THE CHAMPION.

The Emperor Henry IV. of Germany, the husband of the falsely accused empress, was one of the bravest and most unfortunate princes who ever sat upon a throne. He had succeeded his father, Henry the Black, in 1056, at the age of six years, and the diet had given to Agnes of Aquetaine the administration of the affairs of state during his minority. But the princes and barons of Germany feeling themselves humiliated by their subjection to a foreign female, revolted against the empire, and Otho, Margrave of Saxony, commenced that series of civil wars, in which the emperor was destined to consume his life. Thus Henry IV. was always engaged in contests, first with his uncles, and then with his son; sometimes an emperor, sometimes a fugitive; to-day a proscriber, to-morrow proscribed; but always a “man of war and wo,” even in his greatest triumphs. After having deposed Pope Gregory VII.—after having, in expiation of that sacrilege, crossed the Apennines on foot, his staff in his hand, like a mendicant, in the depth of winter—after having waited three days in the court of the Castle of Canassa without clothes, without fire, without food, till it pleased his highness to admit him to his presence, he kissed his feet, and swore on the cross to submit himself to his authority; for at this price alone would the pope absolve the imperial penitent of the guilt of sacrilege; but the humiliation of the emperor displeased and disgusted the Lombards, who accused him of cowardice. Threatened by them with deposition, if he did not break the shameful league he had made with the pope, he purchased peace with the Lombards by renouncing his submission to Gregory. His acceptance of these terms set him at variance with the German barons, who elected Rodolphe, of Suabia, in his place. Henry, who had gone to Italy as a supplicant, returned to Germany a soldier, though under the ban of the church, for his rival, Rodolphe, had received from Pope Gregory a crown of gold, in token of his investiture by him of temporal dominion, and a bull invoking the malediction of heaven upon his enemy. Henry defeated and slew Rodolphe at the battle of Wolskieur, near Gera, after which he returned victorious and furious into Italy, bringing with him the Bishop Guibert, whom he had made pope. This time it was for Gregory to tremble, who could not expect more mercy than he had shown to Henry. He shut himself up in Rome, and when the emperor appeared under the walls, sent a legate to make up the quarrel, by the offer of the investiture of the crown, and absolution and reconciliation to the church. Henry’s only reply was the capture of the city. The pope fled to the Castle of St. Angelo, where he was put in a state of blockade by Henry, who placed upon the papal throne the Anti-Pope Guibert, from whose hand he received the imperial crown. He had scarcely done this before he received the annoying intelligence that the Saxons had elected in his room, Hermann, Count of Luxembourg. Henry repassed the Apennines, beat the Saxons, subdued Thuringia, and took Hermann prisoner, whom he permitted to live and die unknown in an obscure corner of his empire. He once more re-entered Italy, where he caused his son Conrad to be elected King of the Romans. Believing he had settled peace on a firm basis, he came back to Germany, and turned his arms against the Bavarians and Suabians, who still remained in a state of revolt.

His son, whom he had just made king of the Romans, and who aspired to the empire, conspired at that time against his father, raised an army, and got Pope Urban II. to excommunicate him a second time. Henry upon this convoked the diet to Aix-la-Chapelle, laid open before it his paternal grief, and displayed the wounds of a heart wrung by filial ingratitude, and demanded that his second son, Henry, should be acknowledged for king of the Romans, in the place of his brother. In the midst of the sitting, he received a mysterious intimation that his presence was required at Cologne, where, he was told, an important secret would be made known to him. Henry quitted the diet in great haste; and found two of the noblest barons in the empire, Guthram de Falkenbourg and Walter de Than, waiting for him at the gates of his palace. The emperor invited them to enter with him, and led them into his chamber, when perceiving sadness and gloom painted on their faces, he demanded “why they appeared so thoughtful and sorrowful!”

“Because the majesty of the throne is in danger,” replied Guthram, with some abruptness.

“Who has endangered the throne?” demanded the emperor.

“The Empress Praxida, your wife,” said Guthram.

No other tidings would have made Henry of Germany turn pale, for he had only been married to the empress two years, for whom he felt the tenderness of a parent, and the faithful love of a husband. His union with this angelic young woman had given him the only happy hours he had passed during his stormy and unfortunate life. He had not courage at this miserable moment even to ask what his wife had done, but was gathering the strength of a failing heart to do so, when Guthram broke the ominous silence, by saying, “she has done what we cannot pass by unnoticed, for the honor of the imperial throne, and we should deserve the name of traitors to our sovereign lord, if we should hesitate to make her misconduct known to him.”

“What has she done?” again demanded the emperor, growing paler than before.

“In your absence she has encouraged the love of a young knight, and that so openly,” replied Guthram, “that if she gives birth to a son, however the people may rejoice in that event, your nobility will mourn; for though any master is good enough for the multitude, none but the noblest in the empire can command the highest nobles in the world, who will render homage to none but the son of an emperor.”

Henry supported himself against the chair of state on which he leaned, or he would have fallen to the floor, for he remembered that only a month before, the empress had written to him to announce her maternal hopes, with the pleasure natural to a young woman about to become a mother.

“What has become of the knight?” asked the emperor.

“He quitted Cologne as suddenly as he entered it, without any person knowing from whence he came, or whither he is going. His country and name are secrets with which we are unacquainted, but you had better ask the empress, she perhaps, can satisfy your majesty.”

“Very well,” replied the emperor, “Enter, gentlemen, that cabinet.” Then the emperor summoned his chamberlain, and bade him conduct the empress to his chamber. As soon as the emperor was alone, he threw himself into the chair, like a man who had lost his personal strength and mental firmness. He who had endured with unbending fortitude civil and foreign wars, the ban of the church, and the filial revolt, yielded to a doubt. His head, which had borne the weight of a crown for five-and-forty years, without bending beneath the burden, grew feeble under the weight of a suspicion, and hung down as if the hand of a giant was upon it. In a moment the man, who had scarcely passed his full meridian of intellect, forgot every thing—empire, ban, malediction, revolt. He remembered nothing but his wife, the only human being who possessed his entire confidence, and who had deceived him more basely than any other creature had yet done. Much as he had experienced, throughout his long regnal life, of disloyalty and guile, tears fell from his eyes, for the rod of misfortune, like that of Moses, had struck the rock so forcibly, that it had drawn these drops from a source hitherto sealed up and barren.

The empress entered unseen, for her light step had not been heard by her unhappy husband. Fair, blooming, and blue-eyed, with a graceful form, of tall and slender proportions, this daughter of a northern clime approached her lord with a sweet smile, and with almost filial reverence united to conjugal affection, imprinted a chaste kiss on the troubled brow of her lord, who shrank and shuddered as if the touch of her rosy lips had been the fangs of a serpent.

“What is the matter, my lord?” asked the empress, in a tone of alarm.

“Woman,” replied the emperor, raising his head and showing her his tearful eyes, “you have seen me for four years carrying a heavy cross; you have seen my crown a crown of thorns; you have seen my face bathed in the sweat of toil, my brow in blood; but you never saw my eyelids moistened with tears. Well, behold me now—and see me weep!”

“And why do you weep, my dearly-beloved lord?” replied the empress, in a tone of sorrowful inquiry.

“Because, abandoned by my people, denied by my vassals, cursed by the church, and proscribed by my son, I had nothing but you in the world—and you, Praxida, you too have betrayed me.”

The empress stood like a statue, only her complexion, varying from red to pale, betrayed her feelings. “My lord,” said she, “it is not true. You are my liege lord and my sovereign master; but if any other man than yourself had dared to utter such words, I would answer that he lied through envy or malice.”

The emperor turned in the direction of cabinet, and in a loud voice said, “Come in.” The door opened, and Guthram de Falkenbourg, and Walter de Than entered the imperial chamber. The empress, at the sight of her enemies, trembled all over. They advanced to the other side of the emperor’s chair, and, holding up their hands, prepared to make their unjust accusation good upon the first sign he might give.

He motioned them to speak, and they were not slow to avail themselves of his permission.

“Sire,” said they, “what we have told you is true; and we are ready to support the charge at the peril of our bodies and souls, two against two, against any knights who may dare to dispute the truth of our impeachment of the empress.”

“Do you hear what they say, madam! for it shall be done as they have demanded; and if, in a year and a day, you cannot find any knights to clear your fame by a victorious combat, you will be burned alive in the great square of Cologne, in the face of the people, and by the torch of the common hangman.”

“My lord, I invoke the aid of God,” replied the empress, “and I hope, by His grace, my truth and innocence will find vindicators, and will be completely established.”

“Well, be it so,” said the emperor; and he summoned his guards, to whose wardship he consigned his empress. By his command she was conveyed to the lowest apartment in the castle, which differed in nothing from a prison but in name.

She had been imprisoned nearly a twelve-month, and had given birth to a son, condemned, like herself, to the pile. This babe she nourished at her own bosom, and reared with her own hands, like one of the wives of the people. None of her women paid her any attention or rendered her the smallest service, but Douce, Marchioness of Provence, who, having abandoned her own country, then the theatre of civil war, to seek an asylum at the court of her suzerain, had remained faithful to her mistress in her misfortunes. The empress, who had diligently exerted herself, by letters and promises, to procure champions for her ordeal by battle, had been hitherto completely unsuccessful. The renown of her accusers, their prowess in war and revengeful dispositions, had outweighed all her entreaties and largesses. Only three days of the time allowed by the emperor now remained, and the envoy sent by the fair Marchioness of Provence had not yet returned. She began to despair herself—she who had always soothed the despondency of the injured empress with hope.

As to the poor emperor, no one suffered like him; struck by this blow at once as sovereign, husband, and father, he had vowed publicly to join the Crusades, in the hope of averting the wrath of heaven; and the day he had fixed for the vindication or execution of the empress, would bring to him as severe a trial as to that unfortunate and injured princess. He had, at length, given the matter into the care of heaven, and, immuring himself in the most private apartments in his palace of Cologne, gave up all business, whether public or private, having no heart to attend to any thing, whatever. Such was the state of his mind when the dawn of the three hundred and sixty-fifth day found him still miserable, and his accused empress championless.

At noon, he had scarcely quitted his oratory when he was told that a foreign knight, from a distant country, wished to speak to him. The emperor was agitated, for, at the bottom of his heart, he secretly wished that heaven would yet send the unfortunate Praxida a champion; and he received him in the same chamber in which, sitting in the same chair, he had commanded the arrest of the empress. The knight entered, and bent his knee to the ground. The emperor bade him rise, and declare the occasion of his visit to his court.

“My lord,” replied the unknown knight, “I am a Spanish count. I was told at matins that the empress, your spouse, was accused by two knights of your court, and that if, within the space of a year and a day, she could not find a champion to defend her by battle, she would be publicly burned. Now, I have heard so much good said of this lady, and she is so renowned for piety throughout the world, that I am come from my own distant land to undertake her quarrel against both her accusers.”

