“Hillo!” said Westbrook, “who’s skulking here?” and he pushed his foot against a dark heap, huddled up under the shade of one of the guns. As he did so, a slight, pale-faced, sickly-looking boy started up. “Ah! it’s you, Dick, is it?—why I never before thought you’d skulk—there, go—but you mustn’t do it again, my lad.” The boy was a favorite with all on board. He had embarked at Newport, and was, therefore, a new hand, but his quiet demeanor, as well as a certain melancholy expression of face he always wore, had won him a way to our hearts. Little was known of his history, except that he was an orphan. Punctual in the discharge of his duties, yet holding himself aloof from the rest of the boys, he seemed to be one, who although he had determined to endure his present fate, was yet conscious of having seen better days. I was the more confirmed in my belief that he had been born to a higher station from the choice of his words in conversation, especially with his superiors. His manner, too, was not that of one brought up to buffett roughly against fortune. That one so young should be thrust, unaided, out into the world, was a sure passport for him to my heart, for his want of parents was a link of sympathy uniting us together; and we had, therefore, always been as much friends as the relative difference of our situations, on board a man-of-war would allow. Yet even I, so great was his reserve, knew little more of his history than the rest of my shipmates. Once, indeed, when I had rendered him some little kindness, such as an officer always has it in his power without much trouble to himself, to bestow upon an inferior, his heart had opened, and he had told me, more by hints though than in direct words, that he had lost his father and mother and a little sister, within a few weeks of each other, and that, houseless, penniless and friendless, he had been forced to sea by his only remaining relatives, in order that he might shift for himself. I suspected that he did not pass under his real name. But whatever had been his former lot, or however great were his sufferings, he never repined. He went through his duty silently, but sadly, as if—poor child!—he carried within him a breaking heart. “Please, sir,” said he, in reply to Westbrook’s address, “it’s but a minute any how I’ve been here.” “Well, well, Dick, I believe you,” said the warm-hearted midshipman. “But there go eight bells, and as your watch is up, you may go below. What! crying—fie, fie, my lad, how girl-hearted you have grown.” “I am not girl-hearted always,” sobbed the little fellow, looking up into his superior’s face, “but I couldn’t help crying when I thought that to-night a year ago my mother died, and I crept under the gun so that no one might see and laugh at me, as they do at every one here. It was just at this hour she died,” he continued, chokingly, bursting into a fit of uncontrollable weeping, “and she was the only friend I had on earth.” “Poor boy! God bless you!” said Westbrook, mentally, as the lad, finishing his passionate exclamation, turned hastily away. It was my watch, and as Westbrook met me coming on deck, he paused a moment, and said, “Do you know any thing about that poor little fellow, I mean Dick Rasey? God help me I’ve been rating him for skulking, when the lad only wanted to hide his grief for his mother from the jests of the crew. I wouldn’t have done it for any thing.” “No—he has always maintained the greatest reserve respecting himself. Has he gone below?” “Yes! who can he be? It’s strange I feel such an interest in him.” “Poor child!—he has seen better days, and this hard life is killing him. I wish he could distinguish himself some how—the skipper might then take a fancy to him and put him on the quarter-deck.” “What a dear little middy he would make,” said Westbrook, his gay humor flashing out through his sadness, “why we havn’t got a cocked-hat aboard that wouldn’t bury him up like an extinguisher, or a dirk to spare which isn’t longer than his whole body.” “Shame, Jack—its not a matter for jest—the lad is dying by inches.” “Ah! you’re right, Parker; I wish to heaven the boy had a berth aft here. But now I must go below, for I’m confoundedly sleepy. You’ll have a lighter watch of it than I had. The moon will be up directly—and there, by Jove! she comes—look how gloriously her disc slides up behind that wave. But this is no time for poetry, for I’m as drowsy as if I was about to sleep, like the old fellow in the Arabian story, for a matter of a hundred years or more, or even like the seven sleepers of Christendom, who fell into a doze some centuries back, and will come to life again the Lord knows when,” and with a long yawn, my mercurial messmate gave a parting glance at the rising luminary, and went below. The spectacle to which Westbrook had called my attention was indeed a glorious one. The night had been somewhat misty, so that the stars were obscured, or but faintly visible here and there; while the light breeze that scarcely ruffled the sea, or sighed above a whisper in the rigging, had given an air of profound repose to the scene. When I first stept on deck the whole horizon was buried in this partial obscurity, and the view around, excepting in the vicinity of the Fire-Fly, was lost in misty indistinctness. A few moments, however, had changed the aspect of the whole scene. When I relieved the watch the eastern horizon was shrouded in a veil of dark, thick vapors—for the mists had collected there in denser masses than any where else—while a single star, through a rent in the midst of that weird-like canopy, shone calmly upon the scene: but now the fog had lifted up like a curtain from the seaboard in that quarter, and a long greenish streak of light, stretching along for several points, and against which the dark waves undulated in bold relief, betokened the approach of the moon. Even as Westbrook spoke, the upper edge of her disc slid up above the watery horizon, disappearing and appearing again as the surges rose and fell against it, until gradually the huge globe lifted its whole vast volume above the seaboard, and while the edge of the dark canopy above shone as if lined with pearl, a flood of glorious light, flickering and dancing upon the billows, was poured in a long line of molten silver across the sea toward us, bathing hull, and spars, and sails in liquid radiance, and seeming to transpose us in a moment into a fairy land. Such a scene of unrivalled beauty I had never beheld. The contrast betwixt the dark vapors hanging over the moon, and the dazzling brilliancy of her wake below was indeed magnificent. I looked in mute delight. The few stars above were at once obscured by the brighter glories of the moon. Suddenly, however, as I gazed, a dark speck appeared upon the surface of the moon, and in another instant the tall masts and exquisite tracery of a ship could be seen, in bold relief against her disc, the fine dark lines of the hamper seeming like the thinnest cobwebs crossing a burnished shield of silver. So plainly was the vessel seen that her minutest spars were perceptible as she rose and fell gallantly on the long heavy swell. “Ah! my fine fellow,” I exclaimed, “we have you there. Had it not been for yonder pretty mistress of the night you would have passed us unseen. Make all sail at once—and bear up a few points more so as to get the weather gauge of the stranger.” “Ay, ay, sir.” “How gallantly the old schooner eats into the wind,” I said, gazing with admiration on our light little craft. I turned to the chase. “Has the stranger altered her course?” I asked, looking for her in the old position, but finding she was no more visible. “No, sir, I saw her but an instant ago: oh! there she is—that fog bank settling down on the seaboard hid her from sight. You can see her now just to leeward of the moon, sir.” I looked, and as the man had said, perceived that the dark massy bank of vapors, which had lifted as the moon rose, was once more settling down on the seaboard, obscuring her whole disc at intervals, and shrouding every thing in that quarter in occasional gloom. For a moment the strange sail had been lost in this obscurity, but as the moon struggled through the clouds, it once more became visible just under the northern side of that luminary. Apparently unconscious of our vicinity the stranger was stealing gently along under easy sail, pitching upon the long undulating swell, while, as he lay almost in the very wake of the moon, every part of his hull and rigging was distinctly perceptible. Not a yard, however, appeared to have been moved: not an additional sail was set. Occasionally we lost sight of him as the moon, wading heavily through the sombre clouds, became momentarily obscured, although even then, from beneath the frowning canopy of vapors above, a silvery radiance would steal out at the edges of the clouds, tipping the masts and sails of the stranger with a soft pearly light that looked like enchantment itself, and which, contrasted with the dark hues of the hull and the gloomy deep beneath, produced an effect such as I have never seen surpassed in nature or art. Meanwhile the wind gradually failed us, until at length it fell a dead calm. All this time the fog was settling down more heavily around us, not gathering in one compact mass however, but lying in patches scattered over the whole expanse of the waters, and presenting a picture such as no one, except he is familiar with a tropical sea, can imagine. In some places the ocean was entirely clear of the fog, while a patch of cold, blue sky above, spangled with innumerable stars, that shone with a brilliancy unknown to colder climes, looked as if cut out of the mists, which on every hand around covered the sky as with a veil. At times a light breeze would spring up ruffling the polished surface of the swell, and, undulating the fog as smoke-wreaths in the morning air, would open up, for a moment, a sight of some new patch of blue sky above, with its thousand brightly twinkling stars, reminding one of the beautiful skies we used to dream of in our infant slumbers, and then, dying away as suddenly as it arose, the mists would undulate uncertainly an instant, roll toward each other, and twisting around in a thousand fantastic folds, would finally close up, shrouding the sky once more in gloom, and settling down bodily upon the sombre surface of the deep. At length the moon became wholly obscured. A few stars only could be seen flickering fainter and fainter far up in the fathomless ether, and finally, after momentarily appearing and disappearing, they vanished altogether. A profound gloom hung on all around. The silence of death reigned over our little craft. Even the customary sounds of the swell rippling along our sides, or the breeze sighing through the hamper faded entirely, and save an occasional creaking of the boom, or the sullen falling of a reef-point against the sail, not a sound broke the repose of the scene. The strange sail had long since been lost sight of to starboard. So profound was the darkness that we could scarcely distinguish the look-out at the forecastle from the quarter-deck. Silent and motionless we lay, shut in by that dark shroud of vapor, as if buried by some potent enchanter in a living tomb. “Hist!” said a reefer of my watch to me, “don’t you hear something, Mr. Parker?” I listened, attentively, and though my hearing was proverbially sharp, I could distinguish nothing for several moments. At length, however, the little fellow pinched my arm, and inclining my eye to the water, I heard a low monotonous sound like the smothered rollicking of oars that had been muffled. At first I could not credit my senses, but, as I listened again, the sound came more distinctly to my ears, seeming to grow nearer and nearer. There could be no mistaking it. Directly, moreover, these sounds ceased, and then was heard a low murmured noise, as if human voices were conversing together in stifled tones. At once it flashed upon me that an attack was contemplated upon us—by whom I knew not—though it was probable that the enemy came from the strange sail to starboard. It was evident, however, that the assailants were at fault. My measures were taken at once. Hastily ordering the watch to arm themselves in quiet, I ordered the men to be called silently; and, as by this time the look-outs began to detect the approach of our unknown visitors, I enjoined equal silence upon them, commanding them at the same time, however, to keep a sharp eye to starboard, in order to learn, if possible, the exact position of the expected assailants. In a few minutes the men were mustered, and prepared for the visitors, whether peaceful or not. Most of the officers, too, had found their way on deck, although as it was uncertain as yet whether it might not be a false alarm, I had not disturbed the skipper. Westbrook was already, however, prepared for the fight, and as I ran my eye hastily over the crew I thought I saw the slight form of Dick Rasey, standing amongst them. “Can