GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
1850.
GEO. R. GRAHAM, EDITOR.
Devereux, del. Hogan and Thompson, pr.
Lake of Como.

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXXVII. July, 1850. No. 1.

Table of Contents

Fiction, Literature and Articles

Poetry, Music, and Fashion

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

CONTENTS

OF THE

THIRTY-SEVENTH VOLUME.

JUNE, 1850, TO JANUARY, 1851.

POETRY.

REVIEWS.

MUSIC.

ENGRAVINGS.

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXXVII. PHILADELPHIA, JULY, 1850. No. 1.

THE VITAL AND THE MECHANICAL.

It may be universally affirmed that every thing having shape either grows or is put together, is a living organism or a contrived machine; and the radical distinction between minds in all the modes of their operation, and between things in all the forms of their manifestation, is expressed in the antithesis of vitality and mechanism. To suggest, in a manner necessarily imperfect and rambling, some of the important consequences involved in this distinction, is the object of the present essay.

And first, in regard to minds, it may be asked, to what faculties and operations of the intelligence do you apply the term vital, as distinguished from other faculties and operations indicated as mechanical? The answer to this question may be spiritually true without being metaphysically exact, and we shall hazard a brief one. The soul of man in its essential nature is a vital unit and person, capable of growth through an assimilation of external objects; and its faculties and acquirements are all related to its primitive personality, as the leaves, branches, and trunk of a tree to its root. In the tree there are sometimes dead branches and withered leaves, which constitute a part of the tree’s external form without participating in the tree’s internal life. The same thing occurs in the human mind. Faculties, originally springing from the soul’s vital principle, become disconnected from it, lose all the sap and juice of life, and dwindle from vital into mechanical powers. The customary vocabulary of metaphysics evinces the extent of this decay in its division of the mind into parts, each part with a separate name and performing a different office. It is plain that no organism, vegetable, animal, or human, admits of such a classification of parts, for the fundamental principle of organisms is unity in variety, each part implying the whole, growing out of a common centre and source, and dying the moment it is separated. When, therefore, we say that the mind has faculties which are not vitally related to each other, that the whole mind is not present in every act, that there are processes of thought in which a particular faculty operates on its own account, we assert the existence of death in the mind; what is worse, the assertion is true; and, what is still worse, this mental death often passes for wisdom and common sense, and mental life is stigmatized as fanaticism.

Now, this antithesis of life and death, vitality and mechanism, the conception of the spirit of things, and the perception of the forms of things, is a distinction available in every department of human thought and action, and divides minds into two distinct classes, the living and the lifeless. The test of the live mind is, that it communicates life. The only sign here of possession is communication; and life it cannot possess unless life it communicates. Spiritual life implies a combination of force and insight, an indissoluble union of will and intelligence, in which will sees and intelligence acts. A mental operation, in the true meaning of the phrase, is a vital movement of the mind; and although this movement is called a conception or an act according as it refers to meditation or practice, it cannot in either case be a conception without being an act, or an act without being a conception. Conception, in the last analysis, is as truly an act of the mind as volition; both are expressions of one undivided unit and person; and the only limit of conception, the limit which prevented Kepler from conceiving the law of gravitation, and Ben Jonson from conceiving the character of Falstaff, is a limitation of will, of personality, of individual power, of that innate force which is always the condition and the companion of insight. All the vital movements of the mind are acts whether the product be a book or a battle; and that is a singular philosophy of the will which calls Condé’s charge at Rocroi an act, and withholds the name from Shakspeare’s conception of Othello.

As this spiritual force is ever the characteristic of vital thought, such thought is both light and heat, kindles as well as informs, and acts potently on other minds by imparting life as well as knowledge. There are many books which contain more information than Paradise Lost, but Paradise Lost stimulates, dilates and enriches our minds by communicating to them the very substance of thought, while the other books may leave us as poor and weak as they found us, with the addition only of some names and forms of things which we did not know before. The great difference, therefore, between a vital and mechanical mind is this, that from one you obtain the realities of things, and from the other the mere appearances; one influences, the other only informs; one increases our power, the other does little more than increase our words. The action of a live mind upon other minds is chiefly an influence, and the true significance of influence is that it pierces through all the formal frippery of opinion and speculation lying on the surface of consciousness, and touches the tingling and throbbing nerve at its centre and soul; rousing the mind’s dormant activity, breathing into it a new motive and fresh vigor, and making it strong as well as wise. As regards the common affairs of the world, this influence is as the blast of an archangel’s trumpet, waking us from the death of sloth and custom. In the fire of our newly kindled energies the mean and petty interests in which our thoughts are ensnared wither and consume; and, discerning vitalities where before we only perceived semblances, a strangeness comes over the trite, a new meaning gleams through old appearances, and the forms of common objects are transfigured, as viewed in the vivid vision of that rapturous life. Then, and only then, do we realize how awful and how bright is the consciousness of a living soul; then immortality becomes a faith, and death a delusion; then magnanimous resolves in the heart send generous blood mantling in the cheek, and virtue, knowledge, genius, heroism, appear possibilities to the lazy coward who, an hour before, whined about his destiny in the hopeless imbecility of weakness. Although this still and deep ecstasy, this feeling of power and awe, is to most minds only a transient elevation, it is still a revelation of the vital within them, which should at least keep alive a sublime discontent with the sluggish apathy of their common existence. “Show me,” says Burke, “a contented slave and I will show you a degraded man,”—a sentence right from the hot heart of an illustrious man, whose own mind glowed with life and energy to the verge of the tomb, and who never knew the slavery of that sleep of mental death, which withers and dries up the very fountains of life in the soul.

The usual phrases by which criticism discriminates vital from mechanical minds, are impassioned imagination and logical understanding. This vocabulary, though open to objections, as not going to the root of the matter, is still available for our purpose. It draws a definite line between genius and talent. The man of impassioned imagination is vital in every part. The primitive spiritual energy at the centre of his personality permeates, as with warm life-blood, the whole of his being, vivifying, connecting, fusing into unity, all his faculties, so that his thought comes from him as an act, and is endowed with a penetrating and animating as well as enlightening power. The thoughts of Plato, Dante, Bacon, Shakspeare, Newton, Milton, Burke, not to mention others, are actors in the world—communicating life, forming character, revealing truth, generating energy in recipient minds. These men possess understanding as far as that term expresses an operation of the mind, but understanding with them is in living connection with imagination and emotion; they never use it as an exclusive power in themselves, they never address it as an exclusive power in others. To understand a thing in its external qualities and internal spirit, requires the joint operation of all the faculties; and no fact is ever thoroughly understood by the understanding, for it is the person that understands not the faculty, and the person understands only by the exercise of his whole force and insight. The man of understanding, so called, simply perceives the forms of things and their relations; the man of impassioned imagination perceiving forms and divining spirit, conceives the life of things and their relations. The antithesis runs through the whole realm of thought and fact. The man of understanding, when he rises out of sensations, simply reaches abstractions; and in the abstract there is no life. Ideas and principles belong as much to the concrete, to substantial existence, as the facts of sensation; the law of gravitation is a reality no less than the planet Jupiter; but to the man of mechanical understanding, ideas subside into mere opinions, and principles into generalities; and as by the very process of his thinking he disconnects, and deadens by disconnection, the powers by which he thinks, he cannot exercise, conceive or communicate life, cannot invent, discover, create, combine. This is evident from the nature of the mind, and it is proved by history. In art, religion, science, philosophy, politics, the minds that organize are organic minds, not mechanical understandings.

The principle we have indicated, applies to all matters of human concern, the simplest as well as the most complicated. Let us first take a familiar instance from ordinary life. In the common intercourse of society we are all painfully conscious of the dominion of the mechanical, prescribing manner, proscribing nature. In the Siberian atmosphere of most social assemblies the soul congeals. The tendency to isolation of mind from mind, and heart from heart, is most apparent in the contrivances by which society brings its members bodily together—the formal politeness excluding the courtesy it mimics. Hypocrisy, artifice, non-expression of the reality in persons—these are apt to be the characteristics of that dreary solitude which passes under the exquisitely ironical appellation of “good society.” The universal destiny of men and women who engage in this game of fashion as the business of life, is frivolity or ennui. They either fritter to pieces or are bored to death. Nothing so completely wastes away the vitality of the mind, and converts a person into a puppet, as this substitution of the verb “to appear,” for the verb “to be.” Whatever is graceful in manner, carriage and conversation, is natural; but the art of politeness, as commonly practiced, is employed to deaden rather than develop nature, from its ambition to reduce the finer instincts to mechanical forms. In the very term of gentleman there is something exceedingly winning and beautiful, expressing as it does a fine union of intelligence and courtesy; but in genteel society the word too often means nothing more than foppish emptiness, and Sir Philip Sidney gives way to Beau Nash.

Even here, however, the moment a person with a genius for society appears, it is curious to see how quickly the different elements are fused together, by a few flashes of genuine social inspiration. Convention is at once abolished, each heart finds a tongue, giggling turns into merriment, conversation occurs and prattle ceases, and a party is really organized. A little sincerity of this sort in social intercourse would infinitely beautify life.

In one of the most important matters connected with the welfare of men, that of practical ethics, we have another example of the despotism of the mechanical and disregard of the vital, in human life. A true writer on morals should understand two things, morality and immorality; but a mechanical mind can do neither. He neither communicates the life of moral ideas, nor discerns the life of vicious ideas, but simply has opinions on morals, and opinions on vice. The consequence is that most of the “do-me-good” books are lifeless as regards effect—are contemptuously abandoned by men to children, and by children are learned only to be violated. At last it becomes the sign of green juvenility to quote an abstract truism against a concrete vice, and no person in active life considers himself at all bound to accommodate his conduct to axioms. Indeed, common writers on ethics have become unenviably notorious for expending the full force of their feebleness in statements of generalities, which are universally assented to, and almost as universally disregarded. Complacently perched on the chill summits of abstract principles, these gentlemen appear to experience a grim satisfaction in sending down into the warm and living concrete a storm of axiomatic snow and sleet. Having no practical grasp of things, they emphasize duties without possessing any clear insight of practices, and accordingly their indignant blast of truism whistles shrilly over the heads of the sinners it should lay prostrate. Wanting the power to pass into the substance and soul of existing objects and living men, they content themselves with applying external rules to external appearances, glory in the gift of invective as divorced from the secret of interpretation, and being thus shrews rather than seers, they do that worst of injuries to the cause of morality which results from denouncing the devil without understanding his deviltry. In the republic of delusion and democracy of transgression there are certain errors deserving the name of “popular,” errors which mislead three quarters of the human race; and the analysis and exhibition of these should be a leading object of practical morality. Thoroughly to comprehend one of these impish emissaries of Satan, and clearly to demonstrate that the rainbow bubbles he sports in the sun are begotten by froth on emptiness, might not be so grand a thing as to strut about in the worn-out frippery of moral commonplaces, but it would expose one fatal fallacy which assists in misguiding public sentiment, distorting human character, and impelling reasonable men into those expeditions after the unreal, which are every day wrecked on the rocks of nonsense or crime. But to do this requires a vital mind, and in matters of morals society is very well content not to be pricked and probed in conscience by the sharp benevolence of truth. The mechanical moralists disturb no robber or murderer, no cheat or miser, no spendthrift or profligate, no man who wishes to get what he is pleased to call a living by preying on his neighbors. They neither expose nor reform wickedness, but simply toss words at it, for a consideration. Yet from such moral machines it is supposed that, in the course of education, ingenuous youth can get moral life; and real surprise is often expressed by parents, when their children return from academies or colleges, that the only vital knowledge, in form and in essence, that the dear boys have mastered, relates to sin and the devil.

If the mechanical moralists are to be judged by their effects—by their capacity to do the thing they attempt—and thus judged, have terrible sins of omission resting on their work, what shall we say of the mechanical theologians?—There is against each of three liberal professions a time-honored jest, adopted by “gentle dullness,” all over the world, and from its universality almost worthy of a place in Dugald Stewart’s “fundamental principles of human belief.” The point of these venerable facetiæ consists in associating law with chicane, medicine with homicide, and preaching with Dr. Young’s “tired nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep.” A joke which seems to be thus endorsed by the human race carries with it some authority, and it would be presumptuous to touch never so gently the subject of theology, without a preliminary remark on this question of dullness. Sin is sarcastic, sin is impassioned, sin is sentimental, sin is fascinating, sin swaggers in rhetoric’s most gorgeous trappings and revels in fancy’s most enticing images, and why should piety alone have the reputation of being feeble and dull? The charge itself, while it closes to the general reader Jeremy Taylor’s wilderness of sweets equally with Dr. Owen’s “continent of mud,” is not without its benumbing effect upon the preacher, for bodies of men commonly understand the art of adapting their conduct to the public impression of their character, and are not apt to provide stimulants when readers only expect soporifics. The truth is that sermons are never dull as sermons, but because the sermonizer is weak in soul. No man with a vision of the interior beauty and power of spiritual truths, no man whom those truths kindle and animate, no man who is truly alive in heart and brain, and speaks of what he has vitally conceived, can ever be dull in the expression of what is the very substance and doctrine of life. The difficulty is that clergymen are apt to fall into mechanical habits of thinking; then ideas gradually fade into opinions; truths dwindle into truisms; a fine dust is subtly insinuated into the vitalities of their being; the holy passion with which their thoughts once gushed out subsides, and “good common sense” succeeds to rapture; and thus many an inspiring teacher, originally a conductor of heaven’s lightning, and exulting in the consciousness of the immortal life beating and burning within him, has lapsed into a theological drudge, dull in his sermons because dull in his conceptions, neither alive himself nor imparting life to others. This decay often occurs in conscientious and religious men, who sufficiently bewail the torpor of soul which compels them to substitute phrases for realities, and to whom this mental death, as they feel it stealing over them, is at once a spell and a torment. The clergyman, who does not keep his mind bright and keen by constant communion with religious ideas, is sure to die of utter weariness of existence. He has once caught a view of the promised land from the Pisgah height of contemplation—wo unto him if it “fades into the light of common day.”

But leaving such perilous topics as ethics and divinity to wiser heads, and passing on to the subjects of philosophy and science, it may be asked—does not the mechanical understanding hold undisputed sway in these? Has impassioned imagination any thing to do with metaphysics, mathematics, natural philosophy, with the observation and the reasoning of the philosopher who deals with facts and laws? The answer to this question is an emphatic yes. That roused, energetic and energizing state of mind which we have designated as impassioned imagination, is as much the characteristic of Newton as of Homer. The facts, direction and object are different, but the faculty is the same. A man of science without a scientific imagination, vital and creative like the poetical imagination, belongs to the second or third class of scientific men, the Hayleys and Haynes Baileys of science. Men of mechanical understandings never discover laws and principles, but simply repeat and apply the discoveries of their betters. Nothing but the fresh and vigorous inspiration which comes from the grasp of ideas, could carry such men as Kepler and Newton through the prodigious mass of drudgery, through which ran the path which led to their objects; for genius alone is really victorious over drudgery, and refuses to submit to the weariness and deferred hope which attend upon vast designs. Indeed, in following the processes of scientific reasoning, whether inductive or deductive, we are always conscious of an element of beauty in the impression left on the mind, an element which we never experience in following the steps of the merely formal logician. Take the discussion, for instance, between Butler and Clarke on the à priori argument for the existence of God, and no reader who attends to the progress of the reasoning can fail to feel the same inner sense touched which is more palpably addressed by the poet. All the great thinkers, indeed, in all the branches of speculative and physical science, are vital thinkers, and their thoughts are never abstract generalities, but always concrete conceptions, endowed with the power to work on other minds, and to generate new thought. Bacon, the greatest name in the philosophy of science, was so jealous of the benumbing and deadening effect of all formal and mechanical arrangement of scientific truth, that he repeatedly opposes all systematization of science, and in his Natural Philosophy followed his own precepts. In the Advancement of Learning he says: “As young men, when they knit and shape perfectly do seldom grow to a further stature, so knowledge, while it is in aphorisms and observations, it is in growth; but when it is once comprehended in exact methods, it may perchance be further polished and illustrated, and accommodated for use and practice; but it increases no more in bulk and substance.” And again he remarks: “The worst and most absurd sort of triflers are those who have pent the whole art in strict methods and narrow systems, which men commonly cry up for their regularity and style.” In illustration of this we may adduce Whewell’s celebrated works, The History and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. Here are great learning, logical arrangement, a complete superficial comprehension of the whole subject; but life is wanting. Most of the great discoveries and inventions with which such a book would naturally deal have been made since the publication of Bacon’s Novum Organon; but more mental nutriment and inspiration, more to advance the cause of science, can be found in one page of the Novum Organon than in Whewell’s whole five volumes. Such is the difference between a vital and mechanical mind in the history and philosophy of science; and the difference is more observable still when we come to consider the deep and constant enthusiasm, the persisting, penetrating genius of the practical discoverer, as contrasted with the cold and uncreative memory-monger and reasoning machine, who too often passes himself off as the real savant. The only great man of science who has detailed his processes in connection with his emotions is Kepler, and everybody has heard of the “sacred fury” with which he assaulted the fortresses in which nature long concealed her laws. His page flames with images and exclamations. His operations to conquer the mystery in the motions of the planet Mars are military. His object is as, he says, “to triumph over Mars, and to prepare for him, as one altogether vanquished, tabular prisons and equated eccentric fetters.” When “the enemy left at home a despised captive, had burst all the chains of the equations, and broken forth of the prisons of the tables,” and it was “buzzed here and there that the victory is vain,” the war rages “anew as violently as before,” and he “suddenly brings into the field a new reserve of physical reasonings on the rout and dispersion of the veterans.” A poet can thus vitalize mathematics, and “create a soul under the ribs” of physical death.