“Count, you are welcome,” replied the emperor. “Certainly you show great friendship for the accused, or a great desire for renown. You are yet in time to save her, for there still remains one day before the sentence to which the laws of Germany condemn the adultress can be put in force against her.”

“Sire,” said the count, “I have a favor to ask you, which I hope you will courteously grant me. I wish to see the empress, for in this interview I should be able to form some opinion of her guilt or innocence; for, if I think her guilty, I will not imperil my body and soul in battle for her, but if she is innocent, I will fight, not only with one of her accusers, but with both, and indeed, will undertake her defense against every knight in Germany.”

“It is but justice on my part,” replied the emperor, “to grant your request, Sir Count.”

The unknown bowed, and retreated toward the door, but the emperor recalled him. “My lord count, have you made a vow to keep your visor down, and conceal your face?”

“No, sire,” replied the knight.

“Then you will do me the favor to raise your visor, that I may engrave on my memory the features of him who is about to imperil his life to save my honor?”

The knight took off his helmet, and the emperor saw the dark-complexioned, but expressive features of a young man of eighteen or nineteen years. His forehead and head were finely formed, and indicative of talent and power. The monarch regarded the youthful countenance of the champion with a sigh, and remembered with regret that the accusers of Praxida, his empress, were men not only well-skilled in war, but in the prime of manly strength. “May God preserve you, lord count,” said he, “for you appear to me full young for success in the difficult enterprise you have undertaken. Reflect, for there is still time to withdraw your promise.”

“Do me the honor to let me see the empress,” replied the knight, who had no intention of abandoning without cause an unfortunate lady.

The emperor gave him his signet-ring. “Go then, Sir Knight; this seal will open for you the doors of her prison.”

The knight kissed, on his knee, the hand which offered him the ring; then rose, saluted the monarch, and departed.

The sight of the emperor’s signet opened, as he had said, the guarded apartment of the empress, and in ten minutes the youthful champion found himself in the presence of the accused lady, for whom he was about to risk his life.

The empress was seated on her bed, nursing her infant. Accustomed to the entrance of her jailors, and for a long time abandoned by her women, she never even raised her head when the door was opened, only, by the instinct of modesty, she covered with her mantle her unveiled bosom, still continuing the plaintive hymn by which she lulled her babe to rest, accompanying the air with the movement of a nurse who rocks her babe to sleep.

The knight contemplated for some minutes, in tearful silence, this moving picture of fallen greatness, till, perceiving that the empress seemed unconscious of his vicinity, he accosted her in these words: “Madam, deign to raise your eyes, and honor with your notice, a man whom the renown of your virtue has led from a distant land, to vindicate your honor, defamed, he trusts, by false accusation; but before I undertake your cause, it is absolutely necessary that I should learn from you whether you are innocent of the charge laid against you. For, madam, I require a clear conscience, as well as a strong arm, since a trial by battle is an appeal to God, the judge of all, to decide the cause by the victory or fall of the champion. In the name of heaven, I entreat you to speak the truth; in which case, if you can prove your innocence to me, I swear by my knighthood that I will defend you to the last drop of my blood; trusting that the Lord will strengthen me to do your battle with such power as will clear your honor, and preserve my own life.”

“First, let me thank you, Sir Knight,” replied the empress, shedding tears of joy; “but, before I clear up my fame in your hearing, I pray you tell me your name, and permit me to see your face.”

“My face, madam, may be seen by every body,” said the count; “but my name is a different thing, since I have sworn to tell it to none but you.” He removed his helmet, and displayed to her sight his noble and ingenuous countenance, full of the fire and intelligence of upright youth verging upon manhood.

“Your name and quality, then, be pleased to show me,” replied the empress.

“I am a prince of Spain: Raymond Berenger, Count of Barcelona.”

At that name, so celebrated from father to son for lofty generosity and heroic deeds, the empress clasped her hands together, while a smile of joy lighted up her beautiful features through her tears, like a sunbeam breaking through a watery cloud.

“My lord, I can never repay you for the consolation you have afforded me this day; but you have demanded the truth from me—the whole truth: I ought to tell it you, and I will not disguise it from your knowledge. It is true that there came, in my husband’s absence, to the court of Cologne, a young and handsome knight, who, perhaps, was under some vow, either to his sovereign or the lady of his heart, to conceal his name and rank; for he told them to no one, not even to me. It was supposed, from his magnificence and generosity, that he was the son of a king; but we called him, from the gem he wore on his finger, the Knight of the Emerald. It is true that he sometimes conversed with me; but with so much respect, that I could not distance him without appearing to consider his attention as a matter of more consequence than it really was. Still he made a point of attending me on every public occasion. It happened one day, when we were hawking on the borders of the Rhine, and were got as far as Lusdorf, without meeting any game, till at last a heron rose, and I unhooded and cast off my falcon, who immediately soared; and, as he was a fine one, of true Norwegian breed, he soon reached the quarry, and I put my horse to a full gallop, to be in at the death. Carried away by my ardor, I leaped a stream, followed by none of my ladies but Douce, for they were timid horsewomen. The wicked knights, who have falsely slandered me, could not take the leap on their heavy steeds, but led my ladies to a fordable part of the rivulet. While making to the spot where the game had fallen, we saw a mounted cavalier fly from it like a phantom, and reËnter a wood along the shore. The heron we found fluttering in the agonies of death, for the falcon had pierced his brain; but he still held an emerald ring in his beak, which Douce, as well as myself, immediately recognised as the one we had often seen on the finger of the unknown knight, whom we rightly supposed to be the cavalier who had galloped into the wood. I was wrong, I will own, to do as I then did; but women are vain and thoughtless. So, instead of throwing the jewel into the stream, as I ought, perhaps, to have done, I put it on my finger, and displaying it to my suite as they came up, related the adventure, without being aware of my own imprudence. Nobody, however, doubted the truth of my recital but Guthram and Walter, who smiled incredulously, in a manner that seemed to ask explanations which would have compromised my dignity, without allaying their unjust suspicions. I put on my glove, replaced my falcon on my wrist, without meeting with any other extraordinary discovery. At mass, however, I again met the knight of the emerald, and then perceived that he was without his ring, which, from that moment, I resolved to return to him upon the first suitable opportunity. A week after this adventure, the festival of Cologne was held. You are aware that this feast attracts a concourse of people from all parts of Germany: minstrels, players, and jongleurs of course abound. Among these last, there was a man who showed wild beasts, which he displayed on a theatre built for the occasion, in the grand square, where the spectators could gaze without danger on a lion from Barbery, and a tiger from India. Seated in a gallery, raised fifteen feet above them—I was there with my ladies—when, happening to discover the knight of the emerald among the company, I was going to give the ring to Douce, in order to restore it to him, when a spring from the tiger, accompanied by a dreadful roar, so terrified me, that I dropped the jewel from my finger into the cage of the lion, which was immediately below the balcony in which I was placed. Instantly, before I could utter a word, I saw the knight in the theatre, sword in hand. The tiger remained for a moment quiet, apparently astonished at the unparalleled boldness of the action, before he sprung upon the dauntless stranger; then we saw what appeared like a flash of lighting, and the head of the monster rolled upon the sand, upon which his immense body and terrible paws were deeply impressed. The knight took a diamond agraffe from his cap, flung it to the wild-beast man, and thrusting his arm through the bars of the lion’s cage, took up the ring I had dropped, and brought it to me, while the air rang with the acclamations of the spectators; but, as I had resolved to return it to him, I put back his hand, and said—‘No, my lord knight; this ring has cost you too dear for me to retain. Keep it in remembrance of me.’ These were the last words I ever addressed to him; for fearing the adventure would make more noise, I dispatched Douce with a message to the knight of the emerald, beseeching him in my name to quit Cologne. He departed the same evening, without informing me of his name or quality, or telling me whence he came, or whither he was going. This, my lord count, is the whole truth. And if I have been imprudent, I have, I think, paid dearly for my fault, by a twelve-month’s imprisonment, and a false accusation, that imperils my life.”

The count drew his sword, and turning the cross of the handle most reverently toward the empress, said—

“Swear to me, madam, upon this blade, that what you have just now related to me is perfectly true.”

“I swear,” replied the empress, “that I have told you nothing but the truth.”

“Well, by this sword, and the help of God, you shall be delivered from this prison, in which you have been confined a year, and be cleared also from the deadly accusation that clouds your fame.”

“May God grant it!” said the pious empress.

“Now, madam, will you bestow upon me one of your jewels, in token that you accept me for your knight?”

“My lord count, take this gold chain, the only relic of my former state that I still possess. This pledge will serve as a proof that I have chosen you for my champion.”

“Madam, I take it with thanks,” replied the Count of Barcelona, returning, as he spoke, his sword to its scabbard, and replacing his helmet on his head. He bowed courteously to the fair prisoner, and rejoined the emperor, who was anxiously expecting his return.

“Sire,” said the count, “I have seen her majesty, the empress, and am satisfied with her explanations. Will you, therefore, be pleased to inform her accusers, that I am ready to do battle in her cause with one or both—either together, or by single combat.”

“My lord count,” replied the emperor, “you shall engage them separately; for it shall never be said that a knight who undertook the cause of an accused lady in so noble a manner did not find noble enemies.”

[To be continued.

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BY MARIE DELAMAIE.

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PROEM.—Giant Night in grim repose was sleeping beneath the soft influence of the moonbeams, which spread over him like the silvery drapery of a bridal couch; when the fairies came forth from their flowery abodes, and engaged in their merry dance, with laughter and song; till, growing boisterous in their mirth, they aroused old Nox from his slumber, who, frowning, drove the affrighted moon behind the western hills, when the children of Gladness hid themselves in haste. But when Aurora, Goddess of the Morning, showed her radiant face in the east, Darkness folded his wings and retired before her.

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BY MRS. MOODY.

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JEANIE BURNS.

Old man James came to me to request the loan of one of the horses, to attend a funeral. M. was absent on business, and the horses and the man’s time were both greatly needed to prepare the land for the fall crops. I demurred; James looked anxious and disappointed; and the loan of the horse was at length granted, but not without a strict injunction that he should return to his work the moment the funeral was over. He did not come back until late that evening. I had just finished my tea, and was nursing my wrath at his staying out the whole day, when the door of the room (we had but one, and that was shared in common with the servants,) opened, and the delinquent at last appeared. He hung up the new English saddle, and sat down by the blazing hearth without speaking a word.

“What detained you so long, James? You ought to have had half an acre of land, at least, ploughed to-day.”

“Verra true, mistress. It was nae fau’t o’ mine. I had mista’en the hour. The funeral didna’ come in afore sun-down, and I cam’ awa’ directly it was ower.”

“Was it any relation of yours!”