you hear any thing, Westbrook?” said I. “It’s like the grave!” was his whispered answer. “Pass the word on for the men to keep perfectly quiet, but to remain at their stations.” “Ay, ay, sir.” For some minutes the death-like silence which had preceded the discovery of our unknown visitors returned, and as moment after moment crept by without betraying the slightest token of the vicinity of the assailants, I almost began to doubt my senses, and believe that the sounds I had heard had been imaginary. The most profound obscurity meantime reigned over our decks. So great was the darkness that I could only distinguish a shadowy group of human beings gathered forward, without being able to discern distinctly any one face or figure; while the only sound I heard, breaking the hush around, was the deep, but half-suppressed breathing of our men. Suddenly, however, when our suspense had become exciting even to nervousness, a low, quick sound was heard right off our starboard quarter, as if one or more boats, with muffled oars, were pulling swiftly on to us; while almost instantaneously a dark mass shot out of the gloom on that side, and before we could realise the rapidity of their approach, the boat had struck our side, and her crew were tumbling in over the bulwarks, cutlass in hand. Our preparation took them, however, by surprise, and for a moment they recoiled, but instantly rallying at their leader’s voice, they poured in upon us again with redoubled fierceness, cheering as they clambered up our sides, and struggled over the bulwarks. “Beat them back, Fire-Flies!” I shouted, “give it to them with a will, boys—strike.” “Press on, my lads, press on—the schooner’s our own!” shouted the leader of the assailants. Levelling my pistol at the advancing speaker, and waving our men on with my sword, I gave him no answer, but fired. The pistol flashed in the pan. In an instant the leader of the foe was upon me, having sprung over the bulwarks as I spoke. He was a tall, athletic man, and lifting his sword high above his head, while in his other hand he presented a pistol toward my breast, he dashed upon me. I parried his thrust with my blade, but as he fired I felt a sharp pain in my arm, like the puncture of a pin. I knew that I was wounded, but it only inspired me with fiercer energy. I made a lunge at him, but he met it with a blow of his sword, which shivered my weapon to atoms. Springing upon my gigantic adversary, I wreathed my arms around him, and endeavored to make up for the want of a weapon, by bearing him to the deck in my arms; but my utmost exertions, desperate as they were, scarcely sufficed to stagger him, and shortening his blade, he was about plunging it into my heart, when a pistol went off close beside me, and my antagonist, giving a convulsive leap, fell dead upon the deck. I freed myself from his embrace and sprang to my feet, just in time to see little Dick, with the smoke still wreathing from the mouth of his pistol, borne away by the press of the assault. In the next instant I lost sight of him in the melee, which now became really terrific. Hastily snatching a brand from one of the fallen men, I plunged once more into the fight, for the enemy having been by this time reinforced by another boat, were now pouring in upon us in such numbers that the arm of every man became absolutely necessary. It was indeed a desperate contest. Hand to hand and foot to foot we fought; desperation on the one hand, and a determination to conquer on the other, lent double fury to our crew; while the clash of swords, the explosion of fire-arms, the shouts of the combatants, and the groans and shrieks of the wounded and dying, gave additional horror to the scene. By this time our captain had reached the deck, and his powerful voice was heard over all the din of the battle urging on his men. The fall of the enemy’s leader began now to be generally known among his crew, and the consequence was soon apparent in their wavering and want of unity. In vain the inferior officers urged them on; in vain they found their retreat cut off by the shot we had hove into their boats; in vain they were reminded by their leaders that they must now conquer or die, they no longer fought with the fierceness of their first onset, and though they still combatted manfully, and some of them desperately, they had lost all unity of purpose, and, struck with a sudden panic, at a last overwhelming charge of our gallant followers, they fled in disorder, some leaping wildly overboard, some crying for quarter when they could retreat no farther, and all of them giving up the contest as lost. Not a soul escaped. They who did not fall in the strife were either drowned in the panic-struck flight, or made prisoners. The whole contest did not last seven minutes. When they found themselves deserted by their men the officers sullenly resigned their swords, and we found that our assailants were a cutting out party from the ship to starboard, an English frigate. The man-of-war had not, it seems, discovered us until some time after the moon arose, when her light, happening to fall full upon our sails, betrayed us to their look-outs. The darkness almost directly afterward obscured us from sight, and the calm that ensued forbade her reaching us herself. Her boats were consequently manned, with the intention of carrying us by boarding. The most singular portion of it was that none of us perceived that the stranger was a man-of-war, but this may be accounted for from her being built after a new model, which gave her the appearance of a merchantman. The bustle of the fight was over; the prisoners had been secured; the decks had been washed down; my wound which turned out slight had been properly attended to; and the watch had once more resumed their monotonous tread; while at proper intervals, the solemn cry, “all’s well,” repeated from look-out to look-out, betokened that we were once more in security, before I sought my hammock. I soon fell asleep, but throughout the night I was troubled by wild dreams in which Beatrice, the ship’s boy, and the late strife, were mingled promiscuously. At length I awoke. It was still dark, and the only light near was a single lantern hung at the extremity of the apartment. My fellow messmates around were all buried in sleep. Suddenly, the surgeon’s mate stood beside me. “Mr. Parker!” said he. I raised myself up and gazed curiously into his face. “Little Dick, sir—” he began. “My God!” I exclaimed, for I had actually forgotten, in the excitement of the combat and the succeeding events, to enquire about my young preserver, and I now felt a strange presentiment that the mate had come to acquaint me with his death—“what of him? Is any thing the matter?” I asked eagerly. “I fear, sir,” said the messenger, shaking his head sadly, “that he cannot live till morning.” “And I have been lying here,” I exclaimed, reproachfully, “while the poor boy is dying,” and I sprang at once from my hammock, hurried on my clothes, saying, “lead me to him at once.” “He is delirious, but in the intervals of lunacy he asks for you, sir,” and as the man spoke we stood by bedside of the dying boy. The sufferer did not lie in his usual hammock, for it was hung in the very midst of the crew, and the close air around it was really stifling; but he had been carried to a place, nearly under the open hatchway, and laid there in a little open space of about four feet square. From the sound of the ripples I judged the schooner was in motion, while the clear calm blue sky, seen through the opening overhead and dotted with myriads of stars, betokened that the fog had broken away. How calmly it smiled down on the wan face of the dying boy. Occasionally a light current of wind—oh! how deliciously cool in that pent-up hold—eddied down the hatchway, and lifted the dark chesnut locks of the sufferer, as, with his little head reposing in the lap of an old veteran, he lay in an unquiet slumber. His shirt-collar was unbuttoned, and his childish bosom, as white as that of a girl, was open and exposed. He breathed quick and heavily. The wound of which he was dying, had been intensely painful, but within the last half hour had somewhat lulled, though even now his thin fingers tightly grasped the bed-clothes as if he suffered the greatest agony. Another battle-stained and gray-haired seaman stood beside him, holding a dull lantern in his hand, and gazing sorrowfully down upon the sufferer. The surgeon knelt beside him, with his finger on the boy’s pulse. As I approached they all looked up. The veteran who held him shook his head, and would have spoken, but the tears gathered too chokingly in his eyes. The surgeon said,— “He is going fast,—poor little fellow—do you see this?” and as he spoke he lifted up a rich gold locket, which had lain upon the boy’s breast. “He has seen better days.” I could not answer, for my heart was full. Here was the being to whom, but a few hours before I had owed my life—a poor, slight, unprotected child—lying before me, with death already written on his brow,—and yet I had never known of his danger, and never even sought him out after the conflict. How bitterly my heart reproached me in that hour. They noticed my agitation, and his old friend—the seaman that held his head—said sadly, “Poor little Dick—you’ll never see the shore again you have wished for so long. But there’ll be more than one—thank God!—when your log’s out, to mourn over you.” Suddenly the little fellow opened his eyes, and gazed vacantly around. “Has he come yet?” he asked in a low voice. “Why won’t he come?” “I am here,” said I, taking the little fellow’s hand, “don’t you know me, Dick?” “Doctor, I am dying, ain’t I?” said the little fellow, “for my sight grows dim. God bless you, Mr. Parker, for this. I see you now,” and he faintly pressed my hand. “Can I do nothing for you, Dick?” said I, “you saved my life. God knows I would coin my own blood to buy yours.” “I have nothing to ask, only, if it be possible, let me be buried by my mother,—you will find the name of the place, and all about it, in my trunk.” “Anything—everything, my poor lad,” I answered chokingly. The little fellow smiled faintly—it was like an angel’s smile—but he did not answer. His eyes were fixed on the stars flickering in that patch of blue sky, far overhead. His mind wandered. “It is a long—long way up there,—but there are bright angels among them. Mother used to say that I would meet her there. How near they come, and I see bright faces smiling on me from them. Hark! is that music?” and, lifting his finger, he seemed listening intently for a moment. He fell back; and the old veteran burst into tears. The child was dead. Did he indeed hear angels’ voices? God grant it. I opened his trunk, and then discovered his real name. Out of mercy to the unfeeling wretches, who were his relatives, and who had forced him to sea, I suppress it. Suffice it to say, his family had once been rich, but that reverses had come upon them. His father died of a broken heart, nor did his mother long survive. Poor boy! I could not fulfil the whole of his injunction, for we were far out at sea, but I caused a cenotaph to be erected for him beside his mother’s grave. It tells the simple tale of The Ship’s Boy. Philadelphia, May, 1841.
TIME’S CHANGES. ——— BY JOHN W. FORNEY. ——— There is a sweet and wildering dream Of by-gone fresh and joyous hours, Which gilds the memory with its beam, And the stern spirit overpowers. Seen thro’ the chequered glass of Time, How spell-like do its glories rise! Like some ethereal pantomime Danced on the skirt of autumn skies! We stand and gaze; and wonder-rapt, Think of the changing power of years, As on our brow its trace has crept, And from our eyes exacted tears. There is glad childhood, rob’d in smiles, And beauteous as a dew-gem’d flower, Whose silver laugh and boyish wiles, Usurp the mother many an hour. There is the first half-spoken word, How rare a music to her ear! She listens, as she had not heard, And hearing, owns it with a tear. There is a passing on of Time— The boy is merged into the man— And daringly he frets to climb What once his vision could not scan. Come back from this poetic scene! Come from this scene of flowery youth! Come from the time when all was green, To cold and dreary, stubborn truth. Look on your own now withered brow, Where care sits emperor of the mind; Look to your throbbing heart; and now Cast all these dreams of youth behind. Read the sad change which Time has wrought Compare it by your memory’s glass; And turn from that whose lightest thought Points to the grave where ages pass. See, from the cradle to the tomb, Though years are multiplied between, How brief, in varied joy and gloom, Is Life’s wild, feverish, fitful scene. But yesterday, and youth was drest In dimpled and in smiling glee, Drawn, with fond fervor, to her breast, Or throned upon a mother’s knee. To-day, and Time, with added years, Has stampt his progress on our brow In manhood’s pallid care, and tears Unbidden dim the vision now.