In politics and government, the most practical objects of human interest, the men who organize institutions and wisely conduct affairs, are men of vital minds; while the whole brood of ignorant and scampish politicians, whose vulgar tact is but a caricature of insight, and who are as great proficients in ruining nations as statesmen are in advancing them, are men of mechanical minds. In politics, perhaps, more practical injury has resulted from the dominion of formal dunces, than in any other department of human affairs—politics being the great field of action for all speculators in public nonsense, for all men whose incompetency to handle things would be quickly discovered in any other profession. But a great statesman, no less than a great poet, discerns the life of things in virtue of having himself a live mind, and, not content with observing men and events, divines events in their principles, and thus reads the future. When he proposes a scheme of legislation, all its results exist in his mind as possibilities, and if an effect is produced not calculated in the conception, he is so far to be accounted a blunderer, not a statesman. Perhaps of all the statesmen that ever lived, Edmund Burke had this power of reading events in principles in the greatest perfection; and certainly there are few English poets who can be said to equal him in impassioned imagination. This imagination was not, as is commonly asserted, a companion and illustrator of his understanding, appending pretty images to strong arguments, but it included understanding in itself, and was both impetus and insight to his grandly comprehensive and grandly energetic mind. Fox, Pitt, and all the politicians of his time, were, in comparison with him, men of mechanical intellects, constantly misconceiving events; mere experimenters, surprised at results which they should have predicted. There is something mortifying in the reflection that, in free countries, the people have not yet arrived at the truth, that great criminality as well as great impudence are involved in the exercise of political power without political capacity. A politician in high station, without insight and foresight, and thus blind in both eyes, is an impostor of the worst kind, and should be dealt with as such.

In art and literature the doctrine of vital powers lies at the base of all criticism which is not mere gibberish. It is now commonly understood that the creative precedes the critical; that critical laws were originally generalized from poetic works; and that a poem is to be judged by the living law or central idea by which it is organized, which law or idea is as the acorn to the oak, and determines the form of the poem. The power and reach of the poet’s mind is measured by his conception of organic ideas, of ideas which, when once grasped, are principles whence poems necessarily grow, and are eventually realized in works. The universality of Shakspeare is but a power of vital conception, not limited to one or two ideas, but ranging victoriously over the world of ideas. These celestial seeds, once planted in a poetic nature, germinate and grow into forms of individual being, whose loveliness and power shame our actual men and actual society by a revelation of the real and the permanent. Chaucer, Shakspeare, Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, in virtue of their power to realize and localize the ideal, give us “poor humans” a kind of spiritual world on earth.

The schoolmasters of letters, those gentlemen who frame laws of taste, and manufacture cultivated men, commonly display a notable oversight instead of insight of the distinction between vital and mechanical minds, between authors who impart power and authors who impart information. They judge the value of a book by its external form instead of internal substance, and altogether overlook the only important office of reading and study, which plainly is the acceleration of our faculties through an increase of mind. Mind is increased by receiving the mental life of a book, and assimilating it with our own nature, not by hoarding up information in the memory. Books thus read enrich and enlarge the mind, stimulating, inflaming, concentrating its activity; and though without this reception of external life a man may be odd, he cannot be original. The greatest genius is he who consumes the most knowledge, and converts it into mind. But a mechanical intellect merely attaches the husks of things to his memory, and eats nothing. It is for this reason that heavy heads, laden with unfertilizing opinions and dead facts which never pass down into the vitalities of their being, are such terrific bores. Considering literature not as food but as luggage, they cram their brains to starve their intelligence—and wo to the youth whom they pretend to instruct and inform! A true teacher should penetrate to whatever is vital in his pupil, and develop that by the light and heat of his own intelligence—like the inspiring master described by Barry Cornwall’s enthusiast:—

He was like the sun, giving me light;

Pouring into the caves of my young brain

Knowledge from his bright fountains.

A man who reads live books keeps himself alive, has a constant sense of what life means and what mind is. In reading Milton, a power is communicated to us, which, for the time, gives us the feeling of a capacity for doing any thing, from writing a Hamlet to whipping Tom Hyer. “My ——, sir,” said the artist who had been devouring Chapman’s Homer, “when I went into the street, after reading that book, men seemed to be ten feet high.” This exaltation of intelligence is simply a movement of our consciousness from the mechanical to the vital state, and to those whose common existence is in commonplaces such an exaltation occasions a shock of surprise akin to fear.

In an art very closely connected with one of the highest forms of literature, the art of acting, we have another illustration of the fundamental antithesis, in processes and in results, between vitality and mechanism. Few, even among noted performers, have minds to conceive the characters they play; and it consequently is a rare thing to see a character really embodied and ensouled on the stage. The usual method is to give it piece by piece, and part by part, and the impression left on the audience is not the idea of a person, but an aggregation of personal peculiarities. Mr. Macready, for instance, has voice, action, understanding, grace of manner, felicity in points: but each is mechanical. His mind is hard and unfusible, never melts and runs into the mould of the individuality he personates, never imparts to the audience the peculiar life and meaning embodied by his author. His energy is not vital but nervous; his mode of arriving at character is rather logical than imaginative. He studies the text of Hamlet, infers with great precision of argument the character from the text, and plays the inference. Booth, on the contrary, who of all living actors has the most force and refinement of imagination, conceives Hamlet as a person, preserves the unity of the person through all the variety in which it is manifested, and seems really to pass out of himself into the character. Macready leaves the impression of variety, but of a variety not drawn out of one fertile and comprehensive individuality: Booth gives the individuality with such power that we can easily conceive of even a greater variety in its expression without danger to its unity. The impression which Macready’s Hamlet leaves on the mind is an impression of Mr. Macready’s brilliant and versatile acting; the impression which Booth stamps on the imagination is the profound melancholy of Hamlet, underlying all his brilliancy and versatility. A man can witness Booth’s personation of Macbeth, Hamlet, Lear and Othello, with great delight, and with great accession of knowledge, after reading the deep Shakspearian criticism of Goethe, Schlegel and Coleridge: but every one feels it would be unjust to bring Macready to the test of such exacting principles.

In these desultory remarks on a variety of suggested topics, we have attempted to illustrate the radical distinction between vitality and mechanism, impassioned imagination and logical understanding, the communication of mental life and the imparting of lifeless information, as that distinction applies to all things which occupy human attention and stimulate human effort. We have indicated, in a gossiping way, the dangerous ease with which the mechanical supersedes the vital in those departments of knowledge and affairs which originated in the mind’s creative and organizing energy; in society, in governments, in laws, literature and institutions, in ethical, mental and physical science; and have tried to show that such an usurpation of torpor over activity dulls and deadens the soul, makes existence a weakness and weariness, and mocks our eyes with nothing but the show and semblance of power. A man of mechanical understanding can but exist his four-score years and ten, and a dreary time he has of it at that, bored and boring all his few and tiresome years; but a live mind has the power of wonderfully condensing time, and lives a hundred common years in one. From the phenomena presented by men of genius we can affirm the soul’s immortality, because they give some evidence of the joy, the ecstasy, involved in the idea of life; but to a mechanical being, endowed with a spark of vitality sufficient only to sting him with rebuking possibilities, an endless existence would be but an endless ennui. The ground for hope is, that man, using as he may all the resource of stupid cunning, cannot kill the germ of life which lies buried in him; hatred and pride, the sins of the heart, may eat into it, and his “pernicious soul” seem, like Iago’s, to “rot half a grain a day;” mechanism, the sin of the head, may withdraw itself into “good common sense,” and contentedly despise the joyous power of vital action; but still the immortal principle constituting the Person survives—patient, watchful, persistent, unconquerable, refusing to capitulate, refusing to die.

P.

SONNETS.

———

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

———

I.—CELINE.

Those deep, delicious, heavy-lidded eyes

Oh, I could bask forever in their light!

What raptures, sweet, heart-thrilling raptures, rise

Whene’er I pierce their depths with eager sight!

The profile pure and soft—the bright full face—

The cupid mouth with rows of flashing pearls—

The waist so dainty—step of gliding grace—

White brow—curved hair, more beautiful than curls,

All make her sweetest, loveliest of girls.

Her breath is balmier than May’s downiest breeze;

Rosier than rose-buds are her moist, plump lips;

Than the pure nectar there, no purer sips

The clinging bee—all beauty’s harmonies

Are in her sweetly blent—all hearts her graces seize.

II.—THE LESSONS OF NATURE.

Nature in outward seeming takes the hue

Of our chance mood; if sad, her tones and looks

Are full of grief; if glad, her winds and brooks

Are full of merriment. But piercing through

Her outward garb, her sadness whispers “Peace—

Peace to thee, mourner! day succeeds to night,

Sunshine to storm!” Her brightest mirth says “Cease

This thoughtless rapture! flowers must suffer blight,

Change is my law of order.” Then a voice

Swells from her deep and solemn heart, “Rejoice

With purer joy, ye mirthful! and be glad

With a sustaining, steadfast faith, ye sad!

In this swift, changeful life, whate’er befall

(Blest truth) a watchful God of love is over all!”

DARA.

———

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

———

When Persia’s sceptre trembled in a hand

Wilted by harem-heats, and all the land

Was hovered over by those vulture ills

That snuff decaying empire from afar,

Then, with a nature balanced as a star,

Dara arose, a shepherd of the hills.

He, who had governed fleecy subjects well,

Made his own village, by the self-same spell,

Secure and peaceful as a guarded fold,

Till, gathering strength by slow and wise degrees,

Under his sway, to neighbor villages

Order returned, and faith and justice old.

Now when it fortuned that a king more wise

Endued the realm with brain and hands and eyes,

He sought on every side men brave and just,

And, having heard the mountain-shepherd’s praise,

How he renewed the mould of elder days,

To Dara gave a satrapy in trust.

So Dara shepherded a province wide,

Nor in his viceroy’s sceptre took more pride

Than in his crook before; but Envy finds

More soil in cities than on mountains bare,

And the frank sun of spirits clear and rare

Breeds poisonous fogs in low and marish minds.

Soon it was whispered at the royal ear

That, though wise Dara’s province, year by year,

Like a great spunge, drew wealth and plenty up,

Yet, when he squeezed it at the king’s behest,

Some golden drops, more rich than all the rest,

Went to the filling of his private cup.

For proof, they said that wheresoe’er he went

A chest, beneath whose weight the camel bent,

Went guarded, and no other eye had seen

What was therein, save only Dara’s own,

Yet, when ’twas opened, all his tent was known

To glow and lighten with heapt jewels’ sheen.

The king set forth for Dara’s province straight,

Where, as was fit, outside his city’s gate

The viceroy met him with a stately train;

And there, with archers circled, close at hand,

A camel with the chest was seen to stand;

The king grew red, for thus the guilt was plain.

“Open me now,” he cried, “you treasure-chest!”

’Twas done, and only a worn shepherd’s vest

Was found within; some blushed and hung the head,

Not Dara; open as the sky’s blue roof

He stood, and “O, my lord, behold the proof

That I was worthy of my trust!” he said.

“For ruling men, lo! all the charm I had;

My soul, in those coarse vestments ever clad,

Still to the unstained past kept true and leal,

Still on these plains could breathe her mountain air,

And Fortune’s heaviest gifts serenely bear,

Which bend men from the truth, and make them reel.

“To govern wisely I had shown small skill

Were I not lord of simple Dara still;

That sceptre kept, I cannot lose my way!”

Strange dew in royal eyes grew round and bright,

And thrilled the trembling lids; before ’twas night

Two added provinces blessed Dara’s sway.

A LEGEND OF TYROL.

———

BY JAMES T. FIELDS.

———

In a green sheltered nook, where a mountain

Stood guarding the peace-haunted ground,

Lived a maiden whose smile was the sunlight

That gladdened the hill-sides around.

Her voice seemed a musical echo,

Whose notes wandered down from above,

And wherever she walked in her beauty

Sprang blossoms of joy and of love.

As she stood at her door in the morning,

The hunter below, riding by,

Cried out to his comrades, “we’re early!

For look, there’s a star in the sky!”

At the chapel, when good men were praying

That angels of God would appear,

Every heart turned to her, lowly kneeling,

And felt that an angel was near.

Thus radiant and pure in her presence,

A blessing she moved, day by day,

Till a proud lord beheld her, and loved her,

And lured her forever away.

He bore this bright bird of the mountain,

Watched over and shielded the best,

From the home of her youth and her kindred,

Away to his own haughty nest.

And lo! the grim idols in waiting

Beset her for worship, and won;

And the light of her beautiful childhood

Went down like the swift-fading sun.

And sudden as rises the black cloud,

When tempests the thunder-gods start,

Strange wishes encircled her bosom,

And Pride swept the halls of her heart.

And once, when o’ermastered by anger,

Her golden-haired boy sought her side,

In her fury she smote down her first born,

And he fell like a lily and died.

There were tears, burning tears, to recall him,

And anguish that scorches the brain,

But the harp-strings of life never answered

The touch that would tune them again!

She sleeps in a dark mausoleum,

And ages have rolled o’er her head,

But her name is remembered in Tyrol

As when she was laid with the dead.

And to-day, as the traveler sits weary,

And drinks from the rude fountain-bowl,

They tell the sad story, and whisper

The warning that speaks to your soul.

FOR’ARD AND AFT;

OR THE CAPTAIN’S SON AND THE SAILOR BOY.

A SEA STORY.

———

BY S. A. GODMAN.

———

CHAPTER I.

Fortune, the great commandress of the world,

Hath divers ways to enrich her followers:

To some, she honor gives without deserving;

To other some, deserving without honor;

Some wit—some wealth—and some wit without wealth;

Some, wealth without wit—some, nor wit nor wealth.

Chapman.

“Rouse up, rouse up, my hearty! Bear a hand and be lively for that little devil-skin abaft, has been hailing for you this five minutes.”

Thus spoke, with a rough voice, but in a kind tone, a tall and powerfully built sailor, as he descended the forecastle-ladder, to a boy of some ten years of age, who, lying stretched upon his back on a mess-chest, was fast asleep. Loud as were the tones of the speaker, they made no impression upon the boy. Wrapped in the deep, sweet slumber of childhood, his body fatigued, his conscience clear, and his mind at ease, he was enjoying one of those refreshing rests that are only permitted to the young and contented—the sleep that manhood longs after but seldom experiences.

A beautiful picture would that forecastle and its inmates have made, could they have been transferred to canvas. The boy, a noble one, as he reposed with closed eye-lids and upturned face, over which bright smiles were flitting—the reflection of pleasant, hopeful dreams—seemed an embodiment of intelligence and innocence; notwithstanding the coarse canvas trowsers and striped cotton-shirt which formed his only attire. The man, with his muscular and strongly-knit figure, his bronzed cheeks, huge whiskers, brightly gleaming eyes and determined expression of countenance, was the personification of bodily strength, physical perfection and perfect self-reliance. The one looked as if he were a spirit from a higher sphere, who had by chance become an inmate of that dark, confined, triangular-shaped and murky apartment; and appeared all out of place amidst its mess-chests, bedding, and other nautical dunnage, and its atmosphere reeking with the odors of bilge-water, tar, and lamp-smoke. The other was in keeping with the surrounding objects; his bright red flannel shirt, his horny hands, his very attitude showed him one to ease and comfort unaccustomed, whose only home was a forecastle, his abiding-place the heaving ocean.

Wearied with awaiting the result of his verbal summons, the seaman reached down to awaken his companion with a shake; and as he did, a beam of affection so softened the expression of his countenance, and lent so much tenderness to his eye, that with all his roughness and uncouthness, the weather-beaten tar became really handsome; for, than love, there is no more certain beautifier. Though undisturbed by noise, no sooner was the sailor-boy touched, than, true to the instinct of his calling, he sprung from his resting-place, as wide awake, and with his faculties as much about him, as if he had always been to sleep a stranger—and exclaimed,

“Is it eight bells already, Frank? I thought I had just closed my peepers.”