“Na, na, jist a freend, an auld acquaintance, but nane o’ my ain kin. I never felt sae sad in a’ my life, as I ha’ dune this day. I ha’ seen the clods piled on many a heid, and never felt the saut tear in my e’en. But, puir Jeanie! puir lass. It was a sair sight to see them thrown doon upon her.”

My curiosity was excited; I pushed the tea-things from me, and told Bell to give James his supper.

“Naething for me the night, Bell—I canna’ eat—my thoughts will a’ rin on that puir lass. Sae young—sae bonnie, an’ a few months ago as blythe as a lark, an’ now a clod o’ the earth. Hout, we maun all dee when our ain time comes; but, somehow, I canna’ think that Jeanie ought to ha’ gane sae sune.”

“Who is Jeanie Burns? Tell me, James, something about her.”

In compliance with my request, the man gave the following story. I wish I could convey it in his own words, but though I can perfectly understand the Scotch dialect when spoken, I could not write it in its charming simplicity: that honest, truthful brevity, which is so characteristic of this noble people.

“Jeanie Burns was the daughter of a respectable shoemaker, who gained a comfortable living by his trade in a small town in Ayrshire. Her father, like herself, was an only child, and followed the same vocation, and wrought under the same roof that his father had done before him. The elder Burns had met with many reverses, and now helpless and blind, was entirely dependent upon the charity of his son. Honest Jock had not married until late in life, that he might more comfortably provide for the wants of his aged parent. His mother had been dead for some years. She was a meek, pious woman, and Jock quaintly affirmed, ‘That it had pleased the Lord to provide a better inheritance for his dear auld mither than his arm could win, proud and happy as he would have been to have supported her when she was no longer able to work for him.’

“Jock’s paternal love was repaid at last; chance threw in his way a canny young lass, baith guid and bonny: they were united, and Jeanie was the sole fruit of this marriage. But Jeanie proved a host in herself, and grew up the best natured, the prettiest, and the most industrious lass in the village, and was a general favorite both with young and old. She helped her mother in the house, bound shoes for her father, and attended to all the wants of her dear old grandfather, Saunders Burns; who was so much attached to his little handmaid that he was never happy when she was absent.

“Happiness is not a flower of long growth in the world; it requires the dew and sunlight of Heaven to nourish it, and it soon withers, removed from its native skies. The cholera visited the remote village. It smote the strong man in the pride of his strength, and the matron in the beauty of her prime; while it spared the helpless and the aged, the infant of a few days, and the parent of many years. Both Jeanie’s parents fell victims to the fatal disease, and the old blind Saunders and the young Jeanie were left to fight alone a hard battle with poverty and grief. The truly deserving are never entirely forsaken. God may afflict them with many trials, but he watches over them still, and often provides for their wants in a manner truly miraculous. Sympathizing friends gathered round the orphan girl in her hour of need, and obtained for her sufficient employment to enable her to support her old grandfather and herself, and provide for them the common necessaries of life.

“Jeanie was an excellent seamstress, and what between making waistcoats and trowsers for the sailors, and binding shoes for the shoemakers, a business that she thoroughly understood, she soon had her little hired room neatly furnished, and her grandfather as clean and spruce as ever. When she led him into the kirk of a Sabbath morning, all the neighbors greeted the dutiful daughter with an approving smile, and the old man looked so serene and happy that Jeanie was fully repaid for her labors of love.

“Her industry and piety often formed the theme of conversation to the young lads of the village. ‘What a guid wife Jeanie Burns will mak’,’ cried one. ‘Ay,’ said another, ‘he need na complain o’ ill-fortin, who has the luck to get the like o’ her.’

“‘An’ she’s sae bonnie,’ would Willie Robertson add with a sigh, ‘I would na’ covet the wealth o’ the hale world an she were mine.’

“Willie was a fine, active young man, who bore an excellent character, and his comrades thought it very likely that Willie was to be the fortunate man.

“Robertson was the youngest son of a farmer in the neighborhood. He had no land of his own, and he was one of a very large family. From a boy he had assisted his father in working the farm for their common maintenance; but after he took to looking at Jeanie Burns at kirk, instead of minding his prayers, he began to wish that he had a homestead of his own, which he could ask Jeanie and her grandfather to share. He made his wishes known to his father. The old man was prudent. A marriage with Jeanie Burns offered no advantages in a pecuniary view. But the girl was a good, honest girl, of whom any man might be proud. He had himself married for love, and had enjoyed great comfort in his wife.

“‘Willie, my lad,’ he said, ‘I canna’ gi’e ye a share o’ the farm. It is ower sma’ for the mony mouths it has to feed. I ha’e laid by a little siller for a rainy day, an’ this I will gi’e ye to win a farm for yersel’ in the woods o’ Canada. There is plenty o’ room there, an’ industry brings its ain reward. If Jeanie Burns lo’es you, as weel as yer dear mither did me, she will be fain to follow you there.’

“Willie grasped his father’s hand, for he was too much elated to speak, and he ran away to tell his tale of love to the girl of his heart. Jeanie had long loved Robertson in secret, and they were not long in settling the matter. They forgot in their first moments of joy that old Saunders had to be consulted, for they had determined to take the old man with them. But here an obstacle occurred of which they had not dreamed. Old age is selfish, and Saunders obstinately refused to comply with their wishes. The grave that held the remains of his wife and son was dearer to him than all the comforts promised to him by the impatient lovers in that far foreign land. Jeanie wept—but Saunders, deaf and blind, neither heard nor saw her grief, and, like a dutiful child, she breathed no complaint to him, but promised to remain with him until his head rested upon the same pillow with the dead.

“This was a sore and great trial to Willie Robertson, but he consoled himself for his disappointment with the thought that Saunders could not live long, and that he would go and prepare a place for his Jean, and have every thing ready for her reception against the old man died.

“‘I was a cousin of Willie’s,” continued James, ‘by the mither’s side, and he persuaded me to accompany him to Canada. We set sail the first day of May, and were here in time to chop a small fallow for a fall crop. While Robertson had more of this world’s gear than I, for his father had provided him with sufficient funds to purchase a good lot of wild land, which he did in the township of M——, and I was to work with him, on shares. We were one of the first settlers in that place, and we found the work before us rough and hard to our heart’s content. But Willie had a strong motive for exertion—and never did man work harder than he did that first year on his bush-farm, for the love of Jeanie Burns.’

“We built a comfortable log-house, in which we were assisted by the few neighbors we had, who likewise lent a hand in clearing ten acres we had chopped for fall crop.

“All this time Willie kept up a constant correspondence with Jeanie Burns; and he used to talk to me of her coming out, and his future plans, every night when our work was done. If I had not loved and respected the girl mysel’ I should have got unco tired o’ the subject.

“We had just put in our first crop of wheat, when a letter came from Jeanie bringing us the news of her grandfather’s death. Weel I ken the word that Willie spak’ to me when he closed that letter. ‘Jamie, the auld man is gane at last—an’, God forgi’e me, I feel too gladsome to greet. Jeanie is willin’ to come whenever I ha’e the means to bring her out, an’, hoot man, I’m jist thinkin’ that she winna’ ha’e to wait lang.’

“Good workmen were getting very high wages just then, and Willie left the care of the place to me, and hired for three months with auld Squire Jones. He was an excellent teamster, and could put his hand to any sort of work. When his term of service expired he sent Jeanie forty dollars, to pay her passage out, which he hoped she would not delay longer than the spring.

“He got an answer from Jeanie full of love and gratitude, but she thought that her voyage might be delayed until the fall. The good woman, with whom she had lodged since her parent’s died, had just lost her husband, and was in a bad state of health, and she begged Jeanie to stay with her until her daughter could leave her service in Edinburgh and come to take charge of the house. This person had been a kind and steadfast friend to Jeanie in all her troubles, and had helped her nurse the old man in his dying illness. I am sure it was just like Jeanie to act as she did. She had all her life looked more to the comforts of others than to her ain. But Robertson was an angry man when he got that letter, and he said, ‘If that was a’ the lo’e that Jeanie Burns had for him, to prefer an auld woman’s comfort, who was naething to her, to her betrothed husband, she might bide awa’ as lang as she pleased, he would never trouble himsel’ to write to her again.’

“I did na’ think that the man was in earnest, an’ I remonstrated with him on his folly an’ injustice. This ended in a sharp quarrel atween us, and I left him to gang his ain gate, an’ went to live with my uncle, who kept a blacksmith’s forge in the village.

“After a while, we heard that Willie Robertson was married to a Canadian woman—neither young nor good-looking, and very much his inferior in every way, but she had a good lot of land in the rear of his farm. Of course I thought that it was all broken off with puir Jeanie, and I wondered what she would spier at the marriage.

“It was early in June, and our Canadian woods were in their first flush o’ green—an’ how green and lightsome they be in their spring dress—when Jeanie Burns landed in Canada. She traveled her lane up the country, wondering why Willie was not at Montreal to meet her as he had promised in the last letter he sent her. It was late in the afternoon when the steamboat brought her to C——, and, without waiting to ask any questions respecting him, she hired a man and cart to take her and her luggage to M——. The road through the bush was very heavy, and it was night before they reached Robertson’s clearing, and with some difficulty the driver found his way among the logs to the cabin-door.

“Hearing the sound of wheels, the wife, a coarse, ill-dressed slattern, came out to see what could bring strangers to such an out-o’-the-way place at that late hour. ‘Puir Jeanie! I can weel imagine the fluttering o’ her heart when she spier’d of the woman for ane Willie Robertson, and asked if he was at hame?’

“‘Yes,’ answered the wife gruffly; ‘but he is not in from the fallow yet—you may see him up yonder, tending the blazing logs.’

“While Jeanie was striving to look in the direction which the woman pointed out, and could na’ see through the tears that blinded her e’e, the driver jumped down from the cart, and asked the puir girl where he should leave her trunks, as it was getting late, and he must be off.

“‘You need not bring these big chests in here,’ said Mrs. Robertson; ‘I have no room in my house for strangers and their luggage.’

“‘Your house!’ gasped Jeanie, catching her arm. ‘Did you na’ tell me that he lived here?—and whereever Willie Robertson bides Jeanie Burns sud be a welcome guest. Tell him,’ she continued, trembling all ower, for she told me afterward that there was something in the woman’s look and tone that made the cold chills run to her heart, ‘that an auld friend from Scotland has jist came off a lang, wearisome journey to see him.’

“‘You may speak for yourself!’ cried the woman angrily, ‘for my husband is now coming down the clearing.’

“The word husband was scarcely out o’ her mouth than puir Jeanie fell as ane dead across the doorstep.

“The driver lifted up the unfortunate girl, carried her into the cabin, and placed her in a chair, regardless of the opposition of Mrs. Robertson, whose jealousy was now fairly aroused, and who declared that the bold huzzie should not enter her doors.