THE LOST HEIR. ——— BY H. J. VERNON. ——— “Well flown, falcon—see how it mounts into the clouds—the heron has it—on, on knights and ladies fair, or we shall not be in at the death.” As the speaker ceased, the falcon, which had been mounting in gyrations growing narrower and narrower as it ascended above its prey, suddenly stooped from its height, and shooting upon the heron, like a thunderbolt, bore the huge bird in its talons to the earth. The swoop, and the descent passed with the rapidity of lightning, and in a moment after the gallant train were gallopping to the assistance of the falcon. Their way lay along the high bank of the river, from whose reedy margin the heron had been roused. The path was often broken, and difficult to traverse; but so eager were all to reach the desired point that no one appeared to mind these inequalities. Suddenly the path made an almost precipitous descent, and while a portion of the train dashed recklessly down the steep, the more prudent checked their course, and sought a less dangerous road. By this means the party became divided, that which remained on the brow of the hill being by far the more numerous. The other group consisted, indeed, of but three individuals—a falconer, a page, and the niece of their master, the Earl of Torston. The palfrey of the latter was one of rare speed, and it was with difficulty that the two servitors could keep up with their beautiful and high-spirited mistress. “On Ralph—ay, Leoline, you are falling behind,” she said, glancing around at her companions as the distance between them rapidly increased. “To the right—to the right,” shouted the falconer, “the heron has fallen in the marsh.” The maiden suddenly drew her rein in, to follow this direction; but as she did so a half a score of men, attired as Scottish borderers, started from the thickets around, and seizing her bridle, and that of her attendants, vanished with them into the recesses of the forest. All efforts at resistance were precluded by the numbers of the assailants, and lest the two servitors should alarm their now rapidly approaching companions, they were hastily gagged. The whole party then set forward at a brisk pace toward the neighboring Scottish border. The lady Eleanor was one of the most beautiful maidens of the north of England, and her expectations from her childless uncle were equalled only by her charms. Already had many a gallant knight broken a lance in defence of her beauty, or sought even more openly to win her for his bride. But to all alike she bore the same demeanor. Her heart was as yet untouched. Gay, sportive, full of wit, and not altogether unconscious of her exalted station, the heiress of three baronies continued to be the idol of her uncle, and the admiration of the English chivalry. It was while engaged in hawking with her train that she had been surprised, as we have related, by a band of Scottish marauders, with the intention of profiting by her ransom. For some hours the party continued their flight with unabated speed, concealing themselves in the depths of the forests, until they had left the possessions of Lord Torston, and gained a range of barren and desolate hills, where there was little likelihood of meeting with interruption. The object of the capturers was obviously to bear off their prize across the border, so rapidly as to defy all measures to be taken for her rescue. The lady Eleanor was not, however, without considerable energy of character, arising in part no doubt from the stormy times in which she lived, for she had listened so often to the tales of her ancestor’s deeds that she felt it would derogate from her, even though a maiden, not to shew a portion of the same spirit in disaster. As they were hurried along, therefore, she busied herself in revolving a plan for her escape. But she could think of no feasible scheme, without the co-operation of her servitors, and they were kept so far in the rear, and guarded so carefully, that any communication with them she saw would be impossible. In this perplexity she breathed a silent prayer to the virgin, and was about resigning herself to her fate when the wail of a bugle broke upon her ear, and looking up she beheld three horsemen crossing the brow of a hill, a few yards distant. At the same moment the marauders recognised the new comers as enemies, and hurrying their captives into the rear prepared for the fray. “Ah! what have we here?” exclaimed the leader of the men-at-arms, a bold stalwart youth, just verging into manhood, turning to his companions, “by St. George, a pack of Scottish thieves—and there is a lady among them, a prisoner I trow, for she is dressed like a maiden of rank. What say you, comrades? we are three good men against yon dozen varlets, shall we attempt a rescue?” “Ay—ay—Harry Bowbent, lead on,” exclaimed the leader of his companions, “for though your blood is often over-hot, yet who could refuse to charge yon Scottish knaves in such a cause?” The marauders had, meanwhile, drawn themselves up across the road, and when the three men-at-arms spurred their horses to the charge, the Scots received them by stepping briskly aside, and striking at the animals with their huge swords. Two of the assailants were thus brought to the ground at the first onset; but the one called Bowbent, and his elder companion, bore each a Scotsman to the earth with his long lance, and then taking to their swords, struck about them with such fury as to finish the contest in a space of time almost as short as that which it takes to narrate it. They did not, however, gain this victory without cost. Both the youth and his elder comrade were wounded, while the man-at-arms, who had been unhorsed, was killed. Several of the marauders fell on the field, and the others took to flight. “Poor Jasper,” said the youth, looking mournfully upon his slain follower, “your life was soon ended. God help me! misfortunes seem to attend on all who espouse my fortunes.” And, after regarding the dead man a moment longer, the youth turned away with a sigh, to fulfil his remaining duty, by inquiring whom he had rescued, and offering to conduct her to a place of safety. Meanwhile the lady Eleanor had been an anxious though admiring spectator of the contest, and many a prayer did she breathe for the success of her gallant rescuers. The boldness of the youth especially aroused her interest, and her heart beat faster and her breath came quicker, whenever he seemed on the point of being overpowered. As he now moved toward her, she felt, she knew not why, the color mounting in her cheeks,—and as he raised his visor, she could not but acknowledge that the countenance beneath, vied with, and even excelled, in manly beauty and frankness of expression, any she had ever seen. The youth, however, had just began to express, in the courtly language of the day, his delight at having come up so opportunely, when a sudden paleness shot over his countenance, and after endeavoring vainly to speak, he sank, fainting to the ground. “It is only this ugly wound in his side,” said his older comrade, noticing the alarm in the maiden’s countenance, “he has fainted from loss of blood.” “Can he not be borne to the castle?—here Ralph, Leoline, a litter for the wounded man—but, see, he revives.” The wounded youth opened his eyes faintly, and gazed upon the maiden as she spoke, and then closed them, as if in pain. “He has fainted again,” said the lady Eleanor, “cannot the blood be staunched? I have some slight skill in the healing art, let me at least bind up his wounds.” Taking a scarf from her neck as she spoke, the maiden proceeded to examine the hurts of the young man-at-arms, and having carefully bound them up, during which operation the reviving sufferer testified his mute gratitude by his looks, she allowed him to be placed on the rude litter her servitors had hastily prepared for him, and then the whole party set out to return to the castle.
It was a fortnight after the above events, and the wounded youth was now convalescent. The room in which he sat, was a large old gothic apartment, but the mild breath of summer stealing through the open window, and bearing the odor of flowers upon its bosom, gave a freshness to that old chamber, which banished, for the time, its gloominess. The invalid was sitting up, and by his side was the lady Eleanor, gazing up into his eyes with a look which a woman bestows only upon the one she loves. On reaching the castle, the lady Eleanor, in the absence of her uncle, ordered the utmost attentions to be paid to the wounded young man. In consequence, the best room in the castle was allotted to him, and in the absence of a better leech, and in compliance with the customs of the time, the lady Eleanor herself became his physician. Opportunities were thus presented for their being together, which, as he grew more convalescent, became dangerous to the peace of both. Perhaps it was his dependence on her skill; perhaps it was the wound he had received in her cause; perhaps it was that she had expected no refinement whatever in one apparently of such questionable rank; perhaps—but no matter—like many a one before and since, it was not long before the lady Eleanor found that in attending her patient, she had lost her heart. Nor was the wounded youth less inspired by affection for his fair physician. Gratitude for her kindness, to say nothing of her sweetness and beauty, had long since won his most devoted love. And, now, as they sat together, one might perceive, by the heightened color on the cheek of the maiden, and the unresisting manner in which her hand lay in that of the youth, that their mutual affections had just been revealed to each other in words. “Yes—sweet one,” said the youth, as if continuing a conversation, “we may have much to overcome before we triumph, if indeed we ever may; and I almost wish that we had never met.” His companion looked at him chidingly. “No, not that either, dearest. But yet I would I could remove this uncertainty that hangs around my birth. I am at least a gentleman born—of that I have always been assured—I am, moreover a knight; but whether the son of a peer, or of one with only a single fee, I know not. Until this uncertainty can be removed, I cannot pretend openly to aspire to your hand. I almost fear me that my honor may be questioned, thus to plight my vows with you, dear Eleanor; yet fate, which has thrown us thus together, has some meaning in her freak.” “May it prove indeed so,” said the maiden. “But you say you were always told you were noble born. Who assured you of this? Indeed, I must hear your history, for who knows,” continued she archly, “but I may unravel your riddle?” “Of my early life I know little, for though I remember events as far back even as infancy, yet it is but faintly, as we often remember incidents in a dream. Indeed I have often thought that these memories may be nothing more than vague recollections of dreams themselves happening so far back in my childhood as to seem like realities. Be that as it may, I have these shadowy impressions of living when very young in a large old castle, with hosts of retainers, and being served as if I was the owner of all. I remember also a fine noble looking man, and a lovely lady who used to take me in her arms and smile upon me. One day—it seems but yesterday, and I remember this more distinctly than any thing else—I was taken out by my attendants, who were, I suspect, attacked and overpowered, for I found myself rudely seized by a rough soldier, at whom I cried, and by whom I was carried off. I never saw any of my attendants more. Every face around me was new, and for days I thought my heart would break. I think I must have been carried into Scotland, for as I grew up the country around looked barren like it, and my protectors were continually returning from forays over the border on the Southron as they call us. Besides even yet I have somewhat of their accent in my speech. “I could not have been but a very young child, however, when I changed my protectors, and went beyond sea. For two or three years we travelled much; but finally settled in France. Those with whom I resided were of the better sort of peasants, and consisted of an old woman and her daughter. We were often visited by a stern, dark man, whom I was told was a knight. He indeed must have been the person who was my real protector, for after a while, my habitation was again changed, and I became the resident of an old decayed fortalice, where a warden and one or two servants constituted the whole household. Here I remained for many years, and until I was past my boyhood. I saw no more of my imagined protector, but I have every reason to believe he owned the old castle, where, by-the-bye, I picked up some knowledge of war-like-exercises; sufficient indeed to fit me, at the age of eighteen, to be sent to the army as a man-at-arms. I served a campaign under the banner of the Sieur de Lorenge, to whom I had been recommended by, I suppose, my unknown protector. His secret agency I have no doubt was exerted in procuring me to be knighted. Since then I have been thrown upon my own resources, and for a couple of years have served in Flanders, but wishing to discover, if possible, my real birth, I left the continent, and reaching England, set out on this apparently insane search. I have been engaged in it more than a half a year, and have yet obtained no clue to my parentage. I judge it, however, to be English, from my having been brought up in Scotland, for I was certainly taken prisoner in a foray. And now, dearest, you have my history—and what, alas! do you know of me, except that I am a penniless unknown knight, hunting through this broad realm for a parentage?” The maiden did not answer the question of her lover directly, but seemed lost in thought. She gazed wonderingly upon the speaker, and said,— “Strange!—if it should prove to be so.” Wondering at her inexplicable question, her lover said,— “What is strange, dearest?” But scarcely had this inquiry been made, when a servant appeared, informing the lovers, that the uncle of the lady Eleanor had arrived unexpectedly from court, and begged at once to be allowed to pay his thanks to the brave knight who had rescued his niece.