“Just closed your peepers, my little lark! I began to think your eye-lids were battened down, it seemed such a hard pull for you to heave them up. You haven’t had much of a snooze though, for it’s only four bells; but that young scaramouch astern wants you to take him in tow. So you had better up-anchor and make sail, Tom, for the cabin, or the she-commodore will be sending the boatswain after you with the colt.”[^[1]]

Scarcely waiting to hear the completion of the sentence, the lad hurried up the ladder to the deck, and in a few seconds was at the door of the cabin. Standing just inside the entrance, a drizzling rain preventing him from coming further, stood the youth to whom Frank had referred, by the not very flattering appellations of devil-skin and scaramouch. There was but little difference in the age of the two boys. Not the slightest resemblance or similarity, however, existed between them in any other respect.

The sailor-boy was large for his years—with a figure that gave promise of symmetry, grace, and an early maturity; his head was in keeping with his body—admirably developed, well balanced, and covered with a profusion of rich, dark brown hair; his forehead, broad and intellectual, lent additional beauty to his full, deep-blue eyes; and with his ruddy cheeks, giving evidence of vigorous health, he was just such a boy as a prince might desire his only son and heir to be.

The captain’s son was slight and rather under-sized, with a sickly look, produced apparently more by improper indulgences than natural infirmity; sparkling black eyes, black hair, and regular features, added to a well-shaped head and fine brow, would have rendered him good-looking in spite of his sallow complexion, had it not been for a peevish, discontented and rather malignant expression, that was habitual to him.

The physique of the lads did not differ more than their dress. The one was clothed in a suit of the most costly broadcloth, elegantly made, with boots upon his feet, and a gold chain around his neck to support the gold watch in his pocket. The other, bare-footed, bare-necked, jacketless, was under no obligations to the tailor for adding to the gentility of his appearance. Yet any person, even a blind man, could he have heard their voices, would at once have acknowledged that the roughest clad bore indellibly impressed upon him the insignia of nature’s nobility.

No sooner did the captain’s son see the boy of the forecastle, than he addressed him in a tone and style that harmonized with the sneering expression of his face:

“So, you good-for-nothing, lazy fellow, you’ve made me stand here bawling for you this half hour. What’s the reason you did not come when I first called?”

“Why, Master Charles, I would not have kept you waiting if I had known you wanted me; but I was asleep in the forecastle, sir. Frank Adams woke me up—and I’ve come as quick as I could.”

“Asleep this time in the afternoon! Why don’t you sleep at night? I never sleep in the afternoons. But you had better not make me stand and wait so long for you another time, or I’ll tell my mamma, and she’ll get father to whip you.”

At this threat a bright flush overspread the face and neck of the sailor-boy, and for an instant his eye assumed a fierce expression that was unusual to it; but suppressing his feelings, he replied in his accustomed tone,

“I was up all night, Master Charles, helping to reef top-sails, and lending a hand to get up the new fore-sail in place of the old one that was blown out of the bolt-ropes in the mid-watch. This morning I could not sleep, for you know I was playing with you until mess-time.”

“Well, Tom, come into the cabin and let’s play, and I wont say any thing about it this time,” said Charles, as he walked in, followed by his companion.

What a difference there was between the apartment in which the lads now were, and the one which Tom had left but a few moments before. It was the difference between wealth and poverty.

The vessel, on board of which our scene is laid, was a new and magnificently-finished barque of seven hundred and fifty tons, named the Josephine. The craft had been built to order, and was owned and commanded by Lewis Barney Andrews—a gentleman of education and extensive fortune, who had been for many years an officer in the United States navy. Getting married, however, and his wife’s objecting to the long cruises he was obliged to take in the service, whilst she was compelled to remain at home, he effected a compromise between his better half’s desire that he should relinquish his profession, and his own disinclination to give up going to sea entirely, by resigning his commission in the navy, and purchasing a ship for himself. The Josephine belonged to Baltimore—of which city Captain A. was a native, and was bound to the East Indies. She was freighted with a valuable cargo, which also belonged to the captain, and had on board besides the captain, his wife, son and servant-girl, a crew consisting of two mates, and a boatswain, fourteen seamen, a cook, steward, and one boy.

Her cabin—a poop one—was fitted up in the most luxurious style. Every thing that the skill of the upholsterer and the art of the painter, aided by the taste and experience of the captain, could do to make it elegant, beautiful and comfortable, had been done. Extending nearly to the main-mast the distance from the cabin-door to the transom was full fifty feet. This space was divided into two apartments of unequal size, one of twenty, the other thirty feet, by a sliding bulkhead of highly polished rosewood and superbly-stained glass.

The after-cabin was fitted up as a sleeping-room, with two mahogany bedsteads and all the appurtenances found in the chambers of the wealthy on shore. The forward-cabin was used as a sitting and eating-room. On the floor was a carpet, of whose fabric the looms of Persia might be proud—so rich, so thick, so magnificent was it, and deep-cushioned ottomans, lounges and rocking-chairs were scattered along the sides and were placed in the corners of the apartment.

Not far from the door, reclining on a lounge, with a book in her hand, was the wife of the captain, and the mother of Master Charles. She was a handsome woman, but one who had ever permitted her fancies and her feelings to be the guides of her actions. Consequently her heart, which by nature was a kind one, was often severely wrung by the pangs of remorse, caused by the recollection of deeds committed from impulse, which her pride would not permit her to apologize or atone for, even after she was convinced of her error.

As the two boys entered the cabin she looked at them, but without making any remark, continued the perusal of her book, whilst they proceeded to the after-cabin, and getting behind the bulkhead were out of her sight. For some fifteen minutes the stillness of the cabin was undisturbed; but then, the mother’s attention was attracted by the loud, angry tones of her son’s voice, abusing apparently his play-fellow. Hardly had she commenced listening, to ascertain what was the matter, ere the sound of a blow, followed by a shriek, and the fall of something heavy upon the floor, reached her ear. Alarmed, she rushed into the after-cabin, and there, upon the floor, his face covered with blood, she saw the idol of her heart, the one absorbing object of her affection, her only son, and standing over him, with flashing eyes, swelling chest, and clenched fists, the sailor-boy.

So strong was the struggle between the emotions of love and revenge—a desire to assist her child, a disposition to punish his antagonist—that the mother for a moment stood as if paralyzed. Love, however, assumed the mastery; and raising her son and pressing him to her bosom, she asked in most tender tones, “Where he was hurt?”

“I ain’t hurt, only my nose is bleeding because Tom knocked me down, just for nothing at all,” blubbered out Charles.

The mother’s anxiety for her son relieved, the tiger in her disposition resumed the sway; letting go of Charles, she caught hold of Tom, and shaking him violently, demanded, in shrill, fierce tones, how he, the outcast, dared to strike her child!

Unabashed and unterrified, the sailor-boy looked in the angry woman’s face without replying.

“Why don’t you answer me, you cub! you wretch! you little pirate!—speak! speak! or I’ll shake you to death!” continued the lady, incensed more than ever by the boy’s silence.

“I struck him because he called my mother a hussy, if you will make me tell you,” replied Tom, in a quiet voice, though his eye was bright with anger and insulted pride.

“Your mother a hussy! Well, what else was she? But you shall be taught how to strike your master for speaking the truth to you, you good for nothing vagabond. Run and call your father,” she continued, turning to Charles, “and I’ll have this impertinent little rascal whipped until he can’t stand.”

In a moment Captain Andrews entered; and being as much incensed as his wife, that a sailor-boy, a thing he had always looked upon as little better than a block or rope’s end, had had the audacity to strike his son, he was furious. Taking hold of Tom with a rough grasp, he pushed him out on deck, and called for the boatswain. That functionary, however, was slow in making his appearance; and again, in louder and more angry tones, the captain called for him. Still he came not; and, spite of his passion, the captain could but gather from the lowering expressions of the sailors’ countenances, that he was at the commencement of an emeute.

——

CHAPTER II.

The deepest ice that ever froze

Can only o’er the surface close;

The living stream lies quick below,

And flows, and cannot cease to flow.

Byron.

Accustomed to have his commands always promptly obeyed, the wrath of Captain Andrews waxed high and furious at the dilatoriness of the boatswain. Without any other exciting cause, this apparent insubordination on the part of one of his officers, was enough to arouse all the evil passions of his heart. Educated under the strict discipline of the United States service, he had been taught that the first and most important duty of a seaman was obedience. “Obey orders, if you break owners,” was the doctrine he inculcated; and to be thus, as it were, bearded on his own quarter-deck, by one of his own men, was something entirely new, and most insulting to his pride. Three times had he called for the boatswain without receiving any reply, or causing that functionary to appear.

When the captain first came out of the cabin, his only thought was to punish the sailor-boy for striking his son; but his anger now took another course, and his desire to visit the boatswain’s contumacy with a heavy penalty was so great, that he forgot entirely the object for which he had first wished him. Relinquishing his hold on Tom’s shoulder, the captain hailed his first officer in a quick, stern voice,

“Mr. Hart, bring aft Mr. Wilson, the boatswain.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” responded the mate, as he started toward the forecastle-scuttle to hunt up the delinquent. “Hillo, below there!” he hailed, when he reached the scuttle, “You’re wanted on deck, Mr. Wilson!”

“Who wants me?” was the reply that resounded, seemingly, from one of the bunks close up the ship’s eyes.

“Captain Andrews is waiting for you on the quarter-deck; and if you are not fond of tornadoes, you had better be in a hurry,” answered the mate.

Notwithstanding the chief dickey’s hint, the boatswain seemed to entertain no apprehensions about the reception he would meet at the hands of the enraged skipper; for several minutes elapsed before he made himself visible on deck.

As soon as the captain saw the boatswain, his anger increased, and he became deadly pale from excess of passion. Waiting until Wilson came within a few feet of him, he addressed him in that low, husky voice, that more than any other proves the depth of a person’s feeling, with,

“Why have you so long delayed obeying my summons, Mr. Wilson?”

“I was asleep in the forecastle, sir, and came as soon as I heard Mr. Hart call,” replied Wilson.

But the tone in which he spoke, the look of his eye, the expression of his countenance, would at once have convinced a less observant person than Captain Andrews, that the excuse offered was one vamped up for the occasion, and not the real cause of the man’s delay.

“Asleep, sir! Attend now to the duty I wish you to perform—and be awake, sir, about it! And you may, perhaps, get off easier for your own dereliction afterward—for your conduct shall not remain unpunished,” answered the captain.

“Captain Andrews, boy and man, I have been going to sea now these twenty-five years, and no one ever charged Bob Wilson with not knowing or not doing his duty before, sir!” rejoined the boatswain, evidently laboring under as much mental excitement as the captain.

“None of your impertinence, sir! Not a word more, or I will learn you a lesson of duty you ought to have been taught when a boy. Where’s your cat,[^[2]] sir?” continued the captain.

“In the razor-bag,”[^[3]] replied the boatswain.

“Curse you!” ejaculated the captain, almost beside himself at this reply, yet striving to maintain his self-possession; “one more insolent word, and I will have you triced up. Strip that boy and make a spread-eagle of him; then get your cat and give him forty.”

During this conversation between the captain and the boatswain, the crew had been quietly gathering on the lee-side of the quarter-deck, until at this juncture every seaman in the ship, except the man at the wheel, was within twenty feet of the excited speakers. Not a word had been spoken amongst them; but it was evident from the determination imprinted upon their countenances, from their attitudes, and from the extraordinary interest they took in the scene then transpiring, that there was something more in the boatswain’s insubordination than appeared on the surface; and whatever it was, the crew were all under the influence of the same motive.

Mr. Wilson, the boatswain of the Josephine, was a first-rate and thorough-bred seaman. No part of his duty was unfamiliar to him; and never did he shrink from performing any portion of it on account of danger or fatigue. Like many other simple-minded, honest-hearted sons of Neptune, he troubled himself but little about abstruse questions on morals; but he abhorred a liar, despised a thief, and perfectly detested a tyrant. And though he could bear a goodly quantity of tyrannical treatment himself, without heeding it, it made his blood boil, and his hand clench, to see a helpless object maltreated.

Ever since the Josephine had left port, there had been growing amongst the crew a disposition to prevent their favorite, Tom, the sailor-boy, from being imposed upon and punished, as he had been, for no other reason than the willfulness of the captain’s son, and the caprice of the captain’s wife. Not a man on board liked the spoiled child of the cabin. No fancy, either, had they for his mother; because, right or wrong, she always took her son’s part, and oftentimes brought the sailors into trouble. The last time Tom had been punished a grand consultation had been held in the forecastle, at which the boatswain presided; and he, with the rest of the crew, had solemnly pledged themselves not to let their little messmate be whipped again unless, in their opinion, he deserved it.

This was the reason why the boatswain, one of the best men in the ship, had skulked when he heard the captain’s call: he had seen him come out of the cabin with Tom, and rightly anticipated the duty he was expected to perform. Such great control does the habit of obedience exercise over seamen, that although he was resolved to die before he would suffer Tom to be whipped for nothing, much less inflict the punishment himself, the boatswain felt a great disinclination to have an open rupture with his commanding officer. The peremptory order last issued by the captain, however, brought affairs to a crisis there was no avoiding; he either had to fly in the face of quarter-deck authority, or break his pledge to his messmates and his conscience. This, Wilson could not think of doing; and looking his captain straight in the face, in a quiet tone, and with a civil manner, he thus addressed his superior:

“It does not become me, Captain Andrews, so be as how, for to go, for to teach my betters—and—and—” here the worthy boatswain broke down, in what he designed should be a speech, intended to convince the captain of his error; but feeling unable to continue, he ended abruptly, changing his voice and manner, with “Blast my eyes! if you want the boy whipped, you can do it yourself.”

Hardly had the words escaped the speaker’s lips, before the captain, snatching up an iron belaying-pin, rushed at the boatswain, intending to knock him down; but Wilson nimbly leaped aside, and the captain’s foot catching in a rope, he came down sprawling on the deck. Instantly regaining his feet, he rushed toward the cabin, wild with rage, for the purpose of obtaining his pistols. Several minutes elapsed before he returned on deck; when he did he was much more calm, although in each hand he held a cocked pistol.

The quarter deck he found bare; the crew, with little Tom in their midst, having retired to the forecastle, where they were engaged in earnest conversation. The second mate was at the wheel, the seaman who had been at the helm having joined his comrades, so that the only disposable force at the captain’s command was the chief mate, the steward and himself, the cook being fastened up in his galley by the seamen. On the forecastle were fifteen men. The odds were great; but Captain Andrews did not pause to calculate chances—his only thought was to punish the mutinous conduct of his crew, never thinking of the possibility of failure.

Giving one of his pistols to Mr. Hart, and telling the steward to take a capstan bar, the captain and his two assistants boldly advanced to compel fifteen sailors to return to their duty.

——

CHAPTER III.

They were met, as the rock meets the wave,

And dashes its fury to air;

They were met, as the foe should be met by the brave,

With hearts for the conflict, but not for despair.

Whilst the captain, mate and steward, were making their brief preparation for a most hazardous undertaking, the men of the Josephine, with that promptness and resolution so common amongst seamen when they think at all, had determined upon the course they would adopt in the impending struggle.

Although the numerical discrepancy between the two parties seemed so great, the actual difference in their relative strength was not so considerable as it appeared. The sailors, it is true, had the physical force—they were five to one; but the captain’s small band felt more confidence from the moral influence that they knew was on their side, than if their numbers had been trebled, without it.

Habit ever exercises a controlling influence, unless overcome by some powerful exciting principle, and men never fly in the face of authority to which they have always been accustomed to yield implicit obedience, but from one of two causes—either a hasty impulse, conceived in a moment, and abandoned by actors frightened at their own audacity; or, a sense of wrong and injustice so keen and poignant, as to make death preferable to further submission.

Aware of custom’s nearly invincible power, having often seen seamen rebel, and then at the first warning gladly skulk back to their duty, the captain unhesitatingly advanced up the weather-gangway to the break of the forecastle, and confronted his mutinous crew. The men, who were huddled around the end of the windlass, some sitting, others standing, talking together in low tones, only showed they were aware of the captain’s presence by suddenly ceasing their conversation—but not a man of them moved.

Captain Andrews, though quick tempered, was a man of judgment and experience; and he saw by the calmness and quietness of his men, that their insubordination was the result of premeditation—a thing he had not before thought—and he became aware of the difficulties of his position. He could not, for his life, think of yielding; to give up to a sailor would, in his estimation, be the deepest degradation. And moral influence was all he could rely upon with which to compel obedience—feeling that if an actual strife commenced, it could but result in his discomfiture. His tone, therefore, was low and determined, as with cocked pistol in hand he addressed his crew:

“Men, do you know that you are, every one of you, guilty of mutiny? Do you know that the punishment for mutiny on the high seas is death? Do you know this? Have you thought of it?” Here the captain paused for an instant, as if waiting for a reply; and a voice from the group around the windlass answered—

“We have!”