“It was a long time before the driver succeeded in bringing Jeanie to herself, and she had only just unclosed her eyes when Willie came in.

“‘Wife,’ he said, ‘whose cart is this standing at the door, and what do these people want here?’

“‘You know best,’ cried the angry woman, bursting into tears; ‘that creature is no acquaintance of mine, and if she is suffered to remain here, I will leave the house.’

“‘Forgi’e me, good woman, for having unwittingly offended ye,’ said Jeanie, rising. ‘But, merciful Father! how sud I ken that Willie Robertson, my ain Willie, had a wife? Oh, Willie!’ she cried, covering her face in her hands, to hide all the agony that was in her heart, ‘I ha’ come a lang way, as’ a weary to see ye, an’ ye might ha’ spared me the grief—the burning shame o’ this. Farewell, Willie Robertson!—I will never mair trouble ye nor her wi’ my presence, but this cruel deed of yours has broken my heart!’

“She went away weeping, and he had not the courage to detain her, or say one word to comfort her, or account for his strange conduct; yet, if I know him right, that must ha’ been the most sorrowfu’ moment in his life.

“Jeanie was a distant connection of my uncle’s, and she found us out that night on her return to the village, and told us all her grief. My aunt, who was a kind, good woman, was indignant at the treatment she had received, and loved and cherished her as if she had been her own child.

“For two whole weeks she kept her bed, and was so ill that the doctor despaired of her life; and when she did come again among us, the color had faded from her cheeks, and the light from her sweet blue eyes, and she spoke in a low, subdued voice, but she never spoke of him as the cause of her grief.

“One day she called me aside and said—

“‘Jamie, you know how I lo’ed an’ trusted him, an’ obeyed his ain wishes in comin’ out to this strange country to be his wife. But ’tis all over now,’ and she pressed her sma’ hands tightly over her breast, to keep doon the swelling o’ her heart. ‘Jamie, I know now that it is a’ for the best; I lo’ed him too weel—mair than ony creature sud lo’e a perishing thing o’ earth. But I thought that he wud be sae glad an’ sae proud to see his ain Jeanie sae sune. But, oh!—ah, weel!—I maun na think o’ that; what I wud jist say is this,’ an’ she took a sma’ packet fra’ her breast, while the tears streamed down her pale cheeks. ‘He sent me forty dollars to bring me ower the sea to him—God bless him for that!—I ken he worked hard to earn it, for he lo’ed me then—I was na’ idle during his absence. I had saved enough to bury my dear auld grandfather, and to pay my ain expenses out; and I thought, like the gude servant in the parable, I wud return Willie his ain with interest; an’ I hoped to see him smile at my diligence, an’ ca’ me his bonnie gude lassie. Jamie, I canna’ keep this siller—it lies like a weight o’ lead on my heart. Tak’ it back to him, an’ tell him fra’ me, that I forgi’e him his cruel deceit, an’ pray to God to grant him prosperity, and restore to him that peace o’ mind o’ which he has robbed me forever.’

“I did as she bade me. Willie looked stupefied when I delivered her message. The only remark he made, when I gave him back the money, was—‘I maun be gratefu’, man, that she did na’ curse me.’ The wife came in, and he hid away the packet and slunk off. The man looked degraded in his own eyes, and so wretched, that I pitied him from my very heart.

“When I came home, Jeanie met me at my uncle’s gate.

“‘Tell me?’ she said, in a low, anxious voice, ‘tell me, Cousin Jamie, what passed atween ye? Had he nae word for me?’

“‘Naething, Jeanie; the man is lost to himsel’—to a’ who ance wished him weel. He is not worth a decent body’s thought.’

“She sighed deeply, for I saw that her heart craved after some word fra’ him; but she said nae mair, but pale and sorrowfu’ the very ghaist o’ her former sel’, went back into the house.

“From that hour she never breathed his name to ony of us; but we all ken’d that it was her love for him, that was preying upon her life. The grief that has nae voice, like the canker-worm, always lies ne’est to the heart. Puir Jeanie! she held out during the simmer, but when the fall came, she just withered awa’ like a flower nipped by the early frost, and this day we laid her in the earth.

“After the funeral was ower, and the mourners were all gone, I stood beside her grave, thinking ower the days of my boyhood, when she and I were happy weans, an’ used to pu’ the gowans together, on the heathery hills o’ dear auld Scotland. An’ I tried in vain to understan’ the mysterious providence o’ God, who had stricken her who seemed sae gude and pure, an’ spared the like o’ me, who was mair deservin’ o’ his wrath, when I heard a deep groan, an’ I saw Willie Robertson standing near me beside the grave.

“‘Ye may as weel spare your grief, noo,’ said I, for I felt hard toward him, an’ rejoice that the weary is at rest.’

“‘It was I murdered her,’ said he, ‘an’ the thought will haunt me to my last day. Did she remember me on her death-bed?’

“‘Her thoughts were only ken’d by Him who reads the secrets of a’ hearts, Willie. Her end was peace, an’ her Saviour’s blessed name was the last sound upon her lips. But if ever woman died fra’ a broken heart, there she lies.’

“‘Oh, Jeanie!’ he cried, mine ain darling Jennie! my blessed lammie! I was na’ worthy o’ yer love—my heart, too, is breaking. To bring ye back aince mair, I wud lay me down an’ dee!’

“An’ he flung himsel’ upon the grave, and embraced the fresh clods, and greeted like a child.

“When he grew more calm, we had a long conversation about the past, and truly I believe that the man was not in his right senses when he married yon wife; at ony rate, he is not lang for this world; he has fretted the flesh aff his banes, an’ before many months are ower, his heid will lie as low as puir Jeanie Burns’s.”

---

THE LAST HOUR OF SAPPHO.

———

BY E. ANNA LEWIS.

———

---

The night of the 30th of June, 1793, is memorable in the prison annals of Paris, as the last night in confinement of the leaders of the famous Girondin party in the first French Revolution. On the morning of the 31st, the twenty-one deputies, who represented the department of the Gironde, were guillotined, to make way for Robespierre and the Reign of Terror.

With these men fell the last revolutionists of that period, who shrank from founding a republic on massacre; who recoiled from substituting for a monarchy of corruption, a monarchy of bloodshed. The elements of their defeat lay as much in themselves, as in the events of their time. They were not, as a party, true to their own convictions; they temporised; they fatally attempted to take a middle course amid the terrible emergencies of a terrible epoch, and they fell—fell before worse men, because those men were in earnest.

Condemned to die, the Girondins submitted nobly to their fate; their great glory was the glory of their deaths. The speech of one of them, on hearing his sentence pronounced, was a prophecy of the future, fulfilled to the letter.

“I die,” he said to the Jacobin judges, the creatures of Robespierre, who tried him, “I die at a time when the people have lost their reason: you will die on the day when they recover it.”

Valaze was the only member of the condemned party who displayed a momentary weakness; he stabbed himself on hearing his sentence pronounced. But the blow was not mortal—he died on the scaffold, and died bravely with the rest.

On the night of the 30th, the Girondists held their famous banquet in the prison; celebrated, with the ferocious stoicism of the time, their last social meeting before, the morning on which they were to die. Other men, besides the twenty-one, were present at this supper of the condemned. They were prisoners who held Girondin opinions, but whose names were not illustrious enough for history to preserve. Though sentenced to confinement, they were not sentenced to death. Some of their number, who had protested most boldly against the condemnation of the deputies, were ordered to witness the execution on the morrow, as a timely example to terrify them into submission. More than this, Robespierre and his colleagues did not as yet venture to attempt: the Reign of Terror was a cautious reign at starting.

The supper-table of the prison was spread: the guests, twenty-one of their number stamped already with the seal of death, were congregated at the last Girondin banquet: toast followed toast; the Marseillaise was sung; the desperate triumph of the feast was rising fast to its climax, when a new and ominous subject of conversation was started at the lower end of the table, and spread electrically, almost in a moment, to the top.

This subject—by whom originated no one knew—was simply a question as to the hour in the morning at which the execution was to take place. Every one of the prisoners appeared to be in ignorance on this point; and the gaolers either could not, or would not enlighten them. Until the cart for the condemned rolled into the prison-yard, not one of the Girondins could tell whether he was to be called out to the guillotine soon after sunrise, or not till near noon.

This uncertainty was made a topic for discussion, or for jesting on all sides. It was eagerly seized on as a pretext for raising to the highest pitch the ghastly animation and hilarity of the evening. In some quarters, the recognized hour of former executions was quoted, as a precedent sure to be followed by the executioners of the morrow; in others, it was asserted that Robespierre and his party would purposely depart from established customs in this, as in previous instances. Dozens of wild schemes were suggested for guessing the hour, by fortune-telling rules on the cards; bets were offered and accepted among the prisoners who were not condemned to death, and witnessed in stoical mockery by the prisoners who were. Jests were exchanged about early rising and hurried toilets: in short, every man contributed an assertion, a contradiction, or a witticism to keep up the new topic of conversation, with one solitary exception. That exception was the Girondin Duprat, one of the deputies who was sentenced to die by the guillotine.

He was a younger man than the majority of his brethren, and was personally remarkable by his pale, handsome, melancholy face, and his reserved yet gentle manners. Throughout the evening he had spoken but rarely; there was something of the silence and serenity of a martyr in his demeanor. That he feared death as little as any of his companions was plainly visible in his bright steady eye; in his unchanging complexion; in his firm, calm voice, when he occasionally addressed those who happened to be near him. But he was evidently out of place at the banquet; his temperament was reflective, his disposition serious; feasts were at no time a sphere in which he was calculated to shine.

His taciturnity, while the hour of the execution was under discussion, had separated him from most of those with whom he sat, at the lower end of the table. They edged up toward the top, where the conversation was most general and most animated. One of his friends, however, still kept his place by Duprat’s side, and thus questioned him anxiously, but in low tones, on the cause of his immovable silence—

“Are you the only man of the company, Duprat, who has neither a guess nor a joke to make about the time of the execution?”

“I never joke, Marigny,” was the answer given, with a slight smile which had something of the sarcastic in it; “and as for guessing at the time of the execution, I never guess at things which I know.”

“Know! You know the hour of the execution? Then why not communicate your knowledge to your friends around you?”

“Because not one of them would believe what I said.”

“But, surely, you could prove it. Somebody must have told you?”

“Nobody has told me.”

“You have seen some private letter, then; or you have managed to get sight of the execution-order; or—”

“Spare your conjectures, Marigny. I have not read, as I have not been told, what is the hour at which we are to die to-morrow.”.

“Then how on earth can you possibly know it?”

“I do not know when the execution will begin, or when it will end—I only know that it will be going on at nine o’clock to-morrow morning. Out of the twenty-one who are to suffer death, one will be guillotined exactly at that hour. Whether he will be the first whose head falls, or the last, I cannot tell.”