It was a fortnight later in our history. A small cavalcade was winding along a romantic road, late in the afternoon. At its front rode two knights, completely armed, except as to their heads, which were covered with light caps, instead of helmets. A palfrey, upon which rode a lady, and the numerous handmaidens in the group, showed the cavalcade to be that of a woman of rank. Suddenly the procession reached the brow of a hill, overlooking a wide reach of pasture and woodland. An extensive valley stretched below, through which meandered a stream, that now glittered in the sunlight, and was now lost to sight as it entered the mazes of the forest. In the very centre of the valley, and on a gentle elevation, stood a large and extensive castle, its defences reaching completely around the low hill upon which it stood. As the prospect broke upon the sight, the two knights drew in their reins, and the elder turning to the younger one, whom the reader will instantly recognise as the hero of our tale, said,— “Yonder is Torston castle, and in less than an hour we shall be within its walls.” “And a noble fortress it is, my lord. I have seen many both in this fair realm and in France, but few to equal yon proud castle.” “The landscape is itself a fine one,” said Lord Torston, “though few of our profession of arms have an eye for beauty.” “The rudest boor, my lord, could not fail to admire this scene. And yet it does not seem wholly new to me. I have an indistinct impression of having beheld something like it before.” “Perhaps, in some fair valley of France. But we must push on, or we shall not reach the castle until nightfall.” A brisker pace, however, soon brought the cavalcade to the outskirts of the domain. Descending the hill, they passed amid verdant woods and open lawns, and villages scattered here and there, until they readied the immediate vicinity of the castle, and in a few minutes more they entered the large gateway, and drew up in the court-yard. Every thing around seemed to recall to the mind of the young knight some long forgotten dream; and when alighting, they entered the hall, with its raised table at the upper end and the large antlers surmounting the dais, it appeared to him as if he had returned to some favorite place on which he had been wont to gaze in days long gone by. Suddenly he paused, looked eagerly around, placed his hand to his brow, and said— “My lord, this is strange. It seems to me as if I knew this place, and every step only reveals some old remembered feature to me. It cannot be that I have dreamed of it.” “No, Sir Henry, you have not. You have seen it, but long ago. I have suspected this for some days, but I am now convinced.” “My lord,” said the young knight with a bewildered air, “what mean you? It cannot be, and yet your words, your looks, your gestures, imply it—am I to find in this castle my birth-place?” “Yes! my son,” exclaimed the baron, unable longer to control the emotions, which had been swelling for days in his bosom, “and in me you find a father,” and opening his arms, his long lost son fell into his arms. “I no sooner saw your face,” said the father, when these emotions had subsided sufficiently to permit an explanation, “than I felt a yearning towards you, for it reminded me of your mother. But when I heard your story,” he continued, “it tallied so completely with the loss of my only son, that I suspected at once that you were my child. Your age, too, agreed with what his should have been. Unwilling, however, to make known my belief, I enjoined silence on my niece, determining to bring you here in order to see if the sight of your birth-place would awaken old recollections in your bosom. I have succeeded. I do not doubt but that you are my son,—and now let me lead you to your cousin, who by this time will have changed her apparel, and be ready to receive us.” “One moment, only,” said Sir Henry, “I have that here, which as yet I have shewn to no one. It is a ring I wore on my neck when a child. Here it is.” “God be praised, my son,” said the old baron, “for removing every doubt. This is your mother’s wedding ring, which, after her death, you wore around your neck,” and the long-separated father and son again embraced, while tears of joy and thankfulness stole down the old man’s face. Is it to be supposed that the lady Eleanor looked more coldly on her lover, now that every difficulty in the way of their union was removed: or that the young heir was less eager to possess himself of his bride, because, by wedding her, he would preserve to her the possessions which otherwise she would lose? Truth compels us to answer both questions in the negative. Scarcely a month had elapsed before the young knight led his blooming cousin to the altar, while his new-found father looked on with a joy which he had thought, as a childless man, he could never more have experienced. And in the proud array of England’s proudest chivalry, which met at Torston castle to celebrate the nuptials, no one demeaned himself more gallantly, or won more triumphs in the lists, than the young knight, now no longer Harry Bowbent, the soldier of fortune, but the heir of the richest earldom in the realm.
SIGHS FOR THE UNATTAINABLE. ——— BY CHARLES WEST THOMSON. ——— My heart is like the basin deep, From which a fountain’s waters flow— It cannot all its treasures keep, Nor find them welcome when they go. From its recesses dark and drear, There bubble up a thousand springs, Sparkles of hope, and drops of fear, Wild thoughts and strange imaginings. ’Tis full of great and high desires— It swells with wishes proud but vain— And on its altar kindle fires, Whose wasted warmth but nurtures pain. And feelings come, with potent spell, In many a wildering throng combined, Whose force no words can ever tell, Nor language e’er a likeness find. But, ah! how sinks my saddened soul, To know, with all its longings high, It ne’er can reach the tempting goal, Nor to the lofty issue fly. To feel the ardent wish to range The world of thought and fancy o’er, Yet know—oh! contradiction strange! It owns a wing too weak to soar. To have the love of all that’s fair, And beautiful and pure and free, Yet find it choked with weeds of care, Flung from the world’s tempestuous sea. To feel affections warm and high, Boiling within my panting breast, And meet a careless, cold reply, Where sought my weary soul for rest. Oh! give me Nature’s kindly charm, A scene where quiet beauty reigns— Give me a heart with feeling warm, To share my joy, to soothe my pains. And they who love the stormy path Of wild Ambition’s wildered scheme, May revel in its rage and wrath, Most welcome to the bliss they dream.
THE SYRIAN LETTERS. WRITTEN FROM DAMASCUS, BY SERVILIUS PRISCUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE, TO HIS KINSMAN, CORNELIUS DRUSUS, RESIDING AT ATHENS, AND BUT NOW TRANSLATED. Damascus. Servilius to Cornelius—Greeting: I hope you will not deem me tedious, my friend, if I endeavor to describe to you the manner in which Lactantius maintained the truth of that faith of which he is one of the most illustrious advocates. But you should have heard him, to have felt yourself in the presence of one of the greatest of men. As the day was mild, Septimus ordered the couches to be disposed along the level roof, as affording much the most delightful place to hold a conversation, for so harmless is the air of this climate, that you may even take your midnight repose under the open sky; and this they inform us is the reason why this land is so noted for those who are skilled in the map of the heavens. This, you may truly say, should be no matter of surprise, for it may be held impossible that one the least inclined to meditation should behold, night after night, without being fired with the spirit of investigation, that overspreading canopy unbounded and far reaching as eternity, but bright with wheeling stars, that rise at their own fixed moment, and set behind some well-known peak, and thus, year after year, traverse the same unvarying and harmonious circle, without collision with their sister orbs—glorious and imperishable. The sun, last sinking toward Cyprus, robbed of his exhausting heats, was mildly burning above Lebanon. The city lay on every side. In one direction rose the pillar of Antonine; in another the amphitheatre; and you might, with steady observation, see the wild beasts pacing to and fro, with impatient step, their well-barred cages, kept now more for curiosity than sport. In another quarter the accustomed grove relieved the wilderness of marble, like a clump of palms which often starts out so refreshingly against the whitened sands. But, what was most beautiful to behold from this elevated site, was the far receding valley in which this city is built, sheltered on either hand by an eternal battlement of rocks, cultivated to the utmost stretch of industry, clothed with its fruitful vines, and glistening with its hundred gardens, temples and villas, wherever you might look. Through its centre ran the mazy Leontes, shining from among its tufted banks, and catching ever and anon the parting glories of the sun while on its bosom, or suddenly emerging from some green shade, the eye detected, by the sparkling of the oar, the gaily colored galley, freighted with many a light heart. Thus raised above the bustle of the crowded thoroughfares, and soothed by the Cyprian breeze, we felt the inspiring influence of all we saw. Lactantius was the first to speak. “I hesitate not to avow,” said he, “that I feel a deep solicitude in behalf of my friend Mobilius. Would that I had the power to expound to him the unsatisfactory reliance of his faith, the feebleness of its supports, and the terms of its delusions. As the shivering reed trembles on the first assault of the rude wind, so does this perishable belief upon the first advance of swift-footed adversity; forsaking you when you most require the aid of ready guidance and bright-eyed consolation. “Brought from Egypt by the crafty priest, that land of science, but of superstition, he planted it in a soil where he was certain it would thrive, and to make success more sure he mingled with it the gaudy ceremonies of Chaldea. Strange that so noxious a plant should flourish as well as in its native soil, and so near the walls of Bethlehem. “They burn an offering of perpetual fires to the king of day—what a sorry imitation of his light when but a struggling ray shall quench it! They behold his blinding brightness, they feel his piercing heats, they see nature bloom beneath his smiles, and they forget he sprang from something. They look not beyond. Will the sun rescue us from affliction, and heal us in the hour of sickness? How,” he exclaimed, warming as he spoke, and felt the influence of rapt attention—“How shall glittering rites propitiate that which can neither feel nor see, which was created to rule the day, divide the light from darkness, and mark the rolling seasons, but has no power to save, to heal or vanquish? The throbbing pulse, the glistening eye, the kindly sympathy we feel in another’s anguish speaks to us of a soul, declares to us we sprang from some sublime and all wise original. Behold,” said he, rising from his couch with a commanding attitude, “yon temple, the boast of Syria, what symmetry, what grandeur!—as wise would it be to say it sprang from nothing, as that sun, which from time almost incalculable, has risen in the east and set beneath those mountains. It must have been the instrument of an all wise purpose. Then why not adore the source through whose command it blazed into existence? “How is it, Mobilius, that the faithful follower in our faith, worn out by agonising pain, or hastening, hour after hour, toward certain dissolution, every thing, the bright skies, the anxious faces of those that gather round him, exposing to his fading eye—how is it he is yet more cheerful as his shattered frame sinks into increasing weakness—so that neither the stake, with its tortures, the amphitheatre, with its jeers and cruel glances, nor the silent chamber, where the last enemy of the good man approaches with slower step, and where he does not find the support or triumph of a martyrdom, shall shake his confidence?” Here Mobilius seemed oppressed with affliction. “What is it, my good friend,” said Lactantius, “that grieves you?” “I will tell you: your words shoot anguish through my soul, but it is for memories that are past. My sister, she on whom I lavished every thought, and all that I possessed, was snatched from me in the midst of mutual happiness. She lingered, and was buoyed up by some sweet and hidden consolation she appeared anxious to impart, but the flickering flame of life burnt too feebly in the lamp. It was, it must have been this; would I had known it, that I might have whispered into her ear I knew it. Her last look was cast upon the blue depths of heaven, as if in earnest contemplation of some glorious spectacle, and she died with a sweet smile upon her features, as if listening to sweet music. ‘Mobilius,’ she said, pointing upward, ‘Mobilius, my dear brother, behold the—’ but the trembling syllables died into a whisper—she had fled! There were to me sweet smiles no longer to cheer the vigor of my desolation—I was alone in the world.” “Console yourself,” replied Lactantius, “this was an evidence your sister died in peace. Trouble not yourself on this account, you may meet her again.” At this communication his countenance, dull and heavy with grief, brightened as the sun through showers. You have seen a piece of marble carved into a coarse resemblance of the face. You have come again. The chisel of a master spirit has been busy in its god-like lineaments. It almost speaks; the dull, cold marble almost warms into a smile—such was the change. Mobilius, gathering his mantle about him, abruptly left us, nor did I see him again throughout that day. The stars began to glimmer as the sunlight waned, and we felt in all its bounteous fulness the care-dispelling influence of this clime. The conversation was prolonged, and I found that Lactantius was as well skilled in the policy of existing