Rather surprised at the boldness of the reply, but still retaining his presence of mind, the captain continued:

“What is it then that has induced you to brave this penalty? Have you been maltreated? Do you not have plenty of provisions? Your regular watches below? Step out, one of you, and state your grievances. You know I am not a tyrant, and I wish from you nothing more than you promised in the shipping articles!”

At this call, the eyes of the men were all turned toward Wilson, the boatswain, who, seeing it was expected from him, stepped out to act as spokesman. Respectfully touching his tarpaulin, he waited for the captain to question him. Observing this, the captain said,

“Well, Wilson, your messmates have put you forth as their speaker; and it strikes me that you are the ringleader of this misguided movement. I am certain you have sense enough to understand the risk you are running, and desire you to inform me what great wrong it is that you complain of. For assuredly you must feel grievously imposed upon, to make you all so far forget what is due to yourselves as seamen, to me as your captain, and to the laws of your country!”

“I ain’t much of a yarn-spinner, Captain Andrews, and I can turn in the plies of a splice smoother and more ship-shape than the ends of a speech; and it may be as how I’ll ruffle your temper more nor it is now, by what I have to say—” commenced the boatswain.

“Never mind my temper, sir,” interrupted the captain, “proceed!”

“We all get plenty of grub, Captain Andrews, and that of the best,” continued Wilson; his equanimity not in the least disturbed by the skipper’s interruption. “We have our regular watches, and don’t complain of our work, for we shipped as seamen, and can all do seamen’s duty. But sailors have feelings, Captain Andrews, though they are not often treated as if they had; and it hurts us worse to see those worked double-tides who can’t take their own part, than if we were mistreated ourselves; and to come to the short of it, all this row’s about little Tom, there, and nothing else.”

“Is he not treated just as well as the rest of you? Has he not the same quarters, and the same rations, that the men are content with? Who works him double-tides?” answered the captain, his anger evidently increasing at the mention of Tom’s name; and the effort to restrain himself, being almost too great for the choleric officer to compass.

“You can’t beat to wind’ard against a head-sea, Captain Andrews, without a ship’s pitching, no more than you can reef a to’s-sail without going aloft.” Wilson went on without change in manner, though his voice became more concise and firm in its tone. “And I can’t tell you, like some of them shore chaps, what you don’t want to hear, without heaving you aback. We ain’t got any thing agin you, if you was let alone; all we wants is for you to give your own orders, and to keep Mrs. Andrews from bedeviling Tom. The boy’s as good a boy as ever furled a royal, and never skulks below when he’s wanted on deck; but he stands his regular watches, and then, when he ought to sleep, he’s everlastingly kept in the cabin, and whipped and knocked about for the amusement of young master, and that’s just the whole of it. We’ve stood it long enough, and wont return to duty until you promise—”

“Silence, sir!” roared the captain, perfectly furious, and unable longer to remain quiet. “Not another word! I’ve listened to insolence too long by half, already! Now, sir, I have a word to say to you, and mind you heed it. Walk aft to the quarter-deck!”

The boatswain, though he heard the order plainly, and understood it clearly, paid no attention to it.

“Do you hear me, sir?” asked the captain. “I give you whilst I count ten, to start. I do not wish to shoot you, Wilson; but if you do not move before I count ten, I’ll drive this ball through you—as I hope to reach port, I will!”

Raising his pistol until it covered the boatswain’s breast, the captain commenced counting in a clear and audible tone. Intense excitement was depicted on the faces of the men; and some anxiety was shown by the quick glances cast by the chief mate and steward, first at the captain, and then at the crew. Wilson, with his eyes fixed in the captain’s face, and his arms loosely folded across his breast, stood perfectly quiet, as if he were an indifferent spectator.

“Eight! Nine!” said the captain, “there is but one left, Wilson; with it I fire if you do not start.”

The boatswain remained motionless. “Te—” escaped the commander’s lips; and as it did, the sharp edge of Wilson’s heavy tarpaulin hat struck him a severe blow in the face. This was so entirely unexpected, that the captain involuntarily threw back his head, and by the same motion, without intending it, threw up his arm and clenched his hand enough to fire off the pistol held in it; the ball from which went through the flying-jib, full twenty feet above Wilson’s head.

The charm that had held the men in check, was broken by the first movement toward action, and they made a rush toward the captain and his two supporters. Bravely, though, they stood their ground; and Frank Adams, the sailor introduced with Tom in the forecastle, received the ball from the mate’s pistol in the fleshy part of his shoulder, as he was about to strike that worthy with a handspike. Gallantly assisted by the steward, the captain and mate made as much resistance as three men could against fifteen. The odds were, however, too great; spite of their bravery, the three were soon overpowered and the contest was nearly ended, when a temporary change was made in favor of the weaker party by the appearance in the fray of the second mate. He, during the whole colloquy, had been at the wheel, forgotten by both parties. His sudden arrival, therefore, as with lusty blows he laid about him, astonished the seamen, who gave back for an instant, and allowed their opponents to regain their feet. They did not allow them much time, however, to profit by this respite, for in a few seconds, understanding the source from whence assistance had come, they renewed the attack with increased vigor, and soon again obtained the mastery. But it was no easy matter to confine the three officers and the steward, who resisted with their every power, particularly as the men were anxious to do them no more bodily injury than they were compelled to, in effecting their purpose.

So absorbed were all hands in the strife in which they were engaged, that not one of them noticed the fact that what had been the weather-side of the barque at the commencement of the affray, was now the lee; nor did any of the men—all seamen as they were—observe that the vessel was heeling over tremendously, her lee-scuppers nearly level with the water. A report, loud as a cannon, high in the air, first startled the combatants; then, with a rushing sound, three large, heavy bodies, fell from aloft, one of which striking the deck near the combatants, threatened all with instant destruction, whilst the other two fell with a loud splash into the sea to leeward.

In the new danger, both the victors and vanquished were equally interested, and at the same instant looked aloft to discover the cause. The first glance convinced every one of the necessity for prompt and vigorous action. Their position was, indeed, one fraught with imminent danger. Left without a helmsman, by the second mate going to the assistance of the captain, the barque, close-hauled with a stiff breeze blowing, had come up in the wind, and was now flat aback; that is, the wind, instead of blowing against the sails from behind, was before them. The fore and main-royal, and top-gallant masts, with all their gear, had been carried away; and the ship was gathering stern-way at a rate that would soon run her under.

The natural desire for self-preservation, combined with the instincts and habits of both officers and men to cause them entirely to forget the fierce contest in which they had just been engaged—their thoughts were changed from each other, to the ship and its situation—and the officers were at once permitted to regain their feet.

No sooner did Captain Andrews find himself at liberty, than he at once assumed command, and issued his orders as loud and clear as if nothing had interrupted his authority.

“To the wheel! to the wheel! Mr. Hart! All hands ware ship!” were his first words; and the men with alacrity hurried to their stations, whilst the mate ran to the helm.

The captain’s wife and son had been in the cabin, anxiously awaiting the result of the controversy on the forecastle, but alarmed by the failing spars, they had hurried on deck and were now on the poop. In the hurry and confusion consequent upon the ship’s hazardous position, all hands were so busy that no one paid attention to Charles and Mrs. Andrews; and they were too much alarmed to take due care of themselves, else would they have sought a less exposed situation. As the spanker jibed, Charles was standing nearly amidships on the deck, and before he even had time to shriek, the boom struck him and hurled him over the monkey-rail into the sea. His mother, who was close to the mizzen-mast, saw him just as he went over, and terror-stricken, sunk to the deck in a swoon, without uttering a sound. Unable to swim, a puny child in the angry waves of the rough Atlantic, the case of Charles seemed a hopeless one; but rescue came from a source he could have least expected. Tom, the sailor-boy, who was on the tafferel belaying the spanker-sheet to windward, recognized the captain’s son as he floated clear of the stern; and actuated by that generous, gallant spirit that had so endeared him to his messmates, he shouted to the mate that Charles was over-board! and fearlessly sprang into the sea to his assistance. Tom was an excellent swimmer, and he found no difficulty in supporting Charles’ delicate form until the barque hove round, when they were both picked up and taken on board.

The joy of the mother at having restored to her the idol of her heart; the grateful feelings she and the father felt toward the deliverer of their child, we will not attempt to describe; only the results will we give of this heroic action. Tom was treated by the captain as a son; the crew were forgiven for their mutinous conduct, and cheerfully returned to duty; and Tom, now a distinguished naval officer, dates his first step upon the ladder that leads to eminence, from the day he so narrowly escaped a severe whipping.

Laurensville, South Carolina.

THE LADY OF CASTLE WINDECK.

(FROM THE GERMAN OF CHAMISSO.)

———

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

———

Rein in thy snorting charger!

That stag but cheats thy sight;

He is luring thee on to Windeck,

With his seeming fear and flight.

Now, where the mouldering turrets

Of the outer gate arise,

The knight gazed over the ruins

Where the stag was lost to his eyes.

The sun shone hot above him;

The castle was still as death;

He wiped the sweat from his forehead,

With a deep and weary breath.

“Who now will bring me a beaker

Of the rich old wine that here,

In the choked up vaults of Windeck,

Has lain for many a year?”

The careless words had scarcely

Time from his lips to fall,

When the Lady of Castle Windeck

Come round the ivy-wall.

He saw the glorious maiden

In her snow-white drapery stand,

The bunch of keys at her girdle,

The beaker high in her hand.

He quaffed that rich old vintage;

With an eager lip he quaffed;

But he took into his bosom

A fire with the grateful draught.

Her eyes unfathomed brightness!

The flowing gold of her hair!

He folded his hands in homage,

And murmured a lover’s prayer.

She gave him a look of pity,

A gentle look of pain;

And quickly as he had seen her

She passed from his sight again.

And ever, from that moment,

He haunted the ruins there,

A sleepless, restless wanderer,

A watcher with despair.

Ghost-like and pale he wandered,

With a dreamy, haggard eye;

He seemed not one of the living,

And yet he could not die.

’Tis said that the lady met him,

When many years had past,

And kissing his lips, released him

From the burden of life at last.

THE YOUNG MOTHER’S LAMENT.

———

BY MRS. E. C. KINNEY.

———

Oh, what is all this world to me,

Now that my babe is gone—

From every thing I hear, or see,

The light of life has flown!

It is not summer to my eyes,

For summer’s sun is hid—

He, who made fair the earth and skies,

Sleeps ’neath a coffin-lid.

There is no verdure to be seen—

No flowers upon the lea;

For he, whose smile made all things green,

Hath no more smiles for me.

Now all things wear the sickly-hue

Of my own spirit sad,

And nothing can that charm renew

Which made the earth look glad.

Oh, he was such a lovely boy—

So innocent, so fair;

His every look so full of joy—

Such sunlight in his hair!

That when he nestled to my breast,

And looked up lovingly,

I thought no mother half so blest

In all the world as I.

But now, alas! since he has died,

All day and night I pine,

And never was a heart beside

So desolate as mine.

Here are the toys his little hands

So sportively did use,

And here his empty cradle stands,

And here his tiny shoes:

Oh, take them, take them from my sight!

Each sends a cruel dart—

Sharpened by fatal memories bright—

Into my bleeding heart.

Take all away, since he is gone—

Save one of his fair curls,

And that shall on my breast be worn,

Set round with costly pearls.

But, like the diamond glistening bright

Upon a withered wreath,

’Twill make more dreary by its light

The wasted heart beneath.

Jenny Lind
(IN LA SONNAMBULA)
Engraved in London for Graham’s Magazine by W. H. Mote after the original Painting by J. W. Wright

JENNY LIND.

———

BY HENRY T. TUCKERMAN.

———

[WITH A PORTRAIT.]

Sure something holy lodges in that breast,

And with mere rapture moves the vocal air,

To testify its hidden residence.

How sweetly did they float upon the wings

Of Silence, through the empty-vaulted night,

At every fall smoothing the raven down

Of darkness till it smiled. Comus.

The Life of the North is to us a fresh revelation; and, by a striking coincidence, one after another of its phases have come upon our transatlantic vision, in rapid succession. To many Americans Thorwaldsen was the only name associated with art, but a few years since; and to those who had visited Rome, the benign and venerable man was a vivid and pleasing reminiscence, appropriate to the idea of his grand apostolic figures, and the affectionate honor in which his native Denmark held their noble sculptor. But with Ole Bull fairly commenced our knowledge of the genius of Northern Europe. The play of the wind through her forests of pines, the glint of her frozen streams, the tenderness of her households, and the solemnity of her faith, seemed to breathe in the wizard tones of his violin; while her integrity was written in the form, the manners, and the very smile of the musician. Then the spirit of her literature began slowly to win its gentle but impressive way to the American heart. Longfellow’s translation of Bishof’s Tegnér’s Children of the Lord’s Supper, with the graphic introduction descriptive of moral life in Sweden, touched the same chord in New England breasts, that had vibrated to the religious pathos of Bryant, Dana, and Hawthorne; while not a few readers became simultaneously aware of a brave Danish poet recently followed to the tomb by the people of Copenhagen, with every token of national grief. The dramas of Œhlenschläger, from their union of familiar expression with the richest feeling, though but partially known in this country, awakened both curiosity and interest. Then, too, came to us the domestic novels of Miss Bremer, portraying so heartily the life of home in Sweden, and appealing to the most universal sympathies of our people. Finally, Hans Andersen’s delicious story-books veiling such fine imaginative powers under the guise of the utmost simplicity, raised up for him scores of juvenile admirers, while children of a larger growth enjoyed the originality of his fictions with equal zest, as the offspring of rare human sympathy and original invention. The pictures wafted to our shores by the late revolutionary exigencies of the Continent, have often yielded glimpses of northern scenery. Norwegian forests, skies and mountains, attracted the eye at the Dusseldorf gallery; and thus through both art and literature, the simple, earnest, and poetic features of life in the north, were brought within the range of our consciousness. It developed unimagined affinities with our own; and now, as it were, to complete and consecrate the revelation, we are to hear the vocal genius of Northern Europe—the Swedish nightingale, Jenny Lind, is coming!

From an unpretending edifice in one of the by-streets of the city of Stockholm in Sweden, a quarter of a century ago, a troop of children might have been seen to emerge, at noon, and break the silence that at other hours invested the place, with the lively chat and quick laughter natural to emancipated scholars. In a few moments they dispersed to their several homes, and early the next day were again visible, one by one, disappearing, with a more subdued bearing, within the portal of the humble domicil.

Stockholm is justly regarded as the most elegant city of Northern Europe. It is situated at the junction of the lake Mälar with an inlet of the Baltic. Although usually described as founded on seven isles, it is, in point of fact, mainly situated on three; the smallest and most central having been the original site, and still constituting the most populous and active section. The irregularity of its form, and the blending of land and water, renders the appearance of the city remarkably picturesque. From the elevated points, besides the various buildings, craft of all kinds in motion and at anchor, numerous bridges and a fine back-ground of mountains are discernible, and combine to form a beautiful panorama. The royal palace is exceeded in magnificence only by that of Versailles. Through this busy and varied scene, on a pleasant day, there moved rapidly the carriage of one of those useful, though unrecognized beings, who seem born to appreciate the gifts which God so liberally dispenses, but whom the insensibility and selfishness of mankind, in general, permit to languish in obscurity until a fortunate circumstance brings them to light. Some time previous, the good lady, in passing the seminary to which we have alluded, had been struck with the beauty of a child’s voice that rose blithely from the dwelling. She was induced to alight and enter; and her astonishment was only increased upon discovering that this cheerful song came from a diminutive girl, busied in arranging the school-room, during a temporary recess. She learned that this maiden was the daughter of the school-mistress; and the somewhat restricted air of homely comfort visible in the establishment, and the tinge of severity in the manners of the mother, contrasted forcibly in the lady’s imagination with the apparently instinctive soaring of the child’s spirit into the atmosphere of song, from her dim and formal surroundings, as the sky-lark lifts itself from a lowly nest among the dark weeds up to the crystal heavens. It was a sweet illustration of the law of compensation.

The air the child was singing, as she busied herself about the room, was a simple, native strain, quite familiar and by no means difficult of execution; it was the quality of the voice, the natural flow of the notes, the apparent ease, grace and earnest sweetness of the little songstress, that gained the visiter’s ear and heart; and now she had come to urge upon the parents the duty of affording every encouragement to develop a gift so rare and beautiful; she expressed her conviction that the child was born for a musical artist, and destined not only to redeem her parents from want, but to do honor to her country. This impression was deepened when she learned that this musical tendency manifested itself as early as the age of three, and that the little girl had long awakened the wonder of the family by repeating accurately even intricate airs, after having heard them but once; that she had thus sung habitually, spontaneously, and seemed to find of her own volition, a peculiar consolation in the act for the dry routine of her life, though from without, not a single circumstance gave any impulse or direction to this vocal endowment.

