stars and flowers flee.

I will tell thee a tale of woful wings

That rive from the soul its precious things,

And shadow sweet fantasy.

I will tell thee of some that have fled away

Since last we saw thy face;

And some that are gone from the sheeny day

To the lonesome burial-place.

And of joys, like a string of pearls unstrung—

Like treasured flowers to the fierce wind flung,

That sleep with the buried grace.

O, I woo thee, Spring, and I wed thee, Spring,

To a sadly-thoughted lay,

And I sing thee, Spring, in thy blossoming,

Through the lee-lang cloudy day!

For the lone day dies through purple bars—

And a misty grief enwraps the stars,

And our hopes are ashen-gray.

But the flowers bud and the flowers blow

And the mossy streams are sheen,

And the downy clouds to the Norland go,

While the blue sky laughs between;

And the light without, to the dark within,

Would seem to say—“Will ye up and win

While the paths of life are green?”

But the outer joy on the soul’s annoy

Looks in and laughs in vain—

For the inner chains of the spirit’s pains

May ne’er be reft in twain;

And the song that erst in joy begun

Sinks into wail ere the setting sun,

A sad and deathful strain.

So I woo thee, Spring, and I wed thee, Spring,

To a dreary-thoughted lay,

And I sing thee, Spring, in thy blossoming,

Through the lee-lang weary day!

Through the lee-lang day and the plodding night—

When no golden star’s in the lift alight,

To brighten a weary way.

SONG.

———

BY L. L. M.

———

When morn’s soft light is o’er us shed,

When pearl drops bow each taper leaf,

And e’en the lily’s queenly head

Pays homage to the glory brief—

Who ever recks of coming night,

Or grieves that such an hour must be—

Who ever weeps o’er winter’s blight

While summer decks the dewy lea.

The forest leaf now pale and sere

Once bent to roving breezes’ kiss;

The faded flower on Autumn’s bier

Once seemed too gayly bright for this,

Nor did they droop and whisper all

Of mildew dank, of frost and blight;

But ever rang the wild-wood hall

With joyous song and murmur light.

And grievest thou, dear one, that life

Is but a dream that soon is past?

Fear’st thou the briefly bitter strife,