governments, as in the peculiarities of all the prevailing theologies, in short, as competent for the duties of a statesman as a bishop; and it grieves me not a little that so many should be raised to this eminent station in the church so far inferior to Lactantius, while he, blessed with every natural gift, endowed with the quickest of intellects—enriched with all the learning—polished, fiery and overwhelming in speech, or if it please him, mild and winning as the softest Lydian measure, the Christian and the philosopher, should be thrust aside. This age will be signalised upon the page of the historian, as much because it gave birth to a Constantine as that on it there flourished a Lactantius. We now descended, and the evening passed in the enjoyments of those rational pleasures which are always sought with an increasing relish. To turn to another topic, shall I propose a subject for thy solution? What is that which may be likened to the gleam that struggles through the dark and overhanging mists, driving away in its scattering brightness the gloom of the weeping clouds? Yes, and I have known it prove stronger than the precepts of philosophy, or the examples of heroic ardor, kindling dying courage, inspiring god-like resolution, and confessing a manly port and look which seemed to herald victory ere it was achieved. More enlivening than the wine of Chios, let it but beam upon you, and the mist of bewilderment flies, and in its place you find that joy the poets so sweetly picture. What is it, you say, has induced Servilius to wander from the thread of his narrative? Of a certainty you cannot hesitate a moment—a woman’s smile! You whisper the boy Cupid, and that no other than one assailed by his dart, could invest with such rosy hues that which one sees and feels every hour of the day. But let me pause. I am writing to a philosopher, and one who may chide me when he remembers the discussions we have had upon this matter, and in which I took the sterner part. But I recant, I renounce my errors. You have influence, Cornelius, at Athens. Place the good of all that is left to us below upon a loftier pedestal. Woman should be looked up to with admiration, and not down upon with contempt. What, as yourself must admit, so softens the rigors of existence as the winning influence of woman, and why should they be treated as so insignificant a portion of the state? Be persuaded that that nation, which by its laws most elevates the character of woman, which pays the most profound obeisance to their gentle virtues, is nearest the standard of true happiness, and surest in the certainty of its duration. These were my reflections, when who other should approach, as wearied and heated from exposure to the sun, I had thrown myself upon a couch beside a fountain in the hall of Septimus, both unperceiving and unperceived until too late to retreat, than Placidia and Lucretia. They seemed to hesitate and blush, but instantly arising, I invited them to stay. “You came, I know, to seek the coolness of this airy hall, and you must permit me to retire.” “No!” they exclaimed, “that we must not do.” “You look wearied,” Lucretia added. “Yes, I have been pacing the crowded streets of this proud city in search of amusement and instruction.” “How is it?” she asked, “that you youth of Rome who travel, take such pleasure in beholding a pile of marble variously disposed. Having seen one handsome temple, I am sure all the rest are like it, though perchance they may be somewhat larger or smaller, or have an additional column or so. Is it a taste which is natural or does it come of cultivation?” and thus she dashed on in the same gay strain, as if undetermined whether to speak with lightness or with seriousness. Placidia now began a skilful attack upon my adversary, nor could the best disciple of the schools have made a more effectual sally. “It was but yesterday, Lucretia, I heard you discourse so prettily about the great buildings in the city, with choice of language, and glow of thought that any poet might have envied. There were the flowery capitals—the happy arrangement—the beautiful designs—the—but I cannot remember the learned phrases which you used. I have it—you spoke but to draw our friend into an argument, in order that he might show wherein you are in error.” Lucretia stood silent, half-smiling, half-angry, as if to say, tarry until a more fitting opportunity—wait until we are alone my sweet Placidia, and I will amply revenge myself for these unreserved communications. “I must acknowledge, Placidia,” I replied, “the kindness of your interposition. But the inquiry of Lucretia has been fully answered by the unfortunate Longinus, a copy of whose immortal works I have now in my possessions, and it would be a source of pleasure to study them with you.” “We embrace the proposition with delight,” she answered, but then, as if fearing she had been too eager, she replied, “but Mobilius must be of the number.” “Placidia,” said Lucretia, “do you know then that Septimus and all his friends are alarmed at the absence of Mobilius: he has not been seen since he left us last night?” This was uttered in a tone which led me to believe her previous gaiety was but assumed. “Is it possible?” replied Placidia with emotion. “I must go and assist my friends in their search,” I replied. “But you are not acquainted with the streets of Heliopolis, and what service could you render?”— “Friendship, Placidia—” but she interrupted me as if in anticipation of what I was about to say. “Go—hasten,” at the same time whispering in my ear as she turned, and deeply blushing, “let me see you on your return—I have something to confide to you which hangs heavily upon my spirits.” “I see how it is,” and the fire of jealousy shot through my veins, “she loves Mobilius;” but such ungenerous thoughts were soon driven from my mind, when I remembered the uncertainty of the fate of my friend. At this moment I heard the name of Septimus cried aloud. “Where is Septimus?” exclaimed one of the slaves as he rushed into the hall; “a lion has escaped from the amphitheatre—” he said, and trembled with fear. “And has been chasing you, or you are frightened,” I replied. “Why hesitate? the door is closed.” He looked up, as if imploring my patience. “Worse, worse,—Mobilius was found on the road that leads to the temple of Venus, upon Lebanon, mangled,—” here he was completely overpowered. Indeed, it was dreadful news, and I asked the man no further questions. Placidia sank senseless upon a couch, while Lucretia, greatly affected, endeavored to support her tottering frame. As soon as she was partially restored, I departed, and meeting Lactantius, who had been more active in his enquiries, he cheered me by a most agreeable piece of news, as compared with the hopeless story I had heard. It was only the mantle of Mobilius that had been found, and there was no blood upon it. I hastened to relieve the anxieties of my friends, and was ushered into the presence of Placidia, by her maid, who stood waiting for me under the portico. I hastily told her what I had heard. After expressing her joy, she broke to me her story. “Servilius, my friend, for you must permit me to call you such, from your many acts of kindness I shall never be able to repay—” “You cannot repay,” I whispered to myself, “oh! cruel Placidia.” “There is something, which greatly troubles me, and some hidden prompter seems to tell me that by unburdening to you the cause of my sorrow, I shall find the speediest relief.” My heart now beat high with expectation, “dare I hope?” I said to myself. “It cannot be a dream,” she said, with her eyes fixed, and half-musing, as if for the moment unconscious of my presence. “It cannot be a dream—but I no sooner beheld the face of Mobilius, than the recollection of youth rushed upon my memory, and I thought of my brother and my sister, who have long slept with the perished. They were wrecked upon the coast of Africa, and none escaped to bear to mourning friends the brief story of their fate, but one, who, floating on a fragment of the vessel, was taken up as he was on the point of relinquishing his hold, from utter weakness, by a Syrian galley. Messengers were despatched, and my uncle himself undertook the risk and toil of a journey on our behalf. But all was in vain.” “There is still an expectation to be cherished,” I said. “Do you give hope?” said she, faintly smiling through her tears, “affection once clung to the feeblest support, but it has long since despaired.” “It shall not despair,” I answered, with an energy that startled, her, hurrying out of the apartment. I soon recollected myself. “What have I done?” I thought, “years have rolled by, nor could I flatter myself with the hope of success even if I wandered over all the territory of Rome, and ventured to the unknown land of the barbarian.” I now remembered that I had heard Apicius speak of some wealthy merchant residing in Berytus, who owned many galleys in communicating with the coast of Africa, but he had gone to his villa, and I was obliged to postpone my investigation. Returning to the hall, I met Septimus, who told me the last that had been heard of Mobilius was from a Syrian merchant, who knew and accosted him hastening toward the road leading to the mountains, but with his eye riveted upon the path. He advanced with rapid strides. I then told Septimus the news his slave had brought. “Alas! there is no longer a doubt, Servilius,” he replied, “since this is the same road on which the temple stands.” We parted in grief, and Septimus in despair. When first I met Mobilius there was a levity in his manner which did not please me, but since his conversations with Lactantius a noted change had been wrought in him, and the hidden virtues of his character shone unclouded. We did not meet until we mingled at the evening tables; but no joy was there, and the silence was only broken by a loud cry from the slaves, as if something unusual had taken place. Septimus arose to ascertain the cause, when he was suddenly confronted by Mobilius, with dishevelled hair and robes. A shriek of surprise and joy burst from every tongue. “We greet you, my dear Mobilius,” said Sergius, as he pressed his hand with parental fondness. Mobilius cast upon him a look of wonder, blended with bewilderment, as if in the sudden but vain effort to recall some long effaced recollection, or it might have been from gratitude at the interest of a stranger in a stranger’s fate. All with one accord begged him to tell the cause of his absence. “I knew you would feel solicitude,” he said, “and as you perceive by the dust upon my robe, I have hastened to relieve your anxieties. The conversation of last night, and the light that suddenly broke upon my soul, for the while robbed me of my senses. I hurried from you, nor did I stop until I left the city many a pace behind me. Midnight gathered on. I began to recollect myself and sought shelter at the temple which lay in my way. I struck its gate with redoubling blows. I cried aloud, but none answered. Verily you might perish before these cruel priests would give you protection. A lofty tree presented the only refuge. Awakened by the morning sun, and descending, I retraced my steps with as much anxiety to reach Heliopolis as I had felt to leave it. I had not gone far, however, when to my horror I encountered that terrible lion of the amphitheatre. Subterfuge and presence of mind afforded the only chance of safety. Escape was impossible, and weapon I had none. He fixed his fiery eye upon me, lashed his tail, as if sure of his prey, and crouched to spring. Now was the only hope. Hastily unloosening my light robe, I suddenly raised it upon a slender stick, torn from a neighboring bush, and quickly stepped aside. The deceit was successful, the furious animal sprang at it, dragged it on the ground, and tore it into atoms. Rushing toward a tree, while I left him at the garment, I mounted among its branches as with wings. I do assure you I never climbed with more alacrity. The noble animal, discovering his mistake, scowled with sullen fierceness toward my place of shelter, and seemingly satisfied with the vengeance he had taken, strode onward.” “A most fortunate escape,” ejaculated Valerius; “you must present your gifts to-morrow at the temple.” A tear twinkled in the eye of Lactantius, and I fancied I saw his lips move as in the act of prayer. “Yes, Valerius, and it is not the first escape with which a guardian Providence has blessed me. Shipwreck and slavery I also have escaped.” “Shipwreck,” enquired Sergius, with anxiety, “will you tell us the sad story? I had a son who was shipwrecked,” and the old man trembled in the effort to subdue his grief. “I will. I left Rome on a voyage to Athens; we were driven by stress of weather into a port of Sicily. The storm abating, we pursued our course along the coast of Africa, being obliged to touch at Alexandria, but we were wrecked before we reached our haven, and nearly all the crew were swallowed by the waves.” “Pardon me for asking,” said Marcus, “but did you not write to Rome, after you secured your liberty, to discover whether your kindred were still living?” “I wrote many epistles, and to my uncle also, who told me they were all carried off by a terrible pestilence, which visited the city, and that my patrimony had been previously confiscated to the state, because of some act of my parent, and that if I ventured to Rome the rage of my father’s enemies would doubtless be turned against me. I had no wish, however, to undertake the voyage, since those most cherished were no more.” “And what was the name of your father?” asked Lactantius. “Lucius Sergius.” The venerable man paused for a moment in mute bewilderment, and then rushed into the arms of Mobilius, exclaiming, “Caius, my son, my long lost son!” “My sisters,” he cried, as they ran to embrace their beloved brother, and wept with joy. It was a touching scene, and the ecstacy of gladness brightened every face. Here let me drop the veil with the promise of ending the description of the trials and fortunes of my friend in my next epistle. Farewell.