She exhibited also to the just perception of Madame Lundberg, herself a celebrated Swedish actress, as well as a benevolent woman, the usual conditions of genius, in backward physical growth, precocious mental vigor, and mature sensibilities. The latter, indeed, were so active, that her mother, and even her kind adviser doubted if she possessed sufficient energy of character for so trying a profession as that of an artist; and this consideration added to the prejudice of the parents against a public, and especially a theatrical career, for a time, chilled the hopes of the enthusiastic patroness. At length, however, their consent was obtained that the experiment should be tried, and the diffident little girl, only accustomed to domestic privacy, but with a new and strange hope wildly fluttering in her bosom, was taken to Croelius—a veteran music-master of Stockholm; who was so delighted with her rare promise that one day he led her to the house of Count Pucke, then director of the court theatre. Her reception, however, did not correspond with the old man’s desires; for the nobleman coldly inquired what he was expected to do with such a child? It must be confessed that the absence of beauty and size did not, at the first glance, create any high anticipations in behalf of the demure maiden. Croelius, though disappointed, was quite undismayed; he entreated the director to hear her sing, and declared his purpose to teach her gratuitously, if he could in no other way secure the cultivation of her voice and talents. This earnestness induced the count to listen with attention and candor; and the instant she had finished, he exclaimed, “She shall have all the advantages of the Stockholm Academy!” Such was Jenny Lind’s initiation into the life of an artist.

She now began regularly to appear on the stage, and was soon an adept in juvenile parts. She proved widely attractive in vaudevilles, which were written expressly for her; and it is remarkable that the charm did not lie so much in the precocious intelligence, as in the singular geniality of the little actress. Nature thus early asserted her dominion. There was an indefinable human interest, a certain original vein that universally surprised and fascinated, while it took from the child the eclat of a mere infant phenomenon, by bringing her from the domain of vulgar wonder into the range of that refined sympathy one touch of which “makes the whole world kin.” In a year Croelius reluctantly gave up his pupil to Berg, who to kindred zeal united far more energy; and by him she was inducted thoroughly into the elements of her art.

Probation is quite as essential to the true development of art as encouragement. The eager, impassioned, excitable temperament needs to be chastened, the recklessness of self-confidence awed, and that sublime patience induced through which reliable and tranquil energy takes the place of casual and unsustained activity. By nature Jenny Lind was thoughtful and earnest, disposed to silence, and instinctively reserved; while the influence of her early home was to subdue far more than to exhilarate. The change in her mode of life and prospects was so unexpected, her success as a juvenile prodigy so brilliant, and the universal social favor she enjoyed, on account of the winsome amiability of her character, so fitted to elate a youthful heart, that we cannot but regard it as one of the many providential events of her career, that just at the critical moment when the child was losing herself in the maiden, and nature and education were ultimately shaping her artistic powers, an unexpected impediment was allowed to check her already too rapid advancement; and a pause, sad enough at the time, but fraught with enduring benefit, gave her occasion to discipline and elevate her soul, renew her overtasked energies, and plume her wings while thus aware of the utility of her trial, we can easily imagine its bitterness. The loss of a gift of nature through which a human being has learned to find both the solace and the inspiration of existence, upon which the dearest hopes were founded, and by which the most glorious triumphs were achieved, is one of those griefs few can realize. Raphael’s gentle heart bled when feebleness unnerved the hand that guided the pencil to such lovely issues, and big tears rolled down Scott’s manly cheek when he strove in vain to go on with his latest composition. How desolate then must that young aspirant for the honor, and the delights of the vocal art, have felt when suddenly deprived of her voice! The dream of her youth was broken in a moment. The charm of her being faded like a mist; and the star of hope that had thus far beamed serenely on her path, grew dim in the cold twilight of disappointment—keen, entire and apparently irremediable. This painful condition was aggravated by the fact that her age now rendered it out of the question to perform childish parts, while it did not authorize those of a mature character. The circumstances, too, of her failure were singularly trying. She was announced to appear as Agatha in Weber’s Frieschutz—a character she had long regarded as that in which her ability would be genially tested. To it her young ambition had long pointed, and with it her artistic sympathies were familiarly identified. The hour came, and that wonderful and delicate instrument—that as a child she had governed so adroitly, that it seemed the echo of her mind;—that subtle medium through which her feelings had been wont to find such ready and full vent, refused to obey her will, yielded not to the pleadings of love or ambition; was hushed as by some cruel magic—and Jenny Lind was mute, with anguish in her bosom; her friends looking on in tearful regret, and her maestro chagrined beyond description! Where had those silvery tones fled? What catastrophe had all at once loosened those invisible harp strings? The splendid vision of fame, of bounteous pleasure, of world-excited sympathy, and of triumphant art, disappeared like the gorgeous cities seen by the traveler, from the Straits of Messina, painted in tinted vapor on the horizon. Jenny Lind ceased to sing, but her love of art was deepened, her trust in nature unshaken, her simplicity and kindliness as real as before. Four long years she lived without the rich promise that had invested her childhood; but, with undiminished force of purpose, she studied the art for which she felt herself born, with patient, acute, earnest assiduity, and then another and blissful episode rewarded her quiet heroism. The fourth act of Robert le Diable had been announced for a special occasion; and it so happened that in consequence of the insignificant role of Alice, consisting of a single solo, no one of the regular singers was disposed to adopt the character. In this emergency, Berg was reminded of his unfortunate pupil. She meekly consented to appear, pleased with an opportunity to be useful, and oblige her kind maestro. While practicing this solo, to the delight and astonishment of both teacher and pupil, the long-lost voice suddenly re-appeared. It seemed as if Nature had only withdrawn the gift for a season, that her child might gather strength and wisdom to use it efficiently, and in an unselfish spirit; and then restored it as a deserved recompense for the resignation and truth with which the deprivation had been borne. We can fancy the rapturous emotions of the gentle votary that night, when she retired from the scene of her new and unanticipated triumph. The occasion has been aptly compared to the memorable third act of the Merchant of Venice on the evening of Kean’s debut at Drury Lane. Jenny Lind immediately reverted to her cherished ideal part—that of Agatha. She was now sixteen years of age—her character rendered firm by discipline, her love of music deepened by more comprehensive views and a better insight, and her whole nature warmed and softened by the realization of the fondest and earliest hopes, long baffled, yet consistently cherished. The most experienced actors were struck with wonder at the facility and perfection of her dramatic style; in this, as in her vocalism, was, at once, recognized that peculiar truth to nature which constitutes the perfection of art—that unconsciousness of self and circumstance, and that fresh idea of character, at once so uncommon and so delightful. She drew the orchestra after her by her bold yet true execution; and seemed possessed with the genius of the composer as well as with the idiosyncrasies of the character she sung, so complete and individual was the result. Already the idol of her native city, and the hope of the Swedish stage, her own ideas of art and aims as an artist remained unchanged. Her first desire was to seek the instruction of Garcia, with a view to perfect her method and subdue some vocal difficulties. She gracefully acknowledged the social homage and theatrical distinction awarded her; but these were but incidental to a great purpose. She had a nobler ambition to satisfy, a higher ideal to realize, and pressed on her still obstructed way, unallured by the pleasures of the moment and undismayed by the distance of the goal. In order to obtain the requisite means for a sojourn at Paris, she made excursions through Norway and Sweden, with her father, during the vacations of the theatre, to give concerts, and when sufficient had thus been acquired, she obtained leave of absence from the Stockholm director, and left home for Paris, notwithstanding the dissuasion of her parents. They confided, however, as before, in her own sense of right; and she hastened to place herself under the instruction of Garcia. Here another keen disappointment subdued her reviving hopes. At the first trial, her new teacher said: “My child, you have no voice; do not sing a note for three months, and then come and resume again.” Once more she wrapt herself in the mantle of patience, went into studious retirement, and, at the prescribed time, again returned to Garcia, whose cheering words now were, “My child, you can begin your lessons immediately.” Simple words, indeed, but more welcome to that ardent child of song, intent on progress in the art she loved, than the wildest plaudits. She returned with an elastic step, and entered with joyful enthusiasm upon her artistic career. Meyerbeer immediately offered her an engagement at Berlin. The consummate skill of her teacher, and her own enlarged experience and high resolves, made her advancement rapid and genuine. Thenceforth a series of musical triumphs unexcelled in the history of the lyrical drama, attended the life of Jenny Lind. We might repeat countless anecdotes of the universal admiration and profound sympathy she excited at Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, Bremen, Munich, Aix la Chapelle, and, indeed, wherever her voice was heard on the stage and at concerts. The testimonies of the highest private regard, and public appreciation, were lavished upon her in the shape of costly gifts, wreaths of silver, poetic tributes, philosophical criticisms, the breathless silence or overwhelming applause of entranced multitudes, and all the signs of enthusiastic delight at the advent of a true child of nature and of song. To us the record of her two visits to England are yet vivid, and it is needless to reiterate the extraordinary demonstrations which there attested her singular merits, and unequalled attractiveness. The population of Berlin and Vienna assembled at midnight to bid her adieu; and when she last left her native city, every ship in the harbor was manned and every quay crowded to see her embark in the presence of the queen. Nor are these spontaneous tributes to be exclusively ascribed to the love of novelty and the excitement of renown. Heroes and heroines the world cannot do without, unless it lapses into frigid and selfish materialism; admiration for talent and sympathy with genius are but human instincts. It is seldom, however, that these sentiments are upheld and sanctioned by reverence for worth. Therefore is it beautiful to witness the voluntary oblations which attend the great artist whose expression, however eloquent, is the true manifestation of a pure, noble and disinterested spirit. It is not Jenny Lind in her personality, but as a priestess of art, an interpreter of humanity, a gifted and loyal expositer of feelings, that lend grace to life and elevation to the soul, that draws the common heart toward her with such frank and ardent gratulation. Her well-known and unostentatious charities, her simplicity of life, her sympathy with her fellow-creatures, and unaffected manners, so accord with the glorious art she so rarely illustrates as to justify to reflection the impulsive admiration she excites.

It is not in sublimity that Jenny Lind excels; and whatever excellence her Norma may possess, it is not of that characteristic species which renders her impersonations of La Figlia del Regimento, of Alice, of Lucia, and of Amina, so memorable. In the former character she makes innocence play through the rude habits acquired in the camp, in a way so exquisite as to enchant as by the spell of reality. In the Bride of Lammermoor, there is a melancholy beauty which haunts the listener. It is her greatest tragic part. The pathos of the third act seems re-produced from the very genius which created the romance. Her Amina is Bellini’s; and this is saying all that praise can utter. We may realize her versatility by comparing the comic jealousy so archly displayed in the Noces de Figaro, with the tenderness of the sleep-walking scene in La Somnambula. It has been well observed of her that, in the former opera, “she adheres to the genius of Mozart with a modest appreciation of the genius of that master”—a commendation as high as it is rare. One of the most remarkable traits of her artistic skill is its exquisite and wonderful discrimination—a quality no description can make obvious.

The peculiar charm of Jenny Lind, as an artist, is her unconsciousness. We are disposed to regard this as one of the most reliable tests of superior gifts. It at least proves the absorption of self in what is dearer—a condition essential to all true greatness. The most acute observers of this beautiful vocalist fail to detect the slightest reference either to her audience or herself while engaged in a part. For the time being her very existence seems identified with the character she represents; it is the after-thought, not the impression of the moment that brings us to the artist; infected by the complete realization of the scene, we think of it alone; and only when it has passed away do we become aware that the genius of another has, as it were, incarnated a story or a sentiment before us, through will, sympathy and talent. The process is quite as unthought of as that by which a masterpiece of painting or sculpture has been executed, when we stand before it rapt in that harmonious spell that permits no analysis and suggests no task-work, any more than the landscape of summer, or the effulgence of a star. We feel only the presence of the beautiful, the advent of a new creation, the irresistible appeal to the highest instincts of the soul. Carlyle says “the unconscious is the alone complete”—an aphorism which Jenny Lind robs of all mystery; for her superiority consists in the wholeness and unity of her effects, and this is produced by a kind of self-surrender, such as we rarely see except in two of the most genuine phases of humanity—genius and childhood; in this tendency they coalesce; and hence the freshness that lingers around the richly endowed nature, and the universal faith which it inspires. The secret is that such characters have never wandered far from nature; they have kept within sight of that “immortal sea that brought us hither;” they constitute an aristocracy spontaneously recognized by all; and they triumph as poets, artists, and influential social beings, not through the exercise of any rare and wonderful gift, but from obedience to the simple laws of truth—to the primal sympathies, and to a kind of innate and glorious confidence which lifts them above ignoble fear and selfish tricks. The true hero, poet, artist, the true man or woman, who seem to the multitude to be peculiarly endowed, differ from those who do them voluntary homage, chiefly in this unconsciousness of self; this capacity to be ever “nobler than their moods;” this sympathetic breadth of life that enables them to go forth with a kind of elemental power and enter into other forms of being; the principle of their existence is faith, not dexterity; sentiment, not calculation.

It will be seen that we recognize a moral basis as the source of Jenny Lind’s fascination; and if we were obliged to define this in a single word, perhaps the lexicon would furnish none so expressive as the homely one—truth. But we use it as significant of far more than the absence of falsehood; we mean by it candor, trust, spontaneity, directness. We believe that Jenny Lind inspires sympathy in spite of her petite figure, not altogether because she warbles enchantingly, and has amiable manners, but also on account of the faith she at once excites. We perceive that love of approbation is not her ruling impulse, although her profession might excuse it; but that she has an ideal of her own, an artistic conscience, a love of art, a musical ministry to satisfy and accomplish, and that these considerations induce a nobler ambition than co-exists with mere vanity. It is said that the remarkable novel of Consuelo, by George Sand, is founded on the character and history of Jenny Lind. Whether this be so or not, the theory of the tale, the guileless devotion to art as such, which stamps the heroine with such exalted grace, finds a parallel in this famed vocalist of the North; the same singleness of purpose and intact clearness of soul, the same firm will and gentle heart are evident. Much, too, of her success is attributable to the philosophy of Consuelo’s maestro—that to reach the highest excellence in Art, the affections as well as the mind must be yielded at her shrine. There is a subtle and deep relation between feeling and expression, and the biographies of those who have achieved renown in the latter, under any of its artistic forms, indicate that it has embodied that within them that found no adequate response in actual life. The highest efforts of the poet and musician, are confessedly the result of baffled or overflowing emotion; disguised, perhaps, as to the form, but clearly evident in the tone of their productions. Mozart and Raphael, Bryant and Paganini, have illustrated this most emphatically. Jenny Lind seems to have kept her better feelings alive by the habitual exercise of benevolence, and a diffusive friendliness, while her concentrated and earnest activity finds utterance in her art. Hence the sway she has gained over countless hearts, each absorbed in its own dream or shadowed by its own regrets, that glow again in the kindling atmosphere of song, which gushes from a soul over which no overmastering passion has yet cast a gloom, and whose transparent waters no agitation of conflicting desires has ever made turbid and restless. Jenny Lind has been a priestess at the shrine of Art, and therefore interprets its oracles “as one having authority.”

In this country the idea of fashion and the mere relish of amusement, have blended so exclusively with the support of the Opera, that we seldom realize its artistic relations and influence. The taste for the Italian Opera seems to have extended in the ratio of civilization; and although it is, after all, an exotic among the Anglo-Saxons—a pleasure born in the “sweet South,” and in its very richness of combination, suggestive of the impassioned feeling and habitual luxury of those climes—yet, on the other hand, it is typical of the complex life, wants and tendencies of modern society. The old English tragic drama, robust, fierce-hearted and unadorned, has faded before it; the theatre, as a reunion of wits, and an arena for marvelous histrionic effects, as a subject of elegant criticism, and a nucleus for universal sympathy, may be said not to exist; while the Opera has become the scene of display, elegance, and pleasure on the one hand, and of the highest triumphs on the other. The sentiment of the age has written itself in music—its wide intelligence, its keen analysis, its revolutionary spirit, its restlessness, and its humanity, may be traced in the rich and brilliant combinations of Rossini, in the grand symphonies of Beethoven, in the pleading tenderness of Bellini, and in the mingled war-notes and sentiment of Verdi. The demand for undisguised and free expression, characteristic of the times, finds also its requisite scope in the lyrical drama. Recitation is too tame, pantomime too silent, scenic art too illusive, costume too familiar, music too unpicturesque; but all these combined are, at once, as romantic, exciting, impressive, and melo-dramatic as the varied aptitudes, the exacting taste, and the broad, experimental genius of the age. The gifts of nature, the resources of art, the gratification of the senses, the exigencies of fashion and taste, and the wants of the heart and imagination find in the Opera a most convenient luxury. The lyrical drama has thus gradually usurped the place of tournament and theatre; it is a social as well as an artistic exponent of the day; and those who have best illustrated it are justly regarded as public benefactors. Few, however, have ministered in this temple, with the artless grace, the pure enthusiasm, the vestal glory of Jenny Lind. The daughters of the South, ardent and susceptible, but capricious and extravagant, heretofore won its chief honors; their triumphs have been great but spasmodic, gained by impulse rather than nature, by glorious gifts of person rather than rare graces of soul. Jenny Lind, with her fair hair and blue eyes, her unqueenly form, and child-like simplicity, has achieved almost unparalleled success, by means quite diverse. Her one natural gift is a voice of singular depth, compass, flexibility and tone. This has been, if we may be allowed the expression, mesmerized by a soul, earnest, pure and sincere; and thus, with the clear perception and dauntless will of the North has she interpreted the familiar musical dramas in a new, vivid, and original manner. One would imagine she had come with one bound from tending her flock on the hill-side, to warble behind the foot-lights; for so directly from the heart of nature springs her melody, and so beyond the reach of art is the simple grace of her air and manners, that we associate her with the Opera only through the consummate skill—the result of scientific training—manifested in her vocalism. The term warbling is thus adapted peculiarly to express the character of her style; its ease, fluency, spontaneous gush, and the total absence of every thing meretricious and exaggerated in the action and bearing that accompanies it. It is like the song of a bird, only more human. Nature in her seems to have taken Art to her bosom, and assimilated it, through love, with herself, until the identity of each is lost in the other.