“And pray who may this man be, who is to die exactly at nine o’clock? Of course, prophetically knowing so much, you know that?”

“I do know it. I am the man whose death by the guillotine will take place exactly at the hour I have mentioned.”

“You said just now, Duprat, that you never joked. Do you expect me to believe that what you have just spoken is spoken in earnest?”

“I repeat that I never joke, and I answer that I expect you to believe me. I know the hour at which my death will take place to-morrow, just as certainly as I know the fact of my own existence to-night.”

“But how? My dear friend, can you really lay claim to supernatural intuition, in this eighteenth century of the world, in this renowned Age of Reason?”

“No two men, Marigny, understand that word, supernatural, exactly in the same sense: you and I differ about its meaning; or, in other words, differ about the real distinction between the doubtful and the true. We will not discuss the subject: I wish to be understood, at the outset, as laying claim to no superior intuitions whatever; but I tell you, at the same time, that even in this Age of Reason, I have reason for what I have said. My father and my brother both died at nine o’clock in the morning, and were both warned very strangely of their deaths. I am the last of my family: I was warned last night, as they were warned; and I shall die by the guillotine, as they died in their beds, at the fatal hour of nine.”

“But, Duprat, why have I never heard of this before? As your eldest and, I am sure, your dearest friend, I thought you had long since trusted me with all your secrets?”

“And you shall know this secret: I only kept it from you till the time when I could be certain that my death would substantiate my words, to the very letter. Come—you are as bad supper-company as I am: let us slip away from the table unperceived, while our friends are all engaged in conversation. Yonder end of the hall is dark and quiet—we can speak there uninterruptedly, for some hours to come.”

He led the way from the supper-table, followed by Marigny. Arrived at one of the darkest and most retired corners of the great hall of the prison, Duprat spoke again—

“I believe, Marigny,” he said, “that you are one of those who have been ordered by our tyrants to witness my execution, and the execution of my brethren, as a warning spectacle for an enemy to the Jacobin cause?”

“My dear, dear friend, it is too true: I am ordered to witness the butchery which I cannot prevent—our last awful parting will be at the foot of the scaffold. I am among the victims who are spared—mercilessly spared—for a little while yet.”

“Say the martyrs! We die as martyrs—calmly, hopefully, innocently. When I am placed under the guillotine to-morrow morning, listen, my friend, for the striking of the church clocks—listen for the hour while you look your last on me! Until that time suspend your judgement on the strange chapter of family history which I am now about to relate.”

Marigny took his friend’s hand, and promised compliance with the request. Duprat then began as follows—

---

“You knew my brother Alfred when he was quite a youth, and you knew something of what people flippantly termed the eccentricities of his character. He was three years my junior; but, from childhood, he showed far less of a child’s innate levity and happiness than his elder brother. He was noted for his seriousness and thoughtfulness as a boy; showed little inclination for a boy’s usual lessons, and less still for a boy’s usual recreations—in short, he was considered by every body (my father included) as deficient in intellect; as a vacant dreamer, and an inveterate idler, whom it was hopeless to improve. Our tutor tried to lead him to various studies, and tried in vain. It was the same when the cultivation of his mind was given up, and the cultivation of his body was next attempted. The fencing-master could make nothing of him; and the dancing-master, after the first three lessons, resigned in despair. Seeing that it was useless to set others to teach him, my father made a virtue of necessity, and left him, if he chose, to teach himself.

“To the astonishment of every one, he had not been long consigned to his own guidance, when he was discovered in the library, reading every old treatise on astrology which he could lay his hands on. He had rejected all useful knowledge for the most obsolete of obsolete sciences—the old abandoned delusion of divination by the stars! My father laughed heartily over the strange study to which his idle son had at last applied himself, but made no attempt to oppose his new caprice, and sarcastically presented him with a telescope on his next birthday. I should remind you here, of what you may perhaps have forgotten, that my father was a philosopher of the Voltaire school, who believed that the summit of human wisdom was to arrive at the power of sneering at all enthusiasms, and doubting of all truths. Apart from his philosophy, he was a kind hearted, easy man, of quick rather than of profound intelligence. He could see nothing in my brother’s new occupation but the evidence of a new idleness; a fresh caprice, which would be abandoned in a few months. My father was not the man to appreciate those yearnings toward the poetical and the spiritual which were part of Alfred’s temperament, and which gave to his peculiar studies of the stars and their influences, a certain charm altogether unconnected with the more practical attractions of scientific investigation.

“This idle caprice of my brother’s, as my father insisted on terming it, had lasted more than a twelve-month, when there occurred the first of a series of mysterious and—as I consider them—supernatural events, with all of which Alfred was very remarkably connected. I was myself a witness of the strange circumstance which I am now about to relate to you.

“One day—my brother being then sixteen years of age—I happened to go into my father’s study during his absence, and found Alfred there, standing close to a window which looked into the garden. I walked up to him, and observed a curious expression of vacancy and rigidity in his face, especially in his eyes. Although I knew him to be subject to what are called fits of absence, I still thought it rather extraordinary that he never moved, and never noticed me when I was close to him. I took his hand, and asked if he was unwell. His flesh felt quite cold: neither my touch nor my voice produced the smallest sensation in him. Almost at the same moment, when I noticed this, I happened to be looking accidentally toward the garden. There was my father walking along one of the paths, and there by his side, walking with him, was another Alfred!—Another; yet exactly the same as the Alfred by whose side I was standing, whose hand I still held in mine!

“Thoroughly panic-stricken, I dropped his hand, and uttered a cry of terror. At the loud sound of my voice, the statue-like presence before me immediately began to show signs of animation. I looked round again at the garden. The figure of my brother which I had beheld there was gone, and I saw to my horror that my father was looking for it—looking in all directions for the companion (spectre or human being) of his walk.

“When I turned toward Alfred once more, he had (if I may so express it) come to life again, and was asking—with his usual gentleness of manner and kindness of voice—why I was looking so pale. I evaded the question by making some excuse, and in my turn inquired of him how long he had been in my father’s study.

“‘Surely you ought to know best,’ he answered, with a laugh, ‘for you must have been here before me. It is not many minutes ago since I was walking in the garden with—’

“Before he could complete the sentence my father entered the room.

“‘Oh! here you are, Master Alfred,’ said he. ‘May I ask for what purpose you took it into your wise head to vanish in that extraordinary manner? Why you slipped away from me in an instant, while I was picking a flower? On my word, sir, you’re a better player at hide-and-seek than your brother—he would only have run into the shrubbery, you have managed to run in here, though how you did it in the time passes my poor comprehension. I was not a moment picking the flower, yet in that moment you were gone!’

“Alfred glanced suddenly and searchingly at me: his face became deadly pale; and, without speaking a word, he hurried from the room.

“‘Can you explain this?’ said my father, looking very much astonished.

“I hesitated a moment, and then told him what I had seen. He took a pinch of snuff—a favorite habit with him when he was going to be sarcastic, in imitation of Voltaire.

“‘One visionary in a family is enough,’ said he: ‘I recommend you not to turn yourself into a bad imitation of your brother Alfred! Send your ghost after me, my good boy! I am going back into the garden, and should like to see him again.’

“Ridicule, even much sharper than this, would have had little effect on me. If I was certain of any thing in the world, I was certain that I had seen my brother in the study—nay, more, had touched him—and equally certain that I had seen his double—his exact similitude in the garden. As far as any man could know that he was in possession of his own senses, I knew myself to be in possession of mine. Left alone to think over what I had beheld, I felt a supernatural terror creeping through me—a terror which increased when I recollected that, on one or two occasions, friends had said they had seen Alfred out of doors, when we all knew him to be at home. These statements—which my father had laughed at, and had taught me to laugh at, either as a trick, or a delusion on the part of others—now recurred to my memory as startling corroborations of what I had just seen myself. The solitude of the study oppressed me in a manner which I cannot describe. I left the apartment to seek Alfred, determined to question him with all possible caution, on the subject of his strange trance, and his sensations at the moment when I had awakened him from it.

“I found him in his bed-room, still pale, and now very thoughtful. As the first words in reference to the scene in the study passed my lips, he started violently, and entreated me, with very unusual warmth of speech and manner, never to speak to him on that subject again—never, if I had any love or regard for him! Of course, I complied with his request. The mystery, however, was not destined to end here.

“About two months after the event which I have just related, we had arranged, one evening, to go to the theatre. My father had insisted that Alfred should be of the party, otherwise he would certainly have declined accompanying us; for he had no inclination whatever for public amusements of any kind. However, with his usual docility, he prepared to obey my father’s desire, by going up-stairs to put on his evening-dress. It was winter time, so he was obliged to take a candle with him.

“We waited in the drawing-room for his return a very long time, so long, that my father was on the point of sending up-stairs to remind him of the lateness of the hour, when Alfred reappeared without the candle which he had taken with him from the room. The ghastly alteration that had passed over his face—the hideous, death-look that distorted his features I shall never forget—I shall see it to-morrow on the scaffold!

“Before either my father or I could utter a word, my brother said—‘I have been taken suddenly ill; but I am better now. Do you still wish me to go to the theatre?’

“‘Certainly not, my dear Alfred,’ answered my father; ‘we must send for the doctor immediately.’

“‘Pray do not call in the doctor, sir; he would be of no use. I will tell you why, if you will let me speak to you alone.’

“My father, looking seriously alarmed, signed to me to leave the room. For more than half an hour I remained absent, suffering almost unendurable suspense and anxiety on my brother’s account. When I was recalled, I observed that Alfred was quite calm, though still deadly pale. My father’s manner displayed an agitation which I had never observed in it before. He rose from his chair when I re-entered the room, and left me alone with my brother.

“‘Promise me,’ said Alfred, in answer to my entreaties to know what had happened, ‘promise that you will not ask me to tell you more than my father has permitted me to tell. It is his desire that I should keep certain things a secret from you.’

“I gave the required promise, but gave it most unwillingly. Alfred then proceeded.

“‘When I left you to go and dress for the theatre, I felt a sense of oppression all over me, which I cannot describe. As soon as I was alone, it seemed as if some part of the life within me was slowly wasting away. I could hardly breathe the air around me, big drops of perspiration burst out on my forehead, and then a feeling of terror seized me which I was utterly unable to control. Some of those strange fancies of seeing my mother’s spirit, which used to influence me at the time of her death, came back again to my mind. I ascended the stairs slowly and painfully, not daring to look behind me, for I heard—yes, heard!—something following me. When I had got into my room, and had shut the door, I began to recover my self-possession a little. But the sense of oppression was still as heavy on me as ever, when I approached the wardrobe to get out my clothes. Just as I stretched forth my hand to turn the key, I saw, to my horror, the two doors of the wardrobe opening of themselves, opening slowly and silently: The candle went out at the same moment, and the whole inside of the wardrobe became to me like a great mirror, with a bright light shining in the middle of it. Out of that light there came a figure, the exact counterpart of myself. Over its breast hung an open scroll, and on that I read the warning of my own death, and a revelation of the destinies of my father and his race. Do not ask me what were the words on the scroll, I have given my promise not to tell you. I may only say that, as soon as I had read all, the room grew dark, and the vision disappeared.’