Gently, gently, beating heart! Love not earthly things too well! Those who love too soon may part, Sorrow’s waves too quickly swell. Softly, softly, boding fear! Tell me not of fleeting bliss— Ever would I linger here With a joy so pure as this. Shame thee, shame thee, earthly love! Chain not thus my spirit here! Earth must change, and joy must prove Sure forerunner of despair. Cheer thee! cheer thee, child of God! Trust in Heaven, and all is well, Come the smile, or fall the rod, Cheer thee! cheer thee, all is well! M. S. B. D.
THE CLOTHING OF THE ANCIENTS. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH. ——— BY WILLIAM DUANE, JR. ——— If the ancient inhabitants of the world had extreme difficulty in sheltering themselves from the severity of the seasons, they experienced much more in giving to their clothes the impress of art or industry. Consult Strabo; he will tell you that certain nations covered themselves with the bark of trees, fig-leaves or rushes, rudely intertwined. Often also the skins of animals were employed, without the least preparation, for the same end. In proportion as the barbarism disappeared which had been introduced by the confusion of tongues, they began to think of the wool of sheep, and to ask themselves if there were no means of uniting in a single thread the different pieces of this substance by the aid of a kind of spindle. Seeing their efforts crowned with success, “Let us now,” said they, “try to imitate the spider.” They did so; and, behold, as Democritus begs us to observe, the art of weaving invented! After that, the invariable custom which existed among the Jews, fifteen hundred years before Jesus Christ, of collecting the fleeces of their sheep at fixed periods; and great was the account which they made of it according to the testimony of Genesis (31, 19.) The history, true or fabulous, of the web of Penelope, the wife of Ulysses, proves to us that wool was not the sole material to which they thought of applying the art of weaving. And do we not read in Pliny that “the cotton plant grew in Upper Egypt, that they made stuffs of it, and that the Egyptian priests made admirable surplices of it?” It is undeniable that garments of cotton and of linen were in use in the time of the patriachs; indeed Moses commands his people in the 22d chapter of Deuteronomy, “not to wear a dress of linen;” and the ancient Babylonians, as Herodotus informs us, (Book I.) “wore immediately over their skin a cambric tunic, which fell down to their feet in the oriental manner.” It was the same among the Athenians, according to Thucydides. In the age of Augustus, many people had already arrived at great perfection in the manufacture of linen stuffs: it is the express assertion of the historian Pliny. “The Faventine cloth,” says he, “is always whiter than the Allienne cloth. That which they have designated by the word Retovine, is so exceedingly fine that its threads are as slender as those of the spider. I have myself seen a thread of Cumes hemp so thin that a great net made of this material could go through a common ring; and I have heard tell of a man who could carry on his back as much as was required to encircle an entire forest. The fine cambric, made of the linen of Byssus, is a product of Achaia; it was sold in old times for its weight in gold.” (Book 19.) In the Egyptian Museum of the Royal Library of Paris, you may cast your eyes upon mummies, found in the catacombs of Cairo: the cloth in which they are wrapped is not at all coarser than the cambric of your shops; and yet it has been woven three hundred years. On this occasion it is not inappropriate to add that the art of weaving is still more ancient than that of embalming; which this answer of Abraham to the king of Sodom indicates: “I will not carry away a single thread of your wool,” said the patriarch to him, “lest you should say—I have made Abraham rich!” Elsewhere, Moses informs us that Abimelech presented a veil to Sarah; that on the approach of Isaac, Rebecca covered her face with a veil; and that when Joseph was appointed viceroy of Egypt, Prince Pharaoh covered him with a linen robe after having placed his own ring upon his finger. The Book of Job (the most ancient writing perhaps in existence) mentions a weaver’s shuttle, (chapter 7.) A thousand years before the Christian era, do you see, setting out along the desert, those messengers of the wise Solomon, going to procure in Egypt cloths of fine linen for the king, their master? Shortly after, the city of Tyre obtained great celebrity for the beauty of its fine linens; and Ezekiel dwells enraptured on the opulence of its merchants in the following terms:—“All the planks of thy vessels are of the fine fir tree of Senir, and their masts are of the cedar of Lebanon! For their sails thou hast employed the fine linen of Egypt, splendidly embroidered.” Do not suppose that all the sails of this period were of as precious a material as those of the Tyrians: like those of the Arabians of our days, they were generally composed of woven rushes. The women commonly wore white dresses; besides, the ancients had early made rapid progress in the art of bleaching. They were all ignorant, as you may well suppose, of the expeditious process which the illustrious Berthollet has conceived, with the assistance of a hydrochlorate of lime or of soda; they knew, however, how to use other detersive substances to impart a shining whiteness to their stuffs. “There exists among us,” says Pliny, “a species of poppy, very rare, which bleaches linen cloth wonderfully; and yet, would one believe it? we have among us a crowd of people so vain that they have attempted to dye their linen as well as their wool.” In alluding in another passage to the sky-blue curtains of the Emperor Nero, he begs us not to forget that, despite of all the rich shades produced by dyeing, white cloth never ceased to enjoy the highest reputation, to such a degree that they conferred the title of Great on a person named Lentulus Spinter, who first conceived the idea of hanging white curtains around the places consecrated to the Olympic games. This same kind of stuff was spread upon all the houses of the Via Sacra, by order of CÆsar, the Dictator, who planning magnificent decorations, wished that they should extend from his residence up to the Capitol. The basis of the hard soap of our days was undoubtedly known to the ancients. The natron or sub-carbonate of soda, which they collect in the channels of the Nile at the present time, was really gathered there in sufficient abundance in the first ages of the world. From another place, the man of Uz made use of it; for he makes ready in one of his chapters (Job, ch. 9.) to wash his clothes in a pit with bor or borith, a plant much esteemed on account of its alkaline properties. (You must not confound this with the boron of modern chemistry, which with oxygen constitutes the boracic acid.) Open the Sixth Book of the Odyssey; Homer will there shew you Nausicaa, and her companions, trampling their clothes with their feet to whiten them for an approaching marriage; the bard adds that the ladies knew perfectly well the property which the atmosphere possessed of assisting in the destruction of the only substance which imparts a greyish appearance to cloths. In alluding to this passage, Goguet affirms that all the linen and cotton garments were washed daily. An anecdote related by Apuleius in his book of “The Golden Ass,” goes to prove still more the attention which they formerly paid to the art of bleaching; “A wag,” said he to us, “being secretly introduced into the house of a merchant, came near being suffocated by the sulphurous gas which was given out by a bleaching machine in which he was hid.” The ability of the ancients to bestow upon their linen, cotton[2] and woolen cloths a brightness not inferior to that of the snow of their mountains, did not fail them when they had to dye them. More than three thousand years ago a cunning shrew, as Genesis informs us, (ch. 28.) fastened a scarlet ribbon around the hand of one of the children of Tamar: and Homer speaks to us in the part of his poem above mentioned, of the colored cloths of Sidon as admirable productions. Jacob made for his beloved son Joseph, “a robe of many colors,” and the king of Tyre sent into the palace of Solomon “a man skilful to work wonderfully in gold, silver, &c. and to produce upon fine linen the shades of purple, blue and crimson.” According to Herodotus, who wrote, as you know, four hundred years before Jesus Christ, some people of Caucasus washed in water the leaves of a certain tree, which yielded at length a brilliant color, with the aid of which they drew upon stuffs the figures of lions, monkeys, dolphins and vultures. Among the brave knights who perished at Colchis, in the Argonautic expedition, there was one whom the historian Valerius Flaccus distinguishes by his painted tunic, at the same time that he expresses his admiration of the whiteness of the fine cloth which the hero also wore: “Tenuia non illum candentis carbossa lini, Non auro depicta chalymis, non flava galeri CÆsaries, pictoque juvant subtemine bracÆ.” (Val. Flac. 6.) Speaking of Colchis, it was there that the best materials for painting were formerly procured. Besides, if you will ascend in spirit to the days of old, you will perceive every year on the roads leading from Georgia to the principal cities of India, as well as to Dimbeck, an immense drove of two thousand camels, loaded with madder. Thence the red[3] flowers were derived, of which Strabo speaks, which the nations dwelling on the borders of the Indus and the Ganges loved to spread upon their cloths. It is a particular worthy of remark that the Egyptians who constantly clothed the statues of their goddess Isis with linen and cotton drapery, never employed wool for that purpose, a substance which they hated so much that they did not permit the use of it, even in interments, as the 44th chapter of Ezekiel informs us. This aversion extended even to shepherds, for you may read in Genesis that every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians. (46.) The purple of Tyre was known at an epoch exceedingly remote, and the dyers of Phoenicia surpassed in skill those of all the other nations of the east. This people came a thousand years ago as far as Great Britain to procure an enormous quantity of tin, a metal which has the property, or rather certain salts of it have, of augmenting the intensity of the principal red colors contained in many vegetable and animal substances. Upon this subject, we would advise you to run over, in the third book of Strabo, the interesting recital which he gives of the pursuit of a Phoenician vessel by a Roman bark, which wished to seize the tin with which it was freighted. It was in the neighborhood of the coast of Cornwall: the Phoenician, seeing the prow of the Roman near his stern, threw three-fourths of his cargo overboard, and steered right upon a sand-bank, where the enemy, as you may well suppose, did not think of following him. The Tyrians, astonished at the great opulence which their city attained, attributed to the gods the magic art of dyeing in purple. All writers, and especially Ctesias, physician to a king of Persia, who lived four hundred years before the Christian era, and Ælian, a contemporary of Alexander Severus, frequently allude to an insect, to which the Phoenicians were indebted for the superior manner in which they could produce an admirable scarlet. It was evidently the cochineal: and this little animal must have been at that time less rare than at present in Syria, India, and Persia, since the humblest classes frequently wore stuffs dyed with purple. It is not surprising that they knew not how to extract from the cochineal the most brilliant of all the known reds, the carmine, before which the vermillion grows pale, and which chemistry can procure for us, in our days, in great abundance; and you know that this little insect lives upon the cactus which grow in Brazil, in Mexico, at Jamaica, and at Saint Domingo. The fashion of wearing silk was unknown at Rome, before the beginning of the empire. The rage for dressing in it was already so great in the time of Tiberius, that the emperor prohibited the use of it by a positive law. The Greeks also had a taste for it; and the cloak of Amphion was certainly of silk, for the historian Philostratus (Ion, Book I.) tells us that its color changed according to the different ways in which the light was reflected from it. Pliny gives us to understand that the gold stuffs of the ancients were not made as those of our time, of a thread of gold or silver, wrapped around a woof of