The union of such musical science—such thoroughly disciplined art with such artlessness and simplicity, is, perhaps, the crowning mystery of her genius. To know and to love are the conditions of triumph in all the exalted spheres of human labor; and in the musical drama, they have never been so admirably united. Her command of expression seems not so much the result of study as of inspiration; and there is about her a certain gentle elevation which stamps her to every eye, as one who is consecrated to a high service. Her ingenuous countenance, always enlivened by an active intelligence, might convey, at first, chiefly the idea of good-nature and cleverness in the English sense; but her carriage, voice, movements, and expression in the more affecting moments of a drama, give sympathetic assurance of what we must be excused for calling—a crystal soul. In all her characters she transports us, at once, away from the commonplace and the artificial, if not always into the domain of lofty idealism, into that more human and blissful domain of primal nature; and unhappy is the being who finds not the unconscious delight of childhood, or the dream of love momently renewed in that serene and unclouded air.

In accordance with this view of Jenny Lind’s characteristics, the enthusiasm she excited in England, is alluded to by the leading critics, as singularly honest. No musical artist, indeed, was ever so fitted to win Anglo-Saxon sympathies. She has the morale of the North; and does not awaken the prejudice so common in Great Britain, and so truly described in Corinne, against the passionate temperament and tendency to extravagance that mark the children of the South. No candidate for public favor was ever so devoid of the ordinary means of attaining it. There is something absurd in making such a creature the mere nucleus of fashionable vanity, or the object of that namby-pamby criticism that busies itself with details of personal appearance and French terms of compliment. Jenny Lind is not beautiful; she does not take her audiences by storm; she exercises no intoxicating physical magnetism over their sensitive natures. She is not classic either in form or feature, or manner, or style of singing. Her loveliness as a woman, her power as an artist, her grace as a character, lies in expression; and that expression owes its variety and its enchantment to unaffected truth to nature, sentiment and the principles of art.

And now that Jenny Lind is hourly expected among us, let a word be ventured as to what self-respect and the love of art make appropriate for her reception. Let not so charitable a soul be mortified by a tasteless hospitality; let not this genuine artist be seized upon by the remorseless purveyors of meretricious Fashion; and, above all, let not her gentle and candid nature be subjected to the vulgarism of the lionizing mania! As a priestess of Art, in its highest and sweetest form, as a fair ministrant to the spirit of Beauty, as a true musical interpreter of humanity—let the people welcome her with sincere and grateful recognition. This is the most acceptable tribute an unperverted soul can receive or bestow. It is that intelligent sympathy due from a free and educated society, and cheering to a discriminating recipient. Far from Nature’s minstrel be the critical affectation of the professed amateur, and the empty adulation of the coxcomb. Let her pure and exquisite vocalism—the result of such discipline, faith, and rare gifts of heaven, find a response in the American heart unprofaned by absurd excitement, and truly indicative of a genuine and cordial appreciation of the beautiful in art, and the excellent in character.

THE POET’S PRAYER.

———

BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.

———

Leave me not, Love! ’twas thus a poet chanted

His heart’s fond pleadings to the midnight air—

Leave not the dwelling by thy presence haunted,

The home thou long hast filled with visions fair.

Oh, leave me not! although thy fleeting pleasures

Are but as snow-flakes in the sun’s warm ray;

Though thy best gifts are only fairy treasures,

A golden glitter flung o’er things of clay;

Yet leave me not!—all earthly hopes have perished,

And e’en thine hour of promise has gone by,

But I would fain the fond illusion cherish

Which still in joy or sorrow brought thee nigh.

Perhaps my hand, like hers[^[4]] in olden story,

Let fall the burning drop that broke thy rest,

Marring by base distrust thy veiléd glory,

And scaring thee too rudely from my breast;

Yet leave me not!—although thy shrine be broken,

Though all its votive wreaths are long since gone,

Faith lingers there, albeit the prayer, unspoken,

Dies on her lip like sorrow’s half-breathed moan.

IMPLORA PACE:—A VERSION.

———

BY MRS. ELIZABETH J. EAMES.

———

Oh, Rest! serenest rest!

Mild evening of the soul—

Thou soft and silent Hesperus

Whose influences control

The pulses of the weary-hearted—

How often have our warm tears started

At mention of thy name,

When pictures blest of days departed

Our memories overcame!

Oh, Rest! serenest rest!

That by the sun of Truth

Art standing firm and fast,

Sought after from our youth—

Through all the changes of life’s lot,

But oh! sad truth, we find thee not!

THE FALL OF THE FAIRIES.

———

BY HENRY B. HIRST.

———

The night was clear and cool and calm,

The evening wind, exhaling balm

From spicy Caribbean isles,

Perfumed the forest’s deep defiles.

The mournful sister Pleiades

Arose from oriental seas;

Lyra no more, as once, in old,

Shook harmony from her harp of gold.

Silence, like God, was every where:

There was no sound in earth or air:

An omnipresent quietude

Reposed on field and flood and wood.

Serenely calm, the waning moon

Rose, dreaming of the nights of June,

And silently, from weeping eyes,

Shed tears of silver down the skies.

She seemed to walk her pilgrimage

Like one who, in the frosts of age,

Totters on toward the Holy Land,

Impelled by some pale phantom hand.

Wan August in extremis lay:

He knew that the approaching day

Consigned him to the solemn tomb

Which yawned upon him through the gloom.

The summer flowers were on their wane;

And silently, like one in pain,

Who hides his pangs from loving eyes,

The brooks looked calmly toward the skies.

A little circle in a wood—

The heart of the old solitude—

Lay wrapped in something more than sleep—

A boding silence, stern and deep.

Suddenly, from a distant bell,

Ten several sounds fell, like a knell,

And like a sigh (which was despair)

A shudder thrilled the tremulous air.

The leaves fell rustling from the trees,

The grasses shivered in the breeze,

As Saturn, with complacent eye,

Walked coldly up the central sky.

Slowly among the quivering limbs

Come hollow moons, like funeral hymns;

The trees, aroused from slumber, wail

Before the occidental gale.

The clouds, in horror, hurry by;

Unusual darkness drowns the sky;

The moon moves with suspended breath,

Like one who dreads the approach of death.

The stars expire, the moon grows dim,

The wind has ceased to be a hymn,

And through the arches of the wood

Roars, like a lion scenting blood.

Above the wind, whose surging sound

The brazen tumult almost drowned,

Pealing and ringing as it passed,

A clarion’s clamor filled the blast.

Along the earth, among the elms

Who shook and clanged their hoary helms,

And waved their arms in wild despite,

Again that summons filled the night.

Up, piercing space, again it rung

Where fair-haired Lyra sat and sung

Like Sappho, in a passionate trance,

Stunning her with its dissonance.

The little vista of the wood

Suddenly in the darkness stood

Flushed with a wild, unusual light,

Which filled the filmy eyes of night.

From oak and elm, from beech and larch,

That crowned the vista, like an arch,

Between whose leaves, like frowning eyes,

Came glimpses of the gloomy skies;

From Asia’s sultry hills and vales,

From far Topróbanè’s dells and dales,

From Ganges’ source, from Niger’s side,

And turbid Nile’s eternal tide;

From England’s fields, from Scotland’s glens,

From Ireland’s mosses, bogs and fens;

From sunny France, from swarthy Spain,

As if the skies shed golden rain,

Flashing, like streams of falling stars,

A myriad million minim Lars,

With terror painted on each face,

Stood, shuddering in that solemn place.

And from the farthest sphere of even,

From every sun (whose name is heaven,

And whose inhabitants are kings,)

Was heard the rushing of their wings.

Some stood attired in elfin steel,

With sword on hip, and spur at heel,

And crimson cheeks, and brows aflame;

Some in long, flowing garments came,—

Sages, whose sunken eyes had caught

From ceaseless study quenchless thought—

Maidens, with timid, trembling lips,

Their beauties purple with eclipse;

Mothers, within whose matron eyes

Dwelt all the depth of tropic skies,

Clasping their offspring, as the rose

Enfolds its heart at evening close.

Some stood alone, with drooping wings;

Some gathered here and there in rings,

But each one felt, though far apart,

The beating of his neighbor’s heart.

And each one, with a sad surmise,

Gazed wistfully in his fellow’s eyes,

And turned, and doubtfully bowed his head,

Despairing at the lore he read.

Each seemed to wonder why that hour

Beheld them in that ancient bower,

Where tree, and leaf, and grass, and stone,

Spoke audibly of ages gone.

Where shining, ghostly, through the trees,

Were idols, fern-clad to the knees,

And scattered round, in pale decay,

The ruins of old temples lay.

Altars of many a mythic age,

Forgotten even on history’s page,

With sacrificial knife and brand,

Arose, like tombs, on either hand.

And each one seemed to ask, though not

A word disturbed that haunted spot,

For some one, who, with eye of lynx,

Would read this riddle of the Sphynx;

And with oracular voice and air

Declare why they were summoned there—

Why called from worlds that felt no flood

To tremble in that ancient wood—

That wood which from the birth of time

Had gone on growing, through the chime

Of falling spheres,—a Druid sage,

Unwearied with life’s pilgrimage.

While standing thus in mute amaze,

Sadly, along the forest ways

Came slowly toward the appointed place

The Fathers of the Fairy Race.

And as, by sacred instinct urged,

From gloom to light their forms emerged,

It seemed as if unnumbered years

Of elfin lore had made them seers.

And each one seemed to walk the sod,

Clothed in his wisdom, like a god;

But in his step, and in his air,

Were mingled terror and despair.

Even as they came, the distant bell

Again proclaimed its solemn knell;

Eleven deep sounds, which, one by one,

Through every shuddering bosom run.

The night grew light, and on the skies

Each one in wonder fixed his eyes,

And saw, encircled with his rays,

Cold Saturn, like a comet, blaze.

Saturn, who on the zenith stood,

Freezing, it seemed, their very blood;

So cold, so thin it grew, they shook

As if by sudden palsy strook.

Each gazed in terror on the other;

Sister sought sister—brother brother—

But over all had come a strange,

Unprecedented—horrid change.

A moment did the work of years;

And gazing through their blinding tears,

They felt that centuries had passed

Since they saw one another last—

That what was youth was wrinkled age,

Sere, hoary, palsied, trembling age:

The very babe, so great the charm,

Grew gray upon its mother’s arm.

Suddenly, on the gloom of night,

Leaving a trail of silvery light,

Six coursers, with disheveled hair,

Swept madly through the fields of air.

Their argent manes, in separate threads,

Streamed from their bony necks and heads;

The crooked lightnings of their eyes

Flashed fitfully athwart the skies;

Behind a sparkling chariot shone,

Burning with many a precious stone

And flaming on the eyes of all—

A planet trembling to its fall!

Erect, while sobbing, at his side

Reclined his once immortal bride,

Sat Oberon, with pallid brow,

And tresses white as winter’s snow.

Pale Hecatè, peering from a cloud—

A maiden, lying in her shroud—

Less pale were than the Fairy Queen,

Less cold, less motionless of mien.

Heart-broken Titania, wan with age,

Leant feebly on her Indian page,

Looking as if all hope was gone;—

Than even Death himself more wan.

“Subjects,” said Oberon, “gentle friends,

This night our long dominion ends;

Stern Saturn, with his stony eyes,

Smiles grimly on his sacrifice.”

“Henceforth all poetry is dead!”

And as he spoke, above his head

In masses rolled the weltering clouds;

The stars still lay within their shrouds;

Save Saturn, whose untroubled light

Almost made daylight of the night.

With groans the myriad mourners said—

“Henceforth all poetry is dead!”

“The Ideal age, the lyric strain

Expire; with them the fairy reign;

The Real comes with iron tread:—

Henceforth all poetry is dead!”

So said the king, and as he spoke

Long, heavy, rolling thunders broke

Above them, rattling through the spheres,

Whose eyes were drowned with pitying tears.

The wind arose and struck the wood;

The rain descended in a flood;

Hither and thither rushed the leaves

Along the ruined temples’ eaves.

But Saturn shone as cold and stern

As death beside a funeral urn,

Looking as though his lustre said—

“Henceforth all poetry is dead!”

And now the storm was at its height;

The trees rolled to and fro in fright;

The lurid lightnings blazed and played

Demoniac through the eternal shade.

While far above the tempest’s plash,

Above the thunder’s deafening crash,

Twelve sounds fell, fainting, on the blast

Which rushed in eddying whirlwinds past.

Even as the last sound rent the air

A hopeless shriek of fierce despair

Shook earth and heaven! and all was calm—

Unutterably, coldly calm.

The stars came out; the moon once more

Shone bright as on its birth of yore;

Lyra alone looked down in pain:

Her golden chords were rent in twain.

But Saturn, smiling, seemed to say—

“The Ideal Age has passed away;

I have devoured my sons,” he said—

“Henceforth all poetry is dead!”

THE BRIDE OF THE BATTLE.

A SOUTHERN NOVELET.

———

BY W. GILMORE SIMMS.

———

CHAPTER I.

To the reader who, in the pursuit of the facts in our national history, shall confine himself only to those records which are to be found in the ordinary narrative, much that he reads will be found obscure, and a great deal absolutely untruthful. Our early historians gave themselves but little trouble in searching after details. A general outline was all that they desired, and, satisfied with this, they neither sought after the particular events which should give rise to the narrative, nor into the latent causes which gave birth to many of its actions. In the history of South Carolina, for example, (which was one brimming with details and teeming with incidents,) there is little to be found—as the history is at present written—which shall afford to the reader even a tolerably correct idea of the domestic character of the struggle. We know well enough that the people of the colony were of a singularly heterogeneous character; that the settlers of the lower country were chiefly Cavaliers and Huguenots, or French Protestants, and that the interior was divided into groups, or settlements, of Scotch, Irish, and German. But there is little in the record to show that, of these, the sentiment was mixed and various without degree; and that, with the exception of the parishes of the lower country, which belonged almost wholly, though with slight modifications, to the English church, it was scarcely possible to find any neighborhood, in which there was not something like a civil war. The interior and mountain settlements were most usually divided, and nearly equally, between their attachments to the crown and the colony. A Scotch settlement would make an almost uniform showing in behalf of the English authority—one, two, or three persons, at the utmost, being of the revolutionary party. An Irish settlement (wholly Protestant, be it remembered) would be as unanimous for the colonial movements; while the Germans were but too frequently for the monarchical side, that being represented by a prince of Hanover. The German settlements mostly lay in the Forks of Edisto, and along the Congarees. The business of the present narrative will be confined chiefly to this people. They had settled in rather large families in Carolina, and this only a short period before the Revolution. They had been sent out, in frequent instances, at the expense of the crown, and this contributed to secure their allegiance. They were ignorant of the nature of the struggle, and being wholly agricultural, could not well be taught the nature of grievances which fell chiefly upon commerce and the sea-board. Now, in Carolina, and perhaps throughout the whole south, the Revolution not only originated with the natives of the country, but with the educated portions of the natives. It was what may be termed the gentlemen of the colony—its wealth and aristocracy—with whom and which the movement began; and though it is not our purpose here to go into this inquiry, we may add that the motives to the revolutionary movement originated with them, in causes totally different from those which stimulated the patriotism of the people of Massachusetts Bay. The pride of place, of character and of intellect, and not any considerations of interest, provoked the agricultural gentry of the south into the field.