“Forgetful of my promise, I entreated Alfred to repeat to me the words on the scroll. He smiled sadly, and refused to speak on the subject any more. I next sought out my father, and begged him to divulge the secret. Still sceptical to the last, he answered that one diseased imagination in the family was enough, and that he would not permit me to run the risk of being injected by Alfred’s mental malady. I passed the whole of that day and the next in a state of agitation and alarm which nothing could tranquilize. The sight I had seen in the study gave a terrible significance to the little that my brother had told me. I was uneasy if he was a moment out of my sight. There was something in his expression—calm and even cheerful as it was—which made me dread the worst.

“On the morning of the third day after the occurrence I have just related, I rose very early, after a sleepless night, and went into Alfred’s bed-room. He was awake, and welcomed me with more than usual affection and kindness. As I drew a chair to his bedside, he asked me to get pen, ink and paper, and write down something from his dictation. I obeyed, and found to my terror and distress, that the idea of death was more present to his imagination than ever. He employed me in writing a statement of his wishes in regard to the disposal of all his own little possessions as keepsakes to be given, after he was no more, to my father, myself, the house-servants, and one or two of his most intimate friends. Over and over again I entreated him to tell me whether he really believed that his death was near. He invariably replied that I should soon know, and then led the conversation to indifferent topics. As the morning advanced, he asked to see my father, who came, accompanied by the doctor, the latter having been in attendance for the last two days.

“Alfred took my father’s hand, and begged his forgiveness of any offense, any disobedience of which he had ever been guilty. Then, reaching out his other hand, and taking mine, as I stood on the opposite side of the bed, he asked what the time was. A clock was placed on the mantel-piece of the room, but not in a position in which he could see it as he now lay. I turned round to look at the dial, and answered that it was just on the stroke of nine.

“‘Farewell!’ said Alfred, calmly; ‘in this world, farewell for ever!’

“The next instant the clock struck. I felt his fingers tremble in mine, then grow quite still. The doctor seized a hand-mirror that lay on the table, and held it over his lips. He was dead—dead, as the last chime of the hour echoed through the awful silence of the room!

“I pass over the first days of our affliction. You, who have suffered the loss of a beloved sister, can well imagine their misery. I pass over these days, and pause for a moment at the time when we could speak with some calmness and resignation on the subject of our bereavement. On the arrival of that period, I ventured, in conversation with my father, to refer to the vision which had been seen by our dear Alfred in his bed-room, and to the prophecy which he described himself as having read upon the supernatural scroll.

“Even yet my father persisted in his scepticism; but now, as it seemed to me, more because he was afraid, than because he was unwilling, to believe. I again recalled to his memory what I myself had seen in the study. I asked him to recollect how certain Alfred had been beforehand, and how fatally right, about the day and hour of his death. Still I could get but one answer; my brother had died of a nervous disorder (the doctor said so); his imagination had been diseased from his childhood; there was only one way of treating the vision which he described himself as having seen, and that was not to speak of it again between ourselves; never to speak of it at all to our friends.

“We were sitting in the study during this conversation. It was evening. As my father uttered the last words of his reply to me, I saw his eye turn suddenly and uneasily toward the farther end of the room. In dead silence, I looked in the same direction, and saw the door opening slowly of itself. The vacant space beyond was filled with a bright, steady glow, which hid all outer objects in the hall, and which I cannot describe to you by likening it to any light that we are accustomed to behold either by day or night. In my terror, I caught my father by the arm, and asked him, in a whisper, whether he did not see something extraordinary in the direction of the door-way?

“‘Yes,’ he answered, in tones as low as mine, ‘I see, or fancy I see, a strange light. The subject on which we have been speaking has impressed our feelings as it should not. Our nerves are still unstrung by the shock of the bereavement we have suffered: our senses are deluding us. Let us look away toward the garden.’

“‘But the opening of the door, father; remember the opening of the door!’

“‘Ours is not the first door which has accidentally flown open of itself.’

“‘Then why not shut it again?’

“‘Why not, indeed. I will close it at once.’ He rose, advanced a few paces, then stopped, and came back to his place. ‘It is a warm evening,’ he said, avoiding my eyes, which were eagerly fixed on him, ‘the room will be all the cooler if the door is suffered to remain open.’

“His face grew quite pale as he spoke. The light lasted for a few minutes longer, then suddenly disappeared. For the rest of the evening my father’s manner was very much altered. He was silent and thoughtful, and complained of a feeling of oppression and langor, which he tried to persuade himself was produced by the heat of the weather. At an unusually early hour he retired to his room.

“The next morning, when I got down stairs, I found, to my astonishment, that the servants were engaged in preparations for the departure of somebody from the house. I made inquiries of one of them who was hurriedly packing a trunk. ‘My master, sir, starts for Lyons the first thing this morning,’ was the reply. I immediately repaired to my father’s room, and found him there with an open letter in his hand, which he was reading. His face, as he looked up at me on my entrance, expressed the most violent emotions of apprehension and despair.

“‘I hardly know whether I am awake or dreaming; whether I am the dupe of a terrible delusion, or the victim of a supernatural reality more terrible still,’ he said, in low, awe-struck tones as I approached him. ‘One of the prophecies which Alfred told me in private that he had read upon the scroll, has come true! He predicted the loss of the bulk of my fortune—here is the letter, which informs me that the merchant at Lyons, in whose hands my money was placed, has become a bankrupt. Can the occurrence of this ruinous calamity be the chance fulfillment of a mere guess? Or was the doom of my family really revealed to my dead son? I go to Lyons immediately to know the truth: this letter may have been written under false information; it may be the work of an impostor. And yet, Alfred’s prediction—I shudder to think of it!’

“‘The light, father! I exclaimed; ‘the light we saw last night in the study!’

“‘Hush! don’t speak of it! Alfred said that I should be warned of the truth of the prophecy, and of its immediate fulfillment, by the shining of the same supernatural light that he had seen—I tried to disbelieve what I beheld last night—I hardly know whether I dare believe it even now! This prophecy is not the last; there are others yet to be fulfilled—but let us not speak, let us not think of them! I must start at once for Lyons; I must be on the spot, if this horrible news is true, to save what I can from the wreck. The letter—give me back the letter!—I must go directly!’

“He hurried from the room. I followed him; and, with some difficulty, obtained permission to be the companion of his momentous journey. When we arrived at Lyons, we found that the statement in the letter was true. My father’s fortune was gone: a mere pittance, derived from a small estate that had belonged to my mother, was all that was left to us.

“My father’s health gave way under this misfortune. He never referred again to Alfred’s prediction, and I was afraid to mention the subject; but I saw that it was affecting his mind quite as painfully as the loss of his property. Over, and over again, he checked himself very strangely when he was on the point of speaking to me about my brother. I saw that there was some secret pressing heavily on his mind, which he was afraid to disclose to me. It was useless to ask for his confidence. His temper had become irritable under disaster; perhaps, also, under the dread uncertainties which were now evidently tormenting him in secret. My situation was a very sad, and a very dreary one, at that time: I had no remembrances of the past that were not mournful and affrighting remembrances; I had no hopes for the future that were not darkened by a vague presentiment of troubles and perils to come; and I was expressly forbidden by my father to say a word about the terrible events which had cast an unnatural gloom over my youthful career, to any of the friends (yourself included) whose counsel and whose sympathy might have guided and sustained me in the day of trial.

“We returned to Paris; sold our house there, and retired to live on the small estate to which I have referred, as the last possession left us. We had not been many days in our new abode, when my father imprudently exposed himself to a heavy shower of rain, and suffered, in consequence, from a violent attack of cold. This temporary malady was not dreaded by the medical attendant; but it was soon aggravated by a fever, produced as much by the anxiety and distress of mind from which he continued to suffer, as by any other cause. Still the doctor gave hope; but still he grew daily worse—so much worse, that I removed my bed into his room, and never quitted him night or day.

“One night I had fallen asleep, overpowered by fatigue and anxiety, when I was awakened by a cry from my father. I instantly trimmed the light, and ran to his side. He was sitting up in bed, with his eyes fixed on the door, which had been left ajar to ventilate the room. I saw nothing in that direction, and asked what was the matter. He murmured some expressions of affection toward me, and begged me to sit by his bedside till the morning; but gave no definite answer to my question. Once or twice I thought he wandered a little; and I observed that he occasionally moved his hand under the pillow, as if searching for something there. However, when the morning came, he appeared to be quite calm and self-possessed. The doctor arrived; and pronouncing him to be better, retired to the dressing-room to write a prescription. The moment his back was turned, my father laid his weak hand on my arm, and whispered faintly:—‘Last night I saw the supernatural light again—the second prediction—true, true—my death this time—the same hour as Alfred’s—nine—nine o’clock, this morning.’ He paused a moment through weakness; then added:—‘Take that sealed paper—under the pillow—when I am dead, read it—now go into the dressing-room—my watch is there—I have heard the church clock strike eight; let me see how long it is now till nine—go—go quickly!’

“Horror-stricken, moving and acting like a man in a trance, I silently obeyed him. The doctor was still in the dressing-room: despair made me catch eagerly at any chance of saving my father; I told his medical attendant what I had just heard, and entreated advice and assistance without delay.

“‘He is a little delirious,’ said the doctor—‘don’t be alarmed: we can cheat him out of his dangerous idea, and so perhaps save his life. Where is the watch?’ (I produced it)—‘See: it is ten minutes to nine. I will put back the hands one hour; that will give good time for a composing draught to operate. There! take him the watch, and let him see the false time with his own eyes. He will be comfortably asleep before the hour-hand gets round again to nine.’

“I went back with the watch to my father’s bedside. ‘Too slow,’ he murmured, as he looked at the dial—‘too slow by an hour—the church clock—I counted eight.’

“‘Father! dear father! you are mistaken,’ I cried. ‘I counted also; it was only seven.’

“‘Only seven!’ he echoed faintly, ‘another hour, then—another hour to live!’ He evidently believed what I had said to him. In spite of the fatal experiences of the past, I now ventured to hope the best from our stratagem, as I resumed my place by his side.

“The doctor came in; but my father never noticed him. He kept his eyes fixed on the watch, which lay between us, on the coverlet. When the minute hand was within a few seconds of indicating the false hour of eight, he looked round at me, murmured very feebly and doubtingly, ‘another hour to live!’ and then gently closed his eyes. I looked at the watch, and saw that it was just eight o’clock, according to our alteration of the right time. At the same moment, I heard the doctor, whose hand had been on my father’s pulse, exclaim, ‘My God! it’s stopped! He has died at nine o’clock!’

“The fatality, which no human stratagem or human science could turn aside, was accomplished! I was alone in the world!

“In the solitude of our little cottage, on the day of my father’s burial, I opened the sealed letter, which he had told me to take from the pillow of his death-bed. In preparing to read it, I knew that I was preparing for the knowledge of my own doom; but I neither trembled nor wept. I was beyond all grief: despair, such as mine was then, is calm and self-possessed to the last.

“The letter ran thus;—‘After your father and your brother have fallen under the fatality that pursues our house, it is right, my dear son, that you should be warned how you are included in the last of the predictions which still remains unaccomplished. Know, then, that the final lines read by our dear Alfred on the scroll, prophesied that you should die, as we have died, at the fatal hour of nine; but by a bloody and violent death, the day of which was not foretold. My beloved boy! you know not, you never will know, what I suffered in the possession of this terrible secret, as the truth of the former prophecies forced itself more and more plainly on my mind! Even now, as I write, I hope against all hope; believe vainly and desperately against all experience, that this last, worst doom may be avoided. Be cautious; be patient; look well before you at each step of your career. The fatality by which you are threatened is terrible; but there is a Power above fatality; and before that Power my spirit and my child’s spirit now pray for you. Remember this when your heart is heavy, and your path through life grows dark. Remember that the better world is still before you, the world where we shall all meet! Farewell!’

“When I first read those lines, I read them with the gloomy, immovable resignation of the Eastern fatalists; and that resignation never left me afterward. Here, in this prison, I feel it, calm as ever. I bowed patiently to my doom, when it was only predicted: I bow to it as patiently now, when it is on the eve of accomplishment. You have often wondered, my friend, at the tranquil, equable sadness of my manner: after what I have just told you, can you wonder any longer?

“But let me return for a moment to the past. Though I had no hope of escaping the fatality which had overtaken my father and my brother, my life, after my double bereavement, was the existence of all others which might seem most likely to evade the accomplishment of my predicted doom. Yourself and one other friend excepted, I saw no society; my walks were limited to the cottage garden and the neighboring fields, and my every-day, unvarying occupation was confined to that hard and resolute course of study, by which alone I could hope to prevent my mind from dwelling on what I had suffered in the past, or on what I might still be condemned to suffer in the future. Never was there a life more quiet and more uneventful than mine!

“You know how I awoke to an ambition, which irresistibly impelled me to change this mode of existence. News from Paris penetrated even to my obscure retreat, and disturbed my self-imposed tranquillity. I heard of the last errors and weaknesses of Louis the Sixteenth; I heard of the assembling of the States-General; and I knew that the French Revolution had begun. The tremendous emergencies of that epoch drew men of all characters from private to public pursuits, and made politics the necessity rather than the choice of every Frenchman’s life. The great change preparing for the country acted universally on individuals, even to the humblest, and it acted on me.

“I was elected a deputy, more for the sake of the name I bore, than on account of any little influence which my acquirements and my character might have exercised in the neighborhood of my country abode. I removed to Paris, and took my seat in the Chamber, little thinking at that time, of the crime and the bloodshed to which our revolution, so moderate in its beginning, would lead; little thinking that I had taken the first, irretrievable step toward the bloody and the violent death which was lying in store for me.

“Need I go on? You know how warmly I joined the Girondin party; you know how we have been sacrificed; you know what the death is which I and my brethren are to suffer to-morrow. On now ending, I repeat what I said at the beginning:—Judge not of my narrative till you have seen with your own eyes what really takes place in the morning. I have carefully abstained from all comment, I have simply related events as they happened, forbearing to add my own views of their significance, my own ideas on the explanation of which they admit. You may believe us to have been a family of nervous visionaries, witnesses of certain remarkable contingencies; victims of curious, but not impossible chances, which we have fancifully and falsely interpreted into supernatural events. I leave you undisturbed in this conviction (if you really feel it;) to-morrow you will think differently; to-morrow you will be an altered man. In the meantime, remember what I now say, as you would remember my dying words:—Last night I saw the supernatural radiance which warned my father and my brother; and which warns me, that, whatever the time when the execution begins, whatever the order in which the twenty-one Girondins are chosen for death, I shall be the man who kneels under the guillotine, as the clock strikes nine!”

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It was morning. Of the ghastly festivities of the night no sign remained. The prison-hall wore an altered look, as the twenty-one condemned men (followed by those who were ordered to witness their execution) were marched out to the carts appointed to take them from the dungeon to the scaffold.

The sky was cloudless, the sun warm and brilliant, as the Girondin leaders and their companions were drawn slowly through the streets to the place of execution. Duprat and Marigny were placed in separate vehicles: the contrast in their demeanor at that awful moment was strongly marked. The features of the doomed man still preserved their noble and melancholy repose; his glance was steady; his color never changed. The face of Marigny, on the contrary, displayed the strongest agitation; he was pale even to his lips. The terrible narrative he had heard, the anticipation of the final and appalling proof by which its truth was now to be tested, had robbed him, for the first time in his life, of all his self-possession. Duprat had predicted truly; the morrow had come, and he was an altered man already.

The carts drew up at the foot of the scaffold which was soon to be stained with the blood of twenty-one human beings. The condemned deputies mounted it; and ranged themselves at the end opposite the guillotine. The prisoners who were to behold the execution remained in their cart. Before Duprat ascended the steps, he took his friend’s hand for the last time: “Farewell!” he said, calmly. “Farewell! I go to my father and my brother! Remember my words of last night.”

With straining eyes, and bloodless cheeks, Marigny saw Duprat take his position in the middle row of his companions, who stood in three ranks of seven each. Then the awful spectacle of the execution began. After the first seven deputies had suffered there was a pause; the horrible traces of the judicial massacre were being removed. When the execution proceeded, Duprat was the third taken from the middle rank of the condemned. As he came forward, and stood for an instant erect under the guillotine, he looked with a smile on his friend, and repeated in a clear voice the word, “Remember!”—then bowed himself on the block. The blood stood still at Marigny’s heart, as he looked and listened, during the moment of silence that followed. That moment past, the church clock of Paris struck. He dropped down on the cart, and covered his face with his hands; for through the heavy beat of the hour he heard the fall of the fatal steel.

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“Pray, sir, was it nine or ten that struck just now?” said one of Marigny’s fellow prisoners to an officer of the guard, who stood near the cart.

The person addressed referred to his watch, and answered—“Nine o’clock!”

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VIRGINIA DARE.

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BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.

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REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

This is a new and very beautiful edition, the most beautiful that has ever been published, of one of the sweetest, most elaborately finished, most expressive and original poets of America. No one can read Halleck, without being at once impressed with the sense that he is a writer entirely sui generis and most peculiar; not merely imitating no one, but resembling no one, and—

Like the notorious Andrew Jackson Allen, himself alone.

Mr. Bryant we have never heard accused of imitation; yet it is notorious that his style, elaborate, didactic, stately, sometimes magniloquent, sometimes magnificent, always as brightly polished and always as cold as a Toledo rapier’s blade, always arousing admiration, and at times awe, but rarely awakening sympathy, but never calling forth a tear, closely resembles that of many English poets, none of them his inferior, the most remarkable of whom are Thompson of the Seasons, and Young of the Night Thoughts; and Wordsworth; and although I acquit him wholly of any premeditated design to follow in any of their footsteps, I still hold it as an undoubted truth, that unless those three great didacticians had written before him, Bryant would not have written, at least as he has written. Not that I design or desire to underrate his talent, or detract from his well-earned laurels; for I admire him as a grand, calm, pure, and at times almost sublime, English writer; but that no passage ever caused me a thrill in the veins, a tear in the eye, or a flush on the cheek; and that his want of honest human sympathies renders the report of his fame greater than the reality of his popularity.

Longfellow, again, principally I believe from mere base malignity on the part of his would-be critics, and vile envy of his superiority, has been falsely accused of plagiarism, and most unjustly charged with copying Keats, Shelley, and Tennyson, with the former two of whom he has nothing whatever in common, while he resembles the latter only in the perfect flow of his inimitable rhythm, and the really artificial, but most seemingly inartificial, structure of his smooth versification; in all of which he as far excels his supposed model, as he does in expression, simplicity and force, not of diction only but of thought, and in the fire of his quick and vivid fancy.

Of Halleck, on the contrary, though he alone has successfully followed Byron in the half-lyric, half-comic vein of Don Juan and Fanny; even as Byron alone followed that of Whistlecraft—though in the fineness of his fancy, in the neat finish and epigrammatic turn of his antithetical verses, in his playful wit, and felicitous turns of natural pathos, he rivals if not equals Moore—it has never been said, never could be said, that he resembles, much less copies, either Moore or Byron, or any other poet of ancient times or modern.

The most observable characteristics of Halleck are the exquisite grace with which he glides from the purest and sweetest sentiments into the most delicate, yet most pungent wit; in the playfulness of his fancy; the truth of his humanity; and the epigrammatic terseness of his smaller compositions. Such as—

An elegy of which it can be truly said, as of how few persons through all time, that there is not one idea wanting, or one superfluous; not one word that could be altered without injuring the beauty and force of the ensemble.

The most frequently quoted of Mr. Halleck’s poems, are “The Death of Bozzaris,” and “Alnwick Castle,” the latter perhaps the most generally popular of all his writings. But, in my judgment, the best, beyond all doubt, is “The Field of the Grounded Arms;” which, because it is entirely beyond the low sphere of New York poetical criticism, as being writ in unrhymed lyric lines, has been little praised or noticed, in proportion to its real merits, which are of the highest.

The same exquisite power and felicity in the fitness of wording, noticed above, of the lines “On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake,” and the terseness of phraseology, in which Mr. Halleck clearly surpasses every contemporaneous poet, native or foreign, is here most conspicuous; as is the perfect harmony, which causes unrhymed metric lines, which some wiseacres would doubtless call rhythmic prose, to read melodious and sonorous as the most perfect rhymed lyrics. My limits will not allow me to quote this beautiful poem, breathing the true fire of honest and impartial patriotism and love of country; and, as it is already long before the public, and known to all judicious readers, I prefer to pass on to a long extract from an unpublished poem on “Connecticut,” the poet’s birth-place and heart’s home, a portion of which is now for the first time suffered to see the light.

“Connecticut” is in our poet’s favorite measure, the decasyllabic stanza of eight lines, and in his favorite vein, the serio-humorous style of “Fanny.” I confess, for my own part, that I prefer the simple-serious to the semi-comic semi-sentimental strain; for a sweet fall of pathos melting into a dying close, and then abruptly terminated by a sarcasm or a sneer, rather strikes me with a jarring violence, like that arising from a musical discord, than charms me by the contrast it affords. Admiration, at the dexterity of the versifier, mingles too largely with vexation at the violence done to the harmony of beauty.

But of Mr. Halleck’s genial and various genius no component part is more clearly marked than his hearty pantagruelism, which finds something humorous in the deepest of sentiments, which must have its shot at every folly as it flies, and which must vent its sarcasm at the weak point, even in what it most admires; and never, it must be said, was wit of the most pointed less ill-natured, humor more fairy-like and fanciful, or sarcasm more softly veiled in dewy flowers of immortal verse.

His biting satires on the grim old Puritans, quaint and cruel, godly and greedy, forgiving any thing to no men except their own pet sins to themselves, most clamorous for tolerance to their own creed, most intolerant to that of all others, are most refreshing in this age of cant and fulsome section-adulation.

The following stanzas, in a bolder vein, following up his expedition of Mather’s mendacity, are as sublime as they are bold and independent—

The two closing stanzas of this fragment are so perfectly, chastely and inimitably beautiful, that they induce a strong hope that Mr. Halleck’s fastidious judgment—for it is neither indolence of habit, nor difficulty of composition, which keeps our poet for periods so long and tedious behind the curtain, but the severe taste and chariness of his muse, which causes him to reject as unworthy of his pen what most writers would rejoice to put forward as the cope-stone of their renown—will suffer him ere long to give us his “Connecticut” entire.

Honor and health to Halleck, and may he speak to us in the high-hearted, honest music of his soul oftener than heretofore; and let him rest assured he cannot speak to us too often or too long. Valeto.

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The publication of this volume is timely. It goes over the whole field appropriated to oracles, astrology, dreams, demons, ghosts, spectres, and the like, with long chapters on the Salem Witchcraft, the Cock-lane Ghost, the Rochester Knockings and the Stratford Mysteries. The rules of evidence in relation to such marvels are also clearly stated. Mr. Elliott’s style is somewhat affected, but his information gives evidence of research, and the circulation of his book may produce good. Every thing which will tend in the slightest degree to scare away the late importations of vulgar vagabonds from the “spiritual world,” ironically so called, is worthy of patronage. We are not, of course, so audaciously incredulous as to doubt the reality of “the spirits,” but we sincerely hope that the Maine Liquor Law, in its most stringent provisions, may be applied to them; for such a set of unfleshed drivelers and disembodied nuisances never before attempted to convey to mortal ears the gossip of ghost-land.

A curious story is related in Mr. Elliott’s book, on the authority of Southey. We cannot forbear quoting it as an illustration of the way that John Bull experiences supernatural fear. “In 1702 Whiston predicted that the comet would appear on Wednesday, 14th October, at five minutes after five in the morning, and that the world would be destroyed by fire on the Friday following. His reputation was high, and the comet appeared. A number of persons got into boats and barges on the Thames, thinking the water the safest place. South Sea and India stock fell. A captain of a Dutch ship threw all his powder into the river, that the ship might not be endangered. At noon, after the comet had appeared, it is said that more than one hundred clergymen were ferried over to Lambeth, to request that proper prayers might be prepared, there being none in the church service. People believed that the day of judgment was at hand, and some acted on this belief, as if some temporary evil was to be expected. On Thursday more than 7,000 kept mistresses were publicly married. There was a prodigious run kept on the bank; Sir Gilbert Heathcote, at that time head director, issued orders to all the fire offices in London, requiring them to keep a good look-out, and have a particular eye on the Bank of England.” The run on the bank, and the orders of Sir Gilbert, in view of the world’s being destroyed by fire, are touches of practical humor, which the most daring humorist would hardly have ventured to imagine.

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The present volume of Mr. Hudson’s beautiful edition of Shakspeare contains King Richard II., the first and second parts of Henry IV., and Henry V. The introductions, especially those to Henry IV., are probably the ablest of the editor’s many able disquisitions. The analysis of Prince Henry, Hotspur, Glendower, and, above all, Falstaffe, are in Mr. Hudson’s most matured style, both of thought and expression. They are positive additions to critical literature. No editor of Shakspeare, no critic of character, has ever approached the masterly dissection of Falstaffe given in this volume. The fat knight’s great intellect has perfect justice done to it, while his humor is richly set forth. Mr. Hudson says very finely of him, that he has “all the intellectual qualities that enter into the composition of practical wisdom, without one of the moral.” Of his sensuality, it is remarked: “The animal susceptibilities of our nature are in him carried up to their highest pitch, and his several appetites hug their respective objects with exquisite gust. Moreover, his speech borrows additional flavor and effect from the thick foldings of flesh which it oozes through; therefore he glories in his much flesh, and cherishes it as being the procreant cradle of jests; if he be fat, it enables his tongue to drop fatness; and in the chambers of his brain all the pleasurable agitations that pervade the structure below are curiously wrought into mental delectation. With how keen and inexhaustible a relish does he pour down sack, as if he tasted it all over and through his body to the ends of his fingers and toes! Yet who does not see that he has far more pleasure in discoursing about it than in drinking it? And so it is through all the particulars of his enormous sensuality. And he makes the same use of his vices and infirmities; nay, he often exaggerates and caricatures those he has, and sometimes affects those he has not, that he may suck the same profit from them.”

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These biting and brilliant squibs were originally published in Punch. In their collected form they will take their place among the most characteristic of Thackeray’s works. This volume, in short, contains the philosophy of Snobbism, as Vanity Fair and Pendennis contain its illustrations in life. But while these sketches are philosophical, the philosophy teaches by example. We have city snobs—military, clerical and literary snobs—party-giving, dinner-giving, dining-out snobs—whig snobs, tory snobs, radical snobs—snobs in the country and snobs on the continent—university snobs, club snobs, and regal snobs. The result is that the author, in snobbing the race, at last becomes almost a snob himself—as it was said of Mr. Brownson, that he was so much of a protestant that he protested himself out of protestantism. Thackeray’s definition of a snob is “he who meanly admires mean things.”

The “Snob Royal” is one of the best essays in the volume. “In a country,” says Thackeray, “where snobs are in the majority, a prime one, surely, cannot be unfit to govern. With us they have succeeded to admiration. For instance, James I. was a snob, and a Scotch snob; than which the world contains no more offensive creature. He appears not to have had one of the good qualities of a man—neither courage, nor generosity, nor honesty, nor brains; but read what the great divines and doctors of England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not a snob; while Louis XIV., his old square-toes of a contemporary—the great worshiper of big-wiggery—has always struck me as a most undoubted and royal snob.” In George the Fourth he also finds a regal snob. “With the same humility with which the footmen at the King’s Arms gave way before the Plush Royal, the aristocracy of the English nation bent down and truckled before Georgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe. And it’s a wonder to think what is the gentlefolks opinion of a gentleman when they gave Georgius such a title.”

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This compact duodecimo volume is an admirable guide to English and American literature. Mr. Shaw’s work has been extensively circulated in England and America, and well deserves its reputation. It is well-written, evinces a well-trained study of the great English writers, and abounds in information and judicious criticism. It clearly conveys to the reader, uninformed in literary history, accurate ideas of the sliding-scale of English reputations. Mr. Tuckerman’s sketch of American literature occupies fifty closely-printed pages, and is a model of compactness of style and distinctness of judgment. From a few of his critical estimates we should feel inclined to dissent, and it would be strange, indeed, if any two persons could agree in opinion on the merits of the scores of authors coming within the scope of the editor’s plan; but, as a whole, the judgments evince a genial and catholic taste, unbiassed by prejudice, and combining both the disposition and the power to decide justly. The critic’s discrimination is exhibited equally in his criticisms on works of the understanding and works of the imagination. The style is remarkably condensed; every word tells; yet the sweet and fluent ease of Mr. Tuckerman’s diction gives no evidence of purchasing brevity at any sacrifice of grace. The book deserves an extensive circulation as the best and most available introduction to English and American literature.

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This work is generally considered a failure. The cause of its ill-success is certainly not to be sought in its lack of power. None of Melville’s novels equals the present in force and subtlety of thinking and unity of purpose. Many of the scenes are wrought out with great splendor and vigor, and a capacity is evinced of holding with a firm grasp, and describing with a masterly distinctness, some of the most evanescent phenomena of morbid emotions. But the spirit pervading the whole book is intolerably unhealthy, and the most friendly reader is obliged at the end to protest against such a provoking perversion of talent and waste of power. The author has attempted seemingly to combine in it the peculiarities of Poe and Hawthorne, and has succeeded in producing nothing but a powerfully unpleasant caricature of morbid thought and passion. Pierre, we take it, is crazy, and the merit of the book is in clearly presenting the psychology of his madness; but the details of such a mental malady as that which afflicts Pierre are almost as disgusting as those of physical disease itself.

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This is a thick duodecimo volume of some six hundred closely printed pages, devoted to clear and concise biographies of men whose names are now before the world. The number of notables is nearly nine hundred, and it contains almost every name of reputation in Europe or America. The labor of its compilation must have been great, as the editor has diligently explored the recondite as well as obvious sources of information. In most of the American biographies the information has been obtained at first hand. The collection comprises living authors, architects, artists, composers, demagogues, divines, dramatists, engineers, journalists, merchants, novelists, philanthropists, poets, politicians, savants, statesmen, travelers, voyagers and warriors. The biographies vary in length according to the importance of the subject, some of them being admirably and critically written, giving estimation of character as well as narratives of events. It is a book which should be in every house. The newspaper itself cannot be thoroughly understood without a reference to this volume.

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This is a cheap, elegant, and finely illustrated edition of Dickens’ celebrated novel, which we trust will be followed by an edition of his other works in the same form. “Dombey and Son,” though defective in plot, and with some blunders in characterization, is still brimful of the author’s genius, and contains many scenes and characters which cannot fade from the reader’s memory. Dombey, Carker, Major Bagstock and Edith, are apt to be bores when they are not caricatures, but Florence, little Paul, Captain “Ed’ard Cuttle,” Toots and Susan Nipper, are acquaintances which, once made, are a possession forever. As there is no complete American edition of Dickens’ works in a convenient readable form, we trust that the Harper’s will give us one modeled on the present volumes.

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SIPS OF PUNCH.

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FASHION PLATE.

Illustration.—A charming morning dress is thus formed: a dress of barÈge, of silk pattern, with three volants trimmed with a small quilling À la vieille, and open in front, displaying a lace trimmed neckerchief, (Mechlin lace,) while two small volants finish the sleeves; the last surmounted by a quilling similar to that of the body of the dress.

The morning pardessus is also worn with a dress of percale, likewise embroidered; volant and sleeves in English embroidery; the front is trimmed in the same manner; the body is ornamented with a double plait in the stuff, and above the volant, and which replaces the braiding, generally placed on pardessus of tissue. Lastly, are models of sleeves trimmed with lace, one with two open volants; the other closed at the wrist, and trimmed with a manchette of lace.