silk, but that they were woven of gold deprived of all alloy: knowing this, he speaks of the manner in which the wife of Claudius dressed herself to attend a Naumachia or sea fight, in the following terms—“Nos vidimus Agrippinam—indutam palludamento auro textile, sine alia materia.” It is about fifty years since they extracted, by assaying, more than four pounds weight of pure gold from some old dresses which the fathers of the Clementine College, at Rome, discovered in an urn of basalt, buried in their vineyard. Tarquin, the Elder, was he, among the Roman Sovereigns who most usually wore dresses of gold. From the time of Homer the Greeks wore black dresses for mourning. This bard shews us Thetis wearing, after the death of Patroclus, the blackest of her dresses. (Iliad, 24.) For many years the same usage prevailed among the Romans, but it was partly changed under the emperors, so that when Plutarch wrote, the women in mourning could wear nothing but white. Besides, we have a proof of it at the obsequies of Septimius Severus: “The image of this emperor,” Herodian tells us, “formed of wax, was surrounded on one side by a row of women in white, and on the other by the body of all the senators, clothed in black. At the death of the Empress Plotina,” adds the historian, “her husband Trajan covered himself with very black habits for the space of nine days.” The toga necessarily received as many shades of color as the other garments: but as to the form of this kind of robe it is impossible to decide. When Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, asserts that the toga presented the appearance of a semicircle (’????????) he did not at all intend to describe its shape, but only the form which it assumed when worn upon the body. Strabo asserts that the military cloak with which the warriors clothed themselves had an oval form; and that among the Athenians it was often worn by the young people even in time of peace. The tunic, which was the principal part of the under clothing, was not generally used among the nations of antiquity, except the Greeks and Romans; all the Cynic philosophers disdained to make use of it. We know that Augustus put on as many as four tunics in winter. The name of this great emperor reminds us that it was in his reign, or thereabouts, that the Romans began to use table-cloths. Montfaucon believes that the greater part of them were of cloth striped with gold and purple. In France the ancient table-cloths were intended for collecting, after the meal, the smallest crumbs that were left, that nothing might be lost; and D’Arcy informs you that among our neighbors, the English, table linen was very seldom used in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. As there exist in our days many nations, especially in the torrid zone, who do not wear hats, (a name by which we must understand every covering for the head, as its etymology plainly indicates,) so it formerly happened that the nations did not always think of making use of them. Thus one of the most civilized, the Egyptians, went bare-headed, according to the authority of Hesiod. Amongst the Orientals, and especially amongst the Persians, the turban was in great vogue; that of the sovereign was composed of a whole bale of muslin. It was from this last mentioned people that the Jews derived the turban. The hats of the Greeks must have had very large brims, to judge from the root of the word (petas??) which designated them. The Romans granted to their freedmen the right of covering themselves with a kind of cap, which has been since adopted as the emblem of liberty. It is to a Swiss, residing in Paris, about the beginning of the fifteenth century, that we owe the first invention of felt hats. They were generally known at the close of the reign of Charles VII.: this monarch himself wore one at his triumphal entry into Rouen, in 1449. We read in Daniel that the worthy townsmen of that ancient city stood still as if petrified, so much were they astonished at seeing his majesty’s hat; the historian adds that its lining was of red silk, and that it was surmounted by a superb bunch of feathers. Before the period of which we speak, it is probable that the French covered their heads in the same way as the English, that is to say, with woven caps or rather with cloth and silk hoods. The stockings of the ancients were made of little pieces of cloth sewed together. We cannot say with certainty in what country the stocking-frame was invented. France, England and Spain respectively claim this useful discovery. A short time before the unfortunate tournament, in which Henry II. lost his life, he put on the first pair of silk stockings ever worn. Five years afterward, we see in England, William Ryder presenting a pair, as a very precious article, to William, Earl of Pembroke. Ryder had learnt the method of making them from an Italian merchant. Many persons probably know not that wooden shoes date from a very remote period; for the Jews wore them long before the age of Augustus. Perhaps they were not made exactly like the wooden shoes so common among the poorer classes in France; but it is not less true that this kind of covering for the feet was generally adopted among nearly all the people of JudÆa: sometimes, however, we observe leather shoes among them; and the Jewish soldiers covered their feet with copper, or with iron. The shoes of the Egyptians were of papyrus; the Chinese and the Indians manufactured theirs of silk, of rushes, of the bark of trees, of iron, of brass, of gold or of silver, according as their fortune permitted, or their fancy dictated. At Rome, as in Greece, leather was the material which covered the feet of every one. The Roman women wore white shoes: the common people wore black: and the magistrates set off their feet with red shoes on solemn occasions. A thousand years ago the most powerful sovereigns of Europe had wooden soles to their shoes. Under William Rufus, son of the great Duke of Normandy, who conquered at Hastings, in 1066, a fashion was introduced into England of giving to the shoes an excessive length; the point which terminated them was stuffed with tow, and curved up on high like a ram’s horn. In the fourteenth century they thought of connecting these points with the knee, by means of a gold chain. Great must have been the surprise of the worthy Anglo-Saxons, on beholding this strange species of vegetation sprouting up suddenly amongst them! Some called to remembrance the history of the serpent’s teeth, which Cadmus sowed, whence a swarm of soldiers issued; others conceived that it was the costume of magicians; and little children sometimes, when going to bed, asked their mothers if there was no danger that their heads might be metamorphosed in the night into those of a horrible deer? Before leaving this paragraph upon shoes, we would call to recollection the antiquity of the art of the leather-dresser: open for that purpose the Iliad, and you will find in the Seventeenth Book, tanners preparing skins to make leather of them. This class of manufacturers composed, three hundred years ago, a very important body, since we possess the account of a furious quarrel which broke out, under Queen Elizabeth, between them and the shoe-makers. We are pleased to record here the perfection with which they manufacture leather at this date in the New World. In South Carolina, as well as in the state of Virginia, the Indian women are so skilful in this branch of industry that a single person can dress as many as ten deer-skins a day.[4] Of all the transformations which are wrought in the arts, that of the animal substance into leather is, without doubt, one of the most curious. The process, by means of which they set about accomplishing it in old times, was the result of a calculation still more ingenious than that of changing two opaque bodies into a transparent body to make glass, for instance; or else two transparent bodies into an opaque body for making soap. Besides, you know that chemistry actually teaches us that leather is a real salt, a tannate of gelatine. This assertion was not uttered with confidence until M. Pelouze had extracted from tan in late years the tannic acid in a state of remarkable purity. Besides this, you may now explain a phenomena which is repeated at a great distance upon the ocean, at the time of some lamentable shipwreck. The journal which records for you the history of one of these sad events often tells you that in the last moment of famine, the unhappy survivors took to eating their shoes, and that life is sometimes prolonged by these means! Certainly, for the gelatine possesses nutritious properties, even when its peculiarities are stained with a thousand impurities, as is leather. The subject upon which we have endeavored to present some observations, is so capable of being extended that a large volume in octavo would scarcely suffice to contain all the historical knowledge relating to it. But such a dissertation, carried out to the extent or with the exactness which it admits of, would only constitute at last a kind of catalogue or bare enumeration of the thousand modifications which human vestures have undergone down to our times. The memory of the reader would be unable to retain so prodigious a number of minute particulars, and the curiosity of his mind, fatigued by so many useless details, would be extinguished before finishing the third part. These changes have often, it is true, nothing for their object but the accessory and secondary parts of dress, as the following passage, which we meet with in the voyages of M. de Chateaubriand, seems to point out. “One thing has at the same time struck me and charmed me; I have met in the dress of the Auvergne peasant the attire of the Breton peasant. Whence comes this? It is because there was formerly for this kingdom, and for all Europe, a groundwork of a common attire.” (Vol. 2., p. 296.) In another particular also, men have always been constant, that they have never ceased to seek for the material to compose their clothing from the animals which the Creator has placed in their respective climates. It will probably be the same till the end of the world. It is thus that the nations under the temperate zone have recourse for covering to wool, because, being a bad conductor of caloric, it prevents the escape of it from their bodies. In the frozen zone the Russians, the Esquimaux, and the Greenlanders, clothe themselves in furs, a material which is a still worse conductor of caloric; while the natives of countries under the influence of the torrid zone, make their dresses of hair or horse-hair, whose conducting properties are in an inverse ratio to those of furs. It is worth remarking that the animals which in temperate regions are covered with wool or ordinary hair, are provided, when they inhabit countries really cold, with an under-fleece of very fine wool: it is the case with goats, sheep, dogs, horses, and Thibet cows. If by a game of metempsychosis, you were enabled to return to existence two hundred years hence, what unheard of changes would you not see in the dress of individuals. Transport in anticipation your shade to a point commanding one of the public promenades of the capital; suppose yourself, for instance, on the top of the VendÔme Column, on a fine summer’s evening; you would, perhaps, perceive the dandies of the time strutting in frocks, whose leg of mutton sleeves are as voluminous as those of our sylphides at this day. Their hats, instead of being of beaver or of fur, have a similar shape to that which our ladies adopted in 1839. For the young folks a notched veil would be the prescribed mode; the men, of a certain age, would embellish their hats with a superb scarlet plume. As to the women, who will now dare to affirm that they will not then cover their heads with perukes À la Louis XIV. topped off with three-cocked hats, and that from their chin there will not descend a band À la procureur du roi? Extend your Pythagorean glance farther into the ages, and you will, perhaps, discover another part of mankind adding to their dress an enormous pair of wings! We may doubt that the gnomes, the sciences, will never render the attempt to make use of them more effectual than that of the son of DÆdalus in old times; but in return, posterity may fly by another process, in case the Æronauts can discover the secret of steering themselves in mid-air. Should this expectation be realised, we may then hear one of your future grand-nieces (who will be the belles of the noble Faubourg) say to her domestic on rising from her breakfast, “Ganymede! my balloon, with its boat; I wish to go dine to-day with my cousin, at Florence.”