It was the earnest desire of these gentry, at the dawning of the Revolution, to conciliate the various people of the interior. At the first signs of the struggle, therefore, an attempt was made to influence the German population along the Edisto and Congaree, by sending among them two influential men of their own country, whose fidelity to the mouvement party was beyond dispute. But these men were unsuccessful. They probably made few converts. It is enough, if we give a glimpse at the course of their proceedings in a single household in the Forks of Edisto.[^[5]] George Wagner and Felix Long arrived at the habitation of Frederick Sabb, on the 7th day of July, 1775. Frederick was an honest Dutchman of good character, but not the man for revolution. He was not at home on the arrival of the commissioners, but his good vrow, Minnicker Sabb, gave them a gracious reception. She was a good housekeeper, with but one daughter; a tall, silent girl, with whom the commissioners had no discourse. But Minnicker Sabb, had she been applied to, might have proved a better revolutionist than her spouse. It is very certain, as the results will show, that Frederica Sabb, the daughter, was of the right material. She was a calm, and sweetly-minded damsel, not much skilled in society or books—for precious little was the degree of learning in the settlement at this early period; but the native mind was good and solid, and her natural tastes, if unsophisticated, were pure and elevated. She knew, by precious instincts, a thousand things which other minds scarcely ever reach through the best education. She was what we call, a good girl, loyal, with a warm heart, a sound judgment, and a modest, sensible behavior. We are not seeking, be it remembered, a heroine, but a pure, true-hearted woman. She was young too—only seventeen at this period—but just at the season when the woman instincts are most lively, and her susceptibilities most quick to all that is generous and noble. She made the cakes and prepared the supper for the guests that evening, and they saw but little of her till the evening feast had been adjusted, and was about to be discussed. By this time old Frederick Sabb had made his appearance. He came, bringing with him three of his neighbors, who were eager to hear the news. They were followed, after a little space, and in season for supper, by another guest—perhaps the most welcome of all to the old couple—in the person of a favorite preacher of the Methodist persuasion. Elijah Fields, was a man of middle age, of a vigorous mind and body, earnest and impetuous, and represented, with considerable efficiency, in his primitive province, the usefulness of a church which, perhaps, more than any other, has modeled itself after that of the Primitive Fathers. We shall see more of Elijah Fields hereafter. In the course of the evening, three other neighbors made their appearance at the farm-house of Frederick Sabb; making a goodly congregation upon which to exercise the political abilities of Messrs. Wagner and Long. They were all filled with a more or less lively curiosity in regard to the events which were in progress, and the objects which the commissioners had in view. Four of these neighbors were of the same good old German stock with Frederick Sabb, but two of them were natives of the country, from the east bank of the north branch of the Edisto, who happened to be on a visit to an adjoining farmstead. The seventh of these was a young Scotchman, from Cross Creek, North Carolina, who had already declared himself very freely against the revolutionary movement. He had, indeed, gone so far as to designate the patriots as traitors, deserving a short cord and a sudden shrift; and this opinion was expressed with a degree of temper which did not leave it doubtful that he would gladly seek an opportunity to declare himself offensively in the presence of the commissioners. As we shall see more of this person hereafter, it is only right that we should introduce him formally to the reader as Matthew or Mat Dunbar. He went much more frequently by the name of Mat than Matthew. We may also mention that he was not entirely a politician. A feeling of a tender nature brought him to the dwelling of old Sabb, upon whose daughter, Frederica, our young Scotchman was supposed to look with hungry eyes. And public conjecture did not err in its suspicions.

But Mat Dunbar was not without a rival. Richard Coulter was the only native of the country present, Parson Fields excepted. He was a tall, manly youth, about the same age with Dunbar. But he possessed many advantages over the latter, particularly in respect to person. Tall, while Dunbar was short, with a handsome face, fine eye, and a luxuriant shock of hair, and a massive beard of the same color, which gave quite a martial appearance to his features, otherwise effeminate—the spectator inevitably contrasted him with his rival, whose features, indeed, were fair, but inexpressive; and whose hair and beard were of the most burning and unmitigated red. Though stout of limb, vigorous and athletic, Mat Dunbar was awkward in his movement, and wanting in dignity of bearing. Mentally, the superiority of Coulter was not so manifest. He was more diffident and gentle than the other, who, experienced by travel, bold and confident, never exhibited himself at less than his real worth. These preliminaries must suffice. It is perhaps scarcely necessary to say that Frederica Sabb made her comparisons between the two, and very soon arrived at one conclusion. A girl of common instincts rarely fails to discover whether she is sought or not; and the same instincts lead her generally to determine between rivals long in advance of the moment when they propose. Richard Coulter was certainly her favorite—though her prudence was of that becoming kind which enabled her easily to keep to herself the secret of her preference.

Old Sabb treated his guests with good Dutch hospitality. His wife and daughter were excellent housekeepers, and the table was soon spread with good things for supper. Butter, milk, and cream-cheeses, were not wanting; pones and hoe-cakes made an ample showing, and a few boiled chickens, and a large platter of broiled ham, in the centre of the table, was as much a matter of course in that early day, in this favorite region, as we find them among its good livers now. Of course, supper was allowed to be discussed before the commissioners opened their budget. Then the good vrow took her place, knitting in hand, and a huge ball of cotton in her lap, at the door, while the guests emerged from the hall into the piazza, and sweet Frederica Sabb, quietly, as was her habit, proceeded to put away the debris of the feast, and to restore the apartment to its former order. In this she was undisturbed by either of her lovers; the custom of the country requiring that she should be left to these occupations without being embarrassed by any obtrusive sentiments, or even civilities. But it might be observed that Richard Coulter had taken his seat in the piazza, at a window looking into the hall, while Mat Dunbar had placed himself nearly at the entrance, and in close neighborhood with the industrious dame. Here he divided himself with attentions to her, and an occasional dip into the conversation on politics, which was now fully in progress. It is not our purpose to pursue this conversation. The arguments of the commissioners can be readily conjectured. But they were fruitless to persuade our worthy Dutchman into any change, or any self-committals, the issue of which might endanger present comforts and securities. He had still the same answer to every argument, delivered in a broken English which we need not imitate.

“The king, George, has been a good king to me, my friends. I was poor, but I am not poor now. I had not a finger of land before I came hither. Now, I have good grants, and many acres. I am doing well. For what should I desire to do better? The good king will not take away my grants; but if I should hear to you, I should be rebel, and then he would be angry, and he might make me poor again as I never was before. No, no, my friends; I will sign no association, that shall make me lose my lands.”

“You’re right!” vociferated Mat Dunbar. “It’s treason, I say, to sign any association, and all these rangers here, in arms, are in open rebellion; and should be hung for it; and let the time come, and I’m one to help in the hanging them!”

This was only one of many such offensive speeches which Dunbar had contrived to make during the evening. The commissioners contented themselves with marking the individual, but without answering him. But his rudely expressed opinions were not pleasing to old Sabb himself, and still less so to his worthy vrow, who withdrew at this into the hall; while the stern voice of Elijah Fields descended in rebuke upon the offender.

“And who art thou,” said he, abruptly, “to sit in judgment upon thy brethren? And who has commissioned thee to lend thyself to the taking of human life. Life is a sacred thing, young man—the most precious of human possessions, since it depends on the time which is allowed us whether we shall ever be fit for eternity. To one so young as thyself, scarcely yet entered on thy career as a man, it might be well to remember that modesty is the jewel of youth, and that when so many of the great and good of the land have raised their voices against the oppressions of the mother country, there may be good reason why we, who know but little, should respect them, and listen till we learn. If thou wilt be counseled by me, thou wilt hearken patiently to these worthy gentlemen, that we may know all the merits of their argument.”

Dunbar answered this rebuke with a few muttered sentences, which were hardly intelligible, making no concessions to the preacher or the commissioners, yet without being positively offensive. Richard Coulter was more prudent. He preserved a profound silence. But he was neither unobservant nor indifferent. As yet he had taken no side in the controversy, and was totally uncommitted among the people. But he had been a listener, and was quietly chewing the cud of self-reflection.

After a little while, leaving the venerable signiors still engaged in the discussion—for Wagner and Long, the commissioners, were not willing to forego the hope of bringing over a man of Sabb’s influence—the young men strolled out into the grounds, where their horses had been fastened. It was almost time to ride. As they walked, the Scotchman broke out abruptly:

“These fellows ought to be hung, every scoundrel of them; stirring up the country to insurrection and treason; but a good lesson of hickories, boys, might put a stop to it quite as well as the halter! What say you? They ride over to old Carter’s, after they leave daddy Sabb’s, and it’s a lonesome track! If you agree, we’ll stop ’em at Friday’s flats, and trice ’em up to a swinging limb. We’re men enough for it, and who’s afraid?”

The proposition was received with great glee by all the young fellows, with one exception. It was a proposition invoking sport rather than patriotism. When the more eager responses were all received, Richard Coulter quietly remarked:

“No, no, boys; you must do nothing of the kind. These are good men, and old enough to be the fathers of any of us. Besides, they’re strangers, and think they’re doing right. Let ’em alone.”

“Well, if you wont;” said Dunbar, “we can do without you. There are four of us, and they’re but two.”

“You mistake,” replied Coulter, still quietly, “they are three!”

“How! who!”

“Wagner, Long, and Richard Coulter!”

“What, you! Will you put yourself against us? You go with the rebels, then?”

“I go with the strangers; I don’t know much about the rebellion, but I think there’s good sense in what they say. At all events, I’ll not stand by and see them hurt, if I can help it.”

“Two or three boys,” continued Dunbar, “will make no difference!”

This was said with a significant toss of the head toward Coulter. The instincts of these young men were true. They already knew one another as rivals. This discovery may have determined the future course of Coulter. He did not reply to Dunbar; but, addressing his three companions, he said, calling each by his Christian name, “You, boys, had better not mix in this matter before it’s necessary. I suppose the time will come, when there can be no skulking. But it’s no use to hurry into trouble. As for four of you managing three, that’s not impossible; but I reckon there will be a fight first. These strangers may have weapons; but whether they have or not, they look like men; and I reckon, you that know me, know that before my back tastes of any man’s hickory, my knife would be likely to taste his blood.”

Dunbar replied rudely for the rest; and, but that Coulter quietly withdrew at this moment, seemingly unruffled, and without making any answer, there might have been a struggle between the two rivals even then. But the companions of Dunbar had no such moods or motives as prompted him. They were impressed by what Coulter had said, and were, perhaps, quite as much under his influence as under that of Dunbar. They accordingly turned a cold shoulder upon all his exhortations, and the commissioners, accordingly, left the house of old Sabb in safety, attended by young Coulter. They little knew his object in escorting them to the dwelling of Bennett Carter, where they staid that night, and never knew the danger from which his prompt and manly courage had saved them. But the events of that night brought out Richard Coulter for the cause of the patriots; and a few months found him a second-lieutenant in a gallant corps of Thompson’s Rangers, raised for the defense of the colony. But the commissioners parted from Frederick Sabb without making any impression on his mind. He professed to desire to preserve a perfect neutrality—this being the suggestion of his selfishness; but his heart really inclined him to the support of the “goot King Jorge,” from whom his grants of land had been derived.

“And what dost thou think, brother Fields,” said he to the parson, after the commissioners had retired.

“Brother Sabb,” was the answer, “I do not see that we need any king any more than the people of Israel, when they called upon Samuel for one; and if we are to have one, I do not see why we should not choose one from out our own tribes.”

“Brother Fields, I hope thou dost not mean to go with these rebels?”

“Brother Sabb, I desire always to go with my own people.”

“And whom callest thou our own people.”

“Those who dwell upon the soil and nurse it, and make it flourish, who rear their flocks and children upon it, in the fear of God, and have no fear of man in doing so.”

“Brother Fields, I fear thou thinkst hardly of ‘goot King Jorge,’” said our Dutchman, with a sigh. “Minnicker, my vrow, got you de Piple.”

——

CHAPTER II.

We pass over a long interval of quite three years. The vicissitudes of the Revolution had not materially affected the relations of the several parties to our narrative. During this period the patriots of South Carolina had been uniformly successful. They had beaten away the British from their chief city, and had invariably chastised the loyalists in all their attempts to make a diversion in favor of the foreign enemy. But events were changing. These performances had not been effected but at great sacrifice of blood and treasure, and a formidable British invasion found the State no longer equal to its defense. Charleston, the capital city, after frequent escapes, and a stout and protracted defense, had succumbed to the besiegers, who had now penetrated the interior, covering it with their strongholds, and coercing it with their arms. For a brief interval, all opposition to their progress seemed to be at an end within the State. She had no force in the field, stunned by repeated blows, and waiting, though almost hopeless of her opportunity. In the meantime, where was Richard Coulter? A fugitive, lying perdu either in the swamps of Edisto or Congaree, with few companions, all similarly reduced in fortune, and pursued with a hate and fury the most unscrupulous and unrelenting, by no less a person than Matthew Dunbar, now a captain of loyalists in the service of George the Third. The position of Coulter was in truth very pitiable; but he was not without his consolations. The interval which had elapsed since our first meeting with him, had ripened his intimacy with Frederica Sabb. His affections had not been so unfortunate as his patriotism. With the frank impulse of a fond and feeling heart, he had appealed to hers, in laying bare the secret of his own; and he had done so successfully. She, with as frank a nature, freely gave him her affections, while she did not venture to bestow on him her hand. His situation was not such as to justify their union—and her father positively forbade the idea of such a connection. Though not active among the loyalists, he was now known to approve of their sentiments; and while giving them all the aid and comfort in his power, without actually showing himself in armor, he as steadily turned a cold and unwilling front to the patriots, and all those who went against the monarch. The visits of Richard Coulter to Frederica were all stolen ones, perhaps not the less sweet for being so. A storm sometimes brought him forth at nightfall from the shelter of the neighboring swamp, venturing abroad at a time when loyalty was supposed to keep its shelter. But these visits were always accompanied by considerable peril. The eye of Matthew Dunbar was frequently drawn in the direction of the fugitive, while his passions were always eager in the desire which led him to seek for this particular victim. The contest was a well-known issue of life and death. The fugitive patriot was predoomed always to the halter, by those who desired to pacify old revenges, or acquire new estates. Dunbar did not actually know that Coulter and Frederica Sabb were in the habit of meeting; but that they had met, he knew, and he had sworn their detection. He had become a declared suitor of that maiden, and the fears of old Sabb would not suffer him to decline his attentions to his daughter, or to declare against them. Dunbar had become notoriously an unmitigated ruffian. His insolence disgusted the old Dutchman, who, nevertheless, feared his violence and influence. Still, sustained by good old Minnicker Sabb, his vrow, the father had the firmness to tell Dunbar freely, that his daughter’s affections should remain unforced; while the daughter herself, seeing the strait of her parents, was equally careful to avoid the final necessity of repulsing her repulsive suitor. She continued, by a happy assertion of maidenly dignity, to keep him at bay, without vexing his self-esteem; and to receive him with civility, without affording him positive encouragement. Such was the condition of things among our several parties, when the partisan war began; when the favorite native leaders in the South—the first panic of their people having passed—had rallied their little squads, in swamp and thicket, and were making those first demonstrations which began to disquiet the British authorities, rendering them doubtful of the conquests which they had so lately deemed secure. This, be it remembered, was after the defeat of Gates at Camden, when there was no sign of a Continental army within the State.

It was at the close of a cloudy afternoon, late in October, 1780, when Mat Dunbar, with a small command of eighteen mounted men, approached the well-known farmstead of Frederick Sabb. The road lay along the west bank of the eastern branch of the Edisto, inclining to or receding from the river, in correspondence with the width of the swamp, or the sinuosities of the stream. The farm of Sabb was bounded on one side by the river, and his cottage stood within a mile of it. Between, however, the lands were entirely uncleared. The woods offered a physical barrier to the malaria of the swamp; while the ground, though rich, was liable to freshet, and required a degree of labor in the drainages which it was not in the power of our good Dutchman to bestow. A single wagon-track led through the wood to the river from his house; and there may have been some half dozen irregular foot-paths tending in the same direction. When within half a mile from the house, Mat Dunbar pricked up his ears.

“That was surely the gallop of a horse,” he said to his lieutenant—a coarse, ruffianly fellow like himself, named Clymes.

“Where away?” demanded the other.

“To the left. Put in with a few of the boys, and see what can be found.”

Clymes did as he was bidden; but the moment he had disappeared, Dunbar suddenly wheeled into the forest also, putting spurs to his horse, and commanding his men to follow and scatter themselves in the wood. A keen suspicion was at the bottom of his sudden impulse; and with his pistol in his grasp, and his teeth set firmly, he darted away at a rate that showed the eagerness of the blood-hound, on a warm scent. In a few moments the wood was covered with his people, and their cries and halloes answering to each other, turned the whole solitude into a scene of the most animated life. Accustomed to drive the woods for deer, his party pursued the same habit in their present quest, enclosing the largest extent of territory, and gradually contracting their cordon at a given point. It was not long before a certain degree of success seemed to justify their pursuit. A loud shout from Clymes, his lieutenant, drew the impetuous Dunbar to the place, and there he found the trooper, with two others of the party, firmly confronted by no less a person than Frederica Sabb. The maiden was very pale, but her lips were closely compressed together, and her eyes lightened with an expression which was not so much indicative of anger as of courage and resolve. As Dunbar rode up, she addressed him.

“You are bravely employed, Captain Dunbar, in hunting with your soldiers a feeble woman.”

“In faith, my dear Miss Sabb, we looked for very different game,” replied the leader, while a something sardonic played over his visage. “But perhaps you can put us in the way of finding it. You are surely not here alone?”

“And why not? You are within hail of my father’s dwelling.”

“But yours, surely, are not the tastes for lonely walks.”

“Alas! sir, these are scarcely the times for any other.”

“Well, you must permit me to see that your walks are in no danger from intrusion and insult. You will, no doubt, be confounded to hear that scattered bands of the rebels are supposed to be, even now, closely harbored in these swamps. That villain, Coulter, is known to be among them. It is to hunt up these outlyers—to protect you from their annoyances, that I am here now.”

“We can readily dispense with these services, Captain Dunbar. I do not think that we are in any danger from such enemies, and in this neighborhood.”

It was some effort to say this calmly.

“Nay, nay, you are quite too confident, my dear Miss Sabb. You know not the audacity of these rebels, and of this Richard Coulter in particular. But let me lay hands on him! You will hardly believe that he is scarce ten minutes gone from this spot. Did you not hear his horse?”

“I heard no horses but your own.”

“There it is! You walk the woods in such abstraction that you hear not the danger, though immediately at your ears. But disperse yourself in pursuit, my merry men, and whoso brings me the ears of this outlaw, shall have ten guineas, in the yellow gold itself. No Continental sham! Remember, his ears, boys! We do not want any prisoners. The trouble of hanging them out of the way is always wisely saved by a sabre-cut or pistol-bullet. There, away!”

The countenance of Frederica Sabb instantly assumed the keenest expression of alarm and anxiety. Her whole frame began to be agitated. She advanced to the side of the ruffianly soldier, and put her hand up appealingly.

“Oh! Captain Dunbar, will you not please go home with me, you and your men? It is now our supper hour, and the sun is near his setting. I pray you, do not think of scouring the woods at this late hour. Some of your people may be hurt.”

“No danger, my dear—all of them are famous fox-hunters.”

“There is no danger to us, believe me. There is nobody in the woods that we fear. Give yourself no trouble, nor your men.”

“Oh! you mistake, there is surely some one in this wood who is either in your way or mine—though you heard no horse.”

“Oh! now I recollect, sir, I did hear a horse, and it seemed to be going in that direction.”

Here the girl pointed below. The tory leader laughed outright.

“And so he went thither, did he? Well, my dear Miss Sabb, to please you, I will take up the hunt in the quarter directly opposite, since it is evident that your hearing just now is exceedingly deceptive. Boys, away! The back track, hark you—the old fox aims to double!”

“Oh, go not! Go not!” she urged, passionately.

“Will I not!” exclaimed the loyalist, gathering up his reins and backing his steed from her; “Will I not! Away, Clymes—away, boys; and remember, ten guineas for that hand which brings down the outlaw, Richard Coulter!”

Away they dashed into the forest, scattering themselves in the direction indicated by their leader. Frederica watched their departure with an anxious gaze, which disappeared from her eyes the moment they were out of sight. In an instant all her agitation ceased.

“Now, thank Heaven! for the thought!” she cried. “It will be quite dark before they find themselves at fault; and when they think to begin the search below, he will be wholly beyond their reach. But how to warn him against the meeting, as agreed on? The coming of this man forbids that. I must see! I must contrive it!” And with these muttered words of half meaning, she quietly made her way toward her father’s dwelling, secure of the present safety of her lover from pursuit. She had very successfully practiced a very simple ruse for his escape. Her apprehensions were only but admirably simulated; and in telling Dunbar that the fugitive had taken one direction, she naturally relied on his doubts of her truth, to make him seek the opposite. She had told him nothing but the truth, but she had told it as a falsehood; and it had all the effect which she desired. The chase of the tory captain proved unsuccessful.

——

CHAPTER III.

It was quite dark before Captain Dunbar reached the cottage of Frederick Sabb, and he did so in no good humor. Disappointed of his prey, he now suspected the simple ruse by which he had been deluded, and his first salutation of Frederica Sabb, as he entered the cottage was in no friendly humor.

“There are certain birds,” said he, “Miss Sabb, who fly far from their young ones at the approach of the hunter, yet make such a fuss and outcry, as if the nest were close at hand, and in danger. I see you have learned to practice after their lessons.”

The girl involuntarily replied, “But, indeed, Captain Dunbar, I heard the horse go below.”

“I see you understand me,” was the answer. “I feel assured that you told me only the truth, but you had first put me in the humor not to believe it. Another time I shall know how to understand you.”

Frederica smiled, but did not seek to excuse herself, proceeding all the while to the preparations for supper. This had been got in readiness especially for the arrival of Dunbar and his party. He, with Clymes, his first officer, had become inmates of the dwelling; but his troopers had encamped without, under instructions of particular vigilance. Meanwhile, supper proceeded, Sabb and his vrow being very heedful of all the expressed or conjectured wants of their arbitrary guests. It was while the repast was in progress that Dunbar fancied that he beheld a considerable degree of uneasiness in the manner and countenance of Frederica. She ate nothing, and her mind and eyes seemed equally to wander. He suddenly addressed her, and she started as from a dream, at the sound of her own name, and answered confusedly.

“Something’s going wrong,” said Dunbar, in a whisper to Clymes; “we can put all right, however, if we try.”

A significant look accompanied the whisper, and made the second officer observant. When supper was concluded, the captain of the loyalists showed signs of great weariness. He yawned and stretched himself amazingly, and without much regard to propriety. A like weariness soon after exhibited itself in the second officer. At length Dunbar said to Old Sabb, using a style of address to which the old man was familiar, “Well, Uncle Fred, whenever my bed’s ready, say the word. I’m monstrous like sleep. I’ve ridden a matter of fifty miles to-day. In the saddle since four o’clock—and a hard saddle at that. I’m for sleep after supper.”

The old man, anxious to please his guest, whom he now began rather to fear than favor, gave him soon the intimation which he desired, and he was conducted to the small chamber, in a shed-room adjoining the main hall, which had been assigned him on all previous occasions. Old Sabb himself attended his guest, while Lieutenant Clymes remained, for a while longer, the companion of the old lady and her daughter. Dunbar soon released his host from further attendance by closing the door upon him, after bowing him out with thanks. He had scarcely done so, before he approached one of the two windows in the chamber. He knew the secrets of the room, and his plan of operations had been already determined upon. Concealing his light, so that his shadow might not appear against the window, he quietly unclosed the shutter so as to fix no attention by the sound. A great fig-tree grew near it, the branches in some degree preventing the shutter from going quite back against the wall. This afforded him additional cover to his proceedings, and he cautiously passed through the opening, and lightly descended to the ground. The height was inconsiderable, and he was enabled, with a small stick, to close the window after him. In another moment he passed under the house, which stood on logs four or five feet high, after the manner of the country, and took a crouching attitude immediately behind the steps in the rear of the building. From these steps to the kitchen was an interval of fifteen or eighteen yards, while the barn and other outhouses lay at convenient distances beyond. Shade trees were scattered about, and fruit trees, chiefly peach, rendering the space between something like a covered way. We need not inquire how long our captain of loyalists continued his watch in this unpleasant position. Patience, however, is quite as natural as necessary a quality to a temper at once passionate and vindictive. While he waited here, his lieutenant had left the house, scattered his men privily about the grounds, and had himself stolen to a perch which enabled him to command the front entrance to the cottage. The only two means of egress were thus effectually guarded.

In a little time the household was completely quiet. Dunbar had heard the mutterings, from above, of the family prayers, in which it was no part of his profession to partake; and had heard the footsteps of the old couple as they passed through the passage-way to the chamber opposite the dining hall. A chamber adjoining theirs was occupied by Frederica Sabb; but he listened in vain for her footsteps in that quarter. His watch was one calculated to try his patience, but it was finally rewarded. He heard the movement of a light foot over head, and soon the door opened in the rear of the dwelling, and he distinguished Frederica as she descended, step by step, to the ground. She paused, looked up and around her, and then, darting from tree to tree, she made her way to the kitchen, which opened at her touch. Here, in a whisper, she summoned to her side a negro, an old African, whom we may, at the same time, mention, had been her frequent emissary before, on missions such as she now designed. Brough, as he was called, was a faithful Ebo, who loved his young mistress, and had shown himself particularly friendly to her affaires de cœur. She put a paper into his hands, and her directions employed few words.

“Brough, you must set off for Massa Richard, and give him this. You must creep close, or the soldiers will catch you. I don’t know where they’ve gone, but no doubt they’re scattered in the woods. I have told him, in this paper, not to come, as he promised; but should you lose the paper—”

“I no guine loss ’em,” said Brough, seemingly rather displeased at the doubt, tacitly conveyed, of his carefulness.

“Such a thing might happen, Brough; nay, if you were to see any of the tories, you ought to destroy it. Hide it, tear it up, or swallow it, so that they won’t be able to read it.”

“I yerry, misses.”

“Very good! And now, when you see Massa Richard, tell him not to come. Tell him better go farther off, across the fork, and across the other river; for that Mat Dunbar means to push after him to-morrow, and has sworn to hunt him up before he stops. Tell him, I beg him, for my sake, though he may not be afraid of that bad man, to keep out of his way, at least until he gathers men enough to meet him on his own ground.”

The startling voice of Dunbar himself broke in upon the whispered conference. “Mat Dunbar is exceedingly obliged to you, Miss Sabb.”

“Ah!” shrieked the damsel—“Brough—fly, fly, Brough.” But Brough had no chance for flight.

“His wings are not sufficiently grown,” cried the loyalist, with a brutal yell, as he grappled the old negro by the throat, and hurled him to the ground. In the next moment he possessed himself of the paper, which he read with evident disappointment. By this time the sound of his bugle had summoned his lieutenant, with half a dozen of his followers, and the kitchen was completely surrounded.

“Miss Sabb, you had best retire to the dwelling. I owe you no favors, and will remember your avowed opinion, this night, for Mat Dunbar. You have spoken. It will be for me yet to speak. Lieutenant Clymes, see the young lady home.”

“But, sir, you will not maltreat the negro?”

“Oh! no! I mean only that he shall obey your commands. He shall carry this note to your favorite, just as you designed, with this difference only, that I shall furnish him with an escort.”

“Ah!”

Poor Frederica could say no more. Clymes was about to hurry her away, when a sense of her lover’s danger gave her strength.

“Brough;” she cried to the negro; “you won’t show where Massa Richard keeps?”

“Never show the tories not’ing, missis.”

The close gripe of Dunbar’s finger upon the throat of the negro, stifled his further speech. But Frederica was permitted to see no more. The hand of Clymes was laid upon her arm, and she went forward promptly to save herself from indignity. She little knew the scene that was to follow.

[To be continued.

THE SPIRIT LOVERS

AND THE SPIRIT BRIDAL.

———

BY MISS L. VIRGINIA SMITH.

———

The twilight deepened—and its dusky shades

Crept through the crimson of the sunset clouds,

To nestle darkly where some shining star

Looped up the gorgeous foldings, as they hung

Like Eden-banners, waving far around

The purple arches of a southern sky.

From the deep forest aisles came up the wind,

Low singing in its wand’ring, with the voice

Of softly chanting waves, and whisp’ring leaves.

The silver moon came floating from the east,

Like a young angel sleeping on the wing,

Whose dream-smile glittered o’er the dewy earth,

And trembling through an open casement, kissed

A brow of maiden beauty slumbering there.

The velvet drapery of her couch was tossed

In crimson waves around her, and above

Fell snowy veilings, bending like a wreath

Of silvery vapor o’er a rosy sea;

Carelessly graceful in her sweet repose,

She rested like a lily on the stream,

When drooping gently ’neath its own perfume.

The dew of early youth was gleaming yet

Upon her pure heart-blossoms, and the first

Faint blush of love within her spirit, wrought

Rich blazonry upon their mystic leaves.

In slumber, through her softly rounded limbs

A radiant soul in bright expression stole,

Like glimpses of the evening star amid

The pure white veiling of a pearly cloud.

She watched the sunlight fade upon the hills,

And star-flames kindle in the dusky sky—

But now she rested in the land of dreams,

To wait the coming of her Spirit-Love.

He came—a vision whose bewildering eyes

Seemed light ineffable in midnight skies—

While plumes of waving frost-work, dashed with flakes

Of golden sunbeams, glittered ’mid the folds

Of woven radiance floating round his form,

Snow-flake and fire-drop wreathing into life,

His gorgeous pinion shadowed o’er his Bride,

His breath upon her cheek—his lightning glance

Stole through the visions of her dreaming soul,

As when the passion of the dying sun

Glows o’er the bosom of a sleeping cloud,

Till love’s wild worship wakes returning flame,

And each in burning blushes dies away!

As a fair volume, and a golden lyre,

Wreathed by the tendrils of an opening rose,

Her Mind, and Soul, and fresh expanding Heart,

Lay bright before his spirit-searching ken,

As one by one he softly laid aside

The crimson petals of that folded heart,

To drink the honied fragrance of its love,

The rose-bud thrilled and trembled into bloom,

Its breeze his sigh—its sun his burning glance—

Its dew-drop life his kisses wild and warm.

He lingered o’er the pure, unsullied leaves

Of Mind’s mysterious volume, and there came,

Where’er he breathed upon the virgin page,

Bright gems of glowing fancy, and deep thought,

As magic characters come stealing forth

In loveliness before the breath of flame!

His being brightened with a God-like smile,

As, closely blended with each pictured thought,

His image, flashing into glorious life,

Smiled back upon him from the glowing page

So truthfully—then with the soft excess

Of dreamy rapture ’wildered, fainting bowed,

And blessed the sweet love-mirror, silently.

Her soul in beauty, an Æolian lyre,

Gleamed forth before him, where the voice of Song

Slept like its spirit in a singing shell.

His light caressing pinion swept its chords,

And Joy’s bird-carol—Hope’s aerial tone—

Pride’s sounding anthem—and the pæan wild

Of young Ambition rolled in glory forth.

He breathed upon it—and anon there swelled

(As tears will gush from rapture-laden hearts)

Her pure religion’s diapason deep;—

Sweet under-tones of dreamy melancholy—

And chords of feeling that erewhile had slept

In voiceless music, and o’er all the theme

An ever-changing, ever-sounding tone,

Was deep, immaculate, immortal Love!

THE SPIRIT-BRIDAL.

The Night had closed her eye of softest blue,

And, like a wearied infant, sank to rest

On Nature’s gentle bosom—Silence, pale,

With a white finger on her marble lip,

From which no lightest whisper ever came,

Was bending o’er the dim and murmured death

Of every sound—and even Echo dreamed,

As though a spirit’s wand had charmed her there

To slumber deep as that Creation held

When Night was in the heavens!

Still as the moonlight quivered through the vines

That overhung the casement, it revealed

The rosy couch, beneath its silvery veil,

As by its side the maiden knelt to pray.

Oh! if there be on earth one blessing left—

One leaf from out our faded Paradise—

One ray of glory from the heaven we lost—

It is, that we may pray for those we love!

Without it man may live—his nature knows

No soft dependence—panoplied in self,

His haughty heart may burn to dash aside

The hand that formed it—and he may defy

The love that made him what he is—a god!

But woman never—for her ivy soul

Must have an oak to cling to; proud and high

Its crest may be, or ruined, lightning-scathed,

It matters not—and for it she must pray!

Prayer is her nature’s pure necessity,

To calm the sorrow that with lava streams,

Pours its bewildering torrent o’er the soul,

And when she feels it crushing darkly through

A bosom all too soft to stem its tide

Of bitter, burning waters—then, for power

To “suffer and be still,” that bosom prays.

And oh! when human love has taught her heart

To dream of one and Heaven, how pants her soul

To pour that gushing feeling freely forth,

In all its truth and deep intensity, before

The “God of love” who gave it!

’Twas for this

The gentle maiden meekly knelt to God

Till each pure love-beam from her violet eye

Seemed melting into passion’s orison.

Warm feeling folded up its starry plumes

To bow before the altar-shrine of faith,

And holy hopes looked from the golden shades

That lay upon her soul, as angels bend

O’er the bright foldings of the summer clouds,

To woo us to the sky, from whence they come.

Her eye grew dreamy, and her bosom heaved,

As though within its cell some pleasant thought

Were singing, and it rose and fell upon

The waves of that delicious melody.

Her loosened hair swept o’er the sacred page,

And, as her soul went forth in whispers low,

It stirred the shadows with the breath of prayer.

She oped the holy book, and as her lip

Trembled upon the words, they sank within

Her woman’s nature as the snow-flake falls

And melts away into the earth’s warm bosom.

Time, as he wandered by, had sighed the hour

Of “twelve,” and for a moment midnight’s hush

Grew tremulous, and echo as it fell,

Swept o’er the tension of her listening ear

Softly and thrillingly, and like to Love’s