TO LORD BYRON. FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE. ——— BY R. M. WALSH. ——— Thou, whose true name the world doth yet not know, Mysterious spirit, mortal, angel, fiend, Whate’er thou art, oh! Byron, still I love Thy concerts’ savage harmony, ev’n as I love the noise of thunder and of winds Commingling in the storm with torrents’ voice! Night is thy dwelling, horror thy domain; The eagle, king of deserts, thus doth scorn The lowly plain; he seeks, like thee, steep rocks By winter whitened, by the lightning riven; Shores strewn with fragments of the fatal wreck, Or fields all blackened with the gore of carnage: And whilst the bird that plaintive sings its griefs ’Mid flow’rets, builds its nest on bank of streams, Of Athos he the summits fearful scales, Suspends his eyre o’er the abyss, and there, Surrounded by still palpitating limbs, By rocks with bloody banquets ever foul, Soothed by the screaming anguish of his prey, And rocked by tempests, slumbers in his joy. Thou, Byron, like this brigand of the air, In cries of woe dost sweetest music find. Thy scene is evil, and thy victim man. Like Satan, thou hast measured the abyss, And plunging down, far, far from day and God, Hast bid to hope farewell for evermore! Like him, now reigning in the realms of gloom, Thy dauntless genius swells funereal strains; It triumphs; and thy voice in hellish tone Sings hymns of glory to the god of evil. But why against thy destiny contend? ’Gainst fate what may rebellious reason do? It hath but (like the eye) a bounded scope. Beyond it nor thy eye nor reason strain; There all escapes us; all is dark, unknown. Within this circle God hath marked thy place. How? why? who knows?—From His Almighty hands The world and human beings he hath dropped, As in our fields he spread around the dust, Or sowed the atmosphere with might or light. He knows; enough; the universe is his, And we can only claim the present day. Our crime is to be man and wish to know: To serve and know not is our being’s law. Byron, this truth is hard, and long I strove Against it; but why turn away from truth? With God, thy title is to be his work; To feel, t’adore thy slavery divine; In th’universal order to unite, Weak atom as thou art, to his designs Thy own free will; by his intelligence To have been conceived, and by thy life alone To glorify him—such, such is thy lot! Ah! rather kiss the yoke that thou wouldst break; Descend from thy usurped rank of god; All, in its place, is well, is good, is great; In His regard, who made immensity, The worm is worth a world; they cost the same! This law, thou say’st, revolts thy sense of right; It strikes thee merely as a strange caprice; A snare where reason trips at every step— Let us confess and judge it not, great bard! Like thine, my mind with darkness is replete, And not for me it is to explain the world: Let Him who made, explain the universe. The more I sound the abyss, the more, alas! I lose myself amid its viewless depths. Grief, here below, to grief is ever linked, Day follows day, and pain succeeds to pain. In nature bounded, infinite in wish, Man is a fallen god rememb’ring Heaven: Whether that, disinherited of all His pristine glory, he doth still preserve The mem’ry of his former destinies, Or that the vastness of his wishes gives A distant presage of his future greatness— Imperfect at his birth, or fallen since— The great, the awful mystery is man. Within the senses’ prison chained on earth, A slave, he feels a heart for freedom born, And wretched, to felicity aspires. He strives to sound the world; his eye is weak;— He yearns to love; whate’er he loves is frail. All mortals unto Eden’s exile bear A sad resemblance—when his outraged God Had banished him from that celestial realm, Scanning the fatal limits with a look, He sat him, weeping, near the barred gates, He heard within the blest abode afar, The sigh harmonious of eternal love, Sweet strains of happiness, the choral song Of angels sounding God’s triumphant praise; And tearing then his soul from heav’n, his eye Fell back affrighted on his dismal lot. Woe, woe to him who from his exile here Hath heard the concerts of an envied world! When Nature once ideal nectar tastes, She loathes the cup Reality presents. Into the possible, in dreams she leaps; (The real is cramped; the possible, immense;) The soul with all her wishes there doth take Her sojourn, where forever she may drink From crystal springs of knowledge and of love, And where, in streams of beauty and of light, Man, ever thirsty, slakes his thirst. And thus, with Syren visions charming sleep On waking, scarce she knows herself again. Such was thy fate, and such my destiny! I too the poisoned cup did drain; like thine My eyes were opened, seeing not; in vain I sought the enigma of the universe; I questioned nature for its cause; I asked Each creature why created; down the abyss, The bottomless abyss, I plunged my look; From the atom to the sun, I all explored; Anticipated time, its stream did mount; Now passing over seas to hear the words That drop from wisdom’s oracles; but found The world to pride is ever a sealed book! Now, to divine the world inanimate. To nature’s bosom flying with my soul, I thought to find a meaning in her voice. I read the laws by which the heav’ns revolve. My guide great Newton, through their shining paths. Of crumbled empires o’er the dust I mused; Rome saw me ’mid her sacred tombs descend; Of holiest manes disturbing the repose; The dust of heroes in my hands I weighed, Asking their senseless ashes to restore That immortality each mortal seeks. What say I? hanging o’er the bed of death, I sought it even in expiring eyes; On summits darkened by eternal clouds, On billows tortured by eternal storms, I called; I braved the shock of elements. Like to the sybil in her rage divine, I fancied nature in those fearful scenes Some portion of her secrets might reveal: I loved to plunge amid those horrors dread. But vainly in her calm and in her rage This mighty secret hunting, everywhere I saw a God, and understood him not. I saw both good and ill, without design, As if by chance, escaping from his hands; I saw on all sides evil, where there might Have been the best of good, and too infirm To know and comprehend him, I blasphemed; But breaking ’gainst that heav’n of brass, my voice Had not the honor to e’en anger fate. One day, however, that by mis’ry wrung, I wearied heaven with my fierce complaint, A light descended from on high, that filled My bosom with its radiance, and inspired My lips to bless what madly they had cursed. I yielded, grateful, to the influence, And from my lyre the hymn of reason poured. “Glory to thee, now and for evermore, Eternal understanding, will supreme! To thee, whose presence space doth recognise! To thee, whose bright existence every morn Announceth! Thy creative breath hath stooped To me, and he who was not hath appeared Before thy majesty! I knew thy voice Ere I had known myself, and at its sound Up to the gates of being I did rush. Behold me! nothingness doth here presume To hail thee at its coming into life. Behold me! but what am I? what my name? A thinking atom—who may dare to hope Between us two the distance e’er to scan! I, who in thee my brief existence breathe, Myself unknown and fashioned at thy will, What ow’st thou, Lord, to me, were I not born? Before or after, naught—hail end supreme! Who drew all from himself, to himself owes all. Enjoy, great artist, of thy hands the work. I live thy sov’reign orders to fulfil. Dispose, ordain, control, in time, in space; My day and sphere, for thy own glory mark; My being, without question or complaint, In silence hasten to assume its place. Glory to thee! annihilate me, strike! One cry, one cry alone shall reach thy ear— Glory to thee, now, and for evermore!”
THE LIFE GUARDSMAN. ——— BY JESSE E. DOW. ——— The Life Guard of Washington! Who can think upon this band of gallant spirits without feeling a glow of patriotism warming his heart, and stirring up the sluggish feelings of his soul? Fancy paints again the figures which history has suffered to fade away, as the shadows departed from the magic mirror of Cornelius Agrippa; and the heroes of the past start up before us like the clan of Roderick Dhu at the sound of their chieftain’s whistle. They come from Cambridge, and from the Hudson, from Trenton and from Princeton, from Yorktown and from the Brandywine, from mountain pass and woody vale, gathering in battle array around the lowly bed of their sleeping leader, amid the solitary shades of Vernon. The life guardsmen are fast fading away. One by one the aged members have departed, and now Lee’s corporal slumbers beside his commander. Their march of life is over. A more efficient corps never existed on this side of the Atlantic than the Life Guard. Animated by one motive, guided by one object, they surrounded their beloved commander-in-chief, and gloried in being known as his body guard. Was there any difficult duty to perform? it fell to this body, and gallantly did they perform the service entrusted to them. The eye of the general glistened with delight as they filed before him in the shade of evening, or returned into camp from some successful incursion beyond the enemy’s lines, ere “Jocund day stood tiptoe on the mountain top”— or the reveillÉ aroused the army from their slumbers.
It was the anniversary of the battle of Princeton, when an aged man, with a stout staff in his hand, was seen trudging manfully down Broadway. As he passed along from square to square, he cast his eyes upon the signs and door-plates, and muttering, continued on his course. “Here,” said he, “was Clinton’s Quarters”—“Edward Mallory silks and laces”—“and here was the house that Washington stopped at”—“John Knipherhausen, tobacconist,” “and here was where the pretty Quakeress lived, who used to furnish the commander-in-chief with information as to the enemies movements”—“CÂfÉ de mille colonnes”—“all, all are changed; time has been busy with every thing but the seasons—they are the same—the sun and the rain—the evening and the morning—the icicle and the dew-drop—the frost and the snow-drift change not: but man and his habitations—aye, the very names of places and people have been altered, and the New York of the Revolution is not the New York of ’37.” As the old man said this he seated himself upon a marble door-step, and wiped the perspiration from his brow; for he had walked a long way that morning, and the thousand associations that pressed upon his memory wearied him. A company of volunteers, in all the pomp and circumstance of city war, now approached by a cross street. The bugle’s shrill note, mingled in with the clarionet and cymbals; and the glance of the sun upon their bayonets and polished helmets, lit up the martial fire that slumbered in the old man’s soul. He rose upon his feet. “It is pleasant enough now to look upon such gatherings,” said he, “but those who have heard the drums beat to drown the cries of the wounded and the dying, cannot forget their meaning, though youth and joy accompany them, and though the smiles of beauty urge them on.” And the old man wept, for the men of other days stood about him; and the battle-fields, then silent and deserted, teemed with the dead and the dying; and the blood formed in pools amid the trampled grass, or trickled in little rills down the smoky hill-side. A servant now came out of a neighboring house and invited the old man in. He thankfully accepted the hospitality of the polite citizen, and soon stood in a comfortable breakfast room. A young man of twenty-one received him with kindness; and a tall, prim woman of eighty-six cordially insisted upon his joining her family at the breakfast-table. A beautiful girl of eighteen took the old man’s hat and cane, and wheeled up an old arm-chair that had done the family some service in ancient days. The old man as she seated herself beside him, patted her upon the head, and a firm—“God bless you”—escaped from his wrinkled and pallid lips. The old lady suddenly paused in her tea-table duty, and looked earnestly at her guest. The old man’s eyes met hers—they had seen each other before—but the mists of time shrouded their memories, and blended names and places and periods strangely together. “Will thee have another cup of tea?” said the matron to the old man. “I have heard that voice,” thought the stranger, as he took the proffered cup with gratitude, and finished his breakfast in silence. “Oh! grandmother,” said the maiden, springing to the window, “here come the Iron Greys; how splendidly they look.” “I cannot look at them,” said the matron, in a trembling voice—“thy grandfather was killed by the Brunswick Greys at Princeton.” “What was his name?” said the old man, fixing his dim eye steadily upon the speaker’s face. “Charles Greely,” said the matron, shedding an unexpected tear. “Charles Greely,” said the old man springing up—“why he was a Life Guardsman, and died by my side—I buried him at the hour of twilight by the milestone.” “And thou art?” said the matron, earnestly. “Old Hugh Maxwell, a corporal of Washington’s Life Guard at your service,” said the stranger guest. “Oh! well do I know thee,” said the matron, weeping—“it was thee who gave me directions where to find him, and delivered to me his dying sigh. This is an unhappy day to me, Hugh Maxwell, but thy presence lends an interest to it that I had no idea of enjoying. William and Anne, thy grandfather died upon Hugh Maxwell’s breast in battle—let us bless God that we are permitted to entertain the gallant soldier upon the anniversary of that day of glory.” And the son brought forth the old family bible, and the widow Greely prayed after the manner of the Quakers, amid her little congregation. When the service was over, and the breakfast equipage had been removed, the son and the daughter each drew a seat beside the old veteran, while their grandmother carefully wiped her spectacles and took a moderate pinch of Maccouba. Then seating herself as straight as a drill sergeant in her cushioned seat in the corner, she turned her well ear toward the old corporal and looked out of the window. “Tell us about the battle of Trenton and of Princeton, Mr. Maxwell,” said the grand-children, in one voice. The old man looked inquiringly at the widow Greely. “Thee may tell it, though it may be a sad tale to me,” said the matron, and Hugh Maxwell, after resting his head upon his hand for a moment, began